And since he did not do this (Have everyone declare before rolling), he was in the wrong to force an action onto a player that should have been the Player's Choice... He should have lived with his decision to just have the player's roll in sequence, and let the dice fall where they may... His Correction was not reasonable...

Reasons matter. I assume it isn't routine the GM intervenes, so normally they just do what they want. But when a player states he is doing something because of knowledge his character wouldn't have, of course the GM has to block it.

Except that the Player's Character HAD that knowledge...the NPC was wounded... that was all he knew (He did not know how badly the NPC was wounded), and because he KNEW the NPC was wounded, he was now an invalid Target? Really?

Meh, it wasn't ideal, but "not reasonable" seems a stretch.

For me, the much bigger issue is the halting of everyone's gameplay and enjoyment to argue over a ruling. If you think it should have been handled differently, save it for the end of the session and calmly discuss it then.

Even if it was what the character might have done anyway without that knowledge? (I use "might" because "would" sounds too strong. Alas, "might" sounds to weak. I need a better word choice.)

The problem with the calls of metagaming (both here and in the last epic thread) is that the solution seems to be to play someone else's character(s) for them and justifying that solution with accusations of cheating. It doesn't matter if it's a DM taking over a player's character or a player trying to control the NPCs.

Personally, I'd rather tolerate metagaming then the alternative of someone playing someone else's characters. This doesn't mean I'm for metagaming, it's just that I like the solution even less.

No he didn't. The NPC was wounded simultaneously with the PC's action. The player knew the target was wounded because it had happened moments before the resolution of his character's action at the gaming table.

If the character had the knowledge, this wouldn't be an issue of meta-gaming.

In the end, Mooncrow has it right. This situation wasn't worth arguing over at the table. A good player accepts a valid GM ruling and moves on. "Getting away with it" simply if he hadn't revealed he was meta-gaming wouldn't have made it right. It would have just meant he slipped one by the GM. That's not really in the spirit of the game is it?

Just to be clear, because the GM chose declare/resolve/declare/resolve/etc on a bunch of "simultaneous" actions, the player was made aware of a condition that was a result of a resolve but hadn't actually happened at the time the character was acting.

Or to phase it another way. The GM used the serial process normally used for resolving serial actions to resolve a situation involving parallel actions. If the goal here was a "realistic simulation" most people seem to agree he should have used a parallel process to reflect what was actually happening. I find it interesting that he choose the serial process to reduce confusion and that choice resulted in a different form of confusion that inspired this thread.

----

Mordoth: Next time this happens, leave the table and get a drink. Then when it's your turn, come back and do what you were gonna do anyway. Less hassles.

I disagree with you Kruger, based upon how the rolls were handled (No Declaration, roll when it is "YOUR turn," even if it is supposed to be simultaneous)... As well, the target was his initial target anyways... so there was no actual change of target UNTIL the GM heard additional reasoning and forced a Change upon the character... that is just wrong on so many levels in my opinion...

It was always his target because of the damage incurred. The GM didn't know the reason right off the bat, but that doesn't give it a free pass. The intent was always meta-game. And in the OP's game, meta-gaming isn't acceptable so he declared the action illegal.

Rules as written and rules as intended back my interpretation. Actions on the same initiative score are simultaneous so the character would not have knowledge of them regardless of resolution order. Like I've said before, if you want to play faster and looser with the rules and realism, feel free. But that doesn't make what the GM chose to do in his game "wrong".

I guess we will have to agree to disagree then... Because your assumption of the intent to the Character and the Player's stated intent of the character are completely at odds...

No Worries though...

This isn't correct. There were a number of reasons according to the player.
1) The creature was in front of him.
2) The other creature was behind him.
3) The creature had injured one teammate.
4) The creature was close to another injured teammate.
5) The creature was injured.
6) The creature was vulnerable to his magic attacks based on previous encounters.

Shooting the creature you think is in front of your character and is a threat to your teammates is not meta-game.

Being forced to change your target because you, as a player, received knowledge your character wouldn't have and as a result of that knowledge being accused of metagaming IS, quite possibly, metagaming by the accuser. If he had just left the table, he wouldn't have been open to accusation and therefore could have targeted the creature. Unfortunately since he was at the table, the GM was able to use the information he gave to the player as an excuse to play the player's character for him.

Is the able paragraph unreasonable? Sure it is. But it's no more unreasonable than claiming the intent was always to meta-game or that the only reason was that the creature was injured.

And this is why D&D has gone gaga over miniatures combat.

It's easier to get a feel for the physical combat with minis

I'm really kinda bored of this discussion but how exactly is my "assumption" at odds? It isn't an assumption at all. The player came here and admitted that he chose the target because it was injured and it had injured another player. Both of those things happened on the same Initiative Score/Pass that he was attempting to act on.

To quote the player himself:

This was player knowledge, not character knowledge. The character can't have any intent at this point beyond "Oh crap, bad guys coming at me and my friends!" If the player had been made to declare his action at the beginning of the Initiative Score, neither the target nor the other player would have been injured.

That was the reason he gave the GM. How else can it be interpreted other than the use of meta-game knowledge? Maybe left to his own devices the player would have chosen the same target without that knowledge. Maybe not. But then you're into hypothetical situations and not the one that was presented to the GM who was forced to make a a judgment call.

1) Sole supportable correct statement in the sequence.
2) He thought the creature was behind him. The GM didn't think it was behind him. The GM making the judgment call is not privy to player thoughts, only player actions and statements.
3) had injured the teammate in real time, but had not done so in quantifiable game time.
4) player perhaps did not state this as a reason to the GM, only included it here, again as something he was thinking, and not saying at the table when he declared the reason for his action. GM still has not Awakened and learned to read thoughts.
5) was not injured yet in quantifiable game time
6) He used the word creatures in the plural sense, which barring further explanation, suggests all the creatures in the scenario were the same and/or vulnerable.

All the rest of it is supposition. Obviously the player gave the GM the impression that his selection was based too heavily on meta-game knowledge and not reasonably on character knowledge. That's all that matters when you consider a practical way to resolve the situation. We can suppose all we want here and never get any closer to that resolution. All it does is add posts to the thread without any point being proven or advanced.

Like I said before, the argument you're making is that you believe that allowing meta-game knowledge is more important than story immersion and believability. Which is fine for your game. But not for Rand's. I suggest not playing at his table.

Actually, I believe being allowed to play your character is more important than metagaming. If story immersion and believability require playing other people's (GM's or Player's) characters for them then I don't want to be at that table.

My whole reason for playing with other people is that they do things I don't expect. if I limit them to things I do expect, well, I can get that at home writing.


Note: My Glossy 7101 Update (1989, 10 pages long, Rex Tremendae story) has a bunch of Shadowrun Miniatures photos on the back cover...

Well, you wouldn't have expected the GM to tell you you couldn't do what you wanted to in that situation.

At it's simplest, I don't see the for a player having to give reasons for every action unless it seems bizarre or unreasonable for the given situation. Thus, my intention in the future of not providing my rationale for each action before taking it is IMO in no way "cheating". And the intent isn't to take advantage of meta-game knowledge, as I seriously doubt that ANY player or GM could deny that they don't routinely utilize RL/non-game knowledge while playing. It's not like we are able to become our characters and divorce ourselves from reality (although it could be really fun).

I feel like it's venturing into the realm of taking it all way too seriously. It's a game after all, not a job, not serious business. This is the first time I've played where it was even an issue, and I frankly don't get it. As to disruption, the whole thing took all of 90 seconds, and of my fellow players (all two of them present) I'd say they would have appreciated my initial choice of target and not the one that was forced on me.

All of it is now moot as it appears the group is disbanding, maybe because things like this, and issues of the group's tendency to goof off during game time, and most of the group not being quite as serious as the GM.

There are a lot of different playstyles out there. I take all of my hobbies pretty seriously, because to me, if something isn't worth caring about, it's not worth doing. It's sounds like I wouldn't really enjoy GMing that table either. That's not to say that it's wrong, of course. There are plenty of people who just want to kick back and not take it seriously and have hours of Monty Python quotes interspersed with some goblin slaying. If you aren't enjoying play, it's definitely better to walk away and find a table that is fun for you.



When I'm a player, that's my exact goal. I never reach it of course, but sometimes I can getting pretty darn close, and those are my favorite nights of gaming, ever.

Have to agree. I never have a problem assuming the characters I create. It's not like I'm "going under" or something. I just consider what the character would know and what he would do. And I'll often make decisions counter to what I know simply because that's the way my character would act. All of my players in my current game (non-Shadowrun) do it too. In fact, they will often, when discussing plans amongst themselves, refer to the fact that they don't know something and the phrases "What my character would do" and "This is meta-game knowledge obviously" come up fairly often.

It's a practiced skill and a discipline, for sure. But it isn't rare or unheard of. Resisting the urge to meta-game comes as you begin to stop caring about "winning" so much as being part of a good story.

MMV obviously. Our past games like WFRP or D&D were approached a lot less seriously because everything in those games is so fantastical and simplistic and designed to be heroic and over-the-top. It's all about understanding the game and the setting. Some groups' games are meant to be a little more "serious business" than others. If it's a pizza and beer group of friends where the game is the excuse to hang out and occasionally get hammered on home brewed alcohol, then sure, nobody cares. Been there, done that, and had a blast.

TBH, everything I know about for example spying and B&E comes from documentaries and fiction. Everybody watched 24, Heat, Mission Impossible, and some Discovery shows, including characters and their 2074 equivalents, didn't they?

Good catch. That's exactly who I was thinking of, in fact. It doesn't have to played for laughs, though. Imagine the RP opportunities for the other characters trying to teach him and his resistance since everything he does works, so it must be right.



Yeah... that line has been trotted out to defend GMs hijacking games since it was invented. Imagine if we applied that logic to other games: "Well, I'm pretty sure it was fair and I hit a home run, but the ump says it was foul... let's calmly discuss it at the end of the game." Calmly discussing it at the end of the game is resigning yourself that that rule stand and that it will keep being ruled the same way. Say something right away. You probably won't change anything, but at least it'll be in the GMs head that you're paying attention, and you'll call him out if he tries it again.



Actually, we do know what the player would have done. He would have targeted the one he targeted. Remember, he thought it was the only one he could see. He didn't find out the other one wasn't behind him until the argument, which would not have happened had he declared before the other actions resolved.



Actually, I think the argument is that allowing a bit of meta-gaming (and everyone allows meta-gaming at least a little) is more important than taking over another player's role without the consent of said player.

Fackler from Police Academy as well.

And I never said it shouldn't have been brought up, but if a "discussion" takes more than 30 seconds, then you're putting your wishes over the enjoyment of the group. Make a note, move on, talk about it later.

And your baseball analogy is actually a very good one; there are all sorts of rulings that have been overturned after the fact, or situations that have led to the rules of baseball being changed. But arguing on the field, whether you're right or wrong, gets you penalized because it's accepted that the game going on is more important.

Read closer. We know the player's intentions, or at least the intentions he's chosen to represent here. But the GM only knows what was presented to him at the time, and obviously he didn't feel the player had justified the target with appropriate game knowledge. What the player has told us is obviously different from what he told the GM. GM's only know spoken words, not thoughts.

Keep telling yourself that, lol. My dad has played baseball since he was a little kid, and now umpires college and high school baseball in the adult league offseasons as a hobby. He'll tell you that you can argue with an umpire all you want, but you'll never change anything. He's gonna do the same thing he's always done which is observe the rules and monitor the game. All you're doing by making a scene about a call is looking like a fool and holding up the game for everyone else.

A GM may be slightly better about things since he's on the same team as you, but in the end, it's still just a game with nothing riding on it, and you should comport yourself like a mature adult if that's who you're playing with. If you play with children, feel free to act like them.

Actually, you said to "save it" until the end of the game session. To me, that strongly implies not saying anything at the time. Your clarified version is much better, but I don't think 30 seconds is enough to cover any but the most basic of rules disputes. 30 seconds covers "I don't think I was metagaming," and not much else. In this case, it wouldn't even answer the question "What the Hell is meta-gaming?" Don't even get me started on some of the disputes that came up in my 4-year tabletop group... sometimes it would take ten minutes for each side to even present their interpretation without a word of argument or discussion about it.

I'll freely concede that there comes a time you should set it aside, but if you're putting a hard line on how long, then you're already wrong.

Oh, and it generally takes a Hell of a lot more than 30 seconds of pointing out you think the ump is wrong before you catch any kind of penalty. Generally, you have at least 30 seconds after the ump says "I'm done arguing, go sit down" to shout at him before before you get penalized, and you can keep on shouting about it all the way back to the bench, too without catching any flak for it, most of the time.

Doesn't matter. We know after the fact that the GM was wrong to sieze control of another player's character because he disagreed with a choice the player made. In fact, I've never seen a case where it turned out otherwise. I cannot imagine a case where this is justified.



Yeah, umps, like parents, say a lot of things that aren't true. Yes, I just called your dad a liar. I'd tell him the same to his face because it's true. You can argue with an ump all day, and it will never change that play, because he can't afford to lose face. If he's a little more mature, then he might even realize that he can't change the call because then every call will be argued... but if he made a bullshit call and gets away with it, he'll keep making bullshit calls. If he makes a bullshit call and gets called on it, then sooner or later, he's going to start making that call better - or he'll have to find another job. Pointing out a bullshit call isn't just pointing it out to the ump (or GM) you know. It's pointing it out to everyone.

Of course, you seem to be of the opinion that the GM is the adult running herd on a bunch of children and they should shut up and toe the line when daddy speaks. Sorry, but I'm not a child, and I'm going to sit down and shut up when a childish GM thinks they're the only adult at the table and needs to tell me how to play.

Sorry, 10 minutes of rules discussion is downright disrespectful to the rest of the group, short of your character getting killed or permanently incapacitated by some genuine GM dick move. I concede that the 30 second rule I have is for experienced GM's, but I still think it's far, far better to make a ruling and move on, for any level of GM, than to reach for a rulebook and disrupt play. If you want to change the 30 seconds to 1 minute or whatever works for your group, that's fine, as long as the intent is to keep the game moving for everyone.

For new groups, I've always set aside the last 15 minutes of the night for feedback and rules discussions (not that it always ends after 15 minutes^^), I've found that works better than any amount of mid-game arguing.

(of course the baseball analogy isn't perfect, it was yours and I just ran with it. The principles behind it are pretty solid though.)

Actually, when Plan A requires a specific rule interaction to work, and the team is trying to come up with a plan, then yeah, you NEED to stop the whole game and figure out how the rules are going to work. Considering how long we'd been playing together and how much cash and karma we had built up after four years of playing every week, the GM would give us some damned hard runs (and rightly so), and "let's just kick in the door and geek everyone in the room" just didn't work as a plan anymore. Shit got downright complex. Of course, I'm not saying that's all groups, or even all groups that play that long. I'm saying that's our group, and every group is different. Even when it's the same group, every argument is different (I hope). That's why a hard rule about time limits is always wrong.

Rystefn, I think you have still missed the point that the player has admitted to using a metagame reason for doing something in game. Thats pretty clear cut, if the GM doesnt accept metagame reasons to do something then thats the end of it.

You can call it a dick move and be angry about it all you want but it doesnt make you right.


As for arguring during the game

Arguring with a GM unless its life of death is just silly, talk about it when theres a break in the game or at the end. Unless you dont play with a GM whos a mate you can actually discuss things with which would pose the question why do you game with someone you cant have a reasonable discussion with? If you have to rant and shout why are you even playing with them.

That's not quite correct.
1) Of the metagame reasons, some of them were a result of the way the GM choose to resolve simultaneous combat and the metagaming wasn't clear to the player.
2) Of the non-metagame reasons, at least one of them was from miscommunication between the GM and the player (target being behind the player).
3) Other reasons weren't metagame at all.

Rather than help the player understand the issue and discuss things, the GM simply took control of the character. It could have been resolved with "Remember, this is all happening simultaneously, to your character, he isn't injured yet. Who does your character want to shoot at and why?"

I also want to make it clear that it wasn't Mordoth (the player) who started the accusations on this forum. So far Mordoth has been accused of cheating and childish behavior, and yet, as far as I can tell, he's done none of that. The way he's been treated in this discussion does not reflect well on this forum. Mordoth is not Rystefn and Rystefn's behavior and attitude shouldn't be attributed to him.

Hell of a first thread attached to your name, Mordoth.

It's true. You are baiting and trolling. Please keep the discussion civil.