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Brawldennis
2015-04-08, 07:19 AM
Hey everyone, I have a problem with one of my players looking up monster stats during the game.

We play online so it's pretty hard to check up on whether people are looking up stats or not, I've sent the player in question a message asking not to do it anymore, but it will be pretty hard for me to check if he won't do it again.

Anyone else that had experience with this? And any ways to avoid it without having to change the statblock on every monster I use?

Kane0
2015-04-08, 07:42 AM
Youve already done the best thing, talk to them about it.

As for in game, you can:
- be more vague in your descriptions of monsters to maximise the time until they can get the page open
- individualise monsters. Make each one slightly different from the MM entry so the stat page doesnt help as much
- reskin monsters. Using stats of different creatures entirely will mean a lot more effort for them to find the right stat block
- make custom monsters. He will have to guess, since the only place the stats are written are in your notes
- play monsters more intelligently/strategically. This doesnt stop him knowing, it minimizes him capitalising on that knowledge. For example everyone knows red dragons like fire amd dont like cold, so the first thing its going to do is secure a way of protection from cold or perhaps even disguise itself as a different kind of dragon.
- knowledge is power, and intelligent foes will take steps to stop the PC from using it against them. He might well be a priority target, especially if the monsters know they are being hunted.

Disclaimer: all of these will meet with varying amounts of sucess, and may or may not be annoying to your players as well as time consuming for yourself. Tread carefully!

Vitruviansquid
2015-04-08, 07:50 AM
I can't imagine a player for whom "Hey you, quit being a knob!" isn't enough to stop it.

I'd just trust that he's not doing it any more after you tell him to stop.

Keltest
2015-04-08, 07:54 AM
Frankly, knowing the monster's stats is not the same thing as being able to do anything about it. If they have any outstanding weaknesses, maybe, but depending on how he handles it, his actions could very well be legitimate (IE leading with a fireball against a group of trolls). If theyre doing something obviously suspicious like breaking otherwise established patterns to burn those troll corpses for no stated reason, ask them to explain why theyre doing it. If his answer involves something like "Theyre trolls, and I don't want them coming back" then tell him to quit metagaming and take his ambush like a man.

DontEatRawHagis
2015-04-08, 07:57 AM
Reskin your monsters.

Play with resistances.

Add or minus 1 or 2 from AC. Call these Veteran or Lackey versions.

However, if he is meta gaming a Red Dragon is immune to fire damage or vampires are weak to radiant damage he is alright to guess those. That is common knowledge.

Maglubiyet
2015-04-08, 07:59 AM
Unless the characters have experience with a particular monster, there's nothing wrong with describing it instead of telling them the name.

E.g. - "You see a group of short, apparently humanoid creatures dancing around a fire to the heavy thumping of drums. Their faces are streaked with red and black warpaint and several of them are wearing headdresses made of human skulls."

As opposed to "There are seven goblins in the room."

Brawldennis
2015-04-08, 08:17 AM
I usually start with giving out a description of the monster, going by how the player would probably see it. I'll give out names and weaknesses only upon a successful knowledge check, the problem lies with the player in question sharing stuff he shouldn't know, like caster level, hit dice, saves and the exact spells known. I did adjust some parts of the monster and re-skinning might not be that bad of an idea, but the fact remains that I'll have to adjust my monsters, which of course takes preparation time. Add to that, that it would be nice to be able to just pick a monster on the fly, using it straight from the book.

Grod_The_Giant
2015-04-08, 08:19 AM
Unless the characters have experience with a particular monster, there's nothing wrong with describing it instead of telling them the name.

E.g. - "You see a group of short, apparently humanoid creatures dancing around a fire to the heavy thumping of drums. Their faces are streaked with red and black warpaint and several of them are wearing headdresses made of human skulls."

As opposed to "There are seven goblins in the room."
Problem is, you usually want to name it so you can stop saying "the green-skinned monster... no, not the big one, one of the other ones."

I'd go with the "talk to the player" option, followed by monster customization.

Maglubiyet
2015-04-08, 08:30 AM
Problem is, you usually want to name it so you can stop saying "the green-skinned monster... no, not the big one, one of the other ones."

Give them all proper names. "Reginald breathes acid on you. Mortimer and Paco are crawling along the ceiling towards the horses and Mr. Bubbles seems to be casting some sort of spell.". :p

Red Fel
2015-04-08, 08:35 AM
Seconding (thirding? fourthing?) monster customization, if talking fails. You'd be amazed how quickly a lesson is learned when a rotting, dessicated creature shambles towards the PC... Only to be completely undeterred by the usual anti-Undead measures, because it's not an Undead. Or a grinning, red, horned monstrosity, immune to the usual anti-Demon measures because it's not a Demon.

Once they get this message, one of two things will happen: (1) the player will throw a fit, insisting that you have to do what's in their book and nothing else. If it's a big enough fit, he'll look like an idiot in front of you and the other players, and you can give him a time out (i.e. ask him to step down for a session or two until he's willing to be civil about it). Or (2) the player will get the message, put the book away, and start using the in-game mechanics to identify things, as Gygax intended.

But yeah. Talk first. Then try customization.

Maglubiyet
2015-04-08, 08:47 AM
I usually start with giving out a description of the monster, going by how the player would probably see it. I'll give out names and weaknesses only upon a successful knowledge check, the problem lies with the player in question sharing stuff he shouldn't know, like caster level, hit dice, saves and the exact spells known. I did adjust some parts of the monster and re-skinning might not be that bad of an idea, but the fact remains that I'll have to adjust my monsters, which of course takes preparation time. Add to that, that it would be nice to be able to just pick a monster on the fly, using it straight from the book.

Yeah, that is annoying but unavoidable to some extent. Any longtime player of a game is going to have some stats memorized even if he doesn't look them up. Talking to them won't fix that part.

I'm a fan of re-skinning and atypical versions of monsters (class levels, templates, magical gear, etc.). Create a list of stat blocks of several different monsters ahead of time, like for random encounters.

You'll be able to take it off the shelf and run with it instead of futzing around during play. Any that you don't use you can save for next time. You'll slowly build a library of non-standard critters.

I've got several pages full of weird things I've made for random encounters over the years. Sometimes I pull one out and use it as the basis for an adventure.

Milodiah
2015-04-08, 10:35 AM
Personally, I'd require Dungeoneering or similar checks for them to figure out the monster's proper name; should they pass that, then they are allowed to know more or less the specifics of what they're fighting. Not ridiculous specifics like its touch AC or the fact that it rolls 2d8+2 for damage on its main attack, but more in-universe knowledge like a frost breath attack, a weakness towards (something stupid), etc.

I have almost never told my players the specific identity of a humanoid undead creature until they figure it out in-universe. Seriously, there are easily half a dozen that can fit any general description you throw at them. "Grey-skinned, glassy-eyed rotting figure slouching towards you" could be a regular zombie; could also be a Blaspheme, a Bleakborn, a Deathlock, an Entomber, a Ghoul, a Gravetouched Ghoul, a Ghast, a Necropolitan, a Slaughter Wight...that was just me going through Libris Mortis. There are others in other books.

Brawldennis
2015-04-08, 10:58 AM
I guess I'll see how he'll react and what effect it will have on his behavior, else I will have to go with custom monsters, swapping around resistances, spell-like abilities and caster levels to see how that goes. Hope it will stay with how he's done it now, last time he was calculating the average damage a wall of fire would do, to decide whether or not he would run through it.

Anyone else have these types of thing happen to them, I wonder as it's a first for me.

hookbill
2015-04-08, 11:01 AM
agree, talk first, but ...

I would use vague descriptors. especially for goblinoid or common undead.. unless they've run into hundreds of kobalds or goblins, they wouldn't be able to distinguish between variants. Plus if its that rare that there are only one type (e.g Balor) chances are they haven't encountered it and only have rumor to go on (and then only maybe it’s acurate) we know how adventurers like to embellish ... "it was 6, no 16, no 60ft tall and there were thousands of 'em"

BayardSPSR
2015-04-08, 12:40 PM
If you specifically want players to be in the dark about monster abilities, don't use monsters that can be looked up online.

Of course, this is assuming you want players to be in the dark about monster abilities. When you're playing in-person, having the players know whether their own rolls hit or not can speed things up.

draken50
2015-04-08, 01:29 PM
If I as the GM have a simple request... such as don't look up the monster stat-blocks during games, and I have a player will not cease that behavior.
I no longer have that player in my games.


You are doing the correct thing in communicating with the player that it is a problem. How you handle Player knowledge vs. Character knowledge is entirely up to you and your game. Yes, there are solutions which can potentialy mitigate the "benefits" or curb the behavior. I personally don't feel as the GM that I need to tolerate that kind of thing though, so I tend to go with... "I asked you stop.. you didn't stop, get out."

Everyone is going to have different points at which they will ask a player to leave. For me, a strong lack of consideration for either myself or the other players, or a refusal to abide by the rules of my game result in dismissal.

Segev
2015-04-08, 01:45 PM
If it's specific powers and abilities he's metagaming and sharing with others, have him (or the PC he's saying should act on the knowledge) roll a Knowledge check. Set the DC wherever you think appropriate, to see if this person would know the given fact about that monster.

If they fail the check, change that specific fact. Make them have a different spell instead of that one. Change the ability such that it renders preparations against it invalid.

If they make it, they've successfully shown their PC knows this, IC. Keep it the same.

Galen
2015-04-08, 02:04 PM
Throw him my favorite encounter, an Albino Red Dragon.

Spojaz
2015-04-08, 02:06 PM
Metagaming can be troublesome, but remember to put yourselves in the player's shoes. Some people have really good memories and just enjoy reading the monster manual. Maybe they run the same game as you are playing and they happen to remember what a monster's weaknesses are from last time they put it in a dungeon. Even if they actually are looking up the monster during the game:smallannoyed:, which is pretty obnoxious and counter to the fun, it alone won't give them that much of an advantage beyond "ooh that was actually just a really good damage roll, it can't count on doing that much every time it hits, we can probably tank it"

Above all, make sure the problematic metagaming isn't necessary for progress.

“there’s no way you would know to use fire, so you just bend over and take a nice hard trolling until I say you’re done!” (http://theangrygm.com/respect-the-metagame/)

If outside knowledge is a survival skill at your table, you can't fault them for obtaining it.

Darth Ultron
2015-04-08, 03:00 PM
This is very common and really is no big deal.


There are lots of monsters. Like 500 in the official rule books, at least 500 more 3rd party and don't forget about fan made for another 500 or so. In short, you have lots of monsters to pick from....A lot they can't easily look up.

It's not really just a big deal to switch monster stat blocks. It's very easy.

It's also easy to give each monster a template/class level to make them not ''by the book''.


And when it is all said an done....knowing about the monster is very often pointless. Sure the player knows what the monster can do...and...well, that does not tell them too much. They know it has an AC of 20, but that does noting to help the character hit and do damage.

Mastikator
2015-04-08, 04:01 PM
Give heavy bonus EXP for good roleplaying, stipulate that good roleplaying excludes metagaming.

Metagaming is a technique used by gamers because they like playing games. If you give exp for roleplaying and clearly draw the game mechanical rules for roleplaying then roleplaying becomes attractive to gamers.

Yes, make game mechanics for roleplaying. Make roleplaying a game mechanical feature. Stuff like defining your character's personality traits in advance and *meticulously sticking to them and acting strictly on in-character knowledge. Make sure you tell the players that in game experiences do build on the character's history and character, not just in an EXP way but in a personality trait way. If they get betrayed by a NPC one too many times the character becomes untrusting of strangers.
How much is too much? That's up to the player, now he's hooked. You just got him to roleplay.

Players who have experience with roleplaying won't have any need to the mentioned above, but metagamers will be converted into roleplayers. The human mind is very plastic, as is our preferences. This bogus idea that we should just always respect other peoples preferences is not helping anyone. If you're hosting a roleplaying game and you got a gamer messing with your game through metagaming, make roleplaying into a game he can understand.


*You will have to make it clear that it is a requirement that they design characters that won't grief the game.

veti
2015-04-08, 04:03 PM
If theyre doing something obviously suspicious like breaking otherwise established patterns to burn those troll corpses for no stated reason, ask them to explain why theyre doing it. If his answer involves something like "Theyre trolls, and I don't want them coming back" then tell him to quit metagaming and take his ambush like a man.

Meh, I can't believe the thing about burning trolls isn't "common knowledge within the game world", at least as common as trolls themselves, so that's not unreasonable. If the players for whatever reason don't declare they're doing that, I'd give them a knowledge roll to earn a prompt from me to do it anyway.

Likewise, if you see a scaly thing about the size of a dog, with two big antennae and a propellor on its tail, it's not unreasonable for the PCs to break out non-metal weapons to fight it (or at least shoo it away). Unless those things are so rare that practically no adventurer in living memory has met one and lived to tell about it, word will have got around. It's a very distinctive - look.

And that's probably the answer... It's not hard to confuse the player about what the monster is. If you encounter a dragon in a dimly lit cave, how the heck can you tell what colour it is? If you're assailed by a pair of tentacles and a foul smell, is that a roper or an otyugh or a team of kobolds who've been training with whips? Use your imagination, have fun, and make it so that he doesn't even know which page to look at, until he's either already committed to some action, or the combat is half-over.

Douglas
2015-04-08, 04:20 PM
I've got a relevant webcomic sequence (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=30) for this.

Keltest
2015-04-08, 04:20 PM
Meh, I can't believe the thing about burning trolls isn't "common knowledge within the game world", at least as common as trolls themselves, so that's not unreasonable. If the players for whatever reason don't declare they're doing that, I'd give them a knowledge roll to earn a prompt from me to do it anyway.

Likewise, if you see a scaly thing about the size of a dog, with two big antennae and a propellor on its tail, it's not unreasonable for the PCs to break out non-metal weapons to fight it (or at least shoo it away). Unless those things are so rare that practically no adventurer in living memory has met one and lived to tell about it, word will have got around. It's a very distinctive - look.

And that's probably the answer... It's not hard to confuse the player about what the monster is. If you encounter a dragon in a dimly lit cave, how the heck can you tell what colour it is? If you're assailed by a pair of tentacles and a foul smell, is that a roper or an otyugh or a team of kobolds who've been training with whips? Use your imagination, have fun, and make it so that he doesn't even know which page to look at, until he's either already committed to some action, or the combat is half-over.

It depends widely on the character background. In my campaign at the point theyre at, the characters are all veteran adventurers. Theres a moderate chance that they've either encountered any given monster before, and certainly a good chance they heard about it by now. However when they started, they were complete novices, except for one veteran traveler character, and wouldn't be able to tell a troll from an Ent (obviously im not being literal). And even then theres a lot of monsters they don't really know about coming from underground now, like Displacer Beasts, which they have successfully forgotten about OOC and In Character approximately 3 times now, despite repeatedly encountering them.


I've got a relevant webcomic sequence (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=30) for this.

My antivirus is blocking that website...

Brawldennis
2015-04-09, 12:29 AM
The different amount of exp won't work as I prefer to level the party all at the same time.

I guess I'll start to look at adding monsters with slightly tweaked abilities and perhaps even a couple of class levels. Doing the "it looks like this monster, but actually is this one" feels a bit petty too me to be honest and it would probably just annoy everyone in the game.

Hadn't thought about kicking him out, it seems like a somewhat small reason to kick someone, though that might just be me being easygoing.

KillianHawkeye
2015-04-09, 02:02 AM
Hadn't thought about kicking him out, it seems like a somewhat small reason to kick someone, though that might just be me being easygoing.

It may seem like a small reason, but it's a sign of disrespect and indicative that the person in question is either unwilling or unable to be reasonable in a social situation. Given enough time, it is very likely to escalate into a much larger problem and you will wish that you had dealt with it sooner.

cobaltstarfire
2015-04-09, 02:24 AM
I used pictures that I drew myself back when I DM'd.

This is really only an option if you're interested in learning to draw, or already can draw.

If you don't want to draw, you could dig up old school or alternative art of the monsters, old/alternative art can be really entertaining.

Also of course tweaking the stats/weaknesses a bit, or refluffing stat blocks.

Avoiding the names of monsters doesn't really bog anything down for my current GM. Our most recent battle was against a bunch of bugbears, and he just describe them as hairy monsters # 1-5. The only jellies we ever fought were just called "jellies" after their initial description of shape and color. Same for undead, and bullywugs were just "frog men"

Brawldennis
2015-04-09, 06:26 AM
It may seem like a small reason, but it's a sign of disrespect and indicative that the person in question is either unwilling or unable to be reasonable in a social situation. Given enough time, it is very likely to escalate into a much larger problem and you will wish that you had dealt with it sooner.

Hmmm, you might be right, I've never really been in the situation where I've had to kick someone out. I usually only play with familly so this is a first for me too. I had hoped to have his reaction to my message by now.

MrStabby
2015-04-09, 11:14 AM
If you are writing the adventure yourself I would strongly advocate creating a few of your own homebrew monsters. You don't need to do all of them but enough that people begin to distrust the book.

By having your own creations you get to develop your own world as you go, create unexpected and characterful encounters. Even a couple of character levels really changes things. Why have Zombies when you can have the Raging Dead by adding a couple of Barbarian levels to them?

I would also say that you should give your characters more alternative abilities to know about what they meet (although disregard this if you already do this a lot). Encourage people to search out rumours of what they might encounter or reward appropriate knowledge checks/roleplaying different backgrounds that might give them a clue. It may be that the guy you have a problem with doesn't see what he is doing as a big deal - by ensuring that it seems like "cheating" (yeah, not really the right word in a non competitive context buy you know what I mean) because it is effectively claiming the benefits of a check he hasn't made but could make he may begin to see it in a different context.

Jay R
2015-04-09, 12:11 PM
First, you do not have to change "every monster I use". Change about one in three. That's enough to make them not trust their meta-knowledge.

Second, don't change the stat-block; change the name. Call the ghouls zombies. Call the Hell Hounds Dire Wolves.

Third, introduce a couple of completely original monsters. This should be rare enough that it's not too much work for you. For instance, I created zombies whose dead, bloodless meat is harder to cut. If they get a good cut or thrust, the sword is stuck in the zombie, and the next round is spent trying to get the sword back out.

Finally, once they face a monster enough times, give them the advantage of a weakness that they could only find out by fighting them. My goblins are one hit-die creatures about half-way between animals and men, and are have very low morale, unless led by a good (non-goblin) leader. Kill the leader, they will scatter. Goblin wolf-riders hunt in packs, and try to cut one PC away from the party and run off with him. They are hunting like wolves, because the alpha wolf, not the head goblin, is in charge.

Once the PCs figure that out, they will still face goblins, but they will be the easy encounters, and the players will see that they get more advantage out of information from the game experience than out of information from the books.

Darth Ultron
2015-04-09, 01:17 PM
Add to that, that it would be nice to be able to just pick a monster on the fly, using it straight from the book.

What game are you playing? D&D? Even right here on GitP you should have little problem finding 500-1000 homebrewed monsters. Ones your player won't know about. And this is just one website.....

BayardSPSR
2015-04-09, 04:23 PM
First, you do not have to change "every monster I use". Change about one in three. That's enough to make them not trust their meta-knowledge.

Actually, that's a good point. You don't have to google-proof every monster, you just have to change the expectation from "I can reliably google these" to "I can't find accurate information about these online."

Brawldennis
2015-04-10, 06:40 AM
Playing pathfinder, I'm not really sure about using homebrew monsters, in my experience homebrew can het very crazy very fast.

The custom monsters might be a good idea to mix things up every now and then, though getting art that fits it would be a huge pain, that's why I mostly just use monsters VROM the bestiary as they usually include their own art.

Jay R
2015-04-10, 06:06 PM
Playing pathfinder, I'm not really sure about using homebrew monsters, in my experience homebrew can het very crazy very fast.

Don't use homebrew; re-name and re-image established creatures. The giant frog leaping at them could be a Slaad. Use the bugbear stats for goblins and vice versa. Make a Winter Wolf a magical, flying creature by using White Dragon stats.

The problem is not the statblock. The problem is that the creature's name tells the players what the statblock is. So use the statblock with the wrong name.

Maglubiyet
2015-04-10, 06:08 PM
The custom monsters might be a good idea to mix things up every now and then, though getting art that fits it would be a huge pain, that's why I mostly just use monsters VROM the bestiary as they usually include their own art.

If you're just using this in-house, do you ever use sites like deviantart or images from an internet search?

The Insanity
2015-04-11, 07:36 AM
I don't really have metagaming problems, although I reskin, customize and apply templates to monsters to keep my games exciting and surprising.


Don't use homebrew; re-name and re-image established creatures. The giant frog leaping at them could be a Slaad. Use the bugbear stats for goblins and vice versa. Make a Winter Wolf a magical, flying creature by using White Dragon stats.

The problem is not the statblock. The problem is that the creature's name tells the players what the statblock is. So use the statblock with the wrong name.
Or don't actually use names. I give names only when the PCs make their Knowledge check.

nedz
2015-04-11, 04:55 PM
Throw him my favorite encounter, an Albino Red Dragon.
I've taken to applying Half-Dragon templates to many of my Dragons (of a different colour) because Dragons breed with anything Dragons are Colour Coded for your convenience it makes it more interesting. Metallic + Chromatic gets them thinking, though Red+White = Pink and Blue+Brass = Blue+Copper = Green+Silver = Metallic Green Dragon = Copper Dragon with Verdigris.


Give heavy bonus EXP for good roleplaying, stipulate that good roleplaying excludes metagaming.
Unfortunately this can come across as playing favourites.


My antivirus is blocking that website...

Mine too


Likewise, if you see a scaly thing about the size of a dog, with two big antennae and a propellor on its tail, it's not unreasonable for the PCs to break out non-metal weapons to fight it (or at least shoo it away). Unless those things are so rare that practically no adventurer in living memory has met one and lived to tell about it, word will have got around. It's a very distinctive - look.

I have successfully done this.

Also: The Valley of the Statues seems to be full of wild chickens.

I've also created Frost-Balors.

goto124
2015-04-15, 11:27 PM
Is it true that I must not read a pre-written campaign I'm in? I wish to avoid situations where I unknowingly make a off-the-rails action, and the DM just stumbles all over and makss the railroading very obvious.