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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mhacdebhandia" data-source="post: 2937601" data-attributes="member: 18832">I answered that question in my original reply to the post in which you told the story.My answer was this:It depends on the reason why the player of the rogue had his character say that.Sometimes it's a weird in-character way of communicating an out-of-character point - the player doesn't want the character to explain himself to the other characters, but he does want to explain to the other players that he wasn't just being a dick and taking the axe for his own profit . . . and, for some reason, he feels like he has to have his character "say" it in-character, but not to the other characters. I don't know why people feel the need to express themselves so tortuously - it probably has something to do with an urge to express a out-of-character message while feeling restricted by table conventions to in-character communication - but I've seen it happen.Sometimes it's a passive-aggressive way of defending yourself in a way that the other characters can't argue with - I'd associate this most strongly with the "You caught me doing something sneaky for my own profit, and I just thought of an explanation, but I don't want to have to defend it if challenged, and I know you guys won't react to an internal monologue because that'd be metagaming and we know metagaming's bad, so here goes: I was just trying to give the axe to the fighter as a surprise gift, geez . . ." possibility I discussed above.Sometimes it's an invitation, subtly phrased, to develop the burgeoning misunderstanding between party members over the rogue's apparent greed by letting the other players - but not their characters - know what's going on without the rogue himself trying to further defend himself to the other PCs directly, so they can play to the rogue's resentment at the misunderstanding by having their characters continue to view him with suspicion and mistrust even when he tries to do the right thing, with all the players fully aware of the truth of the matter but enjoying the development of friction between their characters over the misunderstanding.Sometimes it's a request, subtly phrased, to pass on the chance to develop the burgeoning misunderstanding between party members over the rogue's apparent greed without the rogue trying to further defend himself to the other PCs directly, because the player of the rogue enjoyed the limited conflict over the issue but doesn't really want to go any further with it.The fact that the latter two are directly-opposite possibilities is why knowing what your fellow players are interested in is so important - though it may also be possible to pick up which possibility was intended by the player from the precise words they used, their tone of voice, and whatnot. It all depends on how well you know your fellow players, and I for one wouldn't have much hesitation in outright asking for clarification (during or after the session, as appropriate) if I couldn't tell what the player really wanted.As a player, I would hope to be playing with people who would only do such a thing when they intend the third possibility above, because it's a simple way to clue me in to their desire for me to have my character participate in the development of friction (or other complications, such as friendship, romance, et cetera) between our characters, in a way which doesn't rely solely upon in-character cues.I'm willing to accept this "metagaming" technique as a good thing because there are countless situations I can think of where the character would never explicitly express the way they were feeling or what they were thinking (i.e., cannot communicate directly to my character), but where both players would want to know what was going on so they could develop the friction (or whatever) together. It's a way of remaining true to your characters - indeed, of showing more of who they are at the table, during play - while still effecting the development of stories that the characters themselves would not choose to go through, such as conflict over misunderstood motives.It adds to the fun for me because it clues me in to possible ways in which I can develop the relationship (for better or worse) between my character and their character immediately, without us having to wait for a post-session "debrief" on the car ride home where the player can explain to me what their character thought and how their character felt about an occurrence in the game. I can know that I can act on the possibility of closeness or conflict right then and there, during the game, rather than having to wait to hear about it afterwards and plan to do something about it a week, a fortnight, or a month later when the next session happens.When I say "I can act", I do mean "I", the player, because of course my character does not know how the other PC feels - but I, the player, learning how they feel helps me narrow my future choice of actions and behaviours to those possibilities which will drive the development of interesting and fun relationships between my character and the other PC.So the answer to your question is still "It really depends on why they're doing the internal monologue", but it should also be clear as to why I hope they're doing it and what I'd do if that was, indeed, the reason.</blockquote>

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