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

[Bigsta]

For those who have a tough time wrapping their head around the more liberal/modern view of metagaming, I highly recommend watching the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino masterpiece, From Dusk Till Dawn (the 1996 movie).

Warning - 20 year old spoilers below

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For the first half of the movie or so, you would have no idea this is a vampire move. There is no foreshadowing, no crazy guy talking about "all the dang vampires" in Mexico, and the main characters don't just happen to find a comic book about fighting vampires when traveling to Mexico. For the first half of the movie, it appears to be a simple gangster movie. When my brother first saw it, he told me "It was a pretty awesome crime movie and then vampires showed up for some reason."

Eventually, the main characters are assaulted by a number of vampires and are able to escape to a safe place. In your "standard" movie or TV show (such as Buffy or Supernatural) this usually causes the characters to enter the research phase. The characters (PCs) search the internet, read lore books, find a grizzled old vampire hunter, etc., to explain to them that vampires are real, and this is how you kill them.

Instead, in From Dusk Till Dawn, the following exchange occurs:

Jacob: Does anybody know what's going on here?
Seth: I know what's going on. We got a bunch of **** vampires out there, trying to get in here and suck our **** blood. And that's it. Plain and simple. I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires," because I don't **** believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what I saw, is **** vampires. Now, do we all agree that what we are dealing with is vampires?
Kate: Yes.

From there, the surviving characters begin cataloging everything they know about vampires:


Jacob: Has anybody here read a real book about vampires, or are we just remembering what a movie said? I mean a real book.
Sex Machine: You mean like a Time-Life book?

Seth: Do you have a cross?
Jacob: In the Winnebago.
Seth: In other words, no.
Scott Fuller: What are you talking about? We got crosses all over the place. All you gotta do is put two sticks together and you got a cross.
Sex Machine: He's right. Peter Cushing does that all the time.
Seth: Okay, I'll buy that.

They create wooden stakes and have the priest create holy water and vampire-killing blessed bullets. At no point in the movie does anyone or anything tell the main characters (PCs) that any of this will work. It is based solely on their own life-experiences.

Now, the counter point to this is, "it's not metagaming knowledge, they were simply making knowledge checks." However, as just about every North American has watched at least one vampire movie, read a vampire book, or herd campfire stories, any such knowledge check would have a ridiculously low DC; and if the DC is that low, what is the point of even asking for a check. Why can't a player just say, "my PC knows this because everyone watches vampire movies."

It is true that there are people who have absolutely no exposure to vampire myths. The most common example being someone with a strict religious upbringing who wasn't allowed to watch vampire movies as a child. But why should a knowledge check get to determine whether a PC has had any exposure to otherwise prevalent vampire culture. Can a failed knowledge check turn a PC Amish? Shouldn't that be up the player, and not the DM or an errant die roll?

After pooling their knowledge and creating a pretty significant weapon stash, the characters fight the vampires a final time and . . . a near TPK ensues. Why, because the challenge to the characters in the movie wasn't knowing how to kill a vampire, but to answer the question, "how do you stake five vampires that are attacking you at once in an enclosed space?"

For many, it isn't how you learn to stake a vampire (either through player or character knowledge) that is fun, but whether you can do it before the vampire stakes you.

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[Arial Black]

Were I running 5e I'd certainly rule that one out as it's written: way too generous for a 3rd-level...anything. To me that reads more like what a 6th or 7th level spell ought to be capable of. For 3rd level...maybe 1 target for a long time, or your level's worth of targets for a much shorter time (15 minutes? Half an hour?). But 10 targets for 24 hours...yeah, why wouldn't you cast that every single day even if you're in mid-desert.

As for ritual casting in general, I'd certainly take a very long hard look at it, with axe in hand, if this one spell is a typical example.

Lanefan

Wait, you don't run 5E? Do you play 5E?

*Sent to Lan-I never play the game but I've posted 6233 times on its forum-efan*

 

[CydKnight]

After reading the OP I feel it is important to consider we are only getting one side of the story. This is not to say the OP isn't being truthful about anything but I feel that the chances are relatively high that the other players and the DM may have at least a partial difference of opinion from their own unique perspective.

Aside from that, taking the story at face value, there are certainly things a DM can do in an attempt to remedy a bullying style of game play by other players and do so within the game itself. When subtle in game hints are not taken, then perhaps some things can be said outside of game play with the implication being that continuing on a certain path will have consequences going forward.

As for cheating die rolls, this can easily be remedied by making all die rolls visible to all players and the DM. I typically provide a large cardboard tray for which all player die rolls are made within full view of all. Granted some rolls may need to be made in secret but provisions can be made for such rolls when they occur.

If you can't have gameplay issues resolved to your satisfaction, there really isn't a reason to continue playing with that group if I were in your shoes.

 

[Guest 6801328]

A lot of weight seems to be being carried by notions like plot of the adventure, the adventure still working, etc.

You seem to be talking about a framework of play in which "the plot", "the adventure" is written in advance by the GM (or the module author).

Outside of that framework, I don't think there is any problem with having an adventure rely on a secret. For instance, if it's not pre-written then there is no danger of anyone discovering the secret in advance.

Yup, totally agree.

In a general sense I guess what I'm talking about is the danger of prescribed plots in which the DM expects the players following a certain course. Big Important Secrets are one symptom/manifestation of this.

 

[Maxperson]

When it comes to secret tunnels and secret treasures, I think it is a mistake to make these things mandatory, and that is I think what he was getting at. I always make secrets optional. Because what if the players don't find the secret?

If a campaign revolves around uncovering a mystery/secret, and one of the players already knows what the mystery/secret is, and acts upon it, I would say that's a mistake of either the player or the DM.

I've ran a Call of Cthulhu campaign with the same player twice. And because he already knew some of the secrets, I made an agreement with him to keep those secrets to himself, and to feel free to deliberately make other choices than he did the first time, to discover new things. I also made sure to mix up some of the twists, so there were some surprises for him too, like having one of the main villains switch sides.

One of the things you quickly learn when you write a campaign that revolves around uncovering a mystery, is that you want to spread out a lot of clues that steer the players towards the same plot point. You don't want players to get stuck. And just to make sure that the players couldn't hit a dead end in their investigation, I added a time table of events, that would trigger crucial clues/events on specific days, to push the plot forward, regardless of what the players had discovered up to that point.

I do the same thing. However, I don't think that we all enjoy the same things and that there are people out there who enjoy finding hidden secrets. It's not a mistake to for them to play that way. That means that it's not inherently a mistake to hide secrets. Whether it is a mistake or not depends entirely on the group at hand.

 

[Maxperson]

Oh, Max.

I'm going to try to explain this exactly one time. If you choose to not understand that's up to you. I've gone down this rat-hole too many times before with you.

Secrets are great. Finding out secrets are great. Games should have lots of secrets.

But secrets are vulnerable to both being revealed too easily (including by people who know them) and of not being discovered at all. Therefore if the plot of an adventure is overly dependent upon one secret...both in it remaining secret long enough, and being discovered in time...the adventure itself is too vulnerable to being spoiled.

You were doing well up until the end. The last bit should have read, "the adventure itself is vulnerable to being changed". The outcome will be different. Perhaps harder. Perhaps the PCs fail and the world is altered in such a way that they have to change their goals to compensate and overcome. It's tremendous fun to play that way for a lot of people.

I'm glad that you are not going to "explain" to me again why your One True Way is how the rest of us should play.

 

[Guest 6801328]

You were doing well up until the end.

You have no idea how highly I crave your approval.

 

[Caliburn101]

Not surprised to see the inevitable 'badwrongfun' responses to anyone being strict about metagaming.

Roleplaying is playing a role - not stepping out of it every time it makes the game less surprising, challenging or difficult.

Metagamers who bring out-of-character knowledge to their characters are flat out cheating. If there is a perceived grey area, the first thing to do as a player is to ask the GM whether it's ok for you to know the weakness of the monster that will turn the encounter into a smackdown (or whatever) - not to proceed with it like it is a right.

Your character hasn't read the DMG, the MM or the PH, and shouldn't be played like they have.

That's so obvious I'm surprised anyone has the gall to claim it is - which is precisely what metagaming does.

Let me put it into perspective for you. I as a GM have created a brand new creature not in any published material. One of my players has read the statblock etc. The next game their character acts with this insider knowledge and the monster is defeated quite easily.

Why is this not cheating? Why is it not metagaming... and if you think it is cheating/metagaming - why do you think reading out of a published book and not a GM's notes is ANY different?

People who like to metagame have no valid in-game reason to do so. If there is something about their character that gives them previously established insider knowledge it has to be agreed with the GM with in-character justifications in place.

Sure, sometimes it can happen by accident - that's fine. Doing it deliberately isn't acceptable.

 

[Maxperson]

You have no idea how highly I crave your approval.

Glad I could make your day.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Not surprised to see the inevitable 'badwrongfun' responses to anyone being strict about metagaming.

Roleplaying is playing a role - not stepping out of it every time it makes the game less surprising, challenging or difficult.

Metagamers who bring out-of-character knowledge to their characters are flat out cheating. If there is a perceived grey area, the first thing to do as a player is to ask the GM whether it's ok for you to know the weakness of the monster that will turn the encounter into a smackdown (or whatever) - not to proceed with it like it is a right.

Your character hasn't read the DMG, the MM or the PH, and shouldn't be played like they have.

That's so obvious I'm surprised anyone has the gall to claim it is - which is precisely what metagaming does.

Let me put it into perspective for you. I as a GM have created a brand new creature not in any published material. One of my players has read the statblock etc. The next game their character acts with this insider knowledge and the monster is defeated quite easily.

Why is this not cheating? Why is it not metagaming... and if you think it is cheating/metagaming - why do you think reading out of a published book and not a GM's notes is ANY different?

People who like to metagame have no valid in-game reason to do so. If there is something about their character that gives them previously established insider knowledge it has to be agreed with the GM with in-character justifications in place.

Sure, sometimes it can happen by accident - that's fine. Doing it deliberately isn't acceptable.

Have you not been reading the forums? There are a handful of people who make that claim (that I put in bold) every time this topic comes up.

You are using a very narrow (and frankly out-dated) definition of roleplaying. Which is fine, if that's what you enjoy, but you're missing out on a richer, more immersive experience.

You are also using the standard, tired argument of using the most extreme case (a player spoiling secrets for others by reading something they shouldn't have access to) to invalidate all forms of player knowledge.

You are also ignoring (or perhaps haven't read, which may be the case given that you don't think anybody has offered your argument before) the perfectly "valid in-game reason" for using player knowledge: everybody at the table knows that trolls burn, so there's no surprise to spoil, and the player in question doesn't enjoy the "let's all pretend to not know how to solve this puzzle" form of roleplaying.

"Oh?" you may ask, "What if somebody else at the table does enjoy pretending to not know how to solve a puzzle, and others spoil it?"

That's fine. The player who desires to do so can continue pretending. If the goal is to enjoy the 'roleplaying of feigned ignorance', they are free to do that. That other player should in no way be bothered by other players using player knowledge to solve the problem because his/her character would not know that other player used out-of-game knowledge. If you wouldn't be annoyed by a new player with no knowledge actually solving the challenge, then you shouldn't be annoyed by an experienced player pretending to solve it. From your character's point of view, the two are indistinguishable. You are in no way required to roleplay your character in a different way.

If, on the other hand, that other player's behavior does bother you, then you are using out-of-game knowledge. I.e., you are 'metagaming' (by your definition). So stop metagaming!

(Again, this shouldn't need to be said but it still keeps coming up: if you don't in fact know the 'secret' then the other player is being a jerk by robbing you of the opportunity to solve it for real. But that's just being rude, we don't need to issue a blanket statement about 'metagaming' in order to condemn that behavior.)