meta punishment

My game is filthy with metagaming. It almsot always turns out to be thinly veiled behind really bad role playing as well which makes it even more annoying. From "Oh i wouldnt have done that then so im going to do over the last two rounds." to the ever popular "Hey i noticed you are passing notes to the Dm, my character wanders over to yours and interrogates him out of the blue to try and pin down the topic, and figure out the message."
This last session was way out of hand, and i got pretty ticked off.
Now everyone in my game is a grown up, and everyone of us knows exactly what meta game activities are just plain cheating and tacky. The topic has been addresed before, and i have warned my players that i dont like it.
Not all of my players do it, but all of my players are affected by it. Some are getting pretty fed up.
My question to the boards is what can i do now, to teach my metagamers a lesson. They have already been warned, now they must learn the hard way.
I dont want to cheat them, or make them mad, but i want their to be consequences for them using out of game knowledge. Could really use the help, thanks.

BaldHero said:

My question to the boards is what can i do now, to teach my metagamers a lesson. They have already been warned, now they must learn the hard way. I dont want to cheat them, or make them mad, but i want their to be consequences for them using out of game knowledge. Could really use the help, thanks.

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Make them sit under the table 10 minutes for each infraction of Meta-Gaming.

Though it may be best to firmly tell a player who is meta-gaming "no, your character would not know or notice that". With the group you discribed it may be best to take private discussions to a different room.

Well, quit letting them take "do-overs' for one.

A house rule we use (players & DM) is "No Retro" (meaning no do-over). We bend it once in awhile, but it serves us well as it also speeds the game along (especially combat).

Another tool would be if you are awarding roleplaying XP along with adventure and monster-based XP. The ones who can't seem to separate character & player knowledge should get dinged there....

Just a couple quick thoughts...

I've always thought about the problem this way: in our campaign (and in most, I expect) you give reward experience for exceptional roleplaying. Its a way of rewarding your players for doing a good job of staying in character. Honestly, if your players are metagaming, have been warned about it, and are still doing it; hit them where it hurts, dock some exp.

It may sound harsh, but metagaming drives me nuts, and I certainly wouldn't put up with it after I had talked to my players out of game.

T from Three Haligonians

Show them the error of their ways!

If they metagame, and you don't like it, but they won't see why they should stop, start going meta on them: They do metagaming, you let an anvil fall on their head out of the blue. If they complain, tell them that this is how you feel all the time. Then allow them their very last redo - give them the chance to undo the metagaming, and unanvil them.

If they repeat it, don't undo the anvil, and have the next character (out of metagame reasons, the other one couldn't be raised) start at a lower level.

Sometimes you have to take extreme measures cause nothing else works.

Discourage it by hiding it better. Like, pass notes to the players that say, "Hey, buddy." Or, "don't let anyone know that this note doesn't say anything."

Ask certain players that you trust to do the same, or to have them sent back and forth. These notes will confuse the heck out of everyone, and pretty soon, they won't know which ones are which (real versus fake).

Likewise, make them roll random d20s. DM: "Jeff, roll a d20." Jeff: *rolls* DM: Thanks. Jeff: "what was that for?" DM: *evil grin*

Perhaps there could be a reason for it, perhaps not, but again, it will keep them guessing.

Another thing is to assign stupid DCs like 1. This counters the "he didn't ask for spot checks for any room except this one, so there must be a trap, or something secret in this room" problem. So, for every room, ask for a spot check, a listen check, or even a strength check to open a door. Player: "I open the door." DM: "gimme a d20 roll" Player: *rolls* "ugh, a 2" DM: "Ok, you open the door, nothing happens." Player: *confused*

Not knowing anything about your campaign, I'm jumping in blind here.

I think all good RPing (and the baseline is no metagaming) starts from the GM, who has to set a precedent that it's OK and safe to really cut loose with your imagination. So, I would suggest seeing if this route works first: At the beginnin of the adventure have the PCs meet a deeply animated NPC. The NPC should have whatever qualities you can role-play the best. For example, a gnomish circus trainer's pet gorilla (hey, we all have our gifts). The gorilla is docile enough, but can become wildly animated around fruit, shiny things that move, animals, or PCs who make a funny sound or talk loud. When the gorilla goes wild, do your best monkey impression. Walk around hunched over, balance on your knuckles, give an "Oo, oo, ah, ah!" and jump back when startled, move around the table maybe eating fleas off of one of the players. When the gnome comes in, have the gorilla run around the table trying to avoid capture by an imaginary gnome.

...Now that you have their attention, you can begin laying the plot. Just use a couple NPCs, but make them really vivid. I think a believable fascinating setting is the first defense against meta-gaming.

Next is to spring a "Roll!" That always gets their attention.

Keep a DM cheat-sheet with their spot/listen/search scores, saves, etc on hand. Basically any roll where the PC shouldn't be aware of what's going on if they fail the check. If you ask 'em for a spot check or a will save out of the blue, they'll know something's up even if they fail (See also: Order of the Stick #3)

For note interrogations and the sort, ding 'em 10-25exp per instance and tell them both that you're doing it, and why you're doing it. Basically the goal is to get the players to think "but wait, I'm not aware of that going on, so nevermind" before they go about metagaming, so you don't have to ding 'em.

7th Sea adventures GM guide has a pretty decent suggestion I intend to try...kharma dice. Put a bowl full of dice on the table, all one color. When the players ask what they are, explain that they are kharma dice. If something happens in game that affects the group negatively (say for instance the party rogue gets hit over the head in a tavern brawl and knocked out), a player (not the one in the bad situation) can pick up a kharma dice and explain what really happened that helped avoid that bad situation (within reason) e.g. the guy picked up the bottle to hit the rogue over the head, but right before he does so, the guy gets knocked by someone in the crod and accidentally drops the bottle.
Those are good kharma dice, now for the bad kharma...
When you are sitting around and a player begins to metagame "Hey, that other player is passing notes to the gm, I'm gonna interrogate him" take a die from behind your screen, thats a different color than the ones in the bowl (black would work well), toss it into the bowl and continue gaming. Next time a character (preferably one of the ones not causing the distraction) is doing something important that normally wouldn't even need to roll on, or would be able to take 10 on and easily pass (say a climb check), pick up one of the bad kharma dice out of the bowl and explain how that character just failed.

I haven't tried this yet, but I think I'm going to institute it in my game as I've been having similar problems...

BaldHero said:

I dont want to cheat them, or make them mad, but i want their to be consequences for them using out of game knowledge. Could really use the help, thanks.

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It seems the crux of the problem is that the player says something along the lines of You didn't tell me something you should have, since you didn't it is only fair that I get to do something different

I actually think this is a pretty fair complaint. However, if it's not true then the guy is being a twerp because you are telling him what he needs to know and he's causing a scene for five seconds of make-believe glory.

I'd solve it with random Spot and Listen checks and using a battlemat if you aren't already. If the player compains you can tell him that he didn't roll well enough on the check so he'll have to deal with it. The battlemat will assist in combat. Visualizing the combat is very cool and hip role-play but metagaming, do-overs, and twerps is why 3e is more miniatures intensive.

Hope this helps