Is it appropriate to ask questions you are pretty sure you know the answer to?

Question

Background - my D&D group meets weekly, we have a pretty good group of rules lawyers, but there are plenty of times when we have questions/disagreements. Each week we keep a list of questions generated by that session (0-3 a week) and figure out the real answers after the game.

I was thinking of posting those questions here. My reticence is because I will likely have researched the question by the time I post it here and would be able to supply the correct answer 80%+ of the time.

I still would like to post them all because there is always a chance that I'm wrong! I think it would also be a steady stream of questions for the site to chew over.

Answer 1

I think that would be great! We love questions, and I'd personally like to see more rules questions.

I'd like to point out that I'm less comfortable with "seed" questions that were created on the fly for that purpose. To play on the analogy we want to plant real questions because we want a real site! This is perfect because they are real questions from a real game.

Answer 2

If it is a question that comes up in a relatively rules savvy group, then there is a good chance that other people will have the same questions.

If you do a quick search, and the question is not here, then posting it is more than appropriate, even if you provide a partial answer in the question itself.

Stack Exchange is more than just as question and answer site. It is a repository of information. It is kind of the de facto goto for answering pretty much any question a person doesn't find the answer to on Wikipedia. The more good, solid, questions that we have and the more good solid answers that we have for those questions, the more useful the site is.

Answer 3

I say yes, absolutely. In fact, StackExchange has a mechanism in place specifically to support self-answering of questions, while encouraging the user to accept other answers. You can answer your own question immediately after it's been posted, but you must wait 24 hours before you can accept that as the answer to the question. This gives time for others to post their own answers, which you may later decide are actually a better fit.

That said, I'm definitely against seeding the site, for the sake of seeding alone. Questions posted in this spirit would often be either too basic and therefore useless to the audience, or so specialized that the only one really interested would be the person who posted the question.

However, if you've encountered a real-world scenario where you and your group have come to a decision regarding a particular translation of rules, or if you've just found the answer to your own head-scratcher, by all means please do share!

Also, do be aware that while this site offers a great community of DMs and players who have broad and vast amounts of experiences with the game, Wizards of the Coast is often happy to answer rules-related questions themselves! They have their own community forums, and also offer support via phone, e-mail, and their own ticketing system. I've always found their support personnel to be polite, professional, well-spoken (I'm fairly certain the call center is in the U.S.) and knowledgeable. For what they don't know off the top of their head, the agents have the Compendium, a Knowledge Base, and books library on-hand for research. If all that fails, they'll let you know when it's time for a "DM's discretion" call and will even follow up if they later find a definitive answer!

Of course, this is by no means meant to dissuade you from using this website. I love the community here, but at the same time can't say enough good about my experiences with WotC's customer support. Please, if you do get an answer from them, come back here and share by posting your own Q&A entries!

Answer 4

Sure! I do it all the time because I want to "seed" the site with questions I think are appropriate or want to test out.

I generally try not to answer my own questions unless a week or so goes by and I feel I have an answer that hasn't been offered up.

About seeding

I just read Robert Cartaino's blog post about seeding, and I get it now. If you care about the answer and feel you'll get good feedback that you can use, however, go ahead and ask and answer yourself, I think.