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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 9050054" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I don’t even care if my players metagame, so a lack of trust has nothing to do with it for me. But, for someone who did care about that, preferring a technique which didn’t create opportunities to metagame over relying on the players choosing not to metagame doesn’t indicate a lack of trust. To use the bank robbing example people keep using here, just because I prefer people not to bring guns to the bank doesn’t mean I don’t trust them not to rob it. I would prefer no guns at the bank, whether or not anyone has any intention of robbing it.Of course it’s not necessary. Plenty of people run perfectly successful games without doing it. I make no claims about the necessity of it. It does have some impacts that I, personally, find to be advantageous, and I find it curious that people who do care about metagaming seem vehemently opposed to this technique.That’s not my explanation. I am not bothered by players metagaming, and don’t prevent it at all. It is, however, odd to me that players who do care about metagaming seem so strongly opposed to a technique which would prevent metagaming. It’s great that you trust your players, but that, to me, doesn’t seem like a reason not to use a technique that would prevent it. It’s one thing to say “it’s unnecessary for me because I trust my players not to metagame anyway, and here are the advantages of the technique I use instead:” or “it’s unnecessary for me because I trust my players not to metagame anyway, and here are the disadvantages I perceive with that technique:” but that’s not happening. People are instead reacting with seeming visceral disgust at the mere mention of the technique, ruthlessly interrogating me on why and how I use it, and then accusing me of distrusting my players and being adversarial or dictatorial towards them, which is just… wild, and makes me wonder why the reaction is like that.I’ve given this example like six times now in various threads just like this one, but here goes again:One time I had a player declare that she wanted to check a door for traps. I responded “I’m hearing that you want to find out if the door is trapped; what does your character do to try and find that out?” She initially said “something my character who’s trained in perception and investigation would think of that I can’t?” to which I said, “I understand you’re not an expert in trapfinding; neither am I. I just need to know what your character is doing in the world of the game so I can determine if it could succeed, if it could fail, and if there are any potential consequences for failing. Just go with something that seems reasonable to you, and I will do my best to interpret that generously.” She said she gave the door and the seams around it a thorough visual inspection, and I determined that this would have a chance of resulting in her seeing through the seam at the top that there was a lever, which would trigger a bell to ring when the door opened. I called for a check, she passed, and saw the lever. The party then went on to try to disarm this trap by wedging something (I no longer remember what, maybe it was a dagger or something) through the seam to hold the lever in place while they opened the door, which I determined would succeed without need of a roll. From that point on, the player in this exchange has consistently been one of the most creative players at my table when it comes to coming up with novel approaches to actions that often result in her succeeding at things without needing to roll.</blockquote>

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