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?
I mean I don't think so, but I guess you could see it that way
In the rare case that my authority is questioned I just say, "I'm the GM. Ultimately I decide what the rules are."
that's a deal breaker for me and half the friends I have would walk out at "Ultimately I decide"
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.
no I have no authority over anything but being the DM... we are all equals at the tables I normally play
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.
ironically we switched places then... because 30 years ago (most likely 26 but what ever) I would have agreed with you and think everything I am saying now was crazy... in the 90's I was "I am the DM this is MY" game sort and used to pass notes and hide rolls and make everyone tell me where they are standing at all times.
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.
see to me this is a great story opportunity as a player I would look to the DM... is he or she having fun with us not knowing or getting worried? i would mostly focus on what my backstory was (and if I think I WOULD know)... maybe I grew up hearing stories of other adventurers and know to burn things that keep getting up... or maybe I am not the sort that listened to those stories...
goal 1 fun at table
goal 2 make my character the focus not me... think in his mind not mine.
if I really could not figure out what to do I would ask the DM if I could spend an action or bonus action on monster lore with an Int skill...again character skill not player skill
but being newbies and not my normal crew there are 100 qustions about this scenero... starting with did we talk in session 0 about how we wanted to do things.
And I'm telling you, I've played your way and my way and at least for me, it very much isn't.
and I'm telling you 2 things
1) you seem to constantly assume wrong things about my style and
2) I HAVE run games your way and I don't want to anymore.
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.
I'm sorry you feel that way... that 'Hooey' as you call it is some of the most fun I have.
You can't know what the character would do if they didn't know what you do.
not 100% I have said that a billion times...
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.
there is also no unbiased way to pick an actor for a role and no unbiased way to find friends... we strive to limit what our biases are even if we can't eliminate them.
Neither am I. The point of the statement is that it's not easy to Sherlock Holmes me
Im glad... but I wont try to 'sherlock holmes' you unless we go out of our way to make a game in that style... and even then I would rely on my character skill to do things over my own.
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.
okay but I wouldn't do that (I bet kurt could after a campaign or too... he has this gift)
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.
but the game is trying to... trying to step out of who you are and be someone else...
That's a great example? That's the way you play. Gosh not only does that sound boring,
it was anything but
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."
yeah you made some strange scenario up instead of asking how it very organically happened... (FYI the DM didn't plan it or try for it...it just happened)
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."
no offense but form what I have seen you would not make it through any session 0 that I have taken part in within at least 15 maybe closer to 20 years....
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.
I mean it's not like there are never surprises, but they are ones that organically made sense in game not something the DM hid... I aam sure the suprise of who the necromancer was played great... but I doubt it was anywhere near as fun as us sitting and trying to think about things that would stop someone and surprise them even though out of game we knew he was here helping...
and the 1st 2 interactions many many games before that watching the DM get worried and ask us why and us having to explain how our characters think was fun too...
see that is an after game staple... "My character thinks XXX" and the like
So your response is to stop the game and enforce the no metagaming table rule. OK then.
i would say anytime the game is not fun for someone they should stop teh game to talk about it...
if you are not or one of your players isn't having fun or is uncomfortable or just doesn't like something... do they not talk about it?
DO you EVER talk to them about there feelings?
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.
I don't see a reason why anyone would hide there feelings... talking about them works so much better and leads to better games.
