Viewable characters and Metagame

[Akisa]

I’ve noticed that many people just post c-sheet and background to be viewed by everyone and I was wondering has this brought up metagame issues? For me I had several such instances, one occurred when I was playing Bard Drow. My Drow Bard was a surface Drow born under parents who worshiped Eilistraee and was studying to become a wizard but was not skilled in magic instead she was only capable of casting spells through my Ocrina (by using Melodic Casting). Since she starting adventuring in search of cure for the “curse” that plagued drow set by Corellon when he cast aside Lolth and maybe people view drow as evil she used her disguise skill to go around as Moon Elf.

Yet the players in one occasion seem to think my character should talk to the Drow because she is one of them. Another such scenario was when a character in attempt to convince my character to head to some foolish sidequest by saying she could discover a lost legend and write a tale about it and was surprise a “bard” does not care about songs or legend.

Another character I was playing online I made a character that’s from an area where women are discriminated against and not allowed to take up arms. She was Rogue with once again a disguise skill much higher than anyone’s spot skill in the party and disguised herself as a guy. The first session they referred to my character as she, her etc despite we just met.

[Starbuck_II]

Another character I was playing online I made a character that’s from an area where women are discriminated against and not allowed to take up arms. She was Rogue with once again a disguise skill much higher than anyone’s spot skill in the party and disguised herself as a guy. The first session they referred to my character as she, her etc despite we just met.

Did you remind them you are disguised as a guy?

[Jair Barik]

I have played in a agame where we couldn't see each others sheets (DM's decision he had prospective players PM them to him and didn't allow us to tell each other our class etc.) and it worked very well. I was a NE bard from a country that despised and outlawed divine magic, in disguise as a person from another Country. At one point in the game I left a threatening message nailed to the party clerics door in the inn (done via a PM to the DM). Much fun was had by all even though the game fell apart (DM had to leave) due to the various conflicts between characters (read characters, not players). I would ask the DM if he would mind doing this or seek out a game where it was the case. I for one would love to DM such a game.

[Nero24200]

I can understand the need to hide character infomation from each other. I've had events happen in the past (not necciserily bad ones, but still...)

For instance, once I planned on playing an evil-aligned character. I was intending for greed to be his inheritent weakness though, so as long as the rest of the party wasn't too picky (which it probably wouldn't have since there was only 3 players (including myself) and the others were looking to be chaotic good/neutral), however, once it became known that I was playing an evil charatcer, the rest through "Hey, why don't we make evil characters too?". At first, I thought it was a one-off, until I later tried an assassin...

[Akisa]

Did you remind them you are disguised as a guy?

Yes... I did remind them I was disguised.

[Vizzerdrix]

Yes... I did remind them I was disguised.

Dang dude. This is why I leave gender/god/alignment/background off of my character sheets. I let the DM know these things, but if it isn't something I want a player to see, it isn't on my sheet. Try it. It cuts down on meta quite a bit.


Protip: I like to also keep my sheets in a trapper keeper and in my lap. It cuts back on table clutter and isn't out in the open for all to see. Make sure it is firm enough to write on.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Yes... I did remind them I was disguised.

Did this reminder take the form of an OOC comment, or the form of a harsh smack across the face of the bastard who questioned your character's virility? (IC)

[Rixx]

I've pulled stuff like this before. If you want information that your party isn't supposed to be privy to, inform your DM and then lie on your character sheet.

Had them thinking one of my characters was male for a month.

[Temet Nosce]

I usually let others view my sheets if they ask (although I don't post them publicly), however I always talk to them beforehand and note that none of it is known to them IC. So far this has worked out fine, and everyone who's asked about my characters has respected my warning. However, this is probably partially because the people most likely to respect the request are also those most likely to ask me to see my sheet.

[Glass Mouse]

Yeah, this is the excact reason why I've started simply not telling. On the sheet, I write nothing, or I downright lie. Plus, it makes for better drama when the players are surprised as well

This way, I've kept my beloved drow bard's race a secret for five months in-game - and equally long RL. (apparently, neither players nor characters care )

You can't really do much about OC comments. If a player goes: "My character hands her a weapon", you can't really blame them. I mean, I'd feel silly saying something I knew to be a lie, just for the sake of... what? Not metagaming? You can't metagame OC.
In-game remarks, however... Yeah. Lie.

[Akisa]

Did this reminder take the form of an OOC comment, or the form of a harsh smack across the face of the bastard who questioned your character's virility? (IC)

Seeing as it was an online game (Openrpg) and I don't know where they live it was OOC.

[Akisa]

{Scrubbed}

[valadil]

When I have to post info online, I post the character's cover story and keep secrets with the GM offline.

[Starbuck_II]

Seeing as it was an online game (Openrpg) and I don't know where they live it was OOC.

How did he find out your race? Are players allowed to see each others sheet? If yes, then you should have asked that they not let their characters know what they know.

[Commander_Vimes]

The DM should know everything about your character, but other characters should only know what you want them to. My current character is a member of a secretive order dedicated to Kelemvor (campaign is the Forgotten Realms) and is the universe's equivalent of the Ruby Knight Vindicators. My DM knows all about the organization but the most the other characters, and players, know is that I worship Kelemvor and serve some organization. The group I play with is usually good at keeping player knowledge and character knowledge separate. Though occasionally there are issues with players forgetting someone is playing a character of the opposite gender. In groups where it is a problem, not telling anyone anything is really the only way to keep a secret.

[Akisa]

How did he find out your race? Are players allowed to see each others sheet? If yes, then you should have asked that they not let their characters know what they know.

There was website that held c-sheet and game world.

[Kurald Galain]

I’ve noticed that many people just post c-sheet and background to be viewed by everyone and I was wondering has this brought up metagame issues?

Absolutely. The one I dislike most is how some players will automatically assume you're a greedy conniving backstabber just because your class is listed as "rogue". Regardless of what your character concept is or how you actually roleplay him.

[dsmiles]

@OP:...And this is why I don't PbP or play in chatrooms. With PnP, you don't have these issues. Everyone at the table gets to describe themselves upon intriduction to the group.

[weenie]

I once played a Beguiler that posed as an aristocrat, and to confuse the other players I had a fake Character sheet printed whit stats for a character with the NPC class Aristocrat. They were confused as to why would I play a NPC class and didn't know what to think when my character started using weird powers all of a sudden. Good times

[Akisa]

@OP:...And this is why I don't PbP or play in chatrooms. With PnP, you don't have these issues. Everyone at the table gets to describe themselves upon intriduction to the group.

It happens irl also, if you have cleric in your class title you're expected to heal even if it's against your god's belief. And what previous user has said that if they see rogue on the character sheet they'll think he's a thief despite how he is rp.

[Tyndmyr]

Absolutely. The one I dislike most is how some players will automatically assume you're a greedy conniving backstabber just because your class is listed as "rogue". Regardless of what your character concept is or how you actually roleplay him.

In fairness, this assumption is often because all too many players DO use rogue as an excuse to be a greedy, conniving backstabber.

[dsmiles]

@Akisa: That's just it. Players describe themselves physically. They never have to state, "I'm a cleric of Such-and-such." Players have no reason to look at another player's character sheet. That information is between the player and the DM. As a player, I never go into a group asking, "What's everybody playing?" I tell the DM about my character concept, and if he/she approves, that's it. If that means that the party is short a class, well, crap happens, you know?

[Person_Man]

I don't make PCs share anything with each other except for what they physically see and conversations that they have. They roleplay meeting each other, and have to come up with a motivation for sticking together. I also have a "no PVP" rule. You can play whatever you want to play, but you can't use your alignment, personality, or backstory as an excuse to harm or otherwise work against another PC for any reason. Unless you're under magical compulsion caused by something I create, you're on the same team and must treat each other as such, no matter what. Since they're not constantly worried about being betrayed and/or killed in their sleep, I find that the personal exposition of each PC is far more natural, open, and interesting then when they just exchange character sheets.

[AmusingSN]

I seem to have a different opinion than most people who have posted thus far.

I think that problems such as the ones described by the OP could be solved by MORE openness rather than less. If, during the character creation process, everyone participates openly and shares their ideas and works together to create a party, openly, they will share in the development of the other players' characters, playing up their hooks and what not.

At least that's my experience.

I find that the idea of keeping a character's background, class, race, goals, alignment, etc a secret from the rest of the players is a strange one. You're all collaborating on a shared story, after all. I think your story could only be enriched if you allowed everyone the opportunity to expound upon your ideas and integrate them into the greater tale.

[Totally Guy]

AmusingSN has just said what I was thinking thoughout whilst reading this thread.

[Raewyn]

You've got a salient point, AmusingSN and I agree with you... but only when playing with people who can easily keep a divide between IC and OOC information. I'll use an example of a PnP game I'm in.

One of the players in my Thursday night game is... not the sharpest crayon in the box. He's been playing for almost a year now and he still gets stumped by rolling basic attacks on occasion. He almost definitely wouldn't be able to keep in and out of character knowledge separate. So if I told him that my psion was an elan, there's a better than even chance he'd blab to a Cuthbertian inquisitor by mistake or ask me about my centuries of experience. Granted, the DM would not allow these actions to fly in character - I wouldn't be burned at the stake or stigmatized by everyone I know, but it would be a PITA to deal with every time it came up.

So... I've kept a lid on it. The DM knows, I showed my sheet to a player I can trust, and I've dropped hints so everyone else knows something's up, but the oblivious guy has no idea. As far as he knows, I'm human. And until I wind up being outed (which'll happen eventually), that's just the way I like it.

[Duke of URL]

Absolutely. The one I dislike most is how some players will automatically assume you're a greedy conniving backstabber just because your class is listed as "rogue". Regardless of what your character concept is or how you actually roleplay him.

Even more so when you actually ARE playing a greedy conniving backstabber. There should at least be some pretense that you could be something else, otherwise it's no fun messing around with them. ;)

[AtwasAwamps]

I actually had a weird pseudo-reversal of this, kind of, that frustrated me to no end. On a play-by-post freeform game forum I tended to frequent, we had a couple games going at all times and at least 5-6 standard GMs, of which I was one. Not official or anything that was just how it worked out.

The result was that my playing only happened when a friend of mine (most of whom were also GMs) started something up and what resulted was that the group of RPers on the board (roughly 5-6 steady GMs and 10-15 players, total) knew each other fairly well. We were also fairly welcoming of new players when they came, because new players didn’t know the quirks of the group and were often incredible fun to play with.

When a GM called for players, those interested would “app” to a game by posting a character concept, including personality, abilities, appearance, etc. The GM generally decided one way or another whether to make these public or private. Most did it publicly, but this was by no means the absolute measure.

Enter one of our regular DMs, who I will call Mach. Mach had a reputation for running amazing games and never following through. He had an intense and creative mind when it came to settings and the resultant ride was intensely fun while it lasted. When he played in other DMs games, his characters were often signatures of the game, impressive without being ballhogs and often side characters to the main “crew” that became much beloved till he forgot about htem.

So Mach starts out a game and as always, the dedicated show up with their concepts. There were some great ones, even though the world was mostly focused on…yeah…I know…anthro-style characters (bear with me!). We all post our sheets publicly, because Mach hasn’t said one way or the other, so we resort to our default. No objections are made, there’s some clashing in the app thread, blah blah.

Enter Mach’s friend Fox. Fox is known to none of us. He signed up on this forum just for the sake of playing in this story. Well, that’s cool! We are excited to see Fox’s profile. Fox posts three sentences, describing his character’s appearance, mentions he is rogue-like, and then says “Mechanisto has my character sheet.” Okay, that’s cool. I drop a message in the thread, asking if he’d feel comfortable posting at some point, because his char. Description was cool. His response was “You don’t need to know that and I think you want to know that because you want to take advantage of player knowledge in the game.”

Once again, he doesn’t know me or anyone else on the boards besides Mach. He just chose to call me and collectively, the folks who read the thread, metagemers. In freeform RP. So that sparked off a fight that we settled very quickly, with the general response being “Nobody cares, let’s play.”

His characters very first action…FIRST POST…was to “pick my characters pocket, taking his coin purse.” My character A) had no pockets B) kept his money in a pouch tucked into the waistband of his pants C) wore no underwear, so his coin pouch was resting directly against his skin.

The GM said that Fox succeeded. Despite lack of pockets and almost necessary skin-to-skin contact to steal the money.

So yeah. It can be pretty awful either way.