D&D General Just Eat the Dang Fruit

[Micah Sweet]

Someone who was looking at this scenario told me another angle worth considering is what incentive the players other than me even have to eat the fruit.

I ate the fruit, knowing full well the situation was suspect, because I was trying to get some sweet, sweet Inspiration. So I portrayed my flaw accordingly.

After that save though, the rest of the players have zero incentive to be a "good little RPer" and expose themselves to risk. Instead, for eating the fruit, they get the shaft. Maybe they get to walk away with some level of satisfaction that they were "true to their character," but if death results, that's probably not all that great a payoff.

What does everyone make of that? What incentives do you see that would encourage the players to "not metagame" in this situation?

If it were me, I would ignore the save and eat the fruit my ally just ate with no consequences. If that turns out badly for me, so be it.

 

[iserith]

If it were me, I would ignore the save and eat the fruit my ally just ate with no consequences. If that turns out badly for me, so be it.

What's your incentive to do that?

 

[MarkB]

Honestly, the biggest thing that bugs me about the discussions of this scenario is the assumption by a lot of people that eating something poisonous and passing the saving throw would, by default, have no discernible effect upon a character. My assumption would have been the exact opposite. Just because you shook off the game-mechanical effect of the poison, that doesn't mean you didn't experience visibly serious distress.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What's your incentive to do that?

Staying true to what my PC would do, given the information at hand. I assume I don't have some particular issue with accepting seemingly safe hospitality.

 

[iserith]

Honestly, the biggest thing that bugs me about the discussions of this scenario is the assumption by a lot of people that eating something poisonous and passing the saving throw would, by default, have no discernible effect upon a character. My assumption would have been the exact opposite. Just because you shook off the game-mechanical effect of the poison, that doesn't mean you didn't experience visibly serious distress.

I could see it being argued either way. It's really up to the DM to say whether it's noticeable or not. In this case, it's not clear.

 

[Charlaquin]

Someone who was looking at this scenario told me another angle worth considering is what incentive the players other than me even have to eat the fruit.

I ate the fruit, knowing full well the situation was suspect, because I was trying to get some sweet, sweet Inspiration. So I portrayed my flaw accordingly.

After that save though, the rest of the players have zero incentive to be a "good little RPer" and expose themselves to risk. Instead, for eating the fruit, they get the shaft. Maybe they get to walk away with some level of satisfaction that they were "true to their character," but if death results, that's probably not all that great a payoff.

What does everyone make of that? What incentives do you see that would encourage the players to "not metagame" in this situation?

I don’t know about an incentive to eat the fruit, but there is a potential disincentive not to eat it, that being any potential consequence of insulting this host. Now, that’s only an implied potential consequence; the players can guess the host might get upset and might do something that could be negative for them as a result. But after seeing that eating the fruit triggered a saving throw, they know for sure that there’s something negative that could happen if they eat the fruit. So, it’s a potential negative outcome either way, but one is only implied and the other is more concrete. I think in that situation it is pretty natural that most players would risk the implied consequence over the concrete one.

 

[iserith]

Staying true to what my PC would do, given the information at hand. I assume I don't have some particular issue with accepting seemingly safe hospitality.

There's not really anything a PC "would" do though. Just "might" or "could" do. So not eating could easily be justified, too. I wonder how much of any given player's decision would be based on not being seen to "metagame," too.

 

[Charlaquin]

What's your incentive to do that?

It’s a metagame incentive; if acting on such information is discouraged as part of the social contract of play, the players are disincentivized to do so, lest they be accused of metagaming and potentially expelled from the game.

 

[Charlaquin]

Honestly, the biggest thing that bugs me about the discussions of this scenario is the assumption by a lot of people that eating something poisonous and passing the saving throw would, by default, have no discernible effect upon a character. My assumption would have been the exact opposite. Just because you shook off the game-mechanical effect of the poison, that doesn't mean you didn't experience visibly serious distress.

Yeah, but by the same token you’re assuming that any visible effects would occur pretty immediately. Usually it takes hours for an ingested drug or other toxic agent to take effect, because it needs time to be digested.

I think in in the interest of calling for rolls when they are immediately relevant, it would be best to wait until the poison is actually going to take effect to call for a saving throw, the same way that I wait until a character is actually at risk of being spotted to call for a stealth check. This would have the side-benefit of avoiding any “metagaming” concerns, for those who care about such things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's not really anything a PC "would" do though. Just "might" or "could" do. So not eating could easily be justified, too. I wonder how much of any given player's decision would be based on not being seen to "metagame," too.

Yeah, that save really shouldn't have been public. Cat's out of the bag at that point.