malraux
First Post
Picking a character concept optimized for adventure is pretty clearly metagaming. Its using your knowledge about the game to determine your choices inside the game.
Do you pull the chain?
- Thread starter Bullgrit
- Start date
Picking a character concept optimized for adventure is pretty clearly metagaming. Its using your knowledge about the game to determine your choices inside the game.
Why does your 18 WIS character feel that pulling the chain is a bad thing? Your resident trap-expert, the rogue, has already examined things and determined that the chain is not trapped, after all.
You, the player of your 18 WIS character, has decided this in-character vocalization. What's usually going on here is that the player of the character doesn't trust the DM/situation/whatever and using the mechanics of the game has your character voice this.
And that's what makes the meta in the game work for fun.
-Dan'L, pulling chains since 1983
Pseudonym
Ivan Alias
Hell yeah, I pull the chain.
Jeff Wilder
First Post
No, it's using my knowledge about the game to pick a position from which I can play the game.
I didn't say (or imply) that my character thought it was a bad thing. My character may think it's an unwise thing to impulsively take action without some knowledge of the consequences. Possible consequences go well beyond "setting off traps."
I'm pretty sure I explicitly stated the exact opposite of what you're claiming for me here. (Namely, that I, as a player, hadn't made my preference clear one way or the other.)
Let me first say, I would pull the chain with no precautions (aside from a simple perception/trap check).
What do I expect to happen as a person in this dungeon pulling a chain in a room with a secret door? I expect that pulling the chain will, though probably not directly, circuitously open the secret door. After being confronted by some sort of creature or for the room to seal or the room starts moving and we're lost or we're teleported or a trap in a more conventional sense (floor drops, fire, room fills with water/poison), or something equitable to this.
As a player essentially writing the life of this PC I am, like my PC, expecting something negative to happen with an ultimately positive effect. I also am entirely prepared for something worse to happen, possibly a death or multiple deaths - but that is a risk of adventure and that is a risk for the enjoyment of the game.
Skipping every chance at treasure or opening for a new adventure or plot twist or mystery, etc. is, in my opinion, counter intuitive to playing the game and, in character, counter intuitive to even going on an adventure.
TL;DR
Pull the chain.
Call it weighted risk-reward analysis.
Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
Greetings Professor Falken.
A strange RPG you're running.
The only choice for survival is not to play.
How about a nice game of Advanced Squad Leader?
Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Last edited:
True, but the dogs drool anyway.
But again, why does your character think it's an unwise thing to pull the chain? In this hypothetical scenario, there is nothing to indicate it outside of apprehensions brought in through players' metagame knowledge of what typically can happen in D&D with the DM With the Maniacally Evil Grin.
I inferred from your statement an implied decision to have your character advise the party against pulling the chain. If this is so, then who made the decision to have the character offer this advice, if it wasn't you the player? It wasn't the DM; there's not enough info given in the scenario to force that conclusion.
Look, there's nobody here (that I can tell) trying to argue that playing the game in this way is bad; rather, mostly that it's where a lot of the fun comes from. This is where the metagame and the game come together, and it's okay that they do.
***
So as not to side-track the thread completely:
What do I think happens when the chain is pulled? Adventure: potential energy becomes kinetic and thing(s) happen.
I would hope that something exciting would happen: a trap, a summon, or an alarm; or at least something that makes the players groan like at a bad pun: a toilet flushes, a mechanical cuckoo pops out of the door and the clock is reset, or a big doll says "ma-ma." I think just about any result would be fine short of nothing at all.
The worst thing would be if you pulled the chain and absolutely nothing happened. There needs to be some kind of payoff.
-Dan'L
Pull the chain and another chain drops from the ceiling a few feet away in a random direction, but the secret door remains closed. Repeat each time a chain is pulled.
Of course, an hour later the DM may be facing a KoDT table-flip.
Jeff Wilder
First Post
Because in an unknown environment in which things and situations have proven dangerous, it's wise to consider the possibility that a new thing and a new situation might prove dangerous?
Are you kidding me? In a world in which magic exists (and can be disguised), and traps exist that are all but undetectable, you're seriously arguing that it's not "unwise" to pull the chain?
It may very well be fun, but it's ridiculous to claim it's not unwise. And when I play a roleplaying game, I can have fun playing a character who recognizes that it's unwise and roleplays that recognition.
Roleplaying is fun, right?
You understand that we're talking about a roleplaying game, right? Implicitly, to play the game, I (the player) play the role (of my character)?
It's also okay that they don't. It's okay to roleplay a character who recognizes the danger involved in the unknown. It's okay to play the game, in other words, without recourse to metagaming.
What I don't get -- and (for those who missed it the first time), I'm asking this of people who otherwise think metagaming isn't a good thing -- is why it's good to metagame "Hey, let's pull the chain, the DM should have something fun for us," and not metagame "Hey, I know the fighter was replaced by a doppleganger, and it'll be fun if my character kills him and claims to have known all along"?
