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

[Bill Zebub]

If memory serves, as part of your table rules you don't allow PvP in your game - correct? (if I'm wrong, please take this as a hypothetical instead)

So if I-as-player say in-character that I've had enough of Bob's self-righteous Paladin and declare my next action is to stab Pallybob in the eye, you'd probably veto that declaration as violating the table rules.

And you would be wrong.

I’ll let @iserith handle the denouement.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, the difference is obvious, but we aren’t talking about physically impossible action declarations, we are talking about action declarations the DM wouldn’t take if it were their character. So how do you “soft veto” the green adventurer burning trolls? “You hit the troll with the torch and…nothing happens. You must have not done it right. Try again at level 2, maybe.”

I don't veto that if it's a one-time thing, but if I see similar things from the same player often enough to recognize a pattern, there's a problem needs sorting.

I think what drives me most crazy about anti-metagamers is this belief that somehow there’s this stark line between what a character “would do” and what they (presumably) “wouldn’t do.”

And it’s nonsense. People do totally unexpected, irrational things all the time.

If I’m at your table, and I announce that my previously emotionally stable wizard is going to charge the dragon with my dagger, and my only explanation is, “I have reasons of my own,” are you going to let me? Because it almost definitely is not something my character “would do.” Ever.

I've DMed that wizard, I think.

But yeah, charge away; meanwhile I'll pull my eyebrows out of the ceiling. Is your will up to date?

 

[Lanefan]

I let the player narrate it.

In the game-as-war style we have, letting the player narrate it would all too often lead to the player trying to bend the failure into a success or (more likely) trying to mitigate the results or consequences as much as possible via the narration.

Hell, I'd probably do this all the time myself as a player whether or not I even realized it, and thus would prefer to leave it in the DM's hands.

 

[Maxperson]

Where this gets complicated, it would seem, is when the player believes that the character has knowledge and the DM does not.

Why would he believe it and the DM not? If it's in his background, both should believe it. If it has come up in game play, both should believe it. If he's getting it from a skill, then the DM is determining yes, no or in doubt and both will believe the result. If it's based on consistent prior roleplay(firebolt in the first round of every combat), both are going to believe it.

Or the player believes the knowledge is not required to take the act and the DM disagrees.

That's not going to happen. The players are bright enough to know when something will need to be known before acting. Such as, oh, literally every monster special ability or defense ever.

Either way, we're back to the DM having veto power over the player's action declarations.

No. No veto is ever happening. My telling you no, you can't bring in OOC knowledge is not vetoing a single action. Ever. To veto an action it has to be as the action is happening and then you being told no. That doesn't happen.

Edit: No, @Lanefan is not espousing support for what you are talking about. Go look at post 955. He's talking about telling a player who is clearly playing bad faith that he cannot play in bad faith.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's the blatant examples that cause grief: the player whose PC comes to rescue the scout only because the player heard the scout had found trouble (and says so out loud, out of character - I've seen this before!), or the player who has been through the adventure before and knows the tricks, and takes blatant advantage of that knowledge even though it's all new to the PC. That sort of thing - yeah, shut it down fast.

But…WHY?!?! Why shut it down fast? Isn’t an ally swooping in unexpectedly such a trope that it’s practically a cliche? If that’s how the players want the story to evolve, why are you so opposed to that? Is it because it takes a challenge intended for the scout and makes it a non-challenge for the team? Then change the story again! You have infinite dragons!

God it’s just so….uptight.

Edit: Or, $&@%, just have the other players run into trouble of their own while rushing to save their friend. There are so many options other than “no your character wouldn’t do that.”

 

[Bill Zebub]

In the game-as-war style we have, letting the player narrate it would all too often lead to the player trying to bend the failure into a success or (more likely) trying to mitigate the results or consequences as much as possible via the narration.

Hell, I'd probably do this all the time myself as a player whether or not I even realized it, and thus would prefer to leave it in the DM's hands.

The irony here is that we have @overgeeked denouncing metagamers as adversarial, and his ally @Lanefan gleefully describing D&D as more adversarial than I have ever experienced.

 

[Flamestrike]

How is it metagaming to react when you suspect you failed? You tried to bluff the guard, you think the guard saw through it, so you try to stop him in some way.

Your PC doesnt 'think' anything based on the roll. Although he's perfectly entitled to think something based on the (in game) consequences of that roll.

If the Guard reacts in a certain way, sure.

Rolling a 3 on a Die? No way.

You Seach a room, and roll a 3 on your Investigation check to locate a secret door? There is no door to be found. No re-rolls.

 

[Flamestrike]

Or be a better DM and let them play the bloody game.

Asking the players to stop metagaming is 'Bad DMing' now?

Lol.

 

[Mort]

Your PC doesnt 'think' anything based on the roll. Although he's perfectly entitled to think something based on the (in game) consequences of that roll.

If the Guard reacts in a certain way, sure.

Rolling a 3 on a Die? No way.

Are you honestly saying a person can't tell if they bluffed or parleyed badly - not an inkling? I've often been in a negotiation (or argument) where I knew a statement or argument was a dud the second I said it!

You Seach a room, and roll a 3 on your Investigation check to locate a secret door? There is no door to be found. No re-rolls.

All you know is you didn't find a secret door. Why is the PC barred from thinking that the door is there, he just didn't find it (this is true whether the door is actually there or not, that doesn't even matter)?

As for no rerolls? Why not? you are devoting time to continue looking (perhaps futilely). Unless there is some mechanical reason the PC only gets 1 chance to find the door, assuming it's there they SHOULD eventually find it (assuming the DC is reachable by that particular PC). That said, maybe continuing looking for the door is inadvisable!

Why wouldn't a person just keep looking until they find the door? to answer - 1. The door might not be there. 2. TIME PRESSURE! there could be wandering monsters, there could be a goal needing to be accomplished and spending an hour looking for a door severely impacts the likelihood of success of that goal, etc.

 

[iserith]

Why would he believe it and the DM not? If it's in his background, both should believe it. If it has come up in game play, both should believe it. If he's getting it from a skill, then the DM is determining yes, no or in doubt and both will believe the result. If it's based on consistent prior roleplay(firebolt in the first round of every combat), both are going to believe it.

That's not going to happen. The players are bright enough to know when something will need to be known before acting. Such as, oh, literally every monster special ability or defense ever.

No. No veto is ever happening. My telling you no, you can't bring in OOC knowledge is not vetoing a single action. Ever. To veto an action it has to be as the action is happening and then you being told no. That doesn't happen.

Edit: No, @Lanefan is not espousing support for what you are talking about. Go look at post 955. He's talking about telling a player who is clearly playing bad faith that he cannot play in bad faith.

"Bad faith" as determined by the DM because the player and DM may disagree on what the character knows or that the character's action doesn't require that knowledge as a prerequisite. That's a veto on the action declaration. You can't do it - or else.