Can you teach someone not to (bad) metagame - (or at least not be rude)

[DonTadow]

That's not "talking during another players turn", that's more along the lines of "kibbitzing while his character is not present", which is a different problem. If this is a recurring problem, one has to wonder why he is often separated from the party while action scenes are taking place. And, even though you may not like this, if this is happening and he is trying to kibbitz, it is probably your fault, not his. Because this sort of thing is a sure sign of boredom - and that is traceable back to the DM in almost all cases. (Not all, some characters are just boring to play, but that's rare).

Actually, a lot of his problems look like they step from being bored, which may be the consequence of the structure of his character (like the Transmuter I played once who was a specialist in buffing other characters, the party loved him, I was bored playing him after a while). On the other hand, it seems from your descriptions that your DM style effectively makes his character useless. He has invested a fair amount in lots of Knowledge skills, but you don't seem to like using them for anything but the most mundane checks.

As to talking as a player, not a character, that's just a difference of style. Many people are not comfortable talking as their character, and would rather talk about the characte rin the third person, rather than the first person. I don't consider either a big deal one way or the other. I've seen some people who get very into the "you only talk when the character talks" thing, but I have always found this overly restrictive, and in many cases, counterproductive.

This is normallly not by choice. As a matter of fact, the trap incident is one of the only time where the environment caused him not to be present. He is usually voluntarily studying ap revious room or requests to remain behind to study ruins and such. (this is a useful use of his knowledge skills)

Even with a player I trusted completely, I would never allow a feat, class, or other ability that I had never even read into a campaign that I was DMing.

I was like this last year, but this year I had a really solid group and could trust them to not overpower anything. Two of those group members had to move swiftely in september and i quickly recruited to avoid the game disrupting. I just felt myself keeping track of too much and wanted to show some more trust in my players.

I know very little about bears other than how to avoid getting killed by them. I don't know their mating habits, how to tell different species apart, how big they get, or any of the general information about bears. But I do know a handful of specific things about them. This is true for lots of areas of information. It is easy to conceive of someone knowing some specifics, but flubbing on the general category of information.

Plus, from your description, it seems like in the instance you described, he had obtained new information in between the desired check attempts, which is certainly a valid reason to check again. Have you never been unable to remember something until a particular event or bit of outside information triggered a memory?

My interpretation of knowledge is that you either know it or you don't, and not a remember check. Now, I'd go along with the check if he had sufficient information, but reading a poem o n a wall or a column does not constitute a reroll of the check.

That's not metagaming, that's interrupting. Which is rude. But a different thing. Just tell him to stop interrupting and let him talk when you are done. To tell the truth, this sort of activity indicates to me that he is bored.

Maybe he is bored, but if he is he sure has a habit of attempting to take over games.

Look at this from his perspective. You seem to have gone out of your way to shut down his character's schtick (Knowledge skills), and seem to move him out of the area when action sequences start up (otherwise he would not be away from the action when he tries to kibbitz). So he gets bored. His characters abilities, from his perspective, have been nerfed by you, and he sits on the sidelines a lot. And bored people usually start doing things to alleviate their boredom. And when you have a bored player, I usually blame the DM.

Try this: give him spotlight time. Make some of his knowledge rolls work each session. Let him test theories with his extensive Knowledge skills. Let him help out the party with his chosen area of expertise. Include him more fully in the action sequences. It seems to me that there is a strong possibility that this will clear up a lot of the other problems.



I'm guessing that it is simply that he's bored.

I try to create a spot like moment for each player every game and he's had his share. I've even increased the number of undead in the campaign world to accomodate the necromancer he's playing.

Maybe he is bored . I dont know. THe last three games I have caught him sleeping. I hadn't talked to him about it, it seemed like a medical condition. He was rolling and active one moment and he just nodded off within 2 minutes. Maybe I'll ask him if he's bored.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

My apologies to everyone. I really am seeking advice on this, I erased my posts towards felon and put in what i consider metagaming. I'll repost that info in this thread.
1. He talks during others initiative OOC and overtalks them
2. He wants to use knowledge skills to assure theories of his, not for actual knowledge rules. For instance whenever another charachter figures out something or puts two and two together, he, without fail, asks for a roll to see if his charachter figures it out.
3. He uses his player knowledge and OOC comments to the other players about how to defeat certain encounters
4. Asks questions OOC about the plot, encounters, creatures, ect during game.

1. That's just rude. I'd ask him to stop, explaining to him WHY it's rude. If he didn't get the hint, he'd be booted.
2. Don't give him the roll. "No" is a great word. So is the phrase "Now, your character wouldn't know that, would he/she?"
3. See #1.
4. See #2.

 

[Storm Raven]

This is normallly not by choice. As a matter of fact, the trap incident is one of the only time where the environment caused him not to be present. He is usually voluntarily studying ap revious room or requests to remain behind to study ruins and such. (this is a useful use of his knowledge skills)

Then this seems to me to be a combination problem - first off, he's splitting the party by wanting to remain behind, which is his fault. Second, the other players are rushing on to other things, stepping on his spotlight time, which is their fault. And finally, you are making the "research phase" take too much play time, which is your fault.

I am unsurprised that he might react by kibbitzing. He's cut out of the action partially through his fault, but partially not, and then his spotlight time is stepped on, with your assistance in doing so. You are collectively saying to him "your character's abilities are unimportant to any of us".

I was like this last year, but this year I had a really solid group and could trust them to not overpower anything. Two of those group members had to move swiftely in september and i quickly recruited to avoid the game disrupting. I just felt myself keeping track of too much and wanted to show some more trust in my players.

Trust but verify is a good rule to live by. Even if you trust a player not to overpower anything, you should have a good idea how the feat works regardless - not because you think there is something wrong, but because you should know his character's capabilities so as to know how to make challeneges and how to run the session knowing all the rules that will be in play during the session.

My interpretation of knowledge is that you either know it or you don't, and not a remember check. Now, I'd go along with the check if he had sufficient information, but reading a poem o n a wall or a column does not constitute a reroll of the check.

What do you think "Knowing" something is other than remembering it? Because I know a lot of things, but that's because I remember them. And why can modest events not trigger a memory, especially if they seem, at least tangentially, to be related? I can't count the number of times I will remember some piece of information only because my wife mentioned something tangentially related.

Maybe he is bored, but if he is he sure has a habit of attempting to take over games.

That is a sure indicator of a bored player. He has nothing to do, so he tries to do something.

I try to create a spot like moment for each player every game and he's had his share. I've even increased the number of undead in the campaign world to accomodate the necromancer he's playing.

It seems to me that the "controlling undead as a necromancer" is not what he values about his character. The knowledge skills are.

Maybe he is bored . I dont know. THe last three games I have caught him sleeping. I hadn't talked to him about it, it seemed like a medical condition. He was rolling and active one moment and he just nodded off within 2 minutes. Maybe I'll ask him if he's bored.

Boredom can make one fall asleep quickly.

 

[billd91]

That is a sure indicator of a bored player. He has nothing to do, so he tries to do something.

If a player is bored, it's not always the DM's fault. Some players come to games with unreasonable expectations of what will happen and what they will be able to do in it and then let themselves be bored when the game does not fit those expectations. They tend to be disruptive to the game as a result as they "make it more exciting" for themselves.
I've dealt with a player or two like this and they are very annoying to serious to moderately serious games. They tend to work well for Toon and Paranoia though.

 

[brehobit]

My 2 cents:
#1 Everyone plays the game differently. When I DM the game is more of a war game in some respects. They players often say things like "you withdraw, I'll move in on my action". We often have game discussions about if a certain move will provoke an AoO. In some game that would be "bad" in ours it's just how we play. I've no problem with most any play style (I prefer good RP, but I have problems doing that with all the 3.5 rules as a DM) but different groups are different.

#2 I think that things like knowing trolls need fire would be _very_ standard knowledge in most standard D&D worlds. There are stories and teaching songs etc. I'd claim that if trolls are common-ish (they've been spotted by local villagers in the last 10 years) this would be fairly common knowledge. But again, everyone does things differently and worlds differ wildly. (In my main game world _no one_ would know a troll regenerates. Not the foremost scholar on such things as trolls haven't yet been encountered by the "civilized" people or anyone they have contact with....

#3 The biggest issue is that people aren't having fun. Telling people what to do is a no-no in my book. My suggestion is to give him a limit (a word limit) on what can be said during a round. See if that helps.... If nothing works, I'd ask him (nicely) to leave.

Mark

 

[DonTadow]

Ah, found it.

Its not a feat but a trait. We are using Iron Heroes, and he has the option of having 2 traits. These traits are normally crappy +2 bonuses to skills and such, so yes I overlooked it in characher creation. However, he has a trait called master of lore. It lets you pretend to have ranks in any knowledge you do not have ranks in with ranks equalling your intelligence bonus. thus, you can roll for any untrained knowledge skill at twice your intelligence score as a bonus.

Now that I have the trait, i think i can understand it better.
1. it appears to be badly worded. It says that the player can not attempt a knowledge check once every eight hours with an untrained skill. I interpret this as him only able to use that knowledge skill once a day.

2. I think he's adding that knowledge skill to things he already has ranks in.

Part of me still think this is broken, but then again, anythings broken if someone is PG'n.

 

[mmu1]

"Telling people what their characters should do" is something I used to have a problem with, in the past.

I've definitely sometimes been guilty of making too many... well, let's call them "suggestions" (and they were, though I'll admit that, in the heat of things, it was easy for someone to not realize that I did intend them as such - and I have tried to tone it down, once I realized that), but the real trouble usually started as a result of a couple of other things:

1. The player on the receiving end of the advice/requests felt really offended by the fact anyone would dare to try to tell them what to do with their character (an attitude incomprehensible to me when you're playing a team game of any kind)

2. They would nevertheless fail to say "My character, my business." or its equivalent, and just sit there and stew - expecting the offending player to read their mind, or the DM to intervene.

These days, I usually stick to playing with friends instead of strangers, and while we generally try to keep tactical discussions in the middle of combat to a minimum, no one (as far as I know) has any particular problems if someone speaks up and says "How about some healing?", "Hold on, can you try to flank him instead?", "I bet they're immune to fire, just hit him with something sharp.", "You missed? Wait, did you remember flanking and the Bless?" or "Oh, crap, mind control... Do you have any Protection from Evil spells left?"

If anything, it just makes everyone work better together, and if things do start to get out of hand, someone will always just say "Fine, but I'm the one making this call" or "We can talk about this later, let's get on with the game."

 

[DonTadow]

Ah, found it.

Its not a feat but a trait. We are using Iron Heroes, and he has the option of having 2 traits. These traits are normally crappy +2 bonuses to skills and such, so yes I overlooked it in characher creation. However, he has a trait called master of lore. It lets you pretend to have ranks in any knowledge you do not have ranks in with ranks equalling your intelligence bonus. thus, you can roll for any untrained knowledge skill at twice your intelligence score as a bonus.

Now that I have the trait, i think i can understand it better.
1. it appears to be badly worded. It says that the player can not attempt a knowledge check once every eight hours with an untrained skill. I interpret this as him only able to use that knowledge skill once a day.

2. I think he's adding that knowledge skill to things he already has ranks in.

Part of me still think this is broken, but then again, anythings broken if someone is PG'n.

I think I'll have to ban this trait from my game in hindsight. Most of the skills in IH work just like they do in the pHB, However, knowledge is very different. In the IH system, this skill is not broken at all because knowledge is not that powerful. Whereas a +10 to all skills could result in 100 extra skill points in normal 3.5 core, it only results in at most 13 at most in the IH system.

 

[Storm Raven]

I think I'll have to ban this trait from my game in hindsight. Most of the skills in IH work just like they do in the pHB, However, knowledge is very different. In the IH system, this skill is not broken at all because knowledge is not that powerful. Whereas a +10 to all skills could result in 100 extra skill points in normal 3.5 core, it only results in at most 13 at most in the IH system.

Mixing Iron Heroes with core 3.5e D&D was probably your first mistake. The assumptions are different.

 

[DonTadow]

Mixing Iron Heroes with core 3.5e D&D was probably your first mistake. The assumptions are different.

For the most part its worked out great. This was a rare occurance where the rules don't match. I use IH classes and feats, pHB skills and an alternative magic system. a year and ahalf and this is the first real problem.