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PCs magically knowing monsters: metagaming?

Started by mAcular Chaotic, December 31, 2014, 04:38:22 PM

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jibbajibba

#105
January 07, 2015, 08:50:29 PM
Quote from: Bren;808277Agreed. Also, including unreliable narrators as a source of information in RPGs can be problematic on a number of levels.

First players are missing much of the information in the game world that is present in the real world (and would be available to the PCs) to help sort out the unreliable information sources. Second, as a player my game time is limited. I don't want a lot of time spent in play having an unreliable NPC  bullshit my character so that every time I talk to one NPC I then have to go talk to 4 more NPCs and ask the same damn question just so that I can conclude that 4 out of 5 dentists say that dragons do have pointy teeth as long as a dagger.

Once in a while, in solving a mystery or for figuring out crucial or important stuff that level of duplication may be interesting enough to play out, but as a usual course of events...no thanks. I get to do that enough in real life and it's not that fun that I want to spend must of the time in my game session doing that.

Talking to NPCs is roleplaying .... why would you want to avoid doing that in an RPG?
If you just want to fight stuff and use magic spells then there are geat adventure board games :D
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Bren

#106
January 07, 2015, 09:19:25 PM
Quote from: jibbajibba;808356Talking to NPCs is roleplaying .... why would you want to avoid doing that in an RPG?
If you just want to fight stuff and use magic spells then there are geat adventure board games :D
I believe I answered that.

But assuming you didn't grok my answer, asking the question of one or two NPCs is fun. Having to ask the same question of five or more NPCs just to try to filter out the risk of an unreliable narrator is not fun. It's boring. Having to do that for every single, question asked is painful and boring.
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jibbajibba

#107
January 07, 2015, 09:27:40 PM
Quote from: Bren;808364I believe I answered that.

But assuming you didn't grok my answer, asking the question of one or two NPCs is fun. Having to ask the same question of five or more NPCs just to try to filter out the risk of an unreliable narrator is not fun. It's boring. Having to do that for every single, question asked is painful and boring.

But you don't have to. If your PC is the sort of guy that gets bored going round talking to diffeent people to verify information then you probably accept the first answer you get :)

Roleplaying your PC talking to folk is the reason we play RPGs right?

I am obviously playing devils advocate here but the implication of what you say is that NPCs your PCs meet should always be honest, well informed and competent. That would seem to be stretching the bounds of realism even further than D&D falling rules :)
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Bren

#108
January 07, 2015, 10:20:46 PM
Quote from: jibbajibba;808365I am obviously playing devils advocate here but the implication of what you say is that NPCs your PCs meet should always be honest, well informed and competent. That would seem to be stretching the bounds of realism even further than D&D falling rules :)
That's grossly oversimplifying what I said to the point that I suspect you are intentionally ignoring my point.

If you believe that most people in reality are lying, ignorant, incompetents then I'd suggest you need to spend less time roleplaying and more time getting out and meeting the sizeable portion of the world's population who are not.

But by all means enjoy your repeated game sessions that must realistically consist of the next three more hours of requestioning a murder suspect. :rolleyes:
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mAcular Chaotic

#109
January 07, 2015, 11:10:56 PM
Quote from: jibbajibba;808365Roleplaying your PC talking to folk is the reason we play RPGs right?

Well, not necessarily. Some people just want to go smash heads.
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jibbajibba

#110
January 08, 2015, 07:23:59 AM
Quote from: Bren;808371That's grossly oversimplifying what I said to the point that I suspect you are intentionally ignoring my point.

If you believe that most people in reality are lying, ignorant, incompetents then I'd suggest you need to spend less time roleplaying and more time getting out and meeting the sizeable portion of the world's population who are not.

But by all means enjoy your repeated game sessions that must realistically consist of the next three more hours of requestioning a murder suspect. :rolleyes:

Grossly simplifying or ignoring ? :)

Most people no.. quite a lot of people? I work in an American corporate so .... meh...

Now if I was involved in a job that was even more dubious that investment banking like murdering guys and taking their stuff.. I would trust folks far less.
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EOTB

#111
January 08, 2015, 03:32:29 PM
Quote from: jibbajibba;808365Roleplaying your PC talking to folk is the reason we play RPGs right?

I am obviously playing devils advocate here but the implication of what you say is that NPCs your PCs meet should always be honest, well informed and competent. That would seem to be stretching the bounds of realism even further than D&D falling rules :)

Not necessarily as a primary driver, no.  Character assumption as a predominant activity is not a prerequisite (note the minimal text devoted to it versus the rest of game activity in the first games).  It's merely one approach among the two major approaches for playing RPGs.

One that has grown over time, to be sure.  But it still is just a way to do it.
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Phillip

#112
January 11, 2015, 03:25:33 PM
Made-up monsters are a small matter compared with a player who can't not know things not familiar to people in other occupations - including the gm! - or of other eras.
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rawma

#113
January 11, 2015, 11:20:18 PM
Quote from: Phillip;808746can't not know things not familiar

Do I not waste more time than not, not understanding what you are not saying is not necessarily true? Or not?

Or is being harder to parse than tuypo1 something to strive for?

soltakss

#114
January 12, 2015, 09:04:58 AM
Quote from: Bren;807799Some features might have observable traces like 12 point armor skin might look like scales or rocks or whatnot, but others might, like explodes when killed doing X damage to all within Y meters, might come as a total (and unpleasant) surprise.

One of my tricks is to put two or three of these together, so one dying is likely to set the others off in a multiple explosive event.
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