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

Ovinomancer said:

Hitpoints aren't metagame at all, they are abstract. abstractions are required for the game to function, or you'd spend vastly more time simulating a single sword swing than most sessions last. Further, actually playing the game can't be metagaming so thinking about or using hitpoints is just playing the game.

RPGs have developed this weird idea that metagaming is anything outside the fictional mental state of the character. This is useless as a concept because it presupposes a one-true-way of playing and also moves actually playing the game into the metagame. Metagaming, by definition, is thinking outside the game, not playing it or using abstract mechanics. Metagaming is making sure the party covers all roles, or that someone plays a cleric, or how modern chemistry works. Not hitpoints.

I disagreed when [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] said something similar upthread, but things had moved past that by the time I could respond.

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It is metagaming, it's just a strict definition, too strict in that we deal with some metagaming to play, it is just that sometimes there is too much, or it appears in places we don't want it, or feel it doesn't belong. It's what the argument about metagaming is about, except it comes down to different horses for different courses, which isn't necessarily satisfying.

Bedrockgames said:

Again, this is a playstyle issue, not an universal problem in need of fixing.I think the problem is you are pathologizing playstyle preference. Look 5E is a mainstream game. Maybe the problem isn't deeply rooted habits that need to be fixed. Maybe this is just what a mainstream RPG looks like. But 5E isn't the only game out there. It isn't a zero sum game. I don't play 5E because I realize my preferences are not fully aligned with mainstream gaming. So I play other systems. I don't feel a need to take apart the preferences that make up mainstream play or act like there is something deeply flawed about it. Instead I try to understand why people like these things. I am not getting a sense that that is what is going on here. This whole analysis feels like it is really just a defensive reaction to people not sharing your preference

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For my part I try to understand why people play this things even if their games collapse in the long term (if lucky), again and again. All IME.
I'd really like to play a trad/Gm driven fantasy game, but I find either slow railroads or clueless sandboxes, with no player inputs considered, and Gm fiat or freeform endless downtime outside combat encounters.

I understand clearly the will of a mainstream publisher to sell their product to the masses, nonetheless I see the limit of said product, and as other posters have already explained, the roots are deep.

I don't think we're discussing preferences in this thread, and I don't feel being defensive, but, who knows, you might be right. I actually proposed my ideas to the afore mentioned forumer seeking advice for his campaign in the 5e section.
I have already been in dead end game situations. I have no problem admitting that I made my games collapse in the past because I did not focus on/didn't know how to resolve issues of play.

Btw, you spoke about investigative rpgs. Friends asked me to run Trail of Cthulhu for them. We gonna start soon. Prewritten adventure, clues gathered by Pc skill, mistery solved by Players acuity... Hope it will run smooth

dragoner said:

It is metagaming, it's just a strict definition, too strict in that we deal with some metagaming to play, it is just that sometimes there is too much, or it appears in places we don't want it, or feel it doesn't belong. It's what the argument about metagaming is about, except it comes down to different horses for different courses, which isn't necessarily satisfying.

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Saying this is like saying paying rent in Monopoly is metagaming. It's nonsensical. Actual elements of the game cannot be metagaming. Using actual elements if the game as they are intended to he used in the game cannot be metagaming. It's only RPGs that have this weird definitional crusis with the term metagaming, and then only because of the tradition of secret GM notes and who decides what's part of thise notes.

Bedrockgames said:

Obviously a crossbow is not secret info. Burning trolls by fire is more obviously a secret.

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Bedrockgames said:

Because it is pretty self evident to anyone who has been in the hobby for ten minutes

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It's never been obvious to me that the troll thing is a secret - because the first version of D&D I played was Moldvay Basic, and as per the instructions to new players I read the monster section. And I did the same when I got the Expert book.

The idea that players who know about the troll weakness, but whose characters have never encountered a troll, would pretend to be ignorant about the troll weakness, is not one I encountered until I saw people advocating it on ENworld. Back when I played D&D in a club and at tournaments, part of the job of an experienced player was to bring knowledge to the table like how to beat trolls.

Bedrockgames said:

Tthe section at the start of the text that strongly suggests discouragement of metagaming (again in the sense Maxperson is talking about)

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How is knowing about trolls because I've played the game and/or read the rulebook the same as using my knowledge of real-world chemistry?

Ovinomancer said:

Saying this is like saying paying rent in Monopoly is metagaming. It's nonsensical. Actual elements of the game cannot be metagaming. Using actual elements if the game as they are intended to he used in the game cannot be metagaming. It's only RPGs that have this weird definitional crusis with the term metagaming, and then only because of the tradition of secret GM notes and who decides what's part of thise notes.

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Right. RPG's have this because precisely they are RPG's; there is no meta- in settlers or squad leader. Using the mechanics of the game is meta- but an acceptable meta vs an unacceptable; that is the only difference. Really about the time when one hears about unacceptable meta, it's with mechanics such as Fate Points. As an aside, adversarial GM'ing is bad, imo; though I'm more learned my style from Classic Traveller which supports a neutral adjudicator of the universe style.

pemerton said:

It's never been obvious to me that the troll thing is a secret - because the first version of D&D I played was Moldvay Basic, and as per the instructions to new players I read the monster section. And I did the same when I got the Expert book.

The idea that players who know about the troll weakness, but whose characters have never encountered a troll, would pretend to be ignorant about the troll weakness, is not one I encountered until I saw people advocating it on ENworld. Back when I played D&D in a club and at tournaments, part of the job of an experienced player was to bring knowledge to the table like how to beat trolls.

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Plus there has to be the logic that if the PC and Troll exist together in the same world, the PC will have heard how to defeat the Troll. Which brings us to an odd situation of the player not knowing things that the character should know.

AbdulAlhazred said:

But a chasm is passive, so you can choose to engage it or not, and it can be defeated with ropes, spikes, etc. Sure, it is dangerous, but it isn't by any means a 'gotcha!'. Pits likewise, unless they're hidden somehow. In that case my comments on randomly placed traps apply. If a covered pit appears in a context where it makes sense and is either expected, expectable, or simply an element like 'damaging terrain', then its fine.

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Not if its a Schrodinger's Gorge spanning a river (with egress into the safety of the forest on the other side) and you've got an overwhelming enemy force chasing you on horseback through the badlands (and the success or failure of the Skill Challenge is riding on this last action declaration/Group Check!)!

pemerton said:

It's never been obvious to me that the troll thing is a secret - because the first version of D&D I played was Moldvay Basic, and as per the instructions to new players I read the monster section. And I did the same when I got the Expert book.

The idea that players who know about the troll weakness, but whose characters have never encountered a troll, would pretend to be ignorant about the troll weakness, is not one I encountered until I saw people advocating it on ENworld. Back when I played D&D in a club and at tournaments, part of the job of an experienced player was to bring knowledge to the table like how to beat trolls.

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I remember playing a bit of 2E in high school. I came in late during the campaign. We encountered a troll, and the other players informed me that trolls in the game were vulnerable to fire and acid. So that's what we used to defeat it. When we started a new campaign in 3E, our new characters were never forced to "relearn" this weakness. It was understood that these were things that our characters as competent adventurers would have sufficient knowledge of.

I would also push back against the idea that D&D presents a "zero-to-hero" narrative. The earliest fantasy of D&D, IMHO, never really seemed to care about "heroes." Or zeroes. It seemed to be about "rags-to-riches". Or at the very least: the game words may have said one thing or referenced heroes on occasion, but the "meat" that propelled the game said something else entirely. You are not leveling up to become a hero. You are leveling up to gain riches, titles, and property. This point was even brought up earlier in our discussion in another thread of how D&D's fantasy is rooted in a lot of Americanisms (success = accumulation of wealth) rather than Medieval European values whose aesthetic the game supposedly simulates. I don't really think that D&D got into fantasy about "heroes" until Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. Before that, it was rooted more in the Sword & Sorcery genre, which has an incredibly cynical view of heroes. Most of the genre's "heroes" aren't heroes at all, but, instead, selfish bastards. So I don't really see the whole idea that D&D is about playing "zeros to heroes" seems like a later addition to the game representing an alternative approach.

Even if a setting is working as a Point of Light theme (which the classic standards of modern D&D's prepackaged, high resolution settings - eg Forgotten Realms - fundamentally do not), there is still going to be communication that significantly exceeds that of European Middle Ages and Feudal Japan (which weren't short on communication themselves).

- Adventurers are going to be coming back (sometimes short a limb or eye) from perilous journeys and delves, and by the light of the tavern hearth they'll have the entirety of a township held hostage by their tales of overcoming grizzly traps, trading blows with mythical monsters, and extracting shiny treasures.

- Bards will package those narratives into song and ballad and mass produce them for coin in other taverns as they travel.

- Kids will use the tropes to tell ghost stories.

- Elders will use the tropes as cautionary tales for the children.

- Specific intelligence about bandits controlling roads or trolls guarding bridges might come in the way of raven.

- Wizardly divination will fill in the blanks.


Personally, only in the bleakest of the bleakest of the bleak PoL settings with seriously low magic and travel so deadly that inter-settlement trade is nary a thing (except perhaps once every several months when things are most desperate or you can muster the numbers for a robust caravan) can I imagine a scenario where Trolls being vulnerable to fire and Perytons tearing hearts from chests and Wyvern having stingers that can kill a horse straight-dead not being trivial third-hand-knowledge for your average person, let alone an actual adventurer.

I would need a good reason NOT to believe that an adventurer would be aware of it.