iserith
Magic Wordsmith
When it helps everyone have fun and contribute to an exciting, memorable story, it's good. When it doesn't do that, it's bad.Yes, having things work closer to how they do in the real world is a good thing.
And in my game, once the die is cast, the situation changes to push toward the next decision point, perhaps via "progress combined with a setback" as I showed in my first post in this thread. Thus, there is no need to assume in the first place. This removes the incentive to "metagame" because it's pointless to do so.Right. And if the player knows the DC and can do simple math, they know for a fact if it succeeded or failed. There’s no assumptions to make.
The rules of the latest edition would disagree with you too, then. It does caution against "metagame thinking" for exactly the reasons I've also stated i.e. assumptions are risky. I remember thinking the way you do about this. It was a great relief when I stopped bothering about how other people make decisions for their own characters.Then we fundamentally disagree. Roleplaying is making those decisions based on what the character would know. Making those decisions based on metagame info is, well, metagaming.
The DM controls so much of the game that often the "blame," such as it is, can be theirs. I already mentioned what the issue likely is a couple posts above - a failed ability check resulting in no obvious change in the situation. That's when you see the dogpiling you say you don't like. Instead, when those situations are likely to arise, just rule "progress combined with a setback" on a failed check.You keep saying similar things and trying to lay the blame at my feet, but you don’t ever seem to actually explain yourself. Care to actually explain this?
But really, the underlying issue is one of your priors is that "metagaming is bad" which comes from older editions of the game up to and including D&D 3e, if memory serves. If you're not willing to consider that it actually doesn't matter at all, then it seems to me it's going to be very difficult for you to see any other point of view.