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What are the biggest RPG crimes?
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7556563" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>The world is a character. Every NPC who ever existed is a character. Is the vine going to grow in such a way as to provide a conveniently-plausible travel path for characters that invested in certain skills? It's not allowed to take their relative athletic capabilities into account, when deciding how to grow. The GM should remain impartial in their determination of this. Is the castle architect going to build a wall in this way, or that way? Their decision must be based on information that they have access to, and not based on whether the PCs (specifically) are likely to be passing through later on.</p><p>Meta-gaming is having your character act on knowledge that they don't have, and we are operating under the assumption that they don't already know trolls are weak to fire. Great. If you have them attack with fire <em>because</em> trolls are weak to it, even though they don't know that yet, then that's meta-gaming and bad.</p><p></p><p>What you're wrong about is that we can't simulate what we would do if we lacked that knowledge. We can, and flipping a coin is as good a method as any other. If the character attacks with fire <em>because</em> you flipped Heads rather than Tails, then that's just acting pseudo-randomly, which is not based on information that they don't have - it's random, not based on any information at all.</p><p></p><p>And in any case, committing a crime really requires some amount of deliberate intent. I'm not going to hold it against someone for <em>trying</em> to stay honest, whether or not the task is hopeless.</p><p>In your games, perhaps, but I call that poor GMing. By my standards, improbable events should occur during the setup and world-building. If you want something unlikely to happen, then it's already happened, and we're playing out the events after that point.</p><p></p><p>There's a central conceit to the game, which is that the PCs will have agency within their world. And that conceit disqualifies the vast majority of random subsistence farmers, who will never be in a position to change much of anything. If you want to expand your conceit, to say that everyone secretly grew up in an orphanage together and then got amnesia from using magic, then that's... probably something to consult your players about, but it's fine if that's the conceit.</p><p></p><p>What I object to, is the mysterious dark villain not having their identity determined beforehand, such that you only decide he's actually Bob Smith <em>after</em> the player of the PC Will Smith takes an interest in him. That is an example of Bob Smith acting on the information that Will Smith is a PC, and choosing to become evil. Regardless of how you later rationalize it, that's the <em>true</em> reason why it happened.</p><p>And I insist that the process is more important than its appearance. No matter how well you pretend to justify it as something that could plausibly happen, if the real reason you decide for something to happen is for the sake of the plot, then that's meta-gaming. Trying to pretend otherwise, whether or not you are skilled enough to pull that off, is a deception toward the players.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7556563, member: 6775031"] The world is a character. Every NPC who ever existed is a character. Is the vine going to grow in such a way as to provide a conveniently-plausible travel path for characters that invested in certain skills? It's not allowed to take their relative athletic capabilities into account, when deciding how to grow. The GM should remain impartial in their determination of this. Is the castle architect going to build a wall in this way, or that way? Their decision must be based on information that they have access to, and not based on whether the PCs (specifically) are likely to be passing through later on. Meta-gaming is having your character act on knowledge that they don't have, and we are operating under the assumption that they don't already know trolls are weak to fire. Great. If you have them attack with fire [I]because[/I] trolls are weak to it, even though they don't know that yet, then that's meta-gaming and bad. What you're wrong about is that we can't simulate what we would do if we lacked that knowledge. We can, and flipping a coin is as good a method as any other. If the character attacks with fire [I]because[/I] you flipped Heads rather than Tails, then that's just acting pseudo-randomly, which is not based on information that they don't have - it's random, not based on any information at all. And in any case, committing a crime really requires some amount of deliberate intent. I'm not going to hold it against someone for [I]trying[/I] to stay honest, whether or not the task is hopeless. In your games, perhaps, but I call that poor GMing. By my standards, improbable events should occur during the setup and world-building. If you want something unlikely to happen, then it's already happened, and we're playing out the events after that point. There's a central conceit to the game, which is that the PCs will have agency within their world. And that conceit disqualifies the vast majority of random subsistence farmers, who will never be in a position to change much of anything. If you want to expand your conceit, to say that everyone secretly grew up in an orphanage together and then got amnesia from using magic, then that's... probably something to consult your players about, but it's fine if that's the conceit. What I object to, is the mysterious dark villain not having their identity determined beforehand, such that you only decide he's actually Bob Smith [I]after[/I] the player of the PC Will Smith takes an interest in him. That is an example of Bob Smith acting on the information that Will Smith is a PC, and choosing to become evil. Regardless of how you later rationalize it, that's the [I]true[/I] reason why it happened. And I insist that the process is more important than its appearance. No matter how well you pretend to justify it as something that could plausibly happen, if the real reason you decide for something to happen is for the sake of the plot, then that's meta-gaming. Trying to pretend otherwise, whether or not you are skilled enough to pull that off, is a deception toward the players. [/QUOTE]
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