D&D 5E How to deal with Metagaming as a player?

Funnily enough the Angry GM touches on this topic in his latest article: http://theangrygm.com/winning-rpgs/ . Specifically the section titled "Don't be an a$$hole".

It sounds like the OP is the whipping boy for this particular group of highschool friends. I don't think metagaming is the problem.

Some character/player knowledge issues can be satisfactorily explained by simple character knowledge.

Adventurers are often social creatures. They meet in taverns, have drinks, swap stories and dispense advice. If trolls are common then every experienced adventurer is going to know that fire is best against them, so they are going to advise the less-experienced adventurers to use fire. Same with slimes and blunt weapons, rust monsters and wooden weapons, etc.

In many cases, when a player asks the GM, "Does my character know that trolls are vulnerable to fire?", a good answer is, "It's your character, you tell me."

Character knowledge of events the player witnessed but the character did not can be dealt with by privacy (passing notes, taking players into other rooms). These things shouldn't, however, be required - we should be able to expect the people at the table to act with good faith.

It's not hard, having your characters act on what they know, instead of what you know. Authors and playwrights and actors have been doing it for thousands of years.

AaronOfBarbaria said:

This is true. It is also why WotC's definition is actually useful - it's an evolution of a word that used to mean practically nothing, because it would do no more than scare people into worrying about doing a particular thing that the outcome ended up nearly almost always being that they would do that very thing (base what actions a character can take on the player's knowledge, rather than the character's) in their attempts to avoid it.

Which is what happens every time someone labels an action as metagaming that didn't actually require the knowledge the player had in order for the character to make.

It becomes policing the player's thoughts, rather than making sure the character isn't doing things they couldn't.

But WotC's new definition? It's actually clear and easy to use, and doesn't result in situations like my favorite go-to example of why the old definition of metagaming is useless to the point of the word being meaningless - the brand new player with no knowledge at all about the game can attack a monster with a flaming log because it attacked while they were tending the fire at camp and no one bats an eye, but an experienced and knowledgeable player is "metagaming" if they do so because the DM knows the player knows what a troll is and/or that this monster is a troll rather than something else.

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The other definition still applies to 5e, though.

Maxperson said:

The other definition still applies to 5e, though.

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Says you. Unless you have been appointed high arbiter of all definitions without me knowing it, I'm not seeing how you saying it's true isn't entirely countered by the evidence that this other definition is not found anywhere in the 5th edition texts.

Lanefan said:

And consistent with what the character has been known to do in other situations, yes.

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What a character has done or would do in other situations is not relevant to what the character is doing in this specific situation. That's just an artificial limiter applying to the character's actions that results in an action one player could take without issue (because they are known not to have the knowledge you are worried is being acted upon, or because they've intentionally skirted your arbitrary restriction by playing a character with as little consistency to their behavior as is possible) become forbidden to another player for out-of-character reasons.

Lanefan said:

Maybe. Maybe not.

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No. Definitely not.

Lanefan said:

Try this one: Dungeon crawl in the mountains, no lakes or rivers nearby, pparty has stopped while the Thief scouts ahead. DM tells everyone* what happens to the Thief - far enough away from the party that nobody could notice (or all such rolls fail) the Thief triggers a trap that drops him into deep water, and he drowns. Ten minutes later and long past due, all the characters know is that the Thief hasn't returned; yet the players know why. If the party decide to cautiously scout ahead and look for the Thief, going slow and searching or poling for traps or hazards makes sense. I rather think everyone's on board with me so far.

But if someone says "The Thief fell into water, so I'm casting Water Breathing on myself"? That's gone beyond the pale; the player has used player-only knowledge to determine what his character does.

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Turn the scenario around a bit. Imagine that the DM and the Thief actually went in the other room and none of the players left at the table knew anything about the thief drowning.

Can a character cast water breathing without that being considered metagaming?

Lanefan said:

* - this is mistake #1; the DM-Thief interaction really should have all been by note, or out of the room.

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Mistake #2, in my opinion, would be that the dungeon has drowning traps and is completely devoid of hints at the presence of unseen water.

Lanefan said:

True enough. But if every other time said character has needed a dangerous and destructive thing in hand she's reached for her longsword it fails the smell test if just this one time she happens to pull out a torch...

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I'm not talking about having to choose between A) pull your sword, or B) pull a torch. The scenario was specifically the choice between A) go get your sword, or B) use the burning log (or torch as you put it) that is already in your hand.

Going out of your way to use fire because in my scenario might be viewed as not playing in good faith (depends on if your group are policing your thoughts to enforce "consistent behavior" or if they think it is fine that a player says "I've got oil and torches I haven't used as weapons yet, so why not now?"), which is why the fire in the scenario is always already the thing with which the character is interacting.

Lanefan said:

Mostly true, yes; with the difference being I largely don't mind using the same term for all of them except outright fraud-cheating as noted above.

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Yeah, everyone has a different tolerance for how imprecise their language is. I personally wish everyone had a lower tolerance for imprecise language, because if more precise language is used less time is spent feeling out what other people mean by the words they've used, and less misunderstandings happen, so conversations are more rapidly productive and, unless hostility is the intent, less hostile.

Lanefan said:

The greatsword/log one, however, is more interesting. The sword clearly hurts more when it connects with a foe

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That's not how hit points have ever worked in D&D. Cause more hit point reduction =/= causing greater damage or pain to a body if contact occurs.

In the in-game world, getting a greatsword slashed into your body probably kills you, and getting a burning log jammed in your face is likely to do the same. Their different intensities of effect upon HP are an entirely out-of-character concept.

AaronOfBarbaria said:

Says you. Unless you have been appointed high arbiter of all definitions without me knowing it, I'm not seeing how you saying it's true isn't entirely countered by the evidence that this other definition is not found anywhere in the 5th edition texts.

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You're the one claiming it doesn't apply here. How about you prove it? That it doesn't appear in 5e texts is not proof by the way. Lots of definitions are not in 5e texts and still apply. Thousands of them.

Maxperson said:

You're the one claiming it doesn't apply here. How about you prove it?

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I am under no obligation to prove the opposite of a claim you've made. I've stated my own position and provided what evidence their is to support my position.

You've provided your position, and I've asked for evidence to support it... and you are now deflecting. Me not satisfying your request to prove you wrong doesn't make you right.

AaronOfBarbaria said:

You've provided your position, and I've asked for evidence to support it... and you are now deflecting. Me not satisfying your request to prove you wrong doesn't make you right.

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I've shown evidence. There are literally thousands of definitions that apply to 5e that are not defined in 5e. Not being defined by 5e is not any sort of proof that the definition used by most games for decades is not applicable to 5e.

Your turn.

Maxperson said:

Your turn.

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At this point it is clear you attempting to "win" rather than to have a productive discussion. So rather than do something like arbitrarily insist your evidence isn't actually evidence like you've done, I'm just going to say this:

Stay classy, Max.

I'm out.