How do you coordinate tactics at the table?

[wayne62682]

I'm curious how other people handle the discussion and execution of tactics during combat. I play rather lenient and have no problem saying that another player should move to this square and use Power X on Monster Y, or that they should heal themselves and then burn an action point to do X. I've noticed that a lot of people I game with frown on this and consider it to basically be akin to metagaming because they say my character wouldn't know the name of a specific power or be able to tell somebody to do an action.

My DM and I are in a debate about it, because he thinks it's metagaming for me to suggest that a fighter to use Griffon's Wrath, and I should just be saying to swing his sword (which can mean anything), but it's perfectly alright to tell the wizard player to use Fireball. I argue that powers are named for exactly this reason, so you CAN say "Hit him with Griffon's Wrath" or tell the cleric to use Lance of Faith on the monster.

How do you handle this?

 

[Mallus]

I'm fine with out-of-character tactics discussions, both as player and as DM. In the end, what we're actually doing is playing a (usually) cooperative game. To whatever extent players immerse themselves in their role, limiting themselves to their character's POV is just a particular approach used to make the game more enjoyable, for the people who enjoy that sort of thing. It certainly doesn't represent the proper way to play RPG's (mainly because that doesn't exist ).

If no-one at your table wants to coordinate tactics, so be it. If everyone else does and you don't, politely let them know it's more enjoyable for you to focus on only what your character can see and hear. Like all play style preferences, it's good gamer etiquette to let people have their own fun, to be as accommodating as possible.

edit: and I say this as someone who loves character immersion, has been known to play whole sessions using a funny accent, and generally views their D&D campaigns as collaboratively-written (or perhaps that's 'committee-written') fantasy novels.

<soapbox>
In general, I'm not a big fan of the idea your enjoyment of a given medium should be contingent on forgetting what it is you're actually doing. I'm always aware that I'm reading a book or watching a film or playing a game. How can you enjoy something, if not for what it actually is?
</soapbox>

 

[wedgeski]

Like you, I allow pretty much complete freedom at the table. To do otherwise in 4E is, I think, to strip out a significant part of what makes the tactical side of the game so much fun. Watching a three-or-four-pronged maneuver take shape and then chew into my bad guys is a real treat.

Of course, it's a treat for me to do it to the PC's as well, and I only need to communicate with *myself* to do that. >)

I would frown upon, and take steps to curtail anyone who tried to actually impose themselves on another person's choices, but as long as everyone stays happy, I'm happy.

 

[Ktulu]

Completely open. The players know when we're "in" character and when not. They seamlessly move through both; something I think creates a flowing narrative.

I wouldn't be very happy playing in a game where I couldn't provide advice to the fighter on where his mark should go, or that if the goliath warden throws up stone's endurance, I can drop a scorching burst on him without doing much damage, but likely hitting every enemy he's currently adjacent to (done that many times now, we're a helluva team).

 

[amysrevenge]

Completely wide open discussion of tactics during everyone's turns. It's the way that is fun for us.

 

[aboyd]

Like you, I allow pretty much complete freedom at the table. To do otherwise in 4E is, I think, to strip out a significant part of what makes the tactical side of the game so much fun.

Yeah, I want to encourage team work, so it's pretty important to allow the gang to work together. If you were to block this freedom to collaborate, I would foresee camaraderie being stunted, and I don't want that. However, I do have some limitations which I'll describe, in response to the following quotes.

I would frown upon, and take steps to curtail anyone who tried to actually impose themselves on another person's choices, but as long as everyone stays happy, I'm happy.

That's a good point, because in a real game I played, this in fact happened and ruined the game. One player was slow to make her choices, liked to look around the battlemat, didn't have all her spells memorized. So another player who was very well-meaning but far too eager, would move her mini for her, point at the map, and say, "Cast Fireball centered on this point." She'd ask him to stop it and return the mini to its original position, and he would, but then the very next turn it would start all over again.

After a few sessions it got to the point where she was yelling at him, "Don't ever touch my damn mini!" and then she cast a fireball that "accidentally" caught the other player's mini. He quit after that.

So yeah, talk at the table, but don't ever ever impose or assume that your suggestion is anything more than a suggestion.

Completely open. The players know when we're "in" character and when not.

This is why my next game will have a new rule, "whatever you say at the table is by default spoken/yelled at each other, out loud." I gave one player a note, in the middle of combat, about a secret maneuver that he saw another player doing. That other player was feigning death. Only one player had seen it; everyone else should have had no ability to coordinate. In fact, it would have been standard operating procedure for the party cleric to rush over and attempt a last-ditch effort to save the "dead or dying" character. However, the player who had the note simply read it out loud and everyone began coordinating to set up flanking, sneak attacks, etc. Even the cleric, who should have intended to do something completely different.

So, perhaps due to my players being willing to meta-game, I'm going to have this rule that everything spoken and coordinated is certainly OK to do, but also requires the characters to speak out loud as they do it, thus possibly alerting the enemy.

 

[S'mon]

Personally as a player I find it really really annoying when another player (or the GM) is telling me what to do. I'm ok with "Help me!" "I need healing!" or "Take down that ogre!" but I am absolutely not ok with "Go to square X, use power Y then AP and use power Z". I find that really infuriating. If I want your help in playing my character I'll ask for it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Personally as a player I find it really really annoying when another player (or the GM) is telling me what to do. I'm ok with "Help me!" "I need healing!" or "Take down that ogre!" but I am absolutely not ok with "Go to square X, use power Y then AP and use power Z". I find that really infuriating. If I want your help in playing my character I'll ask for it.

A thousand times yes. This is annoying. We can't even blame the latest edition since people have been doing this forever.

 

[wayne62682]

Right; and I'm not saying have another player tell people to move to X, use power Y (although I admit I do say things like that when dealing with newbies). But I don't see anything wrong with suggesting "Now would be a good time to use Griffon's Wrath on that guy!" (for that matter I don't see anything wrong with saying that to the player, as opposed to the character), or suggesting that the fighter attack and mark this guy instead of that guy. I would consider that to be good tactics, actually, but my DM insists its metagaming because I wouldn't know that the fighter's power where he swings his sword in a circle is called Sweeping Blow (but I would know that the wizard's fire burst is called Scorching Burst) since he says that any power a fighter uses would just be him swinging his sword.

I basically said while that's true, the reason a power is named is so you CAN say "Sweeping Blow" and have everyone know what you mean, instead of saying "That move where you swing your sword in a circle and hit everybody around you" as you pretend to not know what Sweeping Blow is.