Is it "metagaming" to remind a player their power works on a miss?

[NewJeffCT]

Do the characters have any in-game down time? Do they stop to camp for the night? Do they stop to eat dinner, lunch & breakfast while preparing to adventure? Would your characters have conceivably used any of this time to discuss their powers and what they can and cannot do in combat? We normally just hand-wave that sort of stuff in our game - "before we go to sleep, I'm going to try to learn to speak Orc from the half-orc NPC, or I'm going to practice some combat maneuvers with the help of the fighter..." or "I'm going to discuss battle strategy with the group"

And, does your group game 24/7? If not, then I also don't think it's fair if you meet every week or two weeks for 4-6 hours that everybody remembers every detail of what might have occurred only 2 minutes ago in game. People have real lives that may sometimes intrude on gaming.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It is metagaming (in that it is outside the context of the characters' POV), but it is not bad metagaming (in that it has nothing to do with what your character knows). In older editions, if your caster didn't know that fireball or sleep was going to affect her friends, then that was the breaks. It didn't change how the spell worked. Likewise, in this case, not knowing that it still does half damage shouldn't change how the spell works. If you didn't bring it up, the DM should have.


RC

 

[Agamon]

How much you want to bet this guy's a rules lawyer when he's a player? I can see him letting it slide the other direction (adding something in that shouldn't be) as long as it isn't brought up (and assuming it suits him).

Oy. I'm not one to court the disruption that bickering about rules brings, but if this wasn't a one-time thing because of bad mood or something, I'd only cause as much disruption as laughing at him, getting up and leaving the game would cause. Gaming with douches is not fun, and the point is to have fuin, right?

 

[Dausuul]

It is metagaming (in that it is outside the context of the characters' POV), but it is not bad metagaming (in that it has nothing to do with what your character knows). In older editions, if your caster didn't know that fireball or sleep was going to affect her friends, then that was the breaks. It didn't change how the spell worked. Likewise, in this case, not knowing that it still does half damage shouldn't change how the spell works. If you didn't bring it up, the DM should have.

No, it's not metagaming at all. Unless you consider players having any access to the rules to be metagaming.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

How much you want to bet this guy's a rules lawyer when he's a player? I can see him letting it slide the other direction (adding something in that shouldn't be) as long as it isn't brought up (and assuming it suits him).

What you describe is not a rules lawyer, FYI.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No, it's not metagaming at all. Unless you consider players having any access to the rules to be metagaming.

AFAICT, metagaming means to pay attention to that which takes place outside the game situation that the characters are in. Arguably, all reference to rules is metagaming.

Metgagaming, though, is not necessarily a bad thing.

How do you define the term?


RC

 

[Dausuul]

AFAICT, metagaming means to pay attention to that which takes place outside the game situation that the characters are in. Arguably, all reference to rules is metagaming.

Metgagaming, though, is not necessarily a bad thing.

How do you define the term?

RC

The definition I use for "metagaming" (and I think the generally accepted one) is, "Using out-of-character knowledge to make in-character decisions."

Examples of metagaming:

• You've read Order of the Stick, and know that liches have phylacteries. So as soon as your party kills a lich, you go hunting for the phylactery, even though your character has never before encountered a lich, has no training in any relevant skill, and has no background that would imply knowledge of what is in your game world a closely guarded secret.
• Your DM is running a published adventure by a writer you're familiar with. You know that this particular writer is very fond of menacing the PCs with illusions of gigantic monsters. When you run into an ancient red dragon, you announce that your normally cautious PC is going to walk right up and attack it.
• Your character is blinded and deafened for 3 rounds. On the first round, a series of lucky crits drops a fellow PC into the negatives, in a location out of your line of sight. That PC then fails two death saves in succession. When you recover, you immediately rush to that location to stabilize your dying ally, even though your character can't see the fallen character and there are other threats close by.

Examples of things that are not metagaming:

• Your party runs into a lich. Your character is a necromancer with excellent Religion and Arcana skills and a backstory that involves having been enslaved by a lich for ten years. You ask the DM if you can make an Arcana check to know that liches have phylacteries.
• Your party runs into an ancient red dragon, in a dungeon where you have already encountered a couple of illusion-themed traps. You note that there are no signs of the depredations of a dragon on the lands around the dungeon, and nobody said anything about a giant dragon in the nearby village. You also observe that all the doors in this room are too small for the dragon to fit through. You announce that your somewhat reckless PC is going to walk up and attack the dragon.
• Your character is blinded and deafened for 3 rounds. You come out of it, and see a fellow PC on the ground bleeding out not ten feet away and no monsters in sight. You rush to stabilize your dying ally.

In the OP's case, there is no in-character decision - the character doesn't get to decide whether the acid does damage or not! - so the question of metagaming doesn't even arise.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well, then, we are agreeing, then. Certainly this is not "Using out-of-character knowledge to make in-character decisions."

Nor should it be a problem for the DM, IMHO.


RC

 

[Doug McCrae]

The definition I use for "metagaming" (and I think the generally accepted one) is, "Using out-of-character knowledge to make in-character decisions."

I agree with your definition. Most OOC talk in a typical rpg is not metagaming. For metagaming to occur a character must act in a 'wrong' fashion, clearly possessing knowledge he doesn't have.

1) Informing another player about a rule? Not metagaming, because it hasn't been used to make an in-character decision.
2) Attacking a troll with fire or acid when the PCs don't have that knowledge? Metagaming.
3) Player A reminds player B his character knows about trolls. Player B's character then uses fire on the troll. Not metagaming because the character does possess the knowledge, it was the player who forgot.
4) Welcoming the orc's prisoner (a new PC) into the party immediately? Metagaming, but in a good way.

 

[Krensky]

4) Welcoming the orc's prisoner (a new PC) into the party immediately? Metagaming, but in a good way.

Adventurer A: I don't know, how do we know we can trust him?
Adventurer B: Because he has a PC halo, silly.
Adventurer C:
Adventurer A: Oh, alright then.

Classic.