"You can't assume things"

[El Mahdi]

I'm assuming this player has some unresolved issues...

 

[Pentius]

First thought: "You can't assume there isn't anything behind it, that's assuming something!"

Really, though, you have to assume things. The human mind automatically tries to fill in gaps where it lacks information, so trying not to assume anything is ultimately a futile effort. Also, who would ever want to deal with the result if it worked?

DM: You find yourself in a room.

Player: Am I alive?

DM: Yes.

Player: Is there a floor?

DM: Yes.

Player: Is it made of lava?

DM: ...

etc, etc. No, the right idea is to try and strike a happy medium where you assume enough, but not too much, which is tricky. Still, this player was clearly on the ridiculous side of the line. Were I in your shoes, I would have had words with him. If the aside conversation as mid-session, they would have been loud, unkind words.

 

[Dannager]

I'm assuming this player has some unresolved issues...

Yep. Even if he were genuinely irked by what he saw as metagaming (and this, frankly, is the worst abuse of the word "metagaming" I have ever seen), it is odd that he would go out of his way to speak to the DM about the player's behavior. There is another layer to this that needs to be looked at.

It may be that the player in question is simply jealous of the other player, or feels like the other player made him look like a fool, and is doing what he can to undermine that player's achievement (unimpressive though the achievement may be).

It may be that the player in question has an issue with the way the DM offers descriptions (this would have to have been a long-running issue with him; it certainly didn't start here) and doesn't know how to address the problem in an acceptable manner.

The chance of the real problem being that the player legitimately has absolutely no idea what metagaming is or what a normal person would do when stuck in an unfamiliar room is very, very slim.

 

[Is_907]

The difference here is that the Oracle--the CHARACTER--assumed there was a window behind the curtain.
True, in this case the player assumed it as well, but that's no harm, since the character could easily come to that conclusion with the given information.

I'm hoping that player comes to you at the next session and says "Uh, sorry about that, I was a bit stoned..." or something like that.

 

[Agamon]

Wow. Why wouldn't the PCs, let alone the players, assume that something is back there? It's a freakin' curtain. Curtains do two things: 1) hide things from view, 2) cover windows. I'd wonder why anyone would think a curtain was just hangin out in front of nothing. No assuming required, it's common sense.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"

 

[Nightson]

I have had players you thought very odd things were "metagaming" including a caster who felt knowing his spells refreshed each day was metagaming.

Lots of my players still have things like treating any reference to AC or HP as metagaming which I have had to work out of them.

There's a large number of things that exist in the game world that are only approached by the rules and not description, but those things still exist in the game world and your characters can take note of them.

 

[nightwind1]

In a game I'm running my players recently left the unfamiliar room they woke up in, they ignored my big curtain and went out talking about how there were no windows so they had no way of knowing where they were.

(There was a window behind the curtain. One of the players was a few feet from it at one point.)

As their "no windows" talk continued the Oracle eventually spoke up and asked "What about the window in the other room?"

The others were dumbstruck. Two of them had in fact completely overlooked the curtain in my description, but the third got angry and talked to me privately about the window-noticing player's "metagaming".

We had a conversation that went something like this:

"She can't just assume there was a window. That's metagaming."

"Oh really? Why can't she assume that?"

"You can't assume things."

"But just assuming something isn't metagaming."

"But you can't assume things."

"Well then why not check what's behind the curtain? You'll know whether or not there's a window after you look, and then you won't be assuming any more."

"We can't check behind the curtain. That would be assuming that something's there. You can't assume things."


...

It's like talking to a brick wall. Or a broken record... A broken record that doesn't really understand what metagaming is but refuses to accept that it doesn't understand. >_>

Nine times out of ten, if there's a curtain, there's a window behind it. Are you gaming with 4-year olds? (I take that back- a 4-year old would look behind the curtain.)

 

[Squire James]

I never liked that expression, "You can't assume things." About 90% of the time, the assumption is correct. The other 10% might make you feel stupid, though.

 

[FireLance]

I never liked that expression, "You can't assume things." About 90% of the time, the assumption is correct. The other 10% might make you feel stupid, though.

The more sensible formulation is probably, "If you are able to do so, you should check that your assumptions are correct before acting on them," but it's a little wordier and thus less catchy.