A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[Maxperson]

So, that city kid whose closest experience with a forest is the last salad he ate is going to have a working knowledge of forests? That dwarf whose spent his entire life underground understands forests? That acolyte who grew up in a temple in Waterdeep has a working knowledge of forests?

That city kid and acolyte who used to find paths through the trees in the park when he was young? Who used to have stories of children wandering wooded paths told to him by his grandmother? Before you start saying, "But uncle Ernie!!" It's not the same thing as trees are basic aspects of the world and trolls are not. One is all over the place, unless you are in a setting like Athas. One is never going to be seen by 90%+ of the population of the planet.

And a dwarf who never went out onto the mountain and its trees/forests would have sunlight sensitivity like drow have, having spent his entire life in the darkness. So sure, if you want to voluntarily give your dwarf sunlight sensitivity and let me know in your background that you stayed underground your entire life, I'd accept that you wouldn't know about paths in the forests. Of course, you also wouldn't make that declaration to me, knowing that your PC didn't know about paths.

You are aware that if you have to create corner case scenarios like dwarves who have never left the darkness in order to "disprove" basic world knowledge, you've just proven my point, right? Going out of your way to find exceptions to the rule, proves the rule.

Sure. You're not inserting yourself as the Author at all. Nope, not a little bit.

Not at all. I've been arguing this entire thread that things that make sense via background provide knowledge. Pay attention.

 

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] - now that I've drawn your attention to the fact that, in the same essay that includes the word "only" that you are rather fodcused upon, Ron Edwards also describes "actor stance" as utilizing the character's knowledge and priorities to determine what the character does, do you remain adamant that you can play in actor stance although your PC has no established priorities?

Priorities =/= established priorities.

But where does that motivation come from? If you're just authoring it ("my PC is curious about trees!") because you want your PC to go into the forest, that's the paradigm of author stance - choosing based on player priorities and retrofitting an appropriate motivation onto the PC.

If authoring priorities for the PC(not for the player) = a failure to be able to go into actor stance, then actor stance does not exist. All priorities for the PC are authored by the player. You can author the priority a year in advance of the game, and "your just authoring it."

It does not matter whether you author them in advance or on the spot. So long as they are PC motivations and not the player's motivations, it is not author stance.

But in games which don't have those motivations, and don't care about them, it's pawn stance all the way! I can't pretnd to be across the full gamut of TSR D&D modules, but the first one I can think of that doesn't rest on a premise of pawn stance is Dragonlance. The G, D, A, C, S and I (Pharoah) modules, B1, B2, X1, X2 and the X (Desert Nomad) modules all assume pawn stance. Even some later modules that present themselves as more "story heavy", like the OA modules, need a fair bit of work to be usable from a non-pawn stance perspective. (I've done that work for OA3 and OA7.) The two 3E-era modules I've used - Speaker in Dreams and Bastion of Broken Souls - also assume pawn stance. (And I've done work on them, to use elements of them in games that place more emphasis on PC motivations.)

Modules are irrelevant to stance. Only the PC and/or player matter. I had a DM take a PC of mine who I created a strong background for and had played from 1st level to the level required for the Pharaoh modules, and then ran us through them. Are you really arguing that I could not make decisions in actor stance for a PC who I knew intimately, because module?

 

[Aldarc]

And how’s that been working for you? Wait ... don’t answer. I’ll check in another 500 comments.

I would assess that with most people in this thread, the terminology is working swimmingly well. Just because at least one obstinate individual is failing miserably with it does not mean that the terminology fails. I believe it is useful to recognize the difference between the failures of terminology and the failures of human agents.

That city kid and acolyte who used to find paths through the trees in the park when he was young? Who used to have stories of children wandering wooded paths told to him by his grandmother? Before you start saying, "But uncle Ernie!!" It's not the same thing as trees are basic aspects of the world and trolls are not. One is all over the place, unless you are in a setting like Athas. One is never going to be seen by 90%+ of the population of the planet.

And a dwarf who never went out onto the mountain and its trees/forests would have sunlight sensitivity like drow have, having spent his entire life in the darkness. So sure, if you want to voluntarily give your dwarf sunlight sensitivity and let me know in your background that you stayed underground your entire life, I'd accept that you wouldn't know about paths in the forests. Of course, you also wouldn't make that declaration to me, knowing that your PC didn't know about paths.

You are aware that if you have to create corner case scenarios like dwarves who have never left the darkness in order to "disprove" basic world knowledge, you've just proven my point, right? Going out of your way to find exceptions to the rule, proves the rule.

LOL. So basically what you are saying here is that you are applying arbitrary standards about what is common and what is uncommon? Understood.

 

[Sadras]

No doubt [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] will correct me if I'm wrong - but I took the point to be that if a player decides that his/her PC doesn't know about trolls because of compliance with a table rule forbidding "metagaming", then the action has been taken to give effect to a player priority, and hence is author stance.

Actor stance would be based on what one's character knows and wants. If the established fiction doesn't tell me whether or not my character knows about trolls, then actor stance in a troll encounter won't be possible.

I don't agree with the above assessment.
If the fiction doesn't inform you if your character knows about trolls, and the mechanics were also negative in this regard (say no, or failure on die roll), then that informs you that that your character does not know about trolls and in true actor stance you have to roleplay not knowing. Mechanics or limited fiction does not automatically translate to author stance. I mean Maxperson got so much grief for his realism definition for it being all encompassing, and yet here we want to attribute author stance to anything where mechanics need to be called upon for PC knowledge. That doesn't sit well with me.

 

[Ovinomancer]

To be clear when I mean actor stance I'm referring to thinking in character not acting in character or rehearsing a script. I'm unsure why you thought I was referring to actual acting in character.

EDIT: Metagaming is about not thinking in character as your decisions in game are being influenced by external factors (game mechanics for instance, or RL-time constraints/pacing...etc)

I thought that because Max has strongly linked acting and Actor stance and you were referring to his position.

And, yes, that's a functional definition of metagaming that I disagree with, but it can still be used. With the definition of metagaming, metagaming is unavoidable at all in a situation where tge player knows about trolls but it's not establisged if tge character does. Even making a knowledge check to establish PC knowledge would be engaging in metagaming, as you're using mechanics because of player knowledge that there's something to know. Regardless, it would all be Author stance.

 

[Maxperson]

Players at [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s table may enjoy acting, but that's not Actor stance. You can use Author, Director, and even Pawn stance and still do acting. Actor stance really has little to do with acting or what's usually called "being in character" in RPGs.

As actors, only one of them would be any good. They use actor stance.

The vast majority of my D&D play has been Author stance play, yet I mostly use "I" statements and talk in funny voices. I'm making decisions from my player point of view and then coming up with PC motivations. Any time I decide not to murder that elf after being caught in another fireball because that elf is a PC, I'm in Author stance even if I play my character as grumbling about that damn elf and making theeats. It's my player motivations that decide, not the PC's.

Yeeeeaaaah, this isn't what they do. When we had a player whose PC caught us with a fireball for the third time, our PCs told his PC that the next time it happened we would kill him, and we would have. It didn't happen again.

We play the PC's desire, not the desires of the player.

By that I mean no stance, as defined, cares about that form of metagaming. You can decide that your character knows about trolls in Actor stance quite easily, because if the character knows it, it's part of the character's knowledge.

Nobody has argued that, though. [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] tried to bring that into this discussion, too. It wasn't relevant, then, either.

However, as I said above, if you have your character act like they don't know when the player knows because of the player's desire to not engage in the player concept of metagaming, you're in Author stance by definition.

Nobody has argued that, either. We are not acting like the character doesn't know, because of the player's desire not to engage in metagaming. We are saying that the PC knows or doesn't know based on things like pre-established background, skills, etc., and if the PC doesn't know, then having the PC use that player knowledge anyway would be metagaming. Thanks for playing, Let's Bring in the Strawman, though.

 

[Maxperson]

Actor stance would be based on what one's character knows and wants. If the established fiction doesn't tell me whether or not my character knows about trolls, then actor stance in a troll encounter won't be possible.

That's a False Dichotomy. The choices aren't established fiction or no actor stance. The choices also include not knowing if the PC knows about trolls and having to make a roll to see if the PC possesses the knowledge. It's very possible to engage actor stance if there is no knowledge established by the fiction prior to the encounter. A simple knowledge check will suffice, and then the player can proceed to make the decision based on what his character knows about trolls.

 

[Maxperson]

LOL. So basically what you are saying here is that you are applying arbitrary standards about what is common and what is uncommon? Understood.

Game world facts are arbitrary now?

 

[Sadras]

And, yes, that's a functional definition of metagaming that I disagree with, but it can still be used. With the definition of metagaming, metagaming is unavoidable at all in a situation where tge player knows about trolls but it's not establisged if tge character does. Even making a knowledge check to establish PC knowledge would be engaging in metagaming, as you're using mechanics because of player knowledge that there's something to know. Regardless, it would all be Author stance.

I dunno, IMO there is a significant difference between using the mechanics to determine if one's character knows about trolls, and another in which the player uses their knowledge about falling damage and their current hit point total to inform themselves if their character can survive jumping off a 40 foot height before their action declaration. The latter I would classify as metagaming, not the former. Furthermore in 5e at least, the DM needs to permit your roll, so it is an instruction by the DM.
If my definition of metagaming is falling short to differentiate between the two, which it probably is, then that is on me - but I'm speaking clearly enough for all to understand.

I really do not want to get caught up in a Hussar/Maxperson definition debacle*. Humourous as they are to witness (and they really are) I don't have the energy to be involved in one.

EDIT: *The street urchin one is the conversation to top.

 

[Aldarc]

Game world facts are arbitrary now?

Max. Max. Max. Really? Confusing your "game world opinions" for objective "game worlds facts"? Given your prior statement on the error of confusing facts with opinions, I'm quite disappointed in you. Will you ever learn?