Teaching Not to Meta-Game

[fishdad]

Playing with a my kids friends age 15'ish. They have a hard time not meta-gaming.
More specifically:

They give each other suggestions in middle of combat even if separated.
They can't get over it when they know, out of game, that I lied to them but their character didn't figure it out.
They know stuff about enemy's/monsters that they shouldn't know. (Minor)

I fully understand that perfect non-meta gaming is not possible but could use some pointers.

I have been writing notes to character with information that is just for them. Trying to cut down on opportunities for them to meta-game but this slows down the game and is hard to do.
Do you think I should just start saying everything out loud and point out that this is just for you?
Any other suggestions to promote good gaming?

Not really interested in punishing just teaching.

Thanks

[gfishfunk]

Monsters: change stat blocks if that is what they know. Let them know ahead of time so they don't become accusatory.
-- Goblins: reskin kobolds, for example. For orcs, use bandits. etc.
In combat suggestions: anything said in combat is said in combat.
-- Things get bonuses if the understand the language being used because they see it coming and can react to it or prepare ahead of time
-- If things don't understand what language is being used, no advantages. Makes sense, right?
-- I'm totally ok with this at my table, unless its one person trying to quarterback everyone else (or just one other person)

Another thing to do:
- tell them that Metagaming is totally appropriate in a specific context: once they know something OOC, they should try to push IC to learn that information in a natural way.
* Award inspiration for refusing to meta-game in ways you disapprove

[MaxWilson]

Playing with a my kids friends age 15'ish. They have a hard time not meta-gaming.
More specifically:

They give each other suggestions in middle of combat even if separated.
They can't get over it when they know, out of game, that I lied to them but their character didn't figure it out.
They know stuff about enemy's/monsters that they shouldn't know. (Minor)

I fully understand that perfect non-meta gaming is not possible but could use some pointers.

I have been writing notes to character with information that is just for them. Trying to cut down on opportunities for them to meta-game but this slows down the game and is hard to do.
Do you think I should just start saying everything out loud and point out that this is just for you?
Any other suggestions to promote good gaming?

Not really interested in punishing just teaching.

Thanks

My opinion: don't bother. Metagaming by players is 100% a-ok. It been part of D&D since the very beginning, and Gary Gygax built whole dungeons around the assumption that of course players would use what they know to direct their characters' actions.

I fully endorse what AngryDM says here, except for the cartoon swearing: http://www.madadventurers.com/angry-rants-you-cant-possibly-know-that/

Metagaming by DMs is different. It involves customizing your gameworld to frustrate your players' strengths. It is bad because it tends to remove player agency. When learning the Invisibility spell just makes all the guards suddenly have potions of See Invisible which they drink religiously, but you can't sell those potions for anything even if you acquire some, you are arguably better off just never learning Invisibility in the first place. That's DM metagaming, and it is bad. But player metagaming (using out-of-character knowledge in-character) is fine unless your players don't enjoy it. D&D at the table is a social game and anything which encourages social interaction between players is great.

[pwykersotz]

I used to be more frustrated by metagaming than I am now. To me, metagaming is the acknowledgement by the players that this is just a game, and that they are not their character. Terrible for simulation, great for getting on with the game. If you want to run a more RP heavy game, start slow. Let them understand that there will be certain advantages to not doing that. gfishfunk is right, awarding inspiration for doing something in character when they could have done it a different way is a solid way to go. And let them know when they missed a juicy bit. At the end of every "scene" I let my players know the stuff they missed and why/how. This lets them know to look for those things and ways they can take advantage in the next scene. Consistency is key in this one.

With regards to figuring out lies, this one might be best left in the dust. I find that my games run better when every piece of information that comes out of my mouth is the truth. How much of the truth is a different story. This builds on the players ability to trust in what I say and work with it, as opposed to being constantly suspicious, which fuels the metagame. If the party rolls a natural 1 (and if we're using crit fail rules), I don't tell them that the footprints go down the incorrect path, since this is verifiable by other party members very quickly. Instead that path might have an unforseen hazard, or they might not notice that a third path in the undergrowth was possible, or something of that nature. It lets the players be suspicious and careful in the metagame because that natural 1 means something bad, but they aren't forced to have an OOC conflict of knowing that the left path was really the correct one, even though their tracker told them to go right.

With regards to combat conversation, I actually encourage a minimal bit of conversation as long as players not present are not trying to play in lieu of a less experienced player who is the one making the decisions. The only other time I have an issue is when conversation starts taking longer than the actual combat turns.

But ultimately, use a carrot approach, and almost never a stick. Tell them that you'll give them more exp or more loot overall if they think like their characters, and then stick to that. Give them some obvious advantages from NPC's who are fully in character despite the party's lack of cooperation so they can see it happening from your side. And be very, very, very patient. 15 year old's man...15 year olds... When I was that age, I didn't have my mind on too many broader implications of things. :smalltongue:

[mephnick]

I spent so much energy over the years trying to combat meta-gaming and now I've given up completely. I think my games run a lot smoother for it.

It's a social game and the fact that they are engaged at all is a great thing. Let them discuss tactics in combat (it is a game after all), let their knowledge of the more common monsters slide (they are adventurers in a world of monsters after all). If it becomes a real problem, use customs monsters or rare ones. I have pretty experience players, but even they don't have perfect book knowledge of what a spirit naga can do.

[Gnaeus]

Yeah, metagaming covers a huge amount of ground.

1. Building your characters for a mechanical advantage is metagaming. (may be good or bad depending on gaming group)
BUT
Building your character to fit in with other characters in the group (like "we will all be Good aligned", or "we will all be from the same village" or "we need a skillmonkey, will you play a rogue or bard?" is metagaming, and most people agree it is a good idea.

2. Using Player knowledge to disrupt a campaign ("I read the books so lets go steal the spellbook of Fistandantalus before Raistlin can get it") is metagaming and is pretty bad.
But
Using player knowledge about monsters is also bad, but is often pretty confusing in the sense of knowing exactly what your PC would know. Players may think their PC should know things about common monsters or legendary monsters that the DM disagrees with.
But
Using player knowledge about other PCs "My character doesn't like Bob's character. IC I would kill him, or leave him behind and replace him, but OOC I know that will disrupt the game so I will make up a justification on why I will keep him with the group" is ALSO metagaming, and most people think this is an important part of being a good player.

My suggestion for new players:
1. Suggest that they all learn one common language so they can party talk freely. If they often split up, give them the option to buy or find an item that gives them a telepathic link so they can talk IC. If separated, it is super boring to not just be out of combat, but actually unable to talk. Alternately, allow a Wis or Int check to use some tactic from another player. Just because a player might be a 15 year old high school kid, doesn't mean his hundred year old elf fighter might not be a tactical genius.

2. Be super clear about what they know IC about monsters. As soon as they see an orc, tell them what they know about orcs. If it happens often, make a notecard they can refer to. When giving them info, if it is a common or legendary monster, err on the side of giving them more, not less info.

[MaxWilson]

I spent so much energy over the years trying to combat meta-gaming and now I've given up completely. I think my games run a lot smoother for it.

It's a social game and the fact that they are engaged at all is a great thing. Let them discuss tactics in combat (it is a game after all), let their knowledge of the more common monsters slide (they are adventurers in a world of monsters after all). If it becomes a real problem, use customs monsters or rare ones. I have pretty experience players, but even they don't have perfect book knowledge of what a spirit naga can do.

Also, players (and PCs) who are knowledgeable at the metagame level are particularly vulnerable to illusions, if you know what I mean. Even something as simple as a Disguise Self spell (Medusa) will have them all averting their eyes from the enemy "Medusa" who is in fact an armored Eldritch Knight with Disguise Self cast. Their metagame knowledge is effectively being used to force them to fight him blindfolded, whereas a more ignorant group would just look right at the "Medusa" (and nothing would happen).

[lperkins2]

My general rule is anything the players can remember 'off the top of their heads', the PCs know. This is both for practical (meta-game), and story-driven reasons.

Practical, because you don't want to disrupt the flow of the game because you think a player may be 'cheating'. Consider, I'll often burn the bodies of everything killed by my PC and his friends, not because it might require fire to truly kill, but because dead bodies grow disease, smell, attract bad things, and provide 'ammunition' to local necromancers; or, when I spot a statue near a treasure room/significant landmark, I manacle it, not because I 'know' it will come to life (out of dozens of statues I've chained up, 2 came to life), but because bards (players) love to tell stories of the time so-and-so got torn in half by a giant statue guarding the kings tomb (and yes, I usually leave the statues chained up when we leave, chains are cheap, and the statue might be pretending to still be sessile (not happened yet, but I'm rather paranoid)). The point is, with some exceptions, you can't know why the player is doing what they're doing. As has been mentioned, making the players come up with an excuse to use what they know becomes the disruption it's supposed to prevent. (And it encourages the Players to lie, in the meta-game, which is not a good thing).

From a story point of view, the PCs grew up in the world, probably listening to bards, and boastful adventurers, and crazy/wise old men issuing warnings. Of course, those stories might not have been perfectly accurate, or might have been outright fabrications. This lines out well with players bringing knowledge from other campaigns, either campaigns they played, or heard about others playing. Campaigns they've played can still give imperfect information, due to setting/version/DM differences (ex: I allow critical hits against corporeal undead, after all, cutting one in half should still basically insta kill it) and more so with campaign stories others have told them (players, like drunk fighters, exaggerate/simplify/missremember their exploits). It can be a lot of fun when the setting-specific rules make the genre-aware PCs do something unfortunate, like thinking they can beat a 5e troll unconscious by simply knocking its HP way negative), or like casting fireball at the 'ghost-like-thingy', which basically feeds off heat (heals/gains tempHP from fire damage) ("well dangit, looks like that freaking idiot fighter boasting about burning thousands of ghosts to death had too much to drink")

That said, the question is when should you discourage players from using player knowledge to change PC behaviour. The answer is: it depends, mostly on the kind of campaign being run. If it's a 'collaborative story' kind of campaign, where the PCs get cutaway views of what the BBEG is doing (like in lots of books and movies), there will be bits of plot-specific knowledge they have, that their players do not. Which is why that kind of campaign is for mature players, who can self-censor. It may require you to say 'wait a minute, you guys don't know that IC', but that shouldn't cause more than a minor disruption, since the players in that kind of a campaign need to be focused on telling a compelling story too. In terms of general player knowledge, my rule is 'no rulebook lookups at the (combat) table'. If the player remembers exactly how many HP the beholder zombie has, and all of its abilities, great! We'll move past this encounter a bit faster. Of course, this includes player spells and the like. If you have burning hands prepared, write down (or memorize) the description since we're not pausing combat for you to look it up, if you're looking up rules when we get to your turn in combat, we're moving on. I actually have the PHB and monster manual as books in the game, somewhat expensive, as all books are, and renamed as 'The Adventurer's Guide' and 'The Adventurer's Bestiary'. Of course, they're not perfectly accurate, since they don't reflect setting-specific changes, but I have had the party's bard fall back from fighting a tough to kill monster and go to flipping through the bestiary looking for hints while the rest of the party distracted it.

[Segev]

One thing to consider: giving tactical advice even when not around is a way for players to stay engaged in a scene their PCs may not be in. Or a turn in which they're not acting. It can also be a great tool for helping a player of a PC who is not as good as that PC should be at tactics or other knowledge bits to play their character BETTER.

I suggest, therefore, that if they're giving advice you feel is metagaming, you have the player of the character who would act on that advice roll an appropriate check - possibly just a raw Int or Wis roll - to have their PC independently think of that information. Now, IC, the character has come up with it, even if OOC the idea came from another player whose character isn't around to suggest it.

[cobaltstarfire]

I've never really thought of players working together to coordinate combat as meta-gamey, or at least not of the kind that is problematic. The characters probably know how they each fight and can handle and think about combat better than the players ever can, and letting the players work together can help increase that feel in game.


One thing you could do about them knowing monsters is simply have their characters find a monster manual, with the caveat that it may not always be completely accurate. It's something one of my old DM's really liked to do, and it had the added benefit of letting the person be a DM "helper" (we were all "helpers" in our own way, one person kept track of loot, one person did initiative, and one person had the monster manual). It made combat flow more smoothly even with the DM changing up a lot of the monsters from what they were in the MM.


The few times I've DM'd I would usually just draw pictures of creatures rather than call them by given name, unless they were something the PCs would be able to identify easily (or with a die roll if it wasn't so easy). Though not everyone can or wants to put time into drawing so it's not the best solution. But I also ran worlds that had fewer magical creatures and humanoids, so there were lots of things like packs of hyenas or mysterious swarms of crabs that didn't need any special description or drawings most of the time.

[lperkins2]

I've never really thought of players working together to coordinate combat as meta-gamey, or at least not of the kind that is problematic. The characters probably know how they each fight and can handle and think about combat better than the players ever can, and letting the players work together can help increase that feel in game.

That's an excellent point, especially if it's the party wizard, at some point, you're trying to play a character significantly smarter than you are. Even if your character is only a bit above average (12-14 int), they'll likely know more about their craft than the player does. It also levels the playing field a bit for new players, whose characters may have essentially identical backstories to the experienced players' characters, but are completely inept by comparison due to not remembering rules as well.

[REVISIONIST]

I feel for you fishdad, I started my son and his friends in 4e, migrated to 5e and he still remembers more of both than I do. DM'd under both systems. Players have a tendency to try and maximize their survivability. What you see as meta-gaming is what I see as their greater amount of leisure time/ intenet access. They will always have more. Let it go. Change up stats as others have suggested. Dig into older monsters online or homebrew. Also, as others have said upthread, part of the fun for them may be knowing about the challenge that the creatures present, then you need to make the enviroment more challenging. Cliffs, forests, eneven terrain, etc. sometimes the enviroment makes more of a challenge than the creatures. Time to put them all on a boat at sea, roll up a few custom critters based on the MM but not to far off and see what happens.

[MaxWilson]

My general rule is anything the players can remember 'off the top of their heads', the PCs know. This is both for practical (meta-game), and story-driven reasons.

Practical, because you don't want to disrupt the flow of the game because you think a player may be 'cheating'. Consider, I'll often burn the bodies of everything killed by my PC and his friends, not because it might require fire to truly kill, but because dead bodies grow disease, smell, attract bad things, and provide 'ammunition' to local necromancers; or, when I spot a statue near a treasure room/significant landmark, I manacle it, not because I 'know' it will come to life (out of dozens of statues I've chained up, 2 came to life), but because bards (players) love to tell stories of the time so-and-so got torn in half by a giant statue guarding the kings tomb (and yes, I usually leave the statues chained up when we leave, chains are cheap, and the statue might be pretending to still be sessile (not happened yet, but I'm rather paranoid)). The point is, with some exceptions, you can't know why the player is doing what they're doing. As has been mentioned, making the players come up with an excuse to use what they know becomes the disruption it's supposed to prevent. (And it encourages the Players to lie, in the meta-game, which is not a good thing).

That's a great use for manacles. Consider it stolen. :)

One more comment on metagaming: metagaming is, in a sense, the whole point of D&D. If the goal of roleplaying were purely to act out, in character, exactly what the PCs would naturally do, D&D would work just fine as a solo game or better yet a solo activity involving a typewriter and a plot outline. D&D was originally designed to confer upon players the capabilities of wizards/warriors/thieves in a fantasy world, with the expectation that the players would gradually grow in skill and ability at employing those capabilities. It very quickly took on roleplaying connections ("what would Thok really do in this situation?") but the fact that the PCs' behavior is still anchored in the real-world thoughts and desires of an actual human being is a feature, not a bug. Even though that is metagaming by definition.

Why do DMs give out XP for monsters? Because players like XP and like going up in levels. If it were strictly about the desires of the PC, independent of monsters, more adventures would be about a lazy day off spending gold and eating at fancy restaurants.