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<blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 7569005" data-attributes="member: 6776133">Consider what the frog might do versus what the frog must do. If you believe that it is metagaming when a player takes any action that the frog might do in place of what you feel it must do, then you may be in too-small of a box. I was playing a cleric back in college and we were fighting a giant (BBEG for the adventure) over a lava pit. In the first round we did a crazy amount of damage, so much so that our DM had the giant dive into the lava to escape us.&nbsp; We were flabbergasted but the DM told us the giant felt it had a better shot at survival swimming away from us in lava than in a direct fight. And that brings us to the frog. Or toad. Once ploymorphed, your new toad-brain may well think “my best shot at survival is to flee my enemy and leap to my friends.” If you can even think that far. But you may well fear an enemy and you may well recognize a friend, even with animal intelligence. So you leap. And maybe you do get squashed underfoot or perhaps impaled. Honestly, what the player decides the frog might do is totally justified. Just as the giant BBEG would rather take a lava bath than face its enemies, a frog might leap for its life and come to a bad end. Does it matter that the DM wanted the BBEG to survive the fight? Does it matter that the player wants the spell to end? How much does the DM or player have to pretend they don’t want to be polymorphed? How many rounds should I “ribbit” before it’s plausible that I leap somewhere? When will the people monitoring how I think about the game allow me to take an action I want to take?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Bawylie, post: 7569005, member: 6776133"] Consider what the frog might do versus what the frog must do. If you believe that it is metagaming when a player takes any action that the frog might do in place of what you feel it must do, then you may be in too-small of a box. I was playing a cleric back in college and we were fighting a giant (BBEG for the adventure) over a lava pit. In the first round we did a crazy amount of damage, so much so that our DM had the giant dive into the lava to escape us. We were flabbergasted but the DM told us the giant felt it had a better shot at survival swimming away from us in lava than in a direct fight. And that brings us to the frog. Or toad. Once ploymorphed, your new toad-brain may well think “my best shot at survival is to flee my enemy and leap to my friends.” If you can even think that far. But you may well fear an enemy and you may well recognize a friend, even with animal intelligence. So you leap. And maybe you do get squashed underfoot or perhaps impaled. Honestly, what the player decides the frog might do is totally justified. Just as the giant BBEG would rather take a lava bath than face its enemies, a frog might leap for its life and come to a bad end. Does it matter that the DM wanted the BBEG to survive the fight? Does it matter that the player wants the spell to end? How much does the DM or player have to pretend they don’t want to be polymorphed? How many rounds should I “ribbit” before it’s plausible that I leap somewhere? When will the people monitoring how I think about the game allow me to take an action I want to take? [/QUOTE]

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