D&D 5E Reliable Talent. What the what?

[KahlessNestor]

I don't disagree with this statement. My question is, how is this good role-playing? Because a professional fighter, who knows they might die if their skills aren't sharp enough, has plenty of incentive to be the best fighter they can be. Disregarding that incentive seems like a pretty egregious case of meta-gaming.

Or I guess you could just play it that they're super lucky, and they happen to not run into situations they can't handle, but then you're basically deciding that they should win by your decision of what to put them against. And in any case, it's still meta-gaming, because you have to play the world and the NPCs inauthentically in order to contrive those situations.

Meta-gaming is bad. That truth is unquestionable. It follows directly from the definition of role-playing - that decisions are made from the perspective of the character - and it's not something that you can change while you still claim to play a role-playing game.

If you want to meta-game at your own table, then fine, whatever. When someone comes into a public forum and claims that meta-gaming is a valid way to role-play, then that's an issue, because it damages the integrity of the role-playing community. Role-players need to know that the GM isn't going to cheat, which meta-gaming very much is, when you're playing a role-playing game.

Wow! Did you just badwrongfun someone?! I thought that was verboten!

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[pemerton]

Players want a world that makes sense, not a world that conforms to PC generation rules.

I agree with this.

as a 4e player, I certainly found that what a monster did felt disjoined from what it was, as if the monster had been written as a set of combat mechanics within a fairly tight rules set first, and then had a description tacked over that afterwards.

The problem was that creatures and characters tended to have 'abilities that generate game mechanics' rather than 'game mechanics describing things that monsters do'. Some abilities this worked fine for, since it was obvious what they reflected. Others not so much (like that fighter one that slid people around before attacking them).

I don't agree with this, though - or at least the second para. Obviously your response was what it was; but I can report that what you describe as a problem for you has not been any sort of problem for me, with one exception - I found the Pact Hag fairly challenging to narrate in play.

But Come and Get It - "the fighter one that slid people around before attacking them" - caused no issues at all. A skilled fighter wrongfooting his enemies is very easy for me to envisage (using a whole lot of films I've seen as the mental model for that).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Regarding meta-gaming being equivalent to cheating... consider a player who evaluates (from the perspective of their character) that the best chance of success comes from splitting the party. The player opts not to push for this course of action because splitting the party would make the game less fun for that particular group. Is it meta-gaming? Yes, by definition. Is it cheating? Absolutely not. Indeed, many consider it poor form to make IC decisions that detract from other players' fun. (Consider, e.g., stealing from the party with the justification that "it's what my character would do".) Ergo, meta-gaming is not equivalent to cheating.

Meta-gaming is definitionally not role-playing, and role-playing is the method by which a role-playing game is played. Using information that the character does not have - such as the fact that the characters exist as a game for people living in another dimension - is meta-gaming, and therefore bad.

Of course, making the other players sit on the sidelines while you go off on your solo adventure is also bad. In this case, you're put into the difficult situation of choosing between two bad choices: you either prevent the other players from participating for some significant period of time, or you damage the integrity of the entire exercise and everything that's happened so far by choosing to act out-of-character. Weighing the (likely) significant inconvenience you would pose to the group, against the (likely) minor damage to suspension of disbelief, you may well choose that meta-gaming here is the lesser of two evils. That doesn't make it a good thing, by any stretch; it's merely less terrible than the alternative at the time. Ideally, players should not make characters that would be prone to such dilemmas, since there is a cost to be paid either way.

Second, out-of-character decisions, by definition, can't qualify as meta-gaming. Tailoring the campaign to the party usually involves the DM making out-of-character decisions about the content of the game world. Yes, those OOC decisions should be made with an eye towards consistency with the IC events of the campaign thus far, but that still leaves a huge range of possibilities for the DM to select from. Selecting those options suited for a particular party cannot be meta-gaming, by definition, because it wasn't an in-character choice to begin with.

The DM is responsible for role-playing all NPCs in the game. That includes the NPC who designed any given trap, and decided where to place it; even if that character died a thousand years before the campaign began. If the DM is using their out-of-game knowledge of who the PCs are (or their absolute bonus with thieves' tools), to make decisions for this NPC who never met the party, then that's meta-gaming. Likewise, if there are eight kobolds in the next room instead of four, if their decision to congregate was based on information they could not have, then that is meta-gaming.

My answer to your question regarding the fighter and roleplaying is similar. To the extent that character-building choices reflect IC decisions, the character doesn't know what is mechanically optimal because the character is unaware of the game mechanics. The choice whether or not to optimize is therefore largely an OOC choice. Sure, there is an IC component too, regarding how the character wants to spend their time. But I don't accept that the only IC choice that qualifies as "good roleplaying" is "to be the best fighter they can be". Characters, like people, are multi-faceted, and it's not bad roleplaying to play them that way. Would you really argue that a fighter who spends one of his ASIs to take the Gourmand feat, for example, is roleplaying poorly because IC they spent time to learn how to cook rather than spending that time to be the best fighter they can be?

Of course the characters don't know the game mechanics. They don't need to, because they can observe their actual reality, of which those mechanics are merely a reflection. They understand the costs associated with making one choice over another, far better than we do.

A fighter may well choose to become a Gourmand rather than a Great Weapon Master. There are plenty of reasons to make one choice or the other. However, it is disingenuous to remove the pressure to optimize, which was the suggestion at hand; whether the fighter chooses one path or another, the knowledge that this choice may have ramifications is not something that should be ignored. If the player knows that the future opposition will causally re-balance itself to account for the capability of the character, then that is meta-game information which the character is not allowed to consider when making their decision.

Third, I stridently disagree that DMs always need to avoid meta-gaming. At some tables, such as yours, they absolutey do need to avoid metagaming, because DM metagaming would clearly detract from the fun of the players at your table, and detracting from the fun of the players is a bad thing. But at tables like mine where metagaming is an expected (and explicitly acknowledged) tool in the DMs toolkit, DM metagaming can instead enhance the fun of the players, and therefore can be a good thing. (Like all such DM tools, care should be taken not to rely on metagaming too heavily, lest it lose effectiveness.)

If you find that role-playing is detracting from the fun of your role-playing games, then you may need to find a new hobby. If you want to meta-game then fine, but you aren't role-playing anymore, and to suggest that you are would be a lie. It may sound harsh, but it is already true whether or not you acknowledge it, and owning up to it doesn't make it any worse.

Finally, I'd like to point out that your post came across as a personal attack on my integrity, and as an accusation that my prior post "damag[ed] the integrity of the role-playing community". We merely have different playstyles, and while I am happy to discuss the differences with you, and recognize that you don't like my playstyle, I would ask that you refrain from insinuating that my playstyle is inferior (let alone that my choice to discuss my style publicly is damaging to the community itself).

Misrepresenting the role-playing hobby, by suggesting that meta-gaming is a valid playstyle, is not something which should ever be tolerated. Meta-gaming is bad, in the context of role-playing games, and meta-gamers are bad role-players definitionally; they are role-playing incorrectly, if they can be said to still be role-playing at all. If you take offense at that, then you may need to re-evaluate your perspective. That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.

 

[5ekyu]

"Misrepresenting the role-playing hobby, by suggesting that meta-gaming is a valid playstyle, is not something which should ever be tolerated. "

And also

"If you find that role-playing is detracting from the fun of your role-playing games, then you may need to find a new hobby."

While i get that you have a very strong feeling about this subject and to you the definition and boundaries of what "role playing" is and is not, positions and statements like these lead me to see this as rather fringe positions due to how non-inclusive they seem to be of other viewpoints.

Can't there be differences in our flavor og RP in our RPG sundaes without telling someone they maybe should get out of the pizza parlor if they prefer pineapple and white on their pizza?

Great many of the aspects of fun (or many things) IRL are not actually binary this or that but exist on a spectrum so i see it as a given that for our particular fantasy play that too is a spectrum that can include many toppings.

There are more than a few RPGs that emphasize "fun for the table" in their core design and goals and sometimes even mechanics.

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[Hussar]

Ahh, it's been so long since I've seen [MENTION=6703052]SA[/MENTION]elorn go on his "metagaming is the eViL" rant. Good memories.

Thanks for quoting him folks. I spanked him on this so hard the last time, that he's had me on ignore for years.

Funny how forums seem to find people who have extremely narrow views of the game who will defend that view to the ends of the earth regardless of any opposing evidence.

Here's a hint folks. If you hold a viewpoint and no one around you agrees with you, then perhaps it's time to reevaluate that viewpoint.

 

[redrick]

If you find that role-playing is detracting from the fun of your role-playing games, then you may need to find a new hobby. If you want to meta-game then fine, but you aren't role-playing anymore, and to suggest that you are would be a lie. It may sound harsh, but it is already true whether or not you acknowledge it, and owning up to it doesn't make it any worse.
Misrepresenting the role-playing hobby, by suggesting that meta-gaming is a valid playstyle, is not something which should ever be tolerated. Meta-gaming is bad, in the context of role-playing games, and meta-gamers are bad role-players definitionally; they are role-playing incorrectly, if they can be said to still be role-playing at all. If you take offense at that, then you may need to re-evaluate your perspective. That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.

Do you find people who actually live up to this grim roleplay purity standard at the table?

 

[pemerton]

Cheating, in the context of game play, tends to imply dishonesty. A GM who is upfront about the basis on which decisions are made is not cheating. Here's an example from my own 4e campaign:

I didn't use four beholders, only 2 - an eye tyrant (MV version) and an eye of flame advanced to 17th level and MM3-ed for damage. And also a 15th level roper from MV, introduced on a whim when the player of the wizard asked, before taking cover behind a column, if it looked suspicious. (Response to result of 28 on the Perception check before adding the +2 bonus for knowing what he is looking for - "Yes, yes it does!")

Whether that is reasonable GMing depends on system (eg 4e is very forgiving because of the way in which players are able to choose to bring their resources to bear), table practices etc.

 

[pemerton]

Meta-gaming is definitionally not role-playing, and role-playing is the method by which a role-playing game is played.

This is like saying that passing with the hand is definitionally not football, and hence Australian Rules, Rugby and American Football are all, in fact, not versions of football.

Ie it's ludicrous.

And that's on top of the fact that roleplaying, in the context of RPGing, means something like "adopting a single persona as the vehicle whereby a player engages the game". How this role is defined, and how the player makes action declaration decisions, are further questions which aren't answered just by noting that it's a RPG rather than, say, a boardgame or a wargame.

 

[Arilyn]

Do you find people who actually live up to this grim roleplay purity standard at the table?

And not only that, but how many games can do it? And, even more importantly, why would we want them to?

 

[SkidAce]

Here's a hint folks. If you hold a viewpoint and no one around you agrees with you, then perhaps it's time to reevaluate that viewpoint.

This is true.