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

[Charlaquin]

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?

I’m not. My point is that to define metagaming the way you do, it must not mean acting on out of character information, but rather acting in a way the DM thinks your character would if they had said out of character information.

 

[Maxperson]

Consciously deciding not to do something because of out of character information is still acting on out of character information.

But that's not happening unless you the player want it to. You're perfectly capable of deciding in character what to do and not base any of it on out of character information. Even if it means flipping a coin if you can't figure out another way. Nobody is requiring you to choose to go the opposite way of the treasure just because you know which direction the treasure is.

 

[Charlaquin]

But that's not happening unless you the player want it to. You're perfectly capable of deciding in character what to do and not base any of it on out of character information. Even if it means flipping a coin if you can't figure out another way. Nobody is requiring you to choose to go the opposite way of the treasure just because you know which direction the treasure is.

They’re certainly requiring you not to go in the direction of the treasure because you know which direction the treasure is (and your character doesn’t).

 

[Oofta]

Consciously deciding not to do something because of out of character information is still acting on out of character information.

The accepted definition of metagaming according to wiktionary would disagree with you. I think it's a decent definition:

Metagaming: The act of making use of knowledge while roleplaying that a player has learned out of character, which their character does not know; often considered a form of cheating.​

I can't "unknow" something I know. I can choose to not use that knowledge. I frequently have OOC knowledge, most people do. It's only metagaming if we act upon it.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

Amusingly, I think this is a beautiful argument in favor of telegraphing traps.

 

[Maxperson]

I disagree. If your PC acts differently than you otherwise would have had him act because you (the player) know something the character shouldn't - that's metagaming.

And you can avoid that 100% of the time. If you do it, you've chosen to do it, not because you had to do it.

Even if you have the PC act randomly (flip a coin, roll a die etc.) to determine his next action - you are ONLY doing that because you (the player) know something and wish to avoid it influencing the PCs action - it's still metagaming.

It's not still metagaming and here's why. Because if you the player had no knowledge of where the treasure is, you'd have picked left or right on a whim. Randomly, just like the coin flip. So the coin flip is just the same and not metagaming. If you have anything more than a whim to go on in character, then you make your decision based on that and metagame knowledge doesn't come in that way, either.

Now, what you CAN do (for groups that care about metagaming - and it matters), is not be a jerk about it. For ex. Let the DM know you have experience with the module - what's their preference? Let the other players know you'll be playing a passive character (to not exert undue influence) and that they'll be making the decisions.

I've been in that situation as a player and I told the DM that if he didn't want to run something else, I would step out of the game until the module was done. Not because of metagaming, but because as a player I don't enjoy going through the same stuff twice.

As a DM, I ask the players if they've gone through it, read it or DM'd it before. If any of them say yes, I don't run it.

 

[Maxperson]

They’re certainly requiring you not to go in the direction of the treasure

Nothing makes that requirement.

because you know which direction the treasure is (and your character doesn’t).

Again, this is not an issue as I've shown.

 

[Charlaquin]

The accepted definition of metagaming according to wiktionary would disagree with you. I think it's a decent definition:

Metagaming: The act of making use of knowledge while roleplaying that a player has learned out of character, which their character does not know; often considered a form of cheating.​

I can't "unknow" something I know. I can choose to not use that knowledge. I frequently have OOC knowledge, most people do. It's only metagaming if we act upon it.

You can’t choose not to use that knowledge. You can choose to act in a way other than the way that knowledge would otherwise lead you to act, which is itself using that knowledge. So, again, what you’re actually describing as metagaming is not using OOC knowledge but taking actions that OOC knowledge would lead you to take.

 

[Maxperson]

Amusingly, I think this is a beautiful argument in favor of telegraphing traps.

It's more an argument in favor of only putting traps where they would logically be, which itself is a form of telegraphing. The players should know to search the area leading up to the royal treasury for traps.

 

[Mort]

I can't "unknow" something I know. I can choose to not use that knowledge. I frequently have OOC knowledge, most people do. It's only metagaming if we act upon it.

But it matters.

In a game where the DM was REALLY concerned about metagaming, I'd NEVER play a swiss army knife type mage. I'd be too concerned that my own knowledge would get into my decisions all of the time - or that my decision to NOT act on my knowledge was overcompensating and hurting the group somehow. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to justify decisions to the DM all the time, yuck.