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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4488220" data-attributes="member: 42582">Who is talking about PCs metagaming? That is a category error. I am talking about players metagaming. That is pretty much a given, even if the metagame is limited to "Now that we've all picked up our character sheets and recapped on last week's session, no more metagaming!" Runequest plays well in this fashion. I don't think that D&D 4e plays all that well in this fashion, though undoubtedly it can be done (just as I'm sure that some people somewhere have metagamed Runequest).There are a couple of possibilities here.One is what Snoweel mentioned - that this is just bad adventure design because the world is inconsistent.Another is that the game has some sort of "redemption through outrageous comeback" motif going, and the drunk and slovenly PCs who got trashed by the town guards redeem themselves by saving the town from the ogre despite the mayor wanting them dead (think Rocky or The Karate Kid).Another is that the PCs, appearances notwithstanding (after all, the town guard just trashed them), have been prophecied to be ogre slayers. In 4e one way to mechanically model this prophecy is to make the ogres of a level that the PCs can beat them in a tough fight. (In TRoS it would be done using Spiritual Attributes. In HARP it would be done using Fate Points. In HeroWars it would be done using augments from a Destined to Slay Ogres ability. Diffferent game systems have different mechanical ways of handling such a situation.)Merry and Eowyn beat the Witchking, not through force of arms, but through force of prophecy. There's no reason to think that they could beat Glorfindel in combat, even though Glordindel couldn't beat the Witchking. One way to model this sort of thing is to give them big bonuses to hit. Another (functionally equivalent) way is to stat up the foes at the right level to provide the right sort of challenge. Nothing need follow from that about how anyone else in the gameworld would handle the foes in question.Now the prophecy examples still involve some sort of ingame explanation for the mechanics (ie the prophecy). But it is just as easy to imagine that there is no prophecy in the gameworld, but it is the desire an intention of the players of the game that events unfold according to a certain narrative logic. (This would be a slightly more modernist approach to the narrative.) Appropriate allocation of stats to the PC's foes will do this as well.</blockquote>

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