Iry
Hero
These days, I just make new players watch a video.
[video=youtube_share;1IyWfaMmhrM]https://youtu.be/1IyWfaMmhrM[/video]
D&D 5E Polymorph is a bad de-buff spell
[video=youtube_share;1IyWfaMmhrM]https://youtu.be/1IyWfaMmhrM[/video]
Satyrn
First Post
On second thought, If I was gonna make my players watch a video that long, it's gonna be that episode of Xena where Joxer sings his theme song accompanied by a brothel full of prostitutes. There's two Xena lookalikes in that episode, lots of zaniness, and some fun fights.
"Watch this. This is my Platonic Ideal of a D&D session. If, y'know, Plato was a lore bard."
"Watch this. This is my Platonic Ideal of a D&D session. If, y'know, Plato was a lore bard."
Bawylie
A very OK person
I once had a thing on metagaming from a prospective player who asked about it.
I’ll come back to that.
What I usually say is, “Anything I say out loud is said to the table at large, even if directed to one person. So if I say it, it’s assumed that your characters keep each other informed at the earliest possible opportunity. I will not rely on your ignorance to challenge you in the game nor try to trick you or trip you up with the rules. If there is anything I want only you to know, I will pass you a note and you’re responsible for what you do with it thereafter, including deciding on sharing the content or not sharing it.
Do not ask any questions while we play. Instead, declare actions that your characters take in the game world to obtain the info you want. If you have questions about the rules or rulings, please wait to ask until after the game. In the moment just tell me what you want to do and how you want to do it and we’ll go from there.
For all actions, please tell me what you want to do and how you go about doing it and then after that, I will tell you whether or not to roll dice. I will also tell you what will happen if you succeed or fail so you can make informed decisions. I will not exploit your ignorance to your disadvantage. Your character has enough training to make an educated guess as to likely outcomes, even if you personally do not. It is okay to change your mind, but please be mindful of the time your turn takes, and consider the other players at the table.”
So the one who asked me about metagaming. It came up in a piracy campaign and she commented that she felt she could trust the other players not to metagame. I took the opportunity to explain that I don’t personally care whether they look in the monster manual, read my adventure notes ahead of time, or try to game me. If they do any of that, they may be cheating themselves out of experiences or avoiding unwanted surprises, but it’s up to them whether or not they want that. My concern isn’t what they think, it’s what they do. How they do, not why they do. So we won’t worry about metagaming in that respect. The challenge in the game isn’t going to be based on a veil of ignorance; it will be based on making hard decisions with trade-offs.
Sure enough, she ended up not caring about metagaming. And sure enough, I’ve had players read monsters’ stat blocks. And it doesn’t matter one bit. Personally, I gain nothing from pretending I don’t know something that I know. And personally I hate exploiting a player’s ignorance to their detriment. It feels unfair to me. As DM I already have so many advantages, I cannot justify making you pretend that fire doesn’t hurt trolls.
Oh! And from time to time, a player mis-hears, or misunderstands (or I’m not clear about) something. When that comes out, I clarify. “Hey, I said X, not Y. You may still think Y, and also Y may be correct to think, but what I said was X, FYI.”
And that’s how I’ve dealt with that at my table. So yeah, the player can tell me where the frog leaps. I don’t care why; it’s not relevant to how I adjudicate the actions in the game.
Bawylie
A very OK person
Reasonable or not, justifiable or not, it happens in the real world, daily. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes inadvertently. Often the person who does it has motivations we might disagree with.
Anyway, i maintain it’s a reasonable action for a frog to jump ‘somewhere,’ and that ‘somewhere’ can also include somewhere hazardous. Roadkill happens, too.
Iry
Hero
It was a joke. I wouldn't actually make a new player sit down and watch a 42 minute video about a single category of gaming. But I would encourage them to watch if they demonstrated poor sportsmanship at the table. Among other things.
It's fun to watch either way!
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
One could say that. One could also say: "since when did self harm or suicide become a valid action, outside of trying to achieve a game effect? You don’t even have to question what someone is thinking in this example because it’s so egregious." Which is what you said. So to make sure I understand you correctly, your position is something like "every chosen action in an RPG is to achieve a game effect, but some of those actions are invalid because they are done solely to achieve a game effect." Is that accurate?
Not that one is required by the rules, but I've given you an "in-game justification" for the action: The toad wants to go from the place it is now to some other place and, along the way, runs afoul of a life-threatening hazard. So we should be good, right? If not, why not?
The toad's action is independent of the toad's knowledge of how polymorph spells work. The player's motivation is also irrelevant - and possibly even unknown - when it comes to the reasonableness of the toad's action in context. The player's purposeful action declaration can be described as the toad's accident. If the player's motivation is irrelevant to the stated action and might not even be known or could be misjudged, then it seems to me that this should not be a consideration at all when the player describes what he or she wants to do. Any table rules that demand the player's motivations meet some standard are thus, in my view, pointless and unenforceable.
As for how the toad's action is adjudicated by the DM, as I said, I have no care about, at least in this discussion, provided the DM is being fair and consistent. If there's an environmental hazard that the toad can leap into accidentally, so much the better.
So nothing in the 5e Eberron pdf? From what I've read, magic is widespread. It's not specific enough to say how common polymorph is, nor would I see any reason why I would need to establish that.
I'm not so much nitpicking as trying to show a weakness in your argument so you can polish up your position. Talking about how common or uncommon magic is in other settings is not supportive of your argument in my view since it still hinges on the toad needing to have knowledge of the spell in order to accidentally get killed. And that's just silly on its face, wouldn't you agree?
Salthorae
Imperial Mountain Dew Taster
Jeez, the post from the personal blog of the creator of Eberron regarding the prevalence of magic by levels in 5e isn’t enough for you?
Then go read pg 41 of the Wayfarer Guide to Eberron. “Wide Magic, not high magic” section.
And I’m off this merry go round. Have fun.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
That's useful to me, thanks for pointing it out. I guess we'd have to consider whether "most people" includes adventurers.
In any case, knowledge of polymorph spells is not a prerequisite for a toad accidentally getting itself killed, so this is not useful to prove any point you're trying to make.
Satyrn
First Post
That looks like evidence against your point.
It suggests an Eberron fighter would be familiar with the concept of Polymorph, too, even if he's never seen it cast and never been around anyone who can cast it.
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