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

[Charlaquin]

I would think this sort of mix is nigh-universal.

It’s not. It’s of course very common at many tables, maybe even most, but it’s far from universal.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah that is how our tables run too. If you feel the need to keep secrets you must not trust your friends very much

Long experience has taught me to assume people will use whatever information they have, including that gleaned from meta-sources. I'm very rarely wrong.

We do this too. In fact we play Vampire this way with groups actively working against each other. We still see no reason to take the group to notes or other rooms.

If my CHARACTER is hiding something that doesn’t me I have to

I'd be truly amazed were it the case that even though those opposed groups knew what each other was doing, they didn't act on that information.

Then again, the war-vs-sport dichotomy comes into it here as well. I ain't here for sport.

 

[Lanefan]

And part of improv acting is “yes, and.” I don’t know if you’ve ever tried improv, but stopping a scene to say, “wait, no, your character wouldn’t do that” would not go over well in that context.

Nor would sending the scene off the rails, which is the other risk if someone comes up with something ridiculous and you're stuck with trying to "yes, and...." it.

That’s certainly the only recourse that would actually work to prevent metagaming. There are a lot of problems with this though, not the least of which is how you do you decide if a character knows something or not. In some cases it might be obvious, but in many cases it doesn’t.

Agreed, this can be a headache sometimes. The split-party thing is easy to adjudicate. The trolls-v-fire thing, not so much. Oftentimes in cases like the trolls one I put it to a die roll, as to whether your character came by this knowledge somewhere in its pre-adventuring life and-or during unplayed downtime; and I rarely if ever get any argument on this.

And your mileage may vary, but my experience has been that seriously attempting to prevent it made the gameplay experience miserable for everyone involved.

Not doing enough to prevent it has far too often made it worse. Players metagaming (particularly offering unwanted ideas or suggestions to other players whose PCs are elsewhere) has in the past caused some of the nastiest at-table arguments I've seen - and believe me, I've seen a lot of 'em.

 

[Charlaquin]

Nor would sending the scene off the rails, which is the other risk if someone comes up with something ridiculous and you're stuck with trying to "yes, and...." it.

Eh, it depends. In a lot of improv, really off-the-wall stuff is encouraged. But, yeah, generally you want to keep a reasonably consistent tone. The D&D equivalent would be sticking to the expectations discussed in session 0.

Not doing enough to prevent it has far too often made it worse.

Made what worse?

Players metagaming (particularly offering unwanted ideas or suggestions to other players whose PCs are elsewhere) has in the past caused some of the nastiest at-table arguments I've seen - and believe me, I've seen a lot of 'em.

As I said, your mileage may vary.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, probably. Although like I pointed out upthread those same people often say “you can’t ‘win’ D&D”. But if you can’t win how can there be cheating?

There doesn’t have to be a win state for cheating could be a possibility. I don’t think my wife would buy the argument that our marriage isn’t a game to be won and therefore me having sex with the hot neighbor can’t be cheating…

 

[Bill Zebub]

There doesn’t have to be a win state for cheating could be a possibility. I don’t think my wife would buy the argument that our marriage isn’t a game to be won and therefore me having sex with the hot neighbor can’t be cheating…

I disagree. You're definitely winning at marriage if you get to sleep with the hot neighbor but your spouse doesn't.




KIDDING!!!!

More seriously, my first reaction was that it's a totally different definition of 'cheating'.

But, on reflection, it's not. It really just means that you're not abiding by rules you have agreed to, whether that's tacit agreement like joining a game or very explicit agreement like reciting vows in front of friends and family.

So metagaming (defined as using player knowledge) is not cheating in the sense that there's no official rule against it. But it might be cheating, if for example the people at a table share that as a house rule.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If a player tries to have their PC do something because of player knowledge, I just tell them "No, you can't. Your PC doesn't know that and would have no reason to act that way."

I'll be dead honest: even years ago, and certainly these days, my response would be "Says you."

(And this is from someone who used to do the same thing but has long concluded doing that sort of thing is not my business to do).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Very much so, in my case. Good call.

Though its not a position I ever entirely was onboard, when I was younger I was closer to it, so I at least understand it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Not even close.

The distinction between telling somehow to play their character and how not to play their character may be important to you, but if you think it is to everyone, let me disabuse you.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm not into adversarial DMing. I'm not going to alter something just to get around metagame cheating.

I’m not into adversarial DMing either.

I am into effective DMing. If I want a scenario where it somehow matter that the players don’t have knowledge of the monster capabilities, then I use monsters whose capabilities they don’t know.

That seems far less adversarial than using one they know and then expecting them to play dumb or else admonish them for “cheating”.

Not without perverting the meaning of metagaming. Metagaming is having the PC act on out of character knowledge.

Right. I play a wizard who has, among other spells, burning hands. Me not using it against trolls because the wizard has never encountered trolls before is me changing my actions due to out of character knowledge. It swings both ways.

When this is the scenario… and one member of my group tries to play it this way when he GMs… the meta aspect is so much more prominent.

Dragons' breath weapons are common knowledge.

How do your players know what monster abilities they’re “allowed” to know about?