I have a long experience with roleplaying and there is one thing that comes up again and again. That player do not stick to there character and jump into some kind of meta-role. They talk as if they were their off-game character. Situations this is happinging are e.g.
The party prepares for a fight. They sit together and talk what to do.
The party sits on a big Table with the King and his consellors.
Up till now I have not game mastered that much but this is something I always found annoying. Other GM's I played with were just not interested in this topic. They let the party members talk as they wish. And this ended up that the best idea to invade a castle came from someone who has never been in a castle with no knowledge skills at all but being an engineer in real life.
I am thinking about telling the player to stick to there characteres, attributes and skills. But I am not sure about the consequences for the game-fun since I have never experienced this kind of game mastering. Maybe the stupid (Int: 7) barbarian can not participate in any conversation anymore.
The second part or rather a consequence of this is that if the player do not stick to there character skill values the game gets more imbalanced. This is why I always hated it to play a bard. I actually like the idea of playing it but it always ends up the same. My primary task (this is how I want to play a bard) is social and knowledge skills. So I lack in damage dealing (compared to a paladin or so) or healing (compared to a cleric) and so forth... No problem, that is not the role I want to fulfill. BUT ... when it comes to social skills and we just play them out (e.g. between each other) everybody else just does not stick to there skills they have on the paper and switch over to there off-game character. Now the fighter and the barbarian have quite good social skills and can do big damage. They are just stealing the role of the bard (not in every situation but in some).
I really would like to know how this is been handled in your parties, since I can imagine, this is not a problem emerging only in my parties.
As a GM I enforce rolls most of the time. You notice something is off with the nice NPC? Roll Sense Motive. You come up with a brilliant complex plan? Roll Int please.
Now this can be restrictive and annoying, especially if a smart player has to wait until the others figure it out too (if at all). But it also gives the others a chance to shine. I don't want a gaming table dominated by players who already dominate social situations in real life all the time - I want everyone to shine.
Technically, you can turn their knowledge against them. When they use out-of-character to finish a troll with fire, it's a variant that actually gets healed by it. But that's not the kind of GM I'd like to be, I prefer to encourage player to adapt their PCs a bit: If you want to tackle the riddles, at least don't dump your PC's Int. If you are expert in some fields of knowledge and can't keep it to yourself, at least give your PC a few ranks accordingly.
Of course, it depends on the players. If they consider OOC talk their natural right, so be it. You can try to make up NPCs who do good IC communication, and it might encourage players to use IC talk too. But I wouldn't be on it.
Finally, sometimes the GM is the reason for OOC talk. My main GM loves to throw unusual (often custom) monsters at us, and I don't trust him with balancing the encounters. Hence I am alway tempted to advise my fellow players - which works best OOC...
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Another option would be for the smart player of a stupid character to say to the player of a smarter character something along the lines of "My character lacks the knowledge to work this out, but surely your character would think of doing something like X."
Ask your players to do their talking in character, if it has to do with the game.
Give a +2 circumstance bonus if the player is being persuasive, and then have them roll the social skill. Personally, I allow suspecting characters without sense motive- the skill is just there to confirm suspicions.
You can also let the player know that it's beginning to be a bit of a problem- an Int 7 fighter is designed to be either in-fun or unpleasant for others out of combat. Recommend the same character as an avenger vigilante for comparable combat with more skills and social bonuses (just always stay in social identity). Don't allow dropping a score below 8. Additionally, background skills are great for rounding characters out a bit, even with low skills.
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I don't mind this. My logic is, characters are smarter than we are, better than navigating their world due to being citizens of their world, while we have a level of removal. The group-mind helps to reduce that level of removal. Discussing tactics before a fight reduces the chance of making bonehead decisions that our characters, being fighting experts after all, would never do. If some guy happens to know a lot more about castle design than most of us, fantastic, that balances out the fact that chances are the rest of the party knows far less about it than our characters probably should. (that said, if a plan is reliant on a ***really** obscure detail of castle design, then yeah, I'd tell players to roll knowledge engineering- but allow it to be rolled unskilled due to them figuring it out by player skill).
What this is, is allowing and rewarding Player skill instead of Character skill. That is an important part of the game, just as important as the stats you have written down.
That said, ultimately a face shouldn't feel useless because they don't get an opportunity to roll because other players made a good diplomatic argument. Diplomacy, Bluff, etc, those cover the DELIVERY of an argument, so even if other players come up with a good argument, they still need the skill to convey it.
Same with knowledge skills against monsters. There's very strict rules on just how much knowledge characters have on monsters, and while I've got nothing against using common sense, if people want to know exact details about what a monster does, they've got to roll. This is where metagaming can really be problematic, because there ARE mechanics here.
At the same time, though, I wouldn't rule that someone has no idea what an orc is, in a world where orcs are super common, just because they lack the right knowledge skill. Otherwise you run into a problem where characters are unrealistically stupid unless they've got the right knowledge skills. And this is where player skill can be allowed to come in- if a player figures out what it is, and it's common enough that it would make sense for characters to know what it is, then there's no harm in confirming it.
Anyway, amazing things happen in this game when 4 or 5 brains combine to work on a problem. It's one of the reasons I GM, to watch the process. So I like to encourage it where I can. That's what makes PF different from a video game, or a board game, is that level of player engagement and creativity.
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+1 to PK The Dragon
I know it seems counter-intuitive at first but sometimes I think it is helpful to remember that a game like pathfinder is not the same as live action role playing or acting. Remember we don't want to restrict people into only playing characters they can socially represent. To put it another way, PCs are an abstract concept and it's not necessary (or desirable in some cases) to restrict them to realist behaviours.
For instance we don't limit conversations to 6 seconds in combat. We also don't limit decision making to 6 secs per round, or we would have a chess clock on the table. The game rules are an abstraction used to represent several things. If a group of adventurers spent every waking hour together for a period of months or years they would get to know each other pretty darn well - in particular their tactics and style of fighting. This can't be replicated 100% in game terms - it can be take into account though.
For this reason it makes sense to encourage players to adopt tactics and communicate among themselves to represent that shared bond and harmonising. By the Gods, I'd much prefer a party that acts considerately to each other and tactically than one that plays every man for himself! It's just more fun and they're less likely to die.
Planning and deciding tactics is fun. In my opinion anyway, at least as fun as rolling dice and making characters. In our group the stuff that takes the time is the deciding what to do, particularly when there are mysterious situations. Predominantly TTRP is a cerebral exercise not a physical one so let's exercise those mental muscles.
Lastly these out of game conversations can represent things other than a straight up conversation between two characters. John asking for help because his character is bleeding out and down to 3 Hp might represent the pangs of guilt the cleric character feels as he watches his friend bleed out, or it might represent the ever widening pool of blood on the floor. You can't rely on the DM remembering to describe these details. Similarly agreeing what order to fight in or to hold actions could represent players discussing combat tactics over the campfire at night and rehearsing scenarios like a football team does.
I've considered restricting decision time making in rounds, time for conversation and player knowledge. Ultimately I don't think these things make the game more fun, or particularly realistic, they just cramp style where we're already required to suspend a lot of disbelief. I think the DM should make it clear where abuses are taking place - for instance where secret knowledge only possessed by one character is passed on before they could physically do so. Other than a rough and ready approach is best.
On the flip side, of course there may be times where you want to actively limit knowledge. To my mind it helps for the DM to spell these circumstances out as they occur. For instance when DMing the curse of Strahd I wanted to retain the fear of the unknown element for people to whom zombies and Vampires are almost a cliche in ttrpg terms let alone film and TV. As a result I took the 'Walking Dead' approach which is to say I asked the players to pretend their characters had never heard of zombies, mummies or vampires and act accordingly when they see them. The walking dead is a lot more terrifying for Rick and crew because they haven't been raised on Zombie films. The characters may have heard vague rumours of necromancers but are only vaguely aware of what they do. Subsequently Strahd is a Devil who feasts on the blood of the innocent and not just a Christopher Lee clone. This does require thought and no little imagination but it's a role playing challenge just like any other but one that I actively discussed and explained at the start.
This is the exception that proves the rule though and becomes more effective and powerful if a light touch is used at other times... enforcement of character knowledge should be used when it will improve the fun or teamwork of the game and not because of arbitrary rules intended to stifle communication.
Just my thoughts.
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For your first example:
Problem solving is a big attraction to a lot of the players of this sort of game. Not letting the players 'play' but demanding that they can only contribute the way their character would (or more precisely the way you decide their character would) is going to ruin a lot of fun.
Let the players participate in the game.
For the second example:
This one is actually a bit trickier. On the one hand, players actually getting to give a rousing speech to motivate the army is often a lot of fun compared to 'I got a 16 on my diplomacy.' On the other hand you don't want to penalize someone who put ranks into a skill, but doesn't have the real life skills to make a good extemporaneous speech or allow players to skip spending character points in a skill just because they are personally good at it. I usually have 2 methods I have to try and bridge this gap.
The first is that I make everyone at least attempt their rousing speech, and then they can roll on it. Usually I don't assign any bonus or penalty based on how well the player did, Once in a while, if a player gives a speech that gives the whole table a great deal of enjoyment or if a player who usually isn't very good at this sort of thing manages to do a pretty good job, I'll give a +2 bonus. Even more rarely, if a player is clearly just 'phoning it in' (usually repeatedly) I might assign a penalty, although I can't remember the last time that happened.
The second is the realization that how the player presents a diplomatic overture can realistically change the DC of the task. This isn't letting the player be 'more persuasive' but rather the player asking for something that is easier/more likely to be granted. For example, if you want to king to lend you troops to help kill your enemy, that is a pretty big favor. If on the other hand, you offer to use your team as a special infiltration unit to allow his army to take a neighboring castle (your enemies) and thus expand his power and land that is more likely to be accepted. It isn't a question here of how persuasive the player is being, it is instead how good of a deal he is offering, and thus how persuasive the character will need to be.
Give me some troops: perhaps DC 25
Give me some troops, I'll help them succeed at risk to myself and you will get land and capture a castle: perhaps DC 20
I also agree with PK the reality is we are probably as smart if not less than our characters and have much less experience of military and battle tactics than they would be so the dean we can out of character strategise better than they could in character is rather presumptuous.
Let people have fun solving problems with their minds don't force them to play dum for verisimilitude, verisitmilitude is just a tool to help things be fun, it should not be a reason to stifle fun.
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To counter a throw-away comment above.
I actually do limit in-character speech to what the player can physically say during their the course of their action. I started using this house-rule because I got tired of listening to players hold entire 15-minute long tactical discussions in the middle of a round of combat (regardless of whether they did it in or out of character).
I also try to discourage any OOC distractions while I'm GMing I have enough trouble hold attention without having to compete with Tap Titans or Facebook (My IRL Charisma isn't all that high).
I have also been known to refrain from using any common game terms (such as monster names) when describing a situation. If a player wants to know whether or not they're fighting a Troll, they have to make the appropriate Knowledge Check.
In a similar vain, as others have suggested above. A player coming up with a well phrased request, or well reasoned argument doesn't negate the need to make a Diplomacy Check. I've had too many Charismatic or Intelligent Players that tried to substitute their character's dumped mental ability score with their own good one. If their character fails the check, the words just don't come out like the player wanted them too (or the NPC just doesn't take them seriously.
These kinds of house rules lead to some strife early on in a campaign, because they sometimes buck tradition. However, in my experience players adapt to them fairly quickly. They build the characters they actually want to play (investing in Diplomacy if they want to be a Diplomat for example). They make decisions more quickly in combat. They Roleplay more and better.
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One solution to the problems is to allow more out of character talk. I know this may be considered bad gaming by a lot of people but it does not have to be. People often like to play characters that have skills they lack, or lack skills they have. Playing a character that can do things you cannot, but wish you could is normal. Often what happens is that someone else in the group does have those skills, but his character does not. This is where out of game talk between players can be useful.
Let’s say you have two players in your group. One is an engineer in real life that is playing a paladin who dumped INT and WIS to the floor and took no knowledge or professional skills. The second is someone who is playing a wizard with a good knowledge engineering, but who personally has absolutely no knowledge in engineering. Drop out of character and discuss the plan let the engineer explain the best way to handle the problem and get the input of the rest of the group. Once the whole group has come up with the plan go back into character and roleplay out the scene letting the Wizard present the ideas as his. Just because the engineer came up with the plan does not mean that the paladin came up with the plan.
Doing this not only improves the game, it also gives the other players a chance to learn something. By limiting a players contribution to only what both the character and the player can do you lower the quality of the game. By allowing the input of the other players it not only improves the game it gives the players a chance to learn and grow.
We don't tend to roleplay our characters with each other, mostly just when they encounter NPCs or some entity they need to interact with in a manner other than skull bashing. As a result, most of their party discussions are essentially out of combat. If they start down a path that clearly their characters would not know in-game, I remind them "but your character doesn't know that, give me a roll." The guys that run our parties (2 very experienced players) are decent (er, honorable) enough to limit the scope of their discussions as well.
EDIT: I should say "most of their party discussions are essentially out-of-game."
Thanks a lot for all your answers, there are some very very interesting ones! I got a lot of great impressions and try to work with my players what is the best solution for us.
Just run the adventure. When you think someone is meta-gaming, then call them on it.