Metagaming: Where Do You Draw the Line

[Easy_Lee]

It's time for one of those threads again. At a recent Storm King's Thunder game, a player chose to take Giant as one of their languages known. Why? Because it's a campaign based on giants, of course. And this brought up metagaming.

Metagaming: where you act based on knowledge your character does not possess.

Bob: I chose this language because the campaign is about giants. But if you think about it, a character in this part of the world would have reason to learn Giant, and someone who can speak Giant would have reason to come here. I'm sure I can think up a good backstory reason why I know Giant.

Sue: You chose Giant based on the knowledge that this campaign is about giants. Your character didn't know that before [plot happened]. That's metagaming.

Me: Sue's technically right, but I don't think it's a problem.

My take: I think it's genuinely impossible to fully avoid metagaming. You are who you are, and are tied to your own experiences and knowledge as surely as you are tied to life itself. Furthermore, deliberately making bad choices just to avoid any hint of metagaming is not fun. I only have a problem with metagaming when it gets in the way of fun.

What do you think, playground? Where do you draw the line?

In an undead campaign, a player chooses to play a Cleric, Paladin, Undying Warlock, or Sun Soul Monk, knowing these characters work well against undead.
Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls. When asked how he knew to do this, he says he thinks it's common knowledge that his character would know, but isn't sure.
A character entering a dungeon, one he's been assured is safe, constantly checks for traps and looks over his shoulder because he, the player, knows there's no way it's actually safe.
A player writes a backstory so long and detailed that it includes all of the meta knowledge he possesses (the Henderson approach).
Reading the campaign ahead of time.

[Tanarii]

Me: Sue's technically right, but I don't think it's a problem.

My take: I think it's genuinely impossible to fully avoid metagaming. You are who you are, and are tied to your own experiences and knowledge as surely as you are tied to life itself. Furthermore, deliberately making bad choices just to avoid any hint of metagaming is not fun. I only have a problem with metagaming when it gets in the way of fun.I came in here all ready argue how you're wrong, that ARGLE BARGLE METAGAMING! isn't actually a problem. :smallamused:

Hey look, I agree with Easy_Lee about something. Did pigs just fly?

Edit: not only would I expect players to take Giant in Storm Kings Thunder, but I'd recommend ALL character build choices be considered with an eye to the current Adventure path (since they're going to be he entirety of the campaign). Rage / Class / Background choices, spell selections, etc. True for any campaign. This should all be part of the session 0 discussion ... what the campaign focus will be, and what character choices fit it.

[RSP]

Taking Giant for STK doesn't bother me. Nor does making an anti-undead character for an undead campaign (which is similar to making sure a Ranger's Favorite Enemy aligns with the campaign: no one likes being ineffective or having abilities that will never be used).

I think it comes down to in-session metagaming for me: play your character how it's made up and keep player knowledge out of a PC's Actions.

For something like burning a troll, I'd ask the DM: in this campaign setting, is it common knowledge that regenerating creatures tend to be effected by fire (if not specifically trolls). If it's not, I'd expect players to play like their character doesn't know this.

Metagaming is a big pet peeve of mine, when using player knowledge instead of character knowledge, though like I said, I'm okay with using knowledge to create a character for a campaign.

If it came up that a player put in their backstory that they know a bunch of things I don't think they would (or don't want them to), I'd just have them remove it from their backstory. If they tried to present info in game and claim it is what they would know from their unwritten backstory, well that's why we have knowledge skill checks, to see what characters know!

[RSP]

I came in here all ready argue how you're wrong, that ARGLE BARGLE METAGAMING! isn't actually a problem. :smallamused:

Hey look, I agree with Easy_Lee about something. Did pigs just fly?

Edit: not only would I expect players to take Giant in Storm Kings Thunder, but I'd recommend ALL character build choices be considered with an eye to the current Adventure path (since they're going to be he entirety of the campaign). Rage / Class / Background choices, spell selections, etc. True for any campaign. This should all be part of the session 0 discussion ... what the campaign focus will be, and what character choices fit it.

Yeah in our campaign we've found Shield Master isn't that great in SKT as it's main feature is essentially moot (BA Shove) because Giants are Huge (and therefore too big to Shove). These things should be planned out when characters are being built.

[Aett_Thorn]

My take: I think it's genuinely impossible to fully avoid metagaming. You are who you are, and are tied to your own experiences and knowledge as surely as you are tied to life itself. Furthermore, deliberately making bad choices just to avoid any hint of metagaming is not fun. I only have a problem with metagaming when it gets in the way of fun.

What do you think, playground? Where do you draw the line?

In an undead campaign, a player chooses to play a Cleric, Paladin, Undying Warlock, or Sun Soul Monk, knowing these characters work well against undead.
Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls. When asked how he knew to do this, he says he thinks it's common knowledge that his character would know, but isn't sure.
A character entering a dungeon, one he's been assured is safe, constantly checks for traps and looks over his shoulder because he, the player, knows there's no way it's actually safe.
A player writes a backstory so long and detailed that it includes all of the meta knowledge he possesses (the Henderson approach).
Reading the campaign ahead of time.



I tend to agree with you that it's only a problem or when it gets in the way, or that there is no logical reason for the character to do what they are doing once they have been built. Basically, I don't mind players making choices for their characters when they are building them based on the campaign. But once they are built, they should act like their characters and not have much more meta knowledge of the game. Making a character that will be good against the undead? Sure, that's fine. Randomly pulling out knowledge like undead X is weak to Y so I do Z is not okay unless they've been able to make some sort of knowledge check.

Though sometimes it goes the other way, where the player is not given enough information, and so makes a very weak character for the game that they are about to play. My first time playing 5e was with some friends where there was a Sorc, Wizard, Fighter, and a Valor Bard. Decided to make an Arctic Land Druid Forest Gnome. Gave it to the DM, no red flags were raised, get into playing, and find out that the entire first adventure was going to be facing Cold-resistant or Cold-immune enemies. This is a place where a little bit of game knowledge would have helped me plan out a character that was actually effective. DM did let me change to a Moon Druid, though, which was more fun anyways.

As far as your lists goes:

1) Totally okay with this
2) Against "common" enemies, I am okay with this. Knowing that a Red Dragon is probably immune to fire is a logical conclusion when it lives in a Volcano. Trolls being weak against fire is probably common knowledge in most game worlds. Knowing that a certain type of Devil is immune to Cold damage, not so much.
3) I am betting that adventurers are paranoid folks just like the rest of us. When the penalties are actual death for the adventurers, I'd be checking for traps every 5 feet, too.
4) Not okay with this. Trim it down to just the basics of their story.
5) Not okay with, really. They should WANT to have some mystery, as well.

[Chugger]

Right, some metagaming is fine. I see it as representing or expressing (or working out) what our characters know but we can't possibly know. If it's in the right spirit and properly limited, some meta is not only fine, it's good.

Of course a giant expert would be drawn to a party going after giants. Of course it was also a meta choice. But a good one.

One of the best examples of a meta limit is when a character drops to zero, that player is not allowed to talk. Unless someone asks if they have a healing potion on them - maybe that's okay for the player to answer - because in the many hours of downtime where characters would talk to each other (but we skip over) they would have traded that info. And the other characters would remember. Because their lives are on the line, not ours. So sometimes metagaming reflects our characters' realities quite well (and sometimes it doesn't). Important to have a sense of this, imho.

[tieren]

I'm about to hit level 3 in an SKT campaign with my sorcerer, and when considering meta-magics I am thinking about taking Distant Spell. My character has crap AC and I RP it that they want to be as far from the fighting as possible, may even take spell sniper to focus on this aspect.

Well anyway, another player suggested I ask the DM if the battle maps in the module were big enough where they thought I would benefit enough from the metamagic. I was very uncomfortable with that and didn't ask, but inside I know we are fighting giants and it isn't likely to be as cramped as a dungeon crawl.

Am I a terrible meta-gamer?

[rbstr]

I guess it depends some on how the campaign and character came together with some common sense.
Building the character for the campaign is OK if the hook is like "Giants are attacking villages some adventurers are gathering to stop them" and the write up a character that's all about giant slaying. I guess if a DM doesn't want stuff like that to happen they need to keep things that that close to their chest until the characters are made.

The question of what a character actually knows about various monsters and their resistances/vulnerabilities is pretty hazy. I feel like in FR that a fair number of people know trolls and fire don't play well and maybe that trying to stab a skeleton isn't a great idea?
I think things like save targeting, particularly the mental saves, can be a bit more sketchy. Roll the survival/knowledge check or whatever.

[some guy]

It's time for one of those threads again. At a recent Storm King's Thunder game, a player chose to take Giant as one of their languages known. Why? Because it's a campaign based on giants, of course. And this brought up metagaming.

Metagaming: where you act based on knowledge your character does not possess.

Bob: I chose this language because the campaign is about giants. But if you think about it, a character in this part of the world would have reason to learn Giant, and someone who can speak Giant would have reason to come here. I'm sure I can think up a good backstory reason why I know Giant.

Sue: You chose Giant based on the knowledge that this campaign is about giants. Your character didn't know that before [plot happened]. That's metagaming.

Me: Sue's technically right, but I don't think it's a problem.

Ooph, around 2 years I had a somewhat reversed situation come up:
Player is almost finished with his character, still needs to select languages.
Me: "Well, the whole campaign is set in a country with it's own language, but the inhabitants also speak Common. So, if you select that language it certainly will have benefits."
Player: "No, that's metagaming, I don't like that."
I think I went on about good and bad metagaming, and how his character being a sage, would probably have a good reason to know the language. He ended up knowing 5 languages (high elf sage) other than the local language.



My take: I think it's genuinely impossible to fully avoid metagaming. You are who you are, and are tied to your own experiences and knowledge as surely as you are tied to life itself. Furthermore, deliberately making bad choices just to avoid any hint of metagaming is not fun. I only have a problem with metagaming when it gets in the way of fun.

What do you think, playground? Where do you draw the line?

In an undead campaign, a player chooses to play a Cleric, Paladin, Undying Warlock, or Sun Soul Monk, knowing these characters work well against undead.
Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls. When asked how he knew to do this, he says he thinks it's common knowledge that his character would know, but isn't sure.
A character entering a dungeon, one he's been assured is safe, constantly checks for traps and looks over his shoulder because he, the player, knows there's no way it's actually safe.
A player writes a backstory so long and detailed that it includes all of the meta knowledge he possesses (the Henderson approach).
Reading the campaign ahead of time.


First: perfectly fine (maybe even better than fine, seeing how these characters can interact more easily with the campaign premise).
Second: I usually ask the dm what my character knows in these situations, a bit iffy, depending on how it's handled.
Third: fine, if the player is portraying a paranoid or careful character.
Fourth and fifth are a big nope.

I see good metagaming as playing in a way that promotes interaction with the campaign world or other characters (creating a character that fits the premise/ giving other players the spotlight is in some cases also metagaming (pointing out another's character's strengths).
Good metagaming can also help with the structuring with a session. If a player notices time's almost up for a session, they can influence the play towards a natural end or cliffhanger (usually this is more a DM's thing, but nothing prevent players from doing it).

[Waterdeep Merch]

I have a handful of players that too often use information gleaned by a different player to choose their actions in-game. For one example, a player figured out that the person the party was talking to was about to poison their drinks. They wanted to wait until the last moment to slap it out of someone's hands for a dramatic reveal, but a different player who failed to notice this in-game decided to use that information to demand they make their own drink. It pissed off the table.

Sometimes I've used the players' metagaming against them. If they're all-too aware of the weaknesses for certain monsters that would be considered obscure within the game, go ahead and purposely choose something different. The next time they run into trolls and start strategizing for fire and acid before asking you what their characters might know about them, try to keep a straight face knowing you changed it to poison and cold.

Recently, I've been running a game I call 'the Metagame' entirely to break all these rules. The characters' knowledge and the players' knowledge are one. In turn, the world is hyper deadly and relies on the players knowing the game forwards and backwards. So far my players seem to like the different take.

[Pelle]

Ooph, around 2 years I had a somewhat reversed situation come up:
Player is almost finished with his character, still needs to select languages.
Me: "Well, the whole campaign is set in a country with it's own language, but the inhabitants also speak Common. So, if you select that language it certainly will have benefits."
Player: "No, that's metagaming, I don't like that."
I think I went on about good and bad metagaming, and how his character being a sage, would probably have a good reason to know the language. He ended up knowing 5 languages (high elf sage) other than the local language.



First: perfectly fine (maybe even better than fine, seeing how these characters can interact more easily with the campaign premise).
Second: I usually ask the dm what my character knows in these situations, a bit iffy, depending on how it's handled.
Third: fine, if the player is portraying a paranoid or careful character.
Fourth and fifth are a big nope.

I see good metagaming as playing in a way that promotes interaction with the campaign world or other characters (creating a character that fits the premise/ giving other players the spotlight is in some cases also metagaming (pointing out another's character's strengths).
Good metagaming can also help with the structuring with a session. If a player notices time's almost up for a session, they can influence the play towards a natural end or cliffhanger (usually this is more a DM's thing, but nothing prevent players from doing it).

I'm sometimes a little annoyed that my players do not metagame more. Them being creative and finding good reasons for their characters to know something, being motivated to grab a plot hook, being nice to each other etc, makes the sessions smoother and more fun.

[Sariel Vailo]

I slter campaign books no mwta knowledge here i need a vood backstory and if it is to detailed and meta i make them rewrite. If they pick a class say paladin v undead thats fine but the others i hate.

[Unoriginal]

There is a difference between "metagaming", "things that are reasonable for the character to know or assume based on the setting" and "things that make sense to happen given the campaign's premise"

For exemple, knowing that troll are disadvantaged by fire should be common knowledge for anyone in-universe who has heard of trolls from a semi-reliable source.

The same way that unless their involvement is a complete surprise, it makes sense for several Undead hunters to go to a place where they are needed, or for someone who knows how to speak Giant to be included in a mission around giants.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm sometimes a little annoyed that my players do not metagame more. Them being creative and finding good reasons for their characters to know something, being motivated to grab a plot hook, being nice to each other etc, makes the sessions smoother and more fun.

I agree. Explicit use of knowledge about the plot (reading the DMs notes, reading the campaign book, etc) is over the line for me. Metagaming decisions (taking the more party-friendly of the options, consciously swallowing that plot hook, building characters that want to be out adventuring, etc) are good things in my opinion. Building characters to be effective based on presented material is fine (ie not playing mister clumsy heavy armor dude in a pirate adventure, not being a pyromancer on the plane of fire).

I tend to be very explicit with the players--I'll ask "which of these sound most interesting for the next story arc?" and present a couple broad-brush options. I trust the players to both think for themselves and for their characters.

It's all about the fun for me.

[Zorku]

Complaining about metagaming in character building seems weird to me. You haven't established who the character is until you've rolled them, so what they know is undefined.

This far along into this edition DMs have pretty much figured out that if they don't want players to know how a troll works then they can reskin it to be some kind of fungus brute that stops regenerating if they suffer radiant or cold damage*, but I also play with grown ups so having somebody read the adventure path isn't even something to worry about, except maybe if they were thinking about DMing it themselves.

*Or better yet, roll up an entirely new monster. If you don't care about being perfect you can get away with just estimating the stat block pretty easily.

When I run the game, there's a pretty strong chance that you don't know anything that I don't want your characters to know, and if you know something that I didn't expect I'm still probably not going to squabble with you about it. I can either change things or I can lean into what you knew. Either way is fine. I'm going to have some plot twists that will be cool if you don't recognize them, or that will be sweet references to something if you do know what's up. Both ways are a win for storytelling.

[Malifice]

It's time for one of those threads again. At a recent Storm King's Thunder game, a player chose to take Giant as one of their languages known. Why? Because it's a campaign based on giants, of course. And this brought up metagaming.

I wouldnt call that metagaming. In fact I would encourage my players to make those kinds of decisions with their characters, explicity telling them what the campaign was about so they could make character decisions that interacted with the story better.

Its no different to the DM saying 'This campaign is heroic in nature, so no evil PCs' or the players asking 'DM where is this campaign set, and who are the main protagonists, so I can create an appropriate PC for the adventure'. There is an expected level of interaction between the players and DM prior to the campaign starting.

I always try and provide guidance to my players about the campaign to come.

Heck virtually every Pazio adventure path and wizards Storylines have done for 5E include a players supplement That pretty specifically details what the main antagonists are going to be and how to tie your character to the story.

They even include specific feats, traits and backgrounds to do just this.

The alternative is to fly totally blind and wind up creating a character that is totally useless (A cleric designed to fight undead whose entire reason for adventuring is the slaughter of undead, because of what they did to his family... In an adventure path that features next zero undead running from 1st to 20th level where the main antagonists are dragons) in the adventure to come.

[Scripten]

I've honest to [insert name here] never had to actually draw a line for a single player in the entire time I've DMed. My players, always, have been significantly more concerned and restrictive about whether they are metagaming or not. To the point where I've found myself in the position to give blanket allowances to the players to metagame all they like. (It hasn't really changed anything. The party druid still takes at least one round after finding a fact out IC about an enemy to employ it, despite him having read the entire MM at various points for fun.)

In the example you mention, I especially would not have any qualms, as D&D 5E really doesn't take language barriers that seriously. Granted, every campaign is different, but it's normally not a gigantic roadblock.

[Hrugner]

My take is that you should make someone who would be a hero in the game being played. Playing someone who knows about the chief evils in the world makes more than a little sense if you plan on making a hero. Doing the opposite, and making a character with none of the tools needed for taking on the chief evil seems like a recipe for failing to become a hero.

That said, reading the campaign before hand, knowing you're about to play it, seems like a good way to make the game boring.

I also expect players to build for the DM they have. If the DM never provides social encounters, or forces failure in social encounters, ditch social skills. If the DM builds combats around foiling player choices, build characters that make foiling player choice less damaging. If the DM makes encounters too powerful for standard characters, make something optimized for power. And so on and so forth.

The only real metagaming I have a problem with is disruptive use of real world solutions that the characters wouldn't feasibly have access to and players making no effort to discover in game the things they've deduced out of game.

[Rogerdodger557]

It's time for one of those threads again. At a recent Storm King's Thunder game, a player chose to take Giant as one of their languages known. Why? Because it's a campaign based on giants, of course. And this brought up metagaming.

Metagaming: where you act based on knowledge your character does not possess.

Bob: I chose this language because the campaign is about giants. But if you think about it, a character in this part of the world would have reason to learn Giant, and someone who can speak Giant would have reason to come here. I'm sure I can think up a good backstory reason why I know Giant.

Sue: You chose Giant based on the knowledge that this campaign is about giants. Your character didn't know that before [plot happened]. That's metagaming.

Me: Sue's technically right, but I don't think it's a problem.

My take: I think it's genuinely impossible to fully avoid metagaming. You are who you are, and are tied to your own experiences and knowledge as surely as you are tied to life itself. Furthermore, deliberately making bad choices just to avoid any hint of metagaming is not fun. I only have a problem with metagaming when it gets in the way of fun.

What do you think, playground? Where do you draw the line?

In an undead campaign, a player chooses to play a Cleric, Paladin, Undying Warlock, or Sun Soul Monk, knowing these characters work well against undead.
Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls. When asked how he knew to do this, he says he thinks it's common knowledge that his character would know, but isn't sure.
A character entering a dungeon, one he's been assured is safe, constantly checks for traps and looks over his shoulder because he, the player, knows there's no way it's actually safe.
A player writes a backstory so long and detailed that it includes all of the meta knowledge he possesses (the Henderson approach).
Reading the campaign ahead of time.


I think it would be fine if a character took Giant in SKT. 1-3 are fine, 4 is iffy, but I have dealt with someone who did 5, and it ended in one of my character's death. Minor Spoilers for Sunless Citadel ahead.

In the room where Calcryx? was hiding, the character(a kobold monk) said he was "dancing around the center of the room. And when he was over by the specific area, when Calcryx saw him(a kobold) he used his breath weapon. As a monk with decent CON, my hp was at 6(he had taken some hits before hand). I failed my throw, and the breath weapon did like 18 damage, which was enough to kill my character. As for the kobold monk, well his "dancing" was actually a Dodge, according to him, so he had advantage on the save.

He is why I will change things up to a significant degree if I know that they have played through or read an adventure, par a few certain people that I play with who actually know how to restrain meta-knowledge.

[Eric Diaz]

What do you think, playground? Where do you draw the line?

In an undead campaign, a player chooses to play a Cleric, Paladin, Undying Warlock, or Sun Soul Monk, knowing these characters work well against undead.
Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls. When asked how he knew to do this, he says he thinks it's common knowledge that his character would know, but isn't sure.
A character entering a dungeon, one he's been assured is safe, constantly checks for traps and looks over his shoulder because he, the player, knows there's no way it's actually safe.
A player writes a backstory so long and detailed that it includes all of the meta knowledge he possesses (the Henderson approach).
Reading the campaign ahead of time.


My 2c:
1 - I'm totally cool with that and I would go even further: if there are NO undead in your campaign, you should warn your players.
2 - Totally cool with that. Use unusual monster if you want more mistery. Never say the name of the monster.
3 - Do not see an issue, other than bogging down play.
4 - Not sure I understand the example... But in 5e having a backstory do not guarantee you know things. "Can I identify this magic item since I emntoned I spend a year in magic college in my backstory", "Well, are you proficient in arcana?".
5 - I only wish my players read so much before the games... Let them read. Warn them you're not 100% bound by canon.

EDIT: Whoops, I thought you meant "campaign setting". Of course that reading an adventure beforehand to avoid traps, kill dangerous NPCs etc. is NOT okay, but I've never seen it (aside from that episode on Community...).

[Malifice]

EDIT: Whoops, I thought you meant "campaign setting". Of course that reading an adventure beforehand to avoid traps, kill dangerous NPCs etc. is NOT okay, but I've never seen it (aside from that episode on Community...).

Sometimes it's unavoidable. As long as your player is open and able to build a Chinese wall to separate his in game knowledge with his out of game knowledge im cool.

There have been several times when I have suspected a player of mine has read the adventure. This doesn't bother me that much because I often make a habit of mixing things up in adventures.

Certain spheres of annihilation get moved to different leering green devil faces, while others get replaced with teleporter's for example...

[KorvinStarmast]

Metagaming: where you act based on knowledge your character does not possess.
Your definition is lacking (http://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/).

Character creation is by its very nature part of the meta game, so Sue's complaint is 100% invalid.

I agree with you that it is impossible to 100% avoid some meta gaming; it's one of those "how much does your table tolerate" things. And that's it.

In an undead campaign, a player chooses to play a Cleric, Paladin, Undying Warlock, or Sun Soul Monk, knowing these characters work well against undead. Who else to hunt undead than undead hunters?

Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls. When asked how he knew to do this, he says he thinks it's common knowledge that his character would know, but isn't sure. Characters start at age 19 or so for human. There is plenty of reason that stories and lore about some monsters are part of what they learned.

A character entering a dungeon, one he's been assured is safe, constantly checks for traps and looks over his shoulder because he, the player, knows there's no way it's actually safe. Paranoia is a thing. By the way, who "assured" the character that this dungeon is safe? How credible is the source?

A player writes a backstory so long and detailed that it includes all of the meta knowledge he possesses (the Henderson approach). Any back story that isn't discussed with and blessed by the DM for a given campaign isn't valid. Most DM's like that kind of effort, and will need to OK or decline certain elements of a back story (Example: player builds a back story that includes my uncle was the King of Somewhere) DM response is "No, he wasn't" or, "Sure, he was!"(I just got another idea for an adventure hook!)" Depends on how much the DM wants the players to help in fleshing out the game world.

Reading the campaign ahead of time.
That's often seen as a form of cheating. Some players have the integrity to do that and selectively ignore what they read, but I am not sure how large that population is.

[Eric Diaz]

Sometimes it's unavoidable. As long as your player is open and able to build a Chinese wall to separate his in game knowledge with his out of game knowledge im cool.

There have been several times when I have suspected a player of mine has read the adventure. This doesn't bother me that much because I often make a habit of mixing things up in adventures.

Certain spheres of annihilation get moved to different leering green devil faces, while others get replaced with teleporter's for example...

Sure, as long as the player tells me he read the adventure before, I can mix things up. Otherwise, feels like cheating.

[90sMusic]

I don't mind picking up a language or using a theme for a character specific to an adventure. Honestly, it is far more reasonable that an anti-undead specialist would want to get involved in an undead slaughtering crusade that JimBob the Orc Slaying Specialist.

Where I get annoyed by metagaming is when you describe a creature's physical characteristics and one of the players just blurts out "its a nothic!" and then someone else is like "whats that?" and then the guy proceeds to essentially recite all of it's trait and characteristics and so on. Even if it doesn't play out that way, most people react to monsters when they know what they are in a way that is optimal to beat them.

That is why a loooooong time ago, I threw all pre-fab adventures and modules straight in the garbage can and I use the monster manual more for inspiration than taking things directly out of it. I make my own monsters and adventures so NO ONE at the table knows what is going to happen or what some creature is going to do or properties it may have. It forces them to ask me and make knowledge rolls to see if their character might know something about this.

I can't tell you how many people i've played games with that have their characters simply "know" what liches are, beholders, ropers, intellect devourers, illithids, and so on even if their backstory was simple farm hick who had their family murdered by orcs (because all generic players have backstories with their family problems of some sort).

So I put an end to it. Doesn't happen anymore.

Knowledge of animals is another thing that irks me a bit. These days, everyone knows what things like cheetahs and rhinos and elephants and giraffes are, but that is because of TV, the internet, and modern education systems. People literally invented unicorns because of misunderstandings about what RHINOS were because no one had ever seen or heard of that before because it lived in a different part of the world. So the idea that players will know what any type of animal on sight, or especially types of dinosaurs, is very silly.

Oh another thing that irks me is every single time i've played a game with a riddle, one or two of the players immediately go put that into google to get the answer. No thought involved, no working it out with the party, just go cheat. That annoys me too.

[Specter]

This link (http://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/) which Korvin posted is spot on. If you haven't read it yet, you should, at least if you want to delve in this subject.

I draw the line when the player is doing things that are clearly disruptive to the game structure in general, such as being obnoxious with other players/characters or trying to pursue an adventure separate from the group and still remain in the game. If you know it's a game group, where everyone's fun is just as important as yours, and you could care less, you're out.

[Malifice]

Sure, as long as the player tells me he read the adventure before, I can mix things up. Otherwise, feels like cheating.

It is cheating but the reality is some people just can't help themselves.

You can call him out on it but (being a cheat) he is probably gonna lie. It's kinda like if you suspect your girlfriend is cheating on you. If she is cheating on you she's a cheat; asking her is just an invitation to be lied to.

Just save yourself some heartache and change up every adventure. Not the whole thing, just the occasional important encounter, NPC, Riddle, murder mystery, treasure or death trap.

To be honest I do this in any event to tailor an adventure to the specific player characters that I have before me. I'll swap out designated story NPCs for NPCs from the characters back stories. I'll try and tie in specific dungeons to the PCs, or change the antagonist to be a member of a rival evil church etc.

Eventually even the cheats catch on and start giving me detailed back stories and tie their characters into the adventure, and figure out that all they're doing by reading it is ruining the fun for themselves while they are still exposed to the same (unexpected) death traps.

Not only should players be tailoring their characters towards the dungeon Masters campaign, but the opposite should apply as well.

[90sMusic]

Sure, as long as the player tells me he read the adventure before, I can mix things up. Otherwise, feels like cheating.

Cheating? In his example of having something located in a different location isn't really cheating. Unless a player uses meta-knowledge to try to cheat and discover it was moved, that is the only time it would be a problem. If they play the game as they are supposed to, they'll find it in it's new location through normal play.

[Scripten]

I can't tell you how many people i've played games with that have their characters simply "know" what liches are, beholders, ropers, intellect devourers, illithids, and so on even if their backstory was simple farm hick who had their family murdered by orcs (because all generic players have backstories with their family problems of some sort).


This is why things like Gas Spores annoy me. By the time the character should know what a Beholder is, the Gas Spore is basically useless. Before then, using one is just a jerk move on the part of the DM, because there's no way to use them that isn't a context-free trap or decoration.

[Twigwit]

For the most part I don't see why meta gaming should be blamed on the players. When a film or video game gives us a monster that is derivative and predictable in its strengths and weaknesses the writers get the blame for making something so bland and unoriginal. In TTRPGs though if we get a stock MM creature to fight that everyone is familiar with it's somehow the players fault for not deliberately forgetting it's AC, HP, spells and special abilities (beholder, mindflayer, troll, umberhulk, etc). There are complete crunchlords that memorize every stat block from every supplement, but barring those select few metagaming indicates a failure in DM creativity, not a failure with the players ability to roleplay.

[Easy_Lee]

For the most part I don't see why meta gaming should be blamed on the players. When a film or video game gives us a monster that is derivative and predictable in its strengths and weaknesses the writers get the blame for making something so bland and unoriginal. In TTRPGs though if we get a stock MM creature to fight that everyone is familiar with it's somehow the players fault for not deliberately forgetting it's AC, HP, spells and special abilities (beholder, mindflayer, troll, umberhulk, etc). There are complete crunchlords that memorize every stat block from every supplement, but barring those select few metagaming indicates a failure in DM creativity, not a failure with the players ability to roleplay.

I had this issue with a certain campaign.


There's a long hallway with a slight incline to it. At the bottom of the incline is a statue with its hands out, straight ahead, as if it means to catch something that might roll down the hallway.

It's exactly what it sounds like.

It was hard to figure out exactly how much of a clue any character should have had about what was coming.

[Finieous]

Not a lot to add, except that I believe the intro to SKT explicitly recommends that at least one PC speak Giant, and also that it seems a lot of what is called "metagaming" we used to call "experience" or "player skill." Trolls? Bring out the Molotov cocktails. This ain't your first rodeo.

[Contrast]

My take: I think it's genuinely impossible to fully avoid metagaming. You are who you are, and are tied to your own experiences and knowledge as surely as you are tied to life itself. Furthermore, deliberately making bad choices just to avoid any hint of metagaming is not fun. I only have a problem with metagaming when it gets in the way of fun.

I would go a step further. Certain types of metagaming are more or less required as the whole experience would fall apart without them. Don't turn up to the first session of a new campaign about roving sea pirates with a character who has never left home, doesn't want to or have any reason to and wants to become a baker or a drow who is presently quite happily living in the underdark. You need a character whose concept fits into the kind of campaign the group is trying to create and the process of doing so is entirely metagaming. If you want to play the character who wants to be a baker, you need to contrive some reason to be involved with a band of roving sea pirates.

This carries on into the campaign where it can quickly become very tedious when a character keeps refusing all plot hooks so he can focus on his gardening. Some games allow more freedom than others but all games assume you, out of character, purposefully buy into the central premise of what the campaign should be about.


What do you think, playground? Where do you draw the line?

In an undead campaign, a player chooses to play a Cleric, Paladin, Undying Warlock, or Sun Soul Monk, knowing these characters work well against undead.
Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls. When asked how he knew to do this, he says he thinks it's common knowledge that his character would know, but isn't sure.
A character entering a dungeon, one he's been assured is safe, constantly checks for traps and looks over his shoulder because he, the player, knows there's no way it's actually safe.
A player writes a backstory so long and detailed that it includes all of the meta knowledge he possesses (the Henderson approach).
Reading the campaign ahead of time.


With regard to your list, I would draw the line somewhere in the middle. First one fine. Second one depends on DM/characters background and history/scarcity of monster in setting. In standard generic D&Dland with any sort of adventuring type I'd say a troll is a given. Third one is somewhat more iffy - depends why they had reason to be assured it was safe. Walking into a cave a druid friend of their lives in that leads into a dungeon - probably no reason to be suspicious initially. Exploring unfamiliar terrain - always a reason to be suspicious, even if someone was here yesterday they may have missed something/something else could have come up since then. Fourth is when you start getting people entering into the whole enterprise in bad faith - the problem here is what constitutes someone just wanting to play a badass (understandable) vs trying to abuse the system. Actually having some slight problems in a group I'm in with 5 atm. Playing through Lost Mines for the first time but a number of other people in the group have played or DMed it before. The players were mostly fine but the player who had DMd it was correcting the DM on how things went. Has tailed off a bit now that the DM has changed some things up. I think the golden rule is, if you've read the campaign book before, let the DM know at the outset then its their choice if they want you to help co-DM or tweak some things to keep you on your toes.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I was just rereading the DMG and came across something interesting and relevant:



Metagame thinking means thinking about the game as a game. It's like when a character in a movie knows it's in a movie and acts accordingly. For example, a player might say, "The DM wouldn't throw such a powerful monster at us!" or you might hear "The read-aloud text spend a lot of time describing that door--let's search it again!"


That is, you're meta-gaming when you try to use game UI clues (the length of a description, CRs of monsters, dice rolls) to tell you what your character should do.
That first quote is something I've actually heard after I killed a character--the player said "I didn't think you'd create encounters that we couldn't handle (by fighting)." Note: a dire yeti at level 2 is not a survivable fight, especially when the rest of the party takes one look and nope-s out of there so you're flying solo.

[Tanarii]

I was just rereading the DMG and came across something interesting and relevant:



That is, you're meta-gaming when you try to use game UI clues (the length of a description, CRs of monsters, dice rolls) to tell you what your character should do.
That first quote is something I've actually heard after I killed a character--the player said "I didn't think you'd create encounters that we couldn't handle (by fighting)." Note: a dire yeti at level 2 is not a survivable fight, especially when the rest of the party takes one look and nope-s out of there so you're flying solo.
Even that example isn't necessarily bad metagaming. It is, however, the player making the wrong assumptions about the metagame.

[Finieous]

Note: a dire yeti at level 2 is not a survivable fight, especially when the rest of the party takes one look and nope-s out of there so you're flying solo.

It typically requires some metagame thinking (or "experience" or "player skill") to recognize the unbeatable monsters.

"OMG it's a giant snake with tentacles and a beak! Run!"
"Dude, it's just a grick."

[Waterdeep Merch]

It's kind of weird to see people accuse anyone of cheating at character creation. Metagaming in that context is no different from the metagame in every game that has ever existed. Munchkins aside, I fully support treating the game aspects of the game like a game.

Maybe we need a different name for metagaming in different contexts. We'll call them 'metagaming', wherein you interact with game mechanics as if they are game mechanics, and this new term of mine, 'cheating', where you deliberately break rules for personal benefit.

I gave a simple troll example where I switch the elements on a troll because the players are in a different setting and I've already mentioned that trolls are rare and not widely known. It punishes metagamers for making assumptions, certainly, but at least they weren't cheating when it happened. I believe this switch is a good thing for them- it recreates not knowing how to deal with trolls organically instead of asking them to unlearn what they have learned. It plays off the metagame to make the encounter feel like the first time they ever fought a troll, and how terrifying that was. It plays on preconceptions as a bonus challenge, a staple of interesting gameplay.

[Dudewithknives]

I will break this down by example and also point out a few more issues, including what I call "DM Metagaming"

1. Character generation meta gaming is not meta gaming at all, it is making a character that fits the campaign, ASSUMING the player is not basing it on more than you have told them.

ex. If you are running Out of the Abyss and you tell them that the game is set in the under dark and it is more survival horror based. It is not meta gaming when a player goes "I want to play a race with dark vision." or "I better get training in survival" You told them that it is in the under dark and a survival type game, do not expect them to ignore it.

ex. HOWEVER if in the same situation they say "Oh, I have heard about this one, you get cheated out of your gear early on, so I will not play a fighter, I am going to play a monk so I will not care." That is metagaming, he used knowledge that was not part of what was given by the DM to adjust his character.

2. Using a torch on a troll. It depends on the character. If he is a ranger with favored enemy that includes trolls, sure. If he has fought trolls before, sure. If he has never fought trolls, does not have a trait that involves trolls, or some other class ability, then make a knowledge check.

3. Entering a dungeon you have been told is safe but checking for traps and looking for attacks anyway. That should just be SOP for adventurers, I as a character and as a player always assume that anytime I am in a dungeon, that an attack or trap is around somewhere. Nothing wrong with paranoia, as long as it is consistent.

4. Long Backstory with meta knowledge. This is more along the lines of knowing the player. Also, goes back to example of number 1. If it is all things based on knowledge you gave them as the DM, it is fine. If it is based on stuff found elsewhere, not fine. Ex. I have not played through Storm King's Thunder so do not know anything specific, but if someone tells me they are running a game called "Storm King's Thunder" do not be surprised when people take favored enemy Giant, or do not make a grappler.

(Also as someone else mentioned about shoving, The rule is actually you can not grapple someone 2 or more sizes bigger, that is is not a rule for shoving.) I pointed that out to my DM when I shoved over a stone giant in his campaign.

5. Reading the campaign ahead of time. Definitely meta gaming. I doubt I would even let them in the game if they knew what was going to happen, unless they were a very trusted RPer who would never use it anyway.


Now for what I call: DM Metagaming.

examples:

1. If I am playing a character who is resistant to fire, say a human sorcerer red dragon bloodline and the dm says: "Ok, you are resistant to fire, so the wizard casts cone of cold at you"

That is meta gaming unless the NPC knows my character for some reason. As I have always said, "If you want to make sure you never get hit with a fireball, become immune to fire."

I have never once, in my 20 years of gaming, have I ever seen a DM that used a spell against a PC that he knew he would be immune to, even if the enemy should not know it.


2. Being targeted for your low save, despite the enemy not knowing about it. Ex. A player is walking down the street in leather armor carrying a short sword. Enemy throws a fireball at you because you are a Warlock with only a 14 dex, despite the fact that people would probably assume he is a rogue or a ranger who is good at dex.

3. Targeting skills that the DM knows you are not good at, despite the enemy not knowing it, or conversely not using skills he knows you are great at.

ex. You are playing a bugbear rogue with a short sword, that is strength based and have expertise in athletics. DM: "Well, no way the orc is going to try to grapple you, he would just lose probably, so he is going to throw a hand axe at you" despite the fact he just grappled someone else.

Again, meta gaming.

A DM who intentionally changed the way NPC's fight against how they should just to make sure you are in a worse situation is meta gaming.


The worst example of this was in 3.5 back in the day.

I was playing in a game that went from level 1 to 18, played it for 3 years.
I started out as Half-orc barbarian who became more civilized and became a fighter. He always hated magic, his home was wiped out by casters. His entire goal was to kill evil casters, so as soon as he could he took levels in Occult Slayer, the prestige class specifically made to fight casters. At level like 7 I want to say, I got the ability to once a day reflect a spell that specifically targeted me based on the class.

In the entire 2 years after gaining the ability, I was targeted with a reflectable spell a total of 1 time, and that was only because the DM forgot I could do it. It went like this.

DM: Ok, the Lich turns to you and casts Disintegrate at you.
Me: Sweet, had this ability for over a year and a half never got to use it. I reflect the spell back at the Lich.
DM: Oh, forgot you could do that. Well then he is going to hit the ranger instead.
Me: Wait a damn second here. You target me with a spell, that I can reflect, after intentionally never letting me get a chance to use my ability, only because you forgot I have a defense for it, and then when you are reminded, after you already told me, you change the target.
DM: Yeah, I am not wasting his last big spell on someone immune to it.
Me: He does not know I am immune to it, I am just some guy with in medium armor with a greatsword.
DM: I don't care, I am not going to waste a turn for nothing.

[Malifice]

I will break this down by example and also point out a few more issues, including what I call "DM Metagaming"

1. Character generation meta gaming is not meta gaming at all, it is making a character that fits the campaign, ASSUMING the player is not basing it on more than you have told them.

ex. If you are running Out of the Abyss and you tell them that the game is set in the under dark and it is more survival horror based. It is not meta gaming when a player goes "I want to play a race with dark vision." or "I better get training in survival" You told them that it is in the under dark and a survival type game, do not expect them to ignore it.

ex. HOWEVER if in the same situation they say "Oh, I have heard about this one, you get cheated out of your gear early on, so I will not play a fighter, I am going to play a monk so I will not care." That is metagaming, he used knowledge that was not part of what was given by the DM to adjust his character.

2. Using a torch on a troll. It depends on the character. If he is a ranger with favored enemy that includes trolls, sure. If he has fought trolls before, sure. If he has never fought trolls, does not have a trait that involves trolls, or some other class ability, then make a knowledge check.

3. Entering a dungeon you have been told is safe but checking for traps and looking for attacks anyway. That should just be SOP for adventurers, I as a character and as a player always assume that anytime I am in a dungeon, that an attack or trap is around somewhere. Nothing wrong with paranoia, as long as it is consistent.

4. Long Backstory with meta knowledge. This is more along the lines of knowing the player. Also, goes back to example of number 1. If it is all things based on knowledge you gave them as the DM, it is fine. If it is based on stuff found elsewhere, not fine. Ex. I have not played through Storm King's Thunder so do not know anything specific, but if someone tells me they are running a game called "Storm King's Thunder" do not be surprised when people take favored enemy Giant, or do not make a grappler.

(Also as someone else mentioned about shoving, The rule is actually you can not grapple someone 2 or more sizes bigger, that is is not a rule for shoving.) I pointed that out to my DM when I shoved over a stone giant in his campaign.

5. Reading the campaign ahead of time. Definitely meta gaming. I doubt I would even let them in the game if they knew what was going to happen, unless they were a very trusted RPer who would never use it anyway.


Now for what I call: DM Metagaming.

examples:

1. If I am playing a character who is resistant to fire, say a human sorcerer red dragon bloodline and the dm says: "Ok, you are resistant to fire, so the wizard casts cone of cold at you"

That is meta gaming unless the NPC knows my character for some reason. As I have always said, "If you want to make sure you never get hit with a fireball, become immune to fire."

I have never once, in my 20 years of gaming, have I ever seen a DM that used a spell against a PC that he knew he would be immune to, even if the enemy should not know it.


2. Being targeted for your low save, despite the enemy not knowing about it. Ex. A player is walking down the street in leather armor carrying a short sword. Enemy throws a fireball at you because you are a Warlock with only a 14 dex, despite the fact that people would probably assume he is a rogue or a ranger who is good at dex.

3. Targeting skills that the DM knows you are not good at, despite the enemy not knowing it, or conversely not using skills he knows you are great at.

ex. You are playing a bugbear rogue with a short sword, that is strength based and have expertise in athletics. DM: "Well, no way the orc is going to try to grapple you, he would just lose probably, so he is going to throw a hand axe at you" despite the fact he just grappled someone else.

Again, meta gaming.

A DM who intentionally changed the way NPC's fight against how they should just to make sure you are in a worse situation is meta gaming.


The worst example of this was in 3.5 back in the day.

I was playing in a game that went from level 1 to 18, played it for 3 years.
I started out as Half-orc barbarian who became more civilized and became a fighter. He always hated magic, his home was wiped out by casters. His entire goal was to kill evil casters, so as soon as he could he took levels in Occult Slayer, the prestige class specifically made to fight casters. At level like 7 I want to say, I got the ability to once a day reflect a spell that specifically targeted me based on the class.

In the entire 2 years after gaining the ability, I was targeted with a reflectable spell a total of 1 time, and that was only because the DM forgot I could do it. It went like this.

DM: Ok, the Lich turns to you and casts Disintegrate at you.
Me: Sweet, had this ability for over a year and a half never got to use it. I reflect the spell back at the Lich.
DM: Oh, forgot you could do that. Well then he is going to hit the ranger instead.
Me: Wait a damn second here. You target me with a spell, that I can reflect, after intentionally never letting me get a chance to use my ability, only because you forgot I have a defense for it, and then when you are reminded, after you already told me, you change the target.
DM: Yeah, I am not wasting his last big spell on someone immune to it.
Me: He does not know I am immune to it, I am just some guy with in medium armor with a greatsword.
DM: I don't care, I am not going to waste a turn for nothing.

I would have quit that campaign then and there.

[Dudewithknives]

I would have quit that campaign then and there.

It ended in a fist fight. That is why the game ended at level 18 and not 20.

[Finieous]

It ended in a fist fight. That is why the game ended at level 18 and not 20.

1) The lich probably should have been scrying/spying on you and known your capabilities, and 2) I hope you kicked his ass.

[Pex]

Hey look, I agree with Easy_Lee about something. Did pigs just fly?


That will happen when you agree with me.

Thread topic:

When you've played the game long enough you can't help but know a monster's abilities the next time they appear. Playing dumb about is risking unnecessary character injury or death. There is also the reverse metagame where a PC is supposed to know something in character, but the player hasn't a clue he should know so he doesn't even inquire about it.

There needs to be a resolution for this, and that's where Knowledge checks come in. Make the check, the player gets to use his metagame knowledge about the monster and/or the DM tells the player what his character knows the player had no idea. Fail the check, players play dumb and/or DM doesn't tell the player anything. It's an extra die roll for a combat, but it's only for the first time the monster appears and saves everyone from metagame gymnastics. The extra roll is worth it.

Reading a module before playing and using that knowledge in game, that's cheating and never acceptable. If you played the module before let the DM know and play dumb. Let players who haven't played it take the lead on decisions.

[Thrudd]

Like most, I believe some degree of "metagaming" is unavoidable. I also run D&D on the principle of challenging the players, so I do not attempt to challenge them with things that are obvious to them, or expect them to pretend not to know things that I know they are aware of. If I'm playing with D&D veterans, then I accept that the trick to killing Trolls is a thing they all know and I would never expect them to pretend otherwise or put their characters at risk to avoid the appearance of metagaming. I will find other ways to challenge those players - either with custom or less common monsters, or with familiar monsters in more challenging scenarios.

In the interest of challenging the players, I actually expect what some people call "metagaming" in a lot of situations - such as the example of the slope with the statue at the bottom - if I used that feature and my players figured out what it was, then good for them. That is what I call "playing the game" - players analyze their surroundings and make deductions which inform their actions. It would be pointless to put that in there, have the players figure it out, but then ask them to pretend not to know because of a die roll and let their characters get squished.

My philosophy on building characters is that there should basically be no useless options available for players. If I think a proficiency or ability or spell is going to be pointless in my game, I either will remove it or change it so it has utility, or at least warn the players away from it. What the players know and expect for the upcoming game should be only what I tell them - so any decision they make on how to create their characters are completely valid and appropriate. If I tell them they will be fighting giants, the reason I told them that was so they could prepare for it by building appropriate characters with useful abilities.

Reading the module or the DM's notes is the worst mortal sin a player of D&D can commit. That is beyond metagaming - that is straight up cheating. If I were going to run a published module, I would ask everyone if they have played it or run it or read it before. I anyone has, I wouldn't run it. Maybe, maybe if only one player has knowledge of it, and they are OK with replaying it and I know they are the sort who will take a back seat and let the other players lead the way and won't give them any hints, I would be ok with that.

[Dudewithknives]

I have also had issues with what I call, reverse meta gaming.

Ex 1: In 5E I was playing a rather stupid Half-Orc pirate who knew absolutely nothing about the Underdark, ofter planes or any of that stuff. In fact he can barely read.
We get attacked by were rats. I keep grappling and punching them (my unarmed strike was 1D6 at the time) despite the fact that i had a silver dagger.
The group got mad because I did not use the dagger.
I pointed out that there is no way that a stupid orc pirate who has never been in the under dark or dealt with were creatures would know to use a silver weapon


Ex. 2: In pathfinder I was playing a Warrior of the Holy Light Paladin.


Then one of the members of the group disappears while we are guarding a tomb of the first high priest of my diety's temple in the city, a city of many thousands, so we are talking a cathedral level building here. Essentially Palor's Vatican.

He comes back with a backpack of magic weapons and armor and starts handing them out to the group.

So I asked, "Where did you get all this?"
Other player, "Oh, it was in the tombs of the honor guard, we were told to guard the tomb of the high priest, not his honor guard, so I took them and resealed the tombs."

Needless to say, it went down hill.
Out of character the group told me they would just kill my character in order to keep the magic gear. Despite the fact not a single person in the group was evil, and most were CG.
I compromised the best I could, I told them I would not accept the stolen items and they should not either but I would not force them to put it back.
Then the group started complaining about how i would never keep up with them and there is never a reason to turn down magic loot.

2 game sessions later:
The DM decides to throw me a bone.
While on our trip to save the next temple to be ransacked, it just so happens that a portal opens up that only people of my faith can see, revealing a hidden room. Inside is an old shield and sword that belonged to the high Paladin of Palor from centuries before, and his spirit appears and asks me to redeem these items and give them the glory they deserve.
I take them and show them to the group, and explain that a long dead high paladin's ghost gave me these to redeem them.
The group asked if they were magic, to which I said no, because at the time they weren't.
So the next night the group sneaks into my bag and steals them and sells them, "To teach me a lesson about taking loot when it is there."

Long story short, the DM got pissed, and I ended up with a shield that made me immune to crits, gave me +8 AC, and let me take half damage from all magic, at level 7, just to give the rest of the group the Middle Finger.

He also knew it would not effect my character all that much, I was a solid brick of HP, AC, and Healing anyway, to the point that every feat i had was either Extra Lay on Hands or something that enhanced it.

[Dudewithknives]

1) The lich probably should have been scrying/spying on you and known your capabilities, and 2) I hope you kicked his ass.

Even if he was scrying, it was an ability I had never gotten to use, I would have just looked like a Barbarian/fighter.

[Finieous]

Even if he was scrying, it was an ability I had never gotten to use, I would have just looked like a Barbarian/fighter.

I mean, I don't know that edition especially well, nor the specifics of the prestige class and such, but if I'm a centuries-old lich I'm going to make it my business to know about the dedicated mage-killers anywhere in my immediate vicinity.

In your case, this isn't what the DM was doing, however. He was just being a ****.

[Rogerdodger557]

I have also had issues with what I call, reverse meta gaming.

Ex. In pathfinder I was playing a Warrior of the Holy Light Paladin.

Then one of the members of the group disappears while we are guarding a tomb of the first high priest of my diety's temple in the city, a city of many thousands, so we are talking a cathedral level building here. Essentially Palor's Vatican.

He comes back with a backpack of magic weapons and armor and starts handing them out to the group.

So I asked, "Where did you get all this?"
Other player, "Oh, it was in the tombs of the honor guard, we were told to guard the tomb of the high priest, not his honor guard, so I took them and resealed the tombs."

Needless to say, it went down hill.
Out of character the group told me they would just kill my character in order to keep the magic gear. Despite the fact not a single person in the group was evil, and most were CG.
I compromised the best I could, I told them I would not accept the stolen items and they should not either but I would not force them to put it back.
Then the group started complaining about how i would never keep up with them and there is never a reason to turn down magic loot.

2 game sessions later:
The DM decides to throw me a bone.
While on our trip to save the next temple to be ransacked, it just so happens that a portal opens up that only people of my faith can see, revealing a hidden room. Inside is an old shield and sword that belonged to the high Paladin of Palor from centuries before, and his spirit appears and asks me to redeem these items and give them the glory they deserve.
I take them and show them to the group, and explain that a long dead high paladin's ghost gave me these to redeem them.
The group asked if they were magic, to which I said no, because at the time they weren't.
So the next night the group sneaks into my bag and steals them and sells them, "To teach me a lesson about taking loot when it is there."

Long story short, the DM got pissed, and I ended up with a shield that made me immune to crits, gave me +8 AC, and let me take half damage from all magic, at level 7, just to give the rest of the group the Middle Finger.

He also knew it would not effect my character all that much, I was a solid brick of HP, AC, and Healing anyway, to the point that every feat i had was either Extra Lay on Hands or something that enhanced it.

Sounds like you were playing with a bunch of *******s

[Dudewithknives]

Sounds like you were playing with a bunch of *******s

That was usually the case back in the day, yes.

[90sMusic]

D&D is like literally any other multiplayer game that exists.

If you have ever played a multiplayer game online in your life, you should know most people that play it are either trying to cheat, scum bags, or just terrible at the game in general. It's difficult to find people of sufficient quality to enjoy a long campaign with because most players and most DMs are just awful.

For me, the very specific search is worth it because I only play really long campaigns that go up to or past a year in length. I don't do tiny 1-5 modules or play one shots, because I don't care about just getting in there and killing stuff once a week, I want a story and characters to get invested in over a long time and you cant get that sort of connection out of something so quick and limited.

It's like a 2 hour movie vs a series that has multiple seasons, you get to find out so much more about the characters and story when you have the time to explore it all. The tiny snippet with no real reason or justification to do anything aside form "they're evil, lets kill them" and grouping up with each other because "oh hey we're all in a bar and inexplicably have these super powers average people dont have, lets team up!".

[Finieous]

Sounds like you were playing with a bunch of *******s

I was gonna say it sounds a lot like the **** we got up to when we were fourteen or fifteen, but it usually ended in PvP. Those *******s are still my best friends thirty-seven years later. :smallbiggrin:

[Maxilian]

Well... when it comes to making your character for a campaign, it makes sense for the PC to go with something that work with the theme of the campaign, maybe you will go as a Dragon Slayer in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, a Underdark stalker in Out of the Abyss, or a friend of Giants in the giants campaign.

So... in most cases, it doesn't matter with what idea you make your character at the start of the campaign, but if you do it with detail, like... "Well in Lost Mines of Phandelver we are going to be facing to mage bosses -glassstaff and the blackspider, so i'm going to go with an anti-mage character that can also work around the Dragon fight", NOW that's wrong!.

[Eric Diaz]

It is cheating but the reality is some people just can't help themselves.

You can call him out on it but (being a cheat) he is probably gonna lie. It's kinda like if you suspect your girlfriend is cheating on you. If she is cheating on you she's a cheat; asking her is just an invitation to be lied to.

Just save yourself some heartache and change up every adventure. Not the whole thing, just the occasional important encounter, NPC, Riddle, murder mystery, treasure or death trap.

To be honest I do this in any event to tailor an adventure to the specific player characters that I have before me. I'll swap out designated story NPCs for NPCs from the characters back stories. I'll try and tie in specific dungeons to the PCs, or change the antagonist to be a member of a rival evil church etc.

Eventually even the cheats catch on and start giving me detailed back stories and tie their characters into the adventure, and figure out that all they're doing by reading it is ruining the fun for themselves while they are still exposed to the same (unexpected) death traps.

Not only should players be tailoring their characters towards the dungeon Masters campaign, but the opposite should apply as well.


Cheating? In his example of having something located in a different location isn't really cheating. Unless a player uses meta-knowledge to try to cheat and discover it was moved, that is the only time it would be a problem. If they play the game as they are supposed to, they'll find it in it's new location through normal play.

Yeah, I'm not sure; I am thinking in abstract here, because I've never encountered a similar problem. I've seen people cheat with dice, etc., but reading an adventure in advance and not telling the GM has never happened to me. In fact, I've never even encountered a situation where any player says "okay, I'll just avoid this room and look under rug #$3 in the next one" or something similar.

So my opinion on this matter has no basis on experience.

But, as I've said, I am okay with all examples of meta-gaming mentioned and wouldn't mind if I player read the adventure before, provided he doesn't start acting omniscient, and I would probably change things up in this case.

[foobar1969]

Well anyway, another player suggested I ask the DM if the battle maps in the module were big enough where they thought I would benefit enough from the metamagic. I was very uncomfortable with that and didn't ask,
I disagree. There's nothing wrong with asking the DM to critique your build (but do it during out-of-session down time, not in the middle of play). If you're designing your character around a strategy that isn't going to work in the campaign, it will be frustrating and reduce everyone's enjoyment. The DM doesn't need to reveal any secret info, but if they're smart they'll let you know if the build makes sense for what's to come.

For example, when the ranger in my group was picking enemies and terrain, I made sure he read the player intro packet first, so his picks would be relevant and useful.

[Pex]

2 game sessions later:
The DM decides to throw me a bone.
While on our trip to save the next temple to be ransacked, it just so happens that a portal opens up that only people of my faith can see, revealing a hidden room. Inside is an old shield and sword that belonged to the high Paladin of Palor from centuries before, and his spirit appears and asks me to redeem these items and give them the glory they deserve.
I take them and show them to the group, and explain that a long dead high paladin's ghost gave me these to redeem them.
The group asked if they were magic, to which I said no, because at the time they weren't.
So the next night the group sneaks into my bag and steals them and sells them, "To teach me a lesson about taking loot when it is there."

Long story short, the DM got pissed, and I ended up with a shield that made me immune to crits, gave me +8 AC, and let me take half damage from all magic, at level 7, just to give the rest of the group the Middle Finger.

He also knew it would not effect my character all that much, I was a solid brick of HP, AC, and Healing anyway, to the point that every feat i had was either Extra Lay on Hands or something that enhanced it.

If I were the DM the vision portal was granted because you showed you deserved it since you did not accept grave robbing stolen goods. An angel would have commended you for your Righteousness and explain that it's still ok to have things of power and wealth, properly earned, to aid you in your Path to spread the Light of Pelor. You've earned these gifts from Pelor. Use them well with his blessing. When your party members try to steal them they would autofail and receive Divine Judgment in the form of a Curse until they repented their ways. Those items were gifts from Pelor. If the players quit the game I'd call it a win.

[Dudewithknives]

If I were the DM the vision portal was granted because you showed you deserved it since you did not accept grave robbing stolen goods. An angel would have commended you for your Righteousness and explain that it's still ok to have things of power and wealth, properly earned, to aid you in your Path to spread the Light of Pelor. You've earned these gifts from Pelor. Use them well with his blessing. When your party members try to steal them they would autofail and receive Divine Judgment in the form of a Curse until they repented their ways. Those items were gifts from Pelor. If the players quit the game I'd call it a win.

The funniest part was I was nothing but defense and healing til level 15, when I finally took radiant charge

In the last fight I charged the main villain on my horse, with a lance, crit and blew I want to say 37 charges of lay on hands. Huge multiplier because of the lance on a charge, it went off like the hand of Palor himself came down from the heavens.

It was the only time I ever got to use it, but hey, worth it.

Avatar of Kuthullhu shows up a d his minions start piling out.
Guy who looks like a regular soldier charges and nukes him in one hit like a deific holocaust.
Minions all go back in portal and leave.

[Pex]

The funniest part was I was nothing but defense and healing til level 15, when I finally took radiant charge

In the last fight I charged the main villain on my horse, with a lance, crit and blew I want to say 37 charges of lay on hands. Huge multiplier because of the lance on a charge, it went off like the hand of Palor himself came down from the heavens.

It was the only time I ever got to use it, but hey, worth it.

Avatar of Kuthullhu shows up a d his minions start piling out.
Guy who looks like a regular soldier charges and nukes him in one hit like a deific holocaust.
Minions all go back in portal and leave.

Nothing is sweeter than when you roll Natural 20 at the most perfect time. I've had a few myself.

[DevilMcam]

To get back to the original topic :

IMO Metagaming is okay and somehow needed as long as everyone is on the same level.

session 0, character creation metagaming is okay, and even usefull, having a party that is absolutely inefficient for the campaign is no fun for anyone. Having a party of 4 randoms pick-ups that are forced to work together without any will to do so will probably end bad as well.

Making quicker than usual friend with the reroll of one of the PCs that just died is somehow okay as well.

It seems that everyone agrees on the following point : reading the campaign and using the information gained that way in the game is clearly over the line.

However monster knowledge is not always. Let's get back to the troll example. It can be argued that the PCs should or should not know beforehand that trolls are vulnerable to fire. But in the end the player would like to do it, let him do and have the troll behave accordingly to the new threat. The game will turn a bit less story oriented and more strategy oriented, but it appeared that it was the player's will.
All that matter is that the players play the same game. If one if everyone want to play DnD more as a strategy game, it's okay to do it.

[Contrast]

That first quote is something I've actually heard after I killed a character--the player said "I didn't think you'd create encounters that we couldn't handle (by fighting)." Note: a dire yeti at level 2 is not a survivable fight, especially when the rest of the party takes one look and nope-s out of there so you're flying solo.


It typically requires some metagame thinking (or "experience" or "player skill") to recognize the unbeatable monsters.

"OMG it's a giant snake with tentacles and a beak! Run!"
"Dude, it's just a grick."

This is a legitimate problem. There are a lot of monsters that you can't tell the difficulty of by looking at. An animated armour (CR1) is going to look an awful lot like a death knight (CR17) or any generic dude wearing full plate mail inbetween. In my case, I didn't know the stats for yetis/dire yetis until I looked them up just now so I would have just assumed it was a refluffed ogre, an entirely appropriate encounter for a level 2 party. There's a good chance I'd initially attribute any extra embellishments the DM gave in the description trying to denote a dire yeti as simply them trying to make the encounter memorable. Without metagaming and knowing how a particular DM runs their games its very difficult to tell sometimes what an appropriate fight looks like.

I seem to recall a thread a while ago in the forum where a DM had been dropping hints about his end game doppleganger BBEG but then didn't know what to do when the party went after him because they didn't realise how dangerous he was and, being a doppleganger, the BBEG had gone out of his way to not demonstrate how dangerous he was.


I had a similar situation where a DM told us there was a dragon in the vicinity. Half the party wanted to avoid it ('its a dragon and we're level 2 - we would die') and the other half wanted to go fight it ('the DM wouldn't just set us up to die like that'). Metagaming cutting both ways. In that case the dragon turned up and threatended us (it demanded we turn over a plot device we'd just found) but two of the players immediately attacked it, me and another hung around ready to flee and one ran away immediately. It killed one of the attackers and cautious guy and flew off with the third attacker riding on its back. Player riding it tried to pin its wings and rolled a 20 and they both fell out of the sky. Dead players were pretty grumpy at this point for having been killed out of hand so (I assume) the DM trying to placate things said the dragon also died in the fall. Come the end of the session the 2 attacking players rage quit when they found out the player who fled straight away was still going to get the standard session XP because they felt he hadn't earned it and the group fell apart :smalltongue:

[DarkKnightJin]

1) The lich probably should have been scrying/spying on you and known your capabilities, and 2) I hope you kicked his ass.

How would the Lich onow about a skill the character never got to use, because the DM avoided situations it could be used in?
There's a reason that the DM forgot he had that skill, ya know.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This is a legitimate problem. There are a lot of monsters that you can't tell the difficulty of by looking at. An animated armour (CR1) is going to look an awful lot like a death knight (CR17) or any generic dude wearing full plate mail inbetween. In my case, I didn't know the stats for yetis/dire yetis until I looked them up just now so I would have just assumed it was a refluffed ogre, an entirely appropriate encounter for a level 2 party. There's a good chance I'd initially attribute any extra embellishments the DM gave in the description trying to denote a dire yeti as simply them trying to make the encounter memorable. Without metagaming and knowing how a particular DM runs their games its very difficult to tell sometimes what an appropriate fight looks like.


In this particular case (the Dire Yeti), I had made a point (repeatedly) of saying that the world is not leveled for your convenience. There will be things you have to run from to survive.

The party (on an unrelated quest) ran across a cave from which they heard something large, snoring heavily. The paladin's player (before checking out the cave) said he'd run inside and shout and yell. As he got inside, they saw a large mound of fur, about 10 feet tall (when it stood up). I asked "Are you sure you want to try to wake it up?" and "your gut instinct is that hibernating creatures wake up hungry and mean" (Passive Wisdom). He continued for three or four rounds and I'm describing this thing slowly waking up, standing up, stretching its large arms with big claws and licking its lips. If at any time he had run, it wouldn't have chased far (since it was still waking up). No, he decided to try to swing at it, knowing that the rest of the party was not with him and was trying to dissuade him. It one-shot him with a normal attack (rolled straight on the table) and proceeded to munch on his bones, loudly.

This particular player was a "kick in the door, combat is everything" type. It took him several sessions to realize that while that works a lot in D&D, it doesn't always work. He was blinded by his "if it's there, I can fight it at my level" meta-thinking.

[Finieous]

How would the Lich onow about a skill the character never got to use, because the DM avoided situations it could be used in?
There's a reason that the DM forgot he had that skill, ya know.

Like I said, I don't know the details of the edition or the prestige class. Just based on a plain language reading, if I'm a lich I'll make it my business to know about any "Occult Slayers" in the vicinity. There can't be that many to track, and I've got time. If the place is lousy with "Occult Slayers," I'd probably move. As an evil undying wizard, I'd want to know who these "Occult Slayers" are and what they can do, merely based on the inference that I might be the sort of thing they're into slaying.

I mean, as an evil undead mastermind, I'd want to know all about any high-level adventurers in my neighborhood, because there aren't many other threats to the dark eternity of my malevolent existence. But these "Occult Slayer" guys? Yeah, they'd get special attention.

[Thrudd]

Some of this metagame thinking can be squashed or at least addressed by establishing clear expectations and setting information. I would inform the players that they should not assume anything about any monster based on past experience - some may look similar to published creatures but will not necessarily be anything like the entries in the book in terms of power or abilities. This should stop the "dude, it's just a grell" guy. It is important to actually follow up on this warning as the DM, of course. If you have experienced players that know the monster manual inside and out, don't use the published monsters if you want them to react with fear or surprise or uncertainty. You'll need to at least customize the existing monsters, and should probably invent some completely new ones as well. The only knowledge players should have about creatures is what you have given them, and what they have discovered through play.

If you decide to stick to published monsters, then you should accept that the players will be familiar with many or all of them. Don't bother expecting them to put on a little show of how their characters are frightened and then coincidentally discover the monsters' weakness shortly afterward in a really contrived way. Or even worse, pretend they can't figure it out and put their characters at risk. I mean, what's the point? The one benefit to using published monsters with experienced players is that you can use the known reputation of some creatures among players to instill the feeling and reaction you would like them to have - ie. a monster known to be powerful and deadly appearing at a time when the characters are clearly unprepared for it.

The metagame thinking which resides in some players, born no doubt of years of being trained by video games, that tells them that all enemies and creatures appearing must be an appropriate combat challenge, should be squashed at the game's onset by establishing the expectation that the game does not work that way, as mentioned in other posts. Remind the players that they should approach decision making from the point of view of their character, or pretending as though they themselves were in that fantasy world. Make no assumptions about anything, the only information that should be considered is information the DM has given you about the game world.

The way you deal with newer RPG players will be somewhat different than how you need to deal with experienced ones, but in either case, you can make the game better for all by foreseeing these issues and addressing them up front.

Of course, the last resort, when players still don't "get it", is to just let the game play out as it does. If your video game players just can't wrap their heads around the idea that they might not be able to win a fight, let them learn by experience. They pick a fight with that dragon at level 2, and all get eaten - lesson learned, hopefully. Obviously, the DM needs to be consistent, as well. If you have conditioned the players to the sort of game where they face nothing but predetermined, balanced encounters, and the characters have never been in real danger before, then you shouldn't expect them to suddenly realize that this one encounter isn't meant for them to engage with.

[Contrast]

In this particular case (the Dire Yeti), I had made a point (repeatedly) of saying that the world is not leveled for your convenience. There will be things you have to run from to survive.

*snip*

This particular player was a "kick in the door, combat is everything" type. It took him several sessions to realize that while that works a lot in D&D, it doesn't always work. He was blinded by his "if it's there, I can fight it at my level" meta-thinking.

Apologies maybe I didn't make myself clear enough as I feel like you missed part of the point I was making.

You're complaining that it was meta-gaming of him to believe everything in the world would be leveled appropriately for him. Your other players who listened to your out of character advice to be more cautious were meta-gaming. By ignoring your explicitly stated advice its arguable that player is actually meta-gaming less (or at least, in a less optimal fashion) than your other players. It sounds like you actually wanted your character to meta-game more and act appropriately in character based on the information you had imparted out of character at the start of the campaign :smallwink:

This isn't a criticism, just a note that meta-gaming is more nuanced than more=bad, good=less. Good meta-gaming is buying into the overall concept of the campaign (in your case gritty and dangerous) and having a character who interacts appropriately with it (approaches fights with appropriate caution in your campaign).

[Aett_Thorn]

Apologies maybe I didn't make myself clear enough as I feel like you missed part of the point I was making.

You're complaining that it was meta-gaming of him to believe everything in the world would be leveled appropriately for him. Your other players who listened to your out of character advice to be more cautious were meta-gaming. By ignoring your explicitly stated advice its arguable that player is actually meta-gaming less (or at least, in a less optimal fashion) than your other players. It sounds like you actually wanted your character to meta-game more and act appropriately in character based on the information you had imparted out of character at the start of the campaign :smallwink:

This isn't a criticism, just a note that meta-gaming is more nuanced than more=bad, good=less. Good meta-gaming is buying into the overall concept of the campaign (in your case gritty and dangerous) and having a character who interacts appropriately with it (approaches fights with appropriate caution in your campaign).

So...wait...is this a case of meta-meta-gaming? By meta-gaming individual reactions to actual meta-game advice about the world in general? I'm so confused! :tongue:

[PhoenixPhyre]

Apologies maybe I didn't make myself clear enough as I feel like you missed part of the point I was making.

You're complaining that it was meta-gaming of him to believe everything in the world would be leveled appropriately for him. Your other players who listened to your out of character advice to be more cautious were meta-gaming. By ignoring your explicitly stated advice its arguable that player is actually meta-gaming less (or at least, in a less optimal fashion) than your other players. It sounds like you actually wanted your character to meta-game more and act appropriately in character based on the information you had imparted out of character at the start of the campaign :smallwink:

This isn't a criticism, just a note that meta-gaming is more nuanced than more=bad, good=less. Good meta-gaming is buying into the overall concept of the campaign (in your case gritty and dangerous) and having a character who interacts appropriately with it (approaches fights with appropriate caution in your campaign).

I don't think that's what I mean by meta-gaming. Meta-gaming (according to the DMG) is having in-play actions dictated (or influenced) by the fact that it's a game. "The DM would never do that" is explicitly called out as an example of bad metagame thinking. The character had a good idea that things aren't leveled for them--he lived in the world and has no idea that it's a game. The player thought that because it's a game, every possible fight would be balanced and intended to be fought. That's meta-gaming. Listening to the DMs instructions is just good game play.

I assure you--no character that had lived to maturity in-universe would have run up and done something like that willingly (unless they were actively suicidal). There was no character decisions involved at all, just player "see creature, fight creature" desires. I know this because I explicitly talked to that player about it and he confessed as much.

[Contrast]

I don't think that's what I mean by meta-gaming. Meta-gaming (according to the DMG) is having in-play actions dictated (or influenced) by the fact that it's a game. "The DM would never do that" is explicitly called out as an example of bad metagame thinking. The character had a good idea that things aren't leveled for them--he lived in the world and has no idea that it's a game. The player thought that because it's a game, every possible fight would be balanced and intended to be fought. That's meta-gaming. Listening to the DMs instructions is just good game play.

I assure you--no character that had lived to maturity in-universe would have run up and done something like that willingly (unless they were actively suicidal). There was no character decisions involved at all, just player "see creature, fight creature" desires. I know this because I explicitly talked to that player about it and he confessed as much.

I'm not saying he wasn't meta-gaming, what I'm saying is that if he was meta-gaming in an attempt to achieve an in-game advantage, he was doing so poorly compared to your other players who had used out of game knowledge about the type of game to make much more optimal in-character choices.

For clarity what I was pointing out is that his style of play would be much better for a DM who wanted to run a dashing heroic style game. In that game your careful cautious players could be seen as boring time wasters. You would both be playing 5E but what counts as good game play depends heavily on the environment you are playing in (or in other words, the meta of your game).

I think the 'definition' as it is in the DMG is pretty lacking but it says the emphasis should be on what your character thinks, not what your players think. But your players (or at least some of them) know you run a certain type of game and if they want to do well in the game they need a character who thinks in a certain way. In doing so they have better adapted to the meta of your game than the player who liked to rush in head first.

[UrielAwakened]

I built a Ranger for SKT's who will take Favored Enemy: Giant at level 6 and of course speaks it.

Is that metagaming? Or is it reasonable to assume that a story about a group of people who have to heavily involve themselves in a plot about giants would have characters in it with strong thematic ties to giants?

[KorvinStarmast]

I built a Ranger for SKT's who will take Favored Enemy: Giant at level 6 and of course speaks it.

Is that metagaming? Or is it reasonable to assume that a story about a group of people who have to heavily involve themselves in a plot about giants would have characters in it with strong thematic ties to giants? Yep. I'd bring an elephant hunter to an elephant hunt, not a duck hunter.

[Contrast]

Per my above thoughts (and more generally the theme of the thread), I would argue that it was meta-gaming but that doesn't necessarily mean its a bad thing :smalltongue:

[anonymsly]

Just throwing my 2 cents in on the topic rather than the conversation!

I play in three D&D games per week, one of which I run.

My game is Tyranny of Dragons. I told the players ahead of time that this was going to be chock-full of dragons, and they should think about what kind of characters might get involved in that stuff. I ended up with a group that works exceptionally well together, has deep and engaging backstories, has strong bonds with each other, and is fully invested in the campaign as a whole to the point where even when a player had to miss a session due to being at the airport she half-participated by speakerphone. In this case I feel metagaming, at least on the level of 'here's what the game is, make a character to fit in it', has drastically improved the overall quality. I have no real idea, though, because it's actually the first game I've ever run. (8 months and counting of weekly games! I am proud.)

One of my Tyranny players runs a game where I play, and it's Storm King's Thunder. Initially, we players were told nothing and not particularly encouraged to link up with each other or involve giants in our backstory. Only one player, the GM's housemate, did anything like that. It was a disaster at first - the characters had no motivation, no similar goals, and nothing to bind us together. A few months in, we took a break and reorganized, and a few of us changed characters for ones that actually had been built specifically for a 'giants!' campaign. Since then, we've gained all the elements we were lacking and it's a great game. This is an example of metagaming actually improving a game.

The third game is 2E and more casual than anything else, but the strongest bond in the party is between the party's ranger and my cleric, who I made specifically to poke the ranger's sore spots.

Metagaming can be destructive, yes. It can get in the way of fun. But used like the tool it can be, I think it can seriously enhance everybody's fun.

[Chugger]

A long time ago, back before AD&D (we were playing DnD from the pamphlets that came in a white box, iirc), metagaming was normal and common and every round. We didn't know we were doing it. We didn't know we weren't "role playing" - we thought we were. We were running characters in a fantasy world and up against things out to kill us, and by gum we were gonna put our best effort forward (or die, basically).

It was not easy being a player back then (in most campaigns), although kobolds could have only 1 hp.

None of us had played WoW or EQ - or first person shooters - or any Internet games because none of that existed. Some of us might have played Avlon Hill type war games, but most of us were coming from Risk, Stratego, and Monopoly to dice and paper RPGs. So we were different from you - times were different - and yeah, we meta-gamed. We tended to be very (much more so than today, from what I typically see) unified as a party (and we kind of had to be - we really had no idea what we were doing - we had no guides or advice blogs on the Internet to read up on - we had to scan the rule pamphlets and figure out what made sense - what worked - and what was crap.

Were you to travel back in time and confront us on our metagaming and how we needed to evolve and RP and all that, I think we would have laughed at you. I think we would have sat you down and shown you our primitive characters and told you how we got jumped by Ogre Magi - and we barely - barely - survived, and it was only because we timed things just right - because player x hit upon a fantastic combo on round two (he was so scared of dying he had an epiphany!) - and he changed what were going to do - and we just managed to kill them and win.

But we're in the here and now, and of course I get why things have changed. And that some tables are more fight oriented and for optimizers and so on. But back then we weren't optimizers - we were how in the freaking heck are we not going to wipe tonight? So we meta'd.

[lperkins2]

So, aside from reiterating what others have said, that considering meta information (information about the game itself) isn't inherently bad, I figured some practical advice on how to balance outside information might be appreciated. So, in rough order of importance, here goes.

First, don't use gotchas. This usually comes up with traps and sometimes with monsters. If you don't know what I mean by a gotcha, look for the Angry DM article on gotcha traps, but in short, a gotcha is a problem that is solved trivially as soon as it is found, but relies on the party not discovering it until it bites them.

Because they become trivial if discovered, DMs want to avoid them being discovered, which in turn, increases the chances that some critical detail will be left out of the description of the scene. While the Angry article covers gotcha traps, this applies equally to monster weaknesses.

For example, a troll's weakness is not a gotcha, having to do fire damage to the troll every round is a big deal. Yeah, the wizard probably has firebolt, but if he misses, the troll gets back a pile of HP, unless someone else uses a torch to smack the troll, for a whopping 1+STR damage. Add in a second troll, and a bit of cooperation so when one gets injured the other protects it, and you can have a bloody hard fight even if the party not only knows the troll's weakness, but knows they'll be facing trolls.

On the other hand, The Wicked Witch of the West is a gotcha. While incredibly dangerous, and commanding a large army, the encounter with her is trivialized by a bucket of water. If you design monsters with this sort of weakness, and don't make researching the weakness a major plot point, you are asking for trouble. Either the players stumble across the weakness (or know it for some other reason), or they end up having to run away a lot. And, since a nigh-invulnerable, intelligent creature isn't going to just let them run away, they die, a lot.




The idea of a character checking for traps, even though the character had been assured it was safe, because the player suspects the DM has included traps is related to this. It often comes up when the DM has a gotcha trap, that should be found by a careful character looking for it. The DM wants to apply a HP or status tax on the character, so he says the character thinks the area is safe and isn't paying attention, just so he can trigger his trap. A player objecting, saying the character still checks for traps, is just reacting to the DM's meta-gaming. Besides, there's a strong natural selection pressure on adventurers to be paranoid.


Second, consider what kind of game you're trying to run. If it is a casual game, between friends who are mostly just looking to spend time together, I wouldn't worry about it. Just focus on telling a fun story and having a good time. How much is it a simulationist game? If you are fairly loose with the rules, mostly worrying about them during combat, or when there's some contest between characters, then the characters won't know about things like 'Hit Points', but that also means the characters shouldn't *need* to know about things like 'Hit Points'.

If, on the other hand, you are controlling adventurers in a world with concrete laws of physics all its own, the odds are good that the philosophers in that world will have studied those laws and adventurers will know something about them. For example, no matter who the young upstart is, no just graduated mage can cast firebolts faster than 1 per 6 seconds. The worst of them also are no slower than 1 per 6 seconds. Sure, they probably wouldn't call it 'rounds and turns', but some notice that almost all spells have a 6 second cooldown should be expected. Similarly, peasants punching peasants never take more than 8 blows to knock the second peasant unconscious or kill them, and a great many other things that could be empirically tested in the world.


Third, specific player knowledge vs character knowledge: My rule is no source books at the table. My assumption is that the various characters have grown up listening to bards and sages. Their parents will have told them about banshees, and other things used to scare misbehaving children. Given a world where these things are real, the stories are likely to be reasonably accurate. This matches fairly well with encouraging players to draw upon whatever they've heard, seen, or read previously. It can also be hilarious when they remember something wrong, or devastating. On a more concretely useful level, it keeps players from getting distracted looking through the source books, which helps keep play moving. Note that this applies to the PHB and spell descriptions too, if you don't know what spell you want to pick, because you didn't prep your character, or you didn't write down the description, we won't pause the action to wait for you. You can cast the spell, and if you don't know what it does, that's okay, I do.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Metagaming, such a loaded little term. Tons of baggage. I'm going to avoid using it for the rest of this post, in hopes of traveling light. Sorry that will make my phrasing a bit long and awkward.

As a player, from session 1 forward, I am doing my best to figure out how my character views the world, and have him act accordingly. If I know there is a trap around the corner, but my character does not, then he is still walking around that corner. I'm interested in developing who my character is, not coming up with clever excuses to always be in the most advantageous position.

The major exception is always being willing to accept a new PC into the group.

But character creation is called Session Zero for a reason. It is not supposed to be like the rest of the game. THIS IS THE TIME TO THINK AND TALK ABOUT THE GAME AS A GAME. What are the themes of the campaign? What race / class / abilities are each player thinking of? Do we have a balanced party, with all roles covered? If not, do we care? How did the PC's meet and start adventuring together? Are we going to be an established team, or a group who all just got hired to guard the same caravan? What is it about our characters that make them willing / resigned / forced participants to the campaign?

What house rules are in play? That includes DM rulings on game mechanics, setting details, and non game issues like bringing snacks, missing game sessions, and so on.

The more time you spend discussing the game as a game during Session Zero, the better everything will go from Session 1 onwards.

[Alerad]

What do you think, playground? Where do you draw the line?

In an undead campaign, a player chooses to play a Cleric, Paladin, Undying Warlock, or Sun Soul Monk, knowing these characters work well against undead.
Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls. When asked how he knew to do this, he says he thinks it's common knowledge that his character would know, but isn't sure.
A character entering a dungeon, one he's been assured is safe, constantly checks for traps and looks over his shoulder because he, the player, knows there's no way it's actually safe.
A player writes a backstory so long and detailed that it includes all of the meta knowledge he possesses (the Henderson approach).
Reading the campaign ahead of time.


For me, the backstory. I actually restrict players to 4 short sentences. On the other hand, sometimes I asked them questions about their backstory in-game, so they still get to build on it and develop it.

Reading the campaign... There are so many live-streams, it's hard to avoid sometimes. As long as players understand that I'm probably going to change some significant elements, that's ok. I hate it if there is a hidden switch/alter/whatever and they go and press it the moment they have the chance (had one such case with CoS, but it was the last session, so not too bad).

This is ok for me:
(Player) Johnny lights a torch and uses it against trolls, hoping the fire can hurt them. (DM) Just as in the books about trolls he has read as a child. But the seed of doubt can't leave his mind. Are these the same trolls that he knows about, ones who regrow limbs unless burned by fire and acid. Or are these different?

[KorvinStarmast]

Some of us might have played Avlon Hill type war games, but most of us were coming from Risk, Stratego, and Monopoly to dice and paper RPGs. So we were different from you - times were different - and yeah, we meta-gamed. We tended to be very (much more so than today, from what I typically see) unified as a party (and we kind of had to be - we really had no idea what we were doing - we had no guides or advice blogs on the Internet to read up on - we had to scan the rule pamphlets and figure out what made sense - what worked - and what was crap.

Were you to travel back in time and confront us on our metagaming and how we needed to evolve and RP and all that, I think we would have laughed at you. Yeah. Those fights that we barely survived made for great game sessions. I am one of those AH wargame sorts, and Diplomacy, and some miniatures stuff before D&D.
Also played microarmor games in college.

[GlenSmash!]

I have no specific anti metagaming rules at my table. I do however have one non-specific rule that might apply: Try not to make the game less fun for anyone else at the table.

I simply leave it up to the player how much of their own knowledge to inject into their character. I don't ask for background specifics on whether or not there character should know that trolls are week to fire or what have you and trust that they will work to make the game fun no matter what they decide. If it ever comes up that's making the game less fun (it hasn't yet) I'l talk to the player about it, probably without even using the word metagaming.