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

[DonTadow]

which actually has been the cause of Don's troubles for the last two years. Every two month's or so he posts a new problem with one of his players, with the caveat that he can't/won't get rid of his problem players.

This is so very honest. Before him Ihad two problem players. The one player i ended up booting. The other player is ok. Ironically, she was the person who recruited the powergame/metagame player. She's been easy to deal with since he's come in. She's probably his only supporter right now.

If you have a problem with the way a friend is acting, TELL THEM. If they're a friend and you're request is reasonable, they'll change. If the request is reasonable and they don't change, then they aren't much of a friend in the first place.

Trust me I dont play these things passive. I've flat out told him three weeks ago on the phone and in email to stop metagaming. After last weeks session I asked him after session and pointed out instances. His reason is that his charachter drives him towards that playstyle. I told him that several of the players have expressed that your charachter dominates the game. Its just not working.

These days though im not too much beneath booting a problem player. Like if i look at what i took last year, i wouldn't take it in a minute this year. However, boothing this player poses a problem, in that he is attached at the hip to one of the older players of the group, thus I'd rather work with him than against him. After all, this is a game.

 

[DonTadow]

And my response to this is - and . . . ? This doesn't seem like a problem, if his character has an idea what the other character could do, why is this not something that someone would be able to communicate?

There are a couple problems. One is that he is talking as a player not a charachter. His chrachter knows little of divine magic. Second, a lot of these instances happen when the player can not possibly communicate this to the other player. IE he triggered a trap last session and was trapped underneath it for 10 rounds. This was on the third floor. ON the first floor a sceptre was attacking the party. He doesnot say "hey do this". He'll say "oh thats aspectre they do such and such a thing".

Well, your first problem here is allowing a feat you apparently didn't research yourself first. Blame yourself for that, not him. Assuming that the feat is kosher, and allowable, my response is, once again - and . . . ? So he's good at knowing things. Why is this a problem? More to the point, why is this metagaming?

I take the blame, but in my defense I try to give the players some trust. I have not had a player powergame in so lo
ng I didnt even recognize it. Thats my own naivity.



O

kay. Where is the metagaming here? His character has a theory. He has failed a roll in the past, but he has gotten new information since then. he wants to use his knowledge skill along with the new information. I still don't see metagaming in your example.

If you don't know what cats are, how can you make a roll to figure out something is a lion. Essentially he failed his general knowledge of the thing so he can't possibly know specific knowledge of it. This is part of the problem and results to him asking for knowledge roll after knowledge roll.

Well, first of all, I'm not sure what you mean by "ask them for those instances".

Second, he's not actually doing any harm here, unless they pay attention to him. If the monsters don't react the way he thinks they should, that's his problem, not yours. If you just ignored his whispering, and didn't worry about the misinformation, then the problem would stop by itself from lack of results. He's really only causing himself problems here, assuming the rest of the party knows enough to ignore him.

I was responding to the instances of the knowledge check to identify basic animals. At this level, I wave that check because the pcs are experienced adventures. He's annoying the players and slowing the game down. While they're talking he is talking to them, meaning that someones not listening. Worse yet he is commenting to me or someone else.



At that point make him roll knowledge rolls to see if he does. That cures the problem right there.

These are easily ignored, or answered by a "you don't know" (as in "what class is X player playing" is easy to answer with "you don't know, he doesn't have it stamped on his forehead", and so on).

These problems are likely to self-correct quickly. Just ignore them. Stop drawing attention to them. He will lose interest in asking and getting no answer, or answers devoid of information. He will stop trying to pass on creature stats when it turns out not to work. And so on.[

This is what I am doing now, and this is what i am tired of doing. Every encounter, on every other round i haveto say you don't know. It's like its not clicking. It got bad because it got to the point where i am not even giving other players any information.

Immediately what I decided to do is to ask all knowledge rolls and question be issued to me on paper in game.

The problem is that different people have different ideas about what is "in-character' knowledge and what is "out-of-character". And, because the game cannot function without out-of-character knowledge being used all the time, the real defintion really boils down to using out of character knowledge inappropriately. And different people have wildly different ideas concerning what is appropriate and what isn't.

Thats the thing. I don't like to pull rules out my but. I clearely list in the game's primer what metagaming is. He has admitted to metagaming. We've talked about it and his response is that tendsto be a problem with my charachters. There is no miscommunication on this one. Thats whats boggling me.

Me accepting him into the group initially was a peace offering between the previous problem player of mine and myself. After growing extremely tired of a particular problem, I finally laid out that she couldnt return until she figured out how to play well with others. I was a bit mean and hurt her feelings during the conversation. I apologized, we talked, think we came up with a plan so that her charachters wouldn't kill other players, and one of the things she asked for was the meta/power gamer to join the group. We needed a player so i accepted. I'd hate to renig on something without trying my best. Plus the guys a preacher.

Do I want that kinda karma

 

[Aaron L]

You should take a VERY close look at that feat, because I'm pretty damn sure no such feat exists that gives you a +10 to all Knowledge checks.

 

[Parlan]

You should take a VERY close look at that feat, because I'm pretty damn sure no such feat exists that gives you a +10 to all Knowledge checks.

It sounds like Jack of All Trades, which merely allows you to roll a check for untrained knowledge skills with DCs over 10, but doesn't give any bonus to the roll. (so it allows a straight Int check)

Come to think of it, a previous player I gamed w/ had this feat and was annoying about it too... *constantly* demanding Knowledge rolls.

 

[TheEvil]

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.

Based on your description, I would call him an obnoxious player, not a metagamer. What it sounds like you might try is explaing that when he interupts others, he is being rude. You might futher point him to the section on what knowledge skills cover what and if it isn't in there, that it isn't helpful in this situation. On the other hand, if he did invest skill points in knowledge skills, you are kind of screwing him if you don't let him use them when it is a legitimate situation. The only part that really looked like hardcore metagaming was the info his character wasn't around for. I thought you handled that part fine.

 

[Nightfall]

Can you teach someone not to meta-game?

Sure...same way you can teach some leaders to not follow stupid advice.

It's possible, just not always likely.

 

[Janx]

...
Without metagaming, any at all, you would be unable to frame a scene and resolve it. Without some outside understanding of what "should" happen, "roleplaying" would be at best an exposition of arbitrary actions, and even then, I would ask you why you were playing.

Character creation would be impossible, as would game world and adventure design. Also, there is a good chance any two PCs would simply never meet.

This is one reason, I propose talking about Don's problem without using the word metagaming. "That word, I don't think it means what you think it means"....

There are some forms of metagaming that are good, and needed (for most RPGs).
The players must make PCs that would travel together (else, no game).
The players must limit doing things that detract from fun for others (else, no game).
If the player wants to keep playing, they can't leave the party (else, no game).

While I have no doubt somebody will find fault with these metagame rules, I posit that they are less rules, more of description of cause and effect. If you make a PC that doesn't want to leave his house, then he WON'T be joining the party. If you are mean to the other PCs, the other players will kill your PC. If you decide your PC wants to leave the island without the rest of the party, then you are leaving the game/session. It's pretty obvious.

As players, we have to realize these metagame realities, and play accordingly. Having a rule of "No Metagaming" is too broad to be useful, as clearly, there are some metagame behaviors that are needed to have a game occur. I suspect Don has a more specific list of behaviors he's forbidding. Because of that, I suggest that you avoid the word metagaming when discussing it. It doesn't clarify the situation, as it has too broad of a scope.

 

[Engilbrand]

Have him make a new character. Poof! He says that his character is leading to his play style. He keeps demanding checks because of all of his knowledge. His character is powered up and has illegal feats. Have him make a new character and work with him on it. Make him show you what he wants to take. Don't allow another character with numerous knowledges. At the most, he can take one knowledge IF it makes sense with the class and character. That should help a bit. I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up. Then again, if he makes a rogue and starts saying "I hide and move silently." every few minutes, he's just a pain and should be booted.

 

[iwatt]

If you are mean to the other PCs, the other players will kill your PC.

And if the other players don't kill your PC, they are metagaming. Kind of like when you put up with a cleptomaniac kender.

 

[Storm Raven]

There are a couple problems. One is that he is talking as a player not a charachter. His chrachter knows little of divine magic. Second, a lot of these instances happen when the player can not possibly communicate this to the other player. IE he triggered a trap last session and was trapped underneath it for 10 rounds. This was on the third floor. ON the first floor a sceptre was attacking the party. He doesnot say "hey do this". He'll say "oh thats aspectre they do such and such a thing".

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.

I take the blame, but in my defense I try to give the players some trust. I have not had a player powergame in so long I didnt even recognize it. Thats my own naivity.

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.

If you don't know what cats are, how can you make a roll to figure out something is a lion. Essentially he failed his general knowledge of the thing so he can't possibly know specific knowledge of it. This is part of the problem and results to him asking for knowledge roll after knowledge roll.

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?

I was responding to the instances of the knowledge check to identify basic animals. At this level, I wave that check because the pcs are experienced adventures. He's annoying the players and slowing the game down. While they're talking he is talking to them, meaning that someones not listening. Worse yet he is commenting to me or someone else.

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.

This is what I am doing now, and this is what i am tired of doing. Every encounter, on every other round i haveto say you don't know. It's like its not clicking. It got bad because it got to the point where i am not even giving other players any information.

Immediately what I decided to do is to ask all knowledge rolls and question be issued to me on paper in game.

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.

Thats the thing. I don't like to pull rules out my but. I clearely list in the game's primer what metagaming is. He has admitted to metagaming. We've talked about it and his response is that tendsto be a problem with my charachters. There is no miscommunication on this one. Thats whats boggling me.

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