Who's at fault?

[fusangite]

You'd better not be! You're dead! Make the occasional joke, but no commenting on the game!

I'm staying away from your table. Why limit what people can comment on during a session?

Dead PCs can play NPCs. Then they can make in-character comments again.

How on earth do you handle combat or strategic decisions in your games if people can only talk in character!?

 

[ThirdWizard]

I'm staying away from your table. Why limit what people can comment on during a session?

Where are the ideas coming from? Say the PCs are interacting with a guy, and none of the ones with living PCs catch the clues that he's a doppelganger in disguise, but dead PC realizes it and points it out. He's dead. He can't tell them that. If his PC were alive, he could quietly pull them over and make comments, or nudge them, or something, but he's dead. How exactly is the guy with a dead PC interacting in character with the other PCs?

How on earth do you handle combat or strategic decisions in your games if people can only talk in character!?

You can talk out of character. You just can't communitcate PC to PC out of character. If you want to try to flank the enemy, you don't send telepathic communications to everyone (ooc comments). Your character has to actually speak to communicate things like that.

 

[fusangite]

Say the PCs are interacting with a guy, and none of the ones with living PCs catch the clues that he's a doppelganger in disguise, but dead PC realizes it and points it ut. He's dead. He can't tell them that.

I'm not talking about knowledge that only the dead character had. I'm talking about a player making positive contributions when the players collectively make decisions based on the shared information of the party, or making positive contributions when a particular player is tongue-tied in an interaction with an NPC. This player's suggestions like "Why don't you say x?" or "What if all these killings aren't connected after all?" or "If we're planning an ambush, why not use the cover afforded by that large hedge?" are in no way predicated on secret knowledge possessed only by the dead character.

How exactly is the guy with a dead PC interacting in character with the other PCs?

He's not. Where do you get from my comments that I think he is?

 

[ThirdWizard]

I'm not talking about knowledge that only the dead character had.

Neither am I.

I'm talking about a player making positive contributions when the players collectively make decisions based on the shared information of the party, or making positive contributions when a particular player is tongue-tied in an interaction with an NPC.

I consider that metagaming. Each Player plays his own PC. The way you're describing it sounds kind of like all the PCs are run by the entire group with one Player being in charge of one character's actions after the ooc discussion by the Players.

In my game, if you want to confer something to another PC, you have to do it with your own PC. If you think someone should say something, you can't tell the Player out of character what they should say. They control their own PC and you control yours.

Take this example:

DM: The man before you smiles after you help him kill the goblins raiders. "Hail!" He says. You notice a strange tatto on his right arm in the shape of a flame and he carries a sword with engravings made of some strange metal. "It's good to see a helpful face about."
Player1: "Hail! Where are you headed?" I smile back at him and wipe the blood from my sword.
Player2: Hey isn't that tatoo the same as the evil assassin brotherhood had.
Player1: Hey, I had forgotten about that! I warily look for any concealed weapons he might have on him.

That just won't fly in my game. If Player2 notices something and Player1 doesn't, his PC had better tell Player1's PC in game. Otherwise, they're communicating in plain view of the NPC without actually having to say anything to give it away.

Now, add in the fact that Player2 is dead, and he will never be able to confer that information. His PC is dead, and thus so is his connection to the game and communication with other PCs. If he points it out, it has disrupted the game. The other Players must now play their PCs as if they didn't realize it, and we'll never know if they would have figured it out. It creates a very awkward gaming environment. Best for him to say nothing.

In battle situations, do you let your Players discuss tactics ooc then let them perform said tactics in battle without any in character speech going on? If Player 1 notices that Player 2 can avoid an AoO by taking an extra step to the side, do you let Player 2 point that out without his PC making any kind of comment in game?

I consider that metagaming and no one at our table would put up with that.

 

[fusangite]

I consider that metagaming.

Whereas I consider it to be gaming.

Each Player plays his own PC.

Who says they cannot request advice or assistance from someone in doing so. Isn't it up to the player and the player alone as to which tools she uses to play her character? I happen to be someone who enjoys and appreciates getting advice from others on how I can play my character more effectively.

Think of the magnitude and difficulty of the task of playing a person living in another time, in another culture, in another occupation from a totally different family. People with formal dramatic training find it extremely challenging to do this even when all of their character's words and actions are spelled-out in a script. Even then, attempting to approximate another human being is extraordinarily difficult.

Now throw in the D&D. Not only is this person living in another culture, in another time, in another occupation. They are also living in a universe with radically different physical laws. I don't know about you but I find such a task daunting in the extreme. Even if I'm a psychological genius at putting myself in others' shoes, I'm going to do, at best, a totally half-assed job.

The way you're describing it sounds kind of like all the PCs are run by the entire group with one Player being in charge of one character's actions after the ooc discussion by the Players.

That's how my games sometimes go. But there is no sense in which a PC is run by the entire group -- a player can involve the rest of the group in her decision-making about her character as much as she likes. Other times, people don't feel the need for consultation. I like to give my players all the tools I can to help them role play their characters, something I consider to be pretty challenging.

In my game, if you want to confer something to another PC, you have to do it with your own PC.

Even leaving aside my reasoning above, I just wouldn't do that. This sort of thing kills a friendly table talk dynamic in my experience.

If you think someone should say something, you can't tell the Player out of character what they should say. They control their own PC and you control yours.

That's no different in my campaign. Of course the person playing the character makes all final decisions about what the character does. All I do is enable them, by producing background material, answering questions and allowing them to bounce ideas off other players is give them the opportunity to make as informed a decision as they wish to.

DM: The man before you smiles after you help him kill the goblins raiders. "Hail!" He says. You notice a strange tatto on his right arm in the shape of a flame and he carries a sword with engravings made of some strange metal. "It's good to see a helpful face about."
Player1: "Hail! Where are you headed?" I smile back at him and wipe the blood from my sword.
Player2: Hey isn't that tatoo the same as the evil assassin brotherhood had.
Player1: Hey, I had forgotten about that! I warily look for any concealed weapons he might have on him.

This is exactly the kind of situation I am trying to address. While the players spend 4 hours a week playing their characters, the characters spend 168 hours a week being themselves. The actual characters would be far less likely to forget absolutely crucial life and death information than their players are.

If all a character can remember about her life is all her player can recall, unaided, you're not simulating a bunch of fantasy heroes; you're simulating a group of fantasy Alzheimer patients.

In battle situations, do you let your Players discuss tactics ooc then let them perform said tactics in battle without any in character speech going on?

It depends. If it is something that would be covered by a combat telepathy spell in the PHB, then no -- clearly that kind of communication you have to pay for with such a spell; I take a dim view to people coordinating flanking straegies and the like. On the other hand, if players are simply reminding eachother of the rules or giving advice on how a fellow player's character could make the best possible use of his abilities, I have zero problem. After all, the characters know way way more about fighting than all the players put together.

 

[Crothian]

In battle situations, do you let your Players discuss tactics ooc then let them perform said tactics in battle without any in character speech going on? If Player 1 notices that Player 2 can avoid an AoO by taking an extra step to the side, do you let Player 2 point that out without his PC making any kind of comment in game?

I consider that metagaming and no one at our table would put up with that.

I allow it to happen. The players are not always aware of ever small rules thing like the characters that live by the rules of their world are. We play a non stressful game where people are allowed to help others out. I don't like the new guy to always make mistakes that others can correct but don't for fear of metagaming. Players helping each other out and making sure everyone is having fun and understanding what is going on is way more important then minor metagaming concerns.

 

[wayne62682]

Let me just add that I agree with fusangite, but my group agrees with ThirdWizard. If I were not in an area, they would call me for metagaming for reminding another player of something that their character would reasonably know simply because THEY aren't the one saying it. Seems utterly stupid to me. Just because I as a player forgot that the assassins guild who killed my parents, wife and child had a tattoo of a coiled snake doesn't mean my character did. If Joe says out of character "Hey Wayne, didn't that assassin guild you hate so much have a tattoo like that?" it shouldn't be metagaming at all, because I doubt my character forgot it, even if I (i.e. Wayne, the player) did.

 

[ThirdWizard]

If its something that the PC should know, the DM can step in and remind him or can give an Int check to see if the PC remembers. I didn't really expect the metagaming thing to be controversial at all.

EDIT: And obviously in the case of a new player some things must be changed. But, that's an exception.

 

[wayne62682]

If its something that the PC should know, the DM can step in and remind him or can give an Int check to see if the PC remembers. I didn't really expect the metagaming thing to be controversial at all.

Well.. my group considers a lot of things to be metagaming that really shouldn't be. In the case of that example, the DM would not step in (ironically, it would be the other players that would call the reminding player for metagaming, not the DM!) because he does not want to step on the player's toes. So.. my group is just weird and my ranting in no way reflects the common opinion

 

[fusangite]

I didn't really expect the metagaming thing to be controversial at all.

I think you can get nearly everyone on ENWorld to agree that metagaming is bad. But that agreement comes, in large part, from the fact that there is absolutely no agreed-upon definition of what metagaming is.

I consider metagaming to be bad, as evidenced by my position on collaboration over flanking manoeuvres or identifying the abilities and vulnerabilities of rare monsters. My concern is that the term is bandied-about pretty incoherently. One of the first things I do when I get a new player is to explain to him or her precisely how I define metagaming.

This may actually be good fodder for a new thread. I think it would be quite interesting to see what various people's definitions are.