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Post by Rabbit on Nov 13, 2009 14:10:35 GMT -5
I wanted to mention some things I noticed happening in our last session of Den of Heroes. But before I do, this is not meant to be a griping post. Rather, I wanted to post some observations and how I felt about them and if anything, use this as a chance to discuss how we all like games to go. “Metagaming,” (I hope I am using this in the right contexts.) Some examples: While fighting against the bandit cleric players quickly surmised his level by hints given through Saves’ DCs and spells. Then spells he used were looked up in the middle of play, and a few other things. I know Ziff made a successful spellcraft to determine the cleric casted a Sanctuary spell, but when that was combined with determining the character level and looking the spells up any sense of mystery was gone. He was just some numbers. During the fight with the Babau Harry rolled a high Knowledge check so I let him peek at the Monster Manual (a reward for Brother Marle’s dedication to studies.) But then other players started looking up the stats as well. I think what could have been a fun in-character chance for interaction between characters was lost. I would have been fine with some tech-talk because not everything can be translated to in-character speech, but I would have preferred it all to have come directly from Harry. Not any one thing that happened in itself was majorly bad, but all together it was a bit more than I would like. In general, I feel like this kind of stuff breaks the magic and wonder. Your challenges become stats to manage rather than characters. It is something I know happens (especially in DnD) and sometimes it is hard to help, but my playing preference is to play it down rather than play it up. Thoughts? And if people want to discuss metagaming in general we can do that, too.
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Post by icnivad on Nov 13, 2009 15:04:45 GMT -5
Good post. I know that I sometimes get carried away in the midst of a battle and am known to metagame myself. It's not a trait that I particularly like and would like to try to do it less. I'm going to give the following thoughts on metagaming knowing full well that I am prone to do many of the following myself.
I think that there are two kinds of metagaming going on. One I think is reasonable, and another that I do not.
I think that throughout the course of a battle, we all attempt to ascertain the stats of a monster. "If I hit him with a 24, but not a 22, then his AC is 23 or 24" I think this is reasonable, because it is the effect of our characters summing up and learning about an opponent through combat. Even if our characters wouldn't think about it in terms of numbers, they would get a good sense of how hard it is to hit a creature, how precise they have to be.
The obvious unreasonable metagaming is looking up stuff that your character does not know, as well as using information that the player knows but the character should not. The first is pretty easy to avoid by just not looking up stuff, but the second part of that is kind of tricky, I know. Mikey does a good job of throwing monsters at us that most of us players have never encountered before, and I think we should attempt to respect that by trying to figure them out in-game rather than looking them up unless it's something that your character would know, and you have permission to do. It seems reasonable that a cleric could look up a cleric spell, and convey it's effect, "It usually lasts seconds, to maybe a minute, depending on the skill of the caster", but that a cleric couldn't look up a wizard spell, or vise versa.
A borderline metagaming, that I'm not entirely sure how I feel, is how we, as players, communicate at the table. I think that maybe we should treat it like taking a 10, where you can talk numbers in a calm environment where we have time to convey a complex idea, but not in a tense environment where you are are having to yell out in 6 second intervals. Like I mentioned above, we will eventually figure these things out through trial and error, anyway.
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Post by michael on Nov 13, 2009 15:54:50 GMT -5
Yeah, I agree that it can take you out of it, and it needs to be curbed a lot. I think I may be the most guilty party, despite my urge to not be. When we were fighting the Babau, I was going through the Monster Manual looking at animals to summon (which I think is reasonable in theory, but I spend way too much time on it) and I was intentionally avoiding the monster and asking Harry questions at first. I don't even remember why I ended up looking at the creature's entry in the first place, but once I did, all thoughts of avoiding meta-gaming/spoiling the moment left my head.
Anyway, I'm not trying to make excuses, just pointing out that when the floodgates open on that, it can be a bit difficult to control, even when you're aware of it. Maybe a good rule would be whoever rolls the high knowledge or spellcraft gets only one look at the monster or spell, then the book is shut. If they want to impart any info to us, they have to remember it, and, like icnivad pointed out, they can only say what could reasonably be said during their 6 second turn.
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Post by Rabbit on Nov 13, 2009 16:03:18 GMT -5
I wanted to add another point.
As I work on planning our next adventures I am finding a lot of monsters at higher levels tend to do one of two things: make combat draw out or have powers that kill you instantly. Neither are really good solutions to the challenges problem (maybe everyone now and then, but not to be overused.)
All the more reason it is a good idea to re-focus on role play over stat/rules. Not every challenge should be about combat and tech-rules.
I know thinking about the numbers is something we all do. To a degree it is ok to do and even a good thing. You both made some good points.
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Post by Enric on Nov 13, 2009 16:08:07 GMT -5
I'm glad we're having this conversation - I hadn't really thought about it, but D&D is definitely a game that I think benefits from having a conversation regarding, uh, some kind of ground rules regarding metagaming and mechanic-versus-fiction stuff. And yeah, as soon as I said that thing about trying to figure out Black Jack's caster level the other night, I thought, "Shit, why did I say that? That's no fun." Sorry about that, Rabbit.
Anyway, I think Rabbit's frustrations are totally fair - it's a drag to feel like the story is getting derailed by overanalysis of rules. It can also be tricky, though, to strike a working balance between communicating mechanical stuff and maintaining the tone of the fiction. That seems like it's especially so with things like damage reduction or immunities... fuck, I'm going to have to finish this later, it's almost time to go back to work.
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Post by reefwood on Nov 13, 2009 17:05:18 GMT -5
I don't like meta-gaming. At least not the kind that doesn't have an in-character equivalent/explanation. I think icnivad did a good job at pointing out examples on both side of this fence, and these are some observations from the last session with thoughts on possible solutions, what I didn't like, and what I'm still not sure how to best handle.
When I first started playing D&D, it was easy to not know much about the classes and creatures that came up as challenges. After running a campaign, it's hard not to know a lot of the ins & outs. I certainly don't know everything, but I know enough that if I tried hard, I could probably figure out pretty quickly a fair bit about what Rabbit is throwing at us, so I simply don't try. That in itself seems to help. And if I do know a little, or a lot, about the class/creature, I try not to think about it and very much try to not tell anyone else what I know about it as a player. The biggest thing that came up along these lines came up in the campaign that icnivad was running where I had previously read the adventure that he presented to us one night. Rather than kill the session for everyone else (especially since it was a really rad adventure) or just sit out, I decided to only participate in the parts that I didn't know or remember. When anything else came up, I just sat back quietly and let the rest of the group figure it out. After the session, I filled icnivad in on what I knew, and he tweaked out the adventure, which still turned out to be totally rad.
Anyway, I hadn't thought about that in a while, but maybe it would be a good way to handle things that come up that you know about as a player but not a character. For example, if you know that a creature can swallow other creatures whole but don't know much else about it... don't let on that the creature has that ability, but you can't still brainstorm about figuring out what its weakness might be. Of course, it can be hard to stay quiet if there is a grappler in the group who wants to get in position to be eaten, and even harder if you are that grappler, but I think that should be the way to go. Staying quiet as a player and staying in-character. It's a shame that there isn't a reward system set up for that kind of roleplaying, but it seems like advancement in this game is more based on story than XP (which is a style I'm enjoying), so it doesn't matter as much anyway.
As for the last session...
Bandit Battle - I think part of the reason everyone started looking through a couple of the spells was because there were questions about how they functioned - what kind of action is needed to make a Will save each round of hold person, what constitutes an attack that breaks sanctuary. It got be kind of a free for all - especially since figuring out sanctuary required reading hold person as well - with several people trying to find out answers, myself included. Maybe a better way to handle this would be for only the person casting the spell to look it up. If further clarification is needed by others, the DM could read only the part in question. A good exception to this would be what icnivad pointed out about a cleric being allowed to look up cleric spells, or at least ones in the Players Handbook that he is able to cast. Also, it seems fair enough to share that a spell will be over soon or not ("It won't last long"), but I didn't like how people were trying to figure out exactly how many rounds until the sanctuary spell ended. I even found myself trying to do the math when this came up, but that was more my brain wanting to figure out a puzzle, and then I realized that I didn't actually want to know or even tell anyone if I did figure it out. But I think I did start calling the lead bandit a cleric and caught myself loosely meta-thinking ("the mask of Olidarama... and he cast magic... ooooh, so he's a cleric... did he cast invisibility or drink a potion?... if he cast it, then he's at least 3rd level and much have taken the trickery domain"), and some of that thinking I'm pretty sure wasn't even right, but again, I stopped myself when I realized what I was doing, so that I wouldn't know either way.
Babau Battle - I agree that passing the book around to look up monsters in the middle of a battle isn't in the spirit of the game/roleplaying. I think Rabbit did a good job of letting us know that this creature had damage reduction without spelling it out directly, and for me, that is where some number crunching came in. 8 points of damage wasn't cutting it, so I somewhat confidently assumed that it had DR/10 and looked at which weapons even had a chance of harming it. On top of that was the damage to weapons and seeing which ones would even last for more than one attack (I wonder if it's any coincidence that a weapon {mace} for a class that might fight demons has a lot of hp?). I can see how some of this does make sense for the character (need to hit it harder, need to hit it with something that won't melt right away), but on a couple different levels, I'm not sure if I played it as true to the character as I could have - 1) When the babau seemed pretty invincible to our attacks, Darven could have run for help or runaway, and while that may have made sense for the character, I knew as a player that it may have been futile and only dragged out the combat, and 2) While it didn't come up after we found out about the weapon damage, I probably wouldn't have had Darven use another expensive weapon until it broke but rather dropped it when it was close to breaking and pulled out a new weapon, so it could be salvaged, but I think in-character it would make more sense to use a weapon until it broke, especially when fighting a demon to the death!
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Post by Rabbit on Nov 13, 2009 17:47:57 GMT -5
Here are my takes on some things that have been said:
Good (necessary) Meta-gaming Practices Agreed. There is a parallel being drawn. An interesting idea. Agreed. That is totally fine and again, there is a parallel. Because spilling the beans may also take away from the new challenge set up for the other players. Would it? See, I think that could have made some very interesting role play. What happens when the strong man runs away? How will that effect the character’s courage later? “Fighting monsters is one thing, but demons?” And how will his comrades see it? And what if the whole group ran away? Again, it could have made been interesting for some players that are getting to the “bad ass” stage to be brought down a peg. Hindsight is 20/20, but perhaps the demon would have reveled in this and let you escape so he could torment you another time.
Bad (excessive) Meta-gaming Practices It’s a fine line, I know. Agreed. I think one of my weak points as a DM is the Tech side. So this is tricky. On one hand I like that you players are so knowledgeable about the rules, but getting your help can sometimes tip my hand too far. So that is something I can work on, too.
Further thoughts
This is an interesting idea. Rather than a hard and fast rule let’s try and use this concept as a general guideline. Just use your own judgment on when this feels right.
Also, what do you guys think about me pointing out “Role Play” and “Dungeon” sections? Usually I like to let them float back and forth, but would it be better if I pointed out if people were coming into a “dungeon” area? I am not sure I like this idea, but wanted to mention it.
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Post by icnivad on Nov 13, 2009 18:00:04 GMT -5
Good writeup, Reefwood. As far as spell and monster knowledge goes, there are already some pretty good mechanisms in place to determine weather your character knows anything.
It seems like if you have the spell available to you, or have faced or studied the monster before, you obviously should know their intricacies, but if you have not, there are knowledge checks to know about a monster, and spellcraft checks to know a spell.
Knowledge from PHB: * Arcana (constructs, dragons, magical beasts) * Dungeoneering (aberrations, oozes) * Local (humanoids) * Nature (animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, vermin) * Religion (gods and goddesses, undead) * The planes (outsiders, elementals)
There are not specific DC's written out for these knowledges, but I'm sure Rabbit can improv something if he doesn't already have something in mind for a creature. We, as players, might also want to be better about asking Rabbit how much knowledge about this creature is common knowledge. Obviously we shouldn't have to roll to know that a bear can bite us and is usually a threat, but do we know that vampires are vulnerable to silver?
As for knowing about a spell, the PHB gives a DC 15+spell level to identify a spell as it is cast. This seems like a pretty reasonable DC for knowing the details of a spell by name.
As a side note, Enric (and Rabbit in an aim conversation I had with him) makes an excellent point that we have not previously had a conversation as a group about where we all sit regarding metagaming. Even though D&D has a lot of rules it is pretty flexible and can be played either as a strict role playing game, a strict strategy game, or anywhere in between. I'm sure there are some groups that are happy to have arena style fights every session, play strictly by the rules, and try to out maneuver / strategize each other. In contrast, I've known groups who are happy to go months without ever entering combat having the game be entirely about the character development and roleplay. I'm a fan of landing somewhere in the middle, and while I enjoy the strategy of combat and character building, I don't think it should ever overshadow the roleplay / fantasy elements of the game. I guess that puts me at maybe a 6 or 7.
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Post by icnivad on Nov 13, 2009 18:05:20 GMT -5
Also, what do you guys think about me pointing out “Role Play” and “Dungeon” sections? Usually I like to let them float back and forth, but would it be better if I pointed out if people were coming into a “dungeon” area? I am not sure I like this idea, but wanted to mention it. I think that I like the idea of the two blending together a little better. There is always role play in a dungeon, and always the threat of vilance in a role play area. I don't think we should try to separate them any more than they already are.
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Post by Rabbit on Nov 13, 2009 18:17:13 GMT -5
. Knowledge from PHB: * Arcana (constructs, dragons, magical beasts) * Dungeoneering (aberrations, oozes) * Local (humanoids) * Nature (animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, vermin) * Religion (gods and goddesses, undead) * The planes (outsiders, elementals) I like this chart. It will likely be used in the future
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Post by reefwood on Nov 13, 2009 19:00:47 GMT -5
Only two posts were up when I started typing my reply (guess it was a long one, and I stopped to hang out with people in the middle of it for a while, heh), so I missed the others at first. Anyway to touch on one point... Anyway, I think Rabbit's frustrations are totally fair - it's a drag to feel like the story is getting derailed by overanalysis of rules. It can also be tricky, though, to strike a working balance between communicating mechanical stuff and maintaining the tone of the fiction. That seems like it's especially so with things like damage reduction or immunities... fuck, I'm going to have to finish this later, it's almost time to go back to work. The rules spell out that players should be informed when an attack is ineffective due to damage reduction, but obviously the amount or how to overcome it shouldn't be given away without good reason. Knowledge can be used to identify creatures, and it seems like you should only be able to learn a few things this way (as opposed to everything in the creature entry). Although, DM discretion also seems important because some creatures just have more HD to be tougher, but it wouldn't necessarily mean less is known about them (such as a black bear vs a brown bear). Then again, since they are tougher, maybe that is why less is known - because less people survive to find out. Another thing that comes to mind is that maybe players tend to know more about real world creatures than fantasy creatures and think nothing of it because it is knowledge we've known most of our lives. Whereas, someone living in a D&D world may know as much or as little about a horse as they do a hippogriff (3 HD creatures), or a warhorse and a hell hound (4 HD creatures) if they studied the appropriate subject because that is simply the kind of world in which they live. And it would make sense that setting has an effect, and it is usually recommended that minor effects like this add +2 or -2 to the DC, so if you grew up in troll country, you might have a slight edge to know about them, or if trolls were thought to have been driven to extinction decades ago, it could be harder to know about them. Perhaps one thing for the DM to keep in mind is the type of Knowledges best known by the players. I believe for this group it is nature and religion with some dungeoneering and arcana. Maybe in the future, information could be revealed based on our studies. For example, Enric could have been told that a "good-aligned" weapon overcame the babau's DR but not the part about cold iron because the first part is the more religious seeming one. Or maybe just told that if he rolled okay but told about both if he rolled high. As for conveying tech with flavor, maybe that is something we should brainstorm more, and I think the vagueness of information (based off how good the result is) could help with that. For example, if a roll is good but not great, you might know that a creature is "resistant to most elements" (acid 10, cold 10, fire 10) which gives players a heads up but still leaves room for experimentation and doesn't give away the exact numbers. A side note about Knowledge being a trained skill... for certain things it is silly that you would have to put ranks into it to make a roll. Sometimes we allow people to make straight up Int checks instead. One change that I like about Pathfinder is that you can make untrained Knowledge checks but can only succeed for anything with a DC 10 or lower (like making a Survival check w/o the Track feat in 3.5). You can just know basic stuff if haven't studied the subject, which makes sense, so even if you roll high, you fail anyway for trying to figure out anything more than a simple answer. Of course, I can see how the argument can be made for being able to know random facts picked up here or there, but D&D doesn't have television or the internet or even schools, so it's not like our characters would have been able to pick up these random things that seem so normal for us to know without having studied certain subjects, and if you want to do that, there is the Bard.
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Post by reefwood on Nov 13, 2009 19:25:46 GMT -5
Would it? See, I think that could have made some very interesting role play. What happens when the strong man runs away? How will that effect the character’s courage later? “Fighting monsters is one thing, but demons?” And how will his comrades see it? And what if the whole group ran away? Again, it could have made been interesting for some players that are getting to the “bad ass” stage to be brought down a peg. Hindsight is 20/20, but perhaps the demon would have reveled in this and let you escape so he could torment you another time. My thinking about this wasn't so much fear-related in terms of death but more that fighting this creature was futile. But perhaps is should have been? As for what I thought... I could step back to heal with the pipe if needed or boost AC to 25 with Combat Expertise, so I wasn't worried that Darven would be killed, but the problem was more that he was barely hurting it, if at all, and none of the weapons would last more than a few hits, and grapple was out of the question. Therefore, maybe the city guard in a magic city would be able to help out, or the Bloodwise, but I figured that Rabbit wouldn't let us take that route and the guard would be ineffective. But perhaps it was incorrect for me to think that? Also, Darven and Kuvpax may have been able to hide away and Ziff flown away and Brass run away, but it didn't seem like Marle could get away quickly or quietly. I would be open to trying it out for a session. My knee-jerk reaction is that I prefer to not know what is around the corner, but sometimes this can lead to players spending too much time on unnecessary and time-consuming preparation.
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Post by michael on Nov 13, 2009 21:25:17 GMT -5
I think I'd also prefer these blending more. Our encounter with Blackjack felt like it could have been a good example of this. That encounter had a few different ways it could have gone, and had a lot of untapped roleplaying potential, before, after, and during the fight. Instead of any separate sections, we just need to be more proactive as players in initiating the roleplaying.
I agree with most of what's been said about the knowledge checks, but I do think there are certain bits of information that would probably be common knowledge almost the world over. In relation to our battle the other night, I think it would be generally known that demons are practically made of evil, (capital E evil as it was being described in-game) and even that they would be vulnerable to Good. To me, that's basic knowledge about a creature, like knowing that dogs can't read.
The counter argument is that DnD is a different world, with different knowledge. Reefwood used the example of Horses and hippogriffs. However, horses can be bought at the corner store, whereas hippogiffs require an exotic mount. I think it's important to remember that this world was still based on our own society's mythology, and I kind of use that as the measuring stick. Things that a layman (not necessarily us) would know about our mythology, an average NPC would know about the DnD world. So knowing demons are evil and angels are good, check. Knowing dragons are very large, incredibly strong, and covered in scales? Check. Knowing a centaur is half horse/half man? Eh, could go either way. Maybe a DC 5 or 10. A gorgon being able to turn you to stone with its breath? That's probably not something the average person on the street would know, so it probably isn't something the average person in DnD knows either. (And thus something our characters shouldn't know without knowledge Arcana.)
Clearly this is general. Vampires and werewolves weren't really popularized until the 19th century, and DnD is a medieval setting, so lack of knowledge about them makes more sense. I'm sure there are a ton of other examples, too, but I still like it as a rule of thumb.
Anyway, that's my take on general world knowledge. I think Rabbit is really good about this anyway. Most of the info I'd assume we'd know he gives us for free.
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Post by michael on Nov 25, 2009 19:09:45 GMT -5
So I'd like to get some feedback about last night's game? What worked for you, and what didn't? I wanted to keep it loose, but I'm not sure I struck the right balance.
How was the encounter in the parking garage? I know it went on a bit too long, but was it tedious from the get go, or just towards the end?
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Post by Enric on Nov 26, 2009 11:47:53 GMT -5
Well, I had a good time, but I did still feel like we were struggling against the system quite a bit. I'm glad that you kept things pretty loose, and I was happy that there weren't any superfluous scenes - I felt like everything that happened was moving the story forward, so kudos to you for that. The garage encounter did start to drag a little bit toward the end - I think that's maybe something that's hard to avoid when there's any kind of chase going on - but I felt like what was happening was pretty interesting the whole time.
I did have some mechanical issues, however. Partly that has to do with the weight of the system - a lot to digest, still working out the kinks, plenty of referring back to the book - and how right now I feel like that breaks up the flow a little more than I care for. But I also realized that I actually didn't like how my power was working, as far as hitting automatically was concerned - I like rolling dice, and I felt like there were long stretches where I wasn't engaged with the system because I could narrate what I wanted to do without having any tension or conflict. If it's okay with you, I might tinker with my character a little before we play again.
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