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Draconi Redfir
2018-01-19, 03:19 AM
So semi-recently, my group's DM chewed us out a bit for using the wrong terminology on something when re-capping something to a player who wasn't at the previous session.

What happened is, we encountered an enemy who, when very close to death, spontaneously teleported away without visually casting a spell. This happened multiple times for multiple enemies in that encounter, so naturally we all thought "Okay, it's a contingency spell thing". Someone made an arcana check, and determined what was happening was something involving infernal magic, or that one of them was using infernal magic while disguising it as divine.

So we describe the event as "they had some kind of contingency spell or something, as they all teleported away when they were close to death" and later on the DM chewed us out for calling it "Contingency" when we SHOULD (apparently) have been calling it "Infernal magic" (So what, it's impossible for infernal magic / infernal casters to cast contingency spells?) and that calling it "Contingency" was metagaming.

What i don't understand is... How? A good 90% of our party at the time is or as at some point been some kind of caster, we've got arcane, divine, even psionic. these people range from halfing is their 20's to Elves in their mid-hundreds. is it somehow impossible that, in all of their combined experience in learning, casing, and knowing about magic, that maybe SOMEONE learned about the existence of contingency spells at some point? Like this is very basic information isn't it? "If something happens when someone is near death, it's probably contingency" etc?

heck i had this while DMing awhile back, i had the party encounter a Troll, and somehow none of the characters knew about it's regeneration and weakness to fire, like how is that not DAY ONE stuff you would learn when even mentioning them offhandedly? Would it be metagaming to know a red dragon breathes fire? Metagaming to know that mind flayers have tentacles on their face and eat minds? Metagaming to know that hey, wild cats don't usually fight in packs, someone is probably controlling or manipulating them somehow?

Basically, what i don't understand is how basic ground-level information that you would immediately pick up from even a minute of hearing about a thing, or having it so that your character is at least somewhat vaguely AWARE of a things existence, is somehow "Metagaming".

Like... what's up with that? Would it be metagaming to say the sky is blue ooor???

weckar
2018-01-19, 04:14 AM
It feels odd to say 'metagaming' about an OOC recap of all things. It was OOC right?

Frozen_Feet
2018-01-19, 04:26 AM
Your GM is being nitpicky, possibly because your guess was too on-point

To wit, the idea here is that calling it out as "contingency" is so specific that you must be using player knowledge to make that guess. It's not the problem tbat you "don't get this". You simply disagree.

Your reply to any form "but you don't know it's contingency!" ought to be "we also don't know it's NOT contingency, and that's what everybody thought it is. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck."

Your GM's case isn't helped by the fact that "contingent spell" has plain English meaning which is near identical to the rules, but would not actually require any rules knowledge to use.

Pelle
2018-01-19, 05:18 AM
The issue seems to be that your GM wants you to use the in-universe fiction term "infernal" magic, while you use the game mechanic rule term "Contigency". It might very well be the same, and your character may be aware of it. He may be using the term metagaming wrong, but I think your GM just wants you to engage with the fiction. It's like saying "my character do this Combat Action", instead of describing what happens in the fiction. Both styles are valid, but seems like a mismatch in expectations.

For the other issue, troll regeneration and dragon breathing fire etc, that depends on the setting if it is metagaming or not. In mine, the former is false for example. If I were to include mind flayers, that would be as some kind of alien, and hence no one would know anything about them, it depends on how common things are. You seem to assume a lot of things are basic ground-level information, when they in fact may not be in that setting. Or they might.

Frozen_Feet
2018-01-19, 05:45 AM
The general standard here is that if you feel your GM jumped the gun with the accusation of metagaming, walk them through the steps of how your character figured this or that out. If your GM is reasonable, they will either admit your chain of logic is sound or they will point out where you assumed too much.

If your GM is evil, they will nod and bop their head and be like "I see..." - and then next time, you will find everything you believed in to be a lie. :smallamused:

Mordaedil
2018-01-19, 06:46 AM
I mean, it triggered by some sort of event without his involvement? Calling it infernal magic seems more metagaming to me, but maybe he says that because you couldn't succeed the roll to identify the spell? I mean, OOC you can describe it as an effect similar to a contingent spell, that shouldn't be a problem.

Misereor
2018-01-19, 07:03 AM
GM: "As the man in the strange robes waves his arms dramatically and utters disturbing syllables, a ball of fire manifests between his hands and hurtles towards your party. Make a save."
Player 1: "I save. How about you player 2?"
Player 2: "How about what?"
Player 1: "Did you get hit by the Fireball?"
GM: "Metagaming, eh?" *slaps Player 1 with XP penalties*
Player 1: "Aww, I should have said fire ball. Damn his excellent hearing..."


contingency (kənˈtɪndʒ(ə)nsi), noun
"a provision for a possible event or circumstance."

So a contingency spell and a Contingency spell may be two different things, and unless your GM is able to hear how you capitalize letters when speaking, he has no case. (And incidentally, my favorite contingency spell is Fireball.)

Glorthindel
2018-01-19, 07:09 AM
There is nothing wrong with making reasonable assumptions, and then using common terminology to explain it. Honestly, telling your friend that "they used infernal magic" is useless in and of itself, unless you added "which kinda acted like a contingency spell", since firstly, it did, and secondly, its a more efficient way of conveying the facts.

As far as monsters go, I assume that a world is going to have its own legends, fireside tales, and myths about a lot of the creatures out there. I mean, just ask anyone on the street in real life what the abilities of a Vampire or Werewolf are - I would be amazed if anyone couldn't give a couple of the big facts, and we don't have real Vampires and Werewolves. A world where those creatures are actually real things are going to be even more likely to pass on the info.

To me there is a definite difference between saying "Werewolves are vulnerable to silver, Vampires are destroyed by sunlight and can change into bats, and Trolls regenerate unless set on fire" and saying "Bears have an AC11, 19 hit points, and +3 to hit". The first is potentially common lore (and possibly incorrect in individual cases) while the latter is specific game mechanic numbers. To me, only the latter is metagaming.

Darth Ultron
2018-01-19, 07:49 AM
I think in this case your DM is being silly.

First off talking player to player OOC the DM should never say anything thing about the words you use. Players will use game terms and words that are in the rulebooks.

It's a bit odd your DM wants you to be vague and say ''um, some infernal magic'' and not ''some contingency magic''...guess you could say ''infernal contingency magic'' , but it's all nit picking really.

And even more so if you had any characters with a skill that can know just about anything about magic.....really knowing about contingency magic is like a DC 10.


In my games I do the ''meta'' differently: all players are free to use whatever they know fully in character. And the game rolls on.

jojo
2018-01-19, 08:04 AM
I'll jump on the popular bandwagon here and agree that your DM sounds like he's being unreasonable. I don't really quite understand how it's possible to "meta-game OOC" in fact even attempting to comprehend such a conundrum makes my brain weep for your DM.

Most reasonable DMs and players will constantly make assumptions about what's going on and will often even act on them in-game. As long as, when you're doing something without a skill or ability check your DM can't point to the 8 Intelligence score on your character sheet and you are ready to accept that you could be wrong based on assumptions that you're making....

What's the problem?

People make assumptions all the time IIRL and leap to conclusions. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. Doesn't mean they can't/shouldn't do so.

Scripten
2018-01-19, 10:06 AM
Metagaming is a really annoying concept that should just die off. The Angry DM did a really good article about it, which I greatly agree with. My players are so scared of being accused of "metagaming" that they will spend five minutes trying to hedge around just saying what it is that they observed. It's especially bad with HP. Your average conversation goes like this:

Player 1: "Player 2, on a scale of 1 to an arbitrary number, how are you feeling right now?"
Player 2: "Well, Player 1, on a scale of 1 to, say, 72, I'm feeling I'm about at 32."

I've had moderate success just telling them that their characters are talking in their own language and in their own terms such that the gist of the conversation is happening.

DM's that play "Gotcha!" games are ridiculous. DM's that do it OOC are obnoxious.

Pelle
2018-01-19, 10:21 AM
Using game mechanic terms OOC is ok. Some players/DMs prefer to spend more of the game time in character. I don't find that obnoxious, just different preferences.

Frozen_Feet
2018-01-19, 10:22 AM
"Metagaming" is a very usefull concept and much broader in meaning than the usual RPG version of "using out-of-character knowledge to inform character actions".

The problem is the idea that all metagaming is bad. Not even all metagaming of the RPG subtype is bad. For example, regardless of whether HP is considered game or metagame knowledge, players should be allowed to use the term to communicate among each other. Or, at least, merits of hidden HP game need to be established beyond just "but saying HP would be metagaming!"

tensai_oni
2018-01-19, 10:29 AM
Nope, I'm with the DM on that one.

The existence of contingency spells is not the same as knowing dragons breath fire or that cats don't hunt in packs. It's not common knowledge. Unless your characters encountered such spells before (and from your description it sounds like they didn't), the only way they'd know about contingency spells is if they've read or leant about them somehow - which means an arcana check, and if you rolled high enough, the DM would tell you: yep, it's contingency.

Here's the thing: you made your checks and the DM didn't tell you it's contingency. Therefore, your characters don't know it's contingency. Maybe in this setting, this kind of spells are more rare than you assumed. Maybe the DM even soft banned them except for very specific circumstances (infernal magic, for example?). Whatever the reason, you're making an incorrect assumption about the game world, and when the DM corrected that assumption you acted like he's wrong somehow.

Florian
2018-01-19, 10:42 AM
First, the difference between "game mode" and "simulation mode". In "game mode", the dice decide everything and the game system itself is build around that. There's no assumption that a "200 year old elf wizard" knows anything based on backstory, there's the knowledge skill check and that shows whether or not something is known. Want to model that better? Take the "Breadth of Knowledge" feat for elves 200+ year up to gain +2 on all knowledge checks.

Then, it can be a contingency spell, it could be something entirely different. Template or Prestige Class power? Bound Devil with a ready action to teleport? Endless possibilities there. In PF, there's a cultist feat that simply incinerates the body and equipment on hitting 0 hp, zero contingency involved.
Did you try, say, Arcane Sight to actually check whether there is a Contingency or did you just make your rolls when the effect activates?

Tinkerer
2018-01-19, 10:50 AM
Then, it can be a contingency spell, it could be something entirely different. Template or Prestige Class power? Bound Devil with a ready action to teleport? Endless possibilities there. In PF, there's a cultist feat that simply incinerates the body and equipment on hitting 0 hp, zero contingency involved.
Did you try, say, Arcane Sight to actually check whether there is a Contingency or did you just make your rolls when the effect activates?

Yeah but they did mention that it was "some kind of contingency spell or something", not "they used Contingency" during an OOC recap. The intent being (I'm pretty sure) "they had some sort of auto-ability that triggered when a certain condition was met".

kitanas
2018-01-19, 10:59 AM
Nope, I'm with the DM on that one.

The existence of contingency spells is not the same as knowing dragons breath fire or that cats don't hunt in packs. It's not common knowledge. Unless your characters encountered such spells before (and from your description it sounds like they didn't), the only way they'd know about contingency spells is if they've read or leant about them somehow - which means an arcana check, and if you rolled high enough, the DM would tell you: yep, it's contingency.

Here's the thing: you made your checks and the DM didn't tell you it's contingency. Therefore, your characters don't know it's contingency. Maybe in this setting, this kind of spells are more rare than you assumed. Maybe the DM even soft banned them except for very specific circumstances (infernal magic, for example?). Whatever the reason, you're making an incorrect assumption about the game world, and when the DM corrected that assumption you acted like he's wrong somehow.

The problem with that is that it also means that basic deductive reasoning is meta-gaming. Like, if I was aware that to cast a spell you needed spell-casting, and I saw a spell like effect go off without any spell-casting, is it really so unreasonable to assume that they had a spell pre-cast, set to go off when some pre-set conditions were met? and would it be wrong to call it a contingency spell, seeing as t looks like it was set up to be a contingency plan if things went poorly?

Anymage
2018-01-19, 11:06 AM
In this particular case, "contingency" could be used as both a real English word and as a clear understanding of in-game terms. He spontaneously disappeared when heavily beat up without taking any specific action, you can make reasonable guesses there has to be some form of magical effect powering it. Metagaming would be someone trying to steal/destroy the focus statuette before the party brainiac made the roll to remember finer spell details.

(As an aside, there's good metagaming as well as bad metagaming. Bad metagaming is pulling out the books to try and gather the specific details of whatever you're facing. Good metagaming is going along with the party and/or plot because the alternative is bringing the session to a screeching halt. Assuming that metagaming is automatically evil is one of those old habits that needs to die.)

And as mentioned above, if the DM really feels that you're exploiting player knowledge, he's better served changing some details than he is by throwing a snit. Going back to the too specific detail of the Contingency statuette, having a decoy statuette while some other item is the real focus should help discourage players who rely too heavily on memorizing the rulebooks.

Frozen_Feet
2018-01-19, 11:21 AM
The problem with that is that it also means that basic deductive reasoning is meta-gaming.

You only need one metagame observation to enter the chain of logic for basic deductive reasoning to become metagaming. Nevermind that the player's deductive skill is primarily a metagame resource.

The actual problem is, again, the idea that metagaming is automatically bad. There's no problem with identifying basic deductive reasoning as metagaming as long as you acknowledge that this does not itself mean a game move is invalid.

Florian
2018-01-19, 11:42 AM
The problem with that is that it also means that basic deductive reasoning is meta-gaming. Like, if I was aware that to cast a spell you needed spell-casting, and I saw a spell like effect go off without any spell-casting, is it really so unreasonable to assume that they had a spell pre-cast, set to go off when some pre-set conditions were met? and would it be wrong to call it a contingency spell, seeing as t looks like it was set up to be a contingency plan if things went poorly?

As I pointed out earlier, the game has a function that simulates whether _your character_ manages the deductive reasoning, that's the knowledge skills. Keep in mind: You are not your character.

tensai_oni
2018-01-19, 12:15 PM
The problem with that is that it also means that basic deductive reasoning is meta-gaming. Like, if I was aware that to cast a spell you needed spell-casting, and I saw a spell like effect go off without any spell-casting, is it really so unreasonable to assume that they had a spell pre-cast, set to go off when some pre-set conditions were met? and would it be wrong to call it a contingency spell, seeing as t looks like it was set up to be a contingency plan if things went poorly?

Basic deductive reasoning, you say? If I see a spell effect go off on someone who didn't cast it, my assumption isn't that they had some kind of contingency effect going on - it's a mechanic that very, very few RPGs have, and even in DnD I was always under assumption it's meant to be a niche and rare thing that became overused on a meta level due to how versatile and powerful it is. Anyway, basic deductive reasoning would tell you that if the person didn't cast the spell, someone else did. Maybe they have an ally scrying on them, ready to teleport them out if things go sour?

Assuming a contingency spell went off makes sense only if you, in-character, know contigency spells exist. Once again, the DM made it clear that the player characters don't.

Tinkerer
2018-01-19, 12:45 PM
Basic deductive reasoning, you say? If I see a spell effect go off on someone who didn't cast it, my assumption isn't that they had some kind of contingency effect going on - it's a mechanic that very, very few RPGs have, and even in DnD I was always under assumption it's meant to be a niche and rare thing that became overused on a meta level due to how versatile and powerful it is. Anyway, basic deductive reasoning would tell you that if the person didn't cast the spell, someone else did. Maybe they have an ally scrying on them, ready to teleport them out if things go sour?

Assuming a contingency spell went off makes sense only if you, in-character, know contigency spells exist. Once again, the DM made it clear that the player characters don't.

Wards are probably one of the most famous magical spells (and rightly so since mages rely on knowledge of them to deter would be snoops) and they are a form of contingency spell. So is magic mouth. Contingency spells are all over the place. And to repeat in the initial example the player was describing something OOC to a player who had missed the session and said "they had some kind of contingency spell or something, as they all teleported away when they were close to death".

EDIT: And I'm not entirely sure how one would think that it is a niche and rare spell. Most spells from the main book are assumed to be fairly common.

tensai_oni
2018-01-19, 01:20 PM
Was the recap IC or OOC? I assumed it was characters talking to each other and describing what happened, not the players themselves.

Metagaming by definition is when OOC knowledge flows into IC actions. Using OOC knowledge during OOC conversations is completely fine, so if that's what happened then yes, the DM was being a jerk.

JeenLeen
2018-01-19, 01:30 PM
If one of you made an Arcana check (or was a wizard or other spellcaster who had access to Contingency), I would think it a reasonable IC assumption to believe that the Infernal magic was a contingency spell. If that's the case, that deduction IC is not metagaming.
If, IC, you did not have knowledge of Contingency (as the spell itself), it seems metagaming to use your OOC knowledge of that spell to influence IC deductions.

Whether or not you know that IC depends on how the DM handles knowledge. (Likewise, what is common knowledge -- red dragons breathe fire, large cats not pack animals -- seems reasonable for DM decision. Red dragons=fire is technically Arcana if you are in 3.5, but seems fair common knowledge. I'd put the large cats things in Nature, although if a player OOC knew it I wouldn't care about that being known IC regardless of the roll.)

However, I think the DM is being a bit nitpicky and (if your definition of 'chewing out' is similar to mine) a bit of a jerk. It would be fine for him to point out that you don't actually know that, maybe even as a friendly reminder so the player who missed the last game isn't confused, but to get angry about it seems improper. This metagaming seems minor, since it's basically professional adventurers knowing stuff about professional adventurer class abilities (here, wizard spells.)

Draconi Redfir
2018-01-19, 01:31 PM
i brought this up with the DM somewhat, merely saying how i wasn't aware that them teleporting off was in any way related to the infernal magic, and in his own words:

The Paladin took enough damage to go unconscious/disabled/dying, at which Point infernal magic was used to pull him out, immediately(it would have taken near god level power, to teleport them through the magic barrier without the caster being there.) When the rest of that party took damage, ( not enough to drop the to zero, just heavy damage, the Wizard cast a teleport spell on them


sooo i dunno. maybe we just got confused because we couldn't see the wizard when the paladin warped off.... and then artificially skipped the rest of the combat a few rounds later for some reason.

Tinkerer
2018-01-19, 01:34 PM
Was the recap IC or OOC? I assumed it was characters talking to each other and describing what happened, not the players themselves.

Metagaming by definition is when OOC knowledge flows into IC actions. Using OOC knowledge during OOC conversations is completely fine, so if that's what happened then yes, the DM was being a jerk.

Hmm, I was running off the assumption that it was OOC due to the initial sentence containing "re-capping something to a player who wasn't at the previous session." Re-capping I tend to mainly hear in the context of out of character discussion and when saying that they were addressing the player it would generally indicate OOC as well. But fair enough, it is entirely possible that it was IC.

Quertus
2018-01-19, 07:08 PM
Sounds like I'm late to the party, but since when has that stopped me?

I was going to list out possibilities, but it sounds like the long shot is true: the GM didn't want you confusing the player who wasn't there with unfounded (and false) conclusions. Kudos to the GM, as this is the most acceptable reason for the described behavior.

That having been said, "metagaming" is very much the wrong word for the issue here, unless it had been explicitly established that the PCs are unaware of the Contingency spell.

It sounds like it would behoove your party to choose a recap speaker who can make fewer assumptions going forward. It sounds like this GM should probably take a chill pill, and calmly correct any mistakes in the recap without resorting to name calling or chewing people out.


A good 90% of our party at the time is or as at some point been some kind of caster, we've got arcane, divine, even psionic. these people range from halfing is their 20's to Elves in their mid-hundreds. is it somehow impossible that, in all of their combined experience in learning, casing, and knowing about magic, that maybe SOMEONE learned about the existence of contingency spells at some point? Like this is very basic information isn't it? "If something happens when someone is near death, it's probably contingency" etc?

90%? Just how many are in your party?

Playground, correct me if I'm wrong, but, even if this is 3e D&D (which hasn't actually been established?), there is no listed DC to know that a spell exists, is there? Otherwise, good luck asking for healing, as characters without Spellcraft don't know that it exists...

In other words, OP, I'd have a chat with the GM about what, specifically, pushed his buttons back there vs what makes for reasonable game play.


heck i had this while DMing awhile back, i had the party encounter a Troll, and somehow none of the characters knew about it's regeneration and weakness to fire, like how is that not DAY ONE stuff you would learn when even mentioning them offhandedly? Would it be metagaming to know a red dragon breathes fire? Metagaming to know that mind flayers have tentacles on their face and eat minds? Metagaming to know that hey, wild cats don't usually fight in packs, someone is probably controlling or manipulating them somehow?

Basically, what i don't understand is how basic ground-level information that you would immediately pick up from even a minute of hearing about a thing, or having it so that your character is at least somewhat vaguely AWARE of a things existence, is somehow "Metagaming".


As I pointed out earlier, the game has a function that simulates whether _your character_ manages the deductive reasoning, that's the knowledge skills. Keep in mind: You are not your character.

As I haven't noticed it established yet that this was 3e D&D, I'll answer more generally.

Back in 2e D&D, I kept track of who trained whom, what each of my character's knew and passed on.My characters liked to chat around the campfire with other adventurers - their survival might well depends on it! This is, IM(ns)HO, the vastly superior way to handle things: you know exactly what your character knows.

In 3e D&D, such questions are subsumed by a generic knowledge/Spellcraft check. What you as a player knows, or details about what specific training your character has is irrelevant.


Metagaming would be someone trying to steal/destroy the focus statuette before the party brainiac made the roll to remember finer spell details.

(As an aside, there's good metagaming as well as bad metagaming. Bad metagaming is pulling out the books to try and gather the specific details of whatever you're facing. Good metagaming is going along with the party and/or plot because the alternative is bringing the session to a screeching halt. Assuming that metagaming is automatically evil is one of those old habits that needs to die.)

And as mentioned above, if the DM really feels that you're exploiting player knowledge, he's better served changing some details than he is by throwing a snit. Going back to the too specific detail of the Contingency statuette, having a decoy statuette while some other item is the real focus should help discourage players who rely too heavily on memorizing the rulebooks.

For that first bit, I strongly agree in the general case. However, since this is apparently "team caster", I personally would try to get the GM to play the game as though the party was hyper competent in this particular arena, telling them everything magical with no rolls or promoting required.

For the second paragraph, yeah, this. I was taught that metagaming was Evil. This was wrong thinking. And Captain Smeck is the Wrongest.

Disagree on the third paragraph. The best move for the GM is to treat the players like adults, and talk to them about it. However, a GM so incompetent as to chew the players out for an OOC conversation, and misuse the term "metagaming", may have no viable alternative but to use the inferior method you describe.


Basic deductive reasoning, you say? If I see a spell effect go off on someone who didn't cast it, my assumption isn't that they had some kind of contingency effect going on - it's a mechanic that very, very few RPGs have, and even in DnD I was always under assumption it's meant to be a niche and rare thing that became overused on a meta level due to how versatile and powerful it is. Anyway, basic deductive reasoning would tell you that if the person didn't cast the spell, someone else did. Maybe they have an ally scrying on them, ready to teleport them out if things go sour?

Assuming a contingency spell went off makes sense only if you, in-character, know contigency spells exist. Once again, the DM made it clear that the player characters don't.

Again, what's the DC to know that a spell exists? I think Team Caster can meet that.

But, sounds like your intuition served you well on the actual cause. However, I'm confused by this outcome. Why didn't the party notice? Was the wizard invisible, casting a silent stilled spell?


Metagaming by definition is when OOC knowledge flows into IC actions. Using OOC knowledge during OOC conversations is completely fine, so if that's what happened then yes, the DM was being a jerk.

Is the GM "metagaming" for using the word wrong, just like his players did? :smalltongue:

Draconi Redfir
2018-01-19, 08:21 PM
90%? Just how many are in your party?

seven. at the time this happened, we had an artificer / sorcerer, a psion, a shadowdancer rogue with some spells from a multiclass or rogue trick of some kind, an oracle, a witch, a multiclass bloodrager who didn't have spells yet, and a fighter, who later re-rolled into a caster after this fight.

pathfinder game for the record, wasn't aware this was important sorry.


But, sounds like your intuition served you well on the actual cause. However, I'm confused by this outcome. Why didn't the party notice? Was the wizard invisible, casting a silent stilled spell?

Wizard was physically out of sight, we were on the top floor, the wizard was on the bottom floor, and the paladin and several others were on the stairs between the two.

KillianHawkeye
2018-01-19, 09:33 PM
Basic deductive reasoning, you say? If I see a spell effect go off on someone who didn't cast it, my assumption isn't that they had some kind of contingency effect going on - it's a mechanic that very, very few RPGs have, and even in DnD I was always under assumption it's meant to be a niche and rare thing that became overused on a meta level due to how versatile and powerful it is. Anyway, basic deductive reasoning would tell you that if the person didn't cast the spell, someone else did. Maybe they have an ally scrying on them, ready to teleport them out if things go sour?

Assuming a contingency spell went off makes sense only if you, in-character, know contigency spells exist. Once again, the DM made it clear that the player characters don't.

An ally scrying on them, ready to teleport them out if things go sour? That sure sounds like a contingency plan, if not a contingency spell, to me. And that's where you don't seem to understand that "contingency" is a perfectly plausible word in the English language to use to describe anything that seems to happen at a predefined time or upon a predefined triggering condition.

It honestly doens't matter if the contingency spell was being used in this case or if it even exists in the game being played. If the players observed that the enemies were being teleported away in a manner contingent upon them being seriously or critically wounded, there's absolutely nothing wrong with them describing it in such a manner. Especially given that the supposed alternative, "some infernal magic", literally fails to describe the observed effect. At best, "infernal" describes the source of the effect, not the effect itself.

Mr Beer
2018-01-20, 02:35 AM
So we describe the event as "they had some kind of contingency spell or something, as they all teleported away when they were close to death" and later on the DM chewed us out for calling it "Contingency" when we SHOULD (apparently) have been calling it "Infernal magic"

OK so your DM is a pretentious douche, sorry to hear that dude.

dps
2018-01-20, 10:25 AM
Hmm, I was running off the assumption that it was OOC due to the initial sentence containing "re-capping something to a player who wasn't at the previous session." Re-capping I tend to mainly hear in the context of out of character discussion and when saying that they were addressing the player it would generally indicate OOC as well. But fair enough, it is entirely possible that it was IC.

Yeah, I also assumed that the recap was OOC. If it was instead IC, then I still think that the DM was being nit-picky, but if it was OOC, then he was being a total jerk. IMO, it isn't any of his business what the players talk about OOC, unless OOC conversations are disrupting the actual gaming session.

Max_Killjoy
2018-01-20, 10:26 AM
The word "contingency" has a meaning outside of D&D magic's capital-C "Contingency". Nothing wrong with using the word to mean what it means.

D+1
2018-01-20, 11:03 AM
So we describe the event as "they had some kind of contingency spell or something, as they all teleported away when they were close to death" and later on the DM chewed us out for calling it "Contingency" when we SHOULD (apparently) have been calling it "Infernal magic" (So what, it's impossible for infernal magic / infernal casters to cast contingency spells?) and that calling it "Contingency" was metagaming.
The DM is, IMO, being a pedantic arse. "Metagaming" is when players sitting around the table use their detailed knowledge of the actual game rules and the real-life situation of sitting around the game table to manipulate the choices and actions of their characters in the game as if the characters themselves have the same knowledge. That is, they inappropriately use out-of-game knowledge IN the game to keep every advantage for their characters and party.

It just DOES NOT MATTER what terminology you use when relating descriptions such as you mention. Is there a more roleplay-accurate means of relating the description in the way that one character would speak to another in their fictional reality? Of course:

"Friend! In your absence we encountered foes utilizing what we determined to be "Infernal Magic" [tm] which enabled them to disappear before our very eyes!"

And there are ways to describe it as one player to another without needing to be in-character:

"They seemed to have some kind of contingency magic to let them teleport."

Every player at the table, upon hearing the latter, will simply accept that this is relayed to their PC in appropriate terms by the other characters. It is generally just SIMPLER, EASIER, FASTER to use out of game terminology rather than fart around searching for replacement terms and pedantic-DM-approved in-character phrasing to relate the information. There is no inappropriate advantage being taken here of the rules. It is merely using appropriate and convenient GAME TERMS to relate information to another player efficiently and succinctly. Tell your DM to loosen up and leave the requirements for in-character speechifying for stuff that doesn't actually need that game-rule terminology be avoided in the first place. THAT is not metagaming.


Like... what's up with that? Would it be metagaming to say the sky is blue ooor???
It would only be metagaming if stating that the sky is blue is to use information that YOU have as a player - but which your character would not necessarily have - and in particular to do that in order to gain/retain some kind of advantage for your character.

Metahuman1
2018-01-21, 11:28 PM
Your GM is being nitpicky, possibly because your guess was too on-point

To wit, the idea here is that calling it out as "contingency" is so specific that you must be using player knowledge to make that guess. It's not the problem tbat you "don't get this". You simply disagree.

Your reply to any form "but you don't know it's contingency!" ought to be "we also don't know it's NOT contingency, and that's what everybody thought it is. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck."

Your GM's case isn't helped by the fact that "contingent spell" has plain English meaning which is near identical to the rules, but would not actually require any rules knowledge to use.

This. Particularly the bolded parts.

bc56
2018-01-22, 09:19 PM
I don't care if my players metagame.

Again:
I don't care if my players metagame.

Now think about it: what is the problem?
How does metagaming hurt the game?

It doesn't. It's harmless.
I would rather have my players metagame than desperately try to avoid any chance of an accusation. That way, they feel smarter and have fun. "We just figured out that the weird crystal monsters have 45-50 HP" Ok, cool. Good for you, you can do basic math.

In game terms, characters are experienced combatants and should be able to figure out how much of a beating a monster can take or how hard it is to hurt it. These concepts are represented by the abstract mechanics of Hit Points and Armor Class.

JNAProductions
2018-01-22, 10:30 PM
I don't care if my players metagame.

Again:
I don't care if my players metagame.

Now think about it: what is the problem?
How does metagaming hurt the game?

It doesn't. It's harmless.
I would rather have my players metagame than desperately try to avoid any chance of an accusation. That way, they feel smarter and have fun. "We just figured out that the weird crystal monsters have 45-50 HP" Ok, cool. Good for you, you can do basic math.

In game terms, characters are experienced combatants and should be able to figure out how much of a beating a monster can take or how hard it is to hurt it. These concepts are represented by the abstract mechanics of Hit Points and Armor Class.

I think there's a difference between "Okay, Earl hit the monster on a 6 but missed on a 4. He's got +8 to-hit, so there AC is at least 13, but no more than 14," and "Oh, that's a troll? AC 15, 123 HP, fire and acid kill it."

The first is figuring out through experience, and something that the CHARACTERS can be expected to do. The second is purely out of game knowledge-if trolls are uncommon in your world, they might not even know fire and acid are how to hurt it, but even if that much is known, they shouldn't know exactly how hardy or hard to hit they are.

Draconi Redfir
2018-01-22, 11:11 PM
since this thread isn't dying like was was expected, i just wanna make one thing very clear:

My Gm is actually a really cool dude a majority of the time. he just tends to overreact at times. Unfortunately something I've done as well.

That said, the whole frustration with the thing has passed for the moment, so ehh.

CircleOfTheRock
2018-01-23, 02:40 AM
So semi-recently, my group's DM chewed us out a bit for using the wrong terminology on something when re-capping something to a player who wasn't at the previous session.

What happened is, we encountered an enemy who, when very close to death, spontaneously teleported away without visually casting a spell. This happened multiple times for multiple enemies in that encounter, so naturally we all thought "Okay, it's a contingency spell thing". Someone made an arcana check, and determined what was happening was something involving infernal magic, or that one of them was using infernal magic while disguising it as divine.

So we describe the event as "they had some kind of contingency spell or something, as they all teleported away when they were close to death" and later on the DM chewed us out for calling it "Contingency" when we SHOULD (apparently) have been calling it "Infernal magic" (So what, it's impossible for infernal magic / infernal casters to cast contingency spells?) and that calling it "Contingency" was metagaming.

What i don't understand is... How? A good 90% of our party at the time is or as at some point been some kind of caster, we've got arcane, divine, even psionic. these people range from halfing is their 20's to Elves in their mid-hundreds. is it somehow impossible that, in all of their combined experience in learning, casing, and knowing about magic, that maybe SOMEONE learned about the existence of contingency spells at some point? Like this is very basic information isn't it? "If something happens when someone is near death, it's probably contingency" etc?

heck i had this while DMing awhile back, i had the party encounter a Troll, and somehow none of the characters knew about it's regeneration and weakness to fire, like how is that not DAY ONE stuff you would learn when even mentioning them offhandedly? Would it be metagaming to know a red dragon breathes fire? Metagaming to know that mind flayers have tentacles on their face and eat minds? Metagaming to know that hey, wild cats don't usually fight in packs, someone is probably controlling or manipulating them somehow?

Basically, what i don't understand is how basic ground-level information that you would immediately pick up from even a minute of hearing about a thing, or having it so that your character is at least somewhat vaguely AWARE of a things existence, is somehow "Metagaming".

Like... what's up with that? Would it be metagaming to say the sky is blue ooor???
Your DM is definitely wrong; and while not everyone has the same viewpoint, Angry has a good article (http://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/), even if it's a little insulting.

RazorChain
2018-01-23, 03:14 AM
since this thread isn't dying like was was expected, i just wanna make one thing very clear:

My Gm is actually a really cool dude a majority of the time. he just tends to overreact at times. Unfortunately something I've done as well.

That said, the whole frustration with the thing has passed for the moment, so ehh.

Well we aren't done being insulted on your part and we really want to feel indignant about this. This is gamer solidarity, you throw your GM under the bus and we drive the bus over him, several times in fact, until we have vented our anger at that douchebag you have as a GM.

Pelle
2018-01-23, 05:27 AM
Well we aren't done being insulted on your part and we really want to feel indignant about this. This is gamer solidarity, you throw your GM under the bus and we drive the bus over him, several times in fact, until we have vented our anger at that douchebag you have as a GM.

When I see these threads, I feel like often the poster doesn't present the complete picture, and it's hard to know who is in the wrong.

From the players' perspective, they are doing everything as normal, and then the GM suddenly behaves out of line.
From the GM's perspective, the players might have been metagaming/roll-playing/[whatever mismatch in preference] for a long time annoying the GM, and finally one incident is the last straw that makes him speak out.


I tend to think most GMs do things certain ways because they believe it makes for a better game. Even if you disagree about their decisions/preferences, I think it's a really bad attitude to assume that they do things badly on purpose. Maybe because I only play with people I'm friends with already...

Draconi Redfir
2018-01-23, 01:48 PM
Well we aren't done being insulted on your part and we really want to feel indignant about this. This is gamer solidarity, you throw your GM under the bus and we drive the bus over him, several times in fact, until we have vented our anger at that douchebag you have as a GM.

i'm just glad i know blue text is sarcasm :P

HidesHisEyes
2018-01-24, 09:37 PM
GM: "As the man in the strange robes waves his arms dramatically and utters disturbing syllables, a ball of fire manifests between his hands and hurtles towards your party. Make a save."
Player 1: "I save. How about you player 2?"
Player 2: "How about what?"
Player 1: "Did you get hit by the Fireball?"
GM: "Metagaming, eh?" *slaps Player 1 with XP penalties*
Player 1: "Aww, I should have said fire ball. Damn his excellent hearing..."


contingency (kənˈtɪndʒ(ə)nsi), noun
"a provision for a possible event or circumstance."

So a contingency spell and a Contingency spell may be two different things, and unless your GM is able to hear how you capitalize letters when speaking, he has no case. (And incidentally, my favorite contingency spell is Fireball.)

Brilliant.

"Metagaming" is the most overused and misused term in RPGs. This article provides a really nice way of thinking about these issues:

http://theangrygm.com/through-a-glass-darkly-ic-ooc-and-the-myth-of-playercharacter-seperation/

TLDR (and I don't blame you, he does ramble on): everything in the real world represents something in the fiction. Not perfectly, but it represents something.

So if the player knows that trolls are weak against fire because they read it in the Monster Manual (or have played D&D before, or any number of D&D-influenced video games for that matter), then the character knows it too because they heard a story about it. If you want a monster the players won't know about then use an obscure one or homebrew one. Then the characters won't have heard about it either.

As others have pointed out, the OP's example is particularly absurd because in this case the mirror really isn't that murky at all. The player says "he cast a Contingency spell", that represents the character saying "he cast, I don't know, some kind of... contingency spell!" Elegant and satisfying!

Quertus
2018-01-24, 11:30 PM
I just want to point out that, although the GM came off poorly here, and was clearly in the wrong on his use of the term "metagaming", he's still in the right in calling the players out for giving a misleading recap. It wasn't a Contingency, the GM never said it was a Contingency, the GM explicitly called out some (very odd*) details about what it was that didn't include "Contingency", the players should not have misled the player who missed the session by calling it a Contingency.

"Just the facts, ma'am."

OP, have you asked the GM what, in particular, pushed his buttons here?

* I personally feel that the GM should probably learn to embrace "team spellcraft", and work on just giving them all relevant magical information in a clear, concise fashion. In this example, explaining that it was a teleport effect, but powered by infernal magic would have been a good start.

Max_Killjoy
2018-01-25, 07:03 AM
Should the word "contingency" be avoided because the magic system has the "Contingency" spell or whatever?

The Random NPC
2018-01-25, 09:18 AM
I just want to point out that, although the GM came off poorly here, and was clearly in the wrong on his use of the term "metagaming", he's still in the right in calling the players out for giving a misleading recap. It wasn't a Contingency, the GM never said it was a Contingency, the GM explicitly called out some (very odd*) details about what it was that didn't include "Contingency", the players should not have misled the player who missed the session by calling it a Contingency.

"Just the facts, ma'am."

OP, have you asked the GM what, in particular, pushed his buttons here?

* I personally feel that the GM should probably learn to embrace "team spellcraft", and work on just giving them all relevant magical information in a clear, concise fashion. In this example, explaining that it was a teleport effect, but powered by infernal magic would have been a good start.

But it pretty obviously was a contingency. And also some kind of spell. It could have been a spell-like ability or something, but even that isn't very misleading. Not to mention they wouldn't know that.

Knaight
2018-01-25, 10:30 AM
Should the word "contingency" be avoided because the magic system has the "Contingency" spell or whatever?

Similarly, if we're doing this do we need to entirely avoid the terms ability, skill, feat, attribute, aspect, talent, gift, advantage, disadvantage, trait, difficulty, obstacle, and rank? All of those are game terms somewhere, and D&D has most of them all by its lonesome.

Quertus
2018-01-25, 11:10 AM
Should the word "contingency" be avoided because the magic system has the "Contingency" spell or whatever?


Similarly, if we're doing this do we need to entirely avoid the terms ability, skill, feat, attribute, aspect, talent, gift, advantage, disadvantage, trait, difficulty, obstacle, and rank? All of those are game terms somewhere, and D&D has most of them all by its lonesome.

This is the downside to D&D using such familiar words. One cannot describe someone as a "Fighter" or a "Barbarian" without invoking a (potentially false) call to mechanics.

But, yes, someone who has developed the player skills necessary to give a good recap would avoid using such words, or at least use them in such a way as to make their meaning clear. Beware describing "leveling the playing field", or mentioning a gazebo.

Max_Killjoy
2018-01-25, 11:18 AM
Meh, I'm not going to cut chunks out of my vocabulary over this.

Quertus
2018-01-25, 11:28 AM
Meh, I'm not going to cut chunks out of my vocabulary over this.

While I can respect that stance, I hope you can see that increased clarity can be served through word choice.

Heck, I have to watch my usage of "*****rdly", "gay", "pride", and even my use of rainbows to prevent miscommunication. Although, as you know, I'll still get caught on things like "fair cop". :smallamused:

kyoryu
2018-01-25, 11:36 AM
The word "contingency" has a meaning outside of D&D magic's capital-C "Contingency". Nothing wrong with using the word to mean what it means.

Yup.

In this case, it was obvious there was a spell that went off when certain conditions are met. Calling it "a contingency spell" is a reasonable use of the English language. Suggested by the spell? Probably. But so what?

Now, if your characters start making plans to deal with them based on the specifics of the actual Contingency spell, that's metagaming, if that is something your group cares about. In other words, I'd worry about metagaming based on actions, not based on words. If metagaming is something you care about. (And I think my stance is pretty obvious).

I always prefer the idea that things should be fun even if the party knows exactly what they are. If an encounters/situation/etc. depends on not knowing one piece of information, and becomes trivial if you know that, then it's probably a lame encounter/situation anyway.

Quertus
2018-01-25, 06:03 PM
Now, if your characters start making plans to deal with them based on the specifics of the actual Contingency spell, that's metagaming, if that is something your group cares about. In other words, I'd worry about metagaming based on actions, not based on words. If metagaming is something you care about. (And I think my stance is pretty obvious).

I always prefer the idea that things should be fun even if the party knows exactly what they are. If an encounters/situation/etc. depends on not knowing one piece of information, and becomes trivial if you know that, then it's probably a lame encounter/situation anyway.

If Team Spellcraft starts making plans based on the Contingency spell, it's not metagaming, as they should have no problem knowing in character what the Contingency spell is. It is, however, a miscommunication, which could have been avoided, both by clearer communication on the GM's part, and fewer unfounded assumptions / less confusing verbiage on the part of the recap author.

I am rather confused by your last paragraph. Mysterious, mazes, surprise parties, puzzles - so many things operate on and derive their fun from unknown elements. Are you actually opposed to all of these, and encourage players to read the module / GM's notes before the game, or have I misunderstood what you are trying to get across?

FreddyNoNose
2018-01-25, 06:26 PM
Nope, I'm with the DM on that one.

The existence of contingency spells is not the same as knowing dragons breath fire or that cats don't hunt in packs. It's not common knowledge. Unless your characters encountered such spells before (and from your description it sounds like they didn't), the only way they'd know about contingency spells is if they've read or leant about them somehow - which means an arcana check, and if you rolled high enough, the DM would tell you: yep, it's contingency.

Here's the thing: you made your checks and the DM didn't tell you it's contingency. Therefore, your characters don't know it's contingency. Maybe in this setting, this kind of spells are more rare than you assumed. Maybe the DM even soft banned them except for very specific circumstances (infernal magic, for example?). Whatever the reason, you're making an incorrect assumption about the game world, and when the DM corrected that assumption you acted like he's wrong somehow.

I agree with the DM as well. But we have to coddle the new age gamers and tell them how smart they are to use information their character didn't have access. OH BOY they are so smart.

3WhiteFox3
2018-01-25, 10:03 PM
The idea that people should stop metagaming is self-defeating. Metagaming in this context is usually defined as letting OOC knowledge determine what a character does in the fiction. However, if I change my character's actions in the game because of my outside knowledge that the GM dislikes metagaming, then that itself becomes metagaming. The reality is that as long as there is an outside the game, people will bring stuff from that outside into the game.

ross
2018-01-25, 11:23 PM
lol, infernal magic. sounds like he came up with special snowflake magic for his super cool villain and thinks everyone else should give a **** because he's like eight years old and thinks power is interesting

kyoryu
2018-01-26, 10:37 AM
I am rather confused by your last paragraph. Mysterious, mazes, surprise parties, puzzles - so many things operate on and derive their fun from unknown elements. Are you actually opposed to all of these, and encourage players to read the module / GM's notes before the game, or have I misunderstood what you are trying to get across?

I was mostly scoping it to creatures.

Florian
2018-01-26, 04:44 PM
lol, infernal magic. sounds like he came up with special snowflake magic for his super cool villain and thinks everyone else should give a **** because he's like eight years old and thinks power is interesting

As we´re talking about Pathfinder here, "Infernal Magic" is actually a thing tied to certain class features or bloodline abilities. The underlying game system actually has mechanical problems with identifying class features as such when used, so an "Infernal Transport" class ability might work as a DimDoor spell but should not identify as such.

Socratov
2018-01-26, 05:33 PM
Eh, could we collectively just decide that adventurers have little in common with Jon snow? I mean, if you are going to be an adventurer you might not grasp the finer intricacies of spell casting, but knowing what magic can do it would be reasonable to marry the concepts of 'casting a spell' and 'as a last resort reflex'...as far as vampire and sunlight, werewolves and silver, trolls and fire would be considered common knowledge. As for the hitting of creatures (i.e. AC of bears and your to-hit), I'd say that a ballpark figure would be reasonable. I mean, we are able to estimate our chances of hitting someone or getting hit by someone. Not always accurately, but if I were a successful adventurer I would make damn sure that I would be able to correctly judge my enemies according to fight-or-flight criteria...

Kami2awa
2018-01-27, 02:54 AM
If people are overly pedantic about terminology, just tell them that it's "Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa".

Kami2awa
2018-01-27, 03:18 AM
More seriously, in theory IC chat should use setting-appropriate terms and avoid terms that only exist in the game rules (e.g. "I'm wounded" rather than "I've lost 32 hp.").

OOC chat can be whatever you like, and in practice it has to be. Otherwise, you have this problem:

"I charge forth to slay the troll!"
"You mean you move 6 squares forward? That's outside you move speed?"
"Move speed? I understand not. And what are these 'squares' of which you speak?"

In reality, it's really hard to enforce the distinction and expecting players to remember every term within the fantasy world is pretty harsh.

OTOH, the GM can correct the problem in the OP quite easily:

"He used contingency to escape."
"'Contingency?' Sounds like some form of Infernal Magic to me."

Florian
2018-01-27, 04:20 AM
"He used contingency to escape."
"'Contingency?' Sounds like some form of Infernal Magic to me."

The whole crux of the matter is, that no Contingency was used. The party just failed to spot the Wizard doing the teleporting, basically preventing them from identifying the spell being cast.

It makes for an interesting example of what happens when meta knowledge goes wrong, players thinking they have understood the whole situation and are basically as wrong as they can be.

Guizonde
2018-01-27, 09:58 AM
my friends shy away from using "metagame" willy-nilly. to us it's really knowing a creature has a glaring weakness ooc. whenever we throw our own stats around, it's just "knowledge (4th wall)", and we sometimes lean on it, but i'm the only one who breaks it regularly for comedic effect (including a time my character was physically leaning on it to underline the craziness of the situation, once when i straight up rappelled down the wall, and beat a henchman to death by slamming him into said wall).

this has been cleared with dm's and players alike, mind you. we're of the "game for fun, not for power trips" kind of gamers.

also, i'm not allowed to weaponize the 4th wall anymore.

we don't take kindly to metagaming to throw a "gotcha" at the dm. it's not us being smart, it's us throwing a problem out of the window rather than solving it. it takes the fun out of the game.

The Random NPC
2018-01-28, 02:06 AM
The whole crux of the matter is, that no Contingency was used. The party just failed to spot the Wizard doing the teleporting, basically preventing them from identifying the spell being cast.

It makes for an interesting example of what happens when meta knowledge goes wrong, players thinking they have understood the whole situation and are basically as wrong as they can be.

That's still a contingency.

Max_Killjoy
2018-01-28, 08:43 AM
There are plenty of contingencies (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/contingency) that aren't Contingency.

MeimuHakurei
2018-01-28, 09:28 AM
The thing with "seperate IC and OOC knowledge" and metagaming is that going against players making sound decisions about things that haven't come up yet is that you're only forcing them to play another metagame - how much is my character allowed to know before the DM freaks out again? It would all go so much smoother if people would accept that players need to make informed decisions on their playstyle to play properly.

Write these things onto your GM cheat sheet, right now:

1. Adventurers are highly skilled, their knowledge exceeds their immediate experience.
2. You're wasting time by trying to find an IC way to describe stuff like a healing potion or a ring of protection.
3. You're wasting even more time forcing the players to describe their things IC.
4. Monster abilities do not have to proc to be interesting.

HidesHisEyes
2018-01-29, 03:32 AM
The thing with "seperate IC and OOC knowledge" and metagaming is that going against players making sound decisions about things that haven't come up yet is that you're only forcing them to play another metagame - how much is my character allowed to know before the DM freaks out again? It would all go so much smoother if people would accept that players need to make informed decisions on their playstyle to play properly.

Write these things onto your GM cheat sheet, right now:

1. Adventurers are highly skilled, their knowledge exceeds their immediate experience.
2. You're wasting time by trying to find an IC way to describe stuff like a healing potion or a ring of protection.
3. You're wasting even more time forcing the players to describe their things IC.
4. Monster abilities do not have to proc to be interesting.

Totally agree. I find the effort not to metagame far more immersion-breaking than metagaming, most of the time. Certain things that my character categorically couldn’t know, I will put up with having to pretend, but stuff like trolls and fire, come on, it’s common knowledge among adventurers, that’s just the way the game is. You gain absolutely nothing by insisting that players play dumb. Even worse is telling players off for saying “I’ve got 20 out of 44 hit points left”. Let that just represent the character saying “I’m a bit hurt”, I honestly don’t see the problem.

Florian
2018-01-29, 05:57 AM
Totally agree. I find the effort not to metagame far more immersion-breaking than metagaming, most of the time. Certain things that my character categorically couldn’t know, I will put up with having to pretend, but stuff like trolls and fire, come on, it’s common knowledge among adventurers, that’s just the way the game is. You gain absolutely nothing by insisting that players play dumb. Even worse is telling players off for saying “I’ve got 20 out of 44 hit points left”. Let that just represent the character saying “I’m a bit hurt”, I honestly don’t see the problem.

There's another aspect to it. The question is "who is the challenged party in a given game/scenario?", the player, the character or both? Giving a clear answer to that will alter how to look at metagaming.

When I clearly say: "It´s the player", then combat encounters can also be seen as individual "puzzles" that the player has to figure out how to solve. In this case, there is no "common knowledge", as the point of the exercise is to find out how to overcome the riddle, meaning the defensive abilities a creature has, like the troll regeneration.

Naturally, that changes when I say: "It´s the character", and so on.

Quertus
2018-01-29, 11:43 AM
When I'm actively playing a single character, I have no problem keeping track if what that character does and doesn't know.

Were I to be forced to randomly switch between my hundreds of characters several times per session... Not so much.

So, this concept that is impossible to play a character and know what they do and don't know? Even senile me can do that. Build your player skills. Or play a game like 3e that will tell you what your character knows. It's not some unsolvable problem.

Alternately, play with a group that doesn't mind metagaming. Or work to build a culture that doesn't care about metagaming. Also workable.