D&D General Just Eat the Dang Fruit

[iserith]

My fellow characters and I are exploring a lost city buried beneath the sands of a vast desert. Shortly into our first foray, we come across a well-appointed dining chamber and its occupant, a friendly and immaculately dressed fellow who invites us to partake of refreshment. He is joined by several servants who attend to us. Hospitality is big in the culture of this region, and though it's a bit odd that this dude and his servants are in this buried city, it's the first friendly face we've seen in a while.

Bowls of fruit and wine are brought out. My character, Brickyard Lot, has a flaw that reads: "If I see fruit, I eat it." This has notably gotten him into trouble before (and the party doesn't trust him with pocket goodberries). Anyway, naturally I'm eating the fruit before the bowls can be set down. "A wave of exhaustion washes over you," says the DM. "Make a Con save." I roll the dice and succeed, belching and happily continuing to eat.

The food and drink is offered to my comrades, of course, but having seen me need to roll a save, nobody wants to partake. Does anyone see any issue with this refusal? If so, what are the issues and how do you resolve them. If not, why not?

Let's consider another angle as well: Say my character has the aforementioned flaw, but isn't the first to eat the fruit. I witness another character make a saving throw after eating it. I then refuse to eat the fruit or drink the wine, despite the flaw. Does this change the calculation at all as to whether this is an issue that needs to be addressed?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I would NEVER eat fruit in a game with another character with that flaw. Literally every fruit is going to be a trap or poison.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Bowls of fruit and wine are brought out. My character, Brickyard Lot, has a flaw that reads: "If I see fruit, I eat it." This has notably gotten him into trouble before (and the party doesn't trust him with pocket goodberries). Anyway, naturally I'm eating the fruit before the bowls can be set down. "A wave of exhaustion washes over you," says the DM. "Make a Con save." I roll the dice and succeed, belching and happily continuing to eat.

The food and drink is offered to my comrades, of course, but having seen me need to roll a save, nobody wants to partake. Does anyone see any issue with this refusal? If so, what are the issues and how do you resolve them. If not, why not?

Unless there is some discernible sign of the character having been forced to make a save, then yeah, this is using metagame knowledge. HOWEVER, the situation is already one that might ellicit distrust from some people. It's not a circumstance in which I would tend to get on peoples' case as DM. Ideally the save is something that should have been handled privately; or by the DM in secret, after having asked to see that player's character sheet.

Let's consider another angle as well: Say my character has the aforementioned flaw, but isn't the first to eat the fruit. I witness another character make a saving throw after eating it. I then refuse to eat the fruit or drink the wine, despite the flaw. Does this change the calculation at all as to whether this is an issue that needs to be addressed?

Again, depends on how you "witness" the other character making a saving throw. The saving throw itself is not something that characters will realize is going on without a concrete effect. A character being visibly weak or acting drugged first however....might possibly justify the flawed character roleplaying out struggling with their willpower against consuming the fruit. And generally speaking, drugs and poisons in the real world are rarely rapid/instantaneous when ingested.

Without a concrete, discernible effect - they should just eat it.

 

[jgsugden]

I think it all comes down to how the DM handles the situation, and your response to what the DM says.

BL ate the fruit, then rolled a saving throw and made it. What did the other PCs see? Did they see BL just plowing through the fruit without a care in the world? Did he look queasy and start to sweat? Did he barely hold down the fruit? The DM gets to decide what the PC feels like based upon their save, BL gets to decide how BL responds to that feeling, and the rest of the group should act off of that response.

 

[Deset Gled]

Anyway, naturally I'm eating the fruit before the bowls can be set down. "A wave of exhaustion washes over you," says the DM. "Make a Con save." I roll the dice and succeed, belching and happily continuing to eat.

The food and drink is offered to my comrades, of course, but having seen me need to roll a save, nobody wants to partake. Does anyone see any issue with this refusal? If so, what are the issues and how do you resolve them. If not, why not?

As a player, the way the DM describes this determines how I respond. If, after the roll, the DM says something like "You happily eat the fruit" with no indication of an abnormal response, I ignore the fact that a die was rolled. FWIW, my DM is the kind that will randomly call for shot checks even when nothing happens, just to keep us on our toes.

OTOH, if the DM describes it like "You look woozy for a second but then belch noisily and feel fine" then, as a player, I react to the fact that the eater had an odd reaction. I would be cautious and might not eat the fruit.

The bottom line: is up to the DM to tell the players if the save was noticable or not. This may involve the DM asking for some sort of a perception check.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I would say it is up to the players to decide how they want to play their characters. As DM, I personally don't want or need to add to my plate of duties the policing of how/why players decide what their PCs are doing in any given scene.

Furthermore, who says all the fruit is poisoned? I mean it probably is but, for the sake of argument, who really knows in a fantasy world? Could be that the fruit has variable effects based on the type of fruit chosen, or the class or lineage of the PC, or the order in which it is eaten, or whatever. Players making assumptions might have their PCs miss out on benefits. Or maybe it isn't even poisoned but is an acquired taste in that region - and the well-dressed fellow is so impressed that someone not native to the area still ate the fruit after seeing their friend look ill, he rewards them in some way. That said, if I were the player with that flaw about eating fruit and saw someone else eat the fruit first and have to make a Con Save, I'd still go for it for that sweet Inspiration -- another player might decide differently, and that's fine, too.

 

[Clint_L]

I think there are a lot of more subtle ways that the DM could have handled this situation! But yeah, definite meta-gaming, so at that point it comes down to how your group likes to play. My home groups would just stay in character and do what they think their character would naturally do, though they would probably be chuckling as they opted for the fruit.

There's not really a right or wrong here, just different preferences for how to play. As a player, I would pretend like I didn't know about the roll.

Edit: this situation plays out very differently with new players who are young! When something like this occurs in that situation, I review the concept of meta-gaming and why I don't prefer it (something we cover at session 0) but if a student is stuck on the issue, I'm not going to force it. They'll either come around or they won't, and it doesn't really matter that much.

 

[Zardnaar]

Generally PCs don't eat any food they don't supply themselves.
Makes ingested things hard in my games.

 

[Jahydin]

I'm pretty forgiving with meta-knowledge when I DM, but because of that I'm more careful in situations like these.

This could have been solved by just waiting before asking for a roll for instance.

To not ruffle feathers though, if I made the same mistake, I would tell them they did eat the fruit (unless they had a great reason why not), but could roll with Advantage.

 

[CreamCloud0]

My fellow characters and I are exploring a lost city buried beneath the sands of a vast desert. Shortly into our first foray, we come across a well-appointed dining chamber and its occupant, a friendly and immaculately dressed fellow who invites us to partake of refreshment. He is joined by several servants who attend to us. Hospitality is big in the culture of this region, and though it's a bit odd that this dude and his servants are in this buried city, it's the first friendly face we've seen in a while.

Bowls of fruit and wine are brought out. My character, Brickyard Lot, has a flaw that reads: "If I see fruit, I eat it." This has notably gotten him into trouble before (and the party doesn't trust him with pocket goodberries). Anyway, naturally I'm eating the fruit before the bowls can be set down. "A wave of exhaustion washes over you," says the DM. "Make a Con save." I roll the dice and succeed, belching and happily continuing to eat.

The food and drink is offered to my comrades, of course, but having seen me need to roll a save, nobody wants to partake. Does anyone see any issue with this refusal? If so, what are the issues and how do you resolve them. If not, why not?

Let's consider another angle as well: Say my character has the aforementioned flaw, but isn't the first to eat the fruit. I witness another character make a saving throw after eating it. I then refuse to eat the fruit or drink the wine, despite the flaw. Does this change the calculation at all as to whether this is an issue that needs to be addressed?

oh definitely i think this is an issue of them refusing through awareness of the check being made, i started a thread about a similar topic a while back that might interest you that eventually derailed into the classic metagame discussions but this is a situation where i think the GM should've rolled brickyard's CON save behind their screen, preferably without the players even being aware that they rolled anything in the first place, if they made the save nothing needs be mentioned, if they fail then the consquences begin occuring at a level that is visible to the other characters as brickyard becomes tired, any time a player makes a decision based on their awareness of table level actions it shouldn't be happening.

the thread if you're curious: D&D General - Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Again, depends on how you "witness" the other character making a saving throw. The saving throw itself is not something that characters will realize is going on without a concrete effect. A character being visibly weak or acting drugged first however....might possibly justify the flawed character roleplaying out struggling with their willpower against consuming the fruit. And generally speaking, drugs and poisons in the real world are rarely rapid/instantaneous when ingested.

Without a concrete, discernible effect - they should just eat it.

I agree with this. Consider the stereotype of American Thanksgiving - eating enough turkey and assorted goods that you essentially just get food-coma for hours. It's expected. And as you said - drugs and poison are rarely instant in the real world. With the culture having the expectation of hospitality, even the fact these people are somewhere they shouldn't make a difference.

That's why the infamous Red Wedding was so brutal and well-executed. It's how Cu Chulainn was betrayed - his twin vows of not eating dog meat, and his vow not to refuse hospitality - he couldn't refuse to eat the dog meat that was provided, which cost his invulnerability.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

It really is a play style thing.

For myself, my character will eat the fruit unless there's an obvious reason not too. But I like to RP from my character's perspective. The old "what would they do, given what they know?"

But for those who play the game more as a game... I totally get that someone would not. Now if I was GMing a game of this nature I'd have the good sense not call for any rolls until everyone had said what they're doing in the situation.

 

[Longspeak]

Players always use OOC knowledge.

DM could make secret saves. Or wait until every partakes, or a reasonable bit of time lapses.

As for the players, letting the phrase "saving throw" alter your decision isn't great, but I've seen it more than I haven't. For that reason I often use one of the above two options. For me personally.... It depends on the character. In one game I switched off the tape player when the man said "I will now read the demon summoning passage from the Necronomicon." In another I was all "What's the weird wax seal and strange runes over the lock? Ah, I scrape it off so I can pick the lock!"

 

[Burnside]

Is it metagaming? Yes.

Is it an "issue"? Depends on the table I guess. Wouldn't be an issue at my table. I have given up on trying to force players not to metagame with this sort of situation.

With some of the groups I run, it honestly would not occur to them to feign ignorance that a saving throw was just rolled.

On the other hand, some of the tables I run or play at would automatically not metagame because that's the way they like playing.

I leave it to players to determine what kind of game they want to play when it comes to stuff like this, and proceed accordingly and try to support their chosen style. I don't think metagaming or NOT metagaming in this situation is objectively better or more fun - very much depends on the group.

I am also in favor of leaving all the dice rolls up to the DM and rolled secretly, so that the "issue" of separating player and character knowledge of roll outcomes does not exist. However, every time I have floated doing this among my players and fellow DMs, people are aghast (I also would find it a lot of work as DM tbh).

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Metagame by Burnside.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Is it metagaming? Yes.

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, please.

Again, with metagaming, there's 'good' and 'bad' in my opinion and this story shows both kinds.

'Good' metagaming: eating the fruit because it's an established trait and because in-world, your character would take the fruit due to the culture's value on hospitality. You didn't 'steal' it to be like 'haha, I set off the obvious trap Because It's What My Character Would Do <tm>!'

'Bad' metagaming: all others refusing the food outright without any thought to the fact it's been established that this culture is about hospitality. I see a setting like that where it is absolutely possible for heroes and villains to die and talk garbage about each other under a respected flag of truce. Hell, they even played soccer/football during Christmas in WWI.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I’ve been in two kinds of groups: type A would figure e out how their characters would respond to the offer assuming they don’t know about the roll / don’t know it’s dangerous (or at least try) so the game can proceed as though no roll were made. They might suspect the host anyway given the situation.

Type B would never have trusted the fruit in the first place, and would be insighting the heck out of everyone anyways.

 

[MarkB]

The DM described a wave of exhaustion washing over your character. Is that something your character would be able to hide? Would they even attempt to? If not, that seems like a sufficient visual cue for the other players' characters to be suspicious.

And ultimately, as far as I'm concerned, character traits are guidelines for portraying a character's actions, not rules. Play up that aspect of your character and maybe you earn inspiration for acting in-character, but if you feel like the character would go against it under a particular set of circumstances, there shouldn't be any penalty for that.

 

[J.Quondam]

I tend to GM poisoning, disease, etc, with behind-the-screen rolls, unless it's for something obvious or the PCs are explicitly suspicious. It's GM discretion whether an unsuspecting PC "made the save" in a way discernible enough to make other PCs notice (or even notice themselves).

More importantly, though, "If I see fruit, I eat it" is a truly awesome flaw.

 

[Yora]

The GM's mistake was to ask for a saving throw before every player had declared to eat a fruit or not.
If it's a tasteless poison, it's going to take a minute or two to kick in. (Probably even much longer than that.)

 

[Shadowdweller00]

More importantly, though, "If I see fruit, I eat it" is a truly awesome flaw.

Agreed. If taken intentionally, it's one of those things you write knowing that the character will be drugged or poisoned going in.

I once made a drow Divine Soul who had sought aid from Eiliastraee when his house decided to kill him. I decided that she had given him powers but also instilled a compulsion to dance whenever he heard music. Part of the point and fun of the character in the first place was seeing what crazy situations the flaw would get him into. And crazy situations there were