Yes. It’s so annoying. A lot of good roleplaying is imagining a way your character would have/know something. Obviously you can take it too far, but it’s an important skills for keeping the game moving. Like, say one character is obviously falling for some sort of trap by a doppelganger. OOC you either know or are suspicious, but IC you don’t. You want to go with them so they aren’t alone. But you can’t just say that. Say something like, “I’ll tag along, I’m getting stir crazy and could go for a walk.” It’s technically metagaming but it’s a very different situation than doing something like telling that character not to go because the other person is suspicious when you genuinely have no reason to think they are.
Another good example of metagaming that so many people view as okay that they don’t even view it as metagaming is telling your party OOC how many hit points you have remaining the healer choosing who to heal and with what spells based on the information. Your character doesn’t know that number. A lot of times all you really know IC is if someone has less than half of their hit points remaining and a vague idea that barbarians can take more hits than wizards.
Obviously there are scenarios where this doesn’t hold but I find in general that metagaming which benefits everyone, doesn’t completely ruin encounters, and is done with an excuse that your character would actually reasonably do is typically okay.
Another example. I remember in one game we were trying to open a creaky rusty door quietly. Someone asked if anyone had oil. We all checked our inventory and nobody did. He explained that my character in heavy armor would likely have some because regular maintenance of it would require that. Which seemed fine. The DM agreed. So my character hands his character some oil.
It’s funny. I know a lot of players who think like you, but I and many others go in the completely opposite direction. The tension in my combat encounters has increased significantly since my group and I started to only give vague health info. Suddenly, it’s a surprise agin when a character goes down and you can almost feel the tension every round when another hidden death save is rolled!
Combat damage is random and it’s still dramatic and exciting knowing everyone’s health. I think hiding death saves is better than hiding health though. Because in reality everyone would act super urgently seeing a friend collapse. When I’m DMing I explicitly say when things are bloodied (less than ½) and double bloodied (less than ¼) in addition to qualitative explanations.
I think there are numbers worth hiding, I just don’t think character health is one. Like I think stealth rolls should be hidden. You shouldn’t have an idea that you’re not hiding well.
Like I think stealth rolls should be hidden. You shouldn’t have an idea that you’re not hiding well.
I don’t have the players actually make the stealth roll until something opposes it. They’re doing the best they can. Here comes the guard. Roll, please.
Yes. It’s so annoying. A lot of good roleplaying is imagining a way your character would have/know something. Obviously you can take it too far, but it’s an important skills for keeping the game moving. Like, say one character is obviously falling for some sort of trap by a doppelganger. OOC you either know or are suspicious, but IC you don’t. You want to go with them so they aren’t alone. But you can’t just say that. Say something like, “I’ll tag along, I’m getting stir crazy and could go for a walk.” It’s technically metagaming but it’s a very different situation than doing something like telling that character not to go because the other person is suspicious when you genuinely have no reason to think they are.
Another good example of metagaming that so many people view as okay that they don’t even view it as metagaming is telling your party OOC how many hit points you have remaining the healer choosing who to heal and with what spells based on the information. Your character doesn’t know that number. A lot of times all you really know IC is if someone has less than half of their hit points remaining and a vague idea that barbarians can take more hits than wizards.
Obviously there are scenarios where this doesn’t hold but I find in general that metagaming which benefits everyone, doesn’t completely ruin encounters, and is done with an excuse that your character would actually reasonably do is typically okay.
Another example. I remember in one game we were trying to open a creaky rusty door quietly. Someone asked if anyone had oil. We all checked our inventory and nobody did. He explained that my character in heavy armor would likely have some because regular maintenance of it would require that. Which seemed fine. The DM agreed. So my character hands his character some oil.
“Dude, you took a big hit, How’re you feelin’?”
“On a scale of 1 to 57, I’d say I’m about a 35”
It’s funny. I know a lot of players who think like you, but I and many others go in the completely opposite direction. The tension in my combat encounters has increased significantly since my group and I started to only give vague health info. Suddenly, it’s a surprise agin when a character goes down and you can almost feel the tension every round when another hidden death save is rolled!
Combat damage is random and it’s still dramatic and exciting knowing everyone’s health. I think hiding death saves is better than hiding health though. Because in reality everyone would act super urgently seeing a friend collapse. When I’m DMing I explicitly say when things are bloodied (less than ½) and double bloodied (less than ¼) in addition to qualitative explanations.
I think there are numbers worth hiding, I just don’t think character health is one. Like I think stealth rolls should be hidden. You shouldn’t have an idea that you’re not hiding well.
I don’t have the players actually make the stealth roll until something opposes it. They’re doing the best they can. Here comes the guard. Roll, please.
That’s how I did it when I DMed. On the off chance they need to make a check and I don’t want to alert them I just use passive or roll for them.