D&D 5E How to deal with Metagaming as a player?

[Maxperson]

Speaking as a DM, I am pro-personal responsibility. Meaning the DM can handle it as I have already stated and, if one is the sort to really give a flumph about "metagaming," probably should. Failing to do so and them blaming the players for "metagaming" is a lack of personal accountability in my view.

You realize that that same logic means you are responsible when players cheat with their dice, since you brought them together for the game. It also means you are responsible if one of them punches another one in the face.

I think you should probably reconsider your definition of "personal responsibility", or at the very least realize that your definition only applies to you.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

The PCs are not the Three Stooges.

No one said they were, Max, stop making mischaracterizing implications.

Traps that are obviously present are not traps at all. They are obstacles.

Semantics.

Further, another function of a trap is not as a challenge, but rather as resource drain.

In my not so humble opinion, resource drains that are not actually challenges themselves are not a valuable inclusion in a gaming experience.

Might as well just arbitrate what resources you want your players' characters to have for the actual challenges they face, instead of wasting time with resource drain-styled (a.k.a. "Gotcha") traps.

 

[machineelf]

It's pretty hard to not conclude that you truly don't understand that there are forms of roleplaying other than "pretend you are your character". No, not other forms of playing RPGs. Other forms of roleplaying. Other forms which, speaking as somebody who has tried your form, are harder to achieve but are also more immersive and more engaging.

Oh and this I am legitimately curious about. The whole point of how I prefer to role play is to seek immersion in my character. That includes the knowledge my character has, and doesn't have. That's precisely why I don't like metagaming, because It breaks the immersion for me.

Perhaps you mean immersion in the game itself, and I mean immersion in the character and the world the character lives in, and so our uses of the word are different.

To me, meta-talk about tactics by players in the middle of combat rounds without regard to our characters traits and personalities is the opposite of character immersion.

So the claim that allowing meta thinking and meta gaming can increase immersion seems dubious, because those things seem to be inherently at odds. That's the entire reason why metagaming leaves a bad taste in my mouth in the games I enjoy, because my aim in role-playing is greater character, story, and world immersion.


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[AaronOfBarbaria]

That's precisely why I don't like metagaming, because It breaks the immersion for me.

You know how I felt when that DM shut down my role-playing of my fighter and told me it was "metagaming"? I felt like my immersion into my character had just been smashed with a hammer.

Because I was thinking "what would my character do in this situation given what he knows?" and the DM started insisting we talk about what I know instead.

 

[machineelf]

You know how I felt when that DM shut down my role-playing of my fighter and told me it was "metagaming"? I felt like my immersion into my character had just been smashed with a hammer.

Because I was thinking "what would my character do in this situation given what he knows?" and the DM started insisting we talk about what I know instead.

Did your character know trolls had a weakness to fire?

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[Maxperson]

Semantics.

It's not semantics. A trap is very different from an obstacle. They have different characteristics and different purposes.

In my not so humble opinion, resource drains that are not actually challenges themselves are not a valuable inclusion in a gaming experience.

Which is fine. You don't have to use them that way. Will you at least concede that they are valuable to the gaming experience of others?

Might as well just arbitrate what resources you want your players' characters to have for the actual challenges they face, instead of wasting time with resource drain-styled (a.k.a. "Gotcha") traps.

Why? Traps can be found or avoided. Even the "gotcha" kind, not that gotcha is inherently bad.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Did your character know trolls had a weakness to fire?

No, and that's not at all relevant because A) my character also didn't know the monster in question wasn't an ogre, B) we established earlier that you agree with me that knowing that trolls have a weakness to fire isn't actually necessary in order to decide to attack an unknown-to-you monster (which happens to be a troll) with fire, and C) there was no reason for the character to assume that fire wouldn't be as harmful to the monster as it would be to himself.

 

[iserith]

You realize that that same logic means you are responsible when players cheat with their dice, since you brought them together for the game. It also means you are responsible if one of them punches another one in the face.

I think you should probably reconsider your definition of "personal responsibility", or at the very least realize that your definition only applies to you.

No need to debate definitions with you. You already admitted you know you can remove the possibility of "metagaming" of the sort under discussion as DM. You just choose not to. That's all I need to know.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

It's not semantics.

It is, and I'm not engaging you in a semantic argument, so this will be my last post regarding traps that interacts with you.

 

[Maxperson]

C) there was no reason for the character to assume that fire wouldn't be as harmful to the monster as it would be to himself.

Nor was there any reason for the character to assume that the easily survivable burn he himself would receive, would not be dwarfed by a sword strike to the same part of his body.

You're having your PC take an objectively much weaker attack form that he's not well trained to fight with over the sword he knows well. That's a classic Three Stooges move. Why use the gun when you can squirt a rubber duck at the enemy?