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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8725946" data-attributes="member: 4937">[USER=67338]@GMforPowergamers[/USER] Since it's increasingly clear I don't know what position you are trying to defend I'm going to back off the Fisk and counter-Fisk and try to focus down a bit to just a few things you said and see what we actually are disagreeing over.  I feel like in the last couple of posts you've completely shifted the thesis and arguments you are arguing.So, I'm ambivalent here.  I don't think what you are talking about in this statement is enforceable.  I don't think what you are talking about here is a big deal.  I also think it is a completely different topic from, "Your first thought when you hear a noise should be skunk and not Jason".  I think part of the problem is that as with many of the technical terms you use, it feels like you are using "metagaming" in a very non-specific way and as such I find the term not to mean very much.   As with "railroading", to me "metagaming" is a non-pejorative term with a technical meaning, and not useful as blanket pejorative for "things I don't like".In terms of player knowledge of the game, that's not something you can control.  If the player has memorized the Ravenloft book on vampires, that's not really my problem as a GM.  I'm not going to try to limit the knowledge that the player has that he gained from source books.  I don't really care if his character turns out to know as much about vampires as Von Richten, because his player memorized the book.  I still have the capacity to surprise the player, and my story isn't going to depend on player ignorance to work.  In fact, I may just lean into that player knowledge and use it to my advantage to keep the story moving forward.  I really don't care and don't see why you think that's "cheating" and worthy of an informal tribunal.As far as the table taking cues from me because the see me roll a dice or see me open a book, that's not the table's fault.  That's why I use DM screens and make secret rolls and do everything I can to avoid passing OOC information to the players, but if I do that's my fault and not theirs.  And if the player is trying to look behind the screen while I'm in the bathroom, that's a whole other topic.   But I don't stop a player from getting on the internet and Googling things.Maybe more to the point, these days, "How would you enforce that?"  It's not worth worrying about.  If I am playing a game and a character makes a mysteriously informed choice and I say, "How did you know to do that?" and they say, "Well, I guessed this module was based on 'Mad God's Key' and I've played it before", that's on me not them.  I should have asked whether anyone had played "Mad God's Key" before hand.  But none of this seems pertinent to the original topics and arguments you were making just a few pages ago, although it doesn't seem like we even understand what was being argued at this point.I don't think anyone knows, because what you seem to do changes from post to post.  You don't seem to describe a coherent way to play.  You seem to contradict yourself from post to post.For one thing, there is a rule for that in my example.  But as I said, I feel that "tables cues" where the player picks up information from the GM at the table are a very different topic than the question of what the character would know, which is what we were talking about just a few posts ago.  But then again, at your table an out of character declaration like, "I roll Perception" is treated as a description of what the character did, so I'm not surprised you don't see as sharp of a distinction as I do.This is an example of exactly why I don't think anyone in the thread yet knows how you DM, or why you shouldn't be shocked when people don't understand how you DM.  Because this is a hugely surprising answer.  You don't run surprise per the rules?  You ask players, "Do you want to be surprised?" with the expectation that the answer might be "Yes." sometimes?  "Did you see that coming?" would I imagine in practice lead to surprise rounds only occuring when the player didn't feel he was risking a lot.  Which among other things, might explain why you don't normally run a lot of surprise.Because in practice players aren't necessarily going to be upfront with their real motives or even conscious of them.  It requires a mind reader to know if someone is metagaming, and I'll let you in on a secret - everyone is metagaming all the time even when they are trying really hard to just play their character.  No one can do anything but metagame because the mind of the character doesn't exist, only the players mind.  All we the participants can do is try our best to imagine that mind, and we'll always fail to at least some extent.What did you think the point of the "skunk or Jason" example was?  For that matter, what was the point of this:If not to say that players shouldn't be allowed to set traps, use the environment, and try to find the alien's target?</blockquote>

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