D&D 5E Polymorph is a bad de-buff spell

iserith said:

A good way to make sure the players don't lie in this situation is to not create an environment that incentivizes it. What I've found through personal experience is that groups that focus on squashing "metagaming" are often incentivizing the heck out of it.

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Another good way is to recruit players who you trust and share your sensibilities about integrity, so it's not even an issue. In my experience, this best accomplished by filtering who you invite to your table and getting to know them for a period of time first.

Obviously doesn't work for situations like AL, but I don't do AL.

Iry said:

Another good way is to recruit players who you trust and share your sensibilities about integrity, so it's not even an issue. In my experience, this best accomplished by filtering who you invite to your table and getting to know them for a period of time first.

Obviously doesn't work for situations like AL, but I don't do AL.

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I trust players... to make the most advantageous* choice if they can and I am rarely disappointed. I think that's a perfectly reasonable behavior in the context of a game and I judge no person for doing exactly that. It invites conflict and further metagame thinking when those choices are at odds with the table rule of "no metagaming" or "sometimes some kinds of metagaming but other times not other kinds of metgaming."

That is why I would say the toad (or any low-hp monster) is not a very good choice for a DM who concerned about "metagaming" because among the most advantageous choices is to get that toad killed. Make the best choice having your fighter in killer whale form ready an action to bite the closest target in reach, then all rest of the party shoving hags toward it.

That is why I would also say to add explosive swamp gas to a troll fight or change the troll's weaknesses to necrotic and radiant instead. Make the best choice figuring out the environment or its denizens before lobbing a firebolt.

* Here, advantageous doesn't necessarily refer to mechanics either.

Hussar said:

I take away a somewhat different lesson. When playing a character, play it in such a way that the question of "Why did you just do that" never comes up. If you are playing your character in a consistent, interesting, and plausible way, then these issues don't come up.

Which means, at the end of the day, doing the most optimal thing isn't always the right thing. Sometimes it means doing something less optimal because it's more plausible and thus increases the enjoyment of everyone at the table, rather than insisting that my enjoyment is more important. It's not like killing yourself as a frog is the only possible action you could take. There's a whole bunch of things you could do, including attacking the Hag as a frog. After all, you do retain your own personality.

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In regard to the two things I bolded:

"because it's more plausible": I'm with you up to this point, including (especially) the bit about sometimes doing sub-optimal thing, but I would say "because it's the most entertaining". I don't really buy this "more plausible" argument, because in a good fantasy story I'm not sure plausible is really what I want. Again, it's more plausible that Bilbo, being a Hobbit, would never have left his home, but even if he had, it's more plausible that...etc. And you can keep doing that through the whole story, cancelling pretty much anything interesting.

BUT...one might say...he was a special hobbit, and so the most plausible thing was actually something surprising and interesting.

Exactly. So all I'm saying is: let players decide when and how the characters they control are actually surprising and interesting, and thus do implausibly entertaning things.

"rather than insisting that my enjoyment is more important": So, I find this really interesting, and I think it helps me understand where you are coming from. Or maybe it's just another reflection of what has been said in this thread a bunch of times, about finding people who play the way you do.

It seems like you are interpreting this frog scenario as a big F.U. to the rest of the table. That the person doing it is willfully wrecking everybody else's fun for the benefit of his own character. And, yeah, if that's what's going on it's not cool.

But if I were at the table with a total stranger who did this, he/she wouldn't be having fun at the expense of my fun. I'd think it was awesome, and a clever twist. Furthermore, I wouldn't even see it as his victory over the hag, because in my mind what happens at the table is totally separate from the fiction in the game. So I'd be simultaneously thinking, "LOL, nice one, George!" and "Ha! The hag must be cursing her bad luck!"

But NOT "George just outsmarted the Witch" or even "George just outsmarted the DM." That's just simply not the point, as far as I'm concerned. It's not the player vs. the DM, or the player trying to "beat" the adventure and cheating to do so.

I'm not a big fan of "Well, it's my character so, no matter what, no matter how illogical, unbelievable and outright stupid whatever it is I'm declaring that I do, you MUST let me do it because it's my character and my enjoyment of the game is more important than anyone else's at the table."

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Yeah, this is more on that second point above. This paragraph just doesn't make any sense to me, or seem to have anything to do with the scenario we're talking about. I see the player as having contributed an awesome, unexpected twist to the story. You (seem to) see the player cheating to give himself an advantage.

iserith said:

So it's okay as long as the player doesn't say aloud why he or she is taking the action? I can live with that. You're cool with it, right?



What would be a reasonable way to you that a toad in the middle of a chaotic battle between multiple combatants swinging weapons, loosing arrows, and slinging spells at each other could inadvertently (from the toad's perspective) get itself killed? The player could just choose to have the toad do whatever it is you find reasonable.

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I'm curious what actions from the frog's perspective that it could deliberately take that would inadvertently get itself killed. Wouldn't the most reasonable course of action be to run away? Why exactly is the frog jumping in front of arrows?

Now, the frog runs away and gets tagged in an area of effect spell from someone else? Ok, fair enough. There's no meta-gaming going on there whatsoever. It's not like the frog deliberately jumps into the fire pit.

Like I said, there's no plausible actions that the frog could deliberately take to commit suicide.

iserith said:

C'mon, man - at least get the example right. The character in toad-form isn't making a conscious choice to commit suicide. The player is and, stand-up guy or gal that he or she is, provides a reasonable action declaration for a toad in a chaotic situation.

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"I jump in front of Bob's sword" is a reasonable action declaration in your mind? "I leap onto Jane's spear" is a reasonable action declaration? "I leap into the fire pit" maybe works for you?

Thus, the problem. The player is so blatant about this. Now, you've stated that you have no problems with this. You expect players to do whatever is the most advantageous in any situation. I don't. I don't enjoy games like that, nor do I enjoy playing with players like that. I simply don't. Not that it's bad, but, rather, it's bad for me.

On the other hand, I do play with players who will keep at least one eye on plausibility when declaring actions. That's what I enjoy.

Anecdote time.

I DM'd a Scarred Lands campaign years ago. In Scarred Lands, there is a type of undead (whose name I forget now - an elven ghost of some sort) who has a gaze attack. The gaze attack causes you to madly fall in love with the ghost and violently hate your friends to the point where you will try your very best to kill your friends.

With me so far?

So, using the creature in a game, the party wizard fails a saving throw and now loves the ghost and hates the group. Ok, fair enough. The wizard player then proceeds to use every single area attack he had memorized, making sure he hit the ghost as well as the group, thus killing the ghost and breaking the charm, hoping that the group would have more HP than the ghost.

Blatant meta-gaming. It has stuck in my head for years. At the time, I didn't say anything about it. Let it slide, as did the rest of the group. But, that was a HUGE warning bell that this player wasn't long for the group. And, lo and behold, he dropped out shortly afterward, citing play style differences. While no one directly confronted him on what he was doing, I think he knew that the rest of the group had pretty much zero interest. No congratulations when he killed the ghost, no cheering. Just pretty much stony silence every time his turn came up.

So, yeah, the group I play with isn't interested in doing the "most advantageous" thing every time. It isn't fun for us. Had he actually, earnestly, tried to kill the rest of the group, they would have loved it. Even to the point had that turned into a TPK, they would have loved it. Losing can be just as much fun as winning. Certainly as entertaining and interesting.

Playing RPG's where you always try to do the most advantageous thing is boring to me. It's not interesting. It leads to boring stories, again for me. I am simply not interested in gaming that way anymore.

Hussar said:

Now, the frog runs away and gets tagged in an area of effect spell from someone else? Ok, fair enough. There's no meta-gaming going on there whatsoever. It's not like the frog deliberately jumps into the fire pit.

Like I said, there's no plausible actions that the frog could deliberately take to commit suicide.



"I jump in front of Bob's sword" is a reasonable action declaration in your mind? "I leap onto Jane's spear" is a reasonable action declaration? "I leap into the fire pit" maybe works for you?

Thus, the problem. The player is so blatant about this....

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Ok, so let's say the following happens:

On initiative count 17 the wizard tries a spell and discovers she's immune. He says, "Next round I'll try hitting her with my Wand of Lightning."

On initiative count 11 the warrior-frog says, "Ribbit. I'll guess I'll hop over here...no, that would put me closer to the bonfire that would scare me...there's water over that way, right?...I guess I'll take a few hops and land about....there."

Turns out he is now directly between the wizard and the frog. Hmmm. Suspicious. Is he a dirty metagamer? Should we look up the movement rate for a frog and get into a debate about whether or not he would have used all of it? Or was he really trying to act like a frog?

In @iserith's game you would know he was just trying to act like a frog, because otherwise he would have simply announced what he was doing. (Or not, because he was hoping people would be surprised by the outcome, and therefore find it even more entertaining. But not because he was hoping to "get away with" something.)

Same thing with your Scarred Lands example. Now, I happen to agree with you that it would be more fun if he really tried to kill everyone else in the party. But, honestly, it shouldn't make one bit of difference which way he goes, or where on the spectrum he ends up between "take plausible actions that are actually intended to save my friends" and "do my darndest to kill everyone".
If you're thinking of the story you're watching unfold, that story could either be:
a) The undead thingy charmed the wizard, which turned out to be its own undoing!, or
b) The undead thingy charmed the wizard, and when the wizard came to his senses he was aghast (get it?) to discover that he had deep fried all his friends!

Either way, it's a good story. So isn't it best to just allow everybody to be honest about what they're doing?

So, yeah, the group I play with isn't interested in doing the "most advantageous" thing every time.

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Another example of how I think we're interpreting the original story differently.

So one more question: imagine a person who frequently does non-advantageous but highly entertaining things. You know he metagames, but in ways that contribute to the story. Then one night he pulls the suicidal frog trick. Does it bother you less?

If so, maybe the disconnect here is that we're both simply imagining a different underlying motivation.

iserith said:

What sort of "metagaming" did they get up to? Was that the only aspect of the game that was different than how you usually play?

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The characters started out as themselves sitting around a D&D table, knowing everything they personally know. Plot happens, and they become characters inside the game with a new set of skills (Class Levels). They tackled the challenges put before them with full genre savvy, full knowledge of how the world of D&D works, in world conversations about levels and feats, etc.

Imagine a mash up between Order of the Stick and Jumanji.

https://youtu.be/2QKg5SZ_35I?t=77

Hussar said:

I'm curious what actions from the frog's perspective that it could deliberately take that would inadvertently get itself killed. Wouldn't the most reasonable course of action be to run away? Why exactly is the frog jumping in front of arrows?

Now, the frog runs away and gets tagged in an area of effect spell from someone else? Ok, fair enough. There's no meta-gaming going on there whatsoever. It's not like the frog deliberately jumps into the fire pit.

Like I said, there's no plausible actions that the frog could deliberately take to commit suicide.

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This is a legitimate question: Do you fully understand the example under discussion and who is deliberately doing what? I feel like I've explained it enough over the course of this thread that everyone should be on the same page about how the player deliberately makes the frog get into a position where it gets killed but describes it as an accident on the part of the frog. The frog isn't deliberately doing anything other than trying to get away. Only the frog gets killed in the process.

Before I respond to any more of your posts, I must insist on hearing that you understand that is what I'm saying so that I know we're on the same page. Because you continue trying to suggest that it's the frog trying to commit suicide and that's simply not correct.

iserith said:

This is a legitimate question: Do you fully understand the example under discussion and who is deliberately doing what? I feel like I've explained it enough over the course of this thread that everyone should be on the same page about how the player deliberately makes the frog get into a position where it gets killed but describes it as an accident on the part of the frog. The frog isn't deliberately doing anything other than trying to get away. Only the frog gets killed in the process.

Before I respond to any more of your posts, I must insist on hearing that you understand that is what I'm saying so that I know we're on the same page. Because you continue trying to suggest that it's the frog trying to commit suicide and that's simply not correct.

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Sigh. Yes, I get it.

Now, do you get the fact that there is a complete, explicit, disconnect between the player's stated actions and what's going on in the fiction that is possibly problematic to some people at the table?

Elfcrusher[/quote said:

Is he a dirty metagamer?

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Why is there this repeating need to characterize the other side of the discussion as unreasonable and judgemental? "Dirty"? That's your words. I've repeatedly stated that whatever floats your boat is fine. It doesn't float mine. Why the incessant need to put words in my mouth instead of simply accepting that people have differing tastes?

At the end of the day, why do you possibly care how I play? Would I enjoy a group where everyone does the most advantageous thing, no, I would not. To me, I value characterization and being in character more than, what I see as simply trying to beat every scenario. Actions that are out of character and inconsistent are not fun for me. I get that other people play differently. Fine and dandy. I don't think in this entire thread I've made a single value judgement on those that play that way.

It's not to my taste, but that doesn't make it bad. Just not to my taste.

iserith said:

Before I respond to any more of your posts, I must insist on hearing that you understand that is what I'm saying so that I know we're on the same page. Because you continue trying to suggest that it's the frog trying to commit suicide and that's simply not correct.

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This is the worst kind of obvious, blatant, in-your-face metagaming. We know it, you know it, and you have even proudly proclaimed it repeatedly.

Then you try to get a pass from everyone by using the oldest, cheesiest excuse in the book: "Sure, I'm metagaming.....but my ​character isn't."


That's it in a nutshell. You have successfully distracted people with your "deep thinking" and seeming sincerity that they have been very politely discussing all sorts of things under the sun. We are all very happy that you have found and game with like minded individuals. But you are an outlier. And in your efforts to normalize your metagaming, you have condescended to tell everyone else that if only we thought deeply enough or long enough like you have, that we will have an epiphany and perhaps be so lucky to game at a higher level.

I think it is time to accept toad suicide is a perfectly legitimate strategy for some D&D players, but not all.

Other than that, twenty pages in it's time to recognize when you're being trolled, I'd say.