I'm going to need a concrete example here, so bear with me. Let's take rot grubs as a for-instance.
The very first time I encountered rot grubs, I had no idea how to beat them. We tried stuff that didn't work, including one thing that seemed like it should have but didn't. In character there was screaming and yelling and dying and out of character there was a lot of frustration at the table.
That first encounter wasn't fun! There's no reason it should have been, losing characters to what's kind of an eff-u monster.
But, we eventually figured out how to beat them. And from then on, that's what we did. The first encounter with rot grubs where we didn't lose a PC felt like a real earned victory in a way that a level-appropriate combat encounter doesn't.
Now here's my assertion, which maybe not everyone will agree with: play-acting out the screaming and yelling and dying phase of the learning curve isn't the point of rot grubs. The point of rot grubs is the part where you, as the player not the character, have the opportunity to figure out the puzzle, and if you do so, get to actually beat them from then on.
The catch in asking players who do know how to beat rot grubs not to meta-game is that they're actually playing stupider than a party that doesn't know in the first place. Because the party that doesn't know may still stumble on or surmise the one winning play, while the play-acting party is still looking for the nod or the intelligence check that will let them proceed.
So if you have a GM whose players all know about rot grubs, and his solution is to keep running rot grubs but ask them not to act on out-of-character knowledge, that GM has profoundly missed the point. The only way to be true to rot grubs at this point is to stop running rot grubs and come up with your own damn Saturday night specials.
...
"What about the guy who reads the book and ruins it for everybody else?" Okay, if you're stuck with that guy at all, I can actually see a role for telling him to keep it in his pants and let the newbies figure it out. But I'll still assert that holding the whole table to the standard you set for that guy risks holding them back into playing stupid territory.
So I do draw a line between reading all published material ahead of time and acting on what you've discovered or heard as a player at the table. They're both OOC knowledge, but to me they're as far apart from each other as IC is from OOC. We need a quadrant grid, not a straight line continuum, to talk about meta-gaming or OOC knowledge.
...
"What about this thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=32177), which I am obviously responding to?" Well, partly we may be thinking of different play styles or scenarios, which is why I didn't post there.
But I will note that a player in my L5R game, who GMs and plays other games, has commented that he likes playing a game where he genuinely doesn't know what the back of the book says about things. So it's a broader point than just rot grubs in D&D. He was talking about a sense of mystery specifically - but on this topic it also means he's allowed to act on his own wild guesses, even when they're right! Firewalling OOC knowledge may be a necessary evil for other players' sakes when you've been reading the book, but it's a very poor substitute for just playing games and worlds where you as a player don't have the books memorized, but are allowed to play as smart as you can.
http://thangorodrim.net/TANG/index.html#memory
That's basically how I approach D&D...the *players* learn stuff in-game, which is then transferred to their characters. Because it's a game. Player skill should count for something. Further, who's to say the characters wouldn't know about something like rot grubs? Surely when they're in the tavern, talking to ye olde grizzled vets, they might overhear a story about crazy shit in dungeons. In Real Life, where vampires aren't even real, most 10 year old kids know their weaknesses. Seems like a fledgling adventurer would probably know similar sorts of information.
I think as long as you're approaching the game in good faith it's kind of a personal thing whether you can comfortably separate IC and OOC knowledge. If you go out of your way to acquire the OOC knowledge then that's not approaching the game in good faith, but once you've got it you can't help having it. The points the OP makes are part of why I consider it bad faith, in the style of games I prefer, to dump OOC knowledge on another player, especially by telling them how you're going to stitch up their character. In that case I as GM would rule that the victim-player's PC acquires relevant knowledge e.g. through a vision, omen or dream. With the rot grubs example, if the players all know the score, I would try to give them PCs whose knowledge would reasonably match theirs. But there may be stark cases where the players really ought to separate OOC and IC knowledge. Say, for instance, you've played a god in a campaign world, then play a member of an opposing cult. That cultist shouldn't know all the enemy god's secrets. But it may depend on the kind of knowledge and how easy it is to separate IC and OOC and how likely it is to crop up. I think it's a fact-sensitive area and not one where you can necessarily safely apply a blanket rule.
You make several good points.
Some monsters (particularly in D&D and similar bestiaries) are essentially puzzles, difficult or impossible to beat, but much easier when one knows how. That crucial knowledge can make the difference between life and death, at least for the rotgrubs and whatever they're blocking access to, and possibly for the PCs too.
Especially if they don't or can't run away. Some puzzle monsters can be fled, which leads to the other issue, of whether the players stubbornly fight everything to the death rather than flee, or not. But that's another point.
Your point about players roleplaying monster-solution knowledge or not is well-taken. Especially if the players know just from browsing the Monster Manual, which is almost like reading a published adventure module the GM is using, except that a type of monsters appear over and over, and it's fairly likely that players have browsed monster manuals, played in other games with that monster, and/or heard other players talking about what to do with monster X, etc.
Personally, I would say the fairest way to handle player-vs-PC monster knowledge, would be to determine whether the PC has that knowledge or not, from actual experience, experience from background, or experience from lore/rumor/skill, the latter of which I would prefer to have some system for determining random chances for. If the PC doesn't have the knowledge, the players should roleplay that.
I also agree that it can be frustrating to have to deal with puzzle monsters in various ways... but that brings us to the higher-level issue that all players have different tastes, which is a same-page problem.
In my personal case, I dislike puzzles (monster or otherwise) unless they are what I'd call "detailed, logical and interesting", which is the kind of puzzle I don't mind facing. I want my puzzle monsters to have multiple possible ways to deal with them, which make some sense and which can be deduced through observation and experimentation. "Unaffected by anything but pewter weapons, which kill them immediately" for no discernible reason, seems just annoying to me, and makes me want to play in a universe designed by someone else.
I also like puzzle monsters to be rare, and if they have been around, I'd expect there to be information available from rumors and lore. For example, I had several types of slimes in a world I ran, but many adventurers had heard what you could and couldn't do to each of them. I added a few of my own extra details, and one or two very rare variants that very few people knew about, but those details were not crucial to defeating them, and the rare ones were almost never encountered, and also were figure-out-able without being in a "you're screwed" situation if you didn't.
On the other hand, again as my own example of different tastes, I once played in a game where the GM had come up with an evil application of telekinesis that a group was using against us. We didn't know what was going on at first, and our attempts to fight it, and then escape it, were very bloody and terrifying and not very successful. We did roleplay our reactions, as well as trying various things. It was uncomfortable and I felt a bit of "this isn't the game I was expecting to be playing", but I would say it was actually one of the stronger and more memorable and interesting part of the game, in some ways. But he was a creative physics major and what was happening definitely made sense, even if we didn't know how, so it felt somewhat fair. More like we walked into an ambush from hidden positions, than that the game was just making up arbitrary puzzles. By the same token, when we came up with some evil plans, he let them be wickedly effective until the NPCs figured them out. That's about the way I'd like such things to be happen.
But I'm also a player who avoids D&D almost always, and one of the main reasons is the monster manual, race (and level, and alignment, and religion, and...) setup, and the hierarchical power levels, all of which break my suspension of disbelief because there are so many rock-paper-scissors and "A is just totally better than B" things, none of which I recognize in my imagination of how things actually work in a believable consistent world.
When the world makes sense to me, I think role-playing lack of knowledge can work well and be fun. But I don't even want to play D&D because of all the "you should know you can mop the floor with kobolds, but have no chance against Rotgrubs unless you know how", not to mention the tiers of monster toughness which require the GM to artificially determine what the players meet in his world based on their level, etc.
Quote from: Saladman;827388Now here's my assertion, which maybe not everyone will agree with: play-acting out the screaming and yelling and dying phase of the learning curve isn't the point of rot grubs. The point of rot grubs is the part where you, as the player not the character, have the opportunity to figure out the puzzle, and if you do so, get to actually beat them from then on.
The catch in asking players who do know how to beat rot grubs not to meta-game is that they're actually playing stupider than a party that doesn't know in the first place. Because the party that doesn't know may still stumble on or surmise the one winning play, while the play-acting party is still looking for the nod or the intelligence check that will let them proceed.
So if you have a GM whose players all know about rot grubs, and his solution is to keep running rot grubs but ask them not to act on out-of-character knowledge, that GM has profoundly missed the point. The only way to be true to rot grubs at this point is to stop running rot grubs and come up with your own damn Saturday night specials.
There are two types of play that factor into whether rot grubs are good monsters for the game.
Some games are tests of the players, which I understand OD&D and its monsters were designed to be. In that situation, OOC knowledge is player knowledge and is the point of that kind of play where characters are interchangeable and players are expected to play new characters based on their personal knowledge and not necessarily the characters knowledge.
Another type of play, which I prefer, is for characters to be played off of character knowledge instead of player knowledge. This allows for repeating puzzle monsters for new characters in many cases, which is part of why I prefer it. In this style of play, a player should be able to give a reason for most actions that fits their character and it does require the DM and players to be on the same page about what a character can know that occurred prior to or outside the campaign. Rot grubs other puzzle monsters can be used in this style of play, but they don't really add much in my experience.
A very good reason not to use entries from the Monster Manual and make up your own instead. I don't even own Monster Manual. Never saw the point.
I'm not sure how you're defending metagaming.
You start off saying if the players are in a place where they want to metagame, the GM is doing something wrong (like the constantly using Rot Grubs instead of some other monster).
Then you say a GM that tells a player who has OOC knowledge to keep it to himself holds the rest of the table to the same standard. If they didn't read everything, he can't hold them to the same standard, and if we all know we all know something already, it's kind of difficult to have it be a mystery still as you point out above.
Then you defend wild-ass guesses and playing as smart as you can when you don't have the books memorized - neither of which are metagaming.
I don't really think anyone was arguing the other side of your arguments.
Quote from: CRKrueger;827441I'm not sure how you're defending metagaming. ..
As far as I can make out, you've mis-characterized every important point in OP's post.
Early editions of the game extolled player, as opposed to character, knowledge. Modules were explicitly described as being for experienced players that also had characters of a certain level range, etc.
When play-acting while playing RPGs became dominantly considered as the proper and more meaningful way to approach them (i.e., "we roleplay not roll-play") metagaming was coined as a disparaging term.
I don't enjoy extensive play-acting in RPGs. For what I want out of the game, it is unnecessary and often a time-waster.
So I fully support experienced players playing their characters to the full extent of the player's knowledge and abilities, unless there are unusual circumstances as determined by the DM. A player running a 1st level character not doing things that would expose them to rot grubs is something that makes the DM in me happy.
One exception I would make is when total newbie players are in a game. Then I would ask the experienced players to make sure they're taking a back seat and letting the newbie get the full and fun experience of getting that experience through trial and error. Those early game sessions are magic, and most experienced players I've sat with enjoy facilitating that.
I figure the types of folks that crawl around areas infested with rot grubs would talk a bit among each other. Figure the little buggers are common knowledge, just like most anything in the Monster Manual. 'Course I never had a player memorize every monster with precise detail, more like using fire vs trolls or that black dragons use acid.
Not sure I agree with the 'puzzle monster' paradigm. I just view them as critters in the world. Whether a PC dies from a rot grub crawling inside him or swallowed by a T Rex happens because that is the type of critter that lives in the area the PC is nosing around.
"Metagaming" isn't just one thing. There are multiple types, which often have different levels of acceptability within any given gaming group.
Remembering monster details (e.g., how to avoid or defeat rot grubs) from past characters, even though your current character may not share that knowledge, is one type of OOC knowledge. Using this type of OOC information is widely (but not universally) accepted and some groups even consider it desirable ("player skill over character skill"). Personally, as a GM, I have no issues with it and I don't think that's a controversial stance to take.
Knowing what actions are rewarded in the game (B/X D&D gives XP primarily for treasure; 3e D&D gives XP for killing monsters and maybe also for collecting plot coupons; BRP lets you advance skills that you rolled on; when Bob runs Savage Worlds, he hands out bennies every time someone makes him laugh; etc.) and playing with an eye towards doing things that will be rewarded is a form of metagaming which is pretty much universally considered both acceptable and desirable. I'm sure there are those who don't like it, but I can't recall ever meeting one of them and, really, what's the point of using a reward system that incentivizes certain behavior if you don't want people to pursue that incentive?
Going back to the origin of these current OOC knowledge/metagaming threads, "Bob just rolled a 2 on his perception check, so I want to make a perception roll because he obviously failed" vs. "Bob just rolled a natural 20 on his perception, so I won't bother to roll because, if there's anything there, I know that Bob already saw it" is yet another kind of metagaming and this is a kind that seems to be less widely accepted. I know that I hate it, at least.
And there are other forms of metagaming, too.
So, if you're going to say "metagaming is bad" or attempt a "defense of metagaming", it would probably be a good idea to state what kind of metagaming you're talking about, because I don't think there's anyone who is universally for or against all forms of metagaming.
The way I learned to play something like the rot grub example or anything else really is thus.
If at least one PC survived the encounter then it is very likely they will inform the replacement character/s of whatever offed the last guy so messily. It may be tavern talk, and if the replacement is higher than level one then it is assumed that they may likely have heard of the same stuff. Or the group just says flat out. "We take an hour to explain to the new guy some of the things we learned so he is up to speed."
IE: Try to play with this effect of the player knowing stuff and seriously needing to learn from stuff over time within certain limits. That way the player can choose to act or not act on what they have learned from before.
Also something that one of my players suggested way back and that I incorperated into my own book was the idea of "Common Knowlege" lists. The other idea was a sort of ever growing "adventurers handbook" the characters kept. A journal of things they have run into and what they tried that worked or didnt.
I just role-play what my character would or wouldn't know about them. I am the rare exception to the general rule that most players don't role-play.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;827836I just role-play what my character would or wouldn't know about them. I am the rare exception to the general rule that most players don't role-play.
My experience is that posibly more than half the playerbase does role play. And even role play not acting on OOC info. But the ones that dont just tend to stand out in retrospect.
My group used to play a lot of Shadowrun 2nd ed (seeing as that was the newest iteration available). In that game there were 2 resources important to character advancement, XP, which went by the name of Karma in the game, and money. Our GM was very generous with the XP, which enabled us to raise our attributes and skills to mastery, but not so much the money. Which really put a damper on things like new spells, new guns, medical treatment, etc.
Even collecting everything carried by those we defeated in battle (an age old tradition) seldom saw us get more then enough for maybe a value meal at the local fast food place.
Then our GM discovered the game Earthdawn, set in the same universe as Shadowrun, just thousands of years prior. Our GM said he wanted to play it. One of us f*ckers would have to learn the rules to run it. (his words not mine)
So our friend came up with a plan. A devious plan.
Early in the campaign he gave us a chest. A large, heavy chest. A chest that was locked and took our thief several attempts to try to unlock (magical lock, picking it could only be attempted once per rank of the skill). Finally the lock was popped, and inside were coins. Lots of coins.
Earthdawn has several forms of currency, but they are all based on the silver piece. Think of 1 silver as being $1, a gold is $10. Then you have the elemental coins, Earth and Water each being worth $100, and Air and Fire being worth $1000. Lastly you have Orichalcum, with each coin being worth $10,000. Orichalcum is worth so much for 2 reasons, 1) it is fairly rare (being made of pure elements of earth, air, fire, water and wood. and 2) is VERY open to being used in magic.
The chest was full of Orichalcum. Thousands of pieces of Orichalcum. enough to buy roughly all of Europe, and large portions of Asia and Africa as well.
The problem was that every single piece of it was demonically tainted.
The OTHER problem was that this much Orichalcum in one place pinged just about every 'Detect Magic' spell in, oh, all of Europe, most of Asia, and large portions of Africa as well. So pretty much EVERYONE in the world, most especially the demon who had tainted the coins, wanted them.
This, as you can imagine, caused a great deal of trouble for the players.
When we next played Shadowrun, getting money wasn't a problem. :D
Quote from: Omega;827846My experience is that posibly more than half the playerbase does role play. And even role play not acting on OOC info. But the ones that dont just tend to stand out in retrospect.
All it takes is one OOC player in a group to ruin a game for everyone else.
Yeah, it's like everybody trying to enjoy a movie in the theater except one guy keeps letting his cell phone ring.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;827836I just role-play what my character would or wouldn't know about them. I am the rare exception to the general rule that most players don't role-play.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;827945All it takes is one OOC player in a group to ruin a game for everyone else.
You must find it difficult to find a game group you enjoy.
sorry, but shall we have a thread now in defense of cheating? Of not roleplaying?
In many definitions, Metagaming is considered the opposite of Roleplaying...in a roleplaying game.
I get that things relax, that the unconscious kicks in, that some people want to play a war game with elements of roleplay, but at the end....
At least for me...
RP and metagaming are two ends of a continuum.
Quote from: Matt;827420A very good reason not to use entries from the Monster Manual and make up your own instead. I don't even own Monster Manual. Never saw the point.
The rot grubs being described in the MM is irrelevant to the example: What's happening is that the players are gaining an expertise in dealing with a particular type of problem and then they're applying that knowledge regardless of what character they're playing.
Deadly situations are an extreme example of this, but it can apply to stuff like standard operating procedures: Putting the fighters in front may be a group norm that transcends a particular set of characters, for example.
To boil this down: There are certain "best practices" which can be learned for any particular game. Is it, in fact, desirable to "roleplay" relearning the most basic of these practices every single time you roll up a new character? Does every single character need to discover "10 foot poles are useful" or "I should make sure I've got a firewall on my computer"? Or is there a certain level of metagame expertise which it's OK to reflect into your characters once you've gained it?
My opinion is that D&D was originally designed as a game, rather than an improvisational theatre experience. Knowing how to defeat a troll or rot grubs, to my mind, is learning how to play the game. It's not really all that different from knowing how to screw everyone with the Monopoly card in Settlers of Catan, or how to castle in chess.
Now, I don't have anything against RPGs as a relative of improvisational theatre, but in my experience the people who most disparage this kind of meta gaming are also the people who believe that everything they can do should be listed on their character sheets. It's a different approach to the game, and one that brings its own weaknesses. It also seems to lead to rules like "social combat", which is a pet peeve of mine, and other things where players surrender their own creativity to a list of numbers and powers on a character sheet.
I agree that the correct response to a player who reads the Monster Manual and plans for all the puzzle monsters is to invent new puzzle monsters. It's also important to make sure your players are on the same page with regards to this kind of encounter - players with different expectations may have profoundly negative reactions to character death and difficult encounters.
That said, there are forms of meta gaming that are bad. Players who buy the adventure and read through it in advance, so they can "win" every time, need to find DMs who have the time and inclination to write original material all the time, or else they need to admit to themselves that they're not really playing a game so much as engaging in a type of fantasy ego-stroking.
PCs with secrets are another tricky area. Depending on the group's expectations, it can be a lot of fun to have a PC who is secretly a vampire or doppelgänger, and spring this on the group. On the other hand, this will only piss some people off, and for many groups it's more enjoyable when the PLAYERS all know about the PC's secret, but the other PCs are ignorant of it. In the latter group, using metagame knowledge to screw over another PC is crappy, too, but the explicit social contract will stop all but the most hardcore dickheads from doing this.
I simply don't see the need for such practices.
Either use skills to identify the monsters, and give the players an "Adventurer's Companion" - a description of common knowledge of most common dangers that adventurers face, in form of tips and rumours they picked from taverns, or roll for Intelligence when they encounter something (in AD&D).
That is something I think that'll really show between those who started in RPGs from wargames, and those who started in RPGs from a scratch - the use of such trap monsters, that are obviously set to catch the new players.
Quote from: Rincewind1;828126That is something I think that'll really show between those who started in RPGs from wargames, and those who started in RPGs from a scratch - the use of such trap monsters, that are obviously set to catch the new players.
Which group likes trap monsters?
Quote from: Bren;828127Which group likes trap monsters?
Both might use them, but I'd say wargamers'd prefer the approach of "fail and learn", while the latter would probably give some sort of a roll to indicate a solution before the trap is sprung.
Quote from: Rincewind1;828128Both might use them, but I'd say wargamers'd prefer the approach of "fail and learn", while the latter would probably give some sort of a roll to indicate a solution before the trap is sprung.
I find monsters whose method of attack is designed to take advantage of the typical tactics of dungeon crawling e.g. rot grubs attacking the character who listens at the door, mimics, etc. are just sucky monsters. They are the GM equivalent of the player who wants to play the genre savvy rebel in what was supposed to be a genre emulating game.
And I came to D&D via wargames and a our group's de novo reading of the Little Brown Books and Chainmail.
Quote from: Bren;828130I find monsters whose method of attack is designed to take advantage of the typical tactics of dungeon crawling e.g. rot grubs attacking the character who listens at the door, mimics, etc. are just sucky monsters. They are the GM equivalent of the player who wants to play the genre savvy rebel in what was supposed to be a genre emulating game.
And I came to D&D via wargames and a our group's de novo reading of the Little Brown Books and Chainmail.
There are always exceptions, and it is merely my opinion of course - I might be proved wrong during the course of this thread a couple of times. But I'd like to ask - did you harbour a distaste for them early on, after a say, game or three or five, or only disliked them after some lengthier experience with the game?
Quote from: Rincewind1;828131There are always exceptions, and it is merely my opinion of course - I might be proved wrong during the course of this thread a couple of times. But I'd like to ask - did you harbour a distaste for them early on, after a say, game or three or five, or only disliked them after some lengthier experience with the game?
Well there weren't any creatures like that in the original OD&D rules. Those sorts of 'gotcha critters' first appeared as articles in TSR's The Strategic Review or in the Dragon Magazine. I didn't like them when they first appeared, so I never added those critters to the games I ran. Fortunately they didn't see much use by the other folks in our larger group who DMed either.
The way I do it is that if everyone knows about a monster, then players can use their knowledge in play. However, if it is a rare monster that none of the PCs have encountered before, then the players cannot use their knowledge.
Quote from: Rincewind1;828126Either use skills to identify the monsters, and give the players an "Adventurer's Companion" - a description of common knowledge of most common dangers that adventurers face, in form of tips and rumours they picked from taverns, or roll for Intelligence when they encounter something (in AD&D).
Player: "I roll to see what I know." [Success.] GM, reading out of the monster entry: "You know X." Player: "Okay, I do X."
My goal in life is to never again be on either side of this conversation. So, no, skills or Int checks are not my desired solution. And an "Adventurer's Companion" for me would be... what the players actually know. They don't need me to gate-keep it by typing out what I remember they know and handing it back to them.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;828086The rot grubs being described in the MM is irrelevant to the example: What's happening is that the players are gaining an expertise in dealing with a particular type of problem and then they're applying that knowledge regardless of what character they're playing.
Deadly situations are an extreme example of this, but it can apply to stuff like standard operating procedures: Putting the fighters in front may be a group norm that transcends a particular set of characters, for example.
To boil this down: There are certain "best practices" which can be learned for any particular game. Is it, in fact, desirable to "roleplay" relearning the most basic of these practices every single time you roll up a new character? Does every single character need to discover "10 foot poles are useful" or "I should make sure I've got a firewall on my computer"? Or is there a certain level of metagame expertise which it's OK to reflect into your characters once you've gained it?
Thank you. That was everything I was trying to say, said better.
Quote from: Rincewind1;828126Either use skills to identify the monsters, and give the players an "Adventurer's Companion" - a description of common knowledge of most common dangers that adventurers face, in form of tips and rumours they picked from taverns, or roll for Intelligence when they encounter something (in AD&D).
That is something I think that'll really show between those who started in RPGs from wargames, and those who started in RPGs from a scratch - the use of such trap monsters, that are obviously set to catch the new players.
See, this is exactly the difference in approach I am talking about. What you're suggesting is, to me, a lot like playing a game of solitaire or chess on the computer, and clicking "suggest move" every turn. That's an exaggeration, but it means you're probably more into the "roleplaying" side of roleplaying games than the "game" side.
See, learning how to defeat "trap" monsters like rot grubs or whatever IS part of the game, at least for a certain old-school approach. From this perspective, the game should NEVER just be about rolling against a stat or a special ability to achieve a goal. You roll because you're taking a chance, and the more skilled you are AS A PLAYER, the less frequently you need to roll the dice at all.
Again, neither approach is "better" than the other, but they lead to very different game experiences. Let me compare the two using a truncated version of the opening sequence to Raiders of the Lost Ark...
RPG as Improv Theatre:
DM: You are exploring the cave. You come to a wide corridor with patterned stones on the floor, alternating rectangular and diamond-shaped.
IJ: Okay, I want to use my Detect Traps skill.
(someone rolls the dice)
DM: Okay, you passed the check. You realize that the diamond shaped stones are pressure plates that will trigger a trap.
IJ: Can I use Disarm Traps to disarm them?
DM: No, there's no obvious way to disarm them.
IJ: Okay, I want to roll Dexterity to walk across the floor without stepping on the pressure plates.
DM: Okay, roll.
IJ: I got... a 17, including modifiers!
DM: Okay, you succeed. You come to a stone pedestal with a golden statue on it. It is the idol you are searching for!
IJ: I check for traps!
(someone rolls dice)
DM: Yes, it's trapped. If the idol is removed, it will trigger a trap.
IJ: Okay, I roll Disarm Traps.
(someone rolls)
DM: Okay, that's a failure. A giant boulder crashes through the wall, threatening to crush you unless you run away!
IJ: Okay, I want to roll my Sprint skill!
---------
RPG as Game:
DM: You are exploring the cave. You come to a wide corridor with patterned stones on the floor, alternating rectangular and diamond-shaped.
IJ: Hmm, can I use Detect Traps?
DM: Maybe, but you'll have to tell me what you're trying to do. It's not a "detect trap" radar that you can just turn on to scan an area, right?
IJ: Fair enough. Are there any poles lying around? I lost my 10 foot pole.
DM: Sure, there are some old sticks and branches lying around.
IJ: Okay, I take a long one and use it to poke one of the diamond-shaped tiles. I'm trying to stay a safe distance back.
DM: Alright. A dart shoots out of one of the corridor walls and drives into the side of the stick with a thump.
IJ: Crap, I bet that's poisoned! Can I try to cross the floor without stepping on any diamond shaped stones?
DM: Sure, now that you know where the traps are, it's fairly easy to avoid them, as long as you're willing to take your time.
IJ: Okay, I go across cautiously.
DM: You make it across. You come to a stone pedestal with a golden statue on it. It is the idol you are searching for!
IJ: Excellent! I examine the pedestal. Any traps?
DM: Nothing obvious. You can roll your Detect Traps if you spend a few minutes checking it out. That may give you a clue about the trap. Or, you can just tell me what precautions you take.
IJ: Okay, I do that. I spend a few minutes looking for traps.
(someone rolls)
DM: Okay, it looks like the pedestal has a small gap all the way around the base, like it can slide up or down.
IJ: I bet that it sets off a trap when the idol is removed. Okay, I grab my bag of sand and I try to empty enough so that it's the same weight as the idol.
DM: Okay, but since you don't know the exact weight, I'm going to roll a D6. On a 1, you guessed too light, and on a 6, you guessed too heavy. Fair enough?
IJ: Alright, that sounds fair.
(DM rolls behind the screen)
DM: Okay, you think you've got it.
IJ: Cool, I quickly swap the bag of sand and the idol!
DM: You swap them, and it seems for a moment that you've got it... when you hear a sound like stone scraping on stone from the pedestal! (DM lifts screen, showing a "1" on the d6)
IJ: Oh crap, what happens? I get ready to dodge!
DM: Dodging won't be enough... a giant boulder crashes through the wall, threatening to crush you!
-------------------
In the second example, the DM would probably have allowed the player to disarm the idol trap without a roll if he had suggested jamming slivers of wood into the gap around the base of the pedestal, or had used a more reliable method of determining the idol's weight. In the first example, doing that kind of stuff would have given a bonus on the Disarm Traps roll, at best.
I want to emphasize that there isn't one way that's superior - this is really a matter of preference - but having traps, puzzles, and monsters that rely on the PLAYERS' cleverness rather than the PCs' skills and powers is a legitimate way to play the game. Claiming that it's unnecessary or dickish means that you're probably not acknowledging the appeal of that play style to many people.
Quote from: snooggums;827418There are two types of play that factor into whether rot grubs are good monsters for the game.
Some games are tests of the players, which I understand OD&D and its monsters were designed to be. In that situation, OOC knowledge is player knowledge and is the point of that kind of play where characters are interchangeable and players are expected to play new characters based on their personal knowledge and not necessarily the characters knowledge.
Another type of play, which I prefer, is for characters to be played off of character knowledge instead of player knowledge. This allows for repeating puzzle monsters for new characters in many cases, which is part of why I prefer it. In this style of play, a player should be able to give a reason for most actions that fits their character and it does require the DM and players to be on the same page about what a character can know that occurred prior to or outside the campaign. Rot grubs other puzzle monsters can be used in this style of play, but they don't really add much in my experience.
I agree with this breakdown; I'm only interested in the second sort of play, where we engage character knowledge and attempt a separation between what the player knows, and what their character would know. The whole point of the exercise, as far as I'm concerned, is that you're pretending to be someone who is not you.
Playing your character as merely an avatar of personal wish fulfilment or a playing piece to be moved around an imaginary board is not my idea of fun. Fortunately, that's a view shared by my whole group, we expect everyone to play with a strict separation between what they know, and what their character could reasonably be expected to know.
What doesn't make sense from my perspective is why have puzzles at all from the character knowledge approach. I mean, if the player knows the answer to the puzzle, but is pretending not to know, because his character doesn't know, then the puzzle isn't the point at all - it is moot. It's solely about acting with the puzzle as a secondary set of circumstances that is a prop in the scene, so to speak.
Since character acting as the point of the game can be put out in ways that are unknown to both the player and the character (new NPCs to roleplay with, etc.) I'm not sure what is gained by putting it on a path where the player has to pretend they don't know what they know. It should always be possible to instead use previously unexplored parts of the game system, so that the player and character are on equal ground, and the roleplay is always "honest", for lack of a better term.
I'm firmly in the game/player skill approach. Not interested in pretending I'm inexperienced and purposely flubbing situations I know how to handle appropriately just so that the legitimacy of my player knowledge is established in the game going forward. That seems like painful exercise. But it might help explain (as one of probably many reasons) why many people who emphasize the role playing/play acting also want low character lethality. Who wants to go through that exercise over and over?
Thinking of the groups I've played with who were experienced roleplayers, most/all with GM experience (where roleplaying characters with less knowledge than the GM is required), I enjoyed (and it seems others enjoyed) playing characters from the perspective of character knowledge, for the fun of seeing what happens and how things go down. Yes, the puzzle itself is not the point for the players in these cases. And yes, it is good then to question why puzzles per se would be included, and as a GM, what types of "puzzles" to include, if any. Playing with limited knowledge results in puzzles for the characters in almost any situation. Adding a puzzle monster that kills PCs unless they know to do X, may not be a very fun/interesting thing to do (or it might, but ask that before tossing it in).
As regards your last thought about lethality, I actually also enjoy fairly lethal games... or rather, I prefer actual significant consequences of events. I don't usually like characters to die with great frequency unless that makes sense, but I do like choices and events to have rational lasting consequences (which is why I like risky dangerous detailed combat systems that make sense and have lots of tactical choices, and realistic injury and healing systems and a lack of easy magic instant healing).
Quote from: EOTB;828282What doesn't make sense from my perspective is why have puzzles at all from the character knowledge approach. I mean, if the player knows the answer to the puzzle, but is pretending not to know, because his character doesn't know, then the puzzle isn't the point at all - it is moot. It's solely about acting with the puzzle as a secondary set of circumstances that is a prop in the scene, so to speak.
...
... many people who emphasize the role playing/play acting also want low character lethality. Who wants to go through that exercise over and over?
Compared to computer RPGs I feel that real RPGs have virtually no metagaming problem (but then, everything is relative).
Playing Fallout 3 on my PC recently, I got completely surrounded and swarmed by bloodthirsty ghouls, and I ran out of ammo. So what do I do? I inject myself with some health chemicals (stimpacks etc) drop a frag grenade at my own feet, and let it blow. Rinse and repeat with more grenades and chemicals, until all the ghouls are dead and I am miraculously unscathed. Afterwards I though "seriously I can not think of any situation, real or imaginary where that makes any sense". I think most RPG gamers would agree that I would have blown myself, and my syringes, to bits many times over.
Adamantium syringes filled with monoclonal mutant healing factor?
Quote from: Bren;828484Adamantium syringes filled with monoclonal mutant healing factor?
We're almost there, but not quite :D
My armor was already badly torn, so I should be naked after all the clawing and the grenade blasts :p
Quote from: Trond;828462Afterwards I though "seriously I can not think of any situation, real or imaginary where that makes any sense". I think most RPG gamers would agree that I would have blown myself, and my syringes, to bits many times over.
You missed the "Circle of the UberMon" thread over on BGG/RPGG where the argument was that the game was broken because you could strap a gunpowder keg to a druid in giant spider form and have them skitter off into the midst of the enemy and kamakazi them and then revert unscathed.
QuoteYou can strap a powder keg to a druid morphed into a Cr1 large beast and deal 7d6 fire damage to everything within 10' at 2nd level and walk away to tell the tale. Not to mention sneaking up in complete darkness or hiding in wait like an AED (Arachnid Explosive Device) ;)
The thread went on an on and on and on ad stupidium.
Just wanted to say thanks and this was a fun thread to read!
Quote from: GamingGrl;828744Just wanted to say thanks and this was a fun thread to read!
:cool: And welcome to the forum. :)
Quote from: Bren;828751:cool: And welcome to the forum. :)
Thanks I appreciate the welcome!
Here's how I would judge the scenario postulated by the OP: let's say you have a totally novice group of PCs (characters, not players) in their first dungeon. They have no one particularly skilled in zoology or dungeonology or anything that would let them identify the menace of rot grubs, and rot grubs are not so famous a terror that a character without that kind of specialized knowledge would have ever heard of them. In that case, YES, the players should totally have them walk into something they know will likely kill some of them.
However, this only stands as long as all the conditions of the above scenario are true. If you have a group of generally experienced PCs, even if they've never run into a rot grub before, if you're running a standard OSR-style of play that group should be paranoid enough that they would likely distrust any slime, bug, or whatever that they don't already identify as non-lethal.
If you have a player character that could have any specialized knowledge that should let them have at least a chance of recognizing the risk rot grubs represents, they should at least be allowed a chance to see if they know about it, without it being metagaming. In any world where rot-grubs weren't rare, I would include in that checks for people with either wilderness lore or underground lore of some kind, possibly any dwarf at all, potentially wizards (if you think of them as magical creatures) or clerics (who may have learned of it while understanding healing and diseases, assuming those are the kind of things clerics learn in that world). So a lot of possible PCs could theoretically know about the danger of rot grubs.
Finally, if rot grubs weren't something ultra-ultra-rare, then the PCs even if novices would probably be aware of it because they would be one of the most horrifically terrible creatures you can imagine. In the same way that people in our world who've never seen a black widow would still know about how dangerous that particular spider is. The only reason in most fantasy worlds that rot grubs might NOT be that well known is if they are rare in the absolute extreme.
Quote from: GamingGrl;828814Thanks I appreciate the welcome!
Indeed, welcome.
Now all you need to do is contribute instead of just saying "this is an awesome thread, thanks!" in order to spam your signature. Put some effort in! ;)