D&D General [Poll] Metagame justifications for in-character behavior

[Lanefan]

Well I mean, it just seems like, if a creature can attack the hull of the ship where you can't get at it, and this happens often, then you'd expect shipbuilding to advance in some way to counter this problem.

The "advances" would no doubt consist of making heavier, thicker hulls - fine for defense but not much use for getting anywhere in light winds; and even more so if the ship is oar-powered rather than sail.

Instead, it's just like how D&D worlds are littered with medieval castles that are completely useless against flying or burrowing monsters.

Flying, yes; though a battery of roof-mounted ballistae can help there.

Burrowing can be dealt with fairly easily, at least in 1e, by having someone cast Forbiddance on the ground beneath the castle and extending its AoE down into the rock/earth below.

 

[Lanefan]

"Metagame" is an awfully loaded term, but I guess my feelings are that if you're basing your decisions on your understanding of the rules, that's almost certainly OK--those rules are, after all, how the world works (or how how the world works is represented); if you're basing your decisions on having looked at the published setting or adventure the GM is running, or the GM's notes, that's almost certainly not OK.

Agreed.

The questions come when a player is basing in-play decisions on understanding of the table (i.e. metagame) rather than - or worse, in opposition to - understanding of his-her own character.

 

[prabe]

Agreed.

The questions come when a player is basing in-play decisions on understanding of the table (i.e. metagame) rather than - or worse, in opposition to - understanding of his-her own character.

Eh. If the GM has tendencies toward a relatively narrow range of ... situations, and the players know that ... I don't know that I'd be likely to bat the players on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper over it. And if the people around the table have agreed to certain premises (which I know you don't like, but that's really beside my point here) I don't see it as objectionable play for them to consider those premises as they play and develop their characters; it's certainly not a kind of metagame thinking I'd object to.

 

[Lanefan]

Eh. If the GM has tendencies toward a relatively narrow range of ... situations, and the players know that ... I don't know that I'd be likely to bat the players on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper over it. And if the people around the table have agreed to certain premises (which I know you don't like, but that's really beside my point here) I don't see it as objectionable play for them to consider those premises as they play and develop their characters; it's certainly not a kind of metagame thinking I'd object to.

Yeah, if people are in general agreement, then fine.

I mean, in the game I play in we all know our DM loooves ghouls, and will squeeze ghouls in to almost whatever level-appropriate situation he can. That said, IMO we-as-players can't - or certainly shouldn't - allow this meta-knowledge to influence our in-character thinking.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Again, I think this is a problem only if the social dynamics are wonky. If the DM's betrayal plot only works when the players walk into it with no preparations, then it seems to me like the DM is just railroading and should write that betrayal plot as a novel. Genre-aware characters are a thing in stories, and a PC getting ready for the sudden but inevitable betrayal could just be that. It might not be the betrayal scenario the DM imagined in their mind, but that's kinda part-and-parcel with what makes TTRPGs work (no plan survives contact with the players etc. etc.).

I am less concerned about protecting a precious plot (which is a DM being silly) than I am with a player's character doing a thing they have absolutely no reason to do other than "because I know what the DM does." That just...really rubs me the wrong way. It signals to me that the player doesn't actually care about playing a character, that they are viewing the game as an exercise of one-upmanship, rather than participating in a shared activity.

As you say it is possible for a character to be "genre savvy," but immediate rampant paranoia about every single ally you come across exclusively because "DM likes face-heel turns"? That's a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah, if people are in general agreement, then fine.

I mean, in the game I play in we all know our DM loooves ghouls, and will squeeze ghouls in to almost whatever level-appropriate situation he can. That said, IMO we-as-players can't - or certainly shouldn't - allow this meta-knowledge to influence our in-character thinking.

Seems like that would increase the amount of Elven PC's (in editions where Elves are immune to ghoul paralysis, that is).

 

[prabe]

Yeah, if people are in general agreement, then fine.

I mean, in the game I play in we all know our DM loooves ghouls, and will squeeze ghouls in to almost whatever level-appropriate situation he can. That said, IMO we-as-players can't - or certainly shouldn't - allow this meta-knowledge to influence our in-character thinking.

That might be an expectation around y'all's table. I can see another table looking at it as "we're from this world, we know ghouls are a common problem" or some such. If I as GM leaned hard on certain monsters, and the players started making build-ish choices in response to that, I don't think I'd object much.

 

[Lanefan]

Seems like that would increase the amount of Elven PC's (in editions where Elves are immune to ghoul paralysis, that is).

It hasn't, really. Other than the really early days when it seemed like the place was crawling with Elves (largely due to one player's love of Elfquest), they've had a consistent-ish level of popularity across all our games whether under that DM or another.

 

[Lanefan]

That might be an expectation around y'all's table. I can see another table looking at it as "we're from this world, we know ghouls are a common problem" or some such.

That's just it, though - ghouls aren't known to be that big a problem across the greater world thus the PCs don't have any in-game reason to prepare for them any more than they do any other monster. It's just as players we know - and joke about - that sooner or later we're gonna see some.

 

[prabe]

That's just it, though - ghouls aren't known to be that big a problem across the greater world thus the PCs don't have any in-game reason to prepare for them any more than they do any other monster. It's just as players we know - and joke about - that sooner or later we're gonna see some.

I'd say there's a narrative disjunction between "ghouls aren't known to be a big problem in the world" and "we run into them all the damned time." I'm not inclined to insist the players be the ones to patch it.