pawsplay
Hero
Well, he might not be in cheating, in which case it's just as important to figure out what is going on.
Help I think one of my players is a metagaming munchkin...
- Thread starter Bathnor
- Start date
Well, he might not be in cheating, in which case it's just as important to figure out what is going on.
Theone0581
First Post
Advice
Humm, well this is one of the reasons why I always create my own campaigns from scratch. I agree with a
few people who have posted, its like replaying a game/movie over, your already going to know what is going to happen. I would not call it metagaming unless it spoils the fun for everyone else. e.g. Going to see a move
and having someone call out "there is a monster behind the door!". So my friend here is some advice:
1. Don't remove him from the game. If he is being obnoxious about it, then just talk to him out of game.
2. Remember, your the DM! Don't completely rely on the campaign for everything, mix it up and add some irrelevant plot or quest, rename npc's, its your game your imagination, thats what makes D&D D&D!
(Just make sure you don't drift too far away from what the groups goal is.)
Now If he says anything in game, I wouldn't call him on it. Just smile and continue on with the game, because he will then feel powerless and will have to start playing like all the other players, and more importantly he will know who the DM is and who calls the shots!
Good Luck buddy!
Humm, well this is one of the reasons why I always create my own campaigns from scratch. I agree with a
few people who have posted, its like replaying a game/movie over, your already going to know what is going to happen. I would not call it metagaming unless it spoils the fun for everyone else. e.g. Going to see a move
and having someone call out "there is a monster behind the door!". So my friend here is some advice:
1. Don't remove him from the game. If he is being obnoxious about it, then just talk to him out of game.
2. Remember, your the DM! Don't completely rely on the campaign for everything, mix it up and add some irrelevant plot or quest, rename npc's, its your game your imagination, thats what makes D&D D&D!
(Just make sure you don't drift too far away from what the groups goal is.)
Now If he says anything in game, I wouldn't call him on it. Just smile and continue on with the game, because he will then feel powerless and will have to start playing like all the other players, and more importantly he will know who the DM is and who calls the shots!
Good Luck buddy!
aboyd
Explorer
I'm going to fall on the other side of the coin and say that talking to the player about it -- like intelligent adults -- is going to fail, and that being passive aggressive is going to succeed.
The problem with talking to someone like grown adults is that the other person needs to behave like a grown adult. And if he's cheating, then he clearly isn't behaving like a grown adult. Talking to him won't work some miracle on his heart and change his behavior. It will only alert him to the fact that you've caught on and are bothered by it, so he'll hide it better from then on.
Much better to change the module around. Let other people call that passive aggressive. Let other people say "you fail as a DM if you sink to that level." They can say whatever they want if the strategy wins.
For my part, I do this as a matter of course, and encourage it as a positive behavior for any new DMs I train. ALWAYS change modules. Never leave things as expected. In fact, it's wise to do this even if no one has read the module -- you need to tone down too-difficult fights, beef up weak areas, flesh out the empty rooms and/or flat NPCs, change area names to fit into your campaign world, etc.
I am teaching a new DM and one of the things we've decided to do is to try to make sure that every monster she ever has in every game she ever runs is new to every single player at the table. We are gutting every module she runs, or creating new adventures from scratch, and we are putting in monsters from the En World Critters PDFs, or from the Tome of Horrors PDFs. And to make it more unusual, we change their resistances, their supernatural attacks, and so on.
The very point is to leave the players guessing. That may be passive aggressive on our part, though we are not trying to combat a particular cheater so much as we are just trying to combat general "Been there done that" attitudes. Whatever the case, it's a goal, and we've been hitting the mark thus far. I'd like to be encouraging to you as well. Give it a shot.
The problem with talking to someone like grown adults is that the other person needs to behave like a grown adult. And if he's cheating, then he clearly isn't behaving like a grown adult. Talking to him won't work some miracle on his heart and change his behavior. It will only alert him to the fact that you've caught on and are bothered by it, so he'll hide it better from then on.
Much better to change the module around. Let other people call that passive aggressive. Let other people say "you fail as a DM if you sink to that level." They can say whatever they want if the strategy wins.
For my part, I do this as a matter of course, and encourage it as a positive behavior for any new DMs I train. ALWAYS change modules. Never leave things as expected. In fact, it's wise to do this even if no one has read the module -- you need to tone down too-difficult fights, beef up weak areas, flesh out the empty rooms and/or flat NPCs, change area names to fit into your campaign world, etc.
I am teaching a new DM and one of the things we've decided to do is to try to make sure that every monster she ever has in every game she ever runs is new to every single player at the table. We are gutting every module she runs, or creating new adventures from scratch, and we are putting in monsters from the En World Critters PDFs, or from the Tome of Horrors PDFs. And to make it more unusual, we change their resistances, their supernatural attacks, and so on.
The very point is to leave the players guessing. That may be passive aggressive on our part, though we are not trying to combat a particular cheater so much as we are just trying to combat general "Been there done that" attitudes. Whatever the case, it's a goal, and we've been hitting the mark thus far. I'd like to be encouraging to you as well. Give it a shot.
An advanced rust monster that is permanently illusioned to look like one of the "normal" encounters is always a fun thing to do.
Make changes, be creative.
I love to use maps from modules and then repopulate the rooms with my own traps and my own monsters. Gives the players a nice map to look at, not some MS Paint monstrosity that I tend to make for smaller encounters, and I get to be creative with what I put in. Best of both worlds.
Good luck in getting your cheating player to quit... I never understood why someone would cheat at a game, where is the fun in that? It is like skipping to the end of a book and reading the last page; why?
Make changes, be creative.
I love to use maps from modules and then repopulate the rooms with my own traps and my own monsters. Gives the players a nice map to look at, not some MS Paint monstrosity that I tend to make for smaller encounters, and I get to be creative with what I put in. Best of both worlds.
Good luck in getting your cheating player to quit... I never understood why someone would cheat at a game, where is the fun in that? It is like skipping to the end of a book and reading the last page; why?
Verdande
First Post
Full Disclosure: I haven't read any of the advice above me. I'm a busy man, trying to dispense some wisdom to my friends. You guys are my friends, right?
1) Don't run campaigns straight "out-of-the-box". Ever. You're a DM, right? Make some stuff up. Change things. Make it cooler, or more realistic, or change the dragon to a demon, or the goblin slave-raiders into a chevron of knights who have mistaken the PCs as bandits. Or whatever. It'll make your game more fun, I promise.
2) Deal with out of game problems out of game. Lightning strikes and cave-ins are for dealing with problem characters. You won't have killed the player, after all. What you need to do is sit down and have a talk about not being a douchebag, basically. If he stole the fun from another player, would you let him do it, kill his character, or say something to him directly? Do not forget that you're a player too, and you're all playing a game.
3) The Terrasque and Kraken aren't exactly obscure monsters. If you're playing a campaign that's all about the pew pew and epic loots, then chances are that you're going to fight the biggest dudes in the PHB, which are Terrasques, Krakens, Pit Fiends, et cetera. Like I said in #1, change, change, change it up.
Hope I was helpful.
Your friend,
-V
1) Don't run campaigns straight "out-of-the-box". Ever. You're a DM, right? Make some stuff up. Change things. Make it cooler, or more realistic, or change the dragon to a demon, or the goblin slave-raiders into a chevron of knights who have mistaken the PCs as bandits. Or whatever. It'll make your game more fun, I promise.
2) Deal with out of game problems out of game. Lightning strikes and cave-ins are for dealing with problem characters. You won't have killed the player, after all. What you need to do is sit down and have a talk about not being a douchebag, basically. If he stole the fun from another player, would you let him do it, kill his character, or say something to him directly? Do not forget that you're a player too, and you're all playing a game.
3) The Terrasque and Kraken aren't exactly obscure monsters. If you're playing a campaign that's all about the pew pew and epic loots, then chances are that you're going to fight the biggest dudes in the PHB, which are Terrasques, Krakens, Pit Fiends, et cetera. Like I said in #1, change, change, change it up.
Hope I was helpful.
Your friend,
-V
