Metagaming...

[Count Arioch the 28th]

A few points:

the caster is a druid, not a cleric

It's a she, not a he,

And the druid has known the monk in question for almost 10 year game time now.

Not that you could divine any of that from my post, just wanted to clear that up.

As for fast, since Fireball spell doesn't exist in real life, then I can't test myself against it. However, since I have trouble dodging stationary objects when I walk by them, I can assume that a fireball would toast me real good if it existed in real life. Therefore, if a druid offered to flame strike whil I was in melee, I'd say "Hey, watch it, dude!". I can assume that since I'm very clumsy and pretty slow, that anything that relies on me dodging out of the way won't work out.

However, I do know I have a high pain tolerance, and a good immune system from being exposed to human wastes for two years now. I know that I can handle most pain, which leads me to do things. Like the time I knocked myself unconscious by hammering my head on a brick wall. I didn't look at some fictitious character sheet and say "Oh, I have 17 con and toughness, I can survive this, let's do it!". I was just trying to impress someone. (As it was, I was wrong, I just ended up knocking myself out for a few minutes, after I woke up, my wife smacked me for doing something that stupid. Word of advice: Don't headbutt brick walls to impress people, it actually ahs the opposite effect.)

Either way, I consider that the same thing. I "knew" I could do that without too much bad things happening. (I was wrong, but at the tme, it seemed like a good idea.) Same thing with the monk. Now, one of these days, he just may get burned, but that has yet to happen, I have never seen that monk fail a reflex save at any time in the 4 years or so I've been playing 3rd edition.

[RandomCasualty]

1083526115[/unixtime]]
Either way, I consider that the same thing. I "knew" I could do that without too much bad things happening. (I was wrong, but at the tme, it seemed like a good idea.) Same thing with the monk. Now, one of these days, he just may get burned, but that has yet to happen, I have never seen that monk fail a reflex save at any time in the 4 years or so I've been playing 3rd edition.

Well sure, which is why it's ok for the monk to say to people that they can fire an area spell into the mix. But the druid (assuming she considers the monk a friend) is going to be a little reluctant about doing so. Good people feel guilt when they're responsible for the death of another, and if you deliberately put your friend in harm's way and he dies, you're going to feel very badly about it.

To the druid, there's always that chance that monk won't get away in time and ends up getting burned to death. In game terms we represent that with a natural 1, but it surely exists even if it is minute.

The druid may end up doing a flame strike tactic like this if the situation looks dire and gamble, but most of the time she will not put her friend in danger like that. Though this is a bit more of a roleplaying issue than a metagaming issue I think, because as I said before, there is the possibility of a natural 1, that could kill the monk. So even metagaming the character must acknowledge there is a possibility her actions could lead to the monk's death.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Well, it's not like she does it on a regular basis. She only did it twice in the past 4 years real time.

[Username17]

Well, for the most part, at low level, characters in D&D obey the same laws our world does.

No they don't. At 1st level, many characters are generally incapacitated by a 10 foot fall - until they get magically healed in which case they are good as new.

That sort of on/off reaction to relatively short falls is nothing like the physical laws I live with.

They have their own universe. Their universe says that if you see two hundred guys with ragged outfits and spears - and one guy in platemail with the symbol of Erythnul on it - your number one priority is that one guy, not the two hundred other guys.

That is not, in any way, the world in which I live in.

But it is the world they live in.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1083527970[/unixtime]]
They have their own universe. Their universe says that if you see two hundred guys with ragged outfits and spears - and one guy in platemail with the symbol of Erythnul on it - your number one priority is that one guy, not the two hundred other guys.

That is not, in any way, the world in which I live in.

Sure it is. If you're in a war and you see a battleship and a group of 200 infnatry, your priority is taking out the battleship.

Spellcasters are essentially mobile artillery without the 50 tons of steel.

[Maj]

The point is that there's a chance you could die, and you chose that profession over something else. Sure, it's not exactly that high risk, but it's a lot more high risk than most of us are used to.

I spent my 13th birthday in Africa. I went not to help anyone but myself - because I wanted an adventure. One of the things that infuriated me the most was hearing people ask me why I was going to put my life at risk by going halfway across the world so I could ride camels across the savannah and shoot hippos with my camera.

My response: I live in a country where people die by crossing the street. Would I rather have the chance to go see something that no 13 year old in my city has seen and risk dying because a crocodile bit me in half, or stay at home seeing the same-old, same-old and die because a drunk driver knocked me off my bike?

I'll take the crocodile, thank you.

I think to a certain extent, that answers part of Absentminded Wizard's question, too:

I guess the question really is, when do D&D characters realize that they're orders of magnitude tougher than most people in their world?

That is entirely based on roleplaying. The first level barbarian child may realize that he's tougher because he survived the burning down of his house, or because he survived falling out of a tree, or because he survived a pillaging of his home, or because...

He may begin the game with the confidence befitting a meatshield.

On the other hand, a rogue who's particularly scrawny may not realize that she can take a decent hit until 10th level - because she's always avoided direct melee combat up until that point.

All of this realization can only come from the character, and it's based on what they've seen, experienced, and heard. Characters, however, live in a completely different world than we do - there are creatures that actually see in full darkness, people who can fling fire from their hands, and immortal creatures that often dally on the mortal realm. This world has fairy tales - told by real fairies. Can you imagine the nightmares?

[RandomCasualty]

1083531767[/unixtime]]

I guess the question really is, when do D&D characters realize that they're orders of magnitude tougher than most people in their world?

That is entirely based on roleplaying.

Right, it should be. That's why I'm saying when you suddenly start taking out of character actions based on other stuff, you're now metagaming.

Metagaming is basically any action you take that isn't based on roleplaying but rather based on what you the player would do.

It's perfectly ok to have a guy who would jump off a cliff because he's that cocky, but he better also put himself in situations where he's at a disadvnatage, like fighting an enchanter with a weak will save, and he's likely to care less about protective magic items, because after all, the gods are watching over him.

There's no problem with playing the man without fear, it's just you have to play that regardless of how bad or good the situation is, otherwise you're into metagame land.

[Oberoni]

Errrrr, can't you just be cocky at the things you're good at?

You seem to insist that if a character realizes that he's tough and awesome at dodging magic attack spells, he better compensate for it by being stupid and reckless whenever possible.

[Maj]

That's why I'm saying when you suddenly start taking out of character actions based on other stuff, you're now metagaming.

You and I have serious differences when it comes to what our characters would and wouldn't know. Your character motivations like this one:

and he's likely to care less about protective magic items, because after all, the gods are watching over him.

...are assumptions that many of the characters that I have played wouldn't ever make. Sometimes, you have something you're good at. It's OK to attribute those things to the fact that you're good at them, not that some gods are watching over you. To extend that to eschewing magical items is just not something that's likely in any game I've played in.

Metagaming, to me, is using knowledge that I have as a player, but not as a character, to make my character's decisions/actions/etc. This means that I have to be thorough about knowing what my character knows or would know.

I create my characters assuming they don't live in a vacuum. To say that someone who's taken a couple of fireballs wouldn't jump off a cliff implies a couple of things to me:

1) The character's never heard of anyone jumping off a cliff and surviving.

2) The character is completely unable to measure the ability to be hurt.

The primary reason why a wizard uses Fireball is because it kills things. If you've taken a couple of fireballs before and lived through it, you know you're one tough cookie. If you've heard about someone jumping off a cliff and surviving, and you already know you're one tough cookie, you've got a pretty good case for surviving when you jump off the cliff.

The only reason to assume that you would die if you jumped off the cliff is if everyone who'd ever jumped off a cliff had died - and you knew that fact.

But that doesn't happen. Even commoners roll a one on their damage die and they have 4 HP. Think about it: the average damage a 10 ft. fall inflicts upon you is 1d6. That's 3.5 damage on average - not even enough to kill a commoner.

You know that there are people who are weak and people who are not. You know that you have lived through more than those *normal* people who fall out of trees. You know that falling a little farther isn't going to kill you.

but he better also put himself in situations where he's at a disadvnatage, like fighting an enchanter with a weak will save

I don't understand why your examples seem to assume that characters don't know their own strengths and weaknesses. As a person, in real life, I know I'm not physically strong, I'm poor of health and not very sturdy, I'm a little graceful, I'm very smart and observant, and I get along with most people. In a fight, I know that my best weapon is my talking because I suck at fighting... Unless you don't see it coming; then I have time to plot and aim.

I'm not ever going to deliberately put myself in a position to have to fight - because I know I can't. I avoid fighting because I'm puny - not because I'm being controlled by some player who knows that I'm taking a -3 penalty on every attack. Characters in D&D ought to have the same ability to cognize. If they don't, you're also metagaming.

[Lago_AM3P]

I'm with Josh, here.

When did Metagaming become a bad thing? Even when you take advantage of social connections to advance the plot.

The only reason why Glenn the rogue will adventure with Dekar the paladin at all (and thus, everyone gets to play) is because the players are on a mutual agreement to tolerate each other and not wreck everything. The thing that's stopping a wizard player from making his polymorphed any object titan army is not the character, who would jump on this gravy train like no tomorrow, but the player. The thing stopping the DM roleplaying the king from dishing out his 16th level retainers to stop the 10th level upstarts is player connections.

So... who the hell cares, even if we decide to take all of RC's assumptions on metagaming, if we decide to break 'believability' by jumping off of a 100 foot cliff and expecting to survive?

You know what's metagaming? Characters actually making a reasoned decision to kill hundreds of monsters in increasing difficulty and actually expecting this to be a successful enterprise.

[RandomCasualty]

1083536339[/unixtime]]

Metagaming, to me, is using knowledge that I have as a player, but not as a character, to make my character's decisions/actions/etc. This means that I have to be thorough about knowing what my character knows or would know.

Right.

I create my characters assuming they don't live in a vacuum. To say that someone who's taken a couple of fireballs wouldn't jump off a cliff implies a couple of things to me:

1) The character's never heard of anyone jumping off a cliff and surviving.

2) The character is completely unable to measure the ability to be hurt.

Well, I keep going back to this because it's important. Hit points represent a character's ability to turn a greater wound into a lesser one. A barbarian really can't survive an arrow to the heart or a broken neck from a fall. He's just good enough to avoid the majority of that damage and have an arrow that just happens to graze the side of his chest, or land in such a way that the damage is just bruises. This in no way implies immortality.

Again, these guys don't stand with the superman pose sitting there taking arrows. So they don't necessarily think they're invulnerable based on what they've survived. Now some characters who have that overconfident personality could say "the gods are with me, I've survived five fireballs and I'm still alive! I can do anything!" and that's a perfectly fine roleplaying attitude in a world with magic and real gods. A character may actualyl think he's immortal, but he has to roleplay that.

The primary reason why a wizard uses Fireball is because it kills things. If you've taken a couple of fireballs before and lived through it, you know you're one tough cookie. If you've heard about someone jumping off a cliff and surviving, and you already know you're one tough cookie, you've got a pretty good case for surviving when you jump off the cliff.

Eh... I dunno about that. Differences in toughness are profound and there's no real way to determine exactly how tough you are. I mean there's so many levels...
There's "take a fireball and live", "take a horrid wilting", "Take a sequence of 5 wails of the banshee" and then there's "Soak an annihilating strike from Thor". These are all different grades of toughness, and the character won't necessarily understand what he can survive until he tries it. Sure, if he falls 20' and isn't hurt that badly he may try 30' or 40'... but to just jump off a cliff without any sense of how much damage it may do... well that's bad.

Again, I'll bring the point I brought forth before. If you didn't see the rules for falling damage, but knew the rules for everything else, would you still jump 500', risking a beloved character without first trying smaller distances?

The only reason to assume that you would die if you jumped off the cliff is if everyone who'd ever jumped off a cliff had died - and you knew that fact.

Well, this depends on how you see yourself. A character with a huge ego might put himself right up there with Hercules and take the plunge. A character who is more cautious and more or less attributes his victories to luck probably wouldn't. This is again a roleplaying issue.

I don't understand why your examples seem to assume that characters don't know their own strengths and weaknesses. As a person, in real life, I know I'm not physically strong, I'm poor of health and not very sturdy, I'm a little graceful, I'm very smart and observant, and I get along with most people. In a fight, I know that my best weapon is my talking because I suck at fighting... Unless you don't see it coming; then I have time to plot and aim.

Well, the issue here is that if you indeed believe that you're invincible, you have to believe your capable of just about anything, that's what overconfidence is. Hell, you can survive a 500' drop... and if you can do that, what's a minor charm person spell or a little energy drain from a specter, or a great wyrm's breath... yeah you can probably handle all fo those too. To arbitrarily draw the line at some places is metagaming, because that line always tends to be drawn where the rules draw it. It's always a judgment based off numbers.

If you truly think you're up there with hercules herowise and do crazy stuff like jumping off 500' cliffs, then you should be fully expecting yourself to be able to solo a big hydra, just like he did.

Characters hear tales of legendary heroes all the time, and yes, sometimes they can associate themselves with them.. but if you're going to think yourself on par with a legend, then you better act like it in all situations and not just ones where the rules do actually favor you. In other words, you think you're a hero of legend? Start acting like one.

Overconfindence is a fine trait, it just has to apply universally until proven otherwise. If your barbarian got dominated before, then he may be a bit more cautious of mind affecting spells, otherwise he shouldnt' be thinking much of it.

The fact is that when PCs make decisions like this, it almost always "just happens" to be ok in the rules. This coincidence is strong evidence that we're dealing with metagaming here.

As for LAGO's comments about metagaming, this is pretty much not metagaming because it occurs outside the game (out of character). Really when you have a paladin and a rogue travelling together, the characters should be designed with some way of staying together (basicalyl both good alignment). This is done during the character creation phase and thus it's not metagaming.

It is metagaming and bad metagaming if you've got an evil rogue and a paladin staying together in a game that's already begun.

As for killing monsters in succession, that just happens to be the way it occurs, the adventurers don't actually decide to do that. The first level adventurer doesn't have a checklist with orc, ogre, minotaur, troll, flesh golem, beholder, dragon listed on it. It just simply works out that way.

But this stuff is scenario design, again out of character. No NPC is deliberately saying he'll send an orc, an ogre, a minotaur then a troll at them. Their adventures just kinda work out that way. The hand of fate isn't metagaming, because the hand of fate doesn't roleplay. Destiny can't really act "out of character" so I don't see how it could ever metagame.

Only characters capable of roleplaying can metagame. A character that has yet to be created cannot metagame, nor can a situation.

[Lago_AM3P]

Only characters capable of roleplaying can metagame. A character that has yet to be created cannot metagame, nor can a situation.

Who the hell do you think creates the adventures? The magic screen fairy?

I find it really, really weird that it's okay for DMs to create very irrational events but it's not okay for players to perform irrational things when viewed from OUR eyes, not theirs.

[Lago_AM3P]

Well, I keep going back to this because it's important. Hit points represent a character's ability to turn a greater wound into a lesser one. A barbarian really can't survive an arrow to the heart or a broken neck from a fall. He's just good enough to avoid the majority of that damage and have an arrow that just happens to graze the side of his chest, or land in such a way that the damage is just bruises. This in no way implies immortality.

Again, these guys don't stand with the superman pose sitting there taking arrows. So they don't necessarily think they're invulnerable based on what they've survived. Now some characters who have that overconfident personality could say "the gods are with me, I've survived five fireballs and I'm still alive! I can do anything!" and that's a perfectly fine roleplaying attitude in a world with magic and real gods. A character may actualyl think he's immortal, but he has to roleplay that.

That is definitely NOT what the book says.

The book says that HPs are a combination of these things. But seriously, a twentieth level fighter with power attack can rip through a wall of adamantite WITH HIS BARE HANDS in a matter of seconds. When that same violence is applied with a sword to your flesh, there's only so much handwaving you can do before you're just going to have to admit that the laws of their world do not work as ours, and it's metagaming to roleplay your character using premises he's never been exposed to.

[RandomCasualty]

1083538971[/unixtime]]
Who the hell do you think creates the adventures? The magic screen fairy?

I find it really, really weird that it's okay for DMs to create very irrational events but it's not okay for players to perform irrational things when viewed from OUR eyes, not theirs.

I didn't say it's necessarily okay, but it's not metagaming. It's a bad contrived plot, but it's not metagaming.

The same is true of players building characters. You can min/max this super character with a piss poor background and no roleplaying justification, but this isn't metagaming, because your character doesn't exist yet. You can't choose game benefits over his personality choices because he has no personality yet.

You can't metagame until you can roleplay. You can't roleplay when you're a DM designing a quest or a PC designing his character, because there is noone to roleplay in this context.

When the DM decides to introduce a new band of trolls into his campaign so he can have them attack the town, it may well be a contrived plot, but since he just created the trolls on the spot with the goal to attack the town, it can't be described as metagaming, because he's roleplaying the trolls exactly as they'd act.

As for players performing irrational acts, the problem is that the act isn't irrational from our eyes, because we know its a game and that the character really won't die from falling off that cliff. That's why it's metagaming, because we know that such an action can't possibly hurt the character.

However from a roleplaying perspective, the character doesn't know that.

[Maj]

Well, I keep going back to this because it's important. Hit points represent a character's ability to turn a greater wound into a lesser one.

Actually, I wasn't even referring to hit points. I was referring to the ability that a person has - in real life, even - to know when one thing hurts more than another thing. I've fallen off of a patio and landed head-first on concrete. It hurts one hell of a lot more than PMS cramps.

A barbarian really can't survive an arrow to the heart or a broken neck from a fall. He's just good enough to avoid the majority of that damage and have an arrow that just happens to graze the side of his chest, or land in such a way that the damage is just bruises. This in no way implies immortality.

Speak for your own games; my games aren't like this. Not only do tough barbarians take arrows to the heart, but we define immortality differently, too.

There's no way in hell that any world I play in would allow a wizard to turn into a dragon, but a fighter isn't allowed to take a wound to a vital area and live.

Again, these guys don't stand with the superman pose sitting there taking arrows.

Some guys do. And that's OK.

So they don't necessarily think they're invulnerable based on what they've survived.

Why does someone who's survived something have to think they're invulnerable?

I survived an elephant chasing me down in Kenya. Does that mean that now I think I'm invulnerable and able to defy cars that might hit me?

Eh... I dunno about that. Differences in toughness are profound and there's no real way to determine exactly how tough you are. I mean there's so many levels... There's "take a fireball and live", "take a horrid wilting", "Take a sequence of 5 wails of the banshee" and then there's "Soak an annihilating strike from Thor". These are all different grades of toughness, and the character won't necessarily understand what he can survive until he tries it. Sure, if he falls 20' and isn't hurt that badly he may try 30' or 40'... but to just jump off a cliff without any sense of how much damage it may do... well that's bad.

Yeah, and hopefully, you can actually create a character with enough of a brain to learn to discriminate between things like a god's attack and a city guard's attack. Come on... These characters you are describing all have egos the size of Alaska, balls the size of Texas, and brains so small they don't get their own zip code.

Again, I'll bring the point I brought forth before. If you didn't see the rules for falling damage, but knew the rules for everything else, would you still jump 500', risking a beloved character without first trying smaller distances?

The only rules for falling I know are for the first 10 feet; I know you take 1d6 points of damage for that. My favoritest character ever has jumped off very high cliffs - for various reasons - and she's lived to tell about it.

The only reason to assume that you would die if you jumped off the cliff is if everyone who'd ever jumped off a cliff had died - and you knew that fact.

Well, this depends on how you see yourself. A character with a huge ego might put himself right up there with Hercules and take the plunge. A character who is more cautious and more or less attributes his victories to luck probably wouldn't. This is again a roleplaying issue.

No. It doesn't depend on how you see yourself at all. Even on earth, not everyone whose parachute fails to open on a sky-dive dies. If everyone who'd ever jumped off a cliff died, there would be 100% chance of failure when you got ready to do it - regardless of what you thought of yourself. Again, you're stuck describing the egotistical, ballsy moron, not all characters.

Most people don't jump off cliffs because they think they're going to die. People jump off cliffs because they believe there's a chance - a fairly good one - that they'll live. If there was a meme in the societies in your games that declared that everyone - 100% - who jumped off a cliff would die, no one would do it voluntarily.

Well, the issue here is that if you indeed believe that you're invincible, you have to believe your capable of just about anything, that's what overconfidence is. Hell, you can survive a 500' drop... and if you can do that, what's a minor charm person spell or a little energy drain from a specter, or a great wyrm's breath... yeah you can probably handle all fo those too. To arbitrarily draw the line at some places is metagaming, because that line always tends to be drawn where the rules draw it. It's always a judgment based off numbers.

Again with the ego, balls, and idiocy. Those really aren't the only motivations in the universe. Why are you so stuck on them?

As for LAGO's comments about metagaming, this is pretty much not metagaming because it occurs outside the game (out of character). Really when you have a paladin and a rogue travelling together, the characters should be designed with some way of staying together (basicalyl both good alignment). This is done during the character creation phase and thus it's not metagaming.

BS. Setting up your characters using knowledge they don't have (like the fact that they're going to be spending the next few months traveling together) is metagaming.

It is metagaming and bad metagaming if you've got an evil rogue and a paladin staying together in a game that's already begun.

You forgot the line that says "if you have no justification or reason for it."

[RandomCasualty]

1083542478[/unixtime]]
BS. Setting up your characters using knowledge they don't have (like the fact that they're going to be spending the next few months traveling together) is metagaming.

Anything you do can be justified with a background and roleplaying. Maybe your character starts his journeys actually looking for people to adventure with... So you're character is making the assumption he finds someone. How is this metagaming?

You forgot the line that says "if you have no justification or reason for it."

Well yeah, I just assumed that.

Speak for your own games; my games aren't like this. Not only do tough barbarians take arrows to the heart, but we define immortality differently, too.

This basically tells me that I don't think we will ever agree on this topic, since we tell different styles of stories. My games tend to be told more like LotR or Conan.

From what I hear, your games are more like a hyper tough version of a Highlander character:

Mage: "You've got an arrow going striaght through your chest right through your heart, and half your internal organs are lying on the ground where the dragon cut you open... how the hell are you still alive?"

Barbarian: "Eh... I'm a 10th level barbarian, no problem. I can heal this in a couple days. So long as I don't get beheaded, I'm good to go."

With this much of a difference in storytelling perspective, I don't see how we will ever agree on anything about what's metagaming and what isn't, because we are arguing from two entirely different worlds.

[Oberoni]

Yeah, I'm with Maj on this one, RC--why in the heck are these people in your example being stupid?

I mean, let's say I'm Bob, the 20th level barbarian.

I totally rock with my abs of steel. I can have 5 fireballs spring up around me and get a bit singed. I can rage and chuck around carriages, trolls, and horses with my crazy strength. I can shrug off a mighty wizard's death spells like I'd shrug off a mosquito bite.

But I know that when it comes to fighting mind control, I suck.

I've been Dominated and Held before, and even if I haven't, I've probably heard stories from my elders how annoying those "cowardly wizards' mind tricks" are.

So while I'm awesome, and I can totally shrug off effects that would rip the life from lesser men, I'm far from invincible. When my buddy Cleo the Cleric is casting Magic Circle Against Evil and we're staring down a man known only as The Puppetmaster, I stay close to her.

So where the heck is the metagaming coming in?

[fbmf]

RC, you still have not addressed the point that hitpoints are not just your ability to "roll with the punch", but also, as Lago pointed out, your ability to take a hit that would fell a horse, like it, and ask for more. The PH says it is a combination of the two.

Game On,
fbmf

[RandomCasualty]

1083543848[/unixtime]]
But I know that when it comes to fighting mind control, I suck.

I've been Dominated and Held before, and even if I haven't, I've probably heard stories from my elders how annoying those "cowardly wizards' mind tricks" are.

How do you know you suck at it? You're the uber engine of unstoppable death. You've got 6 arrows sticking out of your chest and your able to ignore the pain and keep going. What's this about no willpower?

When you're the juggernaut you don't fear anybody until they've given you reason to.

Look at it this way, when you started fighting the orcs, the commoners said you'd die trying. You didn't. When you fought the ogres, they siad the same things. When you went to jump off the cliff, even a moderately experienced rogue told you not to but you did anyway. You're still alive today. Factor in the fact that he can be resurrected and this guy fears nothing. He's gonna have an ego bigger than all 666 layers of the abyss. Sure people tell him to fear wizards, but he just says "eh... they're like the dragons, the ogres and the orcs... you told me to fear them too... they're all dead."

He's not going to think aynthing can touch him until he experiences it.

He's heard lots of stories... powerful orcs, trolls that don't die, majestic dragons, powerful gods, even perhaps stories of the demon Gygax. Though he doesn't truly understand how powerful any of these things are.

You can't be both fearless and a coward toward new things. You have to pick one and stick with it. Either you're Aragorn the skilled human warrior who is alive partly because of luck and partyl because of good tactics or you're Superman, man of steel who fears jack. Until you encounter something like kryptonite, a guy tells you that being in the path of an exploding missile is a bad idea and you respond by laughing at him. Because nothing can hurt you so far... so you really don't care.

Now it seems almost stupid to adapt the superman strategy. Why not just fly in with your super speed, and take everyone out before they have a chance, why not play it safe? Cause you're one cocky shit, that's why. You walk into that building and just stand there while they're shooting you because you want to stroke your impressive hero ego. But if the guy actually had kryptonite bullets you'd be screwed. It's the risk you take... but either way your opening posture is one of confidence and invulnerability. It can't dynamically change because you realized the rules are against you this time.

[Oberoni]

What the hell?

What is that?

No, seriously.

You're the one talking about "roleplaying" in one breath, and then telling me how to pull off Chaotic Stupid in the next.

You really do think that being smart and knowing when you're awesome and when you're not is bad roleplaying?

I can't even begin to dignify that with a rebuttal, beyond this response, of course.

[RandomCasualty]

1083551918[/unixtime]]
You're the one talking about "roleplaying" in one breath, and then telling me how to pull off Chaotic Stupid in the next.

You really do think that being smart and knowing when you're awesome and when you're not is bad roleplaying?

It isn't smart to go cliff diving cause you "think" you can take it. That's not smart, and you do that cause you're cocky. You say "I've fought trolls and got hit by 3 fireballs and wasn't that badly burned so... I think I can survive this."

In some cases this is a good decision and in others this could be a bad decision. You really may be that good, you may not be.

But you've got a huge ego either way. You're acting like the unstoppable juggernaut and you've got to keep acting like that to properly roleplay. Until something actually stops you, your character should remain with his egotistical "I'm unstoppable philosophy". If he's ballsy enough to take a 500' drop, then I think he's ballsy enough ot take on basically anything short of a god or one of the massive epic creatures.

But the point is that you can't alternate between being batman and being the juggernaut, you've got to pick one and go with it. That's what roleplaying is all about.

A very good example of this is Buffy. Like the average fighter, she's got lots of hit points, good strength, bad will saves and pretty much no knowledge skills. She goes into any situation totally expecting to dominate everyone because she's got super powers. She only goes into the planning phase if she gets her ass handed to her. She's not exactly stupid, but she's overconfident. Until she does lose, she employs the juggernaut strategy against anything she comes across.

All I'm saying is that you can't have it both ways. You can't suddenly become all cautious when the rules aren't in your favor and go juggernaut style when the rules are. It reeks so heavily of metagaming that other DMs within 5 miles of your gaming site are likely to pick up the scent.

[Oberoni]

It isn't smart to go cliff diving cause you "think" you can take it. That's not smart, and you do that cause you're cocky. You say "I've fought trolls and got hit by 3 fireballs and wasn't that badly burned so... I think I can survive this."

In some cases this is a good decision and in others this could be a bad decision. You really may be that good, you may not be.

But you've got a huge ego either way. You're acting like the unstoppable juggernaut and you've got to keep acting like that to properly roleplay. Until something actually stops you, your character should remain with his egotistical "I'm unstoppable philosophy". If he's ballsy enough to take a 500' drop, then I think he's ballsy enough ot take on basically anything short of a god or one of the massive epic creatures.

You know what else is stupider than cliff-diving? Fighting angels, devils, and dragons.

Bob the 20th level barbarian can do any of these things.

You think it takes big brass balls to jump off a cliff? Sure it does. But it also takes big brass balls to do just about any high-level adventure.

Seriously, if you gave me the choice between falling 200 feet and fighting the Lich archmage, I know I'd be jumping the cliff.

So, by your logic, I'm forced to conclude that all 20th level characters are Chaotic Stupid, and, just because they're hardcore and cocky enough to go on high-level adventures, they're also cocky enough to think they're invincible.

After all, there's not a single 20th level Barbarian that can't shrug off fireballs or cliffjump, and chances are, they've all done one or the other at one point.

All I'm saying is that you can't have it both ways. You can't suddenly become all cautious when the rules aren't in your favor and go juggernaut style when the rules are.

I'm sorry, but this, the main point of your argument, is stupid.

Lots of people are totally freakin' overconfident and cocky at the things they're good at, but "know their roles" at the things they suck at.

For example, I know that I rock out when it comes to public speaking and debating, or maybe playing a game of Magic.

Conversely, I suck at boxing.

I'm pretty confident that in a debate, I'm going to make my opponent look salty. In a magic game, I stand a better chance of winning than losing.

But I ain't strappin' on the gloves and fighting Mike Tyson, or even Mike Tyson's dad. I'm 155 pounds, I don't do stupid stuff.

...at any rate, this is basically the same point Maj made several posts ago, and you blindly dismissed it.

Guess what? It ninja-kicks your argument in the crotch!

It's possible to be all hardcore, awesome, and cocky at the things you're good at, and to be more cautious at the things you're not.

To put it another way:

You're telling me that being cocky only when it's something you're good at is "metagaming," and I'm telling you that makes no freakin' sense.

At all.

[Username17]

Really when you have a paladin and a rogue travelling together, the characters should be designed with some way of staying together (basicalyl both good alignment). This is done during the character creation phase and thus it's not metagaming.

Not always. In one game I'm currently in, my Rogue started out good, and the Ranger started out neutral.

The ranger has gone on to have favored enemies of Evil Outsiders and Undead, and has ended up with all the capitalized Good items - and has drifted steadily into being a Lawful Good type. This last level he finally took the plunge and became a Paladin.

My own Rogue, on the other hand, has ended up being the default interogator on most missions thanks to knowing flat more languages than the other characters and carrying a sap. His direct style has and party position has led him to threaten and torture prisoners ("OK, I think it's about time you start volunteering information or fingers."), accept aid from Devils and Vampires (in order to fight other Devils and Vampires...), and generally make some very unsavory deals all around. He's also been stabbed by a were rat - and guess what? Rolled a natural 2 on that save and now he's going to be turning into a were rat.

I know that Orpheus is naturally becoming a very bad person - I've honstly considered taking Blackguard levels with him. The other players know this too. But Orpheus doesn't know that, and neither do the other characters.

Which means that we have to come up with some justification for the party sticking together, or it's going to fall apart explosively. When one party member naturally and organically becomes a Paladin and another party member naturally and organically becomes a Were Rat Executioner - you've got a problem. A problem which basically can't be solved on pure in-character stuff, but fortunately doesn't need to be.

It's a cooperative story telling game. The goal is to tell a good story. And let's face it - a good story rarely involves the two protagonists parting ways and never talking again.

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

Guess what? It ninja-kicks your argument in the crotch!

I'ma stealing this quote.

[Essence]

Another example to stack onto the pile:

I'm a 6'1", 300 lb man with training in Tae Kwon Do, Ninjitsu, Escrima, Shotokan Karate, Iaido, Kobujitsu, and a smattering of Bok Shaolin Eagle Claw Kung Fu. I'm pretty strong, moderately fast, pretty tough, and can make almost any weapon I pick up really dangerous with a few seconds to test the weight and balance.

I'm also damn smart. I tested in the top .5% of my age category going into High School. I was eight points shy of a 1400 on the SATs. The owner of the Quizno's I work at has told me I'm the smartest person that's worked there since he opened the store, and he constantly asks me how to do things that I have absolutely no experience in, because he trusts my brains.

I'm also horrible with money, absolutely fail to notice anything that's happening around me, and have no Will save. If you give me a $20, and tell me that I've got to send at least $15 to the phone company if I want to keep calling my friends upstate, I'm very likely to decide that my friends can Email me and go out to dinner instead. Maj always hears sirens before I do, sees things happening around us that she then has to point out to me, and has intutition the likes of which I only dream of.

I have no Wisdom, and I know it.

Now, we don't have enchanters or mindbenders on Earth (that I've met, at least), but I know for a fact that I'm a lot more comfortable going head-to-head with some bully on the street who wants my wallet than I am keeping that same wallet safe from a snake-oil salesman who wants to sell me some cheap jewelry from his trunk.

It's not that much of a stretch, from there, to imagining myself as a 20th level Fighter, afraid of no weapon, able to best the entire National Guard equipped with nothing but the weapons from under my bed (no guns!), but dreadfully worried that someone with a newer, shinier, totally blunted katana might talk me into trading and being happy for having done so. Or, worse yet, falling victim to the propaganda machine and deciding, before my battle has even begun, to join the Guard instead, and have them ship me off to some 3rd world country where I can conquer and then hand everything back over to Uncle Sam. Ugh.