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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6681506" data-attributes="member: 6775031">The former. When playing a role, the player should try to do what the character would do in that circumstance (based on the character's abilities, knowledge, and personality), and not do what the player would do in that circumstance (based on the character's abilities, but the player's knowledge and personality).Using player knowledge that the character doesn't have access to is the classic example of meta-gaming, and if there's one agenda that they really put forth in the AD&amp;D 2E era, it's that meta-gaming is something you should absolutely never do. Likewise, acting in a way contrary to the character's established behavior (after several sessions) is going to seem jarring to the rest of the players, and should be avoided whenever possible - it's just poor role-playing, in the same way that a novel with inconsistent characterization would be considered poor writing. (Some players get around the difficulty of pretending to be someone else by making characters who would behave very much like themselves; and while that's a great tool for players new to role-playing, I think many players would get bored playing the same personality over and over, so eventually they would want to branch out and play someone with a different personality.)And while I think we can all agree that there are sometimes good reasons to meta-game - to prevent one or more players from being sidelined for hours on end, for example - it's always something to be weighed against the cost of meta-gaming.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 6681506, member: 6775031"] The former. When playing a role, the player should try to do what the character would do in that circumstance (based on the character's abilities, knowledge, and personality), and not do what the player would do in that circumstance (based on the character's abilities, but the player's knowledge and personality). Using player knowledge that the character doesn't have access to is the classic example of meta-gaming, and if there's one agenda that they really put forth in the AD&D 2E era, it's that meta-gaming is something you should absolutely never do. Likewise, acting in a way contrary to the character's established behavior (after several sessions) is going to seem jarring to the rest of the players, and should be avoided whenever possible - it's just poor role-playing, in the same way that a novel with inconsistent characterization would be considered poor writing. (Some players get around the difficulty of pretending to be someone else by making characters who would behave very much like themselves; and while that's a great tool for players new to role-playing, I think many players would get bored playing the same personality over and over, so eventually they would want to branch out and play someone with a different personality.) And while I think we can all agree that there are sometimes good reasons to meta-game - to prevent one or more players from being sidelined for hours on end, for example - it's always something to be weighed against the cost of meta-gaming. [/QUOTE]

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