Spells that encourage the DM to metagame.

[Deathtongue]

There are a number of effects in D&D (all editions, really) that encourage the DM to metagame by having the NPCs be smarter than they can reasonably expected to be. Illusions are the classic example; how many times have you seen the NPCs become Sun Tzu brain ninjas just to foil illusions that they would otherwise be completely fooled by?

Hypnotic Pattern is one of my favorites. You know how many times I've seen that spell be foiled by the conga line of one or two enemies not affected by Hypnotic Pattern shaking the others free? Quite a few times. You know how many times I've seen NPCs use actions trying to shake creatures free of Command / Hold Person / Confusion? Zero.

[lperkins2]

There are a number of effects in D&D (all editions, really) that encourage the DM to metagame by having the NPCs be smarter than they can reasonably expected to be. Illusions are the classic example; how many times have you seen the NPCs become Sun Tzu brain ninjas just to foil illusions that they would otherwise be completely fooled by?

Hypnotic Pattern is one of my favorites. You know how many times I've seen that spell be foiled by the conga line of one or two enemies not affected by Hypnotic Pattern shaking the others free? Quite a few times. You know how many times I've seen NPCs use actions trying to shake creatures free of Command / Hold Person / Confusion? Zero.

In 5e specifically, anything that's concentration. It's one thing if a smart enemy sees a spell cast and suddenly the fighter is attacking an extra time. It's particularly obvious and bad when the concentration buff is cast before coming into sight of the enemies, and they still target the caster, even when the caster hasn't presented a threat so far.

[Man_Over_Game]

I try to make things both challenging but enjoyable as a DM. While I try to avoid doing things like breaking concentration or "sleep" effects, I can't knowingly ignore Counterspell. With Counterspell being available to a party, I have to consider how effective my mage is going to be in a fight, or whether or not I want to squeeze in another.

Sometimes, I just shrug and stop focusing on it. Other times, I replace all of my "archers" with low level cantrip casters (who use things like Fog Cloud, Sleep, or other low level control).

[stoutstien]

I'm a firm believer the platonic party system as a DM. How to make a party with the same roles as my players but with random generated class and fill each one of those rolls. So the utility caster could be a wizard or sorcerer or whatever. since we have a general idea of what the party is capable of doing at certain levels without knowing the exact tactics spell etc.
access the third level spells a big jump regardless of what spell they take.

[Erloas]

I think that one thing that is lost is what the various things going on would look like to a real person in that world. You can often tell when someone is concentrating on something, it might be more or less pronounced when that thing is a spell versus what we see in real life. You would probably just assume that if you've got a group attacking you, that they are all threats, even the guy standing in the back not obviously doing something. In a world of relatively commonplace magic you can be reasonably sure that the guy with the fancy rings and jewelry and clothing and adventuring gear is probably not cowering in the back because he is helpless.

To make a Simpsons reference, when the ninjas and mob are fighting in the front yard and the one guy is just standing there and Marge is trying to get Homer to come inside, he is waiting for that small bald ninja to start doing something, he knows he's got something cool coming up. It is obvious that he is dangerous even when he's just standing there.

You're not going to assume that an adventuring group just has one member that is useless "dead weight." He's not running at us with a sword or hammer, he isn't holding a bow, he is probably a magic user. It is a pretty simple assumption in a world with a lot of magic users.

[Unoriginal]

There are a number of effects in D&D (all editions, really) that encourage the DM to metagame by having the NPCs be smarter than they can reasonably expected to be. Illusions are the classic example; how many times have you seen the NPCs become Sun Tzu brain ninjas just to foil illusions that they would otherwise be completely fooled by?

Hypnotic Pattern is one of my favorites. You know how many times I've seen that spell be foiled by the conga line of one or two enemies not affected by Hypnotic Pattern shaking the others free? Quite a few times. You know how many times I've seen NPCs use actions trying to shake creatures free of Command / Hold Person / Confusion? Zero.

It's not because bad DMs can't separate their knowledge from the NPCs' that spells are "encouraging" that behavior.

It's like saying "this boxer kept using legal punches, clearly he encouraged his opponent to kick him in the groin."

[Deathtongue]

It's not because bad DMs can't separate their knowledge from the NPCs' that spells are "encouraging" that behavior.

It's like saying "this boxer kept using legal punches, clearly he encouraged his opponent to kick him in the groin."I love that phrase "bad" DM. It's totally not a nebulous concept subject to continual goalshifts based on subjective evaluations. Placing the onus for rule hiccups on "bad" DMs is definitely a thing that improves the game, which is why no one had problems with polymorphing in 3E or skill challenges in 4E after we decided it was a problem with bad DMs and all you had to do was shame the "bad" DMs into being "good" DM.

[stoutstien]

I love that phrase "bad" DM. It's totally not a nebulous concept subject to continual goalshifts based on subjective evaluations. Placing the onus for rule hiccups on "bad" DMs is definitely a thing that improves the game, which is why no one had problems with polymorphing in 3E or skill challenges in 4E after we decided it was a problem with bad DMs and all you had to do was shame the "bad" DMs into being "good" DM.

This is one of many contributing factors to the lack of people who want to DM.

[strangebloke]

Concentration.

Saves sniping. Okay, Target the wizard a strength save, fine, but how do you realistically choose between the warlock or wizard to cast 'banishment' on. They're both guys in robes.

Anything that a player has as a non standard reaction. I might know that a party member has shield and arcane ward, but the bandits sure shouldn't. This applies to non spell things too like sentinel, pam, and mage Slayer. Hellish rebuke and armor of agathys are much the same.

Hypnotic pattern conga line is just rules as written if the enemies are smart enough. It's a stupid rule, but the problem there doesn't lie with the DM.

Invisibility. Suddenly every orc in the kingdom is incredibly interested in slight sounds.

[lperkins2]

Invisibility. Suddenly every orc in the kingdom is incredibly interested in slight sounds.

Probably my biggest annoyance is when trying to sneak makes you magically heard. I've seen too many instances where a DM would have let the party get in close to some encounter, except the scout wanted to bother to roll stealth and flubbed it, and the outcome was worse than if the party didn't bother to try. This applies to anything were the party triggers a check and flubbing the check makes it worse, but I mostly see it with stealth.

[Sharur]

Hypnotic Pattern is one of my favorites. You know how many times I've seen that spell be foiled by the conga line of one or two enemies not affected by Hypnotic Pattern shaking the others free? Quite a few times. You know how many times I've seen NPCs use actions trying to shake creatures free of Command / Hold Person / Confusion? Zero.

This has been called "bad DMing", but I don't think it is: its in the game rules. From the spell description of Hypnotic pattern: "The spell ends for an affected creature if it takes any damage or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature out of its stupor."

Neither command, hold person or confusion have anything like this in their spell descriptions. Why not? In my opinion its because Command only lasts a round, while Hold Person and Confusion allow a new save each turn, regardless of what actions are or are not taken. Additionally, there are the effects of range and area of the spells to consider: Hold Person and Command are single target spells (without upcasting) with a range of 60 ft each. Confusion targets a 10ft sphere, which the DMG estimates holds 2 creatures, from a distance of 90ft away. Hypnotic Pattern, is a 30ft cube from 120ft away, an area which the DMG calls "6 creatures" and I call, most of my indoor combats.

Note that the PCs can do this as well. What may be meta-gaming is if every far off bandit knows this, but if the spell is cast on PCs, they are not made aware of this way of ending it. If only specific foes no about this rule, such as a wizard's guardian or a band of bandits who specifically target magic items, then that is not meta-gaming, in my opinion.

[Cybren]

It’s not metagamimg for enemies to notice that their buddies are fixated on staring at a magical swirling pattern and decide to stop them from staring at it

[Zalabim]

I don't think it's metagaming for creatures actually suffering different effects to visibly be suffering different effects. There's a difference between metagaming and intentionally withholding information that would be obvious to anyone in the game-world, and it can be hard to draw a line between the two. What's the DC to tell that someone is paralyzed? Or incapacitated? Or asleep-unconscious? Rather than coma/KO unconscious? Maybe it doesn't take a check to see that someone is paralyzed, but it does to determine if it's from being poisoned.

[Unoriginal]

I love that phrase "bad" DM. It's totally not a nebulous concept subject to continual goalshifts based on subjective evaluations. Placing the onus for rule hiccups on "bad" DMs is definitely a thing that improves the game, which is why no one had problems with polymorphing in 3E or skill challenges in 4E after we decided it was a problem with bad DMs and all you had to do was shame the "bad" DMs into being "good" DM.

Do you consider that metagaming to make our player's choices not only ineffectual, but also a waste of ressources, is good DMing?


This has been called "bad DMing", but I don't think it is: its in the game rules. From the spell description of Hypnotic pattern: "The spell ends for an affected creature if it takes any damage or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature out of its stupor."

Actually, it has not. Because it's not metagaming.

Contrarily to everyone in the kingdom being suddenly capable to realize illusions are illusions.


I don't think it's metagaming for creatures actually suffering different effects to visibly be suffering different effects.


It’s not metagamimg for enemies to notice that their buddies are fixated on staring at a magical swirling pattern and decide to stop them from staring at it

This is true, too.

If you cast Sleep on people and don't KO everyone, then the ones who aren't affected will probably consider waking them up. Hypnotic Pattern's the same, the affected persons are visibly affected.

It's not like Phantasmal Force that has everything be in the target's mind, so their buddies should be confused by what is going on with the target (though the sharp one will probably put "enemy cast some sort of spell" and "buddy is acting weird" together").

It is *not* the same thing as every enemy being able to see your illusions are illusions or the other signs the DM is neutralizing your character's powers so they don't "ruin his scenario".

And doing that is bad DMing. You're DM-fiating a character into uselessness because you don't want to be beaten or similar trains of thought.

[EggKookoo]

At what point is "PC wizard saves his spell slots until closer to taking a long rest" metagaming?

In a game like this, there's a very wide, blurry, fuzzy zone between player knowledge and character knowledge. Maybe for a specific bit of info the line is clearly defined, but overall it's all over the place. This is especially true in this edition over some more recent ones. I tend to assume there's not a 1:1 communication across the player/character barrier but instead we're all sitting around the table kind of guessing or interpreting what the characters are actually doing (i.e. the dice inform "up" rather than "down").

[Unoriginal]

At what point is "PC wizard saves his spell slots until closer to taking a long rest" metagaming?

How does the PC know they're closer of taking a long rest? How does the player know they're closer of taking a long rest?

Conserving your strength because you might need it later, especially if you have intel about what's coming (ie you're in a hobgoblin keep to kill the warlord, and you haven't run into said warlord yet) isn't metagaming. Going "we got 2 encounters already, of course DM won't make us go through more" is metagaming... and in my personal opinion, the moment the DM should tell the players that encounters don't work like that.

[EggKookoo]

How does the PC know they're closer of taking a long rest? How does the player know they're closer of taking a long rest?

Conserving your strength because you might need it later, especially if you have intel about what's coming (ie you're in a hobgoblin keep to kill the warlord, and you haven't run into said warlord yet) isn't metagaming. Going "we got 2 encounters already, of course DM won't make us go through more" is metagaming... and in my personal opinion, the moment the DM should tell the players that encounters don't work like that.

I agree completely, in principle. In practice, good luck trying to get the player to not take into consideration the number and levels of spell slots left, how many uses of various abilities until the next rest, and slew of other mechanics-based elements. We all metagame, then basically metagame our metagaming to make it feel "natural."

[Unoriginal]

I agree completely, in principle. In practice, good luck trying to get the player to not take into consideration the number and levels of spell slots left, how many uses of various abilities until the next rest, and slew of other mechanics-based elements. We all metagame, then basically metagame our metagaming to make it feel "natural."

Sure, we all metagame, because as players and DMs we are meta-game entities. However, I think that it's important to establish that the game world doesn't *care* if you're low on ressources or that you get more benefits from one fight or any other mechanical consideration.

Some of the times you will be able to take a long rest after you've blew your spell slots. Other times, you won't.

Same way that I'm against the idea all the spellcasters the PCs face have their full spell slots at all time. Or that all the enemies are ready for combats even when you catch them in the middle of something else.

In the last session I DMed, I had a funny moment planed where the PCs, if they managed to sneak around in the enemy's base, would encounter two goons as they were boarding up a door (a monster having been trapped in the room behind said door), which would have lead the goons to try to defend themselves with carpentry supplies.

Didn't happen because the PCs preferred to hail the sentry outside the base and be escorted at weapon point to see the leader, so the goons had the time to arm themselves properly.

[EggKookoo]

Same way that I'm against the idea all the spellcasters the PCs face have their full spell slots at all time. Or that all the enemies are ready for combats even when you catch them in the middle of something else.

Right, I think that's part of the intent behind 5e's approach of monsters not being necessarily built like PCs. Although they seem to be split-minded with NPC spellcasters. I don't give them spell slots and spells directly, but rather I pick some spells and let them cast each one once. Creates the same effect from the players' perspective but easier to manage as a DM.


In the last session I DMed, I had a funny moment planed where the PCs, if they managed to sneak around in the enemy's base, would encounter two goons as they were boarding up a door (a monster having been trapped in the room behind said door), which would have lead the goons to try to defend themselves with carpentry supplies.

Didn't happen because the PCs preferred to hail the sentry outside the base and be escorted at weapon point to see the leader, so the goons had the time to arm themselves properly.

IIRC Dragon Heist does something similar involving a grey ooze.

[Unoriginal]

Right, I think that's part of the intent behind 5e's approach of monsters not being necessarily built like PCs. Although they seem to be split-minded with NPC spellcasters.

Eh, not really. 5e modules have encounters where it's precised "this spellcaster has already spent X spell slots" or "this opponent has been wounded just before the fight, reduce their HPs to Y", or even "this opponent is suffering from Z effect, applies the relevant conditions and penalties).

5e assumes most of the beings you fight are fight-ready, which is reasonable, but they take the time to add some who are in less than optimal condition.

In Dragon Heist, a possible encounter is with a wizard who has 0 spell slots left by the time the PCs show up.



IIRC Dragon Heist does something similar involving a grey ooze.

It was Dragon Heist, with that grey ooze. Well spotten, ChrisBasken, well spotted.

I've just changed it from "the goons are barricading the door with furniture" to "the goons are nailing down the door and will have to fight with a hammer, a toolbox and a wooden plank"

[Citan]

There are a number of effects in D&D (all editions, really) that encourage the DM to metagame by having the NPCs be smarter than they can reasonably expected to be. Illusions are the classic example; how many times have you seen the NPCs become Sun Tzu brain ninjas just to foil illusions that they would otherwise be completely fooled by?

Hypnotic Pattern is one of my favorites. You know how many times I've seen that spell be foiled by the conga line of one or two enemies not affected by Hypnotic Pattern shaking the others free? Quite a few times. You know how many times I've seen NPCs use actions trying to shake creatures free of Command / Hold Person / Confusion? Zero.

Well...
Do you realize that...
- Command is a one-round effect: save or fail, nobody can help you on fail. More importantly, since it's one round, it's not like anyone else would have time to react.
- Hold Person is an effect save or fail, nobody can help you either. One guy see X doing moves and uttering words targeting his pal, and his pal become immobile. How would it know whether doing anything to his friend or not would work?

How would any NPC have knowledge of what is actually happening? Only a caster would have any chance of knowing, and only a caster with Dispel Magic could actually do something about it. For others, the most logical course of action is to target the caster in hope to break the effect as soon as possible.

Now, pick friends. One is suddenly fainting or stopping doing anything at all. What is the logical, natural reaction of any other creature having any kind of positive relationship with it?
Yeah, that's right, *shake it up to see what's happening*. Because Hypnotic can be cast from 120 feet (higher chance the caster is hidden). Because its effect could be confused with the effect of a Sleep, or maybe a rock thrown to head, or maybe the guy just fainted for real, or maybe he's having a fit, etc... Coming over and trying to wake/shake up is the intuitive thing to do.


Confusion is the only that could be argued metagame, but even that is debat
able: if A sees B starting moving randomly, first thing will be asking "what the hell are you doing" while keeping eyes on enemy. Then maybe trying to get to it and slap it in hope of setting the mind straight. But if in the meantime B has started hurting his own pals, you must admit it's not very motivating to go to it.
And if A has seen an enemy doing things just prior B starting behaving strangely, then the only logical conclusion is "he's under magical effect -> best way is to kill caster".

I really don't see any problem here.
As for illusions, well, it's up to each player's responsability to speak with DM in session 0 to get an idea of what would fly or not.

[MaxWilson]

To make a Simpsons reference, when the ninjas and mob are fighting in the front yard and the one guy is just standing there and Marge is trying to get Homer to come inside, he is waiting for that small bald ninja to start doing something, he knows he's got something cool coming up. It is obvious that he is dangerous even when he's just standing there.

The joke works because it's only obvious to people who know they are in a cartoon, or are so stupid (Homer) that they think the world works like cartoons do.


You're not going to assume that an adventuring group just has one member that is useless "dead weight." He's not running at us with a sword or hammer, he isn't holding a bow, he is probably a magic user. It is a pretty simple assumption in a world with a lot of magic users.

The easy way to test whether the DM is actually using this logic is for the mage to pick up a greatsword or cast Disguise Self/Seeming. If the mage looks like a burly fighter in plate armor and the burly fighter looks like a scrawny pencil-neck in robes, do the monsters make a bunch of wrong decisions? If they keep on targeting the wizard to break his concentration despite his disguise, the DM is metagaming inappropriately.

=================================


This has been called "bad DMing", but I don't think it is: its in the game rules. From the spell description of Hypnotic pattern: "The spell ends for an affected creature if it takes any damage or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature out of its stupor."

Neither command, hold person or confusion have anything like this in their spell descriptions. Why not? In my opinion its because Command only lasts a round, while Hold Person and Confusion allow a new save each turn, regardless of what actions are or are not taken. Additionally, there are the effects of range and area of the spells to consider: Hold Person and Command are single target spells (without upcasting) with a range of 60 ft each. Confusion targets a 10ft sphere, which the DMG estimates holds 2 creatures, from a distance of 90ft away. Hypnotic Pattern, is a 30ft cube from 120ft away, an area which the DMG calls "6 creatures" and I call, most of my indoor combats.

Note that the PCs can do this as well. What may be meta-gaming is if every far off bandit knows this, but if the spell is cast on PCs, they are not made aware of this way of ending it. If only specific foes no about this rule, such as a wizard's guardian or a band of bandits who specifically target magic items, then that is not meta-gaming, in my opinion.

How can the orcs possibly know the optimal order to shake each other free from Hypnotic Pattern such that no one loses more than one turn? How do they know which orc is next in the initiative order (if the DM is using PHB cyclic initiative)?

Besides, Deathtongue's point is that for some reason, the orcs someone know the spell description and the countermeasure to Hypnotic Pattern, because they clearly treat it differently than Confusion even though the effects look the same. Somehow they are experts on magical theory/what you call "the game rules."

A good DM solution in this case is to roll dice and decide based on that. (I like applying the solo play rules here: ask a question with a yes/no answer, roll d6, 1 = No, and..., 2 = No, 3 = No, but..., 4 = Yes, but..., 5 = Yes, and 6 = Yes, and...) Using the dice lets the players know that you're not invested in the outcome that actually happens and preserves their feeling of agency, as well as dramatic tension next time they use the same tactic because they know it won't necessarily work out the same way. In this case, if Deathtongue casts a spell (Hypnotic Pattern or Confusion) on a bunch of orcs and stuns 8 out of 12 of them, it would be appropriate to say out loud, at the start of action declarations (I use a WE-GO initiative variant where everybody declares then everybody acts),

The unaffected orcs see their buddies hesitate. Oh no! Do they spend time trying to shake them out of it? Let's see. [Rolls a 1] No, and they assume the hesitation is fear, so the four unaffected orcs charge recklessly at the toughest-looking PC [insert name] to show a good example and gain status in the tribe! Deathtongue, what do you do this round?

[Tanarii]

The joke works because it's only obvious to people who know they are in a cartoon, or are so stupid (Homer) that they think the world works like cartoons do.
Given DMs and Players who think D&D is about storytelling, it's entirely reasonable for creatures in their worlds to be aware of the narrative causality they live in.

Which is IMO why many DM's games I've played in ended up somewhat like Pratchett's Discworld. Totally fun to play in once in a while. But frustrating is you expect logical cause and effect, instead of narrative driven cause an effect.

Edit: the same is true of you extend knowledge of the rules too far into the game world, make it too extreme. You either end up wi a Tippyverse like world and/or people yelling ARGLE BARGLE METAGAMING, but with some justification.

[EggKookoo]

The joke works because it's only obvious to people who know they are in a cartoon, or are so stupid (Homer) that they think the world works like cartoons do.

Also known as... (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy)

[Unoriginal]

Also known as... (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy)

Even without being aware you're in a story/cartoon/RPG world, people are *aware* of what kind of world they live in, to an extent.

The people of the D&D worlds can be surprised by magic or powerful heroes or weird monsters, but they probably heard about it. If Jaan the Apprentice Wizard cast Firebolt to an enemy, people will most likely go "****, they have a mage" not flee in terror at someone displaying unknown superpowers. If Gustav the Cutthroat starts acting weird in the middle of a fight, "some magic's messing with his mind" is an explanation people in his gang will probably consider.

[Keravath]

At what point is "PC wizard saves his spell slots until closer to taking a long rest" metagaming?

...



Never?

Meta-gaming occurs when out of game knowledge influences or controls character or NPC decisions.

Characters KNOW that they will likely sleep in the evening.
Characters KNOW that they will recover all their spell resources after they take a nice long rest.
Characters do NOT know what they may encounter through out the day.

In fact, from a character perspective, unless you KNOW you are going to head back to town or somewhere safe after you do something or if you find yourself in a very tight situation where you need to use spell slots to save a party member or yourself ... characters are very likely to hang onto some spell resources throughout the day since they do not know what is likely to come up.

There is no meta-gaming involved in those character decisions at all.

[On the other hand, if the player thinks ... "I've played this module, there is only one more boss fight before I can rest so I can safely use all my spell slots to make this easier and faster" ... THAT is meta-gaming]

[CantigThimble]

In a lot of situations, there's no way not to metagame. Every time something comes up that you know the tactics to deal with OOC and don't have any particular reason to know about or not know about IC, it could go either way, then you have the choice to either use the correct tactic or not. There is just no way to make an unbiased decision.

Have you ever played a cooperative puzzle game or been with someone else like they were playing a puzzle game? When you don't know the solution, then you can actively participate in the process and have it be cooperative and fun for everyone. On the other hand, if you've played it before and know the solution then you pretty much either have the choice to shut up and do nothing or else lead them by the nose to the right answer, you can't fake not knowing the solution and produce anything like the experience of not knowing.

Think about every time a party that knew anything about D&D fights trolls. There's no way to replicate the experience of not knowing how to kill trolls. You either handwave that someone knows about trolls or you do a whole song and dance of making knowledge checks or 'experimenting' with things you know will either work or not work until it feels like you've taken an appropriate amount of damage and then 'stumble' upon the answer just in time. That entire experience is metagaming no matter how you spin it, the question is whether you're metagaming in or against the party's favor.


Do you consider that metagaming to make our player's choices not only ineffectual, but also a waste of ressources, is good DMing?

If a player attempts a tactic and then that tactic fails then that player's choices were ineffectual and a waste of resources. Not everything players do will or should work out like players want it to and that doesn't make a DM bad. The question is whether the DM is actually metagaming to a significant degree.

Any time players face hypnotic pattern/hold person style effects then they're perfectly happy to use the correct tactic (shaking awake vs disrupting concentration) and will come up with any rationalization they need to to justify their character knowing how exactly those effects work. (Or not knowing exactly how the effects work but having some inkling that miraculously happens to be just enough to justify them taking the action they wanted to take) Buuut when the DM does anything like that no one asks for the rationalization behind the NPCs actions, they just get ticked off that their plan didn't work how they wanted it to and call the DM bad.


And just to be clear, all of this only applies in the cases where there isn't a particular pre-existing reason for someone to use any particular tactic when the ability is used against them. If there IS such a reason and the actions taken contradict it, then that is absolutely bad metagaming.

Seriously, I don't have a solution for the problem of metagaming in tactics because I don't think a solution exists. You can't play an old puzzle game as if you've never played it before and you can't play a battle in 5e as if you've never seen spells before.

[EggKookoo]

Never?

Correct! Which was my point...

[Tanarii]

DMs don't need to jump through the "justify it or you're METAGAMING" hoops any more than players do. Metagaming, at least as presented in these kinds of threads, is a mythical beast.

About the closest you can come is running a module again that you've played before. Or sneaking a look at the DMs notes.

[stoutstien]

Inbrace the meta. Let it flow through you.😁
But can anyone teally expect a player, the DM included, to not meta game in a game that is 100% a game of meta?

[Keravath]

Meta-gaming is when knowledge that the players have which is not available to the characters/monsters/NPCs is used in deciding their actions.

If the character/monster/NPC can reasonably be aware of something and also has the intelligence/awareness to act on that knowledge then that is not meta-gaming.

Examples of meta-gaming:

- DM spreads out a pack of beasts/zombies/skeletons/other undead at least 10' to 15' apart to minimize the fireball/hypnotic pattern from the party wizard. These creatures just generally don't have sufficient intelligence or knowledge, especially in the heat of battle to adopt defensive formations that minimize the effect of offensive spells. Yes ... it may change the encounter if the creatures behave as they should ... but it is up to the DM to make it both fun and realistic.

- Player says they are casting fireball ... DM decides NPC wizard will counterspell. Player says they are casting Animal Friendship ... DM doesn't counterspell it. How does the opposing wizard know what spell is being cast? When DMs do this they usually say the NPC caster is casting a spell without saying what it is ... this type of thing should be symmetric and if the PCs don't get to know what spell is being cast neither do the NPCs.

- DM doubles the hit points of the melee bad guys because the DM knows the paladin has smite. This is borderline meta-gaming ... it is the job of the DM to make the encounter interesting but specifically changing some monster characteristics to counter specific abilities of party members as opposed to creating a balanced encounter for the entire party could be considered meta-gaming. (though it can also just be considered part of the DMs job :) ... depends on whether he is picking on the paladin :)).

- DM has monsters rush in to attack the party in a closely spaced wave when he knows they have no AoE spells. DM spreads out the attackers when the party as AoE like hypnotic pattern and fireball. The attackers should generally have little idea of what capabilities the party has unless they have been scouting so attacker behaviour should not be a function of party capability.

- DM always has monsters run around waking up folks from hypnotic pattern ... however, do the creatures recognize hypnotic pattern ... low int creatures probably would not and would probably not know what to do. Do the creatures notice? When I have used hypnotic pattern, I usually drop it on the enemy back lines since it is away from the party and it should make it more difficult for the attackers to notice. So for taking an action to wake up their compatriots to make sense ... the creatures have to first notice what happened, second recognize what happened and third decide that trying to wake them up makes more sense than just attacking. It should never just be a given that the opponents will immediately run around breaking hypnotic pattern ... that is meta-gaming.

[stoutstien]

You cannot know something your PC doesn't know.
Your PC cannot know something you don't know.
As a player if you know a troll is weak to fire and act like your PC doesn't know it. Guess what that's meta gaming.
If a encounter can be weaken or broken by player knowledge it's a bad encounter.
If you use the same spell for every encounter as a player, a DM is naturally going to ratchet up the difficulty if he feels it makes the game boring.
It's a hard job to make it look organic

[EggKookoo]

As a player if you know a troll is weak to fire and act like your PC doesn't know it. Guess what that's meta gaming.

That's an interesting interpretation of the concept. Can you expand on how that's metagaming?

[CantigThimble]

- DM spreads out a pack of beasts/zombies/skeletons/other undead at least 10' to 15' apart to minimize the fireball/hypnotic pattern from the party wizard. These creatures just generally don't have sufficient intelligence or knowledge, especially in the heat of battle to adopt defensive formations that minimize the effect of offensive spells. Yes ... it may change the encounter if the creatures behave as they should ... but it is up to the DM to make it both fun and realistic.

Let me ask you this.

Imagine you're a DM.
Imagine you have an encounter of 20 skeletons in a large cave.
Are those skeletons bunched up or spread out?

There's no particular reason why they would be bunched up, but there's no particular reason why they would be spread out either. So which is it?

You, the DM, just have to arbitrarily decide between the two. While making that arbitrary decision, you cannot help but be fully aware of the party's AOE capability. You know that they have fireball and you can't un-ring the bell.

As a result, if you bunch the skeletons up, you will have unavoidably metagamed an advantage for the players. If you spread them out, you will have inevitably metagamed a disadvantage for the players.

In situations like these there is no non-metagame option.

This is why I prefer to only call metagming a problem if there's a specific pre-existing reason that is being contradicted. In the vast majority of cases, there aren't strong prexisting pattens of behavior. It's mostly DM discretion. Even low intelligence isn't the same as mindless, and even mindless doesn't necessarily mean that the only action they can take is move directly towards the nearest enemy. And when the DM's intutions of how something would behave don't match a player's intuitions, my my don't the accusations fly.

[Unoriginal]

If a player attempts a tactic and then that tactic fails then that player's choices were ineffectual and a waste of resources. Not everything players do will or should work out like players want it to and that doesn't make a DM bad. The question is whether the DM is actually metagaming to a significant degree.

PC: "The riders are still at least 40ft away, right? Alright, I cast Silent Image to make it look like a bunch of anti-cavalry spikes sprouts out of the ground between us and the riders, the area's 15ft".
DM: "Ok, it's the riders' turns. They charge at you and attack..."
PC: "Wait a minute. They charge straight up at the spikes?"
DM: "Well yeah. Not like it can hurt them."

This is what I call bad DMing. The spell didn't "encourage the DM to metagame".


Maybe you'll call that a strawman, and perhaps it is overly simplified, but there are threads filled with people telling how some DMs just make NPCs know PCs' illusions are harmless. They decided to make the player's chosen tactic ineffectual.


You cannot know something your PC doesn't know.

Of course you can. It's called separating in- and out-of-character knowledge.


Let me ask you this.

Imagine you're a DM.
Imagine you have an encounter of 20 skeletons in a large cave.
Are those skeletons bunched up or spread out?

There's no particular reason why they would be bunched up, but there's no particular reason why they would be spread out either. So which is it?

You, the DM, just have to arbitrarily decide between the two. While making that arbitrary decision, you cannot help but be fully aware of the party's AOE capability. You know that they have fireball and you can't un-ring the bell.

As a result, if you bunch the skeletons up, you will have unavoidably metagamed an advantage for the players. If you spread them out, you will have inevitably metagamed a disadvantage for the players.

In situations like these there is no non-metagame option.

This is why I prefer to only call metagming a problem if there's a specific pre-existing reason that is being contradicted. In the vast majority of cases, there aren't strong prexisting pattens of behavior. It's mostly DM discretion. Even low intelligence isn't the same as mindless, and even mindless doesn't necessarily mean that the only action they can take is move directly towards the nearest enemy. And when the DM's intutions of how something would behave don't match a player's intuitions, my my don't the accusations fly.

This is true, however.

D&D tactics will always have metagame into them, anyway, because we are seeing the action in bird's eye view (or theater of the mind), not in FPS-camera mode, and people are always aware of things like distances between combatants and who is in their range, etc.

When I DMed the other day, I had a wizard NPC cast Burning Had at the grouped PCs, even if his underlings were also in the AoE. For him, it was a tactical decision based on the fact he didn't care for those underlings at all but killing the PCs was basically the only way he wouldn't be severely demoted or outright killed by his boss for his failures (and because he wasn't as smart as he thought he was), but to me, it was a metagame decision, because as a DM I am outside of the game.

[EggKookoo]

This is why I prefer to only call metagming a problem if there's a specific pre-existing reason that is being contradicted.

Agreed, which is what I was getting at earlier about spell slots and such. Then entire process of playing the game is one big fuzzy sorta-sorta-not-metagaming experience. Metgaming in the "bad" sense is just doing it in a way that detracts from fun (either your own or the other players').

[stoutstien]

That's an interesting interpretation of the concept. Can you expand on how that's metagaming?

If you're pretending you don't know something that you definitely know but you think that your character doesn't know. You're making a decision based on the idea of, "good role playing". The question is how long do you act like you don't know it 1 round? 2 rounds? And then suddenly eureka you discover it's weak to fire. If you encourage this behavior but just get mad when the player using knowledge to take advantage of a weakness it's hypocritical.

I'll restate if a player can a break-in encounter using knowledge that they have it was a bad encounter. Using the troll example you expect the players in this week to fire and acid. to make the encounter more interesting you put the troll near a body of water
Now it can immerse itself when it gets attacked by fire. There's a reason why trolls are usually found in bogs that begin with.
The players feel powerful that they use some knowledge to cause the the troll to change tactics.
Would you get mad at a player that switch to a blunt weapon when fighting skeletons?
do you get a Mad at players that spread out when fighting a dragon so they don't get hit by the breath weapon?
as a dm there's a lot of things I assume the players will know. And I flat-out tell them don't act like you don't know. I cannot plan an interesting campaign around a bunch of people acting like they don't know stuff.
Edit: my definition of metagaming is simply the relationship between the players and the game not good. not bad. just the relationship. You cannot unknow something you can just pretend which is metagaming.

[Erloas]

That's an interesting interpretation of the concept. Can you expand on how that's metagaming? The term simply means using out-of-game knowledge to affect in-game actions. It is generally used negatively, but it doesn't have to be. If you're wizard's go-to spells are fire and you run into a troll and the player says "the wizard wouldn't know the troll is weak to fire" and then casts something else instead he is meta-gaming. He may have done so to make it more interesting, but he has still meta-gamed.




Player says they are casting fireball ... DM decides NPC wizard will counterspell. Player says they are casting Animal Friendship ... DM doesn't counterspell it. How does the opposing wizard know what spell is being cast? When DMs do this they usually say the NPC caster is casting a spell without saying what it is ... this type of thing should be symmetric and if the PCs don't get to know what spell is being cast neither do the NPCs.
I'm not sure exactly how 5th edition handles it, but wouldn't arcana be used to identify a spell being cast like spellcraft did in previous editions? Of course the player has to say the spell simply so the DM knows, but they really should be doing some sort of check if they want the NPC to know it (I know previously you *had* to roll to identify before you could counter it). The same should be true for the players, if the NPC is casting a spell the player should ask if they can identify the spell while it is being cast (assuming they want to/have the ability to).

[EggKookoo]

If you're pretending you don't know something that you definitely know but you think that your character doesn't know. You're making a decision based on the idea of, "good role playing". The question is how long do you act like you don't know it 1 round? 2 rounds? And then suddenly eureka you discover it's weak to fire. If you encourage this behavior but just get mad when the player using knowledge to take advantage of a weakness it's hypocritical.

Ok, I think I was missing what you were getting at. It sounded like you were saying if you treat your character as if he doesn't know things you think he wouldn't know (even though you know it as a player), that's metagaming. I think most people would consider it the opposite -- that it's metagaming to treat your character as if he knows something you're sure he wouldn't (but that you know as a player).

[CantigThimble]

In every situation like that the DM has the option to either have the NPCs believe that the obviously magical effect is a threat to them or not. Chances are he doesn't have a profile for the riders covering their understanding of magic and illusions, do all he can do is make an arbitrary judgement call about how they would react.

If he decides that they believe a magician could conjure anti-cavalry spikes out of nothing and has them swerve then that's metagaming in the player's favor. If he decides that they know enough about magic to know that actually conjuring spikes would only be possible for really powerful wizards, but almost any mage could make an illusion and have them decide the spikes aren't real then that's metagaming against the player's favor.

My point is, both of those are perfectly reasonable options and if he has to make an arbitrary decision between them then it is impossible to make a non-metagaming decision. Players confronted by illusionists do the same thing.

I mean, the whole point of the school of illusion is to replicate the effects of far more powerful spells like fear or wall of stone very cheaply, but with the caveat that if whoever it's being used on doesn't buy it then it does literally nothing. Just having every NPC react to illusions as if they've never seen them before defeats the point. Just because a player spends a spell slot on something doesntean it has to work or else your DM is bad.

[Trustypeaches]

As far as Hypnotic pattern goes, I'd say it's only dumb if the enemies wake up allies next up on the initiative order.

I.e. Initiative 18 wakes up initiative 17 to wake up initiative 16 so that everyone gets up. Whereas realistically, they'd each just wake up the person closest to us.

[stoutstien]

Ok, I think I was missing what you were getting at. It sounded like you were saying if you treat your character as if he doesn't know things you think he wouldn't know (even though you know it as a player), that's metagaming. I think most people would consider it the opposite -- that it's metagaming to treat your character as if he knows something you're sure he wouldn't (but that you know as a player).
Both are equally metagaming. Because how are you sure your player character doesn't know something? The reason why I hate mental stats in role playing games. you can act like the character is smarter or dumber than you but it never really is. The subconscious is a very powerful thing that we truly don't understand.

[Gydian]

The amount of knowledge an NPC has, their intelligence and their natural impulses and behavior are the crux of this problem for me. In my experiences, DM's that have a problem seem to make NPC's behave in a way that is out of character for that NPC. I don't know everything about that NPC so I may have a misconception. Diserregardless I am taken out of the story for a moment and sometimes even upset that it seems like the DM is meta gaming.

This happens very infrequently, and so I don't get worked up when it happens once.
I have had experiences with bad DM's, one where I had to stop playing a bard that liked to lie and manipulate people because it seemed like everyone the bard encountered rolled a 20 on their insight check. I no longer play with this DM.

As a DM I do worry about doing this. The intelligence of each NPC should be part of how that NPC behaves. Despite that statements redundancy it is worth remembering.

Conversely some of the best stories come from an epically stupid decision.

[Trustypeaches]

- Player says they are casting fireball ... DM decides NPC wizard will counterspell. Player says they are casting Animal Friendship ... DM doesn't counterspell it. How does the opposing wizard know what spell is being cast? When DMs do this they usually say the NPC caster is casting a spell without saying what it is ... this type of thing should be symmetric and if the PCs don't get to know what spell is being cast neither do the NPCs. You can use an Arcana check to identify a spell based on the Verbal and Somatic components you witness. At least that's how I do it at my table.

[stoutstien]

The term simply means using out-of-game knowledge to affect in-game actions. It is generally used negatively, but it doesn't have to be. If you're wizard's go-to spells are fire and you run into a troll and the player says "the wizard wouldn't know the troll is weak to fire" and then casts something else instead he is meta-gaming. He may have done so to make it more interesting, but he has still meta-gamed.



I'm not sure exactly how 5th edition handles it, but wouldn't arcana be used to identify a spell being cast like spellcraft did in previous editions? Of course the player has to say the spell simply so the DM knows, but they really should be doing some sort of check if they want the NPC to know it (I know previously you *had* to roll to identify before you could counter it). The same should be true for the players, if the NPC is casting a spell the player should ask if they can identify the spell while it is being cast (assuming they want to/have the ability to).[/FONT][/COLOR]
[/LEFT]

I use an interesting technique when it comes to counter spelling and knowing what spells are cast. Thr player declares they are casting a spell and hold the spell card or whatever they're using is a place holder for it where I cant see it. Then I metagame as the NPC and make the decision how I react. Once i declare the NPC reaction the player exposes what spell they cast.

[Gydian]

I use an interesting technique when it comes to counter spelling and knowing what spells are cast. Thr player declares they are casting a spell and hold the spell card or whatever they're using is a place holder for it where I cant see it. Then I metagame as the NPC and make the decision how I react. Once i declare the NPC reaction the player exposes what spell they cast.

I like this method. I don't think metagame is the right word for what you meant just there.

[EggKookoo]

The term simply means using out-of-game knowledge to affect in-game actions. It is generally used negatively, but it doesn't have to be. If you're wizard's go-to spells are fire and you run into a troll and the player says "the wizard wouldn't know the troll is weak to fire" and then casts something else instead he is meta-gaming. He may have done so to make it more interesting, but he has still meta-gamed.

Right, right. But that's not what he said, which is why I asked about it. He said...

"As a player if you know a troll is weak to fire and act like your PC doesn't know it. Guess what that's meta gaming."

Playing as though your PC doesn't know things you know isn't metagaming as far as I can tell. If anything it's the opposite. I was just confused about the "guess what that's meta gaming."

[stoutstien]

I like this method. I don't think metagame is the right word for what you meant just there.

sure it is. I have to decide what the NPC knows. What does he know about that player? How often does he fight spell casters? I have to restrict that NPCs knowledge to a portion of what I know.

[Trustypeaches]

Right, right. But that's not what he said, which is why I asked about it. He said...

"As a player if you know a troll is weak to fire and act like your PC doesn't know it. Guess what that's meta gaming."

Playing as though your PC doesn't know things you know isn't metagaming as far as I can tell. If anything it's the opposite. I was just confused about the "guess what that's meta gaming."I think he might mean "if you intentionally avoid using fire because OOC you know they're weak to fire and your character doesn't, that's metagaming".

[Galithar]

The term simply means using out-of-game knowledge to affect in-game actions. It is generally used negatively, but it doesn't have to be. If you're wizard's go-to spells are fire and you run into a troll and the player says "the wizard wouldn't know the troll is weak to fire" and then casts something else instead he is meta-gaming. He may have done so to make it more interesting, but he has still meta-gamed.



I'm not sure exactly how 5th edition handles it, but wouldn't arcana be used to identify a spell being cast like spellcraft did in previous editions? Of course the player has to say the spell simply so the DM knows, but they really should be doing some sort of check if they want the NPC to know it (I know previously you *had* to roll to identify before you could counter it). The same should be true for the players, if the NPC is casting a spell the player should ask if they can identify the spell while it is being cast (assuming they want to/have the ability to).[/FONT][/COLOR]
[/LEFT]

I believe it's an optional rule in the DMG, but if I remember correctly you can use your reaction (preventing counterspell) or action on your next turn (too late for counterspell) to make an arcana check with DC 10+spell level (with advantage if the spell is cast as a class spell that you share a list with. Example of this: Monster uses innate casting to cast X spell. You attempt to identify per DMG optional rule and auto fail (only the DM is aware of this automatic portion of the failure). A different creature casts spell X but it's doing so as a level 11 Cleric. You are a wizard so you make a regular role, but say you failed the Cleric wants to attempt the identification as well and gets to roll with advantage.)

It's probably used at very few tables and I may have things mixed up as I didn't actually look it up again.

Edit: Huge disclaimer that I've recently been reading lots of rulebooks from multiple editions as well as completely separate systems so PLEASE correct me if I'm in the wrong edition/system!!

[Unoriginal]

I believe it's an optional rule in the DMG, but if I remember correctly you can use your reaction (preventing counterspell) or action on your next turn (too late for counterspell) to make an arcana check with DC 10+spell level (with advantage if the spell is cast as a class spell that you share a list with. Example of this: Monster uses innate casting to cast X spell. You attempt to identify per DMG optional rule and auto fail (only the DM is aware of this automatic portion of the failure). A different creature casts spell X but it's doing so as a level 11 Cleric. You are a wizard so you make a regular role, but say you failed the Cleric wants to attempt the identification as well and gets to roll with advantage.)

It's probably used at very few tables and I may have things mixed up as I didn't actually look it up again.

Edit: Huge disclaimer that I've recently been reading lots of rulebooks from multiple editions as well as completely separate systems so PLEASE correct me if I'm in the wrong edition/system!!

Those rules are in the Xanathar's and the DC is 15+ spell level.

[Galithar]

Those rules are in the Xanathar's and the DC is 15+ spell level.

Well at least I was close :P
10+spell level did seem rather easy.

[Boci]

Well at least I was close :P
10+spell level did seem rather easy.

Yeah, that rule really should have been included in the core set. I remember it caused an issue when playing Tyranny of Dragons when the wizard cast Levitate on the cult priestess and the DM decided she knew how the spell worked. Not an unreasonable ruling, but unsupported by any book at the time the wizard felt a little cheated.

[Keravath]

As a player if you know a troll is weak to fire and act like your PC doesn't know it. Guess what that's meta gaming.


No. That's role playing.

If you know a troll is weak to fire and you use that information to decide your character will attack with fire when it is something your character does NOT know. THAT is meta-gaming.

USING knowledge that your character does NOT know which the player is aware of from outside game world (i.e. reading the rule books) ... THAT is meta-gaming.

REFUSING to use something the player is aware of but the character is not aware of ... THAT is role playing since you play the character within the constraints of what the character knows and not what the player knows.

[Unoriginal]

Yeah, that rule really should have been included in the core set.

They didn't want to let people identify spells during casting originally. Or so the story goes.



I remember it caused an issue when playing Tyranny of Dragons when the wizard cast Levitate on the cult priestess and the DM decided she knew how the spell worked. Not an unreasonable ruling, but unsupported by any book at the time the wizard felt a little cheated.

Well I mean, being lifted in the air by a magic force would let you make an educated guess without needing to spend an action on it...

[Boci]

They didn't want to let people identify spells during casting originally. Or so the story goes.

That's a okay stance, but its still best to specify that.


Well I mean, being lifted in the air by a magic force would let you make an educated guess without needing to spend an action on it...

Sure, but its not a cleric spell. Granted she's an NPC caster and therefore doesn't have a class, but she was described and acted like a cleric. So I feel its understandable why the wizard felt it unfair she automatically knew the exact mechanics of the spell.

[Unoriginal]

Sure, but its not a cleric spell. Granted she's an NPC caster and therefore doesn't have a class, but she was described and acted like a cleric. So I feel its understandable why the wizard felt it unfair she automatically knew the exact mechanics of the spell.

NPCs can be clerics. They just don't hav the same mechanics as the PCs.

As to know the exact mechanics of a spell... Well, yeah, the "exact" ones would require an Int (Arcana) check even if you're of the same class. It's not the same as understanding the generic observable effects (ex: "that person is making you levitate", "this one just shot acid from their hands").

That being said, I'd say it's arguable if even the caster know the exact mechanics of their own spells, in-universe. Sometime a Fireball deals 8 damages and sometime it deals 48, and a wizard wouldn't be able to use their own apprentice's spellbook to prepare said Fireball even if they literally taught this apprentice Fireball themselves.

[Boci]

NPCs can be clerics. They just don't hav the same mechanics as the PCs.

I know. And since they don't use the same mechanics, for NPCs "That spell isn't on their list" has to be followed with a disclaimer that this particular NPC might have had that spell on their spell list. Which is what I did.


That being said, I'd say it's arguable if even the caster know the exact mechanics of their own spells, in-universe. Sometime a Fireball deals 8 damages and sometime it deals 48, and a wizard wouldn't be able to use their own apprentice's spellbook to prepare said Fireball even if they literally taught this apprentice Fireball themselves.

That's pretty hard to translate into character thoughts and actions though. Its like the positioning of a fireballs. Since the character doesn't have the birdeye view a player does, its not too realistic when they place it just right to maximuze the amount of enemies and miss all allies, but I imagine not that many groups want a more realistic take where the wizard's player gives themselves 2 seconds before pointing at a place on the battlemap.

[Unoriginal]

Which is what I did.

Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant.




That's pretty hard to translate into character thoughts and actions though.

True.

[Tanarii]

No. That's role playing. No, he's right. Metagaming is creating an artificial and unnecessary separation of player / PC knowledge. Not whether you unnecessarily create that separation, and then act on it anyway.

The least Metagaming thing you can do is not create that artificial and unnecessary separation in the first place. Although in some cases it may be necessary to do so. Such as when you have already run an adventure on a different character.

Edit: Two good articles, one on Metagaming and the other on player character separation, and how it's so often unnecessary.
1) https://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/
2) https://theangrygm.com/through-a-glass-darkly-ic-ooc-and-the-myth-of-playercharacter-seperation/

[Pex]

Do you consider that metagaming to make our player's choices not only ineffectual, but also a waste of ressources, is good DMing?



Actually, it has not. Because it's not metagaming.

Contrarily to everyone in the kingdom being suddenly capable to realize illusions are illusions.





This is true, too.

If you cast Sleep on people and don't KO everyone, then the ones who aren't affected will probably consider waking them up. Hypnotic Pattern's the same, the affected persons are visibly affected.

It's not like Phantasmal Force that has everything be in the target's mind, so their buddies should be confused by what is going on with the target (though the sharp one will probably put "enemy cast some sort of spell" and "buddy is acting weird" together").

It is *not* the same thing as every enemy being able to see your illusions are illusions or the other signs the DM is neutralizing your character's powers so they don't "ruin his scenario".

And doing that is bad DMing. You're DM-fiating a character into uselessness because you don't want to be beaten or similar trains of thought.

More than PCs ruining the scenario, I think it's more fear of players getting away with something. The players are forcing the bad guys to behave a certain way. They're controlling the scenario altering reality, but the DM can't help but know it's a trick. The players for a moment have virtual power over the DM, but it's a house of cards. If only the NPC realized this one thing it falls apart and power returns to the DM deciding how NPCs behave; therefore, the NPC realizes the one thing to make this happen.

[Boci]

Edit: Two good articles, one on Metagaming and the other on player character separation, and how it's so often unnecessary.
1) https://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/

Ah yes. "The wizard who always cast fire spells, casts fire spells at a troll and the DM gets angry"

That a well balanced, totally not strawmany example of how DMs can object to metagaming.

[CantigThimble]

No, he's right. Metagaming is creating an artificial and unnecessary separation of player / PC knowledge. Not whether you unnecessarily create that separation, and then act on it anyway.

The least Metagaming thing you can do is not create that artificial and unnecessary separation in the first place. Although in some cases it may be necessary to do so. Such as when you have already run an adventure on a different character.

Edit: Two good articles, one on Metagaming and the other on player character separation, and how it's so often unnecessary.
1) https://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/
2) https://theangrygm.com/through-a-glass-darkly-ic-ooc-and-the-myth-of-playercharacter-seperation/

I apologze if I come off a bit abrasive in this post but reading stuff like Angry tends to lead to me mirroring that style.

Those articles are BS. The only good advice in them is 'don't be a jerk' but that's pretty much useless without good particulars. He gives lots of things NOT to do but doesn't have a bit of advice on how to productively distinguish player and character. His opinion basically boils down to:

"Sometimes when people try to do things like this it makes the game less fun and it's pretty hard to draw the line anyway so just don't. Except kinda sometimes, but lets not at ALL go into how to look at these things productively and just make it sound like anyone who says 'metagaming' just hates fun."

I mean seriously, if there were NO player/character divide I wouldn't even play the game, that's half the fun. If my character were just 'me' then I'd be bored as hell. That doesn't mean I need to saw my brain in half and never let anything I as a player know influence the decisions I make on behalf of my character, it just means I need to recognize what motivations my character has and figure out how to use them to achieve what I, the player, want. It also means that if what I, the player want directly contradicts what my character's motivations are then I shouldn't just change that every damn time it comes up.

Seriously, if it were so impossible to separate your own motivations from your characters' or try to see things from their perspective instead of yours then I guess every work of fiction with more than one character is goddamn sorcery.

The only thing I agree with him on is that your shouldn't use 'metagaming' to be a massive jerk to your friends, but even then I think he just invented a new way to be a jerk by hyping up condemnation of anything related to metagaming at the same time.

[MaxWilson]

Also known as... (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy)

Oh, so that's why I just spent the last three hours reading about the Last Action Hero on TVTropes. It was you! Curse you, Chris Basken! [shakes fist]

[EggKookoo]

Oh, so that's why I just spent the last three hours reading about the Last Action Hero on TVTropes. It was you! Curse you, Chris Basken! [shakes fist]

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife)

[strangebloke]

I apologze if I come off a bit abrasive in this post but reading stuff like Angry tends to lead to me mirroring that style.

Those articles are BS. The only good advice in them is 'don't be a jerk' but that's pretty much useless without good particulars. He gives lots of things NOT to do but doesn't have a bit of advice on how to productively distinguish player and character. His opinion basically boils down to:

"Sometimes when people try to do things like this it makes the game less fun and it's pretty hard to draw the line anyway so just don't. Except kinda sometimes, but lets not at ALL go into how to look at these things productively and just make it sound like anyone who says 'metagaming' just hates fun."

I mean seriously, if there were NO player/character divide I wouldn't even play the game, that's half the fun. If my character were just 'me' then I'd be bored as hell. That doesn't mean I need to saw my brain in half and never let anything I as a player know influence the decisions I make on behalf of my character, it just means I need to recognize what motivations my character has and figure out how to use them to achieve what I, the player, want. It also means that if what I, the player want directly contradicts what my character's motivations are then I shouldn't just change that every damn time it comes up.

Seriously, if it were so impossible to separate your own motivations from your characters' or try to see things from their perspective instead of yours then I guess every work of fiction with more than one character is goddamn sorcery.

The only thing I agree with him on is that your shouldn't use 'metagaming' to be a massive jerk to your friends, but even then I think he just invented a new way to be a jerk by hyping up condemnation of anything related to metagaming at the same time.

This is the inevitable place that every discussion on metagaming goes. People don't define their terms, and different amounts of all the things that people consider 'metagaming' are or aren't allowed under various circumstances.

From the rest of Angry's posts, he tends to run a pretty straightforward beat-em-up campaign where combat is the key focus. He's outright stated that he has no patience for FATE or other such systems, and while he does create things like 'social encounter rules', most of his writing centers on combat encounters.

And the thing is, in a combat encounter, 'metagaming' typically isn't a problem. Like he said, you throw a firebolt at the troll cause that's something you've heard in real life and why wouldn't a professional adventurer not know such basic monster lore? You throw a charisma save at the same troll because you think he's got low charisma. And who knows, maybe he doesn't? Maybe the Troll's been enchanted to be resistant to fire?

The problem with metagaming comes in two other places.
1: When the DM makes all of his NPCs clairvoyant. This is a problem because it ruins player agency. After all, why layer defenses on yourself if the enemy is instantly going to notice that you're there even when silent and invisible? AngryGM and pretty much all the DND folks out there in the internet have skewered this style of play from time to time. Angry himself writes a lot about 'figuring out the monsters motivation.'

2: When the party is keeping secrets from each other. Obviously if a PC is secretly an incubus, and that gets revealed OOC, its going to be a pain when the paladin keeps trying to use divine sense at random times, and comes up with some BS justification for it.

[MaxWilson]

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife)

Averted. :-P Nice try.

[Unoriginal]

Those articles are BS.

I honestly never read a good article from AngryGM.

I've been told that his stuff can be useful for DMs who have some experience but are still finding their footings.

[stoutstien]

No. That's role playing.

If you know a troll is weak to fire and you use that information to decide your character will attack with fire when it is something your character does NOT know. THAT is meta-gaming.

USING knowledge that your character does NOT know which the player is aware of from outside game world (i.e. reading the rule books) ... THAT is meta-gaming.

REFUSING to use something the player is aware of but the character is not aware of ... THAT is role playing since you play the character within the constraints of what the character knows and not what the player knows.

Yeah I don't see how that not Metagaming. See my earlier posts. You pretending you don't know it's still metagaming. you can call it good role playing, or whatever but the fact still remains you're using your player knowledge to affect your characters decisions.
I cant see how some people get a sense of accomplishment when they pretend they don't know something and then act like they discover it.

[TheYell]

you can call it good role playing, or whatever but the fact still remains you're using your player knowledge to affect your characters decisions.

If you don't approach the character as knowing less than the player then you are basically playing the same character your whole career with different stats and feats in any given situation.

[Darth Ultron]

This is a Classic DM vs Player problem:

DM: NPC's in the game will have different levels of intelligence, but few will be very dumb

Player: Every NPC must be super dumb all the time so my character can be awesome.

You can basically blame movies, TV shows and video games. And worst of all cartoons. Again. They all very often have very, very, very dumb characters...and for a very simple reason: to make the Stars of the show look Awesome.

[stoutstien]

If you don't approach the character as knowing less than the player then you are basically playing the same character your whole career with different stats and feats in any given situation.
I'm not saying role playing is voided by Metagaming. I'm saying role playing IS Metagaming. You bring up a good point though. Can anyone honestly say they can create a new character without drawing on experience from past ones?

[Boci]

This is a Classic DM vs Player problem:

DM: NPC's in the game will have different levels of intelligence, but few will be very dumb

That's the good way of doing it yes, but come on, you know there are some DM who are:

DM: All NPCs will instictive know which PC is the best target. Lowely goblins will all act as if shaving off another 3 HP from the party was their life's goal and trying in the face of death will let them die happily


Can anyone honestly say they can create a new character without drawing on experience from past ones?

Yes. I can make character uninfluenced by past ones I've made.

[TheYell]

I always use my experience to try and make something fun and coherent. THat said, I make characters with gaps. My fat cloistered GOOLock made errors that the ranger wouldn't, because he didn't know better.

I am coming to hate getting banzai-charged by determined XP meat. It's one thing for goblins, but come on, a fey with higher INT than our wizard should recognize it is a) half dead and b) failing to drop even one of the seven people hurting it.

What if the wizard, before casting simulacrum, has a Diplomacy roll to ask the other wizard to do that again, verrry slowwly

[Tanarii]

His opinion basically boils down to:

"Sometimes when people try to do things like this it makes the game less fun and it's pretty hard to draw the line anyway so just don't. Except kinda sometimes, but lets not at ALL go into how to look at these things productively and just make it sound like anyone who says 'metagaming' just hates fun."
Accurate.

And guess what? People who talk about Metagaming are typically causing less fun by unnecessarily insisting on player/character separation. So yeah, characterizing them as hating fun is a good way to approach the topic. :smalltongue:

[Pelle]

And guess what? People who talk about Metagaming are typically causing less fun by unnecessarily insisting on player/character separation. So yeah, characterizing them as hating fun is a good way to approach the topic. :smalltongue:

I think it's usually more about that people recognize what they find fun themselves. For example, let's say the party splits up, and one group learns something (like the secret identity of the villain). Then if another character that isn't there acts on that information without any in-character justification, that's simply less fun for me. It's not trying hate fun, it's just a personal preference. No positive thinking will change that. Establishing some logical or arbitrary reason in-game will make it fun, however. It's not about metagaming though, it's about not making too clearly out-of-character decisions.

[EggKookoo]

I think it's usually more about that people recognize what they find fun themselves. For example, let's say the party splits up, and one group learns something (like the secret identity of the villain). Then if another character that isn't there acts on that information without any in-character justification, that's simply less fun for me. It's not trying hate fun, it's just a personal preference. No positive thinking will change that. Establishing some logical or arbitrary reason in-game will make it fun, however. It's not about metagaming though, it's about not making too clearly out-of-character decisions.

That's why you never split the party (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverSplitTheParty)!

[Pelle]

That's why you never split the party (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverSplitTheParty)!

Splitting the party is fine, just 'metagame' a little to bring it back together again. But in doing that, be sure to add some token in-character justification as well! If you do that well, I have more fun than if you don't.

[GloatingSwine]

Let me ask you this.

Imagine you're a DM.
Imagine you have an encounter of 20 skeletons in a large cave.
Are those skeletons bunched up or spread out?


This is where I would put on my simulationist hat and ask myself: Why are the skeletons there? How did they get there? Are they the animated remains of a previous battle? If so they're in clumps where they fell fighting each other. Is it a burial chamber? Then they're probably in some sort of organised ranks.

Are they sentries set on purpose? Then there's a clump near the thing that needs guarding then a few more spread out around the cave.

Most of these sort of "does wizard get to play with fireball today" type questions have simulationist answers.


Same with things like sleep. It's reasonable that most intelligent beings will try and do something about it if their fellows suddenly faint and fall over (what they'll do about it is going to depend on how much they like each other, it might be a concerned shake from the city guard or a kick in the head from an orc raider).

But that also depends what else is happening. If it's happening in combat they've got other things to worry about and probably shouldn't. If the players wanted to use it to sneak past and someone made their save, that's the situation now you've got a couple of rounds before the one you missed wakes someone else up.

[Darth Ultron]

DM: All NPCs will instictive know which PC is the best target.



This is a problem, yes.

[EggKookoo]

This is a problem, yes.

I typically roll randomly to determine which PC an NPC will target initially (or they attack nearest, which amounts to the same thing since I don't use minis so much these days). Once blows have been exchanged, there's usually a sensible process for determining it.

[KorvinStarmast]

You can use an Arcana check to identify a spell based on the Verbal and Somatic components you witness. At least that's how I do it at my table. And it costs the NPC an action for that turn, right? ( I am not referring to the optional rule in XGtE).

The player declares they are casting a spell and hold the spell card or whatever they're using is a place holder for it where I cant see it. Then I metagame as the NPC and make the decision how I react. Once I declare the NPC reaction the player exposes what spell they cast. Interesting technique.

I apologze if I come off a bit abrasive in this post but reading stuff like Angry tends to lead to me mirroring that style. Those articles are BS. The writing style is annoying, since you have to cut through 50% of the noise to get to the meat. But there's some good stuff in there.


From the rest of Angry's posts, he tends to run a pretty straightforward beat-em-up campaign where combat is the key focus. He's outright stated that he has no patience for FATE or other such systems, and while he does create things like 'social encounter rules', most of his writing centers on combat encounters. Indeed; his major project at the moment is a mega dungeon/dungeon crawl.

The problem with metagaming comes in two other places.

1: When the DM makes all of his NPCs clairvoyant. This is a problem because it ruins player agency. After all, why layer defenses on yourself if the enemy is instantly going to notice that you're there even when silent and invisible? AngryGM and pretty much all the DND folks out there in the internet have skewered this style of play from time to time. Angry himself writes a lot about 'figuring out the monsters motivation.'

2: When the party is keeping secrets from each other. Obviously if a PC is secretly an incubus, and that gets revealed OOC, its going to be a pain when the paladin keeps trying to use divine sense at random times, and comes up with some BS justification for it. Yeah.
I honestly never read a good article from AngryGM. I am buying his book and giving one to my brother.
This is a Classic DM vs Player problem:
DM: NPC's in the game will have different levels of intelligence, but few will be very dumb
Player: Every NPC must be super dumb all the time so my character can be awesome.

You can basically blame movies, TV shows and video games. And worst of all cartoons. {snip} to make the Stars of the show look Awesome. Yeah, good point.

[stoutstien]

I typically roll randomly to determine which PC an NPC will target initially (or they attack nearest, which amounts to the same thing since I don't use minis so much these days). Once blows have been exchanged, there's usually a sensible process for determining it.

i think a lot of DM don't give the NPC goals, motives and personalities. kobold guarding hatchery are going to fight to the death to protect the young. same kobold will gladly run away at a drop of a pin if there nothing to gain from sticking around other than dead kobolds. don't want your players to treat npcs like bags of HP that drop xp. don't present them as such. the problem i have with random pciking targets is no it is just a stat block then.

[EggKookoo]

i think a lot of DM don't give the NPC goals, motives and personalities. kobold guarding hatchery are going to fight to the death to protect the young. same kobold will gladly run away at a drop of a pin if there nothing to gain from sticking around other than dead kobolds. don't want your players to treat npcs like bags of HP that drop xp. don't present them as such. the problem i have with random pciking targets is no it is just a stat block then.

Well, I should have clarified I do the random thing when there's no obvious reason for the NPCs to pick specific targets. Bunch of goblin archers waiting to ambush the players as they pass through a bend in the path? Random targets.

OTOH one time my players ran into a room hell-bent on destruction. Fighter got a good roll and took away over half the first goblin's HP. That goblin collapsed out of shock, and the one next to him dramatically grasped at his chest and fell over playing dead CUZ SCREW DAT!

[stoutstien]

Well, I should have clarified I do the random thing when there's no obvious reason for the NPCs to pick specific targets. Bunch of goblin archers waiting to ambush the players as they pass through a bend in the path? Random targets.

OTOH one time my players ran into a room hell-bent on destruction. Fighter got a good roll and took away over half the first goblin's HP. That goblin collapsed out of shock, and the one next to him dramatically grasped at his chest and fell over playing dead CUZ SCREW DAT!
Goblins be goblins 🤣

[Unoriginal]

I am buying his book and giving one to my brother.

Which one(s) of his articles would you recommand?

[stoutstien]

Which one(s) of his articles would you recommand?
His minion and general custom boss NPCs are easy to understand and some of the ideas like gated HP work really well. I enjoy that at least addressed some common game management issues such as the lack of universal time reference points when not in combat.

[mephnick]

Which one(s) of his articles would you recommand?

His Paragon monster rules work a hell of a lot better than Legendary Actions. Legendary Actions do virtually nothing to fix the problems with single monster combats.

[MaxWilson]

His Paragon monster rules work... a lot better than Legendary Actions. Legendary Actions do virtually nothing to fix the problems with single monster combats.

The problems with single monster combats are created by the PHB initiative system's insistence on serializing player access to the DM. Toss it and use a better one like a
WEGO variant (everybody declares, then everybody acts, rolling initiative where necessary to resolve ordering dependencies) instead of the Legendary Action kludge. Your players will use more team tactics, won't be bored during each other's turns, and single monsters will not be boring any more.

[EggKookoo]

His Paragon monster rules work a hell of a lot better than Legendary Actions. Legendary Actions do virtually nothing to fix the problems with single monster combats.

I'm itching to try that.

[CantigThimble]

Accurate.

And guess what? People who talk about Metagaming are typically causing less fun by unnecessarily insisting on player/character separation. So yeah, characterizing them as hating fun is a good way to approach the topic. :smalltongue:

I mean, I think player/character separation is 'unecessary' in the same way that any kind of story or plot is 'unecessary'. Can you technically play the game without it? Yes, but why would you want to at that point?

I think a lot of the flak that Angry is giving metagaming comes from people for whom player/character sepearation adds to the fun of the game insisting that those members of their groups who don't care participate in it. In doing so he's just creating the exact same problem on the other side where he's justifying people who don't care about player/character separation insisting that it not be a part of the game to those members of their group who enjoy it.

The latter is not better than the former, it's the same damn problem. The actual solution is for people who disagree about something as fundamental as whether player/character separation adds fun to the game to either play in separate groups or else decide ahead of time how each game is going to handle it.

The problem that angry is railing against and the problem that angry personifies are both a result of people who disagree about those things starting games without thinking about it and then being jerks rather than doing anything to solve the problem.

Just saying "Don't start a fight about how the game should be played" doesn't solve anything because most fights start because there's a problem, not fighting just means no one's ever going to do anything about that problem.

[darknite]

I find DMs that metagame a lot are ones who also yoink character agency away from them and have lots of NPCs that go out of their way to belittle or one-up PCs.

In my book, DMs should exalt their players several times more than they find ways to dis or stymie them. The annoying paladin in your game has a big head and you may be tempted to humble him using your nigh-unlimited powers, but they should get positive feedback on their character's actions far more than you crap on them.

[stoutstien]

I find DMs that metagame a lot are ones who also yoink character agency away from them and have lots of NPCs that go out of their way to belittle or one-up PCs.

In my book, DMs should exalt their players several times more than they find ways to dis or stymie them. The annoying paladin in your game has a big head and you may be tempted to humble him using your nigh-unlimited powers, but they should get positive feedback on their character's actions far more than you crap on them.
Sounds more like a jaded dm that is unfilled at the table. Dms burn out a lot easier than other players but fill obligated to keep going bc few want or want to take over.
No ever ask if the DM is having fun😑

[CantigThimble]

no ever ask if the dm is having fun😑

Quoted. For. Truth.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I mean, out of everyone at the table, DM's must metagame. A lot. A whole lot.

What do you think daily XP budgets are? Managing CR? Adjudicating gameplay? Setting DC's? A DM that refuses to look at D&D as some kind of game has no business being a DM in the first place. They'd be better served by a freeform RP chat room.

And the whole point to any game is to be fun. Challenge can be a big part of that, sure. So can dealing with hard choices or consequences. But the DM should always, always approach it from the point of view of offering the most fun experience possible, first and foremost, every time, above all other considerations.

I sure as hell metagame magic, and monsters, and every single other thing in the game. Because I want to make it fun for my players to interact with.

[MaxWilson]

I mean, out of everyone at the table, DM's must metagame. A lot. A whole lot.

What do you think daily XP budgets are? Managing CR? Adjudicating gameplay? Setting DC's? A DM that refuses to look at D&D as some kind of game has no business being a DM in the first place. They'd be better served by a freeform RP chat room.

And the whole point to any game is to be fun. Challenge can be a big part of that, sure. So can dealing with hard choices or consequences. But the DM should always, always approach it from the point of view of offering the most fun experience possible, first and foremost, every time, above all other considerations.

The adventure designer, rules arbitrator, and world creator should pay attention to the metagame. E.g. don't create instant death traps without telegraphing the danger to the players in some way, because running head-on into a Glyph of Cloudkill stacked on top of a Glyph of Wall of Force, and taking 500d8 poison damage over ten minutes, is not fun. The world creator, rules designer, and adventure writer should conspire together to ensure that somehow the absence of effective instant-death traps is logical and normal.

The monster advocate should ideally not pay attention to the metagame, in my opinion, because that makes the game less fun for players who enjoy immersion and a logical world. The underlined opinion is itself founded in metagame observations of course.

Once you've presented a bang! to the players for them to deal with, ideally metagaming should stop at least until the bang! is resolved. Monsters should usually not act on the basis of information they have no way of knowing.

[KorvinStarmast]

Which one(s) of his articles would you recommand? I like his one about metagaming, for all that one has to wade through is digressions ....

Monsters should usually not act on the basis of information they have no way of knowing.
In a nutshell, this is the answer to the OP. Only took 4 pages for us to get here. :smallbiggrin:

[EggKookoo]

Sounds more like a jaded dm that is unfilled at the table. Dms burn out a lot easier than other players but fill obligated to keep going bc few want or want to take over.
No ever ask if the DM is having fun😑

...are... are you having fun?

[Waterdeep Merch]

The adventure designer, rules arbitrator, and world creator should pay attention to the metagame. E.g. don't create instant death traps without telegraphing the danger to the players in some way, because running head-on into a Glyph of Cloudkill stacked on top of a Glyph of Wall of Force, and taking 500d8 poison damage over ten minutes, is not fun. The world creator, rules designer, and adventure writer should conspire together to ensure that somehow the absence of effective instant-death traps is logical and normal.

The monster advocate should ideally not pay attention to the metagame, in my opinion, because that makes the game less fun for players who enjoy immersion and a logical world. The underlined opinion is itself founded in metagame observations of course.

Once you've presented a bang! to the players for them to deal with, ideally metagaming should stop at least until the bang! is resolved. Monsters should usually not act on the basis of information they have no way of knowing.
We're actually on the same page here. I'm advocating for the DM metagaming intentionally in the interest of better roleplay and gameplay; doing the opposite of what you know is optimal because it's either more fun or leads to a better game, such as not using particularly cheesy monsters or abilities to their best in order to prevent frustration or letting NPC's make 'stupid' mistakes on purpose.

To handle that best, it's a good idea to get a firm grasp on the mechanics and math of the game so that you can shift things on the fly. The 'metagame', in this context, is about seeing to the enjoyment of the players and changing the nature of the game to best serve that.

[MaxWilson]

We're actually on the same page here. I'm advocating for the DM metagaming intentionally in the interest of better roleplay and gameplay; doing the opposite of what you know is optimal because it's either more fun or leads to a better game, such as not using particularly cheesy monsters or abilities to their best in order to prevent frustration or letting NPC's make 'stupid' mistakes on purpose.

To handle that best, it's a good idea to get a firm grasp on the mechanics and math of the game so that you can shift things on the fly. The 'metagame', in this context, is about seeing to the enjoyment of the players and changing the nature of the game to best serve that.

Oh, sure. Sorry if I failed to make it clear that I wasn't disagreeing, just trying to add a layer of detail.

[stoutstien]

...are... are you having fun? ☺️i am personally having a great time as a DM. Currently running 8 different tables with off and on 38 players ranging from children just cutting teeth in the genre to my "bad knees and worse memory" group of all 35+.
I enjoy dming but seen a decline of players willing to take up the mantle and even fewer that can do it for more than once or twice. I blame a lot of this on lack of real support from game designers to make it more intuitive for newer people wanting to DM

[EggKookoo]

☺️i am personally having a great time as a DM. Currently running 8 different tables with off and on 38 players ranging from children just cutting teeth in the genre to my "bad knees and worse memory" group of all 35+.
I enjoy dming but seen a decline of players willing to take up the mantle and even fewer that can do it for more than once or twice. I blame a lot of this on lack of real support from game designers to make it more intuitive for newer people wanting to DM

Man, I remember 35. I felt so young.

I wish some colleges would have elective "game mastering" classes. Probably not enough kids to do it, but it would be cool.

[CantigThimble]

☺️i am personally having a great time as a DM. Currently running 8 different tables with off and on 38 players ranging from children just cutting teeth in the genre to my "bad knees and worse memory" group of all 35+.
I enjoy dming but seen a decline of players willing to take up the mantle and even fewer that can do it for more than once or twice. I blame a lot of this on lack of real support from game designers to make it more intuitive for newer people wanting to DM

In my 10 years playing RPGs I have known maybe 2 DMs who didn't burn out in 3 months or less of weekly sessions. I'm in that list of people who burn out fast. I've still DMed more than pretty much anyone else in my current group despite that. As a result of that DM scarcity I really try to be as supportive as I can when I get the opportunity to play and tend to get pretty ticked off at players who think of DMs as their personal entertainers.

[JackPhoenix]

DM: All NPCs will instictive know which PC is the best target.

I've had some fun with that in one of my previous campaigns. The spell casters targetted their mind controlling spells on the best target: the one in plate armor with a big weapon, because they know those types are weaker to it than spellcasters.

Except she was a paladin and had the best Will save (PF) in the group.

Not that it mattered, because she failed every single of those saves, thanks to the magic of nat 1s. Her inability to resist any charm or other mind affecting effect thrown her way became a running joke in that game.

[Tanarii]

I mean, I think player/character separation is 'unecessary' in the same way that any kind of story or plot is 'unecessary'. Can you technically play the game without it? Yes, but why would you want to at that point?
Absolutely. I'd much rather play with DMs that understand roleplaying games have nothing to do with story or plot, than those thatdeny player agency.

[CantigThimble]

Absolutely. I'd much rather play with DMs that understand roleplaying games have nothing to do with story or plot, than those thatdeny player agency.

Wait, when I say 'plot' are you thinking of a DM writing out exactly what his players are going to do ahead of time and railroading them to it? That's the only way your statement makes sense, but that's not remotely what I mean by plot. Plot and player agency are not at all mutually exclusive.

[stoutstien]

This forum need a DM game managment philosophical section.

[Tanarii]

Wait, when I say 'plot' are you thinking of a DM writing out exactly what his players are going to do ahead of time and railroading them to it? That's the only way your statement makes sense, but that's not remotely what I mean by plot. Plot and player agency are not at all mutually exclusive.
You're right, and I responded snappishly because of a long and stressful day. My bad.

My personal experience has been that most story and plot oriented DMs are quite railroad-y. But having a kind of "meta-plot" that isn't set in stone and players can affect is possible, and in fact the cornerstone of many adventures.

[CantigThimble]

You're right, and I responded snappishly because of a long and stressful day. My bad.

My personal experience has been that most story and plot oriented DMs are quite railroad-y. But having a kind of "meta-plot" that isn't set in stone and players can affect is possible, and in fact the cornerstone of many adventures.

Totally understandable, no offense taken.

What I meant by plot was just that ehe campaign should build up to something, whether that's player or DM driven, and at the end there should be more to say about it than "Our characters reached 12th level, we defeated a lich and some aboleths and had a lot of loot." The party should have names, personalities, motivations and the adventures they went on should have had an impact on the world in some way. All I meant was that the game ought to be more than a series of encounters and it should have some kind of drama. And in my experience having some player/character separation is the difference between an RPG and a strategy board game. If I want a strategy board game I have better ones than D&D.

[Boci]

My personal experience has been that most story and plot oriented DMs are quite railroad-y. But having a kind of "meta-plot" that isn't set in stone and players can affect is possible, and in fact the cornerstone of many adventures.

That's how I run my games. Its a fair bit of effort to have notes and flexible attitude to allow players to go down multiple paths, potentially at short notice, but I like the end result. However if the players then proceed to metagame to get advantages against monsters and the like, then I will feel pissed off and much less motivated to put effort into world building.

Also, you realize that with no seperation of character and player knowledge everyone is Deadpool right? Because player knowledge includes that this is a game, and with no seperation, the character's realize that as well. No thank you.

[EggKookoo]

Also, you realize that with no seperation of character and player knowledge everyone is Deadpool right? Because player knowledge includes that this is a game, and with no seperation, the character's realize that as well. No thank you.

To be honest, most games I run end up being fairly Deadpool-esque regardless.

[Tanarii]

To be honest, most games I run end up being fairly Deadpool-esque regardless.
Eh. It's a false analogy anyway. The more you "separate" your character, the more the possibility of something like Deadpool arises. You can't have a 4rth wall to break in the first place without intentional (and almost always unnecessary) character/player separation.

Like most arguments against metagaming, the analogy makes the mistake of thinking that the natural state of things is player/character separation. It's not. That's the unnatural state of things. You have to create it first, before problems based on it can arise.

[Pelle]

Like most arguments against metagaming, the analogy makes the mistake of thinking that the natural state of things is player/character separation. It's not. That's the unnatural state of things. You have to create it first, before problems based on it can arise.

The thing is, many people find it more fun to have a player/character separation. And they also don't find it fun when out-of-character decisions are made. Hence they complain about 'metagaming'. Not creating the separation in the first place will avoid 'metagaming' yes, but it will also greatly reduce the fun for these people. That's trowing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Tanarii]

The thing is, many people find it more fun to have a player/character separation. And they also don't find it fun when out-of-character decisions are made. Hence they complain about 'metagaming'. Not creating the separation in the first place will avoid 'metagaming' yes, but it will also greatly reduce the fun for these people. That's trowing the baby out with the bathwater.Complaining about it if you do it yourself is ... uh, silly I guess? Because you created the problem yourself. Complaining about when others do it is either silly because it's none of your business, or silly because you're trying to tell others how to play.

Ultimately that's what it boils down to for me. Don't create a situation that's neither natural nor default, say it's the right way to play, then complain about it when I don't go along with it. The game involves "metagaming", a lack of complete player/character separation, as a normal course of playing. Especially by the DM. That's the normal way of things. If you want to avoid it as a DM, cool. But it's not a problem by default.

[Boci]

Eh. It's a false analogy anyway. The more you "separate" your character, the more the possibility of something like Deadpool arises. You can't have a 4rth wall to break in the first place without intentional (and almost always unnecessary) character/player separation.

Like most arguments against metagaming, the analogy makes the mistake of thinking that the natural state of things is player/character separation. It's not. That's the unnatural state of things. You have to create it first, before problems based on it can arise.

No, that's just outright false. That's like saying 2 and 2 is 5. Deadpool knows he is a character. The player knows the PC is a character. If there is no seperation of player and character knowledge, then the character knows that too. If there is a seperation between the player and the character however, then one of the things the player will know but the character doesn't could be the existence of the game.

Its also not an analogy, its a statement. Granted Deadpool has several characteristics, but one of the major ones is his awareness of being a character. The 2 + 2 thiong though is an analoguy. I've laid out how Deadpool results from a lack of seperation, you insist its the opposite but did not demonstrate how in any way.

[Pelle]

Complaining about it if you do it yourself is ... uh, silly I guess? Because you created the problem yourself. Complaining about when others do it is either silly because it's none of your business, or silly because you're trying to tell others how to play.


I agree about the complaining, that's the real issue. I'm just saying not liking 'metagaming' is completely legitimate. Trying to police the behaviour of others is not ok. Letting the other players know your preference, so that they can make an informed choice on how they play to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves, is really fine.

Of course it's ok for people to have a problem with it and say what is the right way for them to play the game. If you don't like it you should stop playing with them instead of ruining their fun. Or just talk like adults and try to reach a compromise so everyone in the mixed group can enjoy themselves to some degree.

[Mjolnirbear]

In 5e specifically, anything that's concentration. It's one thing if a smart enemy sees a spell cast and suddenly the fighter is attacking an extra time. It's particularly obvious and bad when the concentration buff is cast before coming into sight of the enemies, and they still target the caster, even when the caster hasn't presented a threat so far.

If your caster looks like a caster, such as presenting an arcane focus or holy symbol, or is revealed by mutters and gestures to be a caster, then any intelligent foe would target the *reality-bending caster* as far too dangerous to allow to live. In my case I prioritize healers, because a down enemy that doesn't stay down is a huge problem.

Stupid enemies target differently. Who did the most damage, or harmed the boss, or appears to be the biggest threat. Probably easier to peel from your wizard with a nasty insult too, less likely to work as a unit.

Cowardly enemies avoid armored foes and target those with soft bodies and thin clothes.

Animals go for fat easy prey first, run away easily.

But by far the most common enemy is a humanoid, and even relatively dumb humanoid are smart enough to evaluate threats and form strategies.

[EggKookoo]

No, that's just outright false. That's like saying 2 and 2 is 5. Deadpool knows he is a character. The player knows the PC is a character. If there is no seperation of player and character knowledge, then the character knows that too. If there is a seperation between the player and the character however, then one of the things the player will know but the character doesn't could be the existence of the game.

Deadpool is a good metaphor. He's somewhat aware of being a character, but he also behaves as if he's not just a character. His reality is real to him. For example, he doesn't know everything will turn out okay for the hero in the end because "that's how movies work." He can't read ahead in the script (I mean, he's no Dr. Teeth). If someone he cares about is threatened or hurt (or killed), he feels genuine pain as if he really suffered a loss. If he knew he was just a character in a story, he'd treat people differently. At least some people. Trying to avoid spoilers...

The nature of Deadpool's relationship to the audience is ambiguous. It's presented as if he's actually talking directly to us, but this could also be him narrating what happened to him to a friend, or a diary, or something like that. It's Deadpool -> black box -> audience. Likewise, in a game like D&D, it's character -> black box -> player (although it really goes in both directions so it's character <-> black box <-> player). The PC's reality is real to him, but out of necessity the player plays the character as though the character is at least subliminally aware of being a character in a game.

[Tanarii]

The nature of Deadpool's relationship to the audience is ambiguous. But a player's relationship to a PC is not ambiguous. The PC is the player. The player is the PC. They do not exist independent from one another. Unlike Deadpool and the Reader.

[urandom]

It's difficult for a DM to inhabit character's shoes, and act based on that characters information and biases, but imho one of the most valuable skills a DM can have. Illusion and enchantment spells can be awesome or useless because of this. I find just giving them a skill check useful. They roll well, they do the best thing, they roll meh, they do the obvious thing, they roll badly, they do the stupid thing.

[Boci]

But a player's relationship to a PC is not ambiguous. The PC is the player. The player is the PC. They do not exist independent from one another. Unlike Deadpool and the Reader.

No they're not. They're a character the player creates. They have different abilities, motivations, and potentially alighment and ideologies. Going off what you are saying, you've only ever made the same character alighment and personality-wise with just the class and abilities changing. And again, they all know they're characters because you know they are characters and you keep insisting there's no divide between you and them.

[TheYell]

I agree with Boci. Part of the fun is acting out a part and making views and statements you would never make. If you take the position that there's no such thing as player knowledge versus character knowledge, you've made a duller game for yourselves.

If character = player then we ought to ban Chaotic Evil.

[Unoriginal]

But a player's relationship to a PC is not ambiguous. The PC is the player. The player is the PC. They do not exist independent from one another. Unlike Deadpool and the Reader.

I'm fairly certain I have not been murdering people for money and magic gears since my teenage years. Or been an old Samurai obsessed with revenge. Or investigated strange cults and paranormal events in the 1920s. Or been put on trial for the murder of the Emperor. Or been captured by space pirates...




If character = player then we ought to ban Chaotic Evil.

Black Leaf! No!

[CantigThimble]

But a player's relationship to a PC is not ambiguous. The PC is the player. The player is the PC. They do not exist independent from one another. Unlike Deadpool and the Reader.

At least when I play I think of myself more like an author. The decisions I choose to have my character make are very rarely the ones I would make if I were in their shoes.

[stoutstien]

No they're not. They're a character the player creates. They have different abilities, motivations, and potentially alighment and ideologies. Going off what you are saying, you've only ever made the same character alighment and personality-wise with just the class and abilities changing. And again, they all know they're characters because you know they are characters and you keep insisting there's no divide between you and them.

Alignment is a rp tool and hopefully dies out. Players feel like their character can't evolve or change if you enforce alignment restrictions of actions. It hurts way more than it helps.
The player chooses the range and depth of knowledge that the character has. Call it roll playing, call it Metagaming, or call it character development. It doesn't matter it's a player personal internal choice that no other player has a say in.

Where the math meets the meta is a player discretion that must be addressed by a case by case.
Some player play the same personality character everytime. Some play the same class, same race, some play as many different ways as they can. Some have altoholic tendencies.
All are just fine and no one can tell them otherwise.

No one is applying you must use the knowledge you as a player have but it's insane to state you can just forget it the second you start playing the game.

[Boci]

Alignment is a rp tool and hopefully dies out.

As a mechanic sure, but without it characters will still have alighments, or call them a sense of morality/ethics if you prefer, and they generally will be different from your own.


No one is applying you must use the knowledge you as a player have but it's insane to state you can just forget it the second you start playing the game.

Tanarii is. They say there should be no seperation between player knowledge and character knowledge. Obviously you don't forget it the second you start playing, literally no one has claimed that, but good roleplaying generally involves being able to ignore some/most of it.

[Unoriginal]

Players feel like their character can't evolve or change if you enforce alignment restrictions of actions

Maybe players should read the alignment section of the PHB, then.

Alignment doesn't restriction actions. Actions define the alignment.

Alignments are also no more binding than your Bond, Trait or Flaw.

[stoutstien]

As a mechanic sure, but without it characters will still have alighments, or call them a sense of morality/ethics if you prefer, and they generally will be different from your own.



Tanarii is. They say there should be no seperation between player knowledge and character knowledge. Obviously you don't forget it the second you start playing, literally no one has claimed that, but GOOD roleplaying generally involves being able to ignore some/most of it.
That is a problem to me. I can't decide what is good or poor role-playing.
I believe he is saying there should be no EXPECTED or enforced separation.

[Boci]

That is a problem to me. I can't decide what is good or poor role-playing.

Whatever the specifics, if you are just being you, then that's not roleplaying, there's no role. There has to be a character seperate from the player for their to be roleplaying. Beyond this it can get a little murky, but we can agree on the starting point, or at least we should be able to, its right there in the word.


I believe he is saying there should be no EXPECTED or enforced separation.

Well there should be. You should not go to a new group expecting it to be fine to have a self-aware character unless they sepcifically tell you not too.

[Unoriginal]

"No separation between player and character" is literally the plot of "Mazes & Monsters".

You know, that movie:


https://youtu.be/ogrwfW1rsA4

[EggKookoo]

But a player's relationship to a PC is not ambiguous. The PC is the player. The player is the PC. They do not exist independent from one another. Unlike Deadpool and the Reader.

Not to me. I am not my character. We have an odd, shared, hard-to-define relationship, but we're certainly separate as far as I can see. As much as my character exists at all in any meaningful sense, he exists independently of me. I mean, we share almost no characteristics. We don't even see the same things.

If my character was me, he'd know my name. :smallsmile:

Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying we're completely separate either. We're blended together, hence the "odd, shared, hard-to-define" stuff.

[stoutstien]

Whatever the specifics, if you are just being you, then that's not roleplaying, there's no role. There has to be a character seperate from the player for their to be roleplaying. Beyond this it can get a little murky, but we can agree on the starting point, or at least we should be able to, its right there in the word.



Well there should be. You should not go to a new group expecting it to be fine to have a self-aware character unless they sepcifically tell you not too.

A lot of new players in rpg realm enjoy being character that very much mirror self. Why people make character in games like elder scrolls or sports games that are close approximation of self. As they get more involved they tend to try to make it an ideal self within the game. It's a powerful way for people to express ideas and the big reason I will try my best to not punish rp decisions.

On the 2nd point. A player who is playing a totally self aware character can do it with little to no impact on the rest of the party. I hate to use Deadpool again but it works well. He is aware on some plane of consciousness that there he is in a universe that is being monitored by another. The rest of the marvel world just thinks he is insane.
The only way I could see enforcment is if someone is ruining the fun for another. Telling them how to move, how to use class ablitlies, or other just dickish moves. That not an immersion problem at heart. It's a player demanding others to have fun their way.

The neverending story would be a good example of the normal amount of awareness each player/character has.

[Tanarii]

I'm fairly certain I have not been murdering people for money and magic gears since my teenage years. Or been an old Samurai obsessed with revenge. Or investigated strange cults and paranormal events in the 1920s. Or been put on trial for the murder of the Emperor. Or been captured by space pirates...But you certainly had those imaginary experiences (assuming they were your characters), made those imaginary decisions and experienced the imaginary consequences.


At least when I play I think of myself more like an author. The decisions I choose to have my character make are very rarely the ones I would make if I were in their shoes.
You still made the decisions though. Not "the character", which doesn't exist independent of you. From the sound of it, You chose to make different decisions because you got into (imaginary) character.

If someone else took over an existing character, it wouldn't be the same character. That's because it doesn't really exist independent of us. It's just a version of us we're filtering through our imagination and the game rules.

[CantigThimble]

You still made the decisions though. Not "the character", which doesn't exist independent of you. From the sound of it, You chose to make different decisions because you got into (imaginary) character.

If someone else took over an existing character, it wouldn't be the same character. That's because it doesn't really exist independent of us. It's just a version of us we're filtering through our imagination and the game rules.

Um. Yes. Characters are not artificial intelligences with independent agencies. They are fictional constructs. If characters did have independent agency then metagaming couldn't possibly be a problem. But they're not independent, so it is necessary to put effort into maintaining the integrity of those fictional constructs.

I apologize if I come off as condescending or something here but I'm honestly just really confused by what you're saying.

[Boci]

A lot of new players in rpg realm enjoy being character that very much mirror self.

Mirror of the self, yes that can still be roleplayed, people often put parts of themselves into a character they make to varying degrees. No seperation between self and character? No, that's not roleplaying. There's no role if your character is just you.


The only way I could see enforcment is if someone is ruining the fun for another.

And you can't see how playing Deadpool, without clearing it with others first, is going to annoy/ruin the fun for others at the table?

[stoutstien]

Mirror of the self, yes that can still be roleplayed, people often put parts of themselves into a character they make to varying degrees. No seperation between self and character? No, that's not roleplaying. There's no role if your character is just you.

And anyone has the authority to say how other play is bad/stupid/wrong? If a player doesn't do voices or isn't comfortable with super deep role playing it's fine




And you can't see how playing Deadpool, without clearing it with others first, is going to annoy/ruin the fun for others at the table?

Any more than the rogue stealing from party, Paladin/cleric enforing their morals, druid/ranger being antisocial, or general crappy behavior rationalize as " what?! It what my character would do."

[DeadMech]

"No separation between player and character" is literally the plot of "Mazes & Monsters".

You know, that movie:


https://youtu.be/ogrwfW1rsA4

Pfft If Tom Hanks was a DnD character he would have made sure not let the second guy escape and to loot the bodies when he was done.

[Boci]

And anyone has the authority to say how other play is bad/stupid/wrong? If a player doesn't do voices or isn't comfortable with super deep role playing it's fine

Its how the word works. Roleplay. There has to be a "role", that requires a seperation from the self of somekind. This isn't about super deep roleplay, obviously that's up to personal preference, but there has to be some kind of role, which requires a seperation of player and character.


Any more than the rogue stealing from party, Paladin/cleric enforing their morals, druid/ranger being antisocial, or general crappy behavior rationalize as " what?! It what my character would do."

Yes, all of those things can reasonable be expected to be things you don't do by default. You cannot claim there should be no expectation in those regards and get defensive when people complain because they didn't explicitly say not to do that.

[stoutstien]

Its how the word works. Roleplay. There has to be a "role", that requires a seperation from the self of somekind. This isn't about super deep roleplay, obviously that's up to personal preference, but there has to be some kind of role, which requires a seperation of player and character.



Yes, all of those things can reasonable be expected to be things you don't do by default. You cannot claim there should be no expectation in those regards and get defensive when people complain because they didn't explicitly say not to do that.
Yet you are fiercely defending a stance on what standards of roleplaying are necessary. Like a referee tossing a flag if they don't have an enough separate between self and game. Even if any separation is an illusion.
It's not there. the characters only exists in your mind and due to that there can't be any true divide. You can't beat your self at checkers anymore than forget a bit on information on purpose. But you can pretend.
On a side note Deadpool actually would be a great PC. He tries to convince the rest of the game that they are a game but of course they don't believe him. There is a great role playing chance .

[Boci]

Yet you are fiercely defending a stance on what standards of roleplaying are necessary.

Its not about standards of roleplay, its about the requirement of a role. There is no role if the character is just you, there needs to be some seperation. I do not understand what is so hard to grasp about this.


On a side note Deadpool actually would be a great PC. He tries to convince the rest of the game that they are a game but of course they don't believe him. There is a great role playing chance .

I agree, and never said otherwise, I would just add 2 conditions:

1. Clear it with the rest of the group first, don't just assume they are going to be okay with it
2. Don't always play Deadpool, because the 2nd and subsequent chances probably won't be as good RP with the same group (though yes, its possible a group enjoys having a Deadpool in every game)

[stoutstien]

Its not about standards of roleplay, its about the requirement of a role. There is no role if the character is just you, there needs to be some seperation. I do not understand what is so hard to grasp about this.


I think you miss the point. A PC has access to all the players knowledge at all times but a player can choose not to use it. The character has no say in the matter. Saying that a player = character isn't a statement of that a player isn't a roll player. It a simple way of saying there is no reasonable way to expect a player/character to act like they don't know how much HP they have or when is the best time to use certain ablitlies.
Does a character rest when they are tired or when they are low on resources? Is this a player or character choice?

[Boci]

I think you miss the point. A PC has access to all the players knowledge at all times but a player can choose not to use it. The character has no say in the matter. Saying that a player = character isn't a statement of that a player isn't a roll player.

Yes it is, because it means the player is choosing is chosing to give their character full access to their player knowledge and is just inverting themselves into the game, which means there's no role to play which means theres no roleplaying. This is not the same as giving elements of yourself to the character, which everyone does and doesn't preclude roleplaying.

[Zalabim]

On a side note Deadpool actually would be a great PC. He tries to convince the rest of the game that they are a game but of course they don't believe him. There is a great role playing chance .
He just believes that beings of immeasurable power are responsible for the creation of his world and personally meddle in the affairs of mortals for the purpose of entertainment, and acts accordingly. Everyone else assumes he's putting on a show for the gods.

[Tanarii]

Um. Yes. Characters are not artificial intelligences with independent agencies. They are fictional constructs. If characters did have independent agency then metagaming couldn't possibly be a problem. But they're not independent, so it is necessary to put effort into maintaining the integrity of those fictional constructs.

I apologize if I come off as condescending or something here but I'm honestly just really confused by what you're saying.Im saying that the imaginary character is just us, filtered through whatever alternate decision making process we've decided to invent.

In other words, a metagaming "problem" is only something we decide to create in the first place, since inherently it does not exist. First we have to determine a degree of separation, then we have to declare that the degree of separation is somehow problematic.

[CantigThimble]

Im saying that the imaginary character is just us, filtered through whatever alternate decision making process we've decided to invent.

In other words, a metagaming "problem" is only something we decide to create in the first place, since inherently it does not exist. First we have to determine a degree of separation, then we have to declare that the degree of separation is somehow problematic.

Okay, you're using some terms differently than I would so I'm going to try and use those terms the way you seem to be.

The problem of metagaming is about having a good 'alternate decision making process'. It needs to be 'alternate' if it too similar to the players default decision making process or not sufficiently aligned with the fictional character that alternate decision making process is designed to represent then that is what I call a metagaming problem.

Also, I don't at all buy the argument that because the problem is created we can just throw it out. By playing D&D in the first place we create TONS of problems, however, we don't just stop playing D&D. Because we think that whatever benefits we get from it outweigh those problems. The same applies to metagaming IMO.

[Tanarii]

The problem of metagaming is about having a good 'alternate decision making process'. It needs to be 'alternate' if it too similar to the players default decision making process or not sufficiently aligned with the fictional character that alternate decision making process is designed to represent then that is what I call a metagaming problem.
The former isnt a problem, its the default starting point.

The latter I can undestand, but its a 'problem' only insofar as you've decided that for some reason fictional character = X, but I will make decisions that result in Y anyway.

(Edit: I really should take this line of discussion to stoutstiens thread. :smallamused: )

[TheYell]

If someone else took over an existing character, it wouldn't be the same character. That's because it doesn't really exist independent of us. It's just a version of us we're filtering through our imagination and the game rules.


Not if you do it really well. If you roleplay well you will create a distinct persona with a coherent personality. Granted, it is a skill worth millions of dollars if you can pull it off. Its why Vin Diesel learned to be a movie star playing D&D. But like Spock* said, "Damn you sir. You will try."


*Quintero had to sweat bricks to step into that role. Because it was so well crafted by Nimoy.

[stoutstien]

Not if you do it really well. If you roleplay well you will create a distinct persona with a coherent personality. Granted, it is a skill worth millions of dollars if you can pull it off. Its why Vin Diesel learned to be a movie star playing D&D. But like Spock* said, "Damn you sir. You will try."


*Quintero had to sweat bricks to step into that role. Because it was so well crafted by Nimoy.
Acting is a very narrow avenue of roleplaying. Especially in film but using that exaple they don't make any decisions. They have a script, they have rehearsals, and in a lot of time they have little overall impact on the role past name recognition. It's more mimicry that role playing.
Now I imagine you had the same script but give it to 12 actors how many different versions would you get. We would see some parallels but I'm pretty sure we get 12 distinct versions.
Every batman had a different feel. 007?
Give a table all the same iconic figure to make a character after.

this is the part of metagaming that is truly beautiful If i think about it. The players past experiences are going to influence that character in different ways.

[stoutstien]

The former isnt a problem, its the default starting point.

The latter I can undestand, but its a 'problem' only insofar as you've decided that for some reason fictional character = X, but I will make decisions that result in Y anyway.

(Edit: I really should take this line of discussion to stoutstiens thread. :smallamused: )

Well the initial question was is it possible that some spells are more inherently gamey and should have DM assume that most of the NPC know how to react. This is a decision that is made case by case and gets easier with experience. Now you try to enforce arbitrary who knows what when on players and it is a rabbit hole of problems

[CantigThimble]

The former isnt a problem, its the default starting point.

The latter I can undestand, but its a 'problem' only insofar as you've decided that for some reason fictional character = X, but I will make decisions that result in Y anyway.

(Edit: I really should take this line of discussion to stoutstiens thread. :smallamused: )

Yes, metagaming is only a problem if two people disagree about what a character would do. Which is a broader problem than just metagaming, but metagaming is a subset of it.

You could just say "This is only a problem if you disagree, so just never disagree." But I think there are sometimes good reasons to disagree.

I mean, don't be a jerk about it, but that's something more fundamental than metagaming.

Edit: Actually I think I misspoke, metagaming is only a problem for a gaming group when people disagree. However, it can also be a problem for your own individual attempts at roleplaying if you find that the integrity of the character you've created is degrading and you need to pay more attention to maintaining it.

[Pelle]

The latter I can undestand, but its a 'problem' only insofar as you've decided that for some reason fictional character = X, but I will make decisions that result in Y anyway.


The problem comes when one player's out-of-character decisions decrease the enjoyment of another player who likes decisions to be made in-character.

Your argument is that this is a problem that the other player created for himself, he should just decide to start liking out-of-character decisions instead, because then the problem disappears. Frankly, that's stupid, you don't get to choose what you like that easily.

Who in the above conflict should respect whom is another discussion, both players should preferably try to accomodate each other's preferences somewhat.

[Boci]

The problem comes when one player's out-of-character decisions decrease the enjoyment of another player who likes decisions to be made in-character.

Your argument is that this is a problem that the other player created for himself, he should just decide to start liking out-of-character decisions instead, because then the problem disappears. Frankly, that's stupid, you don't get to choose what you like that easily.

Who in the above conflict should respect whom is another discussion, both players should preferably try to accomodate each other's preferences somewhat.

Yeah, its like cracking jokes in a serious RP scene and the other players getting annoyed at you, and you respond "Well, its only a problem because you're making it a problem". Which is...not reasonable behavior.

[Tanarii]

Yes, metagaming is only a problem if two people disagree about what a character would do. Which is a broader problem than just metagaming, but metagaming is a subset of it.


The problem comes when one player's out-of-character decisions decrease the enjoyment of another player who likes decisions to be made in-character.

What a player is basing their decisions on is their business. And the DMs, insofar as deciding what information to provide for a player to make decisions with. No one else's.

[Unoriginal]

What a player is basing their decisions on is their business. And the DMs, insofar as deciding what information to provide for a player to make decisions with. No one else's.

"So I wait for the rogue to disable the trap on the door, then I'll get in and attack the fake prisoner because he's an Oni in disguise."

"Hold on, how do you know there is a trap or an Oni here?"

"Well, I've read this module before."

No, what a player is basing their decision on is not always only their business. D&D is a group game, what you do affect the group.

[CantigThimble]

What a player is basing their decisions on is their business. And the DMs, insofar as deciding what information to provide for a player to make decisions with. No one else's.

I disagree. Having a world that feels internally logically consistent requires everyone's participation in order to work, and a requirement for that is good reasons for in-character actions.

In my opinion the game is a lot more fun when there is at least a decent sembelance of internal logical consistency and so it's perfectly resonable or people to bring it up in session zero and set ground rules.

If you and your group don't care as much about that kind of thing then go right ahead and play the way that you prefer.

[Pelle]

What a player is basing their decisions on is their business. And the DMs, insofar as deciding what information to provide for a player to make decisions with. No one else's.

Yes, sure that is their business. But if their business cause other people to not enjoy themselves, the other people are not enjoying themselves. That's a problem, solve it however you like. But saying "just decide that you enjoy yourself instead" is not going to work.

Edit: Look, this is just a classic case of difference in playstyle preference. No one should force you to play in a way you don't like, but if the way you like to play cause other people to not enjoy themselves (for any arbitrary or unreasonable reason), you can't force them to play with you either.

[EggKookoo]

I disagree. Having a world that feels internally logically consistent requires everyone's participation in order to work, and a requirement for that is good reasons for in-character actions.

It also serves as a guidepost against such slipperiness as "I hit the orc because my sword has a special orc-hitting bonus I just made up." Extreme, but if I can use extra-character info to boost my PC, why can't I invent extra-character info?

Many games (card games in particular) are very strict about the slightest hint of cheating. Even something like counting cards in blackjack is frowned upon, even though it's a fuzzy line between that and simply paying attention, because it undermines player confidence in the system overall. It's tricky enough in a TTRPG where the line between the player and character is ambiguous, but that's all the more reason to be aware of it.

[Tanarii]

"Well, I've read this module before."
That would fall under the information the DM is letting the players have to make decisions on. If you don't want players that have read a module you're running, don't let them join the table. If you want to allow them (for reasons) but want to circumscribe their use of the info, have a discussion about it beforehand.

Edit: Players trying to impose their views on player/character speration on another player's decisions isn't cool. The info to use was made available by the DM, it's their choice on how to use it. That's like telling somehow how to play their Alignment right.

[Pelle]

Edit: Players trying to impose their views on player/character speration on another player's decisions isn't cool. The info to use was made available by the DM, it's their choice on how to use it. That's like telling somehow how to play their Alignment right.

So what?

If someone enjoys the fiction to make sense, and your out-of-character decisions cause the fiction to not make sense, then they will enjoy themselves less. Your behaviour affects their experience. Sorry, that's just how it is, they can't control it. That doesn't give them the right to police your behaviour, but according to you they are wrong for just having those preferences.

[EggKookoo]

That would fall under the information the DM is letting the players have to make decisions on. If you don't want players that have read a module you're running, don't let them join the table. If you want to allow them (for reasons) but want to circumscribe their use of the info, have a discussion about it beforehand.

And this falls under "no one has a problem with that one player using prior knowledge," because by (your) definition the DM only allowed players who were okay with it. It's not unreasonable to assume this entire topic only has validity when there's disagreement at the table about it.

[stoutstien]

"So I wait for the rogue to disable the trap on the door, then I'll get in and attack the fake prisoner because he's an Oni in disguise."

"Hold on, how do you know there is a trap or an Oni here?"

"Well, I've read this module before."

No, what a player is basing their decision on is not always only their business. D&D is a group game, what you do affect the group.

This is why I don't run printed module for Anyone but the newest groups. Let's say have played before and do know the oni is there. What do you do?
Immediately calling it out is bad.

Acting like you don't know it but still preparing for it mentality is practically going to have the same results. (Having the proper spells prepared and so on ) still removes the surprise element

Tell the table you have played it before so the DM could possibly change some it.

Don't play.

All the above options are equally Metagaming but obviously some are just bad form.

[EggKookoo]

This is why I don't run printed module for Anyone but the newest groups.

I have only once in my life run a published adventure without heavy customizing (LMoP), and it was for people who had never played any TTRPG before, let alone D&D.

[CantigThimble]

This is why I don't run printed module for Anyone but the newest groups. Let's say have played before and do know the oni is there. What do you do?
Immediately calling it out is bad.

Acting like you don't know it but still preparing for it mentality is practically going to have the same results. (Having the proper spells prepared and so on ) still removes the surprise element

Tell the table you have played it before so the DM could possibly change some it.

Don't play.

All the above options are equally Metagaming but obviously some are just bad form.

You can at least try to imagine what your character would do in the situation given what they would know and how that character behaves. It's not going to be perfect (little ever is) but it's better than nothing. You can never not metagame a little bit but you can at least not metagame a lot.

[mephnick]

The only meta-gaming that annoys me is an experienced player ruining stuff for newer players.

Me: *describes horrifying monster*
New Players: "woah...we need to be careful. That's crazy"
Know-it-all-smartass: "It's just a Chuul. No big deal."
New Players: "Oh..ok."

[stoutstien]

You can at least try to imagine what your character would do in the situation given what they would know and how that character behaves. It's not going to be perfect (little ever is) but it's better than nothing. You can never not metagame a little bit but you can at least not metagame a lot.
The action of acting like you've seen the encounter before and a acting like you have are both equally Metagaming. One ruins the fun for others and one ruins the fun for self due to limiting "non meta" actions. If you know it's a npc in disguise and even if my PC wants to make a insight check you feel you can't because you all ready know the results pass or fail. Did you or your PC have the initial thought for the check?

Example I'm currently about to start playing the curse of strahd with a bunch of newish players (5e only). Both me and dm are very Frank about it. I know a lot of the content so my PC will be more support focused so the other players can enjoy new the content. Plus I really want to play the order domain.

As long as that conversation can happen I think most of it working itself out naturally.
It's the "talk" for ttrpg 😃

[Boci]

That would fall under the information the DM is letting the players have to make decisions on. If you don't want players that have read a module you're running, don't let them join the table. If you want to allow them (for reasons) but want to circumscribe their use of the info, have a discussion about it beforehand.

So onus is on the DM to ask if the players have played the module before and ask them not to metagame?

That it not reasonable. And "have a discussion about it beforehand"? This isn't rocket science, just don't metagame. I've replayed printed modules before. It didn't need a discussion out of game, I just didn't act based on what I knew as a player, same way I don't act like my character has read the monster manual when I recgonize what the DM is throwing at us.

[stoutstien]

So onus is on the DM to ask if the players have played the module before and ask them not to metagame?

That it not reasonable. And "have a discussion about it beforehand"? This isn't rocket science, just don't metagame. I've replayed printed modules before. It didn't need a discussion out of game, I just didn't act based on what I knew as a player, same way I don't act like my character has read the monster manual when I recgonize what the DM is throwing at us.

So you pretend you don't have information you have. You call it roll playing, I call it meta gaming with a rationalization. It still a limits on your character actions. Would you let's a character die from something you know you could avoid? Dragons breath, Medusa's glare, or something as benign is purposely walking into a trap that you are aware of?

[Boci]

So you pretend you don't have information you have. You call it roll playing, I call it meta gaming with a rationalization. It still a limits on your character actions. Would you let's a character die from something you know you could avoid? Dragons breath, Medusa's glare, or something as benign is purposely walking into a trap that you are aware of?

Yes, just like I would let a PC die from a meduse's gaze if I recgonized it as a player but my character didn't.

[EggKookoo]

Yes, just like I would let a PC die from a meduse's gaze if I recgonized it as a player but my character didn't.

Of course living in a world with actual dragons, it's not unreasonable for a PC to duck for cover when one of them angrily takes a deep breath and turns its muzzle toward you. Arguably the same could be said for a medusa's gaze, depending on how the world is constructed.

That's loads different from knowing a specific fact about a specific part of a specific dungeon because you had played through it earlier with a different PC.

[Boci]

Of course living in a world with actual dragons, it's not unreasonable for a PC to duck for cover when one of them angrily takes a deep breath and turns its muzzle toward you. Arguably the same could be said for a medusa's gaze, depending on how the world is constructed.

How does that work though? I've never had a DM say "The large, winged lizards in a breath, mouth hanging open" and then give us a chance to act, but yes if I DM did I wouldn't consider it metagaming to interpret that as an attack. Plus dragons are famous enough that I will assume my character knows they have a breath weapon without a knowledge check, unless told otherwsie. Mesuda however I will not assume my character knows anything about them automatically, unless we're playing a game set in Ancient Greece, in which case I would check with the DM.

[EggKookoo]

How does that work though? I've never had a DM say "The large, winged lizards in a breath, mouth hanging open" and then give us a chance to act, but yes if I DM did I wouldn't consider it metagaming to interpret that as an attack.

I have no idea. The implication of "Would you [let] a character die from something you know you could avoid?" is that the PC has a chance to actually do that. Otherwise it's a moot point.

[stoutstien]

I have no idea. The implication of "Would you [let] a character die from something you know you could avoid?" is that the PC has a chance to actually do that. Otherwise it's a moot point.
I was just grabbing random example Of top of my head.
I'm just stating most players would use information they had to stay alive. Even that means they had to rationalize the knowledge . My grandpa told me stories of snake head demons that if you lock eyes with you will turn to stone.
Boci is saying he would let a PC die if he believes there isn't a in game justification for that knowledge.

If a DM is decribing a npc and you still don't know generally what it is still and the DM doesn't clarify they are blatantly withholding information to try to screw over the party.
Dm
"A large green scaled reptilian foe with large leathery wings swoops down and lands blocking the path up the mountain."
Player 1: is it a dragon?!
DM: "you don't know."
Player 2:"what shade of green is it?
DM: stop Metagaming and roll initiative.
Player 1: wait my dragonborn PC can't recognise if it's a dragon or a Drake or what ever?
DM: just roll
Player 3: I want roll a knowledge nature check
How is that fun?

[stoutstien]

How does that work though? I've never had a DM say "The large, winged lizards in a breath, mouth hanging open" and then give us a chance to act, but yes if I DM did I wouldn't consider it metagaming to interpret that as an attack.

Click rule. Allow players a chance to react to a sudden change on the environment. Player steps on a pressure plate
They could stand still and keep pressure on it. Roll to the side. Jump up in the air. Fall to the ground. obviously depending on the nature of the trap many
of these things would hurt more than they help but at least allow the players a choice in the matter other than just rolling a save. I think the advantage disadvantage system is a very elegant idea that people don't take advantage of.

[Boci]

How is that fun?

Cleaning straw up generally isn't fun for anyone, since no one is advocating your totally not contrived example DM's approach.


Boci is saying he would let a PC die if he believes there isn't a in game justification for that knowledge.

First of all, let them die is a little harsh. Pretty sure a medusa's gaze still allows a constitution save, its not jsut instant death, and as for "my grandfather told me stories of snaked headed demons" that is one way I would fluff a successful skill check to ID/recall stuff about a monster.

[stoutstien]

Cleaning straw up generally isn't fun for anyone, since no one is advocating your totally not contrived example DM's approach.
Aren't you doing that? If the DM does it or a player does it to there self the results are the same. You're sacrificing mechanics for theatrics which again is fine. But the active choice of how and when you doing that is is clearly something that needs to be discussed at a table. you want players to role knowledge checks for every new creature you see that is deemed uncommon to see if you know what it is. Sure, but spell that s*** out day one.
You cannot regulate or mandate how role playing works. Obviously you value immersion highly and you enjoy the game enough that you spend free time not playing on forums such as this. But you can't mandate the level of immersion/depth per player.

Edit: yea, player death is a tad harsh but is a point where mechanics and fluff clearly come to a head 🤣. But still using the Medusa example if you don't divert your eyes you are possibly hampering the party for the sake of immersion.

[Boci]

Aren't you doing that? If the DM does it or a player does it to there self the results are the same. You're sacrificing mechanics for theatrics which again is fine. But the active choice of how and when you doing that is is clearly something that needs to be discussed at a table. you want players to role knowledge checks for every new creature you see that is deemed uncommon to see if you know what it is. Sure, but spell that s*** out day one.
You cannot regulate or mandate how role playing works. Obviously you value immersion highly and you enjoy the game enough that you spend free time not playing on forums such as this. But you can't mandate the level of immersion/depth per player.

No, because tts in the rules. For example, intelligence (arcane) is used to recall information about the denizens of other planes. You roll for it, you don't get to decide that your character happens to know the demons weaknesses. Rangers get advantage on such a check for their favoured enemy, which is kinda pointless if the player can just decide they know everything without a check.

[stoutstien]

No, because tts in the rules. For example, intelligence (arcane) is used to recall information about the denizens of other planes. You roll for it, you don't get to decide that your character happens to know the demons weaknesses.
so you base your defense on what your player knows from a role-playing perspective based on a mechanical part of the game? All rolls are DM dependent. DM could decide based on your training as a cleric you recall some based info about being from other planes. There hands are not tied to force rolls every time they see a creature from another plane.
Why I hate things like critical role glorifies imo bad DM behaviors.
Exaple I put all my super min/max style players on one table. They enjoy memorizing the MM and squeezing every bit of power from class/race comos. They take optimized to a new level. I can expect them to know every npc I use inside and out. And I have fun because I can take the gloves off and actively try to kill them off.(I succeed a lot here). They are playing the game the way they want to. Plus if I keep them together they don't feel like they are interfering with other players fun.

[Boci]

so you base your defense on what your player knows from a role-playing perspective based on a mechanical part of the game? All rolls are DM dependent. DM could decide based on your training as a cleric you recall some based info about being from other planes. There hands are not tied to force rolls every time they see a creature from another plane.

Yes, the DM's department, not the player. The DM can tell you, after you flub a role or before you even try that your background gives the information automatically. The PCs cannot decide that themselves by the rules. Can this be changed? Ofcourse, but you cannot give this equal status to following the rules. That is the default.

[stoutstien]

Yes, the DM's department, not the player. The DM can tell you, after you flub a role or before you even try that your background gives the information automatically. The PCs cannot decide that themselves by the rules. Can this be changed? Ofcourse, but you cannot give this equal status to following the rules. That is the default.

I love to find one of these mythical default game tables. The player can very easily decide what they know it's their character. Obviously there's some limits here about players reading ahead in campaigns and blurting out NPC information (this this is more likely a symptom of another issue to begin with. like unfulfilled player motivations or just boredom.) like spells and effects but if they keep a closed mouth no way could take away player knowledge. DM drops a troll, warlock uses fireball. DM can't prove it was bc It was a troll or bc they just believed it's what the PC would do.

[MaxWilson]

This is why I don't run printed module for Anyone but the newest groups. Let's say have played before and do know the oni is there. What do you do?
Immediately calling it out is bad.

Acting like you don't know it but still preparing for it mentality is practically going to have the same results. (Having the proper spells prepared and so on ) still removes the surprise element

The difference is that only the former spoils the experience for anyone who is playing for the first time.

Deliberate spoilers are rude.

[Boci]

I love to find one of these mythical default game tables.

Ah yes, that mythical group where following the rules is considered the default and not following them something you ask about, rather than following the rules and ivneting your own as a player are given equal legitimacy.


The player can very easily decide what they know it's their character. Obviously there's some limits here about players reading ahead in campaigns and blurting out NPC information (this this is more likely a symptom of another issue to begin with. like unfulfilled player motivations or just boredom.) like spells and effects but if they keep a closed mouth no way could take away player knowledge. DM drops a troll, warlock uses fireball. DM can't prove it was bc It was a troll or bc they just believed it's what the PC would do.

The whole "keep a closed mouth" thing kinda points to the player knowing they did something wrong, otherwise why would they feel the need to keep silent?

[stoutstien]

Ah yes, that mythical group where following the rules is considered the default and not following them something you ask about, rather than following the rules and ivneting your own as a player are given equal legitimacy.

The portion of the rules you are referring to tho are completely dm fiat. Raw doesn't support set rules of when to make player knowledge checks.




The whole "keep a closed mouth" thing kinda points to the player knowing they did something wrong, otherwise why would they feel the need to keep silent?
Maybe the player is unfilled bc they don't feel challenged. Roll playing that you doesn't know something isnt a challenge or an opportunity to overcome something other than arbitrary levels of PLAYER/PC separation.