"You can't assume things"

[SnowleopardVK]

In a game I'm running my players recently left the unfamiliar room they woke up in, they ignored my big curtain and went out talking about how there were no windows so they had no way of knowing where they were.

(There was a window behind the curtain. One of the players was a few feet from it at one point.)

As their "no windows" talk continued the Oracle eventually spoke up and asked "What about the window in the other room?"

The others were dumbstruck. Two of them had in fact completely overlooked the curtain in my description, but the third got angry and talked to me privately about the window-noticing player's "metagaming".

We had a conversation that went something like this:

"She can't just assume there was a window. That's metagaming."

"Oh really? Why can't she assume that?"

"You can't assume things."

"But just assuming something isn't metagaming."

"But you can't assume things."

"Well then why not check what's behind the curtain? You'll know whether or not there's a window after you look, and then you won't be assuming any more."

"We can't check behind the curtain. That would be assuming that something's there. You can't assume things."


...

It's like talking to a brick wall. Or a broken record... A broken record that doesn't really understand what metagaming is but refuses to accept that it doesn't understand. >_>

 

[Plane Sailing]

That is one weird conversation right there!

 

[Dioltach]

I think that a certain level of assumption must be assumed, as it were. A door reveals a passage, a table will hold goods, a stable is likely to house horses and, yes, a curtain probably covers a window. If nothing else, it must be there for a reason, and a window is as likely a possibility as any other.

 

[Halivar]

The fact that the player took the DM aside is odd to me. It tells me things I don't think I'd like in a player at my table.

As a player, I often tell other players, "You can't assume that; it's meta-gaming." This is usually in reference to a monster we have encountered in another campaign, or with NPC's they met only with previous a PC. But I lay it out at the table to be helpful, not because I'm super-concerned about the sanctity of my roleplay.

This right here is just... odd.

 

[Mark CMG]

"Please point to the place on this adventure map where you assumed something and your last DM TPKed you."

 

[steeldragons]

...



Uhhhh...<blink. blink.>



Yeah, I got nuthin'.

'Cept maybe to pull a Moonstruck moment (*swak!* "Snap outtuvit!").

--SD

 

[Oryan77]

I agree with the player. There could have been a canon on the other side of the curtain. Open the curtain and KAPLOOIEEE!

Other things that could be on the other side of a curtain:

A secret safe.

A pornographic poster.

Another curtain.

A door.

Just a wall.

A person hiding.

The curtain could simply be a painting of a curtain.

A theater stage overlooking an audience.

A button that says "don't push".

A portable hole.

A mirror.

A dart board.

A woman's dressing room.

See, he's right. You can't assume things.

 

[was]

solution: other players leave via window..remaining pc refuses to go behind curtain and starves to death in room.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I assume things in game all the time. The fact that I'm wrong at least half the time has never stopped me from doing so. (Often to my regret!) This guy's 'logic' is just weird, as others have said.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Wow! Just... um... wow! Seriously?