D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[Oofta]

Some groups are okay, and even embrace metagaming. Some groups play with people who have never read a MM or hit specific monsters. Some groups simply ask people to minimize metagaming as much as possible.

I fall in the last group. I also assume a fair amount of knowledge about things like trolls need fire to stop regeneration because as much as it's fun to throw things at players they don't understand you can't surprise someone who's played for a period of time will know about it whether or not they act on it. Trolls simply aren't that rare in my world.

If I want to set up the monster that can't be killed until you find it's weakness, it will likely be a custom monster. Since I use custom or reskinned monsters on a regular basis it's not a gotcha, I just think it's fun to be surprised and have an in-game puzzle now and then.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Good grief. I'm not saying the video game person is metagaming, where did you even get that? It's the player knowing something that can give them an advantage and choosing to us it or not. Stating that having knowledge you don't use is actually still metagaming feels like an attempt to muddy the waters and a useless narrative gimmick.

In any case, most people that have been playing for a while have some metagame knowledge they can choose to use or not. It's pretty much inevitable. I just ask people that they try to minimize impact on their PC's actions.

Good grief, indeed. I didn't say you categorized video games as metagaming.

I explained why your analogy doesn't apply. It's because the issue with metagaming in RPGs relies on the distinction between what a character knows and what a player knows. That distinction is absent in video games.

Hence, your analogy doesn't tell us much.

Got it now?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

There's a key element missing from your analogy.

In the video game example, there is no character knowledge. There is no distinction between what the character in the game knows and what the player knows.

lets try this...

I am hosting a LAN party (yes this is 1998, why do you ask?) and 4 of use boot up starcraft, 2 play xerg, and 1 plays humans and 1 plays the broken alie... I meanProtos. we all start out in a big map and can't see what we are doing... the protos player looks over his shoulder and looks at the screen of the 2 xerg and the 1 human player sees where they are on the map and chooses who to go steal tech from based on location and what they are building...

that is as close to 'meta gaming' as I can get in video games. It is also a fast way to get Jon yelled at... not that it happened or MIke didn't kick jon out of his basement when we realized why he choose the computer he did...all the time

 

[Oofta]

Good grief, indeed. I didn't say you categorized video games as metagaming.

I explained why your analogy doesn't apply. It's because the issue with metagaming in RPGs relies on the distinction between what a character knows and what a player knows. That distinction is absent in video games.

Hence, your analogy doesn't tell us much.

Got it now?

The reason some people have problems with metagaming is that it feel it's giving the PC an advantage their PC should not have. The reason most people don't like people that use cheat codes in video games is that they feel it gives the PC's avatar an advantage their avatar should not have. It is not and never has been about what the PC or avatar "knows" it's the impact on the game.

Got it now? Actually, scratch that. I don't care. This is a silly tangent argument. Accept my analogy or not I'm not going to argue about it any more.

 

[hawkeyefan]

lets try this...

I am hosting a LAN party (yes this is 1998, why do you ask?) and 4 of use boot up starcraft, 2 play xerg, and 1 plays humans and 1 plays the broken alie... I meanProtos. we all start out in a big map and can't see what we are doing... the protos player looks over his shoulder and looks at the screen of the 2 xerg and the 1 human player sees where they are on the map and chooses who to go steal tech from based on location and what they are building...

that is as close to 'meta gaming' as I can get in video games. It is also a fast way to get Jon yelled at... not that it happened or MIke didn't kick jon out of his basement when we realized why he choose the computer he did...all the time

I don't have a lot of experience with Starcraft or anything. But do players typically pretend like they don't know what to do when the aliens show up because they've never encountered the aliens before?

Like if you play through the game a second time, do you try and compartmentalize the knowledge you gained from the first play through?

No, of course not. You just play the game to the best of your ability.

For this analogy to work, we have to remove the idea of character knowledge in an RPG. Let's say they are nothing more than a pawn and the player plays them however they want to, just like they would in a video game. Using what the player knows would never be considered an "unfair advantage" in this case.

The reason some people have problems with metagaming is that it feel it's giving the PC an advantage their PC should not have. The reason most people don't like people that use cheat codes in video games is that they feel it gives the PC's avatar an advantage their avatar should not have. It is not and never has been about what the PC or avatar "knows" it's the impact on the game.
Got it now? Actually, scratch that. I don't care. This is a silly tangent argument. Accept my analogy or not I'm not going to argue about it any more.

Yes, I understand your point. But a player using what he already knows to play a video game involves no unfair advantages like those offered through cheat codes.

A player using what he already knows to play an RPG is what's in question. It is only viewed as an unfair advantage by some because of the limit of character knowledge. If that limit were removed, no one would call what a player does the equivalent of cheating.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't have a lot of experience with Starcraft or anything. But do players typically pretend like they don't know what to do when the aliens show up because they've never encountered the aliens before?

Like if you play through the game a second time, do you try and compartmentalize the knowledge you gained from the first play through?

No, of course not. You just play the game to the best of your ability.

For this analogy to work, we have to remove the idea of character knowledge in an RPG. Let's say they are nothing more than a pawn and the player plays them however they want to, just like they would in a video game. Using what the player knows would never be considered an "unfair advantage" in this case.

Starcraft in a LAN party is a VS thing... so you get ploped onto a map and have to find resources, build a base, then use the base to advance tech... when you come across others you normally fight them.

the example was a player taking out of game knowladge (cheating) by looking at the other screens to pick his target

 

[hawkeyefan]

Starcraft in a LAN party is a VS thing... so you get ploped onto a map and have to find resources, build a base, then use the base to advance tech... when you come across others you normally fight them.

the example was a player taking out of game knowladge (cheating) by looking at the other screens to pick his target

You don't see a distinction between something the player already knows prior to play... maybe he knows that the faction the other player is using is vulnerable to certain tactics or whatever.... and the player actively looking at another screen to specifically gain an advantage?

Doesn't one seem passive and the other active?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You don't see a distinction between something the player already knows prior to play... maybe he knows that the faction the other player is using is vulnerable to certain tactics or whatever.... and the player actively looking at another screen to specifically gain an advantage?

Doesn't one seem passive and the other active?

no both seem active... you use the information.

lets go a step further... card games.
YUGIOH.

me and my friends played MTG back in the day then oneday someone found the Yugioh anime and we all laughed at MTG to save the world... but we were almost all out of MTG by then... about a year after we started watching the anime the card game came out and we bought into them (about 8 of us if I remember) and we played for fun and did the dramatic "You triggered my trap card" type lines as jokes...
One day one player went online and found there was this super stratagy and this super cool deck that won alot... so he went and spent a lot of money building it. Then he got mad cause we didn't want to play him.

See to us this was a fun little pass time and a little money sink, to HIM this was a strategy to find the best at... and once he found the best he won, so we said "Okay we will play without you then"

At the time I was making better money then I am now (it's also when I bought my house without a second thought) so I could have gone online found a killer deck and sunk $300 into making it... or I could buy a pack every few weeks make funny decks with my friends and not care about the meta... I chose B, but that meant we did not have fun playing with someone who chose A.

He wasn't cheating. He played the game by the rules, BUT he chose to find the best most optimal way to do so and no longer was it fun for us.


now back to D&D. if you metagame you are not playing something I would find fun.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It indeed is true that under broad definition of metagaming a little bit of it always occurs, and some of it can even be beneficial. This being case, it still it not incoherent to want to avoid blatant cases of it. A lot of things might be tolerable or even preferable in small or diluted doses but detrimental in excess. Now in my experience these blatant cases generally simply do not occur, but that of course can vary greatly depending on the gaming culture.

BTW, the troll thing sort of happened in my game. The characters were about to face a troll (which are not terribly common in this world) and flubbed their knowledge rolls, so they didn't know of their vulnerabilities, only that they're known to be really hard to kill. Most players definitely knew. However, they didn't have access to any fire of acid spells in the first place, and I actually had substituted the acid with necrotic, which they had access to, and this was telegraphed earlier on (fire would still have worked.) It took them really long time to realise that necrotic was needed. (I also had some rules for dealing massive slashing damage to the "dead" troll in order to decapitate it, which would have finished it too.)

 

[hawkeyefan]

no both seem active... you use the information.

But one is something that cannot be undone... knowing the details of the game... and another is something that can be avoided... don't look at the other player's screen.

Would you tell the other player "Pretend to not know that my elite unit has a slow speed, okay?"

That would seem utterly absurd. Whereas "Hey, don't look at my screen!" seems perfectly reasonable.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

But one is something that cannot be undone... knowing the details of the game... and another is something that can be avoided... don't look at the other player's screen.

Would you tell the other player "Pretend to not know that my elite unit has a slow speed, okay?"

That would seem utterly absurd. Whereas "Hey, don't look at my screen!" seems perfectly reasonable.

hey don't use knowladge your character doesn't have
sounds more like don't look at my screen to me

 

[hawkeyefan]

hey don't use knowladge your character doesn't have
sounds more like don't look at my screen to me

You can't not know what you know. That's the point. Any decision you make... to use the knowledge or not, is influenced by the fact that you have the knowledge. It's unavoidable. Trying to avoid it only highlights it.

If you don't look at someone's screen, then you don't know what's on their screen. You can avoid this knowledge.

I think it's a pretty important distinction and is pretty key to the whole meta concept, and displays why metagaming and cheating are different things.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It seems to me that what might really be going on for some people is that they don’t like the “unfair advantage” granted in certain situations, and what those situations seem to have in common is the player knowledge vs character knowledge thing, so rather than enumerate the list of problematic behaviors…which would be lengthy and incomplete…they generalize to “metagaming is bad”. But that is too broad, and sweeps up a lot of behaviors that are not only fine but even necessary to the game.

Anybody think that may be what is going on?

 

[Redneckomancer]

This whole video game analogy is kinda bunk from the start because, unless you're doing an old school con tournament, D&D isn't a 1 vs all competitive game? Maybe use Overcooked! or World of Warcraft raids or something.

Also 'metagaming is an unfair advantage'. Unfair for who, advantage against who? Unless you're a very adversarial DM I don't really understand this idea at all.
Anyway, back to the OP, I've been running a multitude of games for about 20 years and really this idea of "no secret rolls, player knows every roll right in front of them by default" is something I've only seen from people who started and only play 5e. Not saying its bad or anything, it's just interesting. It's also very interesting to me that this idea is also coupled with the idea of Metagaming being inherently bad.
Sorry if this has been brought up already (38 pages in 3 days tells me there's probably a lot of nonsense like this current video game tangent so) but can you, CreamCloud, personally explain in your own words why Metagaming is inherently bad? If you can't I'd probably stop worrying about it and just roll stuff based on what keeps the game moving and playable.
I used to believe that too because I'd seen so many general and hypothetical examples of metagaming being bad, but every time someone brought up a specific from-the-table example of metagaming being bad, it always turned out to be just someone (player or DM) being a dick, and metagaming was just one vector for them to be a dick. Or it just didn't look like a problem to me at all, for example the Troll vs Fire thing: What's the worst that happens? The players kill the troll 2 rounds earlier than expected? Oh nooooooo game ruined
That's when I, personally, stopped caring if someone metagamed, specifically, and just thought about why they did something and if it actually ruined the game for everyone involved.
Personally yeah, I use a lot of secret rolls and passive stats (not just perception either, you can add 10 to any skill and it becomes a Passive score fancy that). I also noticed that in general I call for way less rolls than my 5e players expect anyway and just let them have info or whatever, with particular emphasis on what's trained vs untrained, backgrounds, origin, and what things the player specifically says they're doing (you can't get away with just asking "can I roll Insight?" in my games, sorry. I need specific actions to adjudicate.)
Also, as I get older, I'm just too tired to care. We're all stressed out and have so little time to play, If you know there's a magic sword down the left hallway, sure bud, go grab that, it'll come in handy. Gotta keep things moving.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Of course we filter out sensory data. I said the baring can’t ignore relevant information when making a decision. You can try to decide differently than the relevant information you have would lead you to do, but that is a decision influenced by said information.

And again, I think your definition of "relevant" is faulty here. You filter that out too, by prioritization. If you learn to prioritize what's character-visible, the same applies here.

What you’re doing is trying to imagine what choice you might have made if you lacked that information, and making that choice. But by doing so, you are still acting in a way that has been influenced by that information.

I disagree with this characterization. It implies a far more conscious process than what I'm talking about.

I don’t know what this means.

it means you're applying my statements well beyond how I intended them to be applied. I don't know a better way to express that without getting into the weeds in a way I'm uninterested in pursuing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've never used traps very often for a simple reason. Most of the time they're dumb. If you have a trapped corridor, how do people use your facility?

There's a couple answers to this.

1. They don't. You place them in areas you do not expect to regularly use, but want to keep available if events change. The classic here is traps in tombs; no one is expected to regularly use that area.

2. The traps are easy to avoid if you know the trick. A secret corridor with a door that has to be opened in a particular way, that the small number of people who use it know, or a trapped chest that's perfectly safe to open when you know the trick.

Now, traps in heavily travelled areas that a lot of people would be required to know to use, I agree with, but that's not the routine use of traps IME.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It seems to me that what might really be going on for some people is that they don’t like the “unfair advantage” granted in certain situations, and what those situations seem to have in common is the player knowledge vs character knowledge thing, so rather than enumerate the list of problematic behaviors…which would be lengthy and incomplete…they generalize to “metagaming is bad”. But that is too broad, and sweeps up a lot of behaviors that are not only fine but even necessary to the game.

Anybody think that may be what is going on?

I think that's part of it.

I also think that this goes back to the DM being at fault. They're presenting the players with a challenge... if the challenge is such that things the players already know gives them an unfair advantage, then that's a flawed challenge. Come up with another way to challenge the players.

Expecting them to pretend not to know the thing they know... what does that challenge? Their ability to play dumb?

It's just silly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think what they're doing is choosing the option that is more fun and engaging to them which may happen to be not losing. Which is not to say they will never lose even if "metagaming." It's not a reliable tactic unless the DM makes it so.

Yeah, the truth is I think there's a lot of people who don't find failure fun. They want it to be possible (because what's the point otherwise) but particularly doing so in some circumstances is unattractive. So they'll lean in on things that minimize that.

(In particular, people tend to dislike failure that makes them and/or their character look incompetent).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think that's part of it.

I also think that this goes back to the DM being at fault. They're presenting the players with a challenge... if the challenge is such that things the players already know gives them an unfair advantage, then that's a flawed challenge. Come up with another way to challenge the players.

Expecting them to pretend not to know the thing they know... what does that challenge? Their ability to play dumb?

It's just silly.

At least to me it is not really not about advantage, at least not mainly. I think the point of roleplaying is to get immersed and inhabit a viewpoint of a fictional person, and part of doing that is to accept that this person will have different amount of knowledge than you the player. If you're incapable of doing that, what's even the point of playing?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sorry if you've already addressed this but there's been a lot of posts so... here goes:

• if a player knows the troll is weak to fire and
• the PC doesn't know that for... reasons... and
• the PC has the cantrip fire bolt

If the PC uses fire bolt against the troll in round 1 of combat, is it metagaming?

As I've noted before it can go either way; after all, maybe the player pretty regularly uses fire bolt anyway, and it seems as good a choice as anything else. That's why I say it turns into a case of GMs making assumptions to jump on ones like that (and why I've strongly distinguished it from the "coincidental joining the group in trouble" case).