The ability and some spells contradict each other. So would Dominate be the generic and Stillness of mind the specific? or the other way ? That would be for the individual DM to judge.
Stillness of mind gives the player character the abiltiy to use its action for one specific purpose. Dominate says i't cant use it's action for anything.
Me, I'd have ruled the one action Stillness of Mind allows the character to take , is more specific than "take no other actions". It also tend to fit better with a rule of cool. So a monk with stillness of mind could choose to go ahead and use its action to follow the commands of its dominator, or use it to end the effect.
RP wise, the monk might react to a slowly growing sense that something is wrong, out of balance. Or Its agaisnt its nature. Or it could be that it immediately recognized a foreing pressure and acted agianst it. Thats all flavour, and for the player do deal with. Mechanics wise, the player can shoose freely when its monk uses the ability or not.(during its own turn, obviously )
Having had reason to look at it recently. And not thinking of this thread until this popped up for me again today.
If your Talking about the Dominate Person Spell. This is not actually what it says.
It only doesn't take another action if you specifically use your action to basically take fine control of them for a single round. Any thing outside of that round. They do not function under this ruling. They function under the more general charm rules that without some kind of specific or general command to do something they protect themselves and preserve themselves to the best of their Ability. Which means that Stillness of Mind do not actually contradict at all and in fact would imply that it should fire off Stillness of Mind because that is part of defending and preserving themselves to the best of their ability. Despite it not necessarily being explicitly what the spell caster wanted.
That actually solves the issue of what your allowed to do with the spell. Any turn that the spell caster is not actively controlling you but just issuing commands that do not contradict action economy wise with using it. You are not under the restriction of "you cannot do anything else" as it keeps being stated as and on turns they are causing your action economy being used. If They are actively controlling you they are basically doing your entire turn for you as if they were you. Which is a step above and beyond simply being charmed and requires their own Action and possibly Reaction to do so.
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
The ability and some spells contradict each other. So would Dominate be the generic and Stillness of mind the specific? or the other way ? That would be for the individual DM to judge.
Stillness of mind gives the player character the abiltiy to use its action for one specific purpose. Dominate says i't cant use it's action for anything.
Me, I'd have ruled the one action Stillness of Mind allows the character to take , is more specific than "take no other actions". It also tend to fit better with a rule of cool. So a monk with stillness of mind could choose to go ahead and use its action to follow the commands of its dominator, or use it to end the effect.
RP wise, the monk might react to a slowly growing sense that something is wrong, out of balance. Or Its agaisnt its nature. Or it could be that it immediately recognized a foreing pressure and acted agianst it. Thats all flavour, and for the player do deal with. Mechanics wise, the player can shoose freely when its monk uses the ability or not.(during its own turn, obviously )
Having had reason to look at it recently. And not thinking of this thread until this popped up for me again today.
If your Talking about the Dominate Person Spell. This is not actually what it says.
It only doesn't take another action if you specifically use your action to basically take fine control of them for a single round. Any thing outside of that round. They do not function under this ruling. They function under the more general charm rules that without some kind of specific or general command to do something they protect themselves and preserve themselves to the best of their Ability. Which means that Stillness of Mind do not actually contradict at all and in fact would imply that it should fire off Stillness of Mind because that is part of defending and preserving themselves to the best of their ability. Despite it not necessarily being explicitly what the spell caster wanted.
That actually solves the issue of what your allowed to do with the spell. Any turn that the spell caster is not actively controlling you but just issuing commands that do not contradict action economy wise with using it. You are not under the restriction of "you cannot do anything else" as it keeps being stated as and on turns they are causing your action economy being used. If They are actively controlling you they are basically doing your entire turn for you as if they were you. Which is a step above and beyond simply being charmed and requires their own Action and possibly Reaction to do so.
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
So your Justification about why it can't be done is a lie about what any intelligent creature would do through metagaming by knowing how the Spell works from an Out of Game Perspective. Your Fix for what you claim is metagaming is literally to metagame. Think about that for a moment.
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
The second one is dangerous as the caster is usually once of the target's friends.
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
The second one is dangerous as the caster is usually once of the target's friends.
Fair but I'm saying it's trivial with dominate to make it so the monk is using their actions for other things.
It's pretty easy to justify the monk not being able to use stillness when dominated.
It's not metagaming it's just using the ability as it's intended. Why Dominate something if you don't use it to make the person do what you want it to do?
It's much easier to use other spells to take someone out of a fight that's not a 5th level spell.
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
The second one is dangerous as the caster is usually once of the target's friends.
Fair but I'm saying it's trivial with dominate to make it so the monk is using their actions for other things.
It's pretty easy to justify the monk not being able to use stillness when dominated.
It's not metagaming it's just using the ability as it's intended. Why Dominate something if you don't use it to make the person do what you want it to do?
It's much easier to use other spells to take someone out of a fight that's not a 5th level spell.
Making them Do what you want them to do is not the same thing as metagaming a command thta makes them do what you want them to do but also fully blocks abilities of theirs working and goes farther than what most actual dominate commands would be because of knowing Intracacies about the control and those abilities that your Character either likely does not or even cannot know. Like the Fact that the Monks Stillness of mind Requires an Action and wording things in distinct specific ways to be sure to remove all chance of using that action, even inadvertantly to stop you. All Characters are really going to know is that Monks have an ability to focus and remove Charm Effects. They are not going to know the game mechanics and action economy to stop it from happening.
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
The second one is dangerous as the caster is usually once of the target's friends.
Fair but I'm saying it's trivial with dominate to make it so the monk is using their actions for other things.
It's pretty easy to justify the monk not being able to use stillness when dominated.
It's not metagaming it's just using the ability as it's intended. Why Dominate something if you don't use it to make the person do what you want it to do?
It's much easier to use other spells to take someone out of a fight that's not a 5th level spell.
Making them Do what you want them to do is not the same thing as metagaming a command thta makes them do what you want them to do but also fully blocks abilities of theirs working and goes farther than what most actual dominate commands would be because of knowing Intracacies about the control and those abilities that your Character either likely does not or even cannot know. Like the Fact that the Monks Stillness of mind Requires an Action and wording things in distinct specific ways to be sure to remove all chance of using that action, even inadvertantly to stop you. All Characters are really going to know is that Monks have an ability to focus and remove Charm Effects. They are not going to know the game mechanics and action economy to stop it from happening.
They do know that they can get the creature to do whatever they want which is the exact purpose of the spell...
So why not have them do something for you each round?
Makes no sense to use a 5th level spell to do nothing... And for sure a spellcaster who got to that level to not know what to do with the spell
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
The second one is dangerous as the caster is usually once of the target's friends.
Fair but I'm saying it's trivial with dominate to make it so the monk is using their actions for other things.
It's pretty easy to justify the monk not being able to use stillness when dominated.
It's not metagaming it's just using the ability as it's intended. Why Dominate something if you don't use it to make the person do what you want it to do?
It's much easier to use other spells to take someone out of a fight that's not a 5th level spell.
Making them Do what you want them to do is not the same thing as metagaming a command thta makes them do what you want them to do but also fully blocks abilities of theirs working and goes farther than what most actual dominate commands would be because of knowing Intracacies about the control and those abilities that your Character either likely does not or even cannot know. Like the Fact that the Monks Stillness of mind Requires an Action and wording things in distinct specific ways to be sure to remove all chance of using that action, even inadvertantly to stop you. All Characters are really going to know is that Monks have an ability to focus and remove Charm Effects. They are not going to know the game mechanics and action economy to stop it from happening.
They do know that they can get the creature to do whatever they want which is the exact purpose of the spell...
So why not have them do something for you each round?
Makes no sense to use a 5th level spell to do nothing... And for sure a spellcaster who got to that level to not know what to do with the spell
Your Character does not know what a round is to regiment such exacting commands and always have something prepared for those dominated to do in those tiny time chunks for the whole length of the spell.
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
The second one is dangerous as the caster is usually once of the target's friends.
Fair but I'm saying it's trivial with dominate to make it so the monk is using their actions for other things.
It's pretty easy to justify the monk not being able to use stillness when dominated.
It's not metagaming it's just using the ability as it's intended. Why Dominate something if you don't use it to make the person do what you want it to do?
It's much easier to use other spells to take someone out of a fight that's not a 5th level spell.
Making them Do what you want them to do is not the same thing as metagaming a command thta makes them do what you want them to do but also fully blocks abilities of theirs working and goes farther than what most actual dominate commands would be because of knowing Intracacies about the control and those abilities that your Character either likely does not or even cannot know. Like the Fact that the Monks Stillness of mind Requires an Action and wording things in distinct specific ways to be sure to remove all chance of using that action, even inadvertantly to stop you. All Characters are really going to know is that Monks have an ability to focus and remove Charm Effects. They are not going to know the game mechanics and action economy to stop it from happening.
They do know that they can get the creature to do whatever they want which is the exact purpose of the spell...
So why not have them do something for you each round?
Makes no sense to use a 5th level spell to do nothing... And for sure a spellcaster who got to that level to not know what to do with the spell
Your Character does not know what a round is to regiment such exacting commands and always have something prepared for those dominated to do in those tiny time chunks for the whole length of the spell.
Yes they would...they know the spell and they know the effects. Thats like saying a fighter doesn't know if it can hit a target 81 ft away with out disadvantage with a shortbow.
To make the silly minutia of the game a point that you have to make your character justify anytime they want to use a skill, spell, ability, or feat is the exact opposite of the intent behind the game...
Do what you want in your games but if my monk player asked "I want to use Stillness of Mind even though I am dominated" I would simply say "No you cannot" and move on.
Simply charmed? Yes because you can still take actions as normal. Frightened? Of course that is a very conscious thing.
"Rulings not rules" is the mantra and what makes sense to you as a DM should be acceptable for your players and if they have a problem with it they can discuss after the game.
Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
The second one is dangerous as the caster is usually once of the target's friends.
Fair but I'm saying it's trivial with dominate to make it so the monk is using their actions for other things.
It's pretty easy to justify the monk not being able to use stillness when dominated.
It's not metagaming it's just using the ability as it's intended. Why Dominate something if you don't use it to make the person do what you want it to do?
It's much easier to use other spells to take someone out of a fight that's not a 5th level spell.
Making them Do what you want them to do is not the same thing as metagaming a command thta makes them do what you want them to do but also fully blocks abilities of theirs working and goes farther than what most actual dominate commands would be because of knowing Intracacies about the control and those abilities that your Character either likely does not or even cannot know. Like the Fact that the Monks Stillness of mind Requires an Action and wording things in distinct specific ways to be sure to remove all chance of using that action, even inadvertantly to stop you. All Characters are really going to know is that Monks have an ability to focus and remove Charm Effects. They are not going to know the game mechanics and action economy to stop it from happening.
They do know that they can get the creature to do whatever they want which is the exact purpose of the spell...
So why not have them do something for you each round?
Makes no sense to use a 5th level spell to do nothing... And for sure a spellcaster who got to that level to not know what to do with the spell
Your Character does not know what a round is to regiment such exacting commands and always have something prepared for those dominated to do in those tiny time chunks for the whole length of the spell.
Yes they would...they know the spell and they know the effects. Thats like saying a fighter doesn't know if it can hit a target 81 ft away with out disadvantage with a shortbow.
To make the silly minutia of the game a point that you have to make your character justify anytime they want to use a skill, spell, ability, or feat is the exact opposite of the intent behind the game...
Do what you want in your games but if my monk player asked "I want to use Stillness of Mind even though I am dominated" I would simply say "No you cannot" and move on.
Simply charmed? Yes because you can still take actions as normal. Frightened? Of course that is a very conscious thing.
"Rulings not rules" is the mantra and what makes sense to you as a DM should be acceptable for your players and if they have a problem with it they can discuss after the game.
A Fighter in Game. Doesn't actually know for certain if they can hit a Target 81 feet away with a short bow without disadvantage. This is for 2 reasons. First they are making an estimation of distance and the difference between 80 feet and 81 feet is narrow and extremely hard to notice. The Second would be they don't know what Disadvantage is. That is entirely a Mechanics thing. That is not actually how they would think about making more difficult blows (those with disadvantage) or the distance their bows fire. That is entirely something thta we as players know that they do not. And we often make decisions based upon that. And to a certain extent that is fine. It's easy to justify. "I'm getting closer because that shot looks to hard for me to make" works... Even if they were just at 80' rather than 81'.
This is just like if you go out into the Real world. If you don't measure out 80' you can make a guess about just where it's at. But it's not going to be exact. And your not going to know if your right on that mark without then having somebody measure it. And your not going to know what is actually the difference of that 80' to 81'. Your Guess on what 80' is could come up short, or it could just as easily be that 81' mark that would give you disadvantage by the mechanical rules. It might even be more than that 81' mark. This is the reason why anybody that needs to know exact distances for any reason always measures it. Often they do it at least twice if it's critically important. Even a person that spends their days measuring out 80' distances all day, while probably being the best at estimating that distance because of high familiarity, is going to measure it out if they are doing some kind of job where it needs to be measured.
"I'm going to pre-plot out everything that my dominated target is going to do in 6 second intervals despite the fact that to me everybody responds and does things at slightly different rates" Is not easy to justify.
What your Arguing here is quite literally an argument of "Metagaming is good for me but it's bad for you. Because my Metagaming helps me to win and do what I want. your metagaming doesn't help me or stops me from winning. Only My Metagaming is right and should be allowed, specially if it stops yours."
Metagaming does not help "win" in any way shape or form.
Metagaming is a tool, just dice are a tool and rules are a tool.
You don't actually see the dice rolling on the table when you hear the rolling Thunderwave that hits you. The metagame is to literally read the damage and apply it to your character and saying how much it hurt even though mechanically it's just a number going down that did not affect anything about your character (thankfully so, because those game systems that do are just a downward spiral and are never fun).
Saying metagame should not exist is a bad practice because then you say rules should not exist and that we should put the imagined world above the rules and bend the rules to how one sees the world.
But once one does that. What is the point of playing this specific game? Let's play "make pretend". It has no rules so nothing is forcing us to follow anything and everybody can do as they please. The rules exist for a reason and metagaming exists so we can decide together what the rules should be viewed as in the game world.
This is not the real world because i do not go out and see dragons flying in the air and my mom that lives in the building next to mine does not actually cast vicious mockery at will even if she does deal damage to my psyche just looking at her.
Similarly one does not have arbitrary limits between hitting normally or getting disadvantage to hit. So why are we trying to apply the real world in a gaming world? A game is a game and we are playing it. The game is not above the rules it is governed by it. You should not say "my character does X and they can because i say so, and because i have seen real world people do that" you should say "what rules can i use so that my character can do X?".
The difference between bad metagaming and good metagaming is that bad metagaming exists (as you said) to "win" a game that by definition has no winning condition, and often bad metagaming tries to (as you are doing) enforce "real world" rules over the fictional ones of the fictional universe.
Moreover this is a social game. You can do whatever only as long as everybody is okay with it and once again this is metagaming because if people are not okay with "doing X" you cannot do it period.
I literally took this thread out of the oblivion to show a classic case where people at the table (minus one idiot) agreed that being mass charmed was a bad game experience, because nobody at the table liked getting their characters puppeted, and since nothing in the rules prevented the use of a monk ability to do what the monk did, then the monk could do it. Because the rules said so and because we did some metagaming to check if that was allowed.
We can argue "should he or could he?" all we want but this is a game.
Tell me in which instances of the game you like having your character being charmed without a way out in sight that did not require you to allow your character to be puppeted until a good escape condition was in sight, which might require hours if the idiot in charge of the charming appealed to "common sense"™ every time he gave an order or something. "okay and since you ordered me this then i" "tsk tsk! No, you see... common sense™... dictates that you totally should not doubt because..."
"common sense"™ is the classic call of the person who wishes to impose their own view of how things should work but that the rules do not allow them to work. And the appeal in itself is metagaming. Because if the rules allowed it "common sense" should not be called.
So on average i distrust more people who tell me that "in the real world"™ or "common sense says"™ than any discussion about "what rules can i use to allow my character to do X?" because the first is a "dictat" that tells me the person wants to ignore the rules in favour of admitting reality in a fantasy game so that person can do as they please or prevent what other people say in order to achieve a goal. The second kind of request fosters team game, it is a request for help and we can actually feel like we are helping even while our characters actually do nothing.
Similarly "what is my character motivation?" can be bad or good. "My character would do so" is the classic idiocy said by people who want to do something incredibly stupid and damaging. "Okay, this clashes with my character motives, what can we do in game so that my character would agree to this?" is the request of a team player who wishes to go along with what the team has agreed with the team motives and course of action but also does not wish to twist their character out of shape to do so. In both cases this is metagaming. In one case because the player is feigning in-game ignorance in order to do ... whatever they want ignoring the fact it is a social game. In the second because the player is actually open to advices to achieve the social goals while feigning in-game ignorance but following along the path of the team.
I still don't get why these discussion always devolve into "metagaming bad" when the whole act of roleplaying is all about metagaming and following rules.
It's simply playing the game without a bunch of silly minutiae ruining it.
Except that your Creating Minutiae that work in your favor.
So Which is it? Do silly Minutiae ruin it? Or does it only Ruin it when they are not in your favor?
If it's the first then in the argument of less minutiae there is no reason to not let the Monk have their power and assume you can control their every movement for every exact second so that they can't break the charm. if it's the second? Then your Basically trying to Win at something that doesn't have an actual win condition (and are likely to complain when somebody turns around and uses it against you).
Metagaming does not help "win" in any way shape or form.
Metagaming is a tool, just dice are a tool and rules are a tool.
You don't actually see the dice rolling on the table when you hear the rolling Thunderwave that hits you. The metagame is to literally read the damage and apply it to your character and saying how much it hurt even though mechanically it's just a number going down that did not affect anything about your character (thankfully so, because those game systems that do are just a downward spiral and are never fun).
Saying metagame should not exist is a bad practice because then you say rules should not exist and that we should put the imagined world above the rules and bend the rules to how one sees the world.
But once one does that. What is the point of playing this specific game? Let's play "make pretend". It has no rules so nothing is forcing us to follow anything and everybody can do as they please. The rules exist for a reason and metagaming exists so we can decide together what the rules should be viewed as in the game world.
This is not the real world because i do not go out and see dragons flying in the air and my mom that lives in the building next to mine does not actually cast vicious mockery at will even if she does deal damage to my psyche just looking at her.
Similarly one does not have arbitrary limits between hitting normally or getting disadvantage to hit. So why are we trying to apply the real world in a gaming world? A game is a game and we are playing it. The game is not above the rules it is governed by it. You should not say "my character does X and they can because i say so, and because i have seen real world people do that" you should say "what rules can i use so that my character can do X?".
The difference between bad metagaming and good metagaming is that bad metagaming exists (as you said) to "win" a game that by definition has no winning condition, and often bad metagaming tries to (as you are doing) enforce "real world" rules over the fictional ones of the fictional universe.
Moreover this is a social game. You can do whatever only as long as everybody is okay with it and once again this is metagaming because if people are not okay with "doing X" you cannot do it period.
I literally took this thread out of the oblivion to show a classic case where people at the table (minus one idiot) agreed that being mass charmed was a bad game experience, because nobody at the table liked getting their characters puppeted, and since nothing in the rules prevented the use of a monk ability to do what the monk did, then the monk could do it. Because the rules said so and because we did some metagaming to check if that was allowed.
We can argue "should he or could he?" all we want but this is a game.
Tell me in which instances of the game you like having your character being charmed without a way out in sight that did not require you to allow your character to be puppeted until a good escape condition was in sight, which might require hours if the idiot in charge of the charming appealed to "common sense"™ every time he gave an order or something. "okay and since you ordered me this then i" "tsk tsk! No, you see... common sense™... dictates that you totally should not doubt because..."
"common sense"™ is the classic call of the person who wishes to impose their own view of how things should work but that the rules do not allow them to work. And the appeal in itself is metagaming. Because if the rules allowed it "common sense" should not be called.
So on average i distrust more people who tell me that "in the real world"™ or "common sense says"™ than any discussion about "what rules can i use to allow my character to do X?" because the first is a "dictat" that tells me the person wants to ignore the rules in favour of admitting reality in a fantasy game so that person can do as they please or prevent what other people say in order to achieve a goal. The second kind of request fosters team game, it is a request for help and we can actually feel like we are helping even while our characters actually do nothing.
Similarly "what is my character motivation?" can be bad or good. "My character would do so" is the classic idiocy said by people who want to do something incredibly stupid and damaging. "Okay, this clashes with my character motives, what can we do in game so that my character would agree to this?" is the request of a team player who wishes to go along with what the team has agreed with the team motives and course of action but also does not wish to twist their character out of shape to do so. In both cases this is metagaming. In one case because the player is feigning in-game ignorance in order to do ... whatever they want ignoring the fact it is a social game. In the second because the player is actually open to advices to achieve the social goals while feigning in-game ignorance but following along the path of the team.
I still don't get why these discussion always devolve into "metagaming bad" when the whole act of roleplaying is all about metagaming and following rules.
I never said that Metagaming in general is bad. I'm aware that it governs a fair bit of a game. But there are points where Metagaming goes too far.
Noting that the Character because of a momentary element of Realism is not going to actually know the difference between 80' and 81' Does not somehow just automatically cause the issue of trying to avoid the Rules. It's often reinforcing them. Sometimes that line Between the Mechanics and that Realistic piece of Information is just as important. Specially in a Social game. It's part of that "good metagaming" that you are arguing for. You may know the rules but your character does not. Not Everything about your character should be argued for just because it's in the rules. It's usually that same basic mentality that causes people to pull the whole "Well my Character would do it." justification because the rules doesn't specifically say they can't. But that Moment of Realism and Common Sense would usually tell them that they shouldn't do something even if the rules state that they can. Moments of Realism are no more all bad than Metagaming is. They are just another part of metagaming. But they are Metagaming in the direction of story just as your arguing for. The Justifications of Doing something despite the fact that it doesn't match your characters overall motivation is an Example of Metagaming in the Favor of Story by using A moment of Common Sense or Realism. if it Doesn't work even after that moment of Common Sense or Realism then there may be a problem. But it's these moments of Common Sense and Realism that has your character go "that's not really of interest to me. But i'll go along with it for the group." Despite that mechanically there is nothing there to aid it.
Those Moments of Realism can and often times are just as important for Avoiding bad Metagaming and promoting good metagaming. As Metagaming is used to Justify certain kinds of actions based upon the rules in play or to attempt to Justify Abusing the Rules. The Two go hand in hand and need some balance. If your Truely playing the Game as a Social Experience and not just a combat board game or something you Need Both and they are almost never separated. You need both in Balancing Measure.
It's simply playing the game without a bunch of silly minutiae ruining it.
Except that your Creating Minutiae that work in your favor.
So Which is it? Do silly Minutiae ruin it? Or does it only Ruin it when they are not in your favor?
If it's the first then in the argument of less minutiae there is no reason to not let the Monk have their power and assume you can control their every movement for every exact second so that they can't break the charm. if it's the second? Then your Basically trying to Win at something that doesn't have an actual win condition (and are likely to complain when somebody turns around and uses it against you).
No Minutiae....you are dominated and cannot act on your own...its simple and done.
Its the exact same as the fighter asking "Are they within 80ft?" and for some reason you do not just give them a "yes" or "no" answer but instead make them fire a shot and see if they have DIS....its not fun for the fighter and its kind of a dick move on your part as a DM.
Its not "Metagaming" to know if you are in DIS range for a shot to make a decision its just a mechanical fact that either exists or doesn't. Making them work through it serves no purpose.
Just like having to argue with a player that a spell that states you are fully dominated and cannot take your own actions and only follow what the caster has told you that somehow means you can use your action to clearly do something the caster would never want you to do in that situation.
I am almost always mused when folks try to toss out a class or race ability and entirely negate it because it hinders THEIR angle of play, from either side of the table. It exudes an arrogance that THEY know MUCH better than the game designers how things SHOULD work. I guess it's good that DM's can house rule anything they like, to prevent as-written features from ruining their fun. If a DM however, told me when I gained the feature, it would not work as stated, I would be pretty upset. If an agreement or compromise that made sense wasn't reached, the party would be short one Monk at that point. I don't do overbearing dictators.
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I am almost always mused when folks try to toss out a class or race ability and entirely negate it because it hinders THEIR angle of play, from either side of the table. It exudes an arrogance that THEY know MUCH better than the game designers how things SHOULD work. I guess it's good that DM's can house rule anything they like, to prevent as-written features from ruining their fun. If a DM however, told me when I gained the feature, it would not work as stated, I would be pretty upset. If an agreement or compromise that made sense wasn't reached, the party would be short one Monk at that point. I don't do overbearing dictators.
I'm not sure how playing the spell as written is being a dictator?
knowing if you are in disadvantage to fire an arrow totally is metagaming.
But it is the kind of metagaming which is good and actually helps.
The problem comes when someone points at metagaming as the problem.
That is like saying that a person who shouts "fire" is the problem not that a person can shout "fire" even if there is no fire going on, and therefore the solution should be to remove the fire alarms so that nobody can abuse them.
Metagaming is not "a nuisance" it is baseline essential to roleplay. Unless you like going so far into immersion that you have no character sheets, all the rolls are rolled behind the screen and you can never get out of character as long as you are in session, also if you die you must commit sudoku.
I am almost always mused when folks try to toss out a class or race ability and entirely negate it because it hinders THEIR angle of play, from either side of the table. It exudes an arrogance that THEY know MUCH better than the game designers how things SHOULD work. I guess it's good that DM's can house rule anything they like, to prevent as-written features from ruining their fun. If a DM however, told me when I gained the feature, it would not work as stated, I would be pretty upset. If an agreement or compromise that made sense wasn't reached, the party would be short one Monk at that point. I don't do overbearing dictators.
I'm not sure how playing the spell as written is being a dictator?
Would tie in with ignoring the entirety of the post aside from the conclusion based on a set of circumstances. Also misplaying the spell slightly (if it says "charmed" it falls under the ability, like it or not) by dismissing a class feature. Not unlike saying the Barbarian can't Rage because the Gnome BBEG is too cute.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
It's simply playing the game without a bunch of silly minutiae ruining it.
Except that your Creating Minutiae that work in your favor.
So Which is it? Do silly Minutiae ruin it? Or does it only Ruin it when they are not in your favor?
If it's the first then in the argument of less minutiae there is no reason to not let the Monk have their power and assume you can control their every movement for every exact second so that they can't break the charm. if it's the second? Then your Basically trying to Win at something that doesn't have an actual win condition (and are likely to complain when somebody turns around and uses it against you).
No Minutiae....you are dominated and cannot act on your own...its simple and done.
Its the exact same as the fighter asking "Are they within 80ft?" and for some reason you do not just give them a "yes" or "no" answer but instead make them fire a shot and see if they have DIS....its not fun for the fighter and its kind of a dick move on your part as a DM.
Its not "Metagaming" to know if you are in DIS range for a shot to make a decision its just a mechanical fact that either exists or doesn't. Making them work through it serves no purpose.
Just like having to argue with a player that a spell that states you are fully dominated and cannot take your own actions and only follow what the caster has told you that somehow means you can use your action to clearly do something the caster would never want you to do in that situation.
Its a silly use of time and energy.
It's not Simple. It's not Done. It's Minutiae both in How you have stated that you want and will use it. And also in all of the things that your leaving out to reach your supposed conclusion of simple. There are a lot of little details you have to actively ignore to reach the conclusion of "You can't do it and it's done." Because that's not what the spell says. And it's not what the Condition Says either.
And it's not Metagaming for you to Know your Character is at that 80' distance. it is however Metagaming for your Character to know that. It's completely fair and not a dick move at all to say "Your Pretty Damned Close to it and possibly over. You can't be sure. But you can use your action/bonus action/reaction to make a Perception/Investigation check to figure it out." That's actually in character and by the rules. Your Basically saying the Rules are being a prick because they didn't side with you even though mechanically you know as a player you can shoot out to 80' without disadvantage. Something your character knows nothing about. making Them "work through it" as you put it. Serves More than One Purpose. it both can heighten tension because they are uncertain about the shot just as the character itself should be. It also Serves the Purpose of other Mechanics that do not vanish from the game world just because you've entered "combat mode" so to speak. If They aren't sure and their Character isn't sure and it's right on their Line. It's actually Narratively Useful and Purposeful to let them have that uncertainty and either try to solve it, take the shot despite not knowing, or move to a position where they are more certain which may be as little as 5 or 10 feet ahead of where they are now where they are comfortably certain they can make the shot with much less difficulty.
And your Again Mis-stating the spell. I linked it because I realized the mis-statements so that everybody could be caught up on it. That's not actually what the spell says. which means that your using the spell wrong. And your using Minutiae of various Omissions to make it function the way you want and Minutiae of Out of Character Informational fine details to abuse it against characters. This is All Metagaming and the wrong kind of Metagaming at that.
So all of this. Is how yes. It's Minutiae and your argument saying it's not is all either a bold faced lie on your part or some really heavy ignorance that even showing you how it's wrong doesn't seem to be alleviating.
I am almost always mused when folks try to toss out a class or race ability and entirely negate it because it hinders THEIR angle of play, from either side of the table. It exudes an arrogance that THEY know MUCH better than the game designers how things SHOULD work. I guess it's good that DM's can house rule anything they like, to prevent as-written features from ruining their fun. If a DM however, told me when I gained the feature, it would not work as stated, I would be pretty upset. If an agreement or compromise that made sense wasn't reached, the party would be short one Monk at that point. I don't do overbearing dictators.
I'm not sure how playing the spell as written is being a dictator?
Would tie in with ignoring the entirety of the post aside from the conclusion based on a set of circumstances. Also misplaying the spell slightly (if it says "charmed" it falls under the ability, like it or not) by dismissing a class feature. Not unlike saying the Barbarian can't Rage because the Gnome BBEG is too cute.
I feel old. I see this post and all I can think is "You missed the Minsc Reference by not suggesting the Rage is impossible because of the Calming nature of the Miniature Giant Space Hamster and automatically activated when it is threatened."
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Any intelligent creature will just say "run away until you collapse" or "Attack your friends until they are dead" and they would do it and not use Stillness.
It's not hard to make them use their action doing other things
So your Justification about why it can't be done is a lie about what any intelligent creature would do through metagaming by knowing how the Spell works from an Out of Game Perspective. Your Fix for what you claim is metagaming is literally to metagame. Think about that for a moment.
The second one is dangerous as the caster is usually once of the target's friends.
Fair but I'm saying it's trivial with dominate to make it so the monk is using their actions for other things.
It's pretty easy to justify the monk not being able to use stillness when dominated.
It's not metagaming it's just using the ability as it's intended. Why Dominate something if you don't use it to make the person do what you want it to do?
It's much easier to use other spells to take someone out of a fight that's not a 5th level spell.
Making them Do what you want them to do is not the same thing as metagaming a command thta makes them do what you want them to do but also fully blocks abilities of theirs working and goes farther than what most actual dominate commands would be because of knowing Intracacies about the control and those abilities that your Character either likely does not or even cannot know. Like the Fact that the Monks Stillness of mind Requires an Action and wording things in distinct specific ways to be sure to remove all chance of using that action, even inadvertantly to stop you. All Characters are really going to know is that Monks have an ability to focus and remove Charm Effects. They are not going to know the game mechanics and action economy to stop it from happening.
They do know that they can get the creature to do whatever they want which is the exact purpose of the spell...
So why not have them do something for you each round?
Makes no sense to use a 5th level spell to do nothing... And for sure a spellcaster who got to that level to not know what to do with the spell
Your Character does not know what a round is to regiment such exacting commands and always have something prepared for those dominated to do in those tiny time chunks for the whole length of the spell.
Yes they would...they know the spell and they know the effects. Thats like saying a fighter doesn't know if it can hit a target 81 ft away with out disadvantage with a shortbow.
To make the silly minutia of the game a point that you have to make your character justify anytime they want to use a skill, spell, ability, or feat is the exact opposite of the intent behind the game...
Do what you want in your games but if my monk player asked "I want to use Stillness of Mind even though I am dominated" I would simply say "No you cannot" and move on.
Simply charmed? Yes because you can still take actions as normal. Frightened? Of course that is a very conscious thing.
"Rulings not rules" is the mantra and what makes sense to you as a DM should be acceptable for your players and if they have a problem with it they can discuss after the game.
A Fighter in Game. Doesn't actually know for certain if they can hit a Target 81 feet away with a short bow without disadvantage. This is for 2 reasons. First they are making an estimation of distance and the difference between 80 feet and 81 feet is narrow and extremely hard to notice. The Second would be they don't know what Disadvantage is. That is entirely a Mechanics thing. That is not actually how they would think about making more difficult blows (those with disadvantage) or the distance their bows fire. That is entirely something thta we as players know that they do not. And we often make decisions based upon that. And to a certain extent that is fine. It's easy to justify. "I'm getting closer because that shot looks to hard for me to make" works... Even if they were just at 80' rather than 81'.
This is just like if you go out into the Real world. If you don't measure out 80' you can make a guess about just where it's at. But it's not going to be exact. And your not going to know if your right on that mark without then having somebody measure it. And your not going to know what is actually the difference of that 80' to 81'. Your Guess on what 80' is could come up short, or it could just as easily be that 81' mark that would give you disadvantage by the mechanical rules. It might even be more than that 81' mark. This is the reason why anybody that needs to know exact distances for any reason always measures it. Often they do it at least twice if it's critically important. Even a person that spends their days measuring out 80' distances all day, while probably being the best at estimating that distance because of high familiarity, is going to measure it out if they are doing some kind of job where it needs to be measured.
"I'm going to pre-plot out everything that my dominated target is going to do in 6 second intervals despite the fact that to me everybody responds and does things at slightly different rates" Is not easy to justify.
What your Arguing here is quite literally an argument of "Metagaming is good for me but it's bad for you. Because my Metagaming helps me to win and do what I want. your metagaming doesn't help me or stops me from winning. Only My Metagaming is right and should be allowed, specially if it stops yours."
It's really not.
It's simply playing the game without a bunch of silly minutiae ruining it.
Metagaming does not help "win" in any way shape or form.
Metagaming is a tool, just dice are a tool and rules are a tool.
You don't actually see the dice rolling on the table when you hear the rolling Thunderwave that hits you. The metagame is to literally read the damage and apply it to your character and saying how much it hurt even though mechanically it's just a number going down that did not affect anything about your character (thankfully so, because those game systems that do are just a downward spiral and are never fun).
Saying metagame should not exist is a bad practice because then you say rules should not exist and that we should put the imagined world above the rules and bend the rules to how one sees the world.
But once one does that. What is the point of playing this specific game? Let's play "make pretend". It has no rules so nothing is forcing us to follow anything and everybody can do as they please. The rules exist for a reason and metagaming exists so we can decide together what the rules should be viewed as in the game world.
This is not the real world because i do not go out and see dragons flying in the air and my mom that lives in the building next to mine does not actually cast vicious mockery at will even if she does deal damage to my psyche just looking at her.
Similarly one does not have arbitrary limits between hitting normally or getting disadvantage to hit. So why are we trying to apply the real world in a gaming world? A game is a game and we are playing it. The game is not above the rules it is governed by it. You should not say "my character does X and they can because i say so, and because i have seen real world people do that" you should say "what rules can i use so that my character can do X?".
The difference between bad metagaming and good metagaming is that bad metagaming exists (as you said) to "win" a game that by definition has no winning condition, and often bad metagaming tries to (as you are doing) enforce "real world" rules over the fictional ones of the fictional universe.
Moreover this is a social game. You can do whatever only as long as everybody is okay with it and once again this is metagaming because if people are not okay with "doing X" you cannot do it period.
I literally took this thread out of the oblivion to show a classic case where people at the table (minus one idiot) agreed that being mass charmed was a bad game experience, because nobody at the table liked getting their characters puppeted, and since nothing in the rules prevented the use of a monk ability to do what the monk did, then the monk could do it. Because the rules said so and because we did some metagaming to check if that was allowed.
We can argue "should he or could he?" all we want but this is a game.
Tell me in which instances of the game you like having your character being charmed without a way out in sight that did not require you to allow your character to be puppeted until a good escape condition was in sight, which might require hours if the idiot in charge of the charming appealed to "common sense"™ every time he gave an order or something. "okay and since you ordered me this then i" "tsk tsk! No, you see... common sense™... dictates that you totally should not doubt because..."
"common sense"™ is the classic call of the person who wishes to impose their own view of how things should work but that the rules do not allow them to work. And the appeal in itself is metagaming. Because if the rules allowed it "common sense" should not be called.
So on average i distrust more people who tell me that "in the real world"™ or "common sense says"™ than any discussion about "what rules can i use to allow my character to do X?" because the first is a "dictat" that tells me the person wants to ignore the rules in favour of admitting reality in a fantasy game so that person can do as they please or prevent what other people say in order to achieve a goal. The second kind of request fosters team game, it is a request for help and we can actually feel like we are helping even while our characters actually do nothing.
Similarly "what is my character motivation?" can be bad or good. "My character would do so" is the classic idiocy said by people who want to do something incredibly stupid and damaging. "Okay, this clashes with my character motives, what can we do in game so that my character would agree to this?" is the request of a team player who wishes to go along with what the team has agreed with the team motives and course of action but also does not wish to twist their character out of shape to do so. In both cases this is metagaming. In one case because the player is feigning in-game ignorance in order to do ... whatever they want ignoring the fact it is a social game. In the second because the player is actually open to advices to achieve the social goals while feigning in-game ignorance but following along the path of the team.
I still don't get why these discussion always devolve into "metagaming bad" when the whole act of roleplaying is all about metagaming and following rules.
Except that your Creating Minutiae that work in your favor.
So Which is it? Do silly Minutiae ruin it? Or does it only Ruin it when they are not in your favor?
If it's the first then in the argument of less minutiae there is no reason to not let the Monk have their power and assume you can control their every movement for every exact second so that they can't break the charm. if it's the second? Then your Basically trying to Win at something that doesn't have an actual win condition (and are likely to complain when somebody turns around and uses it against you).
I never said that Metagaming in general is bad. I'm aware that it governs a fair bit of a game. But there are points where Metagaming goes too far.
Noting that the Character because of a momentary element of Realism is not going to actually know the difference between 80' and 81' Does not somehow just automatically cause the issue of trying to avoid the Rules. It's often reinforcing them. Sometimes that line Between the Mechanics and that Realistic piece of Information is just as important. Specially in a Social game. It's part of that "good metagaming" that you are arguing for. You may know the rules but your character does not. Not Everything about your character should be argued for just because it's in the rules. It's usually that same basic mentality that causes people to pull the whole "Well my Character would do it." justification because the rules doesn't specifically say they can't. But that Moment of Realism and Common Sense would usually tell them that they shouldn't do something even if the rules state that they can. Moments of Realism are no more all bad than Metagaming is. They are just another part of metagaming. But they are Metagaming in the direction of story just as your arguing for. The Justifications of Doing something despite the fact that it doesn't match your characters overall motivation is an Example of Metagaming in the Favor of Story by using A moment of Common Sense or Realism. if it Doesn't work even after that moment of Common Sense or Realism then there may be a problem. But it's these moments of Common Sense and Realism that has your character go "that's not really of interest to me. But i'll go along with it for the group." Despite that mechanically there is nothing there to aid it.
Those Moments of Realism can and often times are just as important for Avoiding bad Metagaming and promoting good metagaming. As Metagaming is used to Justify certain kinds of actions based upon the rules in play or to attempt to Justify Abusing the Rules. The Two go hand in hand and need some balance. If your Truely playing the Game as a Social Experience and not just a combat board game or something you Need Both and they are almost never separated. You need both in Balancing Measure.
No Minutiae....you are dominated and cannot act on your own...its simple and done.
Its the exact same as the fighter asking "Are they within 80ft?" and for some reason you do not just give them a "yes" or "no" answer but instead make them fire a shot and see if they have DIS....its not fun for the fighter and its kind of a dick move on your part as a DM.
Its not "Metagaming" to know if you are in DIS range for a shot to make a decision its just a mechanical fact that either exists or doesn't. Making them work through it serves no purpose.
Just like having to argue with a player that a spell that states you are fully dominated and cannot take your own actions and only follow what the caster has told you that somehow means you can use your action to clearly do something the caster would never want you to do in that situation.
Its a silly use of time and energy.
I would like to add: Hee hee hee hee hee
I am almost always mused when folks try to toss out a class or race ability and entirely negate it because it hinders THEIR angle of play, from either side of the table. It exudes an arrogance that THEY know MUCH better than the game designers how things SHOULD work. I guess it's good that DM's can house rule anything they like, to prevent as-written features from ruining their fun. If a DM however, told me when I gained the feature, it would not work as stated, I would be pretty upset. If an agreement or compromise that made sense wasn't reached, the party would be short one Monk at that point. I don't do overbearing dictators.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I'm not sure how playing the spell as written is being a dictator?
knowing if you are in disadvantage to fire an arrow totally is metagaming.
But it is the kind of metagaming which is good and actually helps.
The problem comes when someone points at metagaming as the problem.
That is like saying that a person who shouts "fire" is the problem not that a person can shout "fire" even if there is no fire going on, and therefore the solution should be to remove the fire alarms so that nobody can abuse them.
Metagaming is not "a nuisance" it is baseline essential to roleplay. Unless you like going so far into immersion that you have no character sheets, all the rolls are rolled behind the screen and you can never get out of character as long as you are in session, also if you die you must commit sudoku.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/711/744/c65.jpg
Would tie in with ignoring the entirety of the post aside from the conclusion based on a set of circumstances. Also misplaying the spell slightly (if it says "charmed" it falls under the ability, like it or not) by dismissing a class feature. Not unlike saying the Barbarian can't Rage because the Gnome BBEG is too cute.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
It's not Simple. It's not Done. It's Minutiae both in How you have stated that you want and will use it. And also in all of the things that your leaving out to reach your supposed conclusion of simple. There are a lot of little details you have to actively ignore to reach the conclusion of "You can't do it and it's done." Because that's not what the spell says. And it's not what the Condition Says either.
And it's not Metagaming for you to Know your Character is at that 80' distance. it is however Metagaming for your Character to know that. It's completely fair and not a dick move at all to say "Your Pretty Damned Close to it and possibly over. You can't be sure. But you can use your action/bonus action/reaction to make a Perception/Investigation check to figure it out." That's actually in character and by the rules. Your Basically saying the Rules are being a prick because they didn't side with you even though mechanically you know as a player you can shoot out to 80' without disadvantage. Something your character knows nothing about. making Them "work through it" as you put it. Serves More than One Purpose. it both can heighten tension because they are uncertain about the shot just as the character itself should be. It also Serves the Purpose of other Mechanics that do not vanish from the game world just because you've entered "combat mode" so to speak. If They aren't sure and their Character isn't sure and it's right on their Line. It's actually Narratively Useful and Purposeful to let them have that uncertainty and either try to solve it, take the shot despite not knowing, or move to a position where they are more certain which may be as little as 5 or 10 feet ahead of where they are now where they are comfortably certain they can make the shot with much less difficulty.
And your Again Mis-stating the spell. I linked it because I realized the mis-statements so that everybody could be caught up on it. That's not actually what the spell says. which means that your using the spell wrong. And your using Minutiae of various Omissions to make it function the way you want and Minutiae of Out of Character Informational fine details to abuse it against characters. This is All Metagaming and the wrong kind of Metagaming at that.
So all of this. Is how yes. It's Minutiae and your argument saying it's not is all either a bold faced lie on your part or some really heavy ignorance that even showing you how it's wrong doesn't seem to be alleviating.
I feel old. I see this post and all I can think is "You missed the Minsc Reference by not suggesting the Rage is impossible because of the Calming nature of the Miniature Giant Space Hamster and automatically activated when it is threatened."