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

[Lanefan]

It's a bit of a rabbit hole. Which is why, a while back, I completely stopped caring about whether the players metagame and really only care if they're being jerks at the table.

In many cases metagaming is being a jerk at the table, even more so at a table where metagaming is frowned on.

 

[Lanefan]

The thing I really work on with new players is getting them onboard with the idea that an RPG is cooperative storytelling and not a zero sum game where only one person or one side wins.

That sounds to me like a fine sum-up of the sport-vs-war divide from the other thread. Co-operative storytelling makes it sport; zero-sum they-win-or-we-win makes it war.

My absolute pet peeve, though, is one player telling another what they should do on their turn. I absolutely shut that crap down immediately and I'm super blunt about it.

Hear hear!

Even more so if the player/PC giving the suggestion has no way of knowing what the PC receiving the suggestion is actually doing and-or the two PCs are well out of earshot of each other.

 

[Mort]

In many cases metagaming is being a jerk at the table, even more so at a table where metagaming is frowned on.

Yes, table rules are important - and need to be communicated.

 

[Campbell]

That sounds to me like a fine sum-up of the sport-vs-war divide from the other thread. Co-operative storytelling makes it sport; zero-sum they-win-or-we-win makes it war.

Hear hear!

Even more so if the player/PC giving the suggestion has no way of knowing what the PC receiving the suggestion is actually doing and-or the two PCs are well out of earshot of each other.

Combat as sport is about the challenge laying in how well you execute and react during the encounter - hence the sport part. Cooperative storytelling is cooperative storytelling - not Combat as Sport (as evidenced by more encounter centric combat design).

 

[Lanefan]

To me it’s indicative of an adversarial mindset on the part of the player. A need to win at any cost.

Well, as a player I play in a "war" style: in-character I'm fighting against what the setting throws at me with whatever means and resources I have. And yes, it's adversarial. I want to win.

But I don't want to win via out-of-character knowledge; so my ask to the DM is not to tell me-as-player things my character wouldn't know (until-unless those things don't matter any more, then tell away - it's always fun hearing the stories!). And I'm not going to memorize the MM or read the module; and if I start recognizing I'm in an adventure I've seen before* I'll either sit out until it's done or play passive.

* - with one remarkable exception: way back when, my very first character joined the party in a memorable homebrew adventure. Shortly after that some murderous party infighting saw him killed; he was revived much later and retired. Fifteen-ish years later I found myself in need of a new PC in a different campaign run by the same DM, and I asked if I could dust off this guy, update him as to what he'd done since retiring, and bring him in. Sure, said the DM - not realizing that the adventure he was running at the time was the very same one that my PC had first started in! So in this one case I felt I could use any player knowledge I could remember, as - in a different place and time - my character had been there before.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but I've always found PC need potential for allies and strings they can pull to get out of situations. If EVERYONE is against them, even in a hostile environment - it tends to stain believability.

Fair - they sometimes find allies in the field...and sometimes find "allies" as well. If wise, they don't get too trusting.

In town is usually a different story - there, opposition is usually the exception unless the adventure happens to be set in the town.

 

[Lanefan]

1 it's a hypothetical (in reality I would have immediately said something). But I actually have seen it happen quite a few times, DM had nothing else prepared and didn't want to ad lib, so ran it despite some players having seen it before.

I've learned to ask well ahead of time - e.g. if I'm thinking I might use a module in six months, ask about it now - to avoid getting caught short at the last minute. This has also saved myself and another DM once or twice from accidentally running the same adventure at the same time; highly relevant as we share some players and play in each other's games.

2 some groups actually LIKE replaying played through modules to see about different results. Like for the nostalgia, Ran the 5e Tomb of Horrors for my group despite most of them having been through it decades ago - just to see how it would go, the whole point was to see how well they ACTUALLY remembered the module and if 5e could get the feel down at all.

This is different, as (in theory!) everyone knows going in that it's a rerun and - more importantly - everyone's on the same footing.

 

[Lanefan]

Combat as sport is about the challenge laying in how well you execute and react during the encounter - hence the sport part. Cooperative storytelling is cooperative storytelling - not Combat as Sport (as evidenced by more encounter centric combat design).

I was expanding from just combat and thinking more of "the game as sport" vs "the game as war". Combat's just a part of that.

 

[Redneckomancer]

I view metagaming as unwanted because i value character integrity, if you recall my original post it was about gaining more genuine reactions from the players-as-character for more interesting roleplaying experiences, and in other situations such as fire-against-ogre or which-way-is-the-treasure-room-in-this-module-I’ve-already-played it’s really not that difficult to just roll a nature check first or flip a coin/keep quiet while the rest of the party decides, I just don’t think it’s necessary to metagame in most if any situations but it wasn’t the metagame angle I wanted to focus on.

Ok cool. Correct me if I'm wrong, you want player advice on how you, as a player, can avoid the temptation of Forbidden Knowledge. Yes I'm being a bit cheeky, hopefully it lightens the mood.
Well, again, assuming you want to avoid being a jerk and aren't acquiring Forbidden Knowledge for malicious ends, the two main camps I can see here are "It is fundamentally impossible to avoid having Forbidden Knowledge affect your decision making, so don't sweat it and just play your character as you will" vs "As long as you don't act on the Forbidden Knowledge, and play your character as true as you can, it's no sweat."

You seem to have the basics down, just... don't act on it as best you can. Go with the flow of the low roll. What does a 5 Diplomacy check look like from Gundar The Gallant? He's your character, thats up to you. Now the other ones, like investigation get a bit tricky so here's some things you can ask your DM to do, see if they go with it.

• Decide if you want things like Bluff/Insight/Diplomacy to be rolled before or after the play-acting happens, and be consistent on that. If it happens before, you can simply play out what a 3 diplomacy looks like from Gundahar the Gallant, he's your character after all. If your group decides on after (that old 'you get a bonus for good rp' style), ask the DM to make it a secret roll and have the NPC react on that, and well it's up to you then to decide if Gundahar thinks he did well or not, based on what the NPC is doing.
• Ask for things like Stealth to only be rolled when it would be immediately consequential. You start sneaking down a hallway, ok. You are sneaking. Oh, you round the corner and there's a patrol NOW you roll stealth. That way, well, it's not Forbidden Knowledge as Gundahar can immediately tell if he's been spotted or not, due to alarms and and gunshots coming at him.
• Ask the DM to use Passive Perception and Investigation and Insight. If the behind the screen NPC roll doesn't beat the Passive, then yeah Gundahar clocks the lie, the secret door, whatever. If the secret roll beats it, Gundahar and you have no idea anyway, Forbidden Knowledge avoided.
• Additionally, when actively searching for something, try to be specific in your characters actions so the DM can adjust DC's and whatnot as needed. I know this used to(?) be called "mother may I" style DMing but as long as they also have a fallback DC for general searching as well, it'll be fine. Also these can be secret checks too, for individuals. Or just a big group check anyway, so that whoever succeeds can just tell the other characters.
• This also helps on Insight checks. Don't just "roll insight" at people. Try to ask about specific things if you think the person is lying. Do you have any evidence they're lying? Ask about body language, are they nervous, sweating in a cold room etc.
• Ask your DM to tell you if they are running any specific modules upfront, so you can avoid Spoilers while reading threads like this one and let them know if you've already played through one ahead of time so they can either change the module, or find a new one.

If you're looking for DM advice, do that stuff. That stuff I just wrote? Do that. That's my advice on mitigating having Forbidden Knowledge affect your character choices. Oh, and bring back Take 20 from 3e. If you haven't heard of it before, it's basically "You can take a really almost absurdly long time to do something to make your roll count as a 20+your adds". If they want to comb every inch of the place in search of a trap or secret door or evidence of embezzlement let em. And then probably a random encounter or something, I don't know.

 

[Bill Zebub]

To me it’s indicative of an adversarial mindset on the part of the player. A need to win at any cost.

Again, maybe don't play with those people? Rules aren't going to prevent people from being jerks; they are just going to find other ways to be jerks.

Or is it that you are imagining an adversarial mindset because they are using player knowledge? Kind of like how I imagine that the guy in the Subaru in front of me is going 5mph below the speed limit specifically because he has been sent to Earth to torment me. When, really, it's probably a little old lady who is nervous on a two lane highway.

I'm guessing those players you loathe are more benign than you imagine.