DM question: how much do you incorporate PC backgrounds into the campaign?

[Fenris-77]

Guess it's a good thing then that most of us are, if not drama queens, at least somewhere in the ranks of drama nobility.

We need to have a fantasy draft for our drama titles. Could be awesome. I'd like to be a Viscount, or perhaps a Marquis.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I can't see anything remotely immersive about responding to your brother turns up in cultist robes not by worrying (in character) about how and why one's brother joined the cult, but rather (as a participant in a game) calculating the odds that the GM made a framing decision one way rather than another.

Besides, Bayes likely doesn’t exist in the game world (unless you are playing urban fantasy) and in a high fantasy setting, his theorem hasn’t been discovered.

 

[pemerton]

Story logic is the form of meta-gaming that's relevant to this thread. If the DM makes things happen in order to facilitate a story, then that's a form of not-acting-purely-on-internal-causality (aka meta-gaming). It's the same category of behavior as other forms of meta-gaming, such as dungeon speed-running. If you're in the game because you want to pretend to be a real person in a believable world, then those things are both bad for the exact same reason.

I have bolded the false statement in this post. In my view, based on my experience, it is obviously false.

When I play (which is much less often than when I GM, but it does happen from time to time) I play my character as a real person in a believable world. As one component of that, I engage the fictional world on its own terms, as it is narrated to me by the GM. I don't worry about the real world issue of how the GM decided to narrate A rather than B.

I've also underlined a clause in the post. That clause is incoherent. A person in the real world (eg me the player) cannot act purely on something that is purely imaginary, ie "internal causality". I act for reasons that exist in the real world, such as (to quote) pretending to be a real person in a believable world. That act of pretence is largely independent of how other participants make their decisions. Of course if other participants take decisions that puncture the believability of the world, that might be an issue. But it's not remotely unbelievable - though of course it might be incredibly shocking - that my brother has joined the cult, or that Darth Vader is my father.

 

[Umbran]

Anyone here seen the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Last Action Hero?

The Hero and Villain of that film operate on different logic than you or I do (or would, in their general situation), because they come from a world where the rules are different. Events unfold differently. It is in character for a person to act in accordance of the rules of their world... but for RPG characters, that world is different from ours. Theirs is the game world.

So, the player has to emulate someone with a different experience from their own. To do that, they do have to have the rules of the fictional world in mind, and abide by them.

 

[pemerton]

Now here I'll ask: how many have even tried full-immersion RP?

For me, full-immersion is kind of like a holy grail

Full Immersion is a myth, there's no such thing. There are certainly levels of immersion, some of them quite deep, but we never get to escape the fact that the character is an avatar of the player.

If full immersion means not knowing who one really is, or actually believing that one is the PC, then it seems like it may not be compatible with lucid sanity.

If full immersion means experiencing the ingame situation as, or from the perspective of, the PC, then I have done that. Mostly playing CoC, with GMs who are very skillful at evoking the situation in not only "objective" terms but in emotional terms also.

Because what they're doing is spoiling the play of others.

<snip>

I'm talking about where we're both players in a game, your character is off on a solo scouting mission where my PC has no idea what you're doing, yet every time you've a decision to make I'm butting in and suggesting (or worse, outright telling you) what to do and in so doing interrupting both your immersion and your thought process.

This assume a very particular approach to the RPGing experience. It seems at least related to @Saelorn's example, upthread, of cheating in the play of a module by reading it in advance.

As soon as we change some of the parameters of what play is for, and about, and how it's to be done, then all these other things change too. Eg for the full immersion experience I described above it's absolutely crucial that players, and even moreso the GM, engage with you by commenting on your choice, helping you see the full emotional significance of the situation and your response to it, etc.

 

[Aldarc]

So, "metagaming" exists when the player/PC hidden fact knowledge diverges, for any reason. Here's the controversial statement: this is mostly going to be the GM's fault, except in cases of outright cheating where a player has knowledge but conceals it from the other players for personal gain. So, outside of bad faith play (lying by omission), "metagaming" is usually a GM caused issue. It's caused by the GM establishing a fact pattern that is known by the players but expected to be not known by the PCs. You don't have to do this. You could, with a bit of effort, establish fact patterns that are unknown to both players and PCs or, alternatively, you can establish fact patterns that aren't dependent on player's knowing them. To turn back to the troll, you could reskin the troll or change it's abilities to be a surprise to both players and PCs as an example of the first, or you could just not expect the troll to be a serious single challenge to experienced players and establish that PCs do know about trolls in the latter. If you're canny, you can do the last by putting the troll in a place where fire is dangerous or difficult to use, such as a explosive gas filled chamber or underwater. This establishes a fact pattern where the players knowing about trolls is irrelevant to the anticipated challenge of the situation.

I know that I have posted it before, but Angry GM comes to a similar conclusion about metagaming: "Dear GMs: Metagaming is YOUR Fault." Of course, it's something that most GMs don't won't to hear. Or in the words of the Angry GM:

In the end, as a GM, if you start losing your s$&% about metagaming, you need to adjust your attitude. Most metagaming isn’t problematic. It’s only problematic because you have some f$&%ed up idea about how the game is supposed to work. And the problematic metagaming, the metagaming that really DOES somehow break something is a sign of another problem. And you need to fix THAT problem. And THAT problem is usually you.

The more I have discussed metagaming, the less that I have actually seen it as a problem that actually exists. Most players are there to have fun, so that's what I try to focus on as a GM or player rather than a fake metagame boogeyman.

We need to have a fantasy draft for our drama titles. Could be awesome. I'd like to be a Viscount, or perhaps a Marquis.

I hereby inform you of my election to the position of "Drama Doge."

 

[pemerton]

To turn back to the troll, you could reskin the troll or change it's abilities to be a surprise to both players and PCs as an example of the first, or you could just not expect the troll to be a serious single challenge to experienced players and establish that PCs do know about trolls in the latter. If you're canny, you can do the last by putting the troll in a place where fire is dangerous or difficult to use, such as a explosive gas filled chamber or underwater. This establishes a fact pattern where the players knowing about trolls is irrelevant to the anticipated challenge of the situation.

A tangential remark:

What you descibe here is an important aspect of (well-designed) 4e D&D combat encounters. That is, it should be both interesting to discover what a NPC/creature can do in combat, and if the players learn this other than the hard way (typically by way of a monster knowledge check) it should still be interesting to work out how you're going to handle it given the constraints (of resources, terrain, other elements of the situation) that you have to act under.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I know that I have posted it before, but Angry GM comes to a similar conclusion about metagaming: "Dear GMs: Metagaming is YOUR Fault." Of course, it's something that most GMs don't won't to hear. Or in the words of the Angry GM:


I hereby inform you of my election to the position of "Drama Doge."

Heh. I don't read Angry, but I might should, given how often I'm told Angry has said something similar to me.

I'd like to be a Drama Despot, but I promise an enlighted rule. Trust me.

 

[Aldarc]

I definitely don't agree with everything he says, such as when talking about Fate, but I at least respect that he puts a modicum of effort into explaining his positions about things.

I also found this other OSR-community opinion piece: "If You're Not Metagaming, You're Not Trying Hard Enough."

 

[Fenris-77]

Just keeping track, we have a Drama Despot and a Drama Doge. I'd like to encourage some additional verbiage, as it'll get crowded if we just have single titles. For example, Fenris-77, Marquis of Drama, Knight of Optimization, and Protector of Salty Snacks.