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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9054724" data-attributes="member: 7035894">Also, I would veto if players added something like like, "and in the centre of the room lies a vorpal sword, totally unguarded!" Or, "I come across a merchant selling healing potions at clearance rates because he's closing up shop." But I can't imagine them doing that.Means at their disposal within the context of the story, I 100% agree. It's when players start trying to use means from outside the story that I have issues.For instance, all my players have access to any published adventure, because the internet, and I recently ran an adaptation of "White Plume Mountain" as part of our ongoing campaign. Would any DM be okay with players looking it up online as we play, in order to figure out how to solve puzzles, find the treasures, avoid traps, etc.? I assume no, because otherwise, what is the point? Then it's not a story anymore...it's barely even a game.On the other hand, I think probably all DMs are cool with players discussing strategy between sessions, or even during the game when we take a pizza break, and so on, even though that is certainly a kind of metagaming. So I don't think there's a black&white solution - there's no table that is entirely anti-metagaming, and no table that is fully pro-metagaming. It's a continuum of different play styles, with room for lots of different preferences. Obviously, I'm more on the anti-metagaming end of that continuum. For me, heavy metagaming undermines what I love most about the game, which is being immersed in the story, as if we are in a book or movie, rather than playing a game.This debate goes way back in D&D - in the 70s, some folks were so anti-metagaming that they felt players should not even know the rules! That the job of the players was simply to describe what they did as if narrating a story, and it was up to the DM to interpret that in the context of the rules. Then you had wargamer-types who felt that the rules were the whole point, and the narrative was just fluff added for additional colour.</blockquote>

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