D&D 5E How to deal with Metagaming as a player?

[iserith]

What I don't like though are meta-game playing that is inconsiderate to other players. Let's say that as all these new players encounter various unusual creatures, like lets' say a beholder, and say the one player who is a veteran D&D player blurts out right from the start, "stay away from his central eye, it's an anti-magic field."

Well, hold on, wait a minute, the other players didn't know that, and perhaps their characters didn't either. If there is a good reason that your character knows that bit of information, story and background-wise, then fine, no problem. But if you keep doing that for every single creature because the player just knows everything about every creature, isn't it kind of apparent how rude and inconsiderate that is to the other players who are role-playing and are learning about these creatures for the first time? And unless there is a good reason why that character is an expert on every single creature, then it is a meta-game issue, that is, again, an inconsiderate way to play.

Being inconsiderate isn't cool. But in my experience you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who goes "Dammit, Bob, why didn't you let me waste my spell slot in that beholder's central eye cone?"

It's more likely in my view they'll thank Bob for being a savvy player and sharing his knowledge with the team. I would personally be grateful for having a skilled player on my side.

So, at least in regards to the example, this sounds like the DM projecting his or her own feelings about one of the players reducing the difficulty of the challenge onto the other players who might not care.

 

[Satyrn]

But as to the idea that it's inconsiderate... maybe. It can be, if everyone is on the same page about no spoilers and someone comes along spoiling every encounter. But absent establishing No Spoilers as a common value, it's not inconsiderate at all. It's the height of considerate, normally, bc it's looking out for the success and wellbeing of the other players and adventurers.


-Brad

On top of that, it seems to me like this is an example where the other players (not the DM) ought to be the ones telling the know-it-all they don't want him telling them this stuff.

 

[Bawylie]

Yeah, but this isn't an MMORPG. There's not really any role-playing in WoW or other MMORPGS.

Maybe that's the disconnect here. There are a lot of players who have grown up on MMORPGS and are bringing that concept into their table-top role-playing experience, and so they have no problem with everyone at the table meta-talking and metagaming, because the fun for them is just beating the main boss at the end of the dungeon.

But for a lot of us, role-playing isn't just about beating the boss, it's about immersion int the character and immersion in the world. There's always a problem when half of the table wants that role-playing immersion, and the other half of the table just wants to kill stuff and beat the end-boss. The end-boss folks are probably blissfully unaware how annoying and immersion breaking that approach is for the role-players. But I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't play that way. Do it. You have your table, and I have mine. I don't force people to role-play according to my desires; our group likes to roleplay that way. We are all in on it together. If I suddenly stopped DMing that way, my players would get upset.

It's not an MMORPG. But that's superficial. The mechanisms of play are the same. Cooperative effort to overcome challenges as efficiently as is feasible.

And fwiw, there are a number of guilds who DO rp as their preferred forms of engagement with other players and the game world.

But it's as we have both said. This is going to vary by table taste. It's not gonna be a universal.


-Brad

 

[iserith]

Should that player write out all 27,576,325,983 things his character can know and run them by you in advance, prior to encountering them in game for the first time? So as not be accused of being a metagamer later? I mean, his character can't know *everything*. Without the player identifying every possible bit of knowledge/trivia in advance, he could still be accused of cheating. Even though he describes his character, as you say, as a "virtual expert". There will still come a time when you will give him that inevitable dirty look for saying something you don't think he should know. Best he write them all down first, no?

It's the 27,576,325,984th thing I forgot that would keep me up at night.

 

[Guest 6801328]

But, there are some clear lines to me. And if you don't agree, then so be it. Play the game your way. But for me, if I as a DM tell have an NPC tell one character the magic word to open a secret door, and that NPC never tells anyone else, then it crosses a roleplaying line for another character to just somehow know it and use it to open the door. There is some line between player and character when we roleplay, in my opinion. To say there is no line, that we are not playing a role or playing a character when we role-play, is wrong for me.

So no, I do believe that "roleplaying" is "exploring a role and feeling yourself in it." But when you use meta-knowledge to know things your character shouldn't know, or get an edge somehow, then it is inconsiderate to the other role-players, generally speaking.

Oh, I mostly don't disagree with any of those sentiments. But if what we are talking about is being inconsiderate, and "metagaming" covers so much more than what we're talking about, and even "using player knowledge the character wouldn't have" encompasses so much more than what we're talking about, why call it "metagaming"? Why not call it "being inconsiderate"?

However, I do feel that it is misleading to present these sorts of inconsiderate behaviors as mutually exclusive with roleplaying. Again, you are using "roleplaying" to mean specifically the acting out of a role. Which is, indeed, a kind of roleplaying.

But immersive roleplaying, where you feel what your character is feeling, is also roleplaying. In other words, you the player are genuinely starting to get worried because that thing you've killed twice keeps coming back to life, and half your party is dead and you have no idea why you can't kill it. Contrast that with pretending to not know about trolls. Sure, improv-acting your character can be entertaining for the table, but if what you're really going for is the immersive experience of experiencing the same emotions as your character, then you really could care less whether somebody acts on knowledge that everybody at the table knows, regardless of what their characters know, because it hasn't spoiled any immersion.

(Of course, that also means that if somebody at the table is new to D&D and doesn't know about trolls, then definitely pretend to not know about them. Go along with the "roleplaying" so that they can experience the terror. But that's no different from saying, "If you've played this module don't give any secrets away.")

 

[Satyrn]

It's the 27,576,325,984th thing I forgot that would keep me up at night.

That's because #27,576,325,984 is "how to make a bedroll comfortable."

<maniacal DM laughter>

 

[Corwin]

On top of that, it seems to me like this is an example where the other players (not the DM) ought to be the ones telling the know-it-all they don't want him telling them this stuff.

Exactly. If it even *is* a problem, once again, not the DM's job. If the fellow players have an issue with the one player, they address it with him. Turning to the DM and waiting for the DM to "fix the problem" is just silly to me.

 

[machineelf]

I doubt anybody would really care about your preferences with regard to "metagaming"

There are a lot of role-players like me who have thoughts on meta-gaming and frown on it. Just because you and your table-mates don't care about it, doesn't mean other people don't. And I don't force my players to abstain from meta-gaming. We all agree that we don't want to do it, and we try not to. I don't have to force them to play that way, that's the way they want to play. They want to take on roles, develop deep character backstories, and adhere to the knowledge their character has and doesn't have. Lot's of other table-top RPGers feel the same way.

Having said that, I do address the issue of "metagaming," as it's being defined in this thread, during Session Zero. I address it by saying "I don't care about it."

Cool. Like I said, you and you're group play how you want, and me and my group will play how we want. But let's not pretend that meta-gaming isn't a thing, or that there isn't a ton of history of history behind it. For many, me included, meta-gaming is simply the other side of the coin to roleplaying. And while for you, role-playing is nothing more than "I'm a fighter and that's my role," as though you're playing a board game and you are the smasher role, while someone else is the healer role.

To many other people (and I would argue, historically when it comes to D&D) role-playing is more than that; you are not only a fighter, you are Adran Steelblade, dwarf fighter from Sundabar, who's father was killed when an orc horde invaded. Now he chooses to explore the wider world that he hasn't experienced, killing any orc that gets in his way ... etc, etc. For us, role-playing is crafting a character, with specific experiences he/she brings to the table. That also means, if Adran Steelblade wasn't present when Talbar the rogue drowned in the water trap in the dungeon, and now the trap is reset, then there is no way to know (outside of good perception) for Adran to know the water trap exists in the first place.

Again, if that's now how you like to "role-play," then to each their own. If someone's idea of role-playing is (like a friend I know) to just roll dice and kill stuff, and who cares about meta-gaming, then go have fun. But be aware, at least, that historically role-playing in D&D was more about creating a character with backstory, and that presently a whole lot of people still like to play that way. If my players tried to play in your game, they probably wouldn't like it. And if your players tried to play in my game, they probably wouldn't like it. That's why we don't all have to play in the same group.

 

[Bawylie]

Exactly. If it even *is* a problem, once again, not the DM's job. If the fellow players have an issue with the one player, they address it with him. Turning to the DM and waiting for the DM to "fix the problem" is just silly to me.

That's a legacy feature. That sort of thing used to be explicitly the DM's job.

It's not surprising this kind of stuff holds over. Traditions are powerful. And often kept up for good reasons.

Overcoming one takes overwhelmingly good reasons for change and super majority agreement that the change is better. AND some sort of connection between the change and some other equally dearly held value.

People really like doing things they way they already do them.


-Brad

 

[machineelf]

why call it "metagaming"? Why not call it "being inconsiderate"?

Because "metagaming" has a pretty clear definition. You may disagree. But I'll post this wikipedia definition, which I think nails it: "In role-playing games, metagaming is an "out of character" action where a player's character makes use of knowledge that the player is aware of but that the character is not meant to be aware of. Metagaming while taking part in relatively competitive games, or those with a more serious tone, is typically not well received, because a character played by a metagamer does not act in a way that reflects the character's in-game experiences and back-story." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming_(role-playing_games)

I think most people understand that definition, even if they disagree on whether it's a bad thing or not. It's odd to me that some people are arguing that the definition of meta-gaming is vague, when I don't find it to be vague at all. (Again, let me say for clarity, we cannot eliminate every forms of metagaming, and some "meta-game thinking" is necessary, like when I roll a dice, I know I am dealing with game mechanics. That's fine. That's not really what we are talking about.)

So metagaming isn't always inconsiderate, but it can be. Let's say a sage privately tells another character that there is a genie's lamp hidden in a secret place in a dungeon room. You have to look in the exact right place to find it. that player keeps that knowledge to himself so he can grab the lamp when he gets to that room. And then let's say I decide, well I'm just going to happen to look in this particular place "by chance," and well what would you know, I found a genie's lamp!

No one's going to buy the argument, like Aaron tries to make in this thread, that it was just by chance I happened to look in that place. And yes it's inconsiderate to use that knowledge, which my character wouldn't have had, to grab the lamp before anyone else could. (Whether the other player should have kept the lamp location a secret from the rest of the group is a wholly different discussion and not germane to the point at hand).