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

[iserith]

I've told people what my opinion is on what role-playing means. It's simply my opinion and this is a forum where we discuss ideas. I've never intended to hurt any one's feelings or be mean.

Thank you for clarifying.

 

[Maxperson]

IMO, cinematically/literarily speaking, there is a long, storied tradition of normal schmoes fighting, or fending off, such creatures as Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, and countless other supernaturally powerful creatures, with nothing more than a fiery stick. So I'm not sure what basis you have to make such a claim.

D&D is not a movie. Movies often portray ridiculously stupid things as feasible.

 

[machineelf]

I'm not attacking, nor stating you're not prepared or not having fun as a group. I'm asserting that if you don't want players to "metagame," then don't run your games such that it can happen or that there is no benefit to it or possibly risk. I think that's a better approach than relying on four or five other people (or more) to pretend they don't know something. You can control how you run your game. You can't control how other people arrive at decisions for their characters and why would you even bother trying?

We don't have that problem in my group, that's what I'm saying. It doesn't come up often, but when it does the people in my group seem to have no problem separating their character's knowledge from their knowledge as a player. All I'm saying then, is that if a new player wanted to join our group who couldn't help himself but to use that meta-knowledge, and couldn't seem to play his character based on the knowledge his character has, then they probably wouldn't be a good fit for our group. No hard feelings, but it just wouldn't probably work. I recently had an experience like that. A friend of mine plays D&D every now and then, but he is wholly uninterestd in role-playing, talking to NPCs, spending any time in cities, or anything other than killing things and rolling dice. Well that's now how our group likes to play. We like a mix of fighting, roleplaying encounters with NPCs, doing things in cities, and then getting to the dungeon.

There was no animosity at all and my friend himself suggested that the way we played would not fit his play-style, even though I gave him an invitation. No problem.

 

[Bawylie]

Kinda sorta maybe.

There are "degrees" of metagaming. In other words, there are those things that would be almost universally agreed-upon as "cheating," in addition to metgaming.

For example, if a player steals (or buys an additional copy, if store-bought) the adventure and reads it ahead of time in order to know all the challenges, and how to defeat them, that is metagaming. But pretty much everyone I know of would frown heavily on that. It's hard to find a good argument for that, regardless of "taste," because that's pretty much "cheating."

On the other hand, if you've played D&D for a while, there are things that are hard to unlearn- like, say, Trolls and fire. Some things are so buried in there that it's hard to even recognize the distinction between just playing and metagaming.

Not to mention that this is a long-standing problem. One of the first Dragon Magazine articles I remember was in #10, way back in 1977. Do you know what the topic was? How to create random monsters in order to deal with the "problem" of players metagaming- an article that led with the premise, "One of the problems with D&D is that the players always know too much." Again, 1977.

Like every thing, it's a balance that each table has to discover for itself.

Sure. I think another weird component is what @is3rith mentioned. You never hear a DM complain about metagaming when the players are getting things wrong. I think that supports my theory that it feels like it's invalidating DM work.

I didn't read the 1977 article but I'd be interested in what it has to say.


-Brad

 

[Maxperson]

And...if you live in a world where trolls are not terribly rare and make your living as an adventurer, why wouldn't you know that you need fire to kill 'em? Or silver for lycanthropes? Or radiant for wampyrs? Do fantasy worlds not have legends and stories?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using EN World mobile app

Sure. Realistically, there would be dozens of legends of different ways to kill such things, most of which would be false.

 

[machineelf]

Well, since you replied directly to me instead of to "various people", I naturally assumed your comments were directed to me.

Yeah that was my fault. Sorry about that. That's not how I meant it, actually.

 

[Bawylie]

I want my players to be able to find the warp tubes and get past them. My posture as a DM is not to be at odds with my players. I view my role as one who is working together with my players to tell an interesting story. And every interesting story needs conflict, so I supply conflict in the form of traps, monsters, and other obstacles. I hope they succeed, but I hope it's not too easy all the time, because that would make for a boring story.



I don't get why you think that I think this. If they look for ways to remove the warp tubes, that is roleplaying. It's not cheating at all. All I want is them to play their characters with the knowledge they have. So let's say that if there is a special procedure were you have to type in UDUDLRLRSS to remove the warp tubes, and one character has learned the code, but he's separated from the others in the group and is taking a shuttle to get back to the main ship, and the intercoms are out, so he is racing against the clock to get to the ship and tell them the procedure to remove the warp tubes before they explode, it would seem wrong if another player just said, "well let me try ... oh I don't know, UDUDLRLRSS and see what happens." Obviously that player only said that because he overheard me as the DM tell the character on his way back in the shuttle the code. And there is no way the second player would just randomly select that code. It doesn't seem wrong to you if a player were to do that?

I wouldn't have a problem with one of my players tying the Konami code, no.

Or trying "password." Or really anything.




-Brad

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't care if players "metagame." From my Session Zero document: ""Metagaming," defined as using player skill or knowledge that a character might not necessarily have, is fine. I want you to draw upon your skill as a player to try and succeed. However, remember you are still obligated to make choices in accordance with (1) above. As well, assumptions can be risky so it's skillful play to verify your assumptions through in-game actions before making choices based on them."

("(1)" refers to making choices that are fun for everyone and contribute to the creation of an exciting, memorable story - the "win conditions" of D&D 5e as stated in the Basic Rules.)

I assert that it is self-evident that it is impossible for a player to draw upon knowledge they don't have. And that if you really care about players not acting upon knowledge the character is not established to have, the most sure way to achieve that is to make sure the player doesn't have that knowledge. That does not seem like a very controversial statement to me.

From here, it appears that you agree with secondhander that players using information their characters do not have to decide character actions is a bad thing. The difference appears to be solely that secondhander thinks the players bear some culpability in the way they play whereas you believe that it's only the DM's responsibility to prevent the players from having the inappropriate knowledge. You're argument that you don't care about metagaming is hollow -- you clearly do care, and have stated multiple times that you do extra work to prevent it from being a problem. You've moved the problem to a different space (ie, offloaded it entirely from the players) and then tried to deny it's a problem. But you're still doing work to fix that problem. It's all very confusing as to why you'd deny it's a problem you have when you then go on to talk glowingly about your solutions to the problem. Perhaps it's a terminology issue? You don't think it's a problem because you have a solution?

And, all that said, you're being terribly dismissive of the way in which other people address the same problem. It's very similar to telling a bunch of strangers they don't roleplay properly. You definitely have A solution to the problem, but it's not THE solution. It would be helpful to see a bit more willingness to countenance other possible methods of dealing with it.

 

[machineelf]

I wouldn't have a problem with one of my players tying the Konami code, no.

Or trying "password." Or really anything.




-Brad

But you get my point, if it wasn't the Konami code and was something truly random and unknowable to that specific character? That's all I've been trying to argue in this thread. I didn't mean it to blow up and I'm sorry if I came across in a bad way.

 

[machineelf]

The difference appears to be solely that secondhander thinks the players bear some culpability in the way they play whereas you believe that it's only the DM's responsibility to prevent the players from having the inappropriate knowledge.

I'd say you've probably pinpointed a key difference in our approaches.