D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[iserith]

You say this like it's a bad thing.

It's certainly not my preference.

 

[Lanefan]

I think that some of this is also a matter of lingering game design elements and mechanics... and outlooks... that remain in the game despite the game no longer really focusing on them in the same way. Like in early editions of D&D traps were a common feature because the game was almost always about exploring a dungeon of some sort. These things were expected to the point where you had every party carrying ten-foot poles and all other manner of absurdities.

You say absurdities, I say wise cautious characters.

The game world is out to get you, and you're out to make sure it doesn't succeed. That's the complete essence of adventuring boiled down to a single sentence. Everything else is just dressing.

I think a lot of this discussion is like a weird clash between approaches to play adopted across editions. Like, I can't see how you reconcile metagaming with tests of player skill in like a Gygaxian sense.

Easy - the players just think in character using character-known information.

Now puzzles and riddles, I'll grant, are much more a test of player skill than of character anything. I can't remember the last time I used either one, though I'm sure there's been some given the number of classic modules I've been running.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is a False Equivalence. If a player is being unconsciously influenced, that's not metagaming. Metagaming requires a conscious decision to bring in that OOC knowledge. A player cannot accidentally metagame.

It’s not unconscious. It’s consciously deciding to act in a way that is contrary to how the out of character information they have would otherwise lead them to do. That is a conscious choice influenced by said out of character information.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'll put this bluntly: in some contexts, I don't believe you. I am entirely capable of encapsulating my perceptions. I suspect most people are, and I think the facts you're working from you're extending past what they actually say. People filter out data in decisions literally all the time, and they often do it at a preconscious level. If you didn't, you'd not be able to pick out significant sounds and sights in any busy environment.

Of course we filter out sensory data. I said the baring can’t ignore relevant information when making a decision. You can try to decide differently than the relevant information you have would lead you to do, but that is a decision influenced by said information.

No, I can also push aside what I know that my character doesn't and not consider that. If you don't care to believe that, that's your choice.

What you’re doing is trying to imagine what choice you might have made if you lacked that information, and making that choice. But by doing so, you are still acting in a way that has been influenced by that information.

You're immensely extending what I've said past the contexts I've said I pay attention to it in.

I don’t know what this means.

 

[GrahamWills]

I said the baring can’t ignore relevant information when making a decision. You can try to decide differently than the relevant information you have would lead you to do, but that is a decision influenced by said information.

What you’re doing is trying to imagine what choice you might have made if you lacked that information, and making that choice. But by doing so, you are still acting in a way that has been influenced by that information.

Can you perfectly replicate the state of mind you would have had if you did not know some piece of information? No, I believe you are correct there. But I do believe you can do it well enough for game purposes. And, since we are in the context of playing a game, I think that is really where we should be concentrating our thought.

My experience has been that most players (including ones as young as 10) can consider what they would have done if they did not know something and produce a result that feels correct within the game. Sometimes that is very simple ("oops I didn't mean to reveal that map; you don't know there's a trap there" -- "well, we usually follow the left-handed rule, so we go that way") and sometimes it's more complex ("Yes Dave rolled high for sense motive and you didn't, but you don't know that in character. You think the band drummer is into you and just wants a fun date" "My character generally likes fun dates, so I'll head out with him").

But overall, if people actually try, I've never seen them have a problem making decisions to the level of granularity a game requires. Far more often it's just someone who really hates losing and so is very reluctant to take a course of action the player feels will adversely affect their characte.

 

[Oofta]

I think that some of this is also a matter of lingering game design elements and mechanics... and outlooks... that remain in the game despite the game no longer really focusing on them in the same way. Like in early editions of D&D traps were a common feature because the game was almost always about exploring a dungeon of some sort. These things were expected to the point where you had every party carrying ten-foot poles and all other manner of absurdities.

The game was much more about testing player skill than anything else.

Now, however, the game is less about player skill. So certain encounter types... traps being one of them... don't serve the same function. They're not nearly as common in the published works.

I think a lot of this discussion is like a weird clash between approaches to play adopted across editions. Like, I can't see how you reconcile metagaming with tests of player skill in like a Gygaxian sense.

I've never used traps very often for a simple reason. Most of the time they're dumb. If you have a trapped corridor, how do people use your facility? You don't have servants? Allies? They all need to know to keep to the left in this hall? If every door is trapped, do people use the window to get in and out? How many people have to know how to disable a trap if you're running any kind of organization? How do you keep a trap functioning? Indiana Jones has fun visuals but I couldn't help but wonder. It's in a cave. No animals ever wandered in? How is the tension or air pressure still there after centuries? Or if it's a standard "poison needle trap" why does the poison not dry up? How do they get reset if they've been used once?

So most of the time, disarming a trap is not physically disarming it, it's finding the right stone to push which you identify because it's shiny from all the people pushing it and so on. I still do traps once in a while and magical glyphs actually make more sense to me than most mechanical traps, but then you have to have a way for the rogue to find them. If you have one in the party of course.

I probably just overthink this stuff, but I want my campaign world to be logical. Even with magic, most traps simply aren't logical. If there are traps, there has to be some relatively simple way of disarming them without tools. Then again I don't really do dungeons either for much the same reason, they're typically illogical.

 

[iserith]

But overall, if people actually try, I've never seen them have a problem making decisions to the level of granularity a game requires. Far more often it's just someone who really hates losing and so is very reluctant to take a course of action the player feels will adversely affect their characte.

I think what they're doing is choosing the option that is more fun and engaging to them which may happen to be not losing. Which is not to say they will never lose even if "metagaming." It's not a reliable tactic unless the DM makes it so.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The game world is out to get you, and you're out to make sure it doesn't succeed. That's the complete essence of adventuring boiled down to a single sentence. Everything else is just dressing.

That’s a very metagame view from the GM perspective. I mean, you’ve beaten the “PCs are not special” drum loudly… so having the world be out to get them seems totally meta.

Why punish players for responding in kind?

 

[Maxperson]

It’s not unconscious. It’s consciously deciding to act in a way that is contrary to how the out of character information they have would otherwise lead them to do. That is a conscious choice influenced by said out of character information.

What you describe is not metagaming. Not bringing in out of character information is the literal opposite of what metagaming is. Metagaming = bringing in out of character knowledge.

 

[Maxperson]

What you’re doing is trying to imagine what choice you might have made if you lacked that information, and making that choice. But by doing so, you are still acting in a way that has been influenced by that information.

Yes and that influence = not metagaming. It takes more than the OOC knowledge having some influence to be metagaming. You have to actively bring that knowledge into the game via a PC that does not know the information for it to be metagaming. Why is it so important for you to twist the meaning in order to claim metagaming happens anyway?