D&D 5E Average damage or rolled damage?

[Maxperson]

Nonsense. I can't know it to be a falsehood because it is a fact.

That's utterly impossible. Since I'm not like that and I allow what you say I disallow, you cannot be right. Since I've told you repeatedly that you are wrong and explained it to you, you know your statements to be false.

Either a character in that situation with the knowledge that character has can do a particular action, or that character in that situation with that knowledge can't. It doesn't matter what the player knows or doesn't know.

Anyone can do the action. It's not about whether or not the character can do it. It's about whether it is cheating or not.

That is thought policing, and slowing the game done for no benefit at all - especially because you either ask each and every player to explain their character's reason for each and every action they ever take no matter how many times they have or haven't taken that action, or you are being inconsistent and only asking for an in-character explanation when you have decided to suspect the player having the "wrong" reason for doing something.

Judging based on actions and in game reasons, and not thoughts, can't be thought policing, because the thought behind it doesn't matter.

 

[Maxperson]

You should stop trying to twist my statements around like that. I've not "finally owned up" to anything, because I have been open and up-front about my usage of the word meta-gaming from the get go, because it is necessary for me to point out the difference between what other people call meta-gaming that I call cheating or playing in bad faith.

And those few pages back when I said what you have paraphrased as "it's the same" what I actually said was that your definition of metagaming (using knowledge the character doesn't have to determine the character's actions) is the definition of metagaming that I am using when I make the claim that in order to supposedly avoid metagaming you are actually forcing metagaming to happen, just with a different result (specifically that you are using a player's knowledge that a character doesn't have to say what that character cannot do - evident in that you consider not the action itself, but the reason the player picked that action, when determining what is or isn't cheating).

There's no helping that since if I weren't using a more precise definition like I do people would have even less of a chance to understand what I mean when I say there is no such thing as metagaming; there is just playing your character doing what a character could do in whatever situations come along, and cheating by doing things that can't possibly make sense to do in a situation.

This entire statement can be boiled down into, "I don't want to use the accepted definition of metagaming, because I agree that that definition is cheating and I don't want metagaming to be cheating. Therefore I have created a new one where it isn't cheating and am now calling everyone else who says metagaming is cheating, wrong."

Yeah, I get it... no deepening player investment in the campaign by enriching their character's background with added relevant detail while the campaign is in progress, you either write the entire life story of your character from birth to campaign start before the campaign or you don't get to have your character have lived a full and interesting life before becoming an adventurer.

Wrong. They can deepen things by background development if they want. They just can't use it to cheat and gain mechanical advantage through knowledge that the character didn't have 1 minute before.

 

[Maxperson]

This concern about meta-gaming seems more about the DM feeling the players aren't challenged enough and are thus wrecking their encounters but cutting down the monsters too easily.

I guess I'm not understanding why, if you have a group of experienced players you don't just up the challenge of each encounter? Sure they know the tricks. But they're going to have to use them wisely to get the better of the monsters and come out reasonably unscathed.

And what was this thread about again?

Speaking for myself, that's not true. When the players come up with an idea or brilliant tactic and easily destroys an encounter, I'm happy for them.

For me it's a cheating issue and nothing more.

 

[Maxperson]

I would argue the only real way to "cheat" in DnD is to steal peeks at the DMs notes on the adventure/campaign.

First, my notes on the adventure include the monsters Second, there's no difference between reading my notes and having the PC act on that knowledge without any rational way to explain it, and reading a D&D book and acting on that knowledge without any rational way to explain it.

 

[Warbringer]

A player doesn't get to suddenly decide that their grandpappy is a survivor of the underdark and at some point explained all that goes on down there to the PC, just as the party is descending into the depths of the earth.

Hell yes they do. Why not? A successful knowledge check on the underdark lore ( natural 20) - player explains it as exactly that... A player spends inspiration for advantage because their pappy was a smuggler to the underdark... Or spends inspiration for a contact to give a safe place to stay ... Grandpappy knew this gnome he used to adventure with, siad if I ever needed help in the U, look him up ... Etc

 

[Lanefan]

I've limited myself from making encounters challenging. I try to focus on fun. A difficult fight can be fun, of course, but so are those where the players don't feel threatened and can be encouraged to do the crazy, silly, fun stuff like you see on TV shows and action movies.

And they actually have to "metagame" for this to work. They have have to use the players' knowledge that they are mostly safe from real harm to make their characters choose suboptimal fun combat actions.

Hell, we do the crazy fun stuff even in the most dangerous of combats!

And what was this thread about again?

As its originator, I 'd say it can be about anything relating to a previous post that both holds interest and doesn't annoy the mods. Occasional vague references to average vs. rolled damage are probaboy optional, at this point.

Lan-"having three or four interesting discussions within the same thread is way more convenient than having them in three or four different threads"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

Hell yes they do. Why not? A successful knowledge check on the underdark lore ( natural 20) - player explains it as exactly that... A player spends inspiration for advantage because their pappy was a smuggler to the underdark... Or spends inspiration for a contact to give a safe place to stay ... Grandpappy knew this gnome he used to adventure with, siad if I ever needed help in the U, look him up ... Etc

And this, I have no problem with at all.

Why?

Because you threw in the bit about the successful nat.-20 check on the underdark lore first.

It seems some here want to skip the dice part and jump straight to their character(s) always knowing just what they need to know when they need to know it whether such makes sense or not; and that I do have a problem with.

It comes back - to resurrect the original topic ever so briefly - to how much knowledge is too much; and fixed damage amounts are one example of too much.

Lan-"explanation for rolling '1' on underdark lore: 'well, I fell in a pit once, does that count?'"-efan

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

That's utterly impossible. Since I'm not like that and I allow what you say I disallow, you cannot be right. Since I've told you repeatedly that you are wrong and explained it to you, you know your statements to be false.

Except that you only claim to allow what I say you disallow, and you then contradict that claim of allowance, and pretend that you have not, by insisting that a player has to explain their "in-character reason" for why they as a player did something that seemed cool based on the circumstances at hand - and the only reason why you demand the explanation that you have given? Because maybe they are cheating by having the wrong reason.

Anyone can do the action. It's not about whether or not the character can do it. It's about whether it is cheating or not.

I again repeat that if the action is okay to take, then the action is okay to take - and is not possibly cheating. What you are saying is that it is fine to do the action, but it isn't fine to think what you are thinking.

Judging based on actions and in game reasons, and not thoughts, can't be thought policing, because the thought behind it doesn't matter.

If the thought behind it doesn't matter, you wouldn't be demanding an explanation of in game reasons. You'd just assume that because there are valid in game reasons for the character to do what it did, one of those must have been the reason. Since you don't assume that, and in fact try to catch out your player as giving the wrong reason, or not explaining it well enough, you are absolutely trying to police the player's thoughts.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

This entire statement can be boiled down into, "I don't want to use the accepted definition of metagaming, because I agree that that definition is cheating and I don't want metagaming to be cheating. Therefore I have created a new one where it isn't cheating and am now calling everyone else who says metagaming is cheating, wrong."

No, it can't. That's a complete mischaracterization of my point, and you are intelligent enough to be aware of that so I can only assume you are intentionally mischaracterizing my statements.

Wrong. They can deepen things by background development if they want. They just can't use it to cheat and gain mechanical advantage through knowledge that the character didn't have 1 minute before.

...so they can deepen the background unless it is actually relevant?

You are so caught up on the idea of cheating that you are stifling a player's ability to meaningfully contribute to the shared story experience.

 

[Maxperson]

Hell yes they do. Why not? A successful knowledge check on the underdark lore ( natural 20) - player explains it as exactly that... A player spends inspiration for advantage because their pappy was a smuggler to the underdark... Or spends inspiration for a contact to give a safe place to stay ... Grandpappy knew this gnome he used to adventure with, siad if I ever needed help in the U, look him up ... Etc

You seem to have missed that we aren't talking about rational in game reasons for it like knowledge rolls.