Out-of-character/metagame knowledge

[Malmuria]

What's the difference between (i) the players knowing their PCs are at the dungeon/module/adventure - rather than in a dead end or a place with no treasure etc - and (ii) the players knowing they're at the place in the dungeon/module/adventure where the best treasure is?

I think in some RPGs - I've got in mind MHRP adapted to Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy, and Burning Wheel - to the extent that the question makes sense, the answer is that there's no real difference.

In B/X D&D, I think there's a difference, but it's not about whether or not metagame knowledge is a bad thing. It's about how (i) and (ii) are differently related to the process of play, and how hidden information is a part of that process.

Yeah I think with rumors/information it's part of the investigative mini-game. The reason you wouldn't just tell them that the treasure is at location x is if you think the management of information is part of the point of the game. It's sort of like the quantum ogre but with locations--they can't go to both location x and location y at the same time, and only one of them has the thing they are looking for, and they may run out of time if they make the wrong choice. So they have to piece together the clues they've assembled to make the right choice. I can see a dynamic CoC scenario running like this.

Even if the characters have all the information to make those choices in the fiction, it probably does require some amt of metagame knowledge of game conventions for the player to know how to navigate those scenarios.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Metagame knowledge is of course unavoidable. Unless one applies Snarf's methodology.*

Absent a hammer, we need to find a level of metagaming that works for us. This will vary from table to table and game to game. I think @Arilyn has hit the nail on the head (still with the hammers. I think my Freudian slip is showing.)

Write hooks that work for the characters. Or, conversely, write characters that will work with the adventure's premise.

This can be hard if you're playing a campaign without a central plot and the only thing stringing it together is the same characters. If you are, you're going to have to work to make to make it all come together.

That being said metagame knowledge can be lots of fun. It's a great way to build tension.

You can use cut scenes to let the players know what the bad guy is up to.

One time I gave two PCs different clues as to the villain's plot. The thing is the clues were both secrets of the PCs' respective families. Good role players that my boys were, their characters did not immediately seek one another out and swap info. The whole table got to enjoy knowing what the plot was, and seeing how it would unfold, but didn't have any immediate way for their characters to interfere. Much drama was had.

Players can do it themselves. When the investigator sneaks down the stairs to see what is making the strange, dare I say squamous, noise in the basement the player is very deliberately invoking metagame knowledge for an effect.

So yeah, metagame knowledge. It's a thing. Like anything in a creative art (yep, I just called RPGs a creative art) you can do it well or not.


*I'm not saying I'm against it.

 

[James Gasik]

Metagaming is part of the game. It has been from the very beginning, when adventures would call on players to use their own problem solving abilities to solve puzzles. No system for "monster knowledge" existed, so being able to recognize how to deal with trolls and other threats was a reward for gaining player experience.

When people started to take umbrage at this sort of thing, by saying "you don't know what a troll is", I pointed out a lot of the classic "trap monsters" are going to kill you unless you have some knowledge about them in game. If your wet behind the ears adventurer doesn't know how to recognize that a treasure chest isn't always a treasure chest, or that you shouldn't put on cloaks you find in dungeons, or that ghouls can paralyze you with a touch, you're not going to survive long.

And when your next character will be forced to die the same way because there is no way for you to know that some creatures are to be avoided (or that you should always carry wine around in case of mimics), that just feels like an exercise in futility.

There are degrees of metagaming, of course. I'm told there's a layer of the Abyss set aside for players who read adventures ahead of time or dare to peek at the DM's notes. And groups should hammer out a social contract on what level of metagaming they are ok with before Session 1 begins.

 

[Fenris-77]

Gaah. I have no time for people who want to decry the appearance of player knowledge in-game. Anyone who wants to try and seriously argue that they can play without that is probably fibbing. A canard, IMO.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not happy when the metagaming is, "I know the stats of this monster."

But, understanding that you're at a table, trying to have fun with others, is absolutely called for.

 

[MGibster]

I find that the application of a hammer to the head often cures that. Brain trauma can have a salutary effect on metagaming.

You're not allowed to GM anymore.

But, understanding that you're at a table, trying to have fun with others, is absolutely called for.

You may GM though.

 

[kenada]

Getting rid of this particular sort of metagame knowledge requires fairly radical departure from these typical approaches to framing.

Am I metaposting if I assume the departure looks something like a certain, story-creating approach and reply accordingly?

The only way I can see to avoid this “problem” is by shifting your agenda away from doing traditional adventures. That’s what I do in my game (D&D-adjacent but not traditional), but I suspect it’s actually a desired part of the game. If you’re going to tell a story, then you need to signal to everyone that it’s time to get started, and accepting the adventure hook is part of that ceremony.

 

[Li Shenron]

Oh yeah I go to extreme lengths making sure my players aren't metagaming over quest awareness... usually, I do not even invite them over to the game

 

[James Gasik]

Since most of the people I play with are younger, and haven't been playing since the AD&D era, I'm usually the "old man" that they look to to explain lore and what the heck they are fighting. While I don't have any problems explaining stuff away from the table, at the table, I always look to the DM first before going on about the difference between regular Orcs and Gray Orcs, or why that cute little bunny rabbit with the unicorn horn should probably be left alone.

I do sometimes get excited when I realize what we're up against is a classic monster from the days of yore. My most recent memory of that was when the DM described a bunch of "flying heads with bat wings for ears" and I was like "holy sh-, VARGOUILLES!"

Even the DM was like "wait, you've heard of these? I thought they were made up for this adventure!"

 

[pemerton]

understanding that you're at a table, trying to have fun with others, is absolutely called for.

The OP does describe something a bit more specific than that.

I don't see any problem with the traditional way of dangling hooks in front of players, who usually grab hold because they know that they are in a game.

The OP isn't meant to be a criticism of this method. In the most recent three sessions of RPGing that I GMed (all Torchbearer), the start of play involved me describing to the players where their PCs were, and what was interesting about it. (The players then chose their PC goals.)

What the OP is saying is that this sort of technique seems at odds with an anti-metagaming/anti-OOC knowledge agenda.

Whilst breaking out of the adventure/story stereotypes can be great and can keep things fresh there is a reason that some tropes and beats exist. If you see a gun in act 1 and it isn't used in act 3 you can feel cheated. If an elf drops dead in front of you clutching an ancient scroll you expect it to be more than a shopping list.

Sure! Again, the OP isn't hostile to cues and foreshadowing and other "storytelling" techniques. Just saying that they don't seem consistent with an opposition to players acting on metagame/OOC knowledge.

This is something that I still struggle with, even with games designed with it in mind. And although I don't mind introducing elements that we would call "hooks" or similar (I tend to think of them as prompts), the ones I like tend to be more clearly calls to action, and I tend to prefer them at the very start of a campaign, and then not at all after that. I think an overt call to action works better than these kinds of contrived scenarios that are meant to catch the characters' attention and then slowly draw them into adventure.

It is interesting however, to think of non-traditional ways to get the session rolling. Having the events tie directly into the players' motivations or even jobs can work.

One non-traditional way is to have the player write the call-to-action for their PC.

The traditional way in Classic Traveller is to have the players roll for a patron encounter (throw 5+ on one die, or 4+ if you have Carousing-1+, checking once per week). The players still have metagame knowledge, but it's a bit narrower than the examples I gave in the OP - in the fiction that patron quickly reveals that they are looking to hire a team of "specialists", and the players' knowledge that there won't be another patron encounter check for a week corresponds at least roughly to the character's knowledge that the number of patrons (ie people with ready cash to pay freelancers to do weird things) is finite.

I tend to share hawkeyefan's preference for some sort of immediacy over the slow drawing in.

The only way I can see to avoid this “problem” is by shifting your agenda away from doing traditional adventures.

I've never GMed Apocalypse World, but I think it has an interesting set-up for the first session: rather than a GM hook for an adventure, we learn about the PCs in their world, and rely on the rules for narrating consequences, especially failures, and for framing (ie soft moves followed by hard moves) to make things happen.

I've used a somewhat similar approach in Burning Wheel.

The "metagame" dimension comes in via the rules for framing and for consequence narration, which direct the GM to do these things in a particular sort of non-"neutral" way.