D&D General Just Eat the Dang Fruit

[iserith]

I suppose the charitable way of looking at it is to say that only the fruits that are poisoned actually take up "screen time." Otherwise the PC is just happily munching on "regular" fruit, in the background.

As well, I'm a fighter with a good Con and Inspiration in my back ocket. Do your worst, DM - I got this!

 

[Blue]

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?

So my character sees someone eat fruit, be fine, and continue to eat fruit, and decide not to eat it? Because of out-of-character knowledge that a saving through was made?

This is why I don't like metagaming. Your character doesn't have that knowledge, why would you react like that? It's like being asked what your passive perception is, no one is told they see anything, but assume that you're about to be ambushed.

As a side note, I played a halfling bard whom hospitality was a big thing. Eatting offered food without concern has gotten him poisoned once* - but also multiple times got him in good with someone else, or at least to a point where they would listed to what he had to say.

(* And that poisoned was the time he went off the rails. We had recently hit 9th, and my halfling bard who was all about action denial and buffs and debuffs and never really did damage stalked across to their 'host' chanting and by the time he got there had polymorphed into a giant ape and proceeded to smack the stuffing out of someone who would abuse the rules of hospitality.)

 

[Blue]

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.

I'm pretty opposite you in every particular.

I try not to use meta-knowledge when playing, and frown heavily on it when running. It being a "mistake" to ask for the roll only when your players will take advantage of meta-knowledge, which mine won't, so I won't classify it as a mistake.

And I would never take control of the characters away from the players and tell them they did something. I would talk to the players about not acting on meta like we discussed back in Session 0, but never override what a player said the character was doing (absent charm magic or the like).

 

[CleverNickName]

I have a similar flaw IRL, except it's cheese.

 

[Seramus]

This is why I don't like metagaming. Your character doesn't have that knowledge, why would you react like that? It's like being asked what your passive perception is, no one is told they see anything, but assume that you're about to be ambushed.

As an experiment, I once asked a group of players to Roll Initiative as strangers walked into their home. The players won initiative and proceeded to slaughter the strangers.

The strangers had done nothing, and were not described in any way as menacing. Obviously this is an unfair experiment, but the results were interesting!

 

[Irlo]

So my character sees someone eat fruit, be fine, and continue to eat fruit, and decide not to eat it? Because of out-of-character knowledge that a saving through was made?

This is why I don't like metagaming. Your character doesn't have that knowledge, why would you react like that?

Why? In real life, I’ve been offered fruit by people I trust and declined to eat it. Fortunately, no one was openly speculating about my reasons for reacting as I did.

In a gaming situation, it would be better to determine up front if anyone was eating. Then people could react in-character without second-guessing their motivations.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean, you did take a trait that is basically 'DM, please poison every fruit in the game'.

For me, this ruins the fun just as much as if no fruit were poisoned. Like with any dramatic tool, it must be used carefully. Chekhov's gun should be fired, but to have every other scene be a spray of bullets weakens its value.

If I had a player who chose something like this, I would try to leverage it in all sorts of directions. Some fruit is poisoned. Some fruit is magical--good, bad, or weird, you never know! Some fruit is just fruit. Some fruit is just fruit...but it comes from the Queen's private garden, and having the stain on your mouth is a dead giveaway that you've been there, which could tip off the Countess that you're moving against her. Some fruit grants you immortality and someone is going to be Super Upset that you ate the Peaches of Immortality (see: the story of Sun Wukong.)

Keeping it fresh is important. Especially for fruit!

 

[Blue]

Why? In real life, I’ve been offered fruit by people I trust and declined to eat it. Fortunately, no one was openly speculating about my reasons for reacting as I did.

In a gaming situation, it would be better to determine up front if anyone was eating. Then people could react in-character without second-guessing their motivations.

The OP said: "The food and drink is offered to my comrades, of course, but having seen me need to roll a save, nobody wants to partake."

So, starting from the assumption that the single reason not to partake was having seen the need to roll a save. Let's take the OP at face value and move on from there so we can be discussing the same thing.

So, start from you would eat the fruit. A save gets called for. Is it okay to act on the meta-knowledge of a save being asked for, or not?

 

[Irlo]

The OP said: "The food and drink is offered to my comrades, of course, but having seen me need to roll a save, nobody wants to partake."

So, starting from the assumption that the single reason not to partake was having seen the need to roll a save. Let's take the OP at face value and move on from there so we can be discussing the same thing.

So, start from you would eat the fruit. A save gets called for. Is it okay to act on the meta-knowledge of a save being asked for, or not?

If players indicated that they intended to eat, then as a DM I wouldn’t let them take it back after an imperceptible saving throw. If they had not stated an intention to eat, then I wouldn’t assume that they would have eaten if not for the saving throw — I’d leave that to the player.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time Brick had a fruit that wasn't poisoned!

See now, I think a DM who merely poisons all the fruit is failing to appreciate the full potential of that flaw. I imagine the PCs encountering merchants trying to find out what happened to all their stock...farmers who wake up, flabbergasted, to find their entire crop of balefire peppers laid to waste...with only the seeds left behind to suggest that something, somehow, managed to survive eating them all...

And the flaw-possessor maybe not fully cognizant of whether or not it was his doing.