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

[Mallus]

That's....an interesting defintion of "metagame." As in, I've never heard that definition before. So you do not distinguish between the thoughts of the characters as they exist within the fiction and the thoughts of the players as they exist on Earth?

The thoughts of a character are a fiction the player authors. Characters exist within the fiction as their players ‘write’ them and as their actions are ratified & reified by the DM and other players.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The thoughts of a character are a fiction the player authors.

Sure. But do you not recognize the difference between Doylist and Watsonian discourse?

 

[Charlaquin]

So we had a discussion about metagaming back in March. Here's what I had to say about it then.

Out-of-character/metagame knowledge

There is a degree of OOC knowledge that is necessary to make the game run smoothly. DM's who refuse to let people even use game terminology at the table are shooting themselves in the foot- maybe it breaks your immersion, but I'm reminded of the +1 sword problem. You find an unidentified magic...

www.enworld.org

I feel this kind of metagaming is perfectly justifiable.

In case anyone is curious, here's my definitions of metagaming.

Out-of-character/metagame knowledge

There is a degree of OOC knowledge that is necessary to make the game run smoothly. DM's who refuse to let people even use game terminology at the table are shooting themselves in the foot- maybe it breaks your immersion, but I'm reminded of the +1 sword problem. You find an unidentified magic...

www.enworld.org

Funny, I do generally require the Identify spell to be used to learn a magic item’s properties, but if a player did your “I hit this AC, plus or minus the sword’s modifier” and “I do this much damage, plus or minus the sword’s damage modifier,” I would give the player that info not out of exhasperation like the DM in your example, but because their approach of testing the sword in combat has no chance of failing to achieve their goal of learning its accuracy and damage modifying properties. It’s a pretty clever way to deduce those properties by way of experimentation.

 

[Mallus]

Sure. But do you not recognize the difference between Doylist and Watsonian discourse?

Intradiegetic criticism is a species of fan fiction. Sometimes entertaining, sometimes… not.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Intradiegetic criticism is a species of fan fiction. Sometimes entertaining, sometimes… not.

Okay....it honestly seems like you're actively trying to dodge the question here.

I grant, obviously, that authors and players are different from characters, and that characters aren't "real" in the sense that players (or authors) are real. Do you genuinely see absolutely no difference whatsoever between "thoughts/behaviors that a character could logically have/do, given the information available to them within the fiction," and "thoughts/behaviors that a player could desire to have their character have/do, given the information available to them as humans playing a game"?

Because, as I said, that's a pretty unusual stance to take. I haven't seen or heard anyone who genuinely classifies absolutely all actions of players, no matter what, purely on the basis "a player is thinking/doing them, therefore they're all the same."

 

[Lanefan]

Ideally the answer is "never" but I voted "rarely", as occsaionally getting someone (back) into the game takes precedence.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ideally the answer is "never" but I voted "rarely", as occsaionally getting someone (back) into the game takes precedence.

Yeah, I feel you. I'm also personally opposed to most metagaming, but there are occasionally times I'll allow it, if it's done openly and for a clearly worthwhile cause. Onboarding a new or returning player is a worthy cause.

 

[aia_2]

My vote goes to never for a simple reason: it is not metagaming if a player talks to the GM by using words referred to game mechanics such as THAC0 or similar... To my eyes metagaming is bringing on the other side of the game (i.e. the world where the PC are acting) concepts or logics which do not belong to that world. The best example is player's knowledge of the monster manual vs PC knowledge of a creature never met beforehand. If a PC meets for the very first time a basilisk, he is not in the position to decide not to look at it... i am well aware of the fact that some "good" GM asks to roll a die to see whether or not the PC has found a description of this creature in a book, this should not be considered stictly metagaming, but usually the actions defined by the players are affected by knowledge which should not be part of the decision. This is the main reason for my "never".

 

[schneeland]

I'm not a big fan of using out of character knowledge to gain advantages in combat (or worse: people reading a module to know which dangers lie ahead).
Yet, once in a while, there will be situations where from a strict in character perspective it would make sense for the character to not partake or abandon the adventure, offend a major NPC or similar things that conflict with RPGs being a group activity where everyone should have fun. In those situations, I find it acceptable, even advised, to find in character reasons/excuses based on meta gaming considerations.

 

[Tallifer]

This poll seems backwards to me: I generally use and see others using in-character justifications for gamey decisions. (For example, writing a backstory to justify a paladin multi-classing as a warlock.)

I do not even understand why someone would need to use a rule to justify roleplaying.