"You can't assume things"

[Meatboy]

I feel pretty bad for this player of yours SnowleopardVK. I love assuming stuff its what gets me through the day usually. I mean I love to assume when I go to bed that tomorrow I wake up and when I wake up I like assuming that when I open my door I am greeted by the world once again. Or when I open my fridge and assume that all the stuff I have is still there.
These are assumptions that we as people make all the time based on passed experience. Not making such assumptions would be a sign of mental instability I think. Like every time you opened a door you would be overwhelmed by the fact that you hadn't any idea what so ever of what lay beyond it. I'm not sure anybody has ever accused me of meta-living though...

 

[Dross]

If assuming that something is behind the curtain I wonder how they got out of the room. Assuming there was a door, how can they assume that there was anything behind it? Or as someone else suggested, that the floor was there and not 500 feet below with the beds floating?

To try and be slightly helpful, I'd ask what the player thinks the word metagaming means, why it is bad to assume, and why it is suddenly such an issue.

 

[jonesy]

If assuming that something is behind the curtain I wonder how they got out of the room. Assuming there was a door, how can they assume that there was anything behind it? Or as someone else suggested, that the floor was there and not 500 feet below with the beds floating?

Maybe they fell into the room from a pit trap? And then fell out from another?

 

[MoxieFu]

I agree that checking behind the curtain is exploration, not metagaming.

But really, we assume things all the time. We assume that gravity keeps working. Barring special circumstances, we assume air will be around for our next breath. The universe is too darned big for us to operate without assumptions. We are hard-wired to assume for low-risk situations.

Which is not to say I won't laugh at the character who decides to jump through the curtains and out the "window" without looking, such that he rams his face into the solid oak door on the other side...

Or the innards of a Gelatinous Cube.

 

[Oryan77]

Sorry, but the more I think about your player not assuming anything, the more I think he is a genius. I gotta add some more items to the list of what could be behind the curtain.

A portal to the Abyss.

A duplicate of yourself opening the curtain from the other side.

The steamy showers to a boys high school locker room.

A photo booth.

A game show with 3 young ladies ready to answer your questions and win a date. (I liked this idea from some XP I got, so I added it)

A giant test tube containing some one-eyed monster floating in fluid.

Steve-O getting something gross pierced.

A bunch of nerds playing a D&D game.

A window to a space station overlooking Earth.

A giant eyeball staring back at you.

A long dark tunnel with a light at the other end.

A curtain that won't open.

The midgets from Time Bandits running down a tunnel towards you yelling for you to run away.

Your wife yelling and nagging at you.

A room full of creepy men holding dollar bills waiting for you to dance.

"It's a trap!"

Nothing but bright light.

A fragile curtain that falls apart as you attempt to open it.

...........

Dude, you should make your next adventure nothing but rooms full of curtains. I can go on forever with this stuff. This is a great idea!

 

[Pentius]

I concur with Oryan. Some more things:

A treasure chest.

A mimic, shaped like a treasure chest.

A room full of tigers.

The Wizard.

A stage, with an audience expecting you to be the actors in a play.

A surgeon's operating room, in use!

A brand new washer and dryer set!

A shoe closet containing pairs of shoes, each pair of which matches one individual in the area.

London, circa 1929.

A group of orcs and gnolls, enjoying a game of Humans & Houses.

 

[Mark CMG]

You guys are killing me with these lists!

 

[Meatboy]

...A group of orcs and gnolls, enjoying a game of Humans & Houses.

Do the orcs and gnolls make assumptions about the contents of the closet in the house?

 

[Pentius]

No, because that would be meat-a-gaming.

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I've talked to her more. She returned with slightly more logical thought and apologized, saying "sorry, I guess I was being stupid and difficult and assumption like that isn't really metagaming. But I just don't like assuming things, it gets your character killed".

And so I quote Mark CMG from earlier in this topic.

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

Yeah I think that probably hits the nail on the head.

(This is the first time a player has actually ever admitted to me that they were being stupid and difficult. I'm in awe. I never expected this to ever happen.)