Meta-gaming Player

[Olaf the Stout]

He has interest in the game, and that's good. The best way to bring him out as a roleplayer is to draw him into the game emotionaly. It might be in combat where some particularly hard to kill monster taunts him, only to escape later. It might be something stealing his gold or an item. Perhaps he actualy spots his slave wife in the servace of a sleazy noble as a heram girl. Give him a reason to get in character more, even if you dangle the metagame rewards ultimately.

As for the "sub optimal choices", a hero shouldn't be making a lot of those. They may not be tactical geniouses always, but they will work with what they have to their best advantage, and honestly, if they aren't, a standard set of appropriate encounters should chew them up and spit them back out. Being more tacticaly minded shouldn't be something that is "counter" to the roleplaying experience.

I usualy view more disruptive metagaming as "Oh, you should do this," constantly, or worse, failure to ever at least stay on topic of the game (OOC game coments are at least game focused).

Of couse, I often find myself helping other players in game, but I approach it more on a level of "This ability does this, and it could be useful," or "Don't forget about x spell you have". And part of that is because I often know the rules significantly better than some other players, and they appreciate me helping them out on occasion, and will ask sometimes as well.

I don’t have an issue with players helping each other out if it is asked for. Or if a player spots something that they think may be of interest to another player (item, spell, PrC, ability, whatever). When it is unsolicited and starts to become one player trying to tell others how to play their characters is when it becomes a issue.

I also don’t have an issue with PC’s being tactically minded in general. If you are spending 5 minutes each turn in combat to decide your most optimal action then I think that it is going a little too far. I also think that not all characters are tactical geniuses and shouldn’t all be played as such. Obviously even the most tactically challenged PC will know that someone trying to hit them with a large metal or wooden implement probably isn’t their friend and they should try to hit them back.

However, at the same time, not every PC will know that a troll will regenerate unless fire or acid is used or that golems may not really be all that affected by a hit from a longsword. Some PC’s will know this and others should be able to figure it out pretty quickly but they all shouldn’t automatically know from the start what is the best thing to do against every opponent.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Jim Hague's post nrought this bit of dvvega's to my attention:


I know this was already brought up in a semi-recent thread (which may have been lost), but...

Anytime you, as DM, are "teaching players lessions", your game is in very, very dangerous territory, IMO. That was one of the big criticisms I had of the first post.

I agree with you here Buzz. I am not trying to teach the player in question a lesson. I just want everyone to have as much fun as possible. I feel that his meta-gaming (or whatever you want to call it if you don’t think that it is meta-gaming) is making the game less fun from myself and some of the other players.

Some people’s responses to how to deal with the swapping GP and jewellery for gems situation seemed to be along the lines of “Well let him do it, but then punish him for it. See how he likes that.” I don’t want to punish him. I don’t think that he swapped the GP and jewellery over to gems and mentioned it as an aside to avoid paying a commission. It was probably just that was how he has dealt with it in previous games that he has been in.

I understand that the best way to deal with the situation is to talk it through with him (best not necessarily meaning easiest!). This thread was just a way of finding out if others had been in a similar situation before, what they had done about it and what the end result of it was.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

It goes without saying this is as good an approach as any, especially if your players are on-board. What you've got to be careful of is singling out the spellcaster for special hardship; miscalculated AoE's are all well and good, as long as the fghters and rogues can be victim to similar mishaps (fumbles, for instance).

For myself, I don't particularly like games where (at the extreme) the PC's are as afraid of their spellcaster as they are the bad guys. It might have something to do with the fact that I was once a spellcaster in that kind of game.

I actually have the strange situation (strange for me at least) of having a party where all 5 PC’s are casters of one sort or another. 2 PC’s are straight Sorcerer while the other 3 PC’s are a Cleric/Ranger, a Fighter/Sorcerer and a Wizard/Fighter. So everyone will be equally affected by the rule. If I use spellcasters as enemies I will be abiding by the same rule so I think that it is fair.

I don’t think that the AoE rule is that harsh. You simply pick what square you want as the centre point for your spell and then work out the AoE from there. Most casters should know what sort of area their AoE spells cover, just like a melee or ranged combatant should know what their to hit bonus is.

I do also have PC’s make a Dex check if they roll a 1 on their attack roll. If they fail the check then they give their opponents an attack of opportunity. So far no one has failed the Dex check so it hasn’t really affected on the game as yet.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Ok, this is just sort of summary of where I am at now after all of the responses. It may also stop the flood of posts telling me that I am an idiot and they wouldn’t want to play in my games if I played out every little shopping trip in game.

I understand that there are different play styles and that there is no “one true way” to play. The whole reason that I play (and I think the reason a lot of people play) is to have fun. This particular player’s play style is making the game less fun than it could be. I am looking for ways to address the issues myself and fellow players have while at the same time not making the game unfun for the other player.

I see that I am very much in the minority in playing out the buying of regular equipment in play, even if it is just a simple in-character conversation with the shopkeeper.

“Hi, what can I get for you? Anything else? Ok, that will be 10 gold pieces. Thanks, have a good day.”

I did ask my group if they wanted to deal with that sort of thing via e-mail when the game first started but didn’t really get a response on it. I will now handwave a lot of the buying of regular, mundane stuff and only play it out if it is something unusual or important to the story. I think that it adds a bit of depth to the game and helps players immerse themselves into their character more. I can understand people’s comments about them holding up the game without really adding to the play experience. If my players find it as boring and pointless as most of the posters on this thread then I am willing to handwave it.

I still don’t like the idea of the player taking so long to decide what to do on each turn due to him trying to figure out what is the perfect option to take. That I can address by reminding him of, and enforcing, the table rules that everyone agreed to before we started the campaign. In particular:

“Decide what your character is doing before your turn comes up in the initiative order. If you will be using a specific rule, spell, special ability, etc., in your turn, look it up beforehand and have it ready to show the DM if necessary. If you can’t decide what to do or you can’t find the rule, spell, special ability, etc., that you are looking for within a reasonable amount of time then you are considered to be delaying your action until the next person in the initiative order has had their turn. This helps to speed up combat and reduces boredom for everyone.”

“Minimize meta gaming. Don't spend 10 minutes trying to find the perfect spot for your area-effect spells or trying to plan out "just the right path" of squares for your movement. Adhere to the rule of "What would my character do?" ”

I am still not sure how to get him to act more in-character and his character’s motivations. He almost always talks to the other PC’s out-of-character, almost never in-character. This is kind of jarring to everyone else who at least put some effort into discussing things in-game and in-character. I understand that it is hard for some people to do (and some people don’t really like doing it at all) but I think he could at least give it a try.

I would also like to try and stop him from thinking about everything as gold and XP. That I am definitely not sure how to achieve. Perhaps I will just talk to him about his constant out-of-character comments, his very minimal in-character comments and the effect that they are having on the game and everyone else.

Having summarised my thoughts so far, can anyone offer any suggestions?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I apologise for posting 9 times in a row (now 10 ) but I just wanted to address a lot of the posts that have been made since I last posted. The thread got a few more posts since the last time I replied!

Olaf the Stout

 

[prosfilaes]

I’m sure he didn’t think “Gee, I bet if I attack that country over there [...] I might get some phat loot as well”.

I'm sure that's exactly what he thought. That's exactly why many people went out plundering and conquering; to get phat loot.

 

[Hussar]

As for not being able to survive unless you make optimal choices in combat, one of the PC’s in the party has a split personality character. One half is a cowardly sorcerer, who looks to avoid combat at all times and when the party inevitably gets involved in one he stands at the back, marginally assisting other party members, but generally remains ineffective. The other half of his personality is a barbarian who is basically the exact opposite of the sorcerer. He is always the first into a fight and will often rush over to help out other PC’s in combat, even if he is seriously wounded and stepping back to get some healing may be the best option.

LOL. I have to say, as an adventurer, why would I travel with a certifiably insane individual? You have no problems with someone who is a nut job, but, the guy who wants to skip over shopping is an issue? Wow.

To be fair, on the optimal combat choices bit, yes, the player should be playing the character. If the character is a developmentally challenged near vegetable, then, yes, he shouldn't be making too many combat choices other than, move forward and hit. But, since I highly doubt anyone would seriously play this sort of character (3 Int, 3 Wis), I'm thinking this is a touch of a straw man.

As far as cutting down the time being spent during combats, well, I already suggested a shot clock. Give the players 40 seconds to do their turn. If they can't finish by then, they lost the turn. That ends that right there.

There exists a mechanic already for attacking the ground. Attacking a point is AC 5. A dex check penalizes higher level characters and forces players to bump their Dexterity. Why should a 10th level wizzie with a Dex of 10 fail almost twice as often as a 1st level wizzie with a Dex of 18? I would also point out that Dex checks is a mechanic that doesn't exist in 3e.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Who's Reynard? I get why you mention the other three.
Sure, violent lunatic AND heroic deeds, yes. Heroes, no.

I KNOW PCs get up to shenanigans.

Whereas I do call them heroes, we use very different definitions... I suspect mine is closer to that in the dictionary of folklore. (And let us not get into the whole topic of hero tales...)

Reynard the Fox is a trickster character in medieval stories, I added him because the shenanigans he got up to were somewhat less bloody than those of, say, Achilles. Think Harry Mudd, or Anansi.

The Auld Grump

 

[prosfilaes]

Reynard the Fox is a trickster character in medieval stories, I added him because the shenanigans he got up to were somewhat less bloody than those of, say, Achilles. Think Harry Mudd, or Anansi.

If I may disgress a bit; part of the reason Reynard the Fox is cool is because the first English translation was done by Caxton, the first English printer; and in said translation, one of the characters used "leaden wapper" for a weapon, thereby and henceforth certifying wapper as a good, valid, and cromulent English word that could be defended in any English classroom, unlike, say, croumulent.