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View Full Version : Int and Metagaming: Existentialism?



VeisuItaTyhjyys
2007-12-06, 10:42 PM
I have a much less mechanical, and more philosophical question, than most here. Were one to have a character of exceedingly high intelligence, would it be metagaming for the character to realize his inherently fictional nature, or simply his intelligence score working in an existential roleplay? Given the nature of religion, would he even be looked at all that strangely? If not, how about in a d20 modern?
On a note of mechanics, would realizing he was fictional alter this character? Immunity to fear, I'd say. Not much of a reason to die when you only lived as the tool for a guy's game in the first place?

Jack_Simth
2007-12-06, 10:46 PM
Quite frankly, those who deny that reality is real tend to get looked at strangely in real life, too, by most.

No immunity to fear - if your character dies, you write up a new one, and the old one is no more. The character is still dead.

Ponce
2007-12-06, 10:46 PM
Seems to me that something more along the lines of Rich's Terrible Secret (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/STcFi6l45eoAbaxiYPn.html) spell would occur.

RandomLogic
2007-12-06, 10:48 PM
The problem is he will never be able to prove that he isn't in a simulation.

I know its not helpful at all, but google it. I remember seeing a couple different things about this a while ago, but I can't be any more help than that.

JaxGaret
2007-12-06, 10:51 PM
Were one to have a character of exceedingly high intelligence, would it be metagaming for the character to realize his inherently fictional nature

Realize? Yes.

Theorize about? No.

Chronos
2007-12-06, 11:11 PM
On the other hand, while a high-int won't realize he's in a game, he might nonetheless come to learn some of the rules of the game. A high-int character might, through careful observation and experimentation, be able to determine some of the numerical mechanics behind levels, experience gain, attack rolls, saving throws, etc. Wizards, at least, almost certainly have some notion of class levels (at least for other wizards), so as to account for the fact that a powerful wizard can learn certain spells which are beyond the ability of a lesser wizard.

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2007-12-06, 11:30 PM
Quite frankly, those who deny that reality is real tend to get looked at strangely in real life, too, by most.
Yes, however, stating that he is the creation of godlike powers who play with his life like a game is pretty accurate with a lot of fantasy mythologies. They just view the game of a god as reality, he realizes it's deep down just a game. If King Lear can catch on to the fact his pain is happening for the amusement of onlookers (hint: the audience), my wizard can realize he is risking his life not for gold, but my pleasure.

I, personally, don't feel it would be metagaming. Well, purely by definition, it would be. However, I don't blieve it would be the cheating, bad roleplaying kind. I think it would add an interesting, existential side to the game.

Jax: Without proof, it would just be a theory he chose to go along with, and there really isn't any proof other than the fact that the D&D world is unbearably absurd, even with regard to its own rules.

Finally, I agree with Chronos, that a very intelligent character would begin to understand the class/level rules as we now do the laws of physics. They're unseen laws that can be studied by watching outcomes and the laws behind them found. Anyone with an int over 10 should honestly begin to wonder why the rogue only gets better at lock-picking when he kills stuff.

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2007-12-06, 11:30 PM
Quite frankly, those who deny that reality is real tend to get looked at strangely in real life, too, by most.
Yes, however, stating that he is the creation of godlike powers who play with his life like a game is pretty accurate with a lot of fantasy mythologies. They just view the game of a god as reality, he realizes it's deep down just a game. If King Lear can catch on to the fact his pain is happening for the amusement of onlookers (hint: the audience), my wizard can realize he is risking his life not for gold, but my pleasure.

I, personally, don't feel it would be metagaming. Well, purely by definition, it would be. However, I don't blieve it would be the cheating, bad roleplaying kind. I think it would add an interesting, existential side to the game.

Jax: Without proof, it would just be a theory he chose to go along with, and there really isn't any proof other than the fact that the D&D world is unbearably absurd, even with regard to its own rules.

Finally, I agree with Chronos, that a very intelligent character would begin to understand the class/level rules as we now do the laws of physics. They're unseen laws that can be studied by watching outcomes and the laws behind them found. Anyone with an int over 10 should honestly begin to wonder why the rogue only gets better at lock-picking when he kills stuff.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-12-07, 12:34 AM
Yes, however, stating that he is the creation of godlike powers who play with his life like a game is pretty accurate with a lot of fantasy mythologies. They just view the game of a god as reality, he realizes it's deep down just a game.
Point of interest: the early Discworld novels play with this a lot, although the gods are more specifically described as playing something more like Snakes & Ladders, having a very simple standard for pleasure. Fate and The Lady might be playing an RPG with Rincewind, though.

Anyway, this is an interesting idea. A character with particularly high Int or Wis scores undoubtedly understands the nature of reality better: for example, it's an empirically provable fact that at least one in every twenty arrows shot from a bow will miss its target, no matter the skill of the archer. I'm not sure if they'd realize the fictional nature of their existence Deadpool-style, but they might understand metagame concepts like experience or classes like the Order of the Stick do.

To continue the Discworld example, there have been instances in the novels where characters rely on "facts" of literature, like million-to-one chances succeeding 9 times out of 10, to accomplish their goals. Granny Weatherwax, a surpassingly wise and even more pragmatic witch protagonist, outsmarts her foes, predicts the future, and the like, by assuming that events around her are caused by "Narrative Causality", and then manipulating that. She still doesn't seem to act like she's in a book, though. She's just Dangerously Genre Savvy.

Sstoopidtallkid
2007-12-07, 12:40 AM
I'm suggesting this to a guy who plays in a campaign with me. He's a priest of the god of knowledge and is always making notes of everything to send back to the archives. He'll probably not only do this, but start a schism in the church with that knowledge.

Xuincherguixe
2007-12-07, 01:25 AM
Quite frankly, those who deny that reality is real tend to get looked at strangely in real life, too, by most.

It's so easy to get looked at strangely in real life it's a a sick joke.

Mando Knight
2007-12-07, 01:38 AM
...and then we all get existential ourselves... noticing similarities between this world and a theoretically infinitely complex campaign world, run by the straw DM... who we then turn into our god... and then we die and have to make up new character sheets...

Don't think about it too hard... or you'll end up having infinitely reiterative universes, each role-playing the last...

Of course, if what Nerd-o-rama said about Diskworld holds true in real life, then we COULD manipulate that to our advantage... if we figured out how.

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-07, 01:38 AM
A friend of mine was once given the opportunity to ask a question of the god of knowledge in a game. He asked "why is it that I seem to get better at picking locks only after I kill things?". The god answered.

Mewtarthio
2007-12-07, 01:49 AM
A friend of mine was once given the opportunity to ask a question of the god of knowledge in a game. He asked "why is it that I seem to get better at picking locks only after I kill things?". The god answered.

That's a touch unfair. :smallwink: The experience point system is one of the few things that most RPG gamers pretty much suspend their disbelief for by default. Though I did like the explanation they gave in Knights of the Old Republic II:
You are a vampiric anathema to all life that feeds on death and destruction. In the Big Reveal, they even ask up front, "Haven't you noticed how you grow stronger when you kill things?"

SoD
2007-12-07, 03:22 AM
It's so easy to get looked at strangely in real life it's a a sick joke.

I know! I wander around the streets of Helsinki or Hobart, wearing a fez and a hawaiin shirt and I get odd looks...