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

[iserith]

Your responses are starting to sound pointed and personal. I put a lot of effort into preparing my games and my players show up every week and have fun. We don't run into the problems that you think we do, and we've had a good group that has enjoyed each other's play style for years.

Maybe tone down the personal attacks a little bit. If you didn't mean to make them, it sure sounds like you are implying them. We can have an interesting debate on the nature of role-playing without attacking each other. I'm pretty sure I've said to multiple people in this thread that I'm sure their games are fun and if everyone in their group enjoys it then they are doing something right.

I'm not attacking, nor stating you're not prepared or not having fun as a group. I'm asserting that if you don't want players to "metagame," then don't run your games such that it can happen or that there is no benefit to it or possibly risk. I think that's a better approach than relying on four or five other people (or more) to pretend they don't know something. You can control how you run your game. You can't control how other people arrive at decisions for their characters and why would you even bother trying?

 

[machineelf]

I'm with Iserith.

I'm with you (secondhander) on:
- Don't be inconsiderate.
- All forms of RPGing are legitimate; play the way you want at your table.

Where I take offense is the "...but you're not roleplaying if you do" part.

Personally, I don't think it's a very interesting sort of roleplaying to, in effect, be told, "This is how your character would behave. Act that out for everybody else at the table." That's sort of like improv, but it's even a particularly narrow form of that because what you can act has been constrained. (Somebody...I think it might have been Saelorn...went so far as to say that wood-elves will behave certain ways. As if it's somehow written in stone how a wood-elf sees the world.)

I'm honestly confused how you concluded that is what I think. I don't think people have to be constrained in how that act out their character. I assume it's my fault for not being clear, but let me give it another shot.

This started when Aaron and I were discussing an example, where a rogue is separated from his party, wanders into a dungeon, and is drowned by a water trap. All the players are at the table to hear the DM run this situation with the rogue. But of course, their players were not there in the dungeon at the time. So, a few hours later in game time, the rest of the players go into the dungeon, and the mage, right before getting to where the water trap is, casts breathe underwater, even though the mage perceived no signs that there was a trap there to begin with, much less a water trap.

All I was saying was I feel personally that that is a clear example of metagaming, and the wizard should not have known about the trap, and to prepare the perfect spell immediately beforehand is a form of meta-game powergaming, and (in my opinion) not in the spirit of role-playing.

But, not everyone agrees with me about role-playing and whether that was wrong or not. So to each their own, play it how you want to play it. I was just giving some arguments to back up my belief.

But I never, ever said the way a person role-plays their character in general has to be constrained. If you want to have a wood elf have whatever traits or personality you want, by all means go for it. Totally allowed in my games. All I'm saying is, it's a little off-putting to me that a character can just know a trap is there by fiat just because they overheard the DM telling another player's character about it earlier.

That's all. Not sure why people think I'm saying you can't create your character and backstory however you want. And again, I'm not saying you have to do it my way regarding the meta-game knowledge, I'm just saying this is how I and my group do it, and these are the reasons why.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You mean, a check to establish a character's knowledge such that it justifies an attempt at an action? I'm going to have to pass on that. A fictional action described by the player requires no justification in my view. If Aaron says he wants to swing a burning log at a troll, then all I get to say is what happens when he tries. Maybe I call for an attack roll to see if it hits or a call for a check to see if he's burned in the process. Or maybe he takes a little damage, but dishes some out on a hit. Whatever. What I don't do is roll to see if Aaron's character can even think of trying to do that.

Now, if Aaron wants to try to recall what lore he's heard about trolls, then that might call for an Intelligence check in which case I would tell him something useful on a success or something interesting on a failure. And that's smart play for Aaron because he doesn't actually know if I changed those trolls such that fire doesn't turn off their regeneration - maybe it's just acid that does it with these particular trolls. Maybe fire doubles the regenerative capabilities of this specie of troll or just makes it mad, giving it advantage on its next attack. If he just assumes fire's the best tool, he's taking a risk. By doing it this way, I've actually made "metagaming" dangerous and avoiding the negative consequences of bad assumptions is exactly why the 5e DMG says that players should avoid "metagame thinking."

Contrast that with just telling people who "metagame" that they aren't "roleplaying" and tell me which of those two approaches you think is more effective.

See, the thing here is that you both seem to agree that 'metagaming' (a phrase used here to mean using player knowledge inappropriately) is bad. You differ, maybe (its actually unclear), on the solution to this problem. And here you're clearly saying that his way is worse than yours, natch, and we should all think so.

 

[machineelf]

I said we "may disagree." And I meant "we" as in various people in this thread.

My comments are not meant to be personal or attacking in nature. Not sure why you're being short with me in that reply.

 

[machineelf]

You might not be a hard-nosed DM, but you've basically told a bunch of people on the forum they aren't roleplaying. I don't think it's surprising that some people don't care for that..

I've told people what my opinion is on what role-playing means. It's simply my opinion and this is a forum where we discuss ideas. I've never intended to hurt any one's feelings or be mean.

 

[iserith]

In some groups, taking people aside or using notes is largely just a waste of time that slows down the game, and it's unnecessary because the players are adept at playing the role they have and using whatever information they think makes sense for that character.

No doubt it's slower and I don't use this approach, but for someone who really cares about "metagaming," enough to tell a bunch of strangers they aren't actually roleplaying, then it's self-evidently more reliable than counting on X number of other people compartmentalizing information. If I don't know that the thief ran afoul of the water trap, I can't possibly "metagame" my way out of it and thus no need for anyone to police others or even themselves.

A general rule of thumb is that if the players are still in the midset that D&D is something you can "win," and "success" is their primary goal, then you probably want to limit information when appropriate. That way they can fight for that success and come by it honestly. But I'm in total agreement with Iserith here: actually limit that knowledge, don't impose arbitrary constraints on the players.

But when players get out of that mindset and realize that some of the most memorable and entertaining moments are ones of total catastrophe and failure, allowing more "metagame" knowledge to leak in is just going to lead to more entertaining sequences of events. They pull the "mystery" lever intentionally, because they think it will be more fun to run from the rolling boulder than to just walk by.

You can always win or lose at D&D. It's just the goals that differ.

 

[Caliban]

I said we "may disagree." And I meant "we" as in various people in this thread.

My comments are not meant to be personal or attacking in nature. Not sure why you're being short with me in that reply.

Well, since you replied directly to me instead of to "various people", I naturally assumed your comments were directed to me. I was wondering if you'd confused me with someone else, or if you and I have had a discussion that I'd forgotten about.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

See, the thing here is that you both seem to agree that 'metagaming' (a phrase used here to mean using player knowledge inappropriately) is bad. You differ, maybe (its actually unclear), on the solution to this problem. And here you're clearly saying that his way is worse than yours, natch, and we should all think so.

I don't care if players "metagame." From my Session Zero document: ""Metagaming," defined as using player skill or knowledge that a character might not necessarily have, is fine. I want you to draw upon your skill as a player to try and succeed. However, remember you are still obligated to make choices in accordance with (1) above. As well, assumptions can be risky so it's skillful play to verify your assumptions through in-game actions before making choices based on them."

("(1)" refers to making choices that are fun for everyone and contribute to the creation of an exciting, memorable story - the "win conditions" of D&D 5e as stated in the Basic Rules.)

I assert that it is self-evident that it is impossible for a player to draw upon knowledge they don't have. And that if you really care about players not acting upon knowledge the character is not established to have, the most sure way to achieve that is to make sure the player doesn't have that knowledge. That does not seem like a very controversial statement to me.

 

[machineelf]

Meanwhile, of course your players have every incentive to do it! Find those warp tubes and skip by things that could be harmful. That's rational! That's a no-brainer!

I want my players to be able to find the warp tubes and get past them. My posture as a DM is not to be at odds with my players. I view my role as one who is working together with my players to tell an interesting story. And every interesting story needs conflict, so I supply conflict in the form of traps, monsters, and other obstacles. I hope they succeed, but I hope it's not too easy all the time, because that would make for a boring story.

So we've got cross-incentives here. And if you can't remove the warp tubes, you've got to make it so that even looking for them is a form of cheating.

I don't get why you think that I think this. If they look for ways to remove the warp tubes, that is roleplaying. It's not cheating at all. All I want is them to play their characters with the knowledge they have. So let's say that if there is a special procedure were you have to type in UDUDLRLRBASS to remove the warp tubes, and one character has learned the code, but he's separated from the others in the group and is taking a shuttle to get back to the main ship, and the intercoms are out, so he is racing against the clock to get to the ship and tell them the procedure to remove the warp tubes before they explode, it would seem wrong if another player just said, "well let me try ... oh I don't know, UDUDLRLRBASS and see what happens." Obviously that player only said that because he overheard me as the DM tell the character on his way back in the shuttle the code. And there is no way the second player would just randomly select that code. It doesn't seem wrong to you if a player were to do that?