D&D General "I make a perception check."
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Okay. Back into the discussion because this is BS. No table will let someone take a picture of the DM notes and use it to guide them in game. This is such a breach of trust I don’t know why you would bring it up.
This is back to the “can we win d&d” argument as going to such an extreme you prove nothing.
Swarmkeeper
Hero
This just wouldn't happen. I don't drink soda.
More seriously: Truly I can't imagine that being a behavior that someone would ever display at our table but, since you are looking for an answer, I suppose I would just call for a 5 minute break to make 1 or 2 adjustments to my notes and we'd proceed. "Ready to lead the way?"
It happens though:
My son (14) was DMing Rise of Tiamat on zoom (group went virtual for the Pandemic). I was around and curious to see how his group would go (virtually).
We quickly noticed that one of the players OBVIOUSLY had the module open and was referencing it during play. When confronted, the 8th grader said something like "what, it's just like having a walkthrough open - what's wrong with that?"
I'm generally of the "who cares about metagaming" camp - but that crossed a line.
Swarmkeeper
Hero
Yes, it certainly could be considered railroading of sorts, I believe. I now try my best to adjudicate as fairly as I can based heavily upon the stated goal and approach of the PC without regard for any particular outcome. Given that I will typically give players a chance to reconsider their tactics after I announce the DC and stakes for an Ability Check, one would be hard pressed to say that I'm railroading them. Of course, life is not so tidy and a player could potentially perceive it as such under certain circumstances.
Celebrim
Legend
Isn't it very much like your rule? Aren't you the one that equates having and using out of character knowledge with cheating? Are you going to go on to present very similar ideas as to what constitutes cheating in this very post?
In the rare case that my authority is questioned I just say, "I'm the GM. Ultimately I decide what the rules are." Most players recognize I have authority over the game by setting down to play with me as the GM. But notice there is a difference between having authority over the game and having authority over out of the game, which is what you are asserting.
I would have agreed with you 30 years ago, but I have tried to do this way too often and long ago realized it was impossible. I will again give a concrete example.
We are in a swamp and we are attacked. I the player recognize we are attacked by a troll. Now, I've never given any thought before whether my character would be able to recognize a troll or know anything about them. The other players don't yet recognize it is a troll because they are new to the game and they are trying to attack it with normal weapons, which I know as a player is going to be useless. So now, I'm tasked with trying to compartmentalize and figure out whether or not my player would recognize a troll. So I pretend not to know and also attack the troll, knowing it's going to be (mostly) useless. But, at the same time, I also know that in not attacking the troll with fire, I am still metagaming. Because I can't know whether or not my character would recognize a troll. I'm probably only doing what am I doing because I want to not "cheat", not because of what my character may or may not know. I also can't know how fast my character would figure out that weapons don't work and we need to burn a troll in absence of knowing that fireworks on trolls. So I'm thinking to myself, "How many rounds should I wait before it is fair to figure out that I should try a different approach?" and "Should I be making intelligence checks for my character to see if my character would figure this out fairly?" And I'm doing all this because I want to be the player that I would want if I was the DM, and know "good players don't metagame". And at that moment I realize that my whole approach to the sin of "metagaming" to this point has been entirely wrong. I realize there should be no pressure on the player to not use their out of character knowledge because it ends up creating silly, unfun, and probably unrealistic situations where the player is being asked to play against themselves. The stance of a being player doesn't support not using out of game knowledge in the general case.
And so I dropped that whole load of crap for what it was and never looked back.
And I'm telling you, I've played your way and my way and at least for me, it very much isn't.
That's not remotely a solution. I've tried it. I tried for years, and the more conscious I became of the process, the more I realized it was a lode of hooey and impossible. You can't know what the character would do if they didn't know what you do. There is no unbiased simulation of that process, and if there was it would take your choice as a player out of the equation so that the character would 'play itself' absent your control over it and you'd be reduced to watching the simulation instead of playing the game.
Of course I do. But that doesn't solve the particular problem we are talking about here. That might solve, "Even though I am not, my character is an Anarchist and his principles would compel him to act in this way in this situation." That doesn't solve the problem of, "I know what a troll is." that I described above.
Neither am I. The point of the statement is that it's not easy to Sherlock Holmes me and say, "What would Celebrim do here?" and that if you make choices based on that rather than in game facts, don't be surprised to find you guessed completely wrong. I have funny stories about that, but they'd be a distraction at this point.
That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's not a matter of want. If a character has out of game information they can't help but metagame in some fashion. There is no unbiased simulation. There is no process that takes that knowledge out of your head.
That's a great example? That's the way you play. Gosh not only does that sound boring, OMG is that railroading in metagame director stance. "This is the BBEG but I want you to treat him like a friend because you don't know that." End of session, I send an email, "Thanks for the good time, but I'm really busy right now and don't think I will have time to attend any more."
Yeah, like I'm comparing that to the like 3 year long reveal of who Tarkus the Necromancer was in my last D&D campaign, and yeah... I know which situation my players would prefer.
So your response is to stop the game and enforce the no metagaming table rule. OK then.
The first and second are the exact same situation, only the player of PC #1 in the second situation has decided to try to hide his motives so that you don't get angry, stop the game, and it's ruined for everyone.
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Celebrim
Legend
The fact that you equate something like knowing what a predator is or knowing what a troll is with "cheating" just blows my mind.
You realize one of these involves malicious intent and action and the other one involves having watched the movie you are basing your scenario on and thus unavoidably having knowledge of the setting?
These things are not in any way equitable. They are completely different topics. It is entirely a red herring to even be dragging the conversation in this direction. Because whatever the answer is to the above situation, it does nothing to solve the problem you posed as having as a solution: "in your mind run a mini simulation and think not "How should I the player react in the best way" but instead "what would the character do with only what they know".
In fact, if the above answer could solve the "predator problem" or the "troll problem", then it would also solve the guy taking pictures of your maps problem. He could just say, "But I'm running a simulation in my head and thinking, "What would the character do with only what they know?" It's not like having a copy of the map will bias my opinion."
I know it is sometimes controversial, but I am totally ok with a social system just as detailed a combat, with rhetorical techniques and ripostes and dedicated maneuvers and magic. Sadly no one has ever made one and the one time I tried (for a courtly intrigue adventure) my players revolted.
Celebrim
Legend
This is the problem with equating "metagaming" with "cheating". Because in reality the two topics are very different.
There is a vast difference in these two scenarios:
A) Your 14 year old DM knows one of the players has already played "Rise of Tiamat" before but then tells him, "It's OK. Just pretend that you haven't."
B) What you described above.
As an aside though, given my experience with younger players that come to tabletop from computers, I wouldn't even be 100% certain that said 8th grader did have malicious intent and did know his actions were wrong. I think I'd have to explain to him how this was different than playing a video game with a walkthrough open and give him concrete examples that he would understand before he would recognize the wrongness of his actions. Of course, he could just be a cheat, but it's not a given in today's age that he'd know he's a cheat.
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Celebrim
Legend
I don't want to derail the already far ranging thread, but if you want to start another thread I have some lengthy thoughts on why such a system not only never actually works, it cannot in fact work.
