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Theres
2009-09-07, 12:33 PM
My friend who got me and alot of other people into D&D sometimes calls DM meetings(in person). last time we called a meeting however we just broke into playing D&D. what am i supposed to be doing at a DM's meeting

shadow_archmagi
2009-09-07, 12:37 PM
I have no idea.

Judging by the name, I'd guess the DMs are supposed to gather and help each other DM.

"Ah, lovely plot hook there, but you might wish to add kobolds to really give it a zing"

"Kobolds, in my plot arc?"

"It's more likely than you think."

However, judging things by their title, while an entertaining hobby, is probably not a productive one. I have never heard of DM meets before or since.

Comet
2009-09-07, 12:43 PM
Sounds like a some kind of secret society/ cult to me. :smallwink:

I suppose the only reason I could think for a DM's meeting is to compare DMing techniques, stories and such. Or simply to have fun with your fellow DMs.

Tyndmyr
2009-09-07, 12:54 PM
Sounds like a some kind of secret society/ cult to me. :smallwink:

I suppose the only reason I could think for a DM's meeting is to compare DMing techniques, stories and such. Or simply to have fun with your fellow DMs.

He knows too much. Silence him now.

LibraryOgre
2009-09-07, 01:57 PM
Is this a meeting of DMs, or a meeting with the DM about issues in the game?

A meeting of DMs happens all the time, and not just at Hawg Wallers. Heck, my PF DM sends me a fairly constant stream of text messages asking about how the games going, if I have any ideas, and the like. I throw things out, he runs with them in his own way.

I do the same with Hzurr. I give him suggestions of evil things he can pull on us. If he pulls 'em, fine. If he doesn't use them, ok. If he twists them into his own devious idea, great.

Nerd-o-rama
2009-09-07, 01:58 PM
Failing to properly capitalize things.

Mathius
2009-09-07, 02:05 PM
I have actually been to a DM Meeting before. It was me and six other Dungeon Masters that played in the local area. It was to discuss what we did with our own games and suggest ways in which they could be improved upon.

Our focused topics were:

Problem Players: Out of character metagaming (I am talking REAL metagaming, like telling the DM that you run away from the extremely large wolf-man because you don't have any silver weapons. Now later in the game (5-6th level, I could understand this being something the character might have picked up. First level, second encounter EVER? Not so much).

Dungeons: We would share ideas on how to make them more interesting.

Dragons: How to use them without them always being the MAIN BAD GUY.

Magic Items: What to allow and when.

There were lots of other topics, but those were the most common.

shadzar
2009-09-07, 02:24 PM
I would ask the other people in the meeting what it is for. I have never heard of such a thing except for a multi-DM event where everyone tries to fix a pre0rwitten adventure before people come to a store to play it. :smallconfused:

Random832
2009-09-07, 02:30 PM
I am talking REAL metagaming, like telling the DM that you run away from the extremely large wolf-man because you don't have any silver weapons. Now later in the game (5-6th level, I could understand this being something the character might have picked up. First level, second encounter EVER? Not so much

I do have to ask...

Even ignoring the fact that the first encounter on-screen is not necessarily the character's first encounter ever, and ignoring what they might have remembered it from fighter college or whatever (No such thing? They certainly spent those +1d4 years doing something).

Think about it: in our world we know werewolves are vulnerable to silver without ever having encountered one (because, you know, they don't exist). It's at least reasonable to think that might similarly be common knowledge in a world where they actually are around.

And everyone knows the RAW knowledge rules are broken; they say, by implication, "absolutely nothing about any creature is common knowledge". Including that a bear craps in the woods, or for that matter, if you see a bear, that it is a bear.

Strawman
2009-09-07, 02:42 PM
Prove yourself, and you may be among the few allowed to DM the Real World.

FoE
2009-09-07, 04:03 PM
This wasn't one of those Dungeons and Dragons meetings that Jack Chick used to talk about?

See if you can cast the mind bondage spell on your dad. :smalltongue:

Mathius
2009-09-07, 04:42 PM
@Random832:

In hindsight I should have elaborated more.

In this instance the character in question was a fighter from an area that is rather secluded and had no real tribulations to speak of. His family and a few other families were farming the land. In his life (he was 16 at the time of the encounter - his choice) he had never experienced more than the odd wolf attack against the chickens and pigs. He had seen standard animals of the area (wolves, the odd bear and a mountain lion or two). This was according to his backstory. He specifically was playing the "naive farmboy" with daddy's sword an armor (a longsword and a worn chain shirt with a few odds and ends: rations, rope, back pack, blanket/bedroll).

In this instance he was traveling to a larger town to "seek his fortune". It was agreed upon that he had never had any real exposure to the outside world. I did allow him a basic Intelligence check with no modifiers, DC 14 to determine what it was. He rolled a 6. He had no clue what it was, yet his first response was "I run because I don't have any silver weapons." This statement was made with the full knowledge that his character knows nothing about what is in front of him.

That, to me, is metagaming.

Another good example: I was DMing a small dungeons that I have gotten off a long since dead website (second edition material). It featured a pair of stone statues standing beside an arched entryway.

The first thing the fighter does is tell the wizard to use "a spell" to destroy the statues because "I've played this adventure before and I remember that those are golems."

I have no problem if the knowledge is something that the character might have, but it these cases, it is pure metagaming.

And I am a firm believer that anything that is common knowledge about an animal (i.e. a bear crapping in the woods is covered under the survival skill which can be used untrained. I also allow Survival to be used by aspect if the character chooses, Urban, Underdark, Planar - etc.).

Starshade
2009-09-07, 05:11 PM
This wasn't one of those Dungeons and Dragons meetings that Jack Chick used to talk about?

See if you can cast the mind bondage spell on your dad. :smalltongue:

Shh, dont spoil the fun for him! :smallwink:

Ormur
2009-09-07, 05:16 PM
I think it could be good for your game to meet other DM's so you could help each other improve your games, suggest NPC builds discuss game mechanics and other stuff you can't discuss with your players because of spoilers. Or just plain talk about the game, share amusing stories and such. My players are the only D&D players I know well so it's often tough not to be able to talk to anyone about the plot properly.

Jarawara
2009-09-07, 05:20 PM
Mathius,

Your second example is pure metagaming. How much to bring down the DMing Flyswatter of Doom is up to you, but I'd at least express my displeasure and dock him a Pepsi.

But the werewolf example... I'm still not seeing it. He grew up as a farmboy, in a secluded area. Check. So he has no friends? He's never sat around the bonfire with co-workers after plowing the field, heard a wolf cry in the distance, and the older farmhand Kurseld told him of the legend of the 'Man who is Wolf'? Not even his father warned him of the evil beings of the forest, who crave the taste of manflesh? (Which would imply that his father, and his father before him, and his father before him, never heard one word of any legend, any concern, and certainly never any hearsay of any actual attacks).

And his father has a sword and armor - yet never heard of the possible existance of any such creature, or if he did, chose not to tell the tale to his son?

And yet, with all these implausible conditions, of all the members of his family, friends, and farmhands, with none of them having ever heard of the legend of the man-beast, none of them ever hearing of a attack of such of creature...

... the son encounters one on his first adventure??


As a player, I would presume I would have such knowledge given my background. Even if I was uncertain, the moment it showed up, I would *at that time* modify my presumptions of what I had been aware of in my backstory. After all, if they are so commonplace as to be encountered on my first adventure, then obviously a person of my background would have known of it, and could garner some tips from the legends I most certainly would have heard in my youth.

*~*~*

One way to combat certain types of metagaming:

Players travelling down a hallway, hallway then widens with statues on each side, set into alcoves. Eight statues in all, of soldiers, weapons looking wicked in the torchlight.

Party discuss their options on "how to fight the animated statues" (doing so before they enter this section of the hall, of course, to avoid setting off the trap). One looks over the map, realizing there is probably an alternate way around this section, and they can bypass this trap entirely. Party chuckles at me, as I clearly should have known they'd never fall for this trap.

Party takes the alternate route, having to fight a particularly nasty fight with a monster they had been avoiding before, but was infinitely more preferrable to a fight with eight animated statues of unknown toughness. They find their way around to the hallway, from the other side, and never look back...

...and thus never acquire the magical weapons set into the hands of the un-animated, un-trapped, totally safe, decorative statues in the hallway.:smallbiggrin:

TheCountAlucard
2009-09-07, 06:24 PM
...with none of them having ever heard of the legend of the man-beast, none of them ever hearing of a attack of such of creature...Or maybe they've heard thousands of tales of man-beasts, but due to the fact that there's so many different monsters that resemble canines, each possessing its own wildly-varying strengths and weaknesses, that they can't differentiate them without specific trained knowledge? ("So, wait, think back to the stories... is this the dog-thing that's weak against silver, the dog-thing that's weak against cold iron, the dog-thing that's weak against holy weapons, the dog-thing that can only be defeated by dancing around the maypole naked, a spellcaster in disguise, or an ordinary wolf? Quickly now, it's getting closer!")

infinitypanda
2009-09-07, 07:35 PM
I would say that the wolf example is metagaming because the character was given an Int check and failed it. Otherwise, no not really.

As for the golem example, yeah. That's some pretty bad metagaming there.

FoE
2009-09-07, 07:41 PM
What's really at issue is the "silver weapons" part. Otherwise, I don't see why it wouldn't be in character to run from a big wolf-man. I mean, wouldn't you? :smalltongue:


The first thing the fighter does is tell the wizard to use "a spell" to destroy the statues because "I've played this adventure before and I remember that those are golems."

I have no problem if the knowledge is something that the character might have, but it these cases, it is pure metagaming.

Had he actually "played the adventure before" or was that just a figure of speech?

Navigator
2009-09-07, 07:42 PM
Well... I've never had a DM "meeting" before, but my group's DMs do occasionally sit down and discuss who's running the next game, how much longer the current campaign will run, etc.

If we actually had a meeting, it would probably turn into character creation of some sort.

Random832
2009-09-07, 07:43 PM
Or maybe they've heard thousands of tales of man-beasts, but due to the fact that there's so many different monsters that resemble canines, each possessing its own wildly-varying strengths and weaknesses, that they can't differentiate them without specific trained knowledge?

I guess part of the reaction people are having to this example is that werewolves are a part of our (i.e. mainstream western) culture in a way that many D&D monsters are not. Werewolves being vulnerable to silver is - right or wrong, even; now there's an idea (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurWerewolvesAreDifferent) - something that someone who has never picked up an RPG book in his life is going to think of.

TheCountAlucard
2009-09-07, 07:44 PM
What's really at issue is the "silver weapons" part.Agreed. If he was running because it was a big scary wolf-thing, it wouldn't be metagaming.

Doc Roc
2009-09-07, 07:59 PM
He knows too much. Silence him now.

Yes, before it spreads!

dragonfan6490
2009-09-07, 09:08 PM
He knows too much. Silence him now.

Agreed! We must shun the non-believers! Shuuun.

kjones
2009-09-07, 09:43 PM
Is this a meeting of DMs, or a meeting with the DM about issues in the game?

A meeting of DMs happens all the time, and not just at Hawg Wallers. Heck, my PF DM sends me a fairly constant stream of text messages asking about how the games going, if I have any ideas, and the like. I throw things out, he runs with them in his own way.

I do the same with Hzurr. I give him suggestions of evil things he can pull on us. If he pulls 'em, fine. If he doesn't use them, ok. If he twists them into his own devious idea, great.

Cookie for the Hawg Wallers reference. When I'm old enough, I want to hang out in bars and play D&D.

magellan
2009-09-08, 01:22 AM
I guess part of the reaction people are having to this example is that werewolves are a part of our (i.e. mainstream western) culture in a way that many D&D monsters are not. Werewolves being vulnerable to silver is - right or wrong, even; now there's an idea (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurWerewolvesAreDifferent) - something that someone who has never picked up an RPG book in his life is going to think of.

I think its the often frowned upon "In a world where monster movies happen, monster movies don't exist", allowing victims to do things like hiding in the cellar, and run through dark alleys looking for ways to break their heel etc.

Hmm... maybe in a world where monster movies happen, they would be documentaries and because of that nobody would watch them?

TheCountAlucard
2009-09-08, 01:58 AM
Hmm... maybe in a world where monster movies happen, they would be documentaries and because of that nobody would watch them?...and on that note, I must recommend Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.

shadow_archmagi
2009-09-08, 07:34 AM
Hmm... maybe in a world where monster movies happen, they would be documentaries and because of that nobody would watch them?

Here's a documentary for you:

Go read Devil In The White City. Dr. Holmes couldn't have been more like a movie villain if he'd been scripted instead of a real person.

Random832
2009-09-08, 08:09 AM
I think its the often frowned upon "In a world where monster movies happen, monster movies don't exist", allowing victims to do things like hiding in the cellar, and run through dark alleys looking for ways to break their heel etc.

Hmm... maybe in a world where monster movies happen, they would be documentaries and because of that nobody would watch them?

That's not really the same thing though. This is facts about monsters, not monster movie tropes. Remember, this started as folklore - people spreading around information about werewolves (including, yes, their weakness to silver) while fully believing they existed. I'm not buying that this process would be significantly different in a world where they do exist.

Also... I've been reading up a bit on GNS since seeing those threads yesterday.

From Wikipedia (yeah, yeah):


Actor, decides based on what their character would know
Author, decides based on what they as a player want for their character and then retroactively explains why their character made that decision
Director, makes decisions that affect the environment rather than the character (usually represented by a game master in an RPG)
Pawn, decides based on what they as a player want for their character without bothering to explain why their character would make that decision

Think in terms of the Author stance: You spent time working on the character, and maybe put a lot of effort in the backstory, and you don't want him to die because he doesn't have any silver weapons (and thus can't handle the fight) - the character's reason for running away is secondary.

And anyway, killing someone's character because they supposedly failed a die roll to know better than to get into a fight is a crappy thing for a DM to do in any play style.

oxinabox
2009-09-08, 08:13 AM
I meet with other dm's all the time.
Like everyday.
All of use are dming and playing in verios camopaigns so we talk as player and as dm.

So it's like:
Me: "Oh my go my players just started a civil war"
other DM: "Sweet! My invisble mind raping doppleganger assain just died"
Me: "The one you said was invincible? cos he could spring attack and move to fast to ever be caught?"
other DM: "Yeah, they cam at me from all directions, i had no where to run.
now i'm going to play an inevitable"
Me: "Cool, what rules are you using."
Other Dm; takes out a racial lvl table he's created.
Me: "Seems abit OP"
other Dm: "This is for a game with a Kobold sorcer/incatatrix"
Me: "I see..."



Or with a diffent DM:
Other DM: You can't kill my overdiety.
Me: can i have one round of clemancy while I buff my character, without you using inmediate interupt to remove him from existance?"
Other DM:" Ok sure why not"
Me: "I proceed to use that round to create punpun, and give him the extraodinairy abitity that by virtue of his existance, your overdietry is removed from existance no save"
other DM: "My overdietry is immune to all effects, even those without a save"
me: "I give punpun the abitity thay say: nothing is immune to the afformentioned abitity, even things that are specifically immune to it"
other dm: "I move time back 3 rounds as a free action"
...

Random832
2009-09-08, 08:17 AM
By RAW, Manipulate Form can only grant abilities that have been published. And Pun-Pun takes more than one round to start up anyway.

Also... those conversations explain a lot :smalleek:

oxinabox
2009-09-08, 08:25 AM
By RAW, Manipulate Form can only grant abilities that have been published. And Pun-Pun takes more than one round to start up anyway.
:
lattest punpun builds IIRC can take infinite actions in a round.
He grants himself epic life magic, creates new creatures with the abitity he wants.



Also... those conversations explain a lot :smalleek
about what?

Random832
2009-09-08, 08:59 AM
lattest punpun builds IIRC can take infinite actions in a round.

Yeah but that's after you've become Pun-Pun, isn't it? Still takes longer to actually start the process.

oxinabox
2009-09-08, 09:17 AM
Yeah but that's after you've become Pun-Pun, isn't it? Still takes longer to actually start the process.

I was pretty sure they got it down to one round.
i might be wrong

LCR
2009-09-08, 09:22 AM
It's probably like M&Ms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morbidity_%26_Mortality) at teaching hospitals.

Mathius
2009-09-08, 11:30 AM
The point I was making with my "Werewolf" example was that I gave the player full reign with his backstory and his words were "I want everything to be a surprise."

I have no problem with someone hearing the stories and what not, but it is when they automatically assume they know what something is without consulting the DM. As someone who has been playing D&D since Reagen was in office, I tend to get kind of pissed off when my players assume ****. I understand that there are certain kind of creatures that are common in some areas and that's fine. I accept that.

But when my players specifically tell me that they have no exposure to actual monsters - mythical or otherwise - I expect them to stick to that.

If players assume they know something about the monsters they meet and the DM blindly goes along with it, where does it end?

Eventually you would have 1st level characters saying **** like "Oh no! It's a Spirrax! He has Void Blast! That does 30d6! We should run!" (granted that you should run from something like that anyway, but the characters would know nothing about it).

It wasn't really whether his character did or should have the information. Its that he assumed he had the information without any kind of discussion. If you want to know something about monsters in my games it needs to be discussed with me beforehand.

@Jarawara:

First thing is that in the area he came from Werefolk were extremely rare. I do not operate on the assumption that everything in the Monster Manuals is common. The community the boy came from was incredibly small. We narrowed it down to 4 families sharing a communal plot of land. NONE of the family members were warriors. The only reason the father had a sword and armor is because he was a blacksmith and forged them himself. He was the strongest and most able of the families so he took the role of protector, so to speak. The only thing he ever had to protect them from was the occasional wolf and fox attacks against the chickens and other animals. It was nearly a weeks travel to the nearest city by horse, and two weeks on foot.

The werewolf was met over a week and a half from the boys home. It was also a random encounter and not something that was planned. They had no real monster stories that included detailed tactical information on how to slay this or that. Given his background, he had no real knowledge of anything beyond a standard wild animal.

Mathius
2009-09-08, 11:45 AM
What's really at issue is the "silver weapons" part. Otherwise, I don't see why it wouldn't be in character to run from a big wolf-man. I mean, wouldn't you? :smalltongue:



Had he actually "played the adventure before" or was that just a figure of speech?

He'd actually played the adventure before. He and another group had run through it.

I ended up making the statues Avatars of Odin and the attacked him, and him alone. Odin felt insulted that his fine creations were said to be "Mere golems".

I retconned the adventure to be a proving ground, upon the completion of which, each player would recieve an artifact weapon or item of their choice from the Avatars when they were done.

The Avatars killed the fighter and the rest of the party went through the adventure and got their items and the fighter got resurrected in town afterward with nothing to show for his metagaming stupidity.

Again about the werewolf thing: It's the fact that automatically assumed that his character knew that you specifically needed silver to fight the beast. I had completely nerfed the beast so he could take it out with some challenge. I busted it down to a level 2 challenge rating. Perfectly acceptable for a 1st level gestalted character (Fighter/Rogue). Before this he took out an Owlbear (nerfed to CR 3) in three rounds. He was perfectly up to the task (and I had already determined that the werewolf was not completely a lycan yet and had not acquired the damage reduction yet. He was still susceptible to standard weapon damage).

Myrmex
2009-09-08, 12:16 PM
Or maybe they've heard thousands of tales of man-beasts, but due to the fact that there's so many different monsters that resemble canines, each possessing its own wildly-varying strengths and weaknesses, that they can't differentiate them without specific trained knowledge? ("So, wait, think back to the stories... is this the dog-thing that's weak against silver, the dog-thing that's weak against cold iron, the dog-thing that's weak against holy weapons, the dog-thing that can only be defeated by dancing around the maypole naked, a spellcaster in disguise, or an ordinary wolf? Quickly now, it's getting closer!")

Seeing as he was level one, and likely had neither silver, nor cold iron, nor a holy weapon, and no may pole, running was probably a good idea.

oxinabox
2009-09-08, 08:22 PM
unless specified otherwise, it's safe to assume that no peaceful hamlet, nt matter how peaceful, doesn't have similar folklore to our world.
Therefore OMFG it's warewolf, an creature from the myths come real!!!
Where's Ma's candlestick, I'ma gonna hit this thing til tommorow.


That is perfect ingame situation where you RUN, doens't matter why you run so much as you run, it's a wolfman, we're farmers

oxinabox
2009-09-08, 08:31 PM
He'd actually played the adventure before. He and another group had run through it.

I ended up making the statues Avatars of Odin and the attacked him, and him alone. Odin felt insulted that his fine creations were said to be "Mere golems".

I retconned the adventure to be a proving ground, upon the completion of which, each player would recieve an artifact weapon or item of their choice from the Avatars when they were done.

The Avatars killed the fighter and the rest of the party went through the adventure and got their items and the fighter got resurrected in town afterward with nothing to show for his metagaming stupidity.

Again about the werewolf thing: It's the fact that automatically assumed that his character knew that you specifically needed silver to fight the beast. I had completely nerfed the beast so he could take it out with some challenge. I busted it down to a level 2 challenge rating. Perfectly acceptable for a 1st level gestalted character (Fighter/Rogue). Before this he took out an Owlbear (nerfed to CR 3) in three rounds. He was perfectly up to the task (and I had already determined that the werewolf was not completely a lycan yet and had not acquired the damage reduction yet. He was still susceptible to standard weapon damage).

I'm story but your doing it wrong.
Your wearwolfs should be werewolfs, not men who turn in to wolfs.

You shouldn't take it out on a PC's for a players actions.
Not as obviosly as you did.
How did your player react to "THe statues come alive and attack you and only you because they feel insulted by what you called them?"

the other mistake is running an adventure someone has played before, and expecting them not to metagame.
I personally have never touched published adventure,
I never seem to suffer from lack of planning (last week i was meeting with some people, got bord, suggested we play some dnd, they created characters, i thought of an adventure)
But if you must use a published one, that y know a guys played be fore, talk to him before.
ask him to take a back seat roll.
Challange him to RP perfectly.

kjones
2009-09-08, 09:37 PM
I'm story but your doing it wrong.
Your wearwolfs should be werewolfs, not men who turn in to wolfs.

You shouldn't take it out on a PC's for a players actions.
Not as obviosly as you did.
How did your player react to "THe statues come alive and attack you and only you because they feel insulted by what you called them?"

the other mistake is running an adventure someone has played before, and expecting them not to metagame.
I personally have never touched published adventure,
I never seem to suffer from lack of planning (last week i was meeting with some people, got bord, suggested we play some dnd, they created characters, i thought of an adventure)
But if you must use a published one, that y know a guys played be fore, talk to him before.
ask him to take a back seat roll.
Challange him to RP perfectly.

I was going to do a snarky thing where I went through your post and bolded the first sentence that didn't have any spelling errors or typos in it, but I made it to the end without finding one.

For the love of $DEITY, man! I'm no spelling nazi, but my eyes are bleeding here.

EDIT: You spell "werewolves" two different ways in the same sentence! If you're going to misspell, at least be consistent...

oxinabox
2009-09-08, 09:43 PM
I was going to do a snarky thing where I went through your post and bolded the first sentence that didn't have any spelling errors or typos in it, but I made it to the end without finding one.

For the love of $DEITY, man! I'm no spelling nazi, but my eyes are bleeding here.

EDIT: You spell "werewolves" two different ways in the same sentence! If you're going to misspell, at least be consistent...

Sorry, my spell checkers died.
I like the local variable use

Mathius
2009-09-09, 06:56 AM
First off, I had no idea that he had even run the adventure before. He never said a word until we got to the entryway of the dungeon. And the statues did not attack him because of what he called them. It was the God in question that attacked him using the statues, not the statues themselves. Odin is an ass to begin with and really does not need a reason to screw with an uppity warrior anyway. That's what you get for metagaming in my games (a certain level of it is somewhat understandable, even condoned, but this was a touch much).

And this is something that everyone seems to be missing, regarding the werewolf scenario.

It was HIS choice to be a ignorant hick. Not mine. I allow all of my players to explain things in their backstory. I take nothing for granted because I do not want to have players that are first level and are walking monster encyclopedias. If they can explain it in game, fine, but your skills better back it up. Legends and lore is one thing, but I refuse to let stories that the characters might or might not have heard affect the game. I gave him a check and he failed it. That means, whether he heard the stories or not, his character didn't make the connection. It is this that makes it metagaming. He based his decision to run on information his character - according to the rules of the game - did not have. Simple as that.

sofawall
2009-09-09, 07:06 AM
Sorry, my spell checkers died.
I like the local variable use

You know, every time someone calls you to task for your spelling, you give a different answer...

Also, for the love of god, Firefox! Unless you killed your spellchecker by overworking it...

Random832
2009-09-09, 07:29 AM
It was HIS choice to be a ignorant hick. Not mine.

And it was HIS choice that even an ignorant hick knows you need silver to fight werewolves. If that's not a choice he gets to make, fine, but then you can't say "it was HIS choice". Clearly he didn't intend for his character to be so ignorant as to not realize that. "I gave him a check" means nothing if the DC is set inappropriately high.

And does the reason the character ran away really matter so much? Even without him knowing that, it would be dramatically appropriate for him to stand and fight if he happened to have something silver on him, and not so much for him to just die because he didn't know that. Even for a simulationist it's awfully extreme to say a PC should be just yet another victim.

As for the statues, I think it's not clear to some people whether you decided they would be avatars of Odin before the PC said that, or came up with it afterwards as a punishment for metagaming.

Mathius
2009-09-09, 08:21 AM
And it was HIS choice that even an ignorant hick knows you need silver to fight werewolves. If that's not a choice he gets to make, fine, but then you can't say "it was HIS choice". Clearly he didn't intend for his character to be so ignorant as to not realize that. "I gave him a check" means nothing if the DC is set inappropriately high.

And does the reason the character ran away really matter so much? Even without him knowing that, it would be dramatically appropriate for him to stand and fight if he happened to have something silver on him, and not so much for him to just die because he didn't know that. Even for a simulationist it's awfully extreme to say a PC should be just yet another victim.

As for the statues, I think it's not clear to some people whether you decided they would be avatars of Odin before the PC said that, or came up with it afterwards as a punishment for metagaming.

Okay, listen. If you want to let the players in your group know everything about monsters, that's your business. I happen to think that not every beginning character should be a walking creature compendium. The check DC was at 14. Reasonble considering the guy had an 18 intelligence. He needed a 10 on a d20. And this is wrong. He was too damn lazy to give specifics during character creation. I offered, he declined. I told that he would have no knowledge of the creatures and encounters he meets. I reiterated that he would have absolutely no knowledge. He agreed. Key words NO KNOWLEDGE. I wasn't even obligated to allow the check. I could have said that he had no idea, but I allowed it. I don't do the "I heard stories that means I am an expert". If it ain't in the backstory, you don't know. Simple. And yes, I think the reason he ran was very important as the definition of metagaming is making in game decisions based on out of game information. Nothing anyone says will change this.

The werewolf would not have killed him as it didn't have its full on bonuses yet. He was still in the transition stage and therefore not a full-bore werewolf. He was a CR of 2. The character - as previously stated -just smoked a CR 3 creature before meeting the werewolf.

And yes, I had planned on making the dungeon a proving ground (and the statues were actually set to be avatars) because the characters were going to need extra items and XP for the next part of the campaign).

Simply put; metagaming pisses me off. I don't it when I play and I expect my players not to do it either (like I said earlier, everyone slips now and again and I allow - and expect that. I never punished the guy about the werewolf. That I let slide even though it irritated the **** out of me).

I make sure and tell my players at the onset of the game that metagaming is not allowed and will be harshly dealt with. They all agree to it because they hate it just as much as I do (everyone in my groups is a DM as well as a player, with the exception of the fighter. He has never DMed a day in his life).

Mercenary Pen
2009-09-09, 08:55 AM
Okay, listen. If you want to let the players in your group know everything about monsters, that's your business. I happen to think that not every beginning character should be a walking creature compendium. The check DC was at 14. Reasonble considering the guy had an 18 intelligence. He needed a 10 on a d20. And this is wrong. He was too damn lazy to give specifics during character creation. I offered, he declined. I told that he would have no knowledge of the creatures and encounters he meets. I reiterated that he would have absolutely no knowledge. He agreed. Key words NO KNOWLEDGE. I wasn't even obligated to allow the check. I could have said that he had no idea, but I allowed it. I don't do the "I heard stories that means I am an expert". If it ain't in the backstory, you don't know. Simple. And yes, I think the reason he ran was very important as the definition of metagaming is making in game decisions based on out of game information. Nothing anyone says will change this.

Sure, the player assumed character knowledge incorrectly- possibly by accident.

However, their were a couple of areas where you as the DM could have improved upon things:

1- You could easily have clarified- before the campaign started, exactly what No Knowledge entailed.

2- With the knowledge check, you could easily have had the character vaguely remember a tale about this creature in such a way as to remind him that his character didn't know about silvered weapons vs. werewolves.

e.g. "You remember a children's tale about a fluorescent purple and green wolfman that was beaten by throwing a chicken at it. However, this seems to be a somewhat different wolfman, and you rather doubt that it's scared of chickens."

As you can see, this provides some sort of colour to your world, gives the players a quick laugh without breaking the mood too much, and subtly reminds your players of what their characters do and don't know.

Mathius
2009-09-09, 01:05 PM
Sure, the player assumed character knowledge incorrectly- possibly by accident.

However, their were a couple of areas where you as the DM could have improved upon things:

1- You could easily have clarified- before the campaign started, exactly what No Knowledge entailed.

2- With the knowledge check, you could easily have had the character vaguely remember a tale about this creature in such a way as to remind him that his character didn't know about silvered weapons vs. werewolves.

e.g. "You remember a children's tale about a fluorescent purple and green wolfman that was beaten by throwing a chicken at it. However, this seems to be a somewhat different wolfman, and you rather doubt that it's scared of chickens."

As you can see, this provides some sort of colour to your world, gives the players a quick laugh without breaking the mood too much, and subtly reminds your players of what their characters do and don't know.

Go back and read the whole thread, please.

Umael
2009-09-09, 02:39 PM
Malthius:

I think something is missing from your first example.

Like, what happened afterwards.


Because personally, I think that it might have been metagaming, but it was not nearly as serious as you make it.

"Ek! Wolf-man! Run away! It's scary!"
"Ek! Wolf-man! I have no silver! Run away!"
"Ek! Wolf-man! I'm 1st level and it's CR 5! Run away!"

The first one is not metagaming at all, the second can be explained as cultural knowledge, and the last is plain meta-gaming.

All different, same results in the end.

Calmar
2009-09-09, 07:18 PM
I'm too lazy to post a long explanation, but all in all I agree with Mathius' ruling.
Just because some beast is common lore in the real world does not necessarily mean everyone in the game world has to know about it. No matter if it's a werewolf, a werecrocodile, an illithid, or a quadrone.

GallóglachMaxim
2009-09-09, 07:36 PM
2- With the knowledge check, you could easily have had the character vaguely remember a tale about this creature in such a way as to remind him that his character didn't know about silvered weapons vs. werewolves.

e.g. "You remember a children's tale about a fluorescent purple and green wolfman that was beaten by throwing a chicken at it. However, this seems to be a somewhat different wolfman, and you rather doubt that it's scared of chickens."

I like that, would probably use a different example in one of my games to avoid the silly, but it seems reasonable to offer people misleading information if that's as well as they've 'knowledged', while making it that you're not just screwing with them by throwing out incorrect information.

dragoonsgone
2009-09-09, 09:13 PM
I agree with your ruling Mathius. No matter what you do, someone is going to argue with you and say you did it wrong. You already said they were uncommon. You could have said DC 30 since this is the only werewolf in 1000 square miles.

Why are people assuming our common knowledge of werewolves is common knowledge to a PC? There will be stories about how to kill a werewolf but 90% of them will be incorrect.

Our world is full of common knowledge that is incorrect and we have ways of easily checking it. IE You can catch a cold just by being cold. This is incorrect, but I still hear people very often claiming that.

oxinabox
2009-09-09, 11:37 PM
You know, every time someone calls you to task for your spelling, you give a different answer...

Also, for the love of god, Firefox! Unless you killed your spellchecker by overworking it...

the Previous excuse of dysgraphia still holds, but in addition to that my Firefox spell checker has stopped working (and i'm yet to get round to fixing it, i'm that lazy yes.)

Back on topic:
I repeat you don't need to even play dnd (let alone read a moster manual) to know that wolfmen is werewolf can only be killed with silver.
But if the player and you agreed that there were no stories of wolfmen that he'ld ever come across, then that's your business, and he was metagaming.

But still you shouldn't punish PC's for actions of there players.
It's just not a good idea, it damages the imersment, and you be better resolved by telling him (and everyone else) that you consider that to be Metagaming knowledge, and if they want to RP they won't use it.

I ask again, how did he react to being singled out and killed?
Odin isn't easy to annoy, he's all seeing, all knowing and thus can see that the PC though the statue were statues.
Does thor stikeout because someone though a thunderhead (read storm cloud) looked like a rabbit?

TheCountAlucard
2009-09-09, 11:50 PM
I repeat you don't need to even play dnd (let alone read a moster manual) to know that wolfmen is werewolf can only be killed with silver.Again with this; first of all, that's because every movie to feature werewolves since the first movie about werewolves have crammed that little detail about silver down our throats. Likewise with vampires and turning into bats and being weak against sunlight, despite the fact that before Bram Stoker, there were no connections between any of the three.*

While I'm sure you could ask the average layperson today what'd kill a werewolf and they'd say, "Silver," said average layperson in 1920 would probably not know the answer. These days, it's a pop culture reference. Back then, it was an obscure legend.



*Okay, not every vampire movie... freakin' Twilight. (grumble, grumble)

Calmar
2009-09-10, 05:19 AM
While I'm sure you could ask the average layperson today what'd kill a werewolf and they'd say, "Silver," said average layperson in 1920 would probably not know the answer. These days, it's a pop culture reference. Back then, it was an obscure legend.
The chances are good they'd have wagered on holy symbols and blessed weapons, I guess. :smallsmile:

Umael
2009-09-10, 11:39 AM
Can you come up with a vampire that isn't affected by crosses? Or sunlight? Or stakes?

Can you come up with a werewolf that isn't affected by silver? Or passes on its condition through an infected bite?

I can.

I can make it myself, or I can find referrences to all of them.

How many people here know that the Chinese vampires were invisible? Or that the original cause of the vampirism legend could have been rabies?

Or that stakes were used because of corpses "animating" because of gases in the body as they decomposed? The bodies that sit up were particularly unnerving, so they hammered a stake through them. Turns out, the escaping gases make the body "groan".

So what happens if the culture has different rituals for preparing the dead than laying it out for viewing before burying it?

Then again, how likely are these stories to be told? How much will fact get mixed up with fiction? How much will science get mixed up with magic?

Jarawara
2009-09-10, 12:44 PM
The problem I see, is a potential failure to communicate.

Was this player a regular player at the table? If so, he's used to this style of play, he's used to this campaign world, and if so, throw the book at him (well, I'd only throw a small pamphlet at him, it's not *that* big of an offense. Keep the hardbound handy for the bigger issues.)

But if this was a new player (the original post doesn't really describe, but it was the character's 2nd encounter, so it could have been the player's second session in the game?)... if this was a new player to the table, then the player is still learning the nature of this DM's style and this campaign world.

Studies have shown that people tend to learn only a few pertinent items up front, then collect the rest of the info as they go along. Too much information up front, and the information overload is simply dumped, until reinforced later.

You tell the player "You have little to no knowledge of creatures"... well, what exactly does that mean? You tell the player "Creatures of Legends, like Werewolves, are extremely rare"... well, that's one of a thousand things he's supposed to remember about a new campaign, and he's going to dump it out of his active memory until it's later reinforced.

And that reinforcement comes, in the form of the arrival of a creature that obviously looks like a werewolf. This becomes not a 'reinforcement', but a 'rebuttal' of the information, and the player reacts by reassessing what he would logically know.

I contend that the player could have made the assessment in that situation, that werewolves are in fact much more commonplace (having forgotten any exact quote to the opposite, as one of those thousand items dumped from his memory), and he would have promptly reassessed what he would have logically learned as a young man growing up in an area that is 'logically infested' with werewolves. (Yes, this was a bit away from his hometown, but legends like this would travel far.) And as such, unless pointed out differently, he would have been perfectly in line to imagine his PC to recognize this as a werewolf, and believe that his PC would have heard legends, and that such legends involve silver weapons. And he has no silver weapons... and so it's time to run.

Now I'm not saying that's what this guy did... I'm saying that's what *I* would do, if I was at your table for my 2nd gamesession ever, still trying to learn the ropes. And again, if he was a regular player, having done this many times, well then, throw the book at him. But if he was a new guy, he was in the right to assign such beliefs to his PC, until told differently (possibly multiple times, remember the memory dump issue of being introduced to new games).

Now Mattias, I'm not saying you did anything *wrong*. This is too bloody unimportant an issue to be 'wrong' about. All my point was, and I stand by my point, is that sometimes a DM can misinterpret a player's action as being metagaming, when in fact the player was acting according to what he thought his character would logically know and do.

I've seen plenty of other examples of exactly that occuring.

*~*

For example: Player has a fighter, who believes he is defending the human race against all threats. He's specialized in swordfighting, but, as luck would happen, he was too poor to actually own a sword at the start of the game. (Yes, a bit illogical that). He makes due with a quarterstaff.

We traveling through the dungeon, fought some goblins, some monsters, and whatnot. We've been ruthlessly killing everything we come to. We open a door... and there stands a human, just drawing forth his longsword to defend himself!

Fighter jumps him, grappling, trying to wrest the sword from his hands, and...

...the DM lays the smackdown on him for metagaming, trying to grab the first sword he sees?!?!?

Dude! He's a defender of humans! We've been ruthlessly killing everything we've come to, and there's no reason to believe we're going to change that now. (Really, there wasn't. Some of our guys were downright evil and hack/slashy.). The only way this human guy is going to survive this scene is if we disarm him before the fight begins. Fighter PC is saving the guy from all threats... which include *us*.

Grabbing the sword from him was to prevent an actual fight from breaking out, not just a way to steal a sword. If we had just killed him, he would have had the sword then, so logically there must have been more to his intent. Instead, DM ridicules him and docks him experience and the player finally gives up in disgust (and so do I, very soon after).

Moral: Misinterpreting the players intent can cause problems.

*~*

Another example, this one with werewolfy goodness:

DM hears of a legend, a connection between vampires and werewolves. Werewolves that die rise as vampires. DM is setting up new game, with new players, and among all the other things that are discussed, (including way more previews of his planned dungeon than I thought was conducive to play), he also mentions this little tidbit about werewolves and vampires.

We play for about six weeks, fighting gnolls and goblins, and being harrassed by a particularly massive sized harpy. Then one day, a werewolf comes into town, and we must fight it off to protect the poor townsfolk.

The werewolf is slain, and we bury the dead. But we didn't consecrate the soil, didn't cut off the head, didn't... burn the body.. I can't remember what we were supposed to do, quite frankly. I dumped that tidbit of memory just like everyone else.

Werewolf rises as a vampire. We're still only 2nd and 3rd level. Hilarity ensues, and by the time we were finished, well, we were finished. As was the town.

DM says: "I warned you about the connection between Werewolves and Vampires. Maybe next time you'll take me seriously."

We collectively say: "Huh, wha?"

Moral: Expecting players to hear, remember, *and understand* every detail in the pre-game discussion... can lead to several party deaths (as well as entire towns being destroyed.)

*~*

As I started writing this post, I had three examples in mind, but I guess I 'memory dumped' the third. Something about a guy trying to kill a wraith with a non-magical axe. (*shrugs, maybe it'll come to me later*)

But my conclusion was, don't always assume the player is trying to pull a fast one, metagaming, or otherwise 'playing incorrectly'. Sometimes, he's just trying to get a hang of your game, and making logical assumptions. You can correct him on those assumptions, of course, or just live with them until such time that he's better settled in to your game.

If he's been there for years, and still doing it -- Book. Throw. Critical hit.

Zeta Kai
2009-09-10, 12:56 PM
The first rule of DM Club is you don't talk about DM Club.

The second rule of DM Club is you DON'T TALK ABOUT DM CLUB.

The third rule of DM Club is if this is your first time, you have to DM.

Jarawara
2009-09-10, 01:00 PM
Ha! I remembered my third example:

Player reads a book about a wraith. Player joins our game (I was DMing. Party encounters a wraith, and as they don't have magical weaponry, and not enough spells, they know they have to leave quickly.

All, except new player. He stands and fights, using an axe. A non-magical axe. A weapon that can do nothing to the wraith, and passes through it quite harmlessly. And yet, he fights on, to the bitter end, and dies.

We question him on it later, as I was clear in my description of how the axe passed right through the creature. Why did he stand and fight if he had nothing to fight with?

Well, as it turns out, in that book he read, when you attack a wraith, the weapon passes through the incoporeal body of the wraith... **and damages the spirit of the wraith all the way through**! So, he knew, by previous example of the book he read, that he was doing MASSIVE damage to the wraith, and was disappointed that he died, as clearly the wraith must have been down to single hit points by then. He almost killed it, just bad luck that he died one round too soon!

Moral: It's not the possible alternate legends that matter. It's the legends that the player has heard that matters. That's what guides his logical actions.

Umeal points out that there are lots of competing legends to vampires. Most of them, in fact, are not the charming love-gods of modern filmmaking. They instead are rotting corpses that walk the earth, walk by your house, walk through your yard, harrass you, even enter your home and sit at your dining room table. (Oddly enough, not many of them actually attack you.)

But if the player knows that vampires look more human but are far more monsterous, and die in sunlight, etc... well, that's what he's going to go on.

The player with the werewolf could have easily researched a dozen other legends about werewolves, or looked up a dozen other monsters that a wolf looking man could have been, or easily could have assumed he was simply unaware of any of them at all. But in the end, he had to make a snap judgement, and so he went with what he knew. The fact that there are other possibilities don't matter, unless you specifically point them out beforehand. He's going to go with what he knows, not what he *could* have alternatively known. Thus, the idea that silver is needed to hurt werewolves is be 'common knowledge' in his mindset, until pointed out otherwise.

And for something as common as werewolves, he might not even see that as a violation of his 'hickville' upbringing.

Optimystik
2009-09-10, 01:14 PM
Failing to properly capitalize things.

Also, sentence fragments. Oh wait, that's you.
Me too, but I don't give a

My PWs in NWN typically had DM meetings, since there were a whole staff of them operating behind the scenes and co-ordinating things. City of Arabel for instance had a ton.