D&D 5E Do you let PC's just *break* objects?

[Asisreo]

To use the vase as an example, usually I'd doubt they'd break the vase for the sake of breaking the vase. Like, I know that the immediate goal is to break the vase, but what I want to preserve is the surprise of the results.

So, they say they want to break the vase and I say "sure." They might then ask "Did it make a lot of noise?" Which I will probably say "yeah, it rung throughout the room." And they go "Okay, that means that the blind creature we're hunting isn't in this room since it didn't react."

ah! I think That's a pretty clever way to go about it. Maybe not optimal, but I love seeing the creativity of players.

 

[Charlaquin]

But the issue seems to be

1. If the DM asks specifics about how they do something after they declare their action (in our case because the vase is trapped) it clues the player onto the fact that it's not just an ordinary interaction.
2. If the player feels that it's not an ordinary interaction they change what they would have otherwise done.

It's step 2 that I would call metagaming. I simply ask people not to do step 2. If I ask for clarification, it shouldn't affect how they were envisioning their action.

Yeah, I get you. I definitely do want to avoid step 2, but not because it’s metagaming. I have no problem with players taking out of character information into account in their decision-making, I just don’t want to influence their decision-making unnecessarily.

But part of this may well be that I rarely use traps, or poison. I think they're okay in some situations and they can add to the theme and tension of the scenario. When I do have traps, I will frequently ask the player if they want to check for traps first or I'll ask them to roll a check if I'm uncertain what their PC would think. Some styles of D&D have traps around every corner, I don't because traps in old school D&D were often illogical. Just think of the issues you'd have with OSHA!

So in either case, it's simply not an issue for me. I don't need a solution for a problem I don't have. As always do what works for you, life would be boring if we were all the same.

For sure!

 

[Charlaquin]

To use the vase as an example, usually I'd doubt they'd break the vase for the sake of breaking the vase. Like, I know that the immediate goal is to break the vase, but what I want to preserve is the surprise of the results.

So, they say they want to break the vase and I say "sure." They might then ask "Did it make a lot of noise?" Which I will probably say "yeah, it rung throughout the room." And they go "Okay, that means that the blind creature we're hunting isn't in this room since it didn't react."

ah! I think That's a pretty clever way to go about it. Maybe not optimal, but I love seeing the creativity of players.

Huh. Cool that this works for you, to me that seems like a very strange play dynamic.

 

[iserith]

I think it leaves freedom of expression. I could imagine:
Matthew Mercer: ~"You enter the chamber where there's a vase on a pedestal".
Travis Willingham playing Grog Strongjaw: "I smash the vase."
I'd suspect the DM and player in this situation would be cool with this.

That they're cool with this doesn't mean it obviates the potential issues that arise from the approach which have been noted in earlier posts. As far as freedom goes, you're free as a player to be clear with your action declarations or free to be vague or noncommittal. Since the game is basically a conversation where each participants has different roles, I think it's clear which one fosters a conversation with fewer miscommunications - being reasonably clear with the character's goal and approach. This benefits everyone at the table.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I'm pretty sure I've come across cutting through an anvil with a magic sword in order to demonstrate how powerful it is in the fiction.

Absurdly Sharp Blade - TV Tropes

And this is the sort of thing rules are useful for: When the ridiculous (breaking an anvil by hitting it with a sword) collides with the absurd (magical adamantine sword of absurd sharpness). Because those are the cases where common sense says "Pass!"

 

[greg kaye]

That they're cool with this doesn't mean it obviates the potential issues that arise from the approach which have been noted in earlier posts. As far as freedom goes, you're free as a player to be clear with your action declarations or free to be vague or noncommittal. Since the game is basically a conversation where each participants has different roles, I think it's clear which one fosters a conversation with fewer miscommunications - being reasonably clear with the character's goal and approach. This benefits everyone at the table.

I feel you are really playing with words. "I smash the vase" is pretty committal.

You seem to want to dictate not only the style of your players' interactions with you but also the style of DMing within the rest of the community. Sure, in perhaps a rare case, a player will not specify precise details of their actions but hey, that can be their choice.

Grog Strongjaw stating "I smash the vase" would, I think, often be spot on for his characterization. It's rich, it's pithy and I'd argue it's that freedom that, on those occasions that it adds, benefits everyone at the table and, on occasion, less can be more. Grog's goal? A smashed vase. His approach? Smashing.

And IF that's all he wants to say in this interaction, fine.

As you are well aware, what we're involved with in TTRPG is collaborative storytelling. In some cases that could best be served with creative and elaborate descriptions of each action inclusive of the flavored narration of the appearance of spell castings and other character-generated phenomena. In other cases, a Grog-like monosyllabism would provide a closer, character-faithful fit. The DM and player are working together to tell the story they want to tell in the way they want to tell it. These synergies and flexibilities are things that, when they mesh, can benefit everyone at the table.

Please, please, please, there's no one way that tables must rigidly be run. I also have tables with benefits.

 

[Clint_L]

The more I've engaged with this topic over the years the more I've come around to the idea that the objection so often voiced isn't to "metagaming" at all. You and I have both offered a number of approaches to the game that mitigate both the opportunities for and incentive to "metagame." But the people who claim to detest "metagaming" the most are also usually the first to reject those approaches, despite the fact said approaches would mostly rid them of the very thing they say they don't like.

So I've settled on it not really being about "metagaming" at all, but rather it's some kind of test of the player: "Can you avoid 'metagaming' when I put the opportunity to do it in front of you?" Then see if the player chooses to adhere to the group's (or DM's) principles. I can't think of any other reason why, given approaches that will effectively take "metagaming" off the table, why they'd continue to keep it on the table when they claim not to like it.

I find this very confusing. How hard is it to try to act in character? This is supposed to be a cooperative game, after all, where we are working together to create a shared fiction.

I don't set out to "test" my players, and find it insulting that your response to folks disagreeing with your advice is to question our motives, like you of course have the answers and therefore anyone who rejects your Truth must be up to no good. The fact that you "can't think of any other reason why" folks aren't doing what you tell them doesn't prove their perniciousness, it speaks to your failure to look at the issue from another point of view, or to consider that other perspectives might also be valid.

For instance, having the party encounter a troll is not a test of metagaming. What an absurd idea, that I am so concerned with metagaming that I spend my time creating devious story hooks intended to trick my players. It is my assumption that we don't metagame, and so I can use staple D&D creatures without the players taking advantage of knowledge from outside of their character's experience. I make it clear at session 0 that I don't like metagaming, and my regular players and I are pretty copacetic on this point - we like immersing ourselves in the fiction of the story.

If folks are chill with metagaming, then more power to them. There are different ways to play the game, and I don't care if another group enjoys metagaming right up to having every player pull out their monster manual or adventure book whenever they feel like it. It's a gradient, and and whatever works at your table, bless. But those of us who want it minimized in our games aren't having badwrongfun, and we aren't trying to test or trap our players.

 

[Clint_L]

I think this discussion about metagaming is also too often expressed in black and white terms. Most tables are pretty chill about players having some out of character conversations while they are planning and so on. Here is where metagaming bugs me:

1. One player tells another player what to do, outside of the fiction, especially by giving "advice" on a great strategy during that other player's turn. This is often framed as being helpful but I hate it; it is usually about being controlling or wanting to "win" rather than letting people play their own character the way they see fit. At school, I see this all the time with experienced players trying to "help" newer players, often getting frustrated when a player does it "wrong" or makes a mistake.

2. Strategizing by using information that their character does not have. For example, again in one of my school campaigns, two players came up with a plan to instantly neutralize the BBEG in the finale game by acquiring two bags of holding and shoving them together (using a familiar) to instantly banish him. They read about this strategy on the internet; there is no way their characters could have this knowledge in game.

I don't want to try to control my player's access to information, so I simply ask them to play their characters based on what their character could plausibly know, checking with me if in doubt (might need a skill check), and not interrupt other players' turns.

 

[iserith]

I feel you are really playing with words. "I smash the vase" is pretty committal.

You seem to want to dictate not only the style of your players' interactions with you but also the style of DMing within the rest of the community. Sure, in perhaps a rare case, a player will not specify precise details of their actions but hey, that can be their choice.

Grog Strongjaw stating "I smash the vase" would, I think, often be spot on for his characterization. It's rich, it's pithy and I'd argue it's that freedom that, on those occasions that it adds, benefits everyone at the table and, on occasion, less can be more. Grog's goal? A smashed vase. His approach? Smashing.

And IF that's all he wants to say in this interaction, fine.

As you are well aware, what we're involved with in TTRPG is collaborative storytelling. In some cases that could best be served with creative and elaborate descriptions of each action inclusive of the flavored narration of the appearance of spell castings and other character-generated phenomena. In other cases, a Grog-like monosyllabism would provide a closer, character-faithful fit. The DM and player are working together to tell the story they want to tell in the way they want to tell it. These synergies and flexibilities are things that, when they mesh, can benefit everyone at the table.

Please, please, please, there's no one way that tables must rigidly be run. I also have tables with benefits.

To be clear, I don't dictate anything to my players or to "the rest of the community." Making observations and sharing experiences is not dictating anything about how you or anyone else must play. I would ask that be the last time we have to address that here.

Grog Strongjaw's player can also engage in active or descriptive roleplaying to communicate intent, so there's no less opportunity for characterization here than with sticking to "I smash the vase" and not committing to how. As for vague or uncommited actions like that, you can be as cool with that as you want, but the point remains that the approach is fraught with potential problems which were laid out upthread. My approach avoids those situations. Do with that observation what you will. I expect it will be nothing, as my experience with folks who say they value "immersion" and are against "metagaming" are also the ones who do the most to break immersion and incentivize "metagaming" by way of their approach to the game. This doesn't seem like a great way to achieve one's goals to me, but have at it if that's what you prefer.

 

[iserith]

I find this very confusing. How hard is it to try to act in character? This is supposed to be a cooperative game, after all, where we are working together to create a shared fiction.

I don't set out to "test" my players, and find it insulting that your response to folks disagreeing with your advice is to question our motives, like you of course have the answers and therefore anyone who rejects your Truth must be up to no good. The fact that you "can't think of any other reason why" folks aren't doing what you tell them doesn't prove their perniciousness, it speaks to your failure to look at the issue from another point of view, or to consider that other perspectives might also be valid.

For instance, having the party encounter a troll is not a test of metagaming. What an absurd idea, that I am so concerned with metagaming that I spend my time creating devious story hooks intended to trick my players. It is my assumption that we don't metagame, and so I can use staple D&D creatures without the players taking advantage of knowledge from outside of their character's experience. I make it clear at session 0 that I don't like metagaming, and my regular players and I are pretty copacetic on this point - we like immersing ourselves in the fiction of the story.

If folks are chill with metagaming, then more power to them. There are different ways to play the game, and I don't care if another group enjoys metagaming right up to having every player pull out their monster manual or adventure book whenever they feel like it. It's a gradient, and and whatever works at your table, bless. But those of us who want it minimized in our games aren't having badwrongfun, and we aren't trying to test or trap our players.

But see, the troll is a test in my view and it can lead to breaking "immersion." You could choose instead to not use trolls or you could alter the way trolls work (e.g. fire doesn't stop their regeneration on the trolls of the Fire Caves of Argh, who are tainted with devil's blood), and let it be known you do change up lore and stats from time to time, so that "metagaming" is disincentized. The players' knowledge in this situation is, in effect, aligned with the character's knowledge - neither of them can be certain, without taking action, that this troll in front of them is like the troll they fought the last time (or in another adventure or campaign). Immersion is maintained.

Compare that with what many groups do which is break away from immersive descriptions of the environment and the players describing their actions into immersion-breaking player sidebar questions with the DM about what the character does or doesn't know, so that the player can work out which action declarations are likely to be valid in the eyes of the DM. Then once that is resolved, the player has to "metagame" to make the appropriate choices that align with the DM's understanding on the character's knowledge (e.g. you can't use fire or acid here because you don't know that works) rather than freely act however they think the character might in the face of the threat. So perhaps you can see what I mean when I say that the people who care about this matter the most also seem to do the most to get in their own way, as well as rebuke suggestions that may help them achieve their goals more easily. And again, that's fine - do what you want. I'm making an observation about it, not telling anyone how they must play.