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

[Caliburn101]

Edited

 

[Guest 6801328]

I used various examples, one other one illustrated in detail, and a few others off the top of my head as self-evident instances of where metagame knowledge can trivialise an encounter.

I would agree that metagame knowledge can trivialize an encounter. What I don't understand is why it's more fun (or better roleplaying) to pretend the encounter hasn't been trivialized.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I'm going to push back slightly on this. This is a symptom of what we would often call present-day bias. That is to say, we take our present attitudes, beliefs, and general world view and try to extrapolate it backwards into history (or, in this case, into a made-up world).

When looking back, we often see two things-

1. Ascribing things to the past because we hold them (in other words, assuming things were more modern than they were); or

2. denigrating the past because we undervalue how advanced some things could be (the Pyramids must have been built by aliens, because, c'mon, people back then couldn't have built them).

Going to the specific example, I think we tend to overvalue the spread of reliable information in a predominantly oral society without a printing press. Or, put another way, have you played telephone recently? But if you look at our past as a guide, the sheer amount of misinformation, legend, and rumor regarding things outside of the purview of the immediate area (and travel was hard and not taken lightly) was staggering.

Is it possible that there was an oral tradition throughout the Forgotten Realms (or other campaign setting) wherein every young child learned that trolls are vulnerable to fire (or acid???). Perhaps! But taking that as a given seems odd.

IMO (and my opinion only) I would think it more likely that in a place that often battles groups of trolls, this would be somewhat common knowledge. But when you get, say, 50 miles out or more, the knowledge becomes rumor and conjecture, and further out, that type of information is likely known only to sages and wizards who would have a rare copy of a book that includes it. YMMV.

I get what you're saying, and I agree to a point.

If the PCs are from a region hundreds or thousands of miles from any troll, then yes, they very well might not know anything about them. However, with the widespread nature of most monsters in most campaign settings, combined with the amount of time that a life-threatening (really, potentially settlement-threatening) creature has been known, makes this relatively unlikely in my mind.

The Forgotten Realms, for example, really isn't like our world was. The combination of magic, the fact that most regions are sparsely populated by city-states or small realms without the constant amount of wars that plagued our world (at least not among human realms), the merchant trade and bards, etc. and the lack of a feudal society all point to a more generally knowledgeable society. Granted, much of it might be viewed as folklore and legend, but the folklore and legend of our history was also tempered by the fact that dragons, trolls, ogres, and such didn't actually exist.

It's a world where monsters do exist, and adventurers travel and fight them, and the wealthy hunt them and mount them on their walls, and the merchants hire sellswords to protect them, and bards sing and tell stories of their tales. And this general mode of civilization is largely unchanged over thousands of years. So I think it's highly likely that they will know the basics of any of the common monsters.

In my campaign it's a question more of grand geographical shifts - so anywhere in the Heartlands, the Western Heartlands, the Sword Coast, and the North have a similar base since they have the same basic monstrous distribution. Not everybody will know that some dragons breathe something other than fire, and for that matter most probably have never seen a dragon. But they certainly know that they need to keep away from its mouth just the same (which doesn't do much if its a wyvern, for example, but it's still not a bad tactic).

Adventurers spend lots of time in taverns, inns, and traveling with caravans, etc. so I think that it's likely, especially for novice adventurers, to spend a lot of time that we don't role-play picking up as much information as they can.

So I think that the spread of information is very common in the Realms, not least because that's how Ed Greenwood has always explained it. Travel (and enough personal wealth and freedom to do so) is far more common than in our medieval history. You generally weren't allowed to leave the Lord's land as a peasant or serf. But in the Realms, in most societies, everybody is free to go where they wish.

So my belief is not based on the modern spread of information, but it is also not limited by our medieval past either. The biggest difference in my mind is that unlike the monsters of folklore, thousands upon thousands of people over thousands of years have actually seen and fought these monsters. And not just on safari to some far away place. They often descend on the very settlements in great hordes of destruction.

A better option, in my opinion, is to not make it obvious that they are fighting a troll when they first meet one. A troll is a small, filthy, disgusting giant. As is an ogre, along with many other potential creatures. And not every troll looks alike. Particularly if the characters come from a region where they have never seen a troll, then describe it as similar to something they have seen before, but with some differences. Once again that turns it into a challenge for the players to figure out, rather than pretend that their characters did. And it still has the same effect of showing the growth of the characters.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Corwin]

You demonstrably don't know me on any level, and haven't made any kind of point I can divine except that I'm a member of the 'thought police'?

[shrug] I'm just going off of what you post here. Best I can do, buddy.

I suspect we weren't ever alike...

You are probably right.

 

[iserith]

I used various examples, one other one illustrated in detail, and a few others off the top of my head as self-evident instances of where metagame knowledge can trivialise an encounter.

If your argument remains the same no matter what contradictory issues are raised in debate, then it isn't a debate any more, and all the poorer for that.

My argument remains the same as long as the example is more or less the same: The DM can fix this on his or her end. The DM does not need to put it upon the players to "not metagame" to preserve the difficulty of a challenge.

I will add that the sign of a well-designed challenge that emphasizes player agency is that the players' decisions actually matter. That they can reduce (or increase) the difficulty of the encounter by application of their skill. If a player wants to take action to make the challenge more difficult, more power to them - that's their choice. I just think it odd when that is mandated by a house rule and enforced by whatever the DM may think a character knows. In a game based on imagination, where it's trivially easy to imagine how a character can know something enough to act or can reasonably act without knowing, it boggles my mind why anyone would want to put themselves in the position of being the arbiter of whether an action declaration is valid. As DMs, we're only tasked with narrating the result of the adventurer's action. We are not tasked to determine if the player can even make the action declaration in the first place.

 

[iserith]

Oh, was it? Oops.

Agree 100% when it's pretend trial and error. But I think some people were arguing that real trial and error is fun. E.g., let the new player figure out how to kill trolls without giving him any hints. That's valid, imo, even if I don't really agree.

The question I would have is whether these DMs are telegraphing the troll's weakness in some way or whether it's purely a guessing game. Probably the latter as there seems to be a correlation between this sort of play and a desire for "gotchas."

 

[Guest 6801328]

I will add that the sign of a well-designed challenge that emphasizes player agency is that the players' decisions actually matter. That they can reduce (or increase) the difficulty of the encounter by application of their skill. If a player wants to take action to make the challenge more difficult, more power to them - that's their choice. I just think it odd when that is mandated by a house rule and enforced by whatever the DM may think a character knows. In a game based on imagination, where it's trivially easy to imagine how a character can know something enough to act or can reasonably act without knowing, it boggles my mind why anyone would want to put themselves in the position of being the arbiter of whether an action declaration is valid. As DMs, we're only tasked with narrating the result of the adventurer's action. We are not tasked to determine if the player can even make the action declaration in the first place.

I gave XP, but I want to add that I find this particularly well said.

 

[Bawylie]

My argument remains the same as long as the example is more or less the same: The DM can fix this on his or her end. The DM does not need to put it upon the players to "not metagame" to preserve the difficulty of a challenge.

I will add that the sign of a well-designed challenge that emphasizes player agency is that the players' decisions actually matter. That they can reduce (or increase) the difficulty of the encounter by application of their skill. If a player wants to take action to make the challenge more difficult, more power to them - that's their choice. I just think it odd when that is mandated by a house rule and enforced by whatever the DM may think a character knows. In a game based on imagination, where it's trivially easy to imagine how a character can know something enough to act or can reasonably act without knowing, it boggles my mind why anyone would want to put themselves in the position of being the arbiter of whether an action declaration is valid. As DMs, we're only tasked with narrating the result of the adventurer's action. We are not tasked to determine if the player can even make the action declaration in the first place.

Why do they put themselves in as arbiters of what actions are valid or invalid?

That goes back to my 1st ed DMG which explicitly laid out that role for the DM and said that invalidating an action should be used in the case of a character who is not present suggesting solutions to problems the other characters face.

That's been our role for 40 years now if you started in 77. Old habits, old dogs, yadda yadda.

And again, I think that was probably the best thinking at the time. What should we do about disruptive players? Players who spoil gameplay routinely and with malice.

But the solution to the problem of disruptive players sort of expanded to include any instance of such behavior as evidence of a problem player. And that's arguably wrong. It leaves out repetition and malice.

Right? I DM a game for kids aged 10-14. When they blurt out solutions or tell other players what they should do, regardless of circumstance, it's because they're excited and getting into it. It's repetitive but not malicious. And in no way detrimental to play. It's loosely for personal advantage (obv they want to overcome the present challenge) but it's not at the expense of other characters or players' fun.

In the end, I'm forced to agree that repetitive, malicious, meta-gaming IS harmful to a game. But I'll readily accept repetitive metagaming without malice, or a one-time malicious metagaming (with some discussion with the player afterwards about the underlying issues). What I can't say is that any amount of metagaming is bad role play, or always wrong, or something like that. Nor can I accept that any player who metagames is a dirty cheater who needs some kind of scarlet letter. That's misguided.

For me, I don't care about it at all. Though I admit I would care if it escalated to problem behavior that was ruining gameplay for everyone assembled.


-Brad

 

[Imaculata]

So the DM's just supposed to tell these new players the best way to deal with whatever they face, rather than let them learn it for themselves through play...and, yes, trial and error?

No, but what I'm suggesting is that this whole discussion at the table could be avoided by putting less focus on the secrecy of monster abilities and immunities.

Taking an example from my own campaign:

The players entered an underground pirate lair, crawling with skeleton pirates.

I clearly told my players that their cutlasses and guns would be less effective against skeleton pirates, and I then presented them with a challenge that relied on something else entirely. The skeletons outnumbered them, were manning guard towers along an underground canal, and all had firearms (including one large canon). So in order to not get attacked by a huge army of skeletons, they had to use stealth, take advance of the water, and take the various groups of skeletons by surprise. Oh, and the water was crawling with tiger sharks as well. I also pointed out how the skeletons had magical green glowing eyes, and pointed out that it was unclear if they could hear things as well.

This is I think how encounters should work. They shouldn't rely on a gotcha mechanic that requires trial and error to figure out. I think encounters are way better if they rely purely on the resourcefulness, strategy and teamwork of the players. How will they deal with a situation that does not seem in their favor?

Thats not to say that there can't be surprises. But simply from a game design point of view, I don't find secret abilities very fair to my players. I'd rather give out clues that indicate what they should watch out for. For example, I hinted that the skeletons relied only on sight, and not on hearing. This meant the players would be able to loudly club a skeleton to dust without a nearby skeleton hearing it, as long as they were able to do so out of sight of any other skeletons.

Because, as I've said a dozen or more times already, player knowledge does not and should not equal character knowledge.

I don't think it is a good idea if there is a conflict between what the player knows, and what the character knows.

You changed the monster up to allow your players the fun of discovering something new and learning by doing...by trial and error...rather than just using what they think they as players already know; yet you'd deny that same fun to the new players in @ParagonofVirtue 's example by allowing a veteran player to spoil it and then suggest the DM just should have told them the tricks. Seems a bit hypocritical to me.

I fear you may have misunderstood the example. No trial and error was involved with this encounter. One of the players (a druid) was struck by one of the mummies, and he failed his save. I then proceeded to describe the effects of the mummy's curse to him on the very next day. Whenever he would gaze into any reflective surface, he could see the mummy standing behind him, reaching for his arm. And whenever this happened, he could feel the wound, and he felt life being drained from him. I made sure that the players knew the druid was cursed, and that it was related to being touched by the mummy.

I moved the focus away from a gotcha, and towards a situation where the players may have to ask an npc, whom they greatly disliked, for help. I created suspense with the spooky visions that the druid would see wherever he looked.

That goes back to my 1st ed DMG which explicitly laid out that role for the DM and said that invalidating an action should be used in the case of a character who is not present suggesting solutions to problems the other characters face.

Ironically, I do the exact opposite of what was suggested in that DMG. I encourage my players to be invested in what other players are doing (even if their character isn't present), and by all means to make suggestions, or remind their fellow player of things that may have slipped their mind. They are a team after all. Some of the best moments have been with just one or two players in a sticky situation, and the rest of the party offering advice to them. Way better than people just twirling their thumbs or looking at their phone, waiting till its their turn.