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

[Guest 6801328]

I'M BATTING 1.000!

I am so getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame for random internet assumptions.

How so? Because of your categories?

Which one do I fit it? (Bearing in mind that you included the caveat "...but don't otherwise consider it.")

 

[Guest 6801328]

This is why your chosen definition for the term "metagaming" is meaningless.

You've just decided that a particular bit of knowledge that the player has must influence that player's character's actions.

Because if I explain the personality and attitude of my character and how that means he would do what I want him to do, it is "metagaming disguised as roleplaying" because you say I am choosing that action because I know what I know.

And if I, knowing what I know, choose a course of action for the character that is specifically not the above action - while I could have chosen the above action, had you not provided me some piece of information - then I am still "metagaming", unless your definition for the term isn't "using what I know, rather than what the character knows, to choose my character's actions." because I would not be avoiding that particular action if I didn't know what I know.

And isn't proscribing certain behaviors because the player has (or might have) knowledge, regardless of the player's actual motivation for doing so, a kind of metagaming itself? (C.f. my imaginary example of Max and the new player fighting trolls.)

 

[Maxperson]

This is why your chosen definition for the term "metagaming" is meaningless.

You've just decided that a particular bit of knowledge that the player has must influence that player's character's actions.

Your example clearly showed that it did.

Because if I explain the personality and attitude of my character and how that means he would do what I want him to do, it is "metagaming disguised as roleplaying" because you say I am choosing that action because I know what I know.

You used the trapdoor in your example and claimed absolute knowledge that she had him. You did not just show suspicion and say you THINK she has him. You went way beyond, using that player knowledge and then tried to justify it with some roleplaying cover-up.

 

[Darkness]

This thread is generating way too many reports. Please keep it civil, everyone.

In particular:

If you're going to continue to bow out with crap like this, don't bother responding to other posts of mine. I don't enjoy people engaging in disingenuous discussions with me.

... Your Strawman doesn't help you make your point. ...

Not all of us actively engage in the victim mentality. ...

... You should let your control issues go and stop trying to dominate your players.

Maxperson, please tone down your rhetoric. I'd prefer not having to ask you to stop posting in this thread.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

You're mishearing things. I'm telling my players not to steal my car, which is locked and with no keys. What I didn't do, is remove the battery like [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] thinks I should do in order to prevent them from stealing the care. Nor am I engaging in [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s victim mentality and taking responsibility for someone else breaking into my car and hot wiring it.

First, the metaphor is weak and nobody should be acknowledging it in my view.

Further, it's not "victim mentality," whatever that means. It's just you setting the stage for others to engage in behavior you don't like, even though you could remove the possibility outright. This is why I think it has to do with identity and ideological purity. "Our group doesn't 'metagame.' That's something other groups, the bad roleplayers do." Hence the resistance to changing methods or even acknowledging that they would alleviate the very problem in the first place. (Or maybe you did acknowledge it but I missed it.) It's like some need the possibility of "metagaming" to exist in their games, otherwise they couldn't identify as someone who is against it. This is all starting to make sense to me now. It's completely irrational in my view, being something of a pragmatist in my old age, but then ideology tends to get to irrational places, doesn't it?

Please note I say none of this to insult anyone, but to explore where this comes from.

Think about that for a while.

No, I won't. It's gross and inappropriate.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

And isn't proscribing certain behaviors because the player has (or might have) knowledge, regardless of the player's actual motivation for doing so, a kind of metagaming itself? (C.f. my imaginary example of Max and the new player fighting trolls.)

Well, yes, sort of. I find it more accurate to call that "thought policing" though, since the DM is literally basing their judgement of whether a character action is acceptable or not on what they perceive to be the player's thought process in arriving at the action.

Your example clearly showed that it did.

That is false. My example only showed that a character can be role-played in more than one way. I made no mention of what the example player did or didn't know, so the info needed to determine your conclusion is not present even though you choose to assume it to be.

...claimed absolute knowledge that she had him.

I did no such thing.

You did not just show suspicion and say you THINK she has him.

...so no one has ever made, nor can ever make, an accusation against anyone else, phrased as certainty even when it is actually just a guess? That is what you must be saying if you think the in-character spoken statement "I know you have him" is proof that my character "did not just show suspicion."

 

[robus]

In all fairness, the sort of meta-gaming under discussion is a little bit more severe than the DM not having to repeat the same npc-description twice.

Lets say for example that there's a witch who has offered to help the party in their quest. One of the players (probably the rogue) decides to go to her house alone, steps on a trapdoor, and is dropped into a dungeon by the treacherous old crone.

The rest of the party visits the same witch at a later time, unaware of the witch's betrayal and trapdoor. Should the players pretend their characters are ignorant? Or are they allowed to act upon their knowledge as players that the witch is going to betray them too?

This reminds me of a moment with my players. They wanted to split up and search a dungeon in parallel but then realized that it would be quite difficult for me to deliver individual sets of information to each group and keep them private. So they decided to stick together instead. Very considerate meta-gaming I thought

 

[DEFCON 1]

I find it highly amusing that the original poster has made only 3 posts total about his issue and then apparently found the massive sidetrack that everyone else has gone off on for the last 47 pages was no longer what he wanted to talk about apparently...

 

[Caliburn101]

Metagamers...

... I'm glad I don't play with or GM for any these days. I don't have the patience to tolerate cheating or anyone tripping over Wheaton's Law over and over.

There is a lot of verbage on here that sounds just like the kind of rhetoric indulged in by lawyers with guilty clients trying to cloud the issue and muddy the water.

Metagaming is in the odd case a mistake, but if it continues, it's cheating. As a player you are playing your character... not playing an entity with deity-level insider knowledge of their world which 'just happens' to be available without precedent whenever useful and of course whenever you can come up with some kind of on-the-spot story to explain it away.

If you cannot roleplay without stepping over the line into metagaming, the you need practice in keeping what your character knows and what you know separate, and more experienced players and GMs could and should help you with that.

If you metagame deliberately however, regardless of the semantics and excuses you try to hide behind in order to do so, then you are a bad roleplayer, a cheat, and you might as well wear a T-shirt telling everyone you care more about 'winning' than contributing to a group's fun and enjoyment...

... unless of course all the other players and the GM are metagamers, in which case knock yourselves out I guess...