Quick question about metagaming and cheating?

[Talakeal]

If the Game Master gives you OOC advice, is it cheating to follow it?

Imagine you were running an adventure (let's say a classic dungeon crawl) and at the end of the session you were going to call it a night ooc and return to town to seek your next adventure.

Then the DM said "Are you sure you don't want to continue on with this dungeon next session? You guys haven't explored it all and there is still a ton of XP and loot to be had, you might want to finish here before moving on."

Would you consider it cheating to follow the GM's advice and stay in the dungeon?



This came up in my game last week, and the party voted to continue with the dungeon this week. Last night in the middle of the session one of the players exploded, saying we shouldn't even be here and he felt like a dirty cheater for going against his earlier statements on OOC knowledge. He then gave standing orders that if I ever give the players advice again he will go out of his way to do the opposite, and if that means splitting the party so be it, even if it leads to a TPK or players sitting out for an entire gaming session. I was, confused to say the least, and I was wondering if anyone has had experiences with such a thing.

[Rhynn]

If the Game Master gives you OOC advice, is it cheating to follow it?

Nope.

Also (not that you're saying this), metagaming is not cheating. Metagaming is playing the game, and is a necessary part of playing a game. A lot of people use it as shorthand for a specific kind of cheating (where you use OOC information to affect IC actions in a "wrong" way, instead of using OOC information to affect IC actions in a "right" way, which is perfectly fine by most people).

Your players continue to horrify me.

[Belril Duskwalk]

If the Game Master gives you advice, there are a few distinct possibilities:
1. Ignoring that advice will cause the players to miss something that may significantly benefit the party
2. Ignoring that advice will significantly hinder or possibly KILL the party
3. Ignoring that advice has the potential to crush the GM's plot like an egg

Of those possibilities, two are undeniably bad things and the third is generally a bad thing unless the GM's plot is really that bad. If the GM is offering Out Of Character advice, he probably has a dang good reason. TAKE IT!

EDIT: If one of your characters is swearing to contradict your OOC advice, I suggest not including him when you deliver OOC advice.

[Rhynn]

To elaborate, I often give my players similar advice, and they always take it and go along with it because it's a game. One example that comes to mind is that, running the 3.5 Expedition to Undermountain (a frankly pathetic adventure*), I had the problem that there were no actual maps provided for the dungeon, yet the maps that did exist had open passages out of described areas, with no real way to fill them up and no map. So when my players were about to take a wrong turn, I just gently suggested "uh, you can't really go that way, there's nothing in the module for it and I didn't prepare the entire first level of the largest dungeon ever published." They went the other way and were happy to do it, because they knew and understood I was running an adventure.

* Seriously, reducing the king of megadungeons into a 3E era "encounter-based" adventure with no actual dungeon exploring, with incomplete maps, is unforgivable. At least Ravenloft got a fully mapped castle!

[Talakeal]

EDIT: If one of your characters is swearing to contradict your OOC advice, I suggest not including him when you deliver OOC advice.

Not quite. He said that if another player acted on metagame advice, he would likewise act on metagame advice, only in the opposite manner so as to balance out their "cheating".

So if I say "You should really leave the sleeping dragon alone," he will go out of his way to attack the sleeping dragon, even if he would normally ignore it.

As far as I can tell it is a sort of two wrong make a right logic combined with being spiteful to "punish" the other players (and the DM, and himself) for behavior he considers cheating. Hopefully there is something more to it that I am missing however.

[jindra34]

I'd hope there is something missing too. Because if you consider pausing to confirm a risky action to be 'cheating' and metagaming (its the second to a minor degree) because of words the GM says, how is acting on any information the GM gives you not 'cheating' and metagaming.

[Another_Poet]

the DM said "Are you sure you don't want to continue on with this dungeon next session? You guys haven't explored it all and there is still a ton of XP and loot to be had, you might want to finish here before moving on."

Would you consider it cheating to follow the GM's advice and stay in the dungeon?

No; however, in most cases a GM shouldn't give that kind of advice.

There are exceptions, such as:

• You think the players have simply forgotten something (that their characters would know), e.g. "Not gonna explore that room with the weird fountain that you saw?"
• Their choice creates a GM snag and you're asking for their mercy, e.g. "Sure guys, but I thought we'd be doing this dungeon tonight. If you pull out now I'm going to need time to plan."
• Your players are new/inexperienced.

In most groups, the players want to discover things on their own - not be told where to look, or where not to.

Last night in the middle of the session one of the players exploded, saying we shouldn't even be here and he felt like a dirty cheater for going against his earlier statements on OOC knowledge. He then gave standing orders that if I ever give the players advice again he will go out of his way to do the opposite...

You need to talk to him out of game. First, apologize; you gave them metagame information and you shouldn't have. Then tell him his reaction was inappropriate and next time he has beef, he needs to talk to you directly and calmly.

[Rhynn]

No; however, in most cases a GM shouldn't give that kind of advice.

Time-management advice? Absolutely they should. If you've gone through the trouble to create a big dungeon and the players try to quit halfway through for no reason other than thinking they're through*, in a lot of cases, you're going to want to not waste that work, so it's perfectly legit to suggest "hey, there's more of it!"

* What kind of lazy-ass modern players don't explore every dungeon as thoroughly as they can survive doing? Were they even drawing their own map?!

First, apologize; you gave them metagame information and you shouldn't have.

Forget that noise. "Shouldn't have"? Nonsense.

[Slipperychicken]

I think it's okay. The DM is giving you advice so you get to have more fun, and so his work preparing the dungeon isn't wasted.

In a case like this, it's metagaming and might break immersion, but the continued dungeon exploration would most likely be worth it for me. You could handwave the decision by saying it's intuition or experience.

[The Grue]

Last night in the middle of the session one of the players exploded, saying we shouldn't even be here and he felt like a dirty cheater for going against his earlier statements on OOC knowledge. He then gave standing orders that if I ever give the players advice again he will go out of his way to do the opposite, and if that means splitting the party so be it, even if it leads to a TPK or players sitting out for an entire gaming session.

Honestly? Your player sounds like he's ten years old. If he's issued an ultimatum that unless things go his way he's perfectly willing to crash the game for everybody else, then he needs to get the boot.

Talk to him out of game and check with him that this is actually what he meant to say, because it probably isn't and his reaction was completely inappropriate. Either you call him on it and he apologizes, and then the two of you work out your differences like adults, or you call him on it and he refuses to back down in which case you need to ask yourself whether you want a player who throws tantrums.

[Alex12]

Personally, I just figure if the DM okays it, it's not cheating. Or if it is, it's cheating that's permissible.

The goal of the game is fun, and if the DM says that there's more dungeon to go, then it only makes sense to clear out that dungeon before spending the time to find leads and whatever for another dungeon. Plus, it's easier on the DM, who then didn't waste all that work, and doesn't have to come up with a new dungeon for next session.

[Barsoom]

Last night in the middle of the session one of the players exploded, saying we shouldn't even be here and he felt like a dirty cheater for going against his earlier statements on OOC knowledge. He then gave standing orders that if I ever give the players advice again he will go out of his way to do the opposite, and if that means splitting the party so be it, even if it leads to a TPK or players sitting out for an entire gaming session.

This sounds extreme, not to mention outright hostile. If I was the DM, I wouldn't want to DM for someone with this attitude.

[snoopy13a]

There is implicit metagaming in every roleplaying game. Specifically, the social contract that exists between the players and GM in that the players will only have "level appropriate encounters" as long as the players conform to certain game norms. This metagaming social contract is a cornerstone of the RPG experience.

In actuality, a group of level 1 characters could be attacked and eaten by a red dragon--just as hapless NPC commoners often are. Instead, however, the GM tailors the game so that players will normally win, because that is fun. However, this is metagaming, and you should point this out to that player. If he still is arguing over this point, you can always have a random red dragon eat him.

[ClockShock]

You could change all OOC advice into IC advice. That's what gods are for, right?

[Cheiromancer]

you can always have a random red dragon eat him.

Problem solved!

[Sutremaine]

Plus, it's easier on the DM, who then didn't waste all that work, and doesn't have to come up with a new dungeon for next session.

Why not just reskin the parts the players didn't explore in the last dungeon? They're not going to know.

[Talakeal]

Why not just reskin the parts the players didn't explore in the last dungeon? They're not going to know.

In this particular case It was actually a bit more complex than the dungeon scenario, I just wanted to ask the question without telling a gaming story.

Long story short, they provoked a group of enemies but didn't actually deal with them, and I explained that if they dropped the plot line half way through they were going to be responsible for a horde of pissed off bad guys pillaging the countryside.

[TuggyNE]

Yeah, this is, quite simply, an acceptable bit of metagaming, and arguably almost necessary. Thoughtless attempts at roleplaying "purity" will only result in disaster and chaos.

Of course, knowing a bit about your players, that might be the intent.

[erikun]

Long story short, they provoked a group of enemies but didn't actually deal with them, and I explained that if they dropped the plot line half way through they were going to be responsible for a horde of pissed off bad guys pillaging the countryside.

This sounds like a perfectly reasonable comment for a GM to make. The characters should obviously know that they annoyed a large group of enemies, that they didn't deal with said group, and that the group is large enough to cause problems throughout the country.

As long as you left it at that, and didn't try to force the issue any more, then it would be fine. It was entirely up to the players at that point if they wanted to leave the (obviously unfinished) job and face the consequences, or finish things up. It's not your fault that the players made the most obvious choice.


As for your player, it's hard to say what his reasoning is. My best guess is that he's from the player-vs-GM mentality, and so finds any GM assistance to be "cheating" at that role. Or, possibly more likely, he didn't like the dungeon and was venting about the party choosing to return to it.

The only advice I can give is to ask what was wrong and what he would have preferred to happen, and decide what/if you want to change because of that. (Asking others what they thought would be good, as well.) I haven't read the other threads about your gaming group, though, so I don't know if this approach has been tried yet or not.

[Jay R]

In any game with a referee, if you are unsure whether a given action is cheating, ask the referee. I specifically disallow mete-knowledge is some games, and specifically allow it in others.

Hints from the DM have by definition been approved by the referee.

Your problem is that one player does not accept the DM as the final arbiter of the rules of the game. This will eventually cause trouble in some area, even if you solve the meta-knowledge issue.

[Another_Poet]

Your problem is that one player does not accept the DM as the final arbiter of the rules of the game. This will eventually cause trouble in some area, even if you solve the meta-knowledge issue.

Well said.

[Mr Beer]

This came up in my game last week, and the party voted to continue with the dungeon this week. Last night in the middle of the session one of the players exploded, saying we shouldn't even be here and he felt like a dirty cheater for going against his earlier statements on OOC knowledge. He then gave standing orders that if I ever give the players advice again he will go out of his way to do the opposite, and if that means splitting the party so be it, even if it leads to a TPK or players sitting out for an entire gaming session. I was, confused to say the least, and I was wondering if anyone has had experiences with such a thing.

This issue has nothing to do with OOC rights and wrongs, what's worth discussing here is why the player thinks it's OK to behave like a mental case, flipping out over nothing and barking orders at you.

I'd either have a talk with him and try to find out what's really bothering him (mature way) or simply give some OOC advice the very next session and make the outcome of ignoring it = his character probably gets killed (not so mature).

EDIT

Thinking about it, I would just say "If I feel like giving OOC advice is going to make for a better game, that's what I'm going to do. If you're not happy knowing that this will happen again, rather than trashing the session for everyone else, it's better that you simply don't play."

[tasw]

take the whiny player aside and tell him to get with the program or find a different group.

kicking back to the internet curb faster would help the whole hobby

[Thrudd]

In this particular case It was actually a bit more complex than the dungeon scenario, I just wanted to ask the question without telling a gaming story.

Long story short, they provoked a group of enemies but didn't actually deal with them, and I explained that if they dropped the plot line half way through they were going to be responsible for a horde of pissed off bad guys pillaging the countryside.

A horde of bad guys pillaging the countryside sounds like fun for the DM. more reasons for fighting and adventures. :) Sometimes you have to roll with the punches. It is annoying when the players don't follow your carefully planned adventure, but it is a good idea not to plan too specifically, and have a few reserve ideas, so that their choices don't end the session prematurely. I try to conceive of a few possible directions they might go (either literal directions or choices in general) at any point, and have at least an idea of what is in that direction. As someone else said, if they missed a part of a dungeon, maybe retool it to fit into a different area, or have some in-game reason for them to go back there. For possible world-altering bad choices...why not let the world go to sh** because of them? I see no problem with a lack of foresight on the players' part resulting in miserable circumstances for them and everyone else in the world later on. That is part of the fun, letting the world and story be shaped interactively by the players' actions.
Of course, if it is something that the players have no way of knowing, but their characters reasonably would, then reveal the info through in-game knowledge/intelligence checks with really easy DC's.
I don't entirely agree with your player insisting on no OOC info, you're the DM, afterall, and his attitude seems obstructionist. But there are ways to get around giving information OOC. If you want to keep playing with him and the game going smoothly, a talk might be in order. Barring that, or if there is no agreement made to keep him from his obstructionist plans, you might need to use some of these tactics to give info to the players IC so you can keep the game going without conflict.

[Rhynn]

A horde of bad guys pillaging the countryside sounds like fun for the DM. more reasons for fighting and adventures. :)

Yeah, I probably wouldn't have given the advice Talakeal did (the PCs could have been drawn back into the dungeon naturally later), but that's pretty irrelevant to the actual question and the real issue (horrible player/s).

Edit. Y'know, I really hope it's always the same guy. It would make me feel better, somehow...

[Sidmen]

For your specific situation, if you don't want to deal with your childish player, you could insert a GM-surrogate character. Name him the Starchild, have him glow faintly silver-white and appear at random to give advice and quest info.

Alternatively, you could ask someone to make an Intelligence or Wisdom check and give them "common sense" or "logical conclusion" knowledge on a DC 10 success.

[valadil]

That player is being a tool. Part of tabletop play is coming up with in character reasons to act in a way that satisfies the metagame. Joining and sticking with the group, following plot hooks, etc. You find reasons to do these things because it makes the game run smoother.

[tasw]

This is definitely a bad player issue.

Odds are it wasnt even OOC. If they're in a dungeon and theres more of it left then there has to have been doors they didnt open, hallways they didnt go down, etc etc. Reminding them of that is not OOC.

[BWR]

Reminding players of information that their characters know is not metagaming, it's good DMing.
Asking players if they intend to do something else before they have finished what they are doing is good DMing.
Hinting, or even directly stating, that you have put time and effort into planning this dungeon and could they please finish it (getting good rewards) before going on to something new is a perfectly reasonable request, so long as the players are ok with it. If the players think the current dungeon/adventure is horrible and boring, a decent DM should not force them to see it through.

One player throwing a temper tantrum because he doesn't understand the difference between a DM making sure everyone is on the same page and cheating (how the hell is this supposed to be metagaming?) is a player who needs his head slapped.
Threatening to intentionally sabotage the group and the adventure for his own petty ego is childish and ruins everybody's fun.

RPGs are a group effort and everybody has to play along. This player is basically saying that his absolute autonomy regarding his character's actions is more important than everyone else in the game, DM included.

[Talakeal]

Edit. Y'know, I really hope it's always the same guy. It would make me feel better, somehow...

These days about ninety percent of it is. We have had worse players in the best, but they have since left the group, but it seems like the quality of the remaining players has been slowly degenerating.

The player in question bitches about EVERYTHING that goes wrong, and throws a major temper tantrum every few session. I tried talking to him about it, and he claims that he has had "zero fun" in the game since I implemented a house rule limiting buffs a few months back (see my recent thread about the advantages of flight) and as a result there is "absolutely nothing" he enjoys about the game, so all the bad things stand out that much more, and he admits that he has ben going out of his way to sabotage the game to teach us a lesson.

I tried to explain logically why the house rule was necessary and how I could play to get around it, but that just resulted in him yelling insults at me and then giving me the silent treatment.

At this point I am convinced I can't make him happy, and am ready to cut him loose, but at this point in time I don't think I can do that without damage to both the rest of the gaming group and my property.