Of when I thwarted the meta-gamer...

[CyberThread]

This kid in our old group was a pain in the ass. He'd constantly derail our current game when he got bored to tell us about his old games where everything was awesome and his character saved the day and was a badass that no one could touch. He also read our adventure and knew what to expect, so he built his character around what was going on. It was a fairly high level campaign (about 18 or 19... but I started them off at level 10 because I hate low level games).

After defeating one of my "end boss's" they discover a hidden chest. Inside is a decrepit, mummified hand and a shriveled eyeball. He looks up and immediately declares "detect magic!" Yeah, oh yeah, it's radiating magic so hard you almost go blind from the glow. He looks at me and says, "Are these what I think they are?" I smiled and nodded. The rest of the group lets him have it because he's the only wizard and the only one who can do anything with them anyway.

So... back in Town, he cuts off his hand and gouges out his eye in ritual and I make him do some sort of spellcraft rolls or some bull****. He had gathered the old lore from the College and he performs the rites to attach Vecna's Hand and Eye to himself.

One minor problem: they weren't the Hand and Eye of Vecna. So he unwraps his arm and the hand just falls to the floor. He unbandages his head and the eye just rolls out.

He. Was. Pissed. "You said they were the hand and eye of Vecna!" No. You asked specifically "Are these what I think they are?" and I nodded. You did nothing from that point to identify them.
"Well, what are they? They radiated epic level magic." Oh. It's an eye of scrying and a bonus hand to hold an extra ring or bracelet.

"But those aren't epic level magic items!" No. But the box was...

Instead of finding a way to reattach his hand and eye, he instead used a hook and eyepatch the rest of the campaign. It ended up being a really enjoyable campaign and he seemed to have fun with his one handed, one eyed Wizard.


Source:http://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2clyla/dm_of_when_i_thwarted_the_metagamer/

[Arbane]

Nice.

Too bad you didn't get him with the Head of Vecna (http://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm) - that might've been even funnier.

[Vhaidara]

All praise Beholder Santa, for he is an awesome god.

[Firechanter]

Weird that he didn't just have the Cleric cast Regenerate on him, but what the hell.

[Chronos]

The guy he got the story from is even awesomer.

And seriously, who even wants the Hand and Eye of Vecna? Yeah, they're phenomenally powerful, but they also put you on the fast track to NPC-dom.

[Segev]

I'm glad what came of it was all well and good and fun, but I do think it a bit of a **** move to out-and-out lie to the player. "Are these what I think they are?" is a question whose meaning you fully understood. Nodding is knowingly saying "Yes, I understand you think these are the Hand and Eye of Vecna, and I am telling you they are." It's no different than if you'd simply said, "You recognize them as the Hand and Eye of Vecna."

That's not outsmarting the metagamer; that's just being antagonistic. You're lucky it didn't lead to the players never trusting anything you told them again.

[lytokk]

The thing is, he asked out of character if they were what he thought they were. What he didn't do is gain any in character knowledge as to what they were. Beyond a detect magic, as far as I can tell, there was no attempt to know what the items were. Using out of character knowledge in order to identify the items instead of actually doing the legwork in character. I think its perfectly justifiable. All his character did was find a magic eye and hand, lop off his own and try and attach them, which is a very nonsensical thing for anyone to do.

Of course, it seems the player just rolled with it, so really it all comes out fine.

[Segev]

If the DM says "yes, this is this," and it is a lie, I think it still bad form. I try hard not to metagame, but if a DM told me that, I would assume that my IC efforts to confirm this are rubber-stamped as background fluff. If the DM is going to lie, and then hold "but you didn't check IC!" over the player after the fact, he should at least give a warning of, "but your character wouldn't know that. How are you going to have him research what these are?"

Because the moment the DM says "this is this," it becomes reasonable to assume that it's meant to be IC knowledge.

Avoiding metagaming is not easy. When the DM out-and-out tells you something, it's quite understandable that you'd assume your character just happens to know it. Otherwise, why would the DM be telling you without a caveat warning you that your character doesn't know?


My issue is that the DM said "it is" and is claiming that's outsmarting the metagamer. Really, it's abusing player-to-DM trust.

Fortunately, it seems to have worked out okay in this game. I would not recommend it to most gamers; I expect it would, at most tables, create more problems than imagined.

[PaucaTerrorem]

As someone who tries REALLY hard not to meta, I would appreciate the DM doing this. One more lesson as to why you don't meta.

[OldTrees1]

Good intent, good and bad method(the trap was good, the lie was bad), okay outcome.

Honestly I think you would have got the same outcome with a noncommittal statement.
If the player was prone to meta-gaming, then they would have fallen into the trap.
If the player did not fall into the trap, then they stopped being so meta-gaming prone.

[Vhaidara]

This kid in our old group was a pain in the ass. He'd constantly derail our current game when he got bored to tell us about his old games where everything was awesome and his character saved the day and was a badass that no one could touch. He also read our adventure and knew what to expect, so he built his character around what was going on. It was a fairly high level campaign (about 18 or 19... but I started them off at level 10 because I hate low level games).

I would normally agree that the lying was bad, except for this line. Reading ahead in the adventure and then using that knowledge is cheating. It's one of my main rules whenever I GM. You play fair, and I'll play fair. You cheat, I will abuse your cheating.

[CyberThread]

I would normally agree that the lying was bad, except for this line. Reading ahead in the adventure and then using that knowledge is cheating. It's one of my main rules whenever I GM. You play fair, and I'll play fair. You cheat, I will abuse your cheating.


What do yoy mean the troll has a fire immunity ring!

[OldTrees1]

I would normally agree that the lying was bad, except for this line. Reading ahead in the adventure and then using that knowledge is cheating. It's one of my main rules whenever I GM. You play fair, and I'll play fair. You cheat, I will abuse your cheating.

Meh, 2 wrongs don't make a right when not-wrong alternatives exist. (Although cheating on that level would get kicked out of my group).

[Vhaidara]

Meh, 2 wrongs don't make a right when not-wrong alternatives exist. (Although cheating on that level would get kicked out of my group).

I few it s playing to their level. It's also how I control over-optimization in my groups: If you don't overdo it, I won't overdo it. And, as the GM, I have the option of Pun-Pun, so you don't win an arms race with me.

[OldTrees1]

I few it s playing to their level. It's also how I control over-optimization in my groups: If you don't overdo it, I won't overdo it. And, as the GM, I have the option of Pun-Pun, so you don't win an arms race with me.

Playing to their level works, but is ill advised if their level is that much lower than yours. That is what I feel differentiates the case in the OP from the "If you don't overdo it, I won't overdo it" case.


Now that I am aware that the cheater peeked ahead, I think a better trap would have been to change the module in a way that would only hurt someone that assumed you were staying true to the module as written.

[Guizonde]

semi-relevant: last session i dm'd i accidentally thwarted a meta-gamer. to be clear, this is a 5 man band (me the dm included) that threw a universe at the wall and decided to see what happened. we are very close. one of my player's character had dreadlocks. he started last session by declaring he was attaching all sorts of objects into his locks because they were going on a boat. he metagamed that they would lose their stuff, be it by the boat capsizing or whatever. i repeatedly told him "are you sure?" to which he simply replied "yeah, don't worry. i'm waterproofing it all!"... i had unfortunately written the scenario, including their capture if they failed an endurance check. SOP was: bleach bath to rid the savages of lice and parasites, shave off their hair.

he started pleading saying things like "that's cruel and not fair!" until i showed him my notes. since i don't use a screen, he knew they were genuine and felt bad about it later for not picking up on my hints. i gave him his dreadlocks back and they count as a very weak flail (with hidden tools inside).

i still feel bad about it, because he did spend 10 minutes RP'ing how he fit everything in there, but it was borderline silly of him to do so. (although seeing as how he picked up the trick from my DnD cleric, i don't blame him for trying)

[Hand_of_Vecna]

And seriously, who even wants the Hand and Eye of Vecna?

I'll just be in the corner crying if anyone needs me.

[Snowbluff]

*pats Hand_of_Vecna on the head.*

So once I shot at an invisible imp/quasit/whatever. After I rolled AC and miss chance, I asked if I hit it.

We spent a round attacking before I got a response.

In short, never let players get a head of themselves.

[IIzak]

Actually I heard a funny story about R.A. Salvatore doing something similar to a group of people he was DM'ing once. It was right after he had written either "Streams of Silver" or "The Halfling's Gem" and his party encountered a Drow that looked exactly like Drizzt when described, with the same eye color and whatnot. The party asked the Drow if he was Drizzt, and when the Drow agreed with them that he was Drizzt, they let him into their camp and completely left themselves undefended. The Drow then proceeded to murder them all. Idk, kinda funny to me.

[illyahr]

Actually I heard a funny story about R.A. Salvatore doing something similar to a group of people he was DM'ing once. It was right after he had written either "Streams of Silver" or "The Halfling's Gem" and his party encountered a Drow that looked exactly like Drizzt when described, with the same eye color and whatnot. The party asked the Drow if he was Drizzt, and when the Drow agreed with them that he was Drizzt, they let him into their camp and completely left themselves undefended. The Drow then proceeded to murder them all. Idk, kinda funny to me.

Hah, I love this. :smallbiggrin:

[OldTrees1]

Actually I heard a funny story about R.A. Salvatore doing something similar to a group of people he was DM'ing once. It was right after he had written either "Streams of Silver" or "The Halfling's Gem" and his party encountered a Drow that looked exactly like Drizzt when described, with the same eye color and whatnot. The party asked the Drow if he was Drizzt, and when the Drow agreed with them that he was Drizzt, they let him into their camp and completely left themselves undefended. The Drow then proceeded to murder them all. Idk, kinda funny to me.

Later he wrote about Jarlaxle pretending to be Drizzt while on a surface adventure.

[Werephilosopher]

If you're going to metagame, a least make sure your out-of-game knowledge is good. He should've known they weren't the Hand and Eye, since artifacts don't ping from detect magic.

[Chronos]

Detect Magic says that they do. Some individual artifacts might not, but that's an exception, not the general rule.

Personally, if I were the DM when he asked "Are those what I think they are?", I wouldn't have nodded. I would have just given him a big grin. Of course, as any non-munchkin experienced player knows, when the DM is smiling, it's already too late.

[Inevitability]

I don't like what you did here. I could go in detail as to why not, but I'll just refer to the unwritten rule about solving OOC problems OOC and IC problems IC. I understand the player was being a ************, but such a problem should be solved OOC.

[Segev]

Of course, as any non-munchkin experienced player knows, when the DM is smiling, it's already too late.

Nonsense. Experienced munchkins know this better than anybody. ...they just often take it as a challenge.

[KillianHawkeye]

That's not outsmarting the metagamer; that's just being antagonistic. You're lucky it didn't lead to the players never trusting anything you told them again.

Y'know, I was all set to be agreeing with you, but I realized that you're the one who started using the word "outsmarted." The thread's title is "Of when I thwarted the meta-gamer," which is certainly a thing that happened. Sure, it wasn't the most honorable thing to do, but there was never any claim of outsmarting anybody. You made that up just to have something to rant against.

[Segev]

Y'know, I was all set to be agreeing with you, but I realized that you're the one who started using the word "outsmarted." The thread's title is "Of when I thwarted the meta-gamer," which is certainly a thing that happened. Sure, it wasn't the most honorable thing to do, but there was never any claim of outsmarting anybody. You made that up just to have something to rant against.

Huh, you're right; he did say "thwarted." I must have mentally equated the two. My bad.

I still don't condone this; technically, a DM can "thwart" a metagamer just by saying "nope, that didn't happen." It's no less eggregious in my mind than lying about what is happening in the game to the player. Again: lying to the PLAYER in an OOC fashion which can imply IC knowledge.