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

[Crothian]

Which is what i've been doing, and it is mildly annoying to me. However, I have 5 other players. I've received an email from 3 of them asking me to get him to stop. One of the emails was really scathing and i can see how it was taking away from the players enjoyment.

Tell the player all of this. It might help him understand and aid him in altering his own habits.

 

[DonTadow]

Not quite. You're trying to get him to follow some advice that the DMG hands out, not a rule that it imposes.



Well, you're reverting to type very quickly, with that snide little chip on your shoulder coming out right away.

Again if you love metagaming then this is not the thread for you.

The player interrupts players when they talk, gives him advice he knows as a player not a character, interupts tactics with his own tactical suggestions, tries to ask me knowledge check s (consistently) to confirm his theory on any adventure seed or plot. Tries to make knowledge checks to gage information that other players worked hard to obtain, ect.

The incident that boiled the scathing emailer off was when the party was trying to open a door and one of them had found out some information. The metaplayer wanted to use the knowledge to open the door, even though he was off researching in another part of the dungeon. when i said no he wanted to roll a knowledge check to see if his player would have figured out what the other player would have. I said no again.

 

[Crothian]

Not quite. You're trying to get him to follow some advice that the DMG hands out, not a rule that it imposes.

Ignoring the snide comments you keep making: DM's impose rules, the DMG just presents them.

 

[el-remmen]

/mod

How about we get to the matter at hand, providing Don with productive advice, if we have any - or perhaps giving him a different way to look at things that he might provide his other players.

Note that I did not say snipe at each other and fling thinly veiled insults.

Please continue, but consider this a warning. Also consider editing your previous posts if upon reflection you realize you are violating the spirit of the ENworld rules.

 

[Felon]

Ok, well felon. Then ,if the ...rulebooks ot the game, is just advice, then i want him to follow the advice of the DMG. I'm just going to ...oh what the heck... I'm going to call this advice rules considering its in the rulebook.

You seem to have a fondness for absolutes, but I don't think it's hard to separate where the DMG gives advice and where it's providing actual rules. Delineating us the effects of quicksand? That's a rule. Telling us that the game shouldn't be played as if nobody but the players know what magic is? That's advice.

 

[grimwell]

No, Don, I'm afraid I'm thinking the player should kick the DM.

You are incorrect in this, and your other antagonizing posts. When a DM and the vast majority of the players at a game table are in agreement that the actions of one single individual at the table is making the group experience worse, that person is the problem. Not the DM.

Call them rules, guidelines, whatever you want -- but the buck stops at the gaming table where this one guy is making the game a pain for everyone else. Bashing the DM who comes here looking for help because you disagree that there is a 'right' way to play is pointless. Yes, in a world of theory there is no 'right way to play' the game. You are 100% correct. Absolutely agree with you that whatever floats an individuals boat is perfectly fine with me.

That said, when a players boat floater and a DM's boat floater are in conflict, somethings gotta give. I'm always going to be on the side of the person running the game. It's their table. If you don't like how they run a game you find another table. If, as a DM you find your table empty then you either find new techniques or quit. This guy's metagaming is not welcome at the table, he needs to either adapt his playing style to fit in with what everyone else enjoys, or take a walk if he can't enjoy that. What should not happen is a continuance of the current situation where one person is fouling the experience of four others.

My advice, if the guy is a nice guy and it's worth sticking it out while he learns the tables style, have a one on one with him before every game (five minutes of smoking, bs, whatever) to remind him about the table rules. Then go one on one with each disgruntled player and let them know that he's bene talked to and is working on it. Ask them to be tolerant while their friend tries to adapt to the groups style.

Adult conversation between adults can get this done over the course of short time.

 

[Storm Raven]

Yes, I am hoping he plays the game the right way. Like any game, there are rules and one of the rules is no metagaming. Thats in the 3.5 DMG book by the way. So what i want him to do is teach him how to follow the 3.5 rules.

Well, one thing yuou need to let everyone here know is what you consider metagaming. I have seen many people with wildly different interpretations of what metagaming is, and what it is not. I doubt if much of the advice you are going to get will be of much value unless everyone is one the same page as to what "emtagaming" is in the context of your campaign.

And on the other point, my position is that the information in the DMG about metagaming is not a rule. It is fluff. If it were a rule, it would be in the SRD, and it is not. It would have also given some sort of definition of metagaming, and it does not (and this has resulted in the many varying interpretations gamers use when they say "metagaming").

 

[Bayushi Seikuro]

My two cents are maybe there's just, obviously, differing opinions on what people want from the game.

The other thing, as a fairly experienced DM and player, I know sometimes one or the other overlooks things.

Sometimes, I need someone to 'metagame', to actually try to use their skills. There are plenty of skill options that are vaguely helpful to one another - like the synergy bonuses - that I could see them as being a penalized-default, the way GURPS works it.

From the player end of things, I was in a Legend of the Five Rings game. I was a samurai on a warrior pilgrimage; I'd set down my name and heritage to go prove myself against the world. We were stationed in a tiny town, Mimura. Since there was an Akodo dojo there (one of the families of the Lion Clan), and I was an Akodo pre-pilgrimage, and since my task was to prove myself... I went in and made an open challenge. Got through a few contenders. Beat the snot out of this pretty samurai-ko in a very unsportsmanly way.

Fast forward a few months. A few npcs had joined the party, and I kept trying to put the moves on this Crane Clan samurai-ko. Over and over. Finally, on a smoke break, the guy running the game said, 'Don't you remember Unaki?' "Umm... should I?" "Yeah, she was the girl you choked out in the dojo."

Literally, three months of play time - so maybe 6 months in-game - and I'd never put two and two together.

Like I said, if you're sure you can remember when skills are appropriate to be used, I would institute a rule that only you can tell someone to roll a skill. AND APPLY IT TO EVERYONE. Don't let any of the other players chime in with 'Hey, I have Alchemy too, can I roll?'

Seems fair. And no, I'm trying to be helpful. I don't know if this will end well though.

 

[Felon]

Call them rules, guidelines, whatever you want -- but the buck stops at the gaming table where this one guy is making the game a pain for everyone else. Bashing the DM who comes here looking for help because you disagree that there is a 'right' way to play is pointless.

At the outset of Don's post, we lacked specifics as to what this guy's egregious offenses were. It was just another ruffled-feathers "badwrongfun" post that presupposes error on a player's part. We still don't really know what the offenses are, but we now hear that other players have emailed the DM on the sidebar about it. That's enough to indicate there's a problem of some sort with that player, but is it overbearing behavior on the player's part, interrupting them and trying to dominate the show, or something that can actually be construed as metagaming?

 

[Crothian]

At the outset of Don's post, we lacked specifics as to what this guy's egregious offenses were.

We don't need to. We give him the benifit of the doubt and help him. It works much better then argueing with him.