A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

pemerton said:

In this thread, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] has repeatedly talked about a "focus on seeeing and experience everything as his character". That's his basis for criticising metagaming. But now you're saying that some departures from this, like the paty conceit, aren't really metagaming because Maxperson doesn't mind it. (I'm not sure why Maxperson's view counts for more than [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s, who has said that he minds it.)
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I am not particularly concerned about definitional arguments. I am just reacting to Maxperson's actual position, rather than forcing him to take one by expanding the terms he is using to include things he isn't talking about. Look when most people complain about meta gaming, they are not talking about party united ness, they are talking exactly about the things that Maxperson is describing. By the way, I don't particularly adhere to Maxperson's position. i just have seen it enough to know it is a real thing. You guys are rplaying this linguistic game to act like he is being deceptive, insincere, or deeply confused. If you just look at the spirit of what he is saying, it is quite clear (just like the spirit of the RQ text was sincere.

pemerton said:

I highlighted the bolded bit only because surely a better choice would be to retire to the thermal baths.

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Yeah why bother fishing at all?

Otium: god of downtime, forever resting in a circular cosmic hot bath surrounding the Outer Void, worshipped only by a few and far between Pcs, when they're not in The Field.

pemerton said:

No he's not. In 2000, Ron Edwards wrote a very praising review of Hero Wars. In 2003, he discussed setting-based "story now" play, again putting forward Hero Wars as an example. In 2011, he wrote the "setting dissection" that I linked to upthread, that is, a fuller account of how to run setting-based "story now" games (unsurprisingly, HeroWars/Quest again figures as a prominent example).

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I understand what you are saying. I actually watch his videos and have read many of his articles. But when I think 'setting focused' I think things like sandbox or exploration. Which Ron Edwards has been antagonistic toward. This end of the playing spectrum is pretty much where arguments over Edward's ideas begin. Again, I don't have anything personally against Edwards. I find him to be a very intelligent and nice person. I think a lot of what gets him on peoples bad side is his sense of humor (which can be a bit cutting). But his point of view on these things can certainly be described as strident. And he's even gone so far as to label sandbox, Kitty Box (or litterbox if my memory is not serving me well here). And made arguments to the effect that sandboxes are really just multiple choice railroads. This is the point of view I was coming at it from.

pemerton said:

Your defence of Maxperson makes it obvious that there is no objective notion of metagaming, let alone cheating, at work here. Maxperson may not like how [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s imagined player handles the troll case, via the story of the uncle; but there is no objective concept of metagaming that explains how what hawkeyefan is suggesting is wrong, whereas the party conceit is completley unproblematic. There's nothing here besides table preferences.

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I am not having any trouble following Maxperson's preferences at all, because I've gamed with people who express them and have no difficulty abiding by their concerns in play. I am not saying you have to game the way he does, or that his way is the best. I am just saying, it is a real way of playing the game that is not at all uncommon and most of what he is talking about centers on players not using their out of game knowledge to advantage their character's decisions. Again I think you are just making linguistic arguments that are not terrible sincere. These are classic "there is no table" arguments you are making. You are just defining away the concern he has raised.

Maxperson said:

Or else there was no trick and I could make any choice I wanted, which is the true situation. Trying to armchair quarterback this isn't going to work out for you. You aren't right about this.



Then it's probably a good thing that you weren't the one there and I was. You would have somehow forgotten that you have other choices you could make and felt forced into only those two choices for some unknown reason. Of course, that would be your doing, not the DM's.



Not all PC's are saints. Some have human troubles and feelings, and humans are very complicated. Some people, when faced with super hard decisions, will retreat and hide from them, even though they aren't bad people. Running away from the hard choice was a perfectly valid decision that I could have made for my character.

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Fair enough. It was you in that game and I have to take your words as final.

I am left with the suspicion that your Gm had everything planned in advance, and the events went accordingly. Which is fine, btw.
I value drama (hard choices) also from the Gm perspective, so having all planned detracts from my enjoyment when I run. And I consider drama best served as emergent in play: be it from a strong premise, or from unexpected dice rolls, rather than from a Gm's planning.

First time I read "armchair quarterback"

pemerton said:

The big issue for me, in the setup @Maxperson describes, is how do we know how many children are eaten?

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The only way I see this being important is if all the kids were eaten, which means the chase becomes revenge/justice instead of rescue and possible revenge/justice OR based on estimations if by the time the characters catch up to the orcs all the kids would be eaten, so again revenge/justice solely.
Unless the party plans to make their speed slower if 2 kids were eaten instead of 3.

pemerton said:

There is a point that may have come up earlier in this thread, or perhaps in another one - I remeber I was responding to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - that I want to come back to: the role of GM sentimentality.

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I don't believe one has to go that far to see signs of GM sentimentality.
Everytime a GM has the opportunity to kill a PC and doesn't follow through is an example of GM sentimentality - the most obvious would be in combat.

Bedrockgames said:

I am not particularly concerned about definitional arguments.

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Nor am I. I'm responding to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s claim that it is cheating to (i) impute my knowledge of troll weaknesses to my PC, and (ii) to explain this, within the fiction, as stuff I learned from my dear old uncle.

All "cheating" means here is that Maxperson doesn't like it. But he presents it as if it is something more. And his argument for the "something more" rests on a general critique of metagaming that encompasses practices that he himself engages in.

No one in this thread, other than him, cares what his preferences are. But some do get frustrated with his presentation of essentially arbitrary preferences as hard-and-fast rules, especially when the formulation of those rules seems to have a strong element of special pleading if not outright hypocrisy.

Bedrockgames said:

most of what he is talking about centers on players not using their out of game knowledge to advantage their character's decisions.

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If my character knows it then it is not "out of game knowledge". Maxperson has no objection to my PC knowing what a crossbow is, or a spear trap, even though it is quite conceivable that some people in the gameworld are ignorant of such things, just as in the real world there are people ignorant of such things. But he objects to my PC knowing what a troll's vulnerability is.

No one in this thread is confused about what Maxperson's preference is. They are objecting to his attempt to present it as resting on anything but a convention that is largely if not completely arbitrary. And - consistent with the thread topic - they are also connecting this issue to questions of who gets to decide what a PC knows - player or GM?

Sadras said:

I don't believe one has to go that far to see signs of GM sentimentality.
Everytime a GM has the opportunity to kill a PC and doesn't follow through is an example of GM sentimentality - the most obvious would be in combat.

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What systems do you have in mind? I assume D&D.

EDIT: Depending on system, killing a PC may be a consequence of failed action resolution on the part of the player; a framing device on the part of the GM; or sheer fiat narration of the fiction. Which it is is relevant to whether or not it constitutes sentimentality in action resolution.

Bedrockgames said:

just like the spirit of the RQ text was sincere.

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I have not suggested, nor even remotely hinted, that the RQ text is insincere. I think it's compoletely sincere. And it doesn't say the same things as some posters in this thread have suggested is definitive of good roleplaying.

Gygax's AD&D rulebooks talk about the importance of party composition, but they have no discussion of the idea that playing one's PC should be guided by considerations of party cooperation so as to facilitate table enjoyment. (And this is just a special case of the general fact that they do not discuss how to play one's PC at all, except by indicating that a good player will pursue his/her class's principal functions.)

Some RPG rulebooks discourage players from debating rules with the GM. The RQ book I quoted does not. Some say that the GM's word is always final. The RQ text I quoted says that the GM should expect to yield from time to time.

Because I treat the text as sincere, I don't treat these evident differences as meaningless.