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

[Thomas Shey]

All depends on your campaign, DM style and how the players play their character. IMO opinion 1st level characters know the fundamentals and have to figure things out as they adventure and progress in levels and initially their knowledge of the world outside of where they started are rather limited.

I guess that turns on how you become a spellcasting cleric, a wizard or a paladin. All those seem to have some knowledge baked into them that isn't necessarily locally limited.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I have no problem telling a player that their character would not know something based upon the character's culture and background and where they are in the world just as I would hand out free information to characters based upon the same.

Ok, but does that mean that you would tell them they are not allowed to take an action that you think is based on that forbidden knowledge?

Player: "I'll quickly get out some oil and light a torch..."
DM: "You wouldn't know that trolls are vulnerable to fire."
Player: "Um. Ok. My character doesn't know that. Anyway, I'll light a torch..."
DM: "I said you don't know they are vulnerable to fire."
Player: "So that means I'm not allowed to use fire?"
DM: "Your character wouldn't know to do that."
Player: "To do what? Burn something?"
Etc.

Or, if that scenario seems farcical, imagine this one (which I used in another thread):

1. In the first iteration, your 7 year old niece who has never played D&D before does exactly the right thing (i.e., burning trolls) purely by chance. Do you allow her to do it? (Personally, I'd celebrate it, and tell the story for years.)

2. In the second iteration, you find out that your dirty metagaming dad (your brother) put her up to it. Now how do you feel about it?

3. In the third iteration, your sister-in-law one day tells you that your brother was lying about his version of it. That when their daughter came home from the game and told the story, he said, "I'm going to yank his chain by telling him I put her up to it." Now how do you feel about it?

4. And then, after that, you find out that your precocious niece reads Enworld and knew all about trolls and was totally freaking metagaming the whole time but was savvy enough to keep quiet about it.

If the answers are....
1. That's fine.
2. DIRTY METAGAMER!
3. Oh, that's fine again.
4. DIRTY METAGAMER!

...then it should make you realize that this metagaming hangup is all in your head. That the exact same event at the table was either awesome or cheating, depending on your beliefs about what the player is thinking. So...why not stop worrying about what the player is thinking?

 

[Greg K]

Ok, but does that mean that you would tell them they are not allowed to take an action that you think is based on that forbidden knowledge?

Depends on what they are trying to do. Using a fireball against against a troll? No. if the charactr has a fireball spell trying to fireball stuff makes sense. Burning a dead troll the first time they encounter it, because the player knows that D&D standard trolls are vulnerable to fire? I might say. "No". I might require a roll with or without disadvantages(or penalties) and a high DC depending on the character's background and where they were in the world. Hell, I might even just tell the player that the character knows about the vulnerability if trolls are common to where the character lived.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly, for me sometimes its less about any actual benefit gained than just the player going right to the metagame knowledge (especially if I challenged them on it).

And there's matters of degree; if someone is fighting a troll, cuts it, sees it regenerate, and then pulls a torch--that's not an unreasonable jump to conclusions. If someone opens the fight with reaching for the torch, when asked about it says "Because", yeah, I'm gonna get soggy just because I find it irritating as a GM and I don't think I need a better reason.

 

[Lanefan]

My analogy here is driving etiquette, when there's an upcoming merge. Now, every traffic flow expert will tell you that the greatest overall efficiency is achieved when people "zipper" at the last moment. But I grew up with the fervent belief, bordering on religious ecstasy, that one should attach themselves to the end of the line and wait their turn, and that only sub-human scum zip past and merge at the last second. It's not about efficiency, but protocol. Etiquette. Rules. I will go so far as to sit half in the slow lane and half in the empty lane to keep people from passing.

Preach it, brother!!!

Never mind that if everyone's merged well ahead of the obstacle the flow-through at the obstacle will be much smoother.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Honestly, for me sometimes its less about any actual benefit gained than just the player going right to the metagame knowledge (especially if I challenged them on it).

And there's matters of degree; if someone is fighting a troll, cuts it, sees it regenerate, and then pulls a torch--that's not an unreasonable jump to conclusions. If someone opens the fight with reaching for the torch, when asked about it says "Because", yeah, I'm gonna get soggy just because I find it irritating as a GM and I don't think I need a better reason.

Maybe by trying to police player thoughts you are just encouraging them to be deceptive.

 

[Greg K]

Ok, but does that mean that you would tell them they are not allowed to take an action that you think is based on that forbidden knowledge?


3. In the third iteration, your sister-in-law one day tells you that your brother was lying about his version of it. That when their daughter came home from the game and told the story, he said, "I'm going to yank his chain by telling him I put her up to it." Now how do you feel about it?

If the answers are....
3. Oh, that's fine again

...then it should make you realize that this metagaming hangup is all in your head. That the exact same event at the table was either awesome or cheating, depending on your beliefs about what the player is thinking. So...why not stop worrying about what the player is thinking?

My answer to three is that I have words with my brother and not GM for him again.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Never mind that if everyone's merged well ahead of the obstacle the flow-through at the obstacle will be much smoother.

I'm no traffic flow expert, but those who are say that overall throughput is higher if drivers zipper at the very end rather than line up in one lane.

 

[Bill Zebub]

My answer to three is that I have words with my brother and not GM for him again.

Really? Over a prank? In a roleplaying game?

In any event, the question was not how you would feel about your treacherous brother, but how you would feel about the in-game event of the niece taking an unlikely action but without metagaming (as far as you knew).

 

[Greg K]

Really? Over a prank? In a roleplaying game?

Yes. Especially, under the circumstances you set up to try and make your point. They broke the social contract for when I DM
edit: Note; the above would be a non-issue as my brother is not a jerk that would do that (same for other players that I have had since high school. I don't play with jerks.