D&D 5E Player challange Vs Character challange (Metagaming)

[GMforPowergamers]

SO over the years I have seen this come up a lot on boards, and right now there is a fire storm a bruing... I wonder what everyone things (please no one tell anyone else they are engageing in badwrongfun) remember it's a game and we are all playing it.


I know that I personally have a sliding scale. I have a lot of both as a PC and DM experience with both ways going wrong, and both ways being right.

SO what about you, do you let players take out of game knowledge into the game? How far can they push it before they are cheating?

 

[iserith]

SO what about you, do you let players take out of game knowledge into the game?

Yes.

How far can they push it before they are cheating?

It's never "cheating" at my table. But we do adhere to the goals of play: everybody having fun and creating an exciting, memorable story. So whatever you bring to the game must support those goals or you risk the group "losing" at D&D.

I think it might be helpful to the discussion if you define what you mean by challenging the players or challenging the characters. (The characters don't really exist, so I don't see how one might go about challenging them.)

 

[redrick]

Oh man, it's tough, because sometimes I have different feelings from one night to the next.

Ultimately, I think that the game is best when player knowledge is just slightly higher than relevant character knowledge. A little bit of dramatic, "I am playing a character and not doing what I might do in this situation" is good. A lot of, "I know exactly the right decision, but my character wouldn't have that information, so he will do something incredibly stupid" gets old fast. We had a character death last night because a player "role-played" his friendly character into marching into the middle of a clearing full of Chaotic Evil monsters and saying, "Hell-ooo!" While everybody else was hiding on the edge of the woods, he was swarmed 5-1 and didn't last the round. Funny, but I think a little bit of a bummer for him. On the other hand, I didn't want to hamstring the monsters just because he was "playing his character."

On the other hand, the game is a little easier and more relaxing when the player knows a lot more about the monsters and situations in play than their character. The player can sort of "role-play" as far as they want to take the challenge, doing stupid things until things get ugly and their character "wisens up." It's a nice way to play in the second half of the night when the players (and the DM) have had a bit too much to drink. We see this fairly often at our table. Sort of like in a horror movie, players use stupid PC decisions to drive the action forward.

 

[CaptainGemini]

Wow. People who think the poll is dumb currently outnumber people who agree with player skill.

I'm character skill... because there's things the character can know the player doesn't, and vice versa.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

SO what about you, do you let players take out of game knowledge into the game?

If it is something that their character could possibly know, absolutely - it is up to the player to decide their character's background, and that includes what they know, don't know, or could arrive at a correct guess for so long as such knowledge or guess is possible.

How far can they push it before they are cheating?

If they use knowledge that it is absolutely in no way possible for their character to know or to guess at, then they are cheating - but that doesn't come up at my table because my players share in not knowing what their character's couldn't possibly know.

And this poll is missing a seriously important voting option: There is no such thing as "metagaming" other than the process that is invented and enforced in the process people refer to as "avoiding metagaming." - because you can't actually determine that the reason behind a character's action was player knowledge rather than a lucky guess without first bringing what a player knows and the character does or doesn't into the equation of deciding what action the character takes, which is what people call "metagaming."

 

[GMforPowergamers]

yea, there are lots of answers I could have put, I went with broad strokes... and wow 11 votes in and no one has said player skill

 

[seebs]

Player skill only, not character skill, sort of eliminates any reason to play a "role-playing game".

 

[bid]

Player skills are only used to bring character skills to life. If you are too smart for your character, going right is forbidden. Find a way to make him take the 3 lefts that'll make that right. If it's the opposite, take a random right somewhere and your character will smooth it out to the right place.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Thou shalt not meta-game. Using information which your character does not possess is meta-gaming.

That doesn't mean you need to roll for everything, though. Some things will be common knowledge for all characters. Some things will be common knowledge depending on background. DM discretion applies.

 

[Ristamar]

Player skill only, not character skill, sort of eliminates any reason to play a "role-playing game".

Indeed.

As a person that voted 3) Both, I think these options are poorly phrased. All player skill is an absurd (impossible?) game, at least in D&D. You'll always need to rely on your character's skill/knowledge, regardless of your experience as a player.