D&D General DMs: where's your metagaming line?

[Ralif Redhammer]

Way back in 2010, I was running a 4e game for some folks that had all been gaming since 2e, and in one case, my brother, who had been gaming with me since BECMI. They fought a bunch of trolls, knew they were trolls, and when they "killed" them, none of them knew to use fire or acid. I was shocked, and the fight continued with the trolls just insulting them more and more as they tried to figure out how to kill them, eventually stumbling across something that worked.

In my campaigns, I generally don't call knowing stuff like that metagaming. It's no stretch to say that people just hear stories about how you kill trolls, much like I know that bats navigate by echolocation, despite not being a chiropterologist. Adventurers will just have picked up some knowledge of monsters.

Now, stuff that they don't know, they don't know. I'm not a big fan of "monster knowledge" checks. It's one thing to assume that in this world everyone knows that beholders have an eye ray that nullifies magic, or that a dragon I describe as gargantuan is above their pay grade, but another thing that a cleric of trickery from the desert would be able to know that a Sea Spawn has an AC of 11 with an intelligence check.

I'm also okay with PCs strategizing (I've had players ask "are we metagaming?" when doing so). Even if they're all presumably bound and gagged with sacks on their heads, I'm okay with them discussing how they're going to get out of that situation. Because D&D is a group activity, and I want them to work together to solve problems.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Where I do draw the line is when a player tries to act on knowledge that their character absolutely wouldnt know. It happens very little but when it does I say no, your character wouldnt know that.

What would be an example of this?

The examples I can think of (e.g., the combination to a safe that only one NPC knows) raise two questions:
1. Is it really impossible for the player to know it? In a world with magical scrying and divination and mind reading and astral travel etc. etc. etc. is there really any such thing as impossible?
2. How did the player come by this secret information in the first place?

 

[R_J_K75]

Take the troll and fire example because it’s easy (and assume that for whatever reason, the character absolutely wouldn’t know about trolls being weak to fire).

I can't think of a single instance where I would do this. I would say that players are free to have their characters think whatever the player establishes. It just might be that they are wrong.

Perhaps I didnt write quite what I was thinking, but for the sake of argument lets say a Player encounters a troll whose character has never encountered one before has no knowledge of the creature but the player immediately blurts out Troll theyre vulnerable to fire attack it with fire. For me thats more metagaming than I'll allow. Though @Charlaquin comment above are very valid and I think in most circumstances is how Id rule.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Perhaps I didnt write quite what I was thinking, but for the sake of argument lets say a Player encounters a troll whose character has never encountered one before has no knowledge of the creature but the player immediately blurts out Troll theyre vulnerable to fire attack it with fire. For me thats more metagaming than I'll allow. Though @Charlaquin comment above are very valid and I think in most circumstances is how Id rule.

We all know trolls are vulnerable to fire and they don't even exist. I would think in a world where they actually exist this would be known.

Have you ever been attacked by a bear? But I bet you know what common wisdom says to do if attacked by a bear.

(And that's where it gets interesting, right....are you really supposed to play dead? In all circumstances? Likewise, maybe the thing about trolls and fire isn't completely true...)

 

[iserith]

Perhaps I didnt write quite what I was thinking, but for the sake of argument lets say a Player encounters a troll whose character has never encountered one before has no knowledge of the creature but the player immediately blurts out Troll theyre vulnerable to fire attack it with fire.

That's no issue for me. They can blurt out whatever they want. If they then act on it (or other members of the party do), they better hope they are right.

 

[R_J_K75]

What would be an example of this?

The examples I can think of (e.g., the combination to a safe that only one NPC knows) raise two questions:
1. Is it really impossible for the player to know it? In a world with magical scrying and divination and mind reading and astral travel etc. etc. etc. is there really any such thing as impossible?
2. How did the player come by this secret information in the first place?

In the above scenario regarding the combination for a safe. If the player just rolled up on a random safe expecting to know the combination seems pretty implausible to me, Id say no you dont know the combination. Now they could then try to figure it out immediately if they had some means to do so or they could pursue it at a later time.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Right. This is another great example of why metagaming itself isn't usually the problem.

If the company walks into a bar, and one of them attacks and kills the bartender, it's probably going to be disruptive to the game, as you point out with the trial comment. Does it really matter why the player chose that action? It's just an all-around bad decision.

It may be an indicator of ongoing problems, but that could be true even if it was an entirely IC decision, so...

 

[Bill Zebub]

In the above scenario regarding the combination for a safe. If the player just rolled up on a random safe expecting to know the combination seems pretty implausible to me, Id say no you dont know the combination. Now they could then try to figure it out immediately if they had some means to do so or they could pursue it at a later time.

I think you're missing my point here. If the player says it's 38-17-45 and they are right, how did they know that? So if the problem is that this spoils the DMs plans, the real problem is that the DM shouldn't have relied on a known "secret".

 

[Thomas Shey]

We all know trolls are vulnerable to fire and they don't even exist. I would think in a world where they actually exist this would be known.

Well, you can have the situation where they're simply so rare that "troll" is an unknown word locally, but that's not going to be the case in too many D&D games.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It may be an indicator of ongoing problems, but that could be true even if it was an entirely IC decision, so...

Yes, exactly. That's why I don't think it's a metagame problem.