D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[Charlaquin]

Honestly, many of these just seem like things you don't like, not really "metagaming" as many people use the term.

That’s exactly how most people use the term, in my experience.

 

[Charlaquin]

Renamed the thread for greater clarity and accuracy and added a TLDR to the initial post:
are there situations where players shouldn’t be made aware of the results of their own dice because even just knowing they rolled high or low reveals information they shouldn’t have and might affect their decision making?

My answer remains no.

 

[Bill Zebub]

No. Anything the character wouldn't know the player shouldn't know. This is because it prevents metagaming.

Exactly. Metagaming. Using out-of-character knowledge to make in-character decisions, i.e. not roleplaying.

I suppose if you care about metagaming that's true. As DM I could care less.

I look at it from the player's point of view: I don't want to be in a situation where I know something my character doesn't. That's not as much fun. So please keep me in the dark.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, see my position is and always has been that you're not responsible for what the players do. So it isn't your fault directly that players "metagame." I'm not obligated to defend a position I don't take.

Weird...

But as for rolling behind the screen, the only reason you would need to do that is to fix the problem you created in the first place

What someone else does isn't your fault. But it's worth acknowledging that setting the stage for it to happen is encouraging the very behavior you don't want to see at the table.

Because you're describing fault and saying I'm responsible for it and that I caused it...but then pretending you did not.

And here you are doing it again...

But it is the DM who creates the opportunities for this to happen.

But sure, let's pretend that fault and responsibility and blame aren't synonyms.

You even admit as much by saying you change up monsters, thereby mitigating those opportunities.

Yes, players metagame monsters stats so as a result I have to homebrew monsters. I do this to prevent the players from metagaming. It would be great if I didn't have to do all that extra work. It would be much better if the players would exercise some tiny amount of self-control and simply stop metagaming.

So very easy to just not react that way. To suggest otherwise is to admit to a lack of self-control in my view.

Like the players lacking the self-control to not metagame?

Are you familiar with the dichotomy of control, sometimes the trichotomy of control? It's the idea that there are 2-3 categories of things. Those things which are in my control, those things which are not in my control, and the alternate third: those things over which I have some control.

I do not have control over the actions of the players, nor would I want any. I do have some control over the actions of their characters. And I do have control over who sits at my table. Sometimes it's easier to put in the mountain of extra work to prevent the players from metagaming. Sometimes it's easier to simply boot the problem player. There is a social contract. People who violate that social contract are not welcome at my table. Metagaming is a violation of that social contract.

In addition, DMs create their own dissatisfaction by making it their business why a player makes a certain decision for their character when it's not their business at all.

All of these above are basically the same issue: DM demands an explanation for why a character is undertaking the action when they don't owe the DM one.

Disagree. How I run my games is that the players are free to ask me at any time why I made a call and I will answer them. If I cannot give them a good answer in the moment, then I rethink the call. Barring off-camera stuff that I know is going on that their characters wouldn't, of course. That same courtesy is extended to me as the referee. If the players make a call, I am free to ask them why. If they cannot give me a good answer in the moment, then they need to rethink that call. I only ever bother when it's obvious metagaming.

They can do any of these things for any reason or no reason at all. Pick one that works best in the fiction, if you need to. To declare that an acceptable one doesn't exist is to admit a failure of imagination while playing a game that is based on make-believe. That doesn't seem like a good strategy to me.

To make decisions for your character based on metagame knowledge is to fail to roleplay. This is a roleplaying game. I am at the table to engage in a roleplaying game, not a boardgame. You cannot win D&D. There's no need to cheat. There's no need to try to game the system. There's no need to metagame. If you're the type of player who so desperately needs to win that you'll cheat, game the system, or metagame, then you're not welcome at my table.

Honestly, many of these just seem like things you don't like, not really "metagaming" as many people use the term.

Making a character decision based on information your character does not have is metagaming. That's how I use the word.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yes, players metagame monsters stats so as a result I have to homebrew monsters. I do this to prevent the players from metagaming. It would be great if I didn't have to do all that extra work. It would be much better if the players would exercise some tiny amount of self-control and simply stop metagaming.

Similar to what I said above, I homebrew monsters, and like it when DMs homebrew monsters, not to "prevent metagaming" to keep players/me in the dark, to better feel what the character is feeling. (Hopefully stark terror, not feigned stark terror.)

Like the players lacking the self-control to not metagame?

Are you familiar with the dichotomy of control, sometimes the trichotomy of control? It's the idea that there are 2-3 categories of things. Those things which are in my control, those things which are not in my control, and the alternate third: those things over which I have some control.

I would argue you don't have control over your own "metagaming", either. The very attempt to not use information you think your character doesn't have means you are not making a decision from your character's perspective, but from your, the player's, perspective.

To use the classic example, a brand new player with no experience of the game might very well try fire the moment they witness a troll regenerating. The anti-metagaming veteran might, in an attempt to accurately portray the novice adventurer, avoid that action at all costs. Who is the metagamer?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Well, I walked away at the wrong moment and left out an important bit of that. As mentioned: time pressure. The point wasn’t about the resting, the point was supposed to be about ignoring external time pressure. “We’re not risking ourselves to save the dragon from the princess” and all that. Waves of enemies was supposed to be an example of external time pressure the PCs couldn’t ignore.

where I can see this as annoying, I don't see it as metagaming... unless they are saying "The DM wants us to fight X, and has it set up, if we take 3 days to get there or 3 hours it will be fight x"

having said that as a player I have gotten to the point where I took a rest instead of pushing to save teh dragon from the princess... because of the airplane oxygen rule. If I die trying to save someone nobody gets saved, I need to save myself first.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Oftentimes with armoured foes, this is true. But I don't want to just give away that the foe is wearing a ring of protection +x, or Bracers AC y, or is under the influence of some defensive spell or other. And that's what would happen.

I don't just say "oh AC 14 guys" but if someone hits a 14 I will say "Hit, exactly" and if that was a non dexterous guy with a +3 ring I might add "And BOY was it weird passing through the magical force."

One of the "oh no!" moments of a campaign I played in a while back was when our front line melee warrior (a paliden/bard/hexblade) rolled and said "I hit a 23, for..." and was rolling damage when as the DM said "Nothing, you missed" it took 4ish rounds to pin down the 27 AC we were aiming for... well the 25 missed, the nat 20 hit that is no help, but the 29 Hit... is something we could easily see.

 

[iserith]

Weird...


Because you're describing fault and saying I'm responsible for it and that I caused it...but then pretending you did not.

And here you are doing it again...

But sure, let's pretend that fault and responsibility and blame aren't synonyms.

Again, you're not at fault for what players do. You are responsible if you create the conditions for the things you don't like, then judge people for doing those things.

Like the players lacking the self-control to not metagame?

Are you familiar with the dichotomy of control, sometimes the trichotomy of control? It's the idea that there are 2-3 categories of things. Those things which are in my control, those things which are not in my control, and the alternate third: those things over which I have some control.

I do not have control over the actions of the players, nor would I want any. I do have some control over the actions of their characters. And I do have control over who sits at my table. Sometimes it's easier to put in the mountain of extra work to prevent the players from metagaming. Sometimes it's easier to simply boot the problem player. There is a social contract. People who violate that social contract are not welcome at my table. Metagaming is a violation of that social contract.

I fully agree about control here. Like you can control your decision to get worked up about how and why a player makes a decision for their character and just not do that. That's where I would start before trying to change other people.

As for social contracts, people should be held to their agreements in my view. But your list of what you think "metagaming" can be appears to be so broad that I wonder if anyone could even reasonably understand what's going to set you off, even if they agree to a " no metagaming" policy as a general table rule.

Disagree. How I run my games is that the players are free to ask me at any time why I made a call and I will answer them. If I cannot give them a good answer in the moment, then I rethink the call. Barring off-camera stuff that I know is going on that their characters wouldn't, of course. That same courtesy is extended to me as the referee. If the players make a call, I am free to ask them why. If they cannot give me a good answer in the moment, then they need to rethink that call. I only ever bother when it's obvious metagaming.

They are free to ask why you made a call. You are free to ask them why they made the decision they did. Neither of your are obligated to answer, nor even change a ruling or course of action based on an answer freely given. Why you would even want to know, given that some subset of answers is going to set you off, seems very curious to me. Why you would want to exert control by having them "rethink" their answer if it doesn't please you is more curious still.

To make decisions for your character based on metagame knowledge is to fail to roleplay. This is a roleplaying game. I am at the table to engage in a roleplaying game, not a boardgame. You cannot win D&D. There's no need to cheat. There's no need to try to game the system. There's no need to metagame. If you're the type of player who so desperately needs to win that you'll cheat, game the system, or metagame, then you're not welcome at my table.

It should be noted that this is just your personal opinion (the bolded), one shared by some previous versions of the game to be sure, but not all versions of D&D, nor all RPGs.

Making a character decision based on information your character does not have is metagaming. That's how I use the word.

The problem with that is it's trivially easy to come up with a reason why any character does something up to and including "just felt like it." Specific "character knowledge" isn't necessarily required to act any particular way.

 

[overgeeked]

Again, you're not at fault for what players do. You are responsible if you create the conditions for the things you don't like, then judge people for doing those things.

And, again, you still haven't explained that despite being asked to several times. But whatever.

I fully agree about control here. Like you can control your decision to get worked up about how and why a player makes a decision for their character and just not do that. That's where I would start before trying to change other people.

Sigh. The same old it's all always the DM's fault and the players have zero responsibility.

Clearly this is pointless. Tschüss.

 

[bloodtide]

No. When the players know the rolls the game quickly descends into a mechanical board game. Very quickly the game becomes "my character makes a standard move of ten feet forward and makes an attack action".

And that is on top of the metagame problem: When a player figures out something like a DC that they feel is "too high" they might at beast give up, and at worst just stop playing the game. There is also the problem of the players "gaming the game" and doing mechanical things to get that number.

It's best to hide the numbers as much as possible.