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

[Lanefan]

Agree with this and I think this is what [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] was driving at but I was too thick to see it at the time. I still think an experienced DM should spot these player expectation mismatches and seek to resolve them before bad feeling erupts at the table. And by resolve that can be as simple as pointing out the problem and telling the players to come to an understanding before the next session. The DM could sit in as a facilitator of that discussion but absolutely it should be resolved by the players.

All true, but experience tells me it'll most likely end up getting dumped in the DM's lap one way or another; usually by someone simply saying "DM, can we please have a ruling on this?".

Lanefan

 

[iserith]

While not perhaps in itself a dealbreaker, were I about to start in your game and read this I'd be lowering my expectation of enjoyment considerably, as learning and discovery - including trial end error, which seems to be anathaema these days - is a large part of the fun.

Plenty of learning and discovery in my games. What we won't be doing is pretending to learn stuff we already know. Or rather, you can, if that's what you want to do. Just don't be upset if others don't want to do that.

Where your players are all of vaguely-equal experience then I'll begrudgingly concede that using player experience (for that style of play) might make sense. But if it's a mix of veteran and new players it's horrible! The new players won't get a chance to learn by doing and-or learn by failing - they'll just be told what to do and (most likely) discouraged from trying anything else particularly if it's the "wrong idea" (hey, maybe cold works on trolls just like fire does!).

We play in a very "Yes, and..." style. If a player doesn't ask for advice, he or she is not going to be told what to do. The other players will simply add onto what they want to do. "I will unleash a ray of frost on the troll!" "Yes, and I will follow that up with a fire bolt!" "Both attacks damaged the troll, but the fire seems to stop that strange regenerative ability the troll has!" The player still learned something, right?

 

[iserith]

Why? If the party's never seen a beholder before and the DM describes it (or shows a picture), why is it the DM's fault if the characters don't know about the antimagic eye before observing its effects?

It's the DM's fault that he or she created a challenge the difficulty of which can be reduced by players having foreknowledge of the creature's power. If you don't want to have that possibility, the best approach in my view is to change up the beholder or use another monster. Maybe the central eye is a reverse gravity spell.

What is so bad about learning through trial and error or trial and failure?

Nothing? But I have no interest in pretending at it.

There's the difference: I assume no character knowledge unless there's evidence otherwise (which could come from as simple a thing as a dice roll if someone says "what do I know about this creature?"...but who's to say that knowledge is correct, accurate or complete). PLAYER knowledge is utterly irrelevant...you're not role-playing yourself!

Lanefan

I assume nothing about character knowledge and leave it to the player to decide what the character believes. The character may or may not be correct in that belief which is why it's smart play to try and recall knowledge about a monster before acting on an assumption. If I think it requires a check, I will give them something useful (usually the thing they specifically want to know) on a success or something interesting (but not necessarily useful) on a failure.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't dismiss how others deal with the problem. If it works for them, great! But since it's self-evident that players can't draw upon knowledge they don't have, techniques that ensure they don't have the knowledge with which to "metagame" are clearly superior to hoping several other people don't draw upon knowledge they do have. If you care about players avoiding "metagaming," that is.

That's not necessarily true. Different techniques have multiple pros and cons, and a technique that is "weaker" against the metagame might be superior to use for those reasons, even for those who care about metagaming.

 

[machineelf]

I feel like these answers ignored my questions.

Seriously? Ok well I'm really sick right now. Massive cold, ear ache coming on. Fever. I'm going to have to bow out for now. I tried to answer your questions faithfully.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

[Bawylie]

Seriously? Ok well I'm really sick right now. Massive cold, ear ache coming on. Fever. I'm going to have to bow out for now. I tried to answer your questions faithfully.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

That's alright. Take care!


-Brad

 

[Lanefan]

It's the DM's fault that he or she created a challenge the difficulty of which can be reduced by players having foreknowledge of the creature's power. If you don't want to have that possibility, the best approach in my view is to change up the beholder or use another monster. Maybe the central eye is a reverse gravity spell.

Nothing? But I have no interest in pretending at it.

Ah, and now we come to it.

Pretending not to know, for an experienced player, is and always will be part of the game - and a fact of life - if there's to be any level of immersion in the thought process of your character(s) as they discover and learn about the game world and what's in it...and how best (or worst) to deal with it.

It's tangentially related to the lore/canon issue in those other threads: even though the player might know everything there is to know about the world of Greyhawk it's extremely unlikely (to the point of near-zero chance) a given character will have anything close to that same level of knowledge. For the character, it's a journey of discovery even though the player may have seen it all before...and the steeped-in-lore player then has no cause whatsoever to complain if that journey discovers some non-canon elements, as to the character that's just the way it is.

I-as-player know that trolls don't regenerate fire damage, but my character doesn't (yet) and until she learns it I'm goong to play it as if she doesn't know. What I know is - and AFAIC should be - irrelevant. Trial and error.

Your preferred option - which is valid, but tedious for the DM - is to change things up. Trolls become vulnerable to electricity or cold, for example, rather than fire. Red dragons breathe acid. Green dragons breathe toxic butterflies. And so on. However (and I've tried this, in the past, before abandoning the idea) what I've found is that doing this well ends up requiring a complete homebrewing of much of the Monster Manual...hence my comment about tedious; as that's a big book.

I assume nothing about character knowledge and leave it to the player to decide what the character believes. The character may or may not be correct in that belief

...but let's face it, in a game such as you propose their belief is going to be correct far, far more often than random chance would dictate.

Lan-'dragons breathing toxic butterflies...hmmm..."-efan

 

[Maxperson]

DM's fault in my view.

How are the players' preferences the DM's fault?

 

[Maxperson]

It's the DM's fault that he or she created a challenge the difficulty of which can be reduced by players having foreknowledge of the creature's power. If you don't want to have that possibility, the best approach in my view is to change up the beholder or use another monster. Maybe the central eye is a reverse gravity spell.

So pretty much every monster ever made that the DM hasn't altered in some way or designed from scratch.

 

[Lanliss]

So pretty much every monster ever made that the DM hasn't altered in some way or designed from scratch.

or, you can make challenges outside of the monster. like ledges, or a puzzle of some sort.

FWIW, I am not a good DM, barely any experience in fact. During a session a little while back, probably my 3rd or 4th false start adventure, my players ran into a pair of giant lizards. It took about 3 seconds to add a mental note for a 2d4 poison spray style attack, and to describe them as having a viscous green fluid dripping from their mouth. You don't have to make the changes ahead of time, unless it is a particularly complicated change.