D&D General Just Eat the Dang Fruit

[Vaalingrade]

Is it metagaming back or is it being spiteful and punishing the players for not letting you pull the football away from them again?

 

[MarkB]

I'm not sure I follow? I'm saying both sides should strive not to metagame, but if it happens, neither side should tell the other that they can/can't do something because of it. And then adding that metagaming can lead to unexpected results if the thing the player 'knows' doesn't actually align with the situation.

Changing the situation purely to exploit player expectations is metagaming.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, then the characters should definitely not eat the fruit. Because the player's reason cannot be "I think the fruit is probably harmless and it would be rude not to" if the player knows that the fruit is not harmless.

Even if the player decides to have their character eat the fruit, their reason for doing so is "I'm going to go along with this obvious trap and see where it leads." That certainly isn't the character's reason for doing it.

Nice rhetoric. If the PC has no reason to doubt, the player should have them act as if they don't even if the player does have reason to doubt.

 

[iserith]

Everything is metagaming, and nothing is metagaming.

 

[Charlaquin]

Nice rhetoric. If the PC has no reason to doubt, the player should have them act as if they don't even if the player does have reason to doubt.

Two things:
1. Just because the PC can’t know for certain, as the player does, that the fruit is poisoned, doesn’t mean they have no reason to doubt the fruit is safe to eat.
2. Even if the PC had no reason to doubt the fruit is safe to eat, that doubt is not the only reason the PC might choose not to eat it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Two things:
1. Just because the PC can’t know for certain, as the player does, that the fruit is poisoned, doesn’t mean they have no reason to doubt the fruit is safe to eat.
2. Even if the PC had no reason to doubt the fruit is safe to eat, that doubt is not the only reason the PC might choose not to eat it.

In the example provided, the saving throw visible to all players was a pretty obvious reason for doubt on the part of the players.

 

[Mort]

In the example provided, the saving throw visible to all players was a pretty obvious reason for doubt on the part of the players.

You're assuming the saving throw wouldn't have visible signs in the game - it very well might, even if successful.

Plus the situation itself was just really shady. A player would have every right to have their PC be extremely suspicious of the fruit. Certainly the player shouldn't have to swing in the other direction just because the saving throw might not have been obvious.

 

[Clint_L]

But seeing the other character make a saving throw isn’t the only reason a character might not want to eat the fruit. Even if that’s why the player doesn’t want their character to do it, why can’t the character not do it for an unrelated reason, such as… I dunno, not liking pineapple or whatever.

If the player wants to be lame and make up lame excuses for their meta-gaming, that's up to them. I don't really want to play with them, though, because I think that's a player who doesn't want to...well, play. That's a player who wants to win, like they're in a game of monopoly or something.

It's like doing improv with someone who just wants to do "no, but..." instead of "yes, and..." That's their choice, but it make for a pretty unfun evening.

I want to be clear - if it is consistent with their character that they pass up the fruit because they are super rude or allergic or whatever, then that's a different story. But I think we all understand that's not what the OP is describing. The OP is describing a situation where story logic is that the characters would eat the fruit, but the players are saying "Nah, I don't want to have them do that because now I, the player, know there's a saving throw involved, even though everything looks fine to my character."

Edit: And look, I understand that we are playing a game with rules. But for me the fun of the game is in suspending disbelief and treating it like the story is real, like your characters are real, and not like we are sitting around playing a complicated game of Battleships or whatever.

Edit 2: And yes, I can see everyone arguing, "well, maybe it made sense for the characters to pass on the fruit," etc. Yes, I've already conceded then in that case, fine. But I think it is patently obvious that was not what the OP was describing or asking. So I think folks are just trying to dodge the dilemma.

But just to clarify where we stand on the argument: let's assume that the only logical course of action was to eat the fruit, and the player explicitly says, "I know that my character loves fruit and hates being rude and it only makes sense for them to eat the fruit, but now that I, the player, see that something bad might happen because I saw you make my buddy make a saving throw here at the gaming table, I refuse to have my character do that."

If that happened at my table, I would agree that the player can do what they want with their character, for whatever reasons they want. But afterwards, I would explain that the game is a shared fiction and by refusing to engage with the shared fiction, they undermine it. And then if it persisted, I wouldn't invite them back. Because I'm the one doing all the work, and they aren't interested in doing basically the minimum to contribute. YVMV, but that's just not a style of D&D that interests me. At all.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And yes, I can see everyone arguing, "well, maybe it made sense for the characters to pass on the fruit," etc. Yes, I've already conceded then in that case, fine. But I think it is patently obvious that was not what the OP was describing or asking. So I think folks are just trying to dodge the dilemma.

But just to clarify where we stand on the argument: let's assume that the only logical course of action was to eat the fruit, and the player explicitly says, "I know that my character loves fruit and hates being rude and it only makes sense for them to eat the fruit, but now that I, the player, see that something bad might happen because I saw you make my buddy make a saving throw here at the gaming table, I refuse to have my character do that."

If that happened at my table, I would agree that the player can do what they want with their character, for whatever reasons they want. But afterwards, I would explain that the game is a shared fiction and by refusing to engage with the shared fiction, they undermine it. And then if it persisted, I wouldn't invite them back. Because I'm the one doing all the work, and they aren't interested in doing basically the minimum to contribute. YVMV, but that's just not a style of D&D that interests me. At all.

Extremely well-said.

It seems to me absolutely unequivocal and blatantly obvious that the characters have no good reason not to eat the fruit. The characters were not particularly suspicious of the random stranger (they did, after all, willingly come to sit at the table...) There is no mention of allergies, or particular rudeness, or some other pre-existing factor which would act as a blanket justification. There are no mitigating circumstances, like the characters noticing Ser Eager Fruit Eater experiencing gastrointestinal distress. Nothing, not one single thing, appears to give any in-character justification, at all.

This does not appear to be a matter of "characters do things for reasons differing from player reasons." Because yes, that's true. The reasons don't have to be 1:1. But the character does need some actual, in-world reason to do what they do. I have not, at any point, seen Iserith provide even the tiniest shred of evidence that there is an in-character reason for this response. If I have overlooked it, then I apologize. But it's really frustrating to be constantly met with "but there COULD be SOME reason!" when literally all signs point to no, there WASN'T some reason.

The one, and ONLY, reason for their in-character behavior was, very clearly, out-of-character knowledge that the characters could not possibly, even in principle, have acquired. No efforts at eagle-eyed detection of rapid poison onset symptoms or digestive distress, no chary-eyed suspicion of the fruit itself, hell, not even a token effort at "I don't trust this guy's motives, does he seem shifty?" Literally, actually nothing...except the purely IRL knowledge that the IRL player had to roll dice.

 

[iserith]

Extremely well-said.

It seems to me absolutely unequivocal and blatantly obvious that the characters have no good reason not to eat the fruit. The characters were not particularly suspicious of the random stranger (they did, after all, willingly come to sit at the table...) There is no mention of allergies, or particular rudeness, or some other pre-existing factor which would act as a blanket justification. There are no mitigating circumstances, like the characters noticing Ser Eager Fruit Eater experiencing gastrointestinal distress. Nothing, not one single thing, appears to give any in-character justification, at all.

This does not appear to be a matter of "characters do things for reasons differing from player reasons." Because yes, that's true. The reasons don't have to be 1:1. But the character does need some actual, in-world reason to do what they do. I have not, at any point, seen Iserith provide even the tiniest shred of evidence that there is an in-character reason for this response. If I have overlooked it, then I apologize. But it's really frustrating to be constantly met with "but there COULD be SOME reason!" when literally all signs point to no, there WASN'T some reason.

The one, and ONLY, reason for their in-character behavior was, very clearly, out-of-character knowledge that the characters could not possibly, even in principle, have acquired. No efforts at eagle-eyed detection of rapid poison onset symptoms or digestive distress, no chary-eyed suspicion of the fruit itself, hell, not even a token effort at "I don't trust this guy's motives, does he seem shifty?" Literally, actually nothing...except the purely IRL knowledge that the IRL player had to roll dice.

Players aren't required to state their reasons for having their characters not do something. So we'll never know. That there are a practically limitless number of reasons that the characters could have acted that way should be sufficient in my view to satisfy any concerns that it "wasn't what your character would do." Because, after all, if you absolutely insist on knowing why (and why would you?), we need only pick one that makes some sense in context.