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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6684207" data-attributes="member: 4937">I am not insinuating anything.  I'm not even implying anything.   I am openly and emphatically declaring that your stance is as rule lawyer-ish as it comes.   As long as you are being pedantic, at least be correct. I suppose in the sense that any argument over a point like this is meaningless, as we don't know each other or game together and are unlikely to persuade each other, that on that point any such discussion as this is argument for the sake of argument.  However, I am not disagreeing with you merely for the sake of being disagreeable or contrary.  I really do think you are horribly wrong and giving bad advice.  Suggesting that I'm arguing merely for the sake of argument, is I think implying that you don't think anyone could have a legitimate reason for disagreeing with you.What exactly do we agree over?  I don't agree that this can be neatly characterized as "metagaming", and I certainly don't agree that anyone is cheating.  But to the extent I feel disinclined to let anyone get away with dysfunctional behavior, it would be the DM in your suggested resolution.  I feel this scenario is congruent to the 'Search' examples you have ignored, and feel that the DM forcing a player to take a particular action as punishment for having seen a dice roll made in the open is rude, relies on DM fiat rather than rules, is prone to abuse, and suggests a DM that won't take responsibility for their own mistakes.   To draw another comparison with a similar case, it would be like the DM accidently blurting out the answer to a riddle or puzzle, and then disallowing the player from correctly answering the riddle or puzzle because he's now "metagaming".   DM: "Nope, sorry.  You are only giving the correct answer because you heard it.  You have to give the wrong answer now and be cursed."PC: "It's a fair cop."Taking a vote on this is a not a solution in the general case, as we have no way of knowing whether there are only two players, can't guarantee that the vote would be fair, and in any event it's the GM's responsibility to be a neutral referee and not the other players.I think you are allowing your emotion in this matter to overrule your reason.Ok, you are a rules lawyer.  Once again, you are trying to fix a failure of the social contract, or a perceived failure of the social contract, by resorting to constructions of the rules that can't be justified by the literal text.  Since the rules themselves can't fix a failure of the social contract, this is dysfunctional behavior.  I don't agree that metagaming is equivalent to cheating, nor do I necessarily agree that this particular instance of metagaming was cheating.  (Again, on what substantial point do we agree?)  There are times when metagaming is perfectly valid, as for example steering your play away from subject matter you know a fellow player would find personally objectionable, or changing how your character behaves in order to successfully riff off of another players prompts when arguably it would be 'realistic' to engage in conflict, or tacitly agreeing to open conflict between PC's with the understand it will never be mortal or break the party.  This is a very mature sort of metagaming.But what you are calling 'metagaming' here is basically no different than prodding a square with a 10' poll even after a Search check revealed no traps, or giving the answer to a riddle the DM accidently blurted out, or identifying the villain correctly when the DM accidently uses the real name of the NPC in place of his nom de plume, or deciding a theory you voice is correct because when you voice the theory the DM is unable to hide his reaction.  Those things are not the fault of the player.  He can't be blamed for information the DM has imparted through the metagame that should have been concealed, nor can you justly compel a player to ignore this information on the grounds he wouldn't have acted that way without it because you just can never know the counterfactual.Once again, it's the DM screwing players over and who should be embarrassed and apologetic here.  And I say that not as player too often burned by DMs, but as a guy who has been 'the DM' for like 25 of the last 32 years and has learned from my own mistakes.I consider that a confession of your failing not mine.  I'll quote the rules for Feinting in full:  Your quote doesn't appear in that text, so its already out of context.   The rule you quote doesn't apply to Sense Motive checks made in defense of Feints, which have their own special rules.  The quote you make appears elsewhere, but even there it has been deprived of its context by quoting it in isolation despite the fact that the sentence itself is referencing both the prior sentence explicitly and the following sentences implicitly.  No, it's not.  I'll quote it in full now:You'll notice resisting feint isn't mentioned anywhere.  The rules on resisting feint are self-contained, as for one thing they provide for a special opposed check not used anywhere else in the rules.You are wrong on at least two counts.  First, this sentence is not referencing the feint rule.  You can't just assume this sentence references the feint rule just because no other one does.  You neglect the possibility that none of this text references the feint rule.  The sentence you do reference is preamble, and most probably and logically summarize the 'Hunch' and 'Sense Enchantment' rules below that will soon be disclosed.  As preamble, the sentence you reference is most likely not even a rule, but just introductory or summary text describing the rules that will follow in the section below so that someone skimming through the rules will be able to determine if the section applies to the situation.  But, even if the preamble has in fact the force of rules, then the sentence that you excluded from the preamble is most definitely the one of the two that actually references resisting feint.  It reads: "A successful check lets you avoid being bluffed."  Referencing back to the Feint rules, they read in part: "To feint, make a Bluff check opposed by a Sense Motive check by your target."  So this sentence refers to the general case of which resisting Feint is an example.  And this sentence if you include it with the out of context sentence you keep quoting, devastates your attempt at rules lawyering, because that sentence begins: "You can also use this skill..."  In other words, whatever that sentence does refer to, it is most certainly not resisting attempts to feint or other bluff checks.   Again, the sentence you have quoted most likely references the additional rules that follow which are not resisted checks, but have static DCs.    By insinuating that I'm "joking around", you are implying that you don't think people could have a valid reason for disagreeing with you.  And again, you are not in fact referencing the actual rules.  Nothing in the rules actually states that a character that is successfully feinted has any constraints on his subsequent actions.  You have not provided any evidence for that claim.  Nor have you provided rules evidence that what you call 'metagaming' is cheating and contrary to the rules.   Nor for that matter is your chosen solution to call for a vote of the players strict adherence to the rules.  It does have the advantage of at least trying to address a social contract issue as a social contract issue, but it is not I think a good idea to ask players to rule against each other nor is it always possible (again, suppose we only have the two players), nor does it put the responsibility for the problem where it should rest.What you have done is decided is that the implied social contract as you understand it has been violated, and then tried to construct a very shaky rules argument for justifying not only your perception and understanding of the social contract, but a solution not actually found in the rules.  And then baldly stated the counterfactual claim, "My argument is in defense of the actual rules."  Yeah, which one?</blockquote>

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