D&D General My Metagame Rule

[bloodtide]

So, on the list of house rules many players hate is my metagame rules. so, I'm tossing it out there.

The basic rule is: Whatever you the player knows the character knows. With the only real exception game mechanical rules. It's simple. But a lot of players dislike it.

So the start of the dislike here is so many players, and more often DMs in their own games, don't like the idea that the character might know "secrets" from the rulebooks. Many a DM will be screaming that the "character" does not know any monster lore in the books. Like that werewolves can be hurt by silver. But too many players also will say they must run over to a werewolf with a mundane weapon as "their character would not know better".

It does not matter much in my game. I don't care much what the books say with the suggestions. And this is where many players trun to hating this house rule. Sure some generic werewolves might have that whole silver thing, but any specific foe, and even more an NPC will like be special in some way. Even if they just have an amulet of protection from silver(oh, sorry that's not in the books).

Of course, I'm also using foes, creatures and monsters from all of D&D and more. So the typical younger 5E player will be clueless no matter how much they flip through the 5E books. Not that 5E even has very much lore. Oh, you never heard of a dharculus? Oh well....

For setting lore, I think it's great when players and characters know things. Of course, for 5E there is very little setting lore anyway. But again I'm not locked into whatever scribbles are on a page. So even when the player try something annoying like "King Bob is only 2nd, lets go kill him and rule the kingdom!", they will find Bob has a 13th level bodyguard(oh, sorry that was not in the books).

If a player just wants to know stuff, that's fine; but I do encourage them to role play knowing the information. A common one is to have it be a story "an uncle Tal" told them. Or they read it in a in-universe book. And I give experience, and other rewards for role playing knowing information.

So started a new 5E game with some younger players. As said, they all hated my metagame rule. And they refused to use it. For example when they first heard about a red dragon nearby, Ken there normal DM, made sure to tell everyone that "Remember our characters DO NOT know that red dragons breathe fire until our characters learn that in game". And, yea, that's what they did...until the characters "learned" a red dragon breathes fire, when it breathed on them.

So a couple weeks ago, Ken, sat in on one of my 3X games. He was blown away by how much each of the players in that game both knew about everything and were constantly using the information in the game. Of course we were using the bulk ton of 2E/3X/PP3 lore. He loved that there were whole books of lore for things: he saw the Von richen guides and some of those 3PP slayer guides. But he loved it. So much that he has now adopted it for his own game. And he thought we should share it....

 

[MichaelSomething]

The players want to play a game without being able to use meta knowledge? That's easy to accommodate! Just bring in things whole sale from the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG! They'll be completely surprised every time!

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

This certainly benefits players with the money to buy all the books. I assume you allow players to roll knowledge checks to learn things in-game. Like, simple research would let a character know that a red dragon breaths fire.

Some of favorite games were playing in a new setting where I knew nothing. My characters were either naive hicks or from super-reclusive civilizations. I got to learn all the lore as my character learned it. It was pretty cool.

I don't see anything wrong with doing it either way as long as they can learn the real, in game truth through checks or adventuring.

 

[James Gasik]

The real problem is that, especially in older editions, player knowledge was character knowledge. You couldn't survive a world with trolls, werewolves, vampires, mimics, lurkers, wolves in sheep's clothing, nymphs, succubi, hags, dopplegangers (and so much more!) without knowing how to actually fight such things (or knowing to avoid them!).

Now as skills to give the players access to knowledge became more prevalent, leaving these things up to a die roll, it became easier to separate player and character knowledge, and some things, like trolls, were clearly common enough knowledge that a DC 10 or less would suffice, putting such tidbits in the reach of everyone.

But I started seeing a lot of pushback from older DM's who felt it wasn't right that players could roll a die and not fall for a monster's big trick. They really wanted that "gotcha!" moment, without realizing that it was the gaming equivalent of a jump scare. No one is impressed by taking a bunch of damage because their character isn't allowed to be wary of a stone statue, or that the rock they decided to climb was really some kind of elemental.

And sure enough, there are no standard monster knowledge rules in 5e core. It's all up to the DM. Heck even identifying a spell requires a check (and a subsystem that makes counterspell completely pointless, lol).

When I run, I give my players every opportunity to know what they are up against, so that they can make actual strategic decisions. Some might say that takes the surprise and wonder out of the game, but what's the tradeoff? Players feeling like morons because they won initiative and were the first to be embarrassed by finding out what a monster can do the hard way?

"Oh but it's a learning experience, then they know not to do that again." Yeah, except you're probably not going to use a Mimic again once they know to be wary of one. Or keep using Trolls once the party arms themselves with oil flasks. Plus, if the character dies "finding out this information", that doesn't help their next character much, does it?

That having been said, I do have a limit to how much metagaming I will tolerate. If you make actions based on information you have zero way of knowing, then I'll drop the hammer on you. Like say, something you'd only find out from reading the adventure. But knowing who the heck Vecna is, and not wanting to mess with a mummified hand you trip over? That's fine by me (though I'm sure a lot of people would be tempted even if they DO know!).

As an aside, I wish I had players invested in the lore; I'm a huge lore junkie, so if I'm playing a Forgotten Realms adventure and someone randomly mentions Lantan or The Hand of Vaprak, it's a lot of fun for me. Even more so when I can actually amaze the other players with these tidbits.

Sadly, my players are usually clueless about such things.

 

[Charlaquin]

How strange that your players don’t like this rule… I mean, I guess if you DM for younger players they might be annoyed by the fact that you’re using custom material so they can’t rely on looking up monster stats…? Personally, I don’t even see this as a house rule; it’s just best DMing practices.

 

[Stormonu]

I use a mix. If one of the players knows something, I’ll allow a character proficient in the relevant skill make a check. On a success, the player can share his knowledge with the group. Also, if the knowledge is fairly common - say, werewolves are hurt by silver, I don’t require a roll at all.

on the other hand, if a player does act on meta knowledge they shouldn’t - having failed the knowledge roll, I’m apt to reduce the XP from any such encounters- possibly down to 0 For the offending player. That does expand beyond mere monster lore as well, including NPCS, world lore, mechanics and such that should be beyond the characters bounds of knowledge.

 

[iserith]

I prefer to leave it as "You establish what your characters think," which leaves it up to the player to decide if they think, for example, red dragons breathe fire. If they want to portray their character as not knowing this, they're free to do so. I also let players know in advance that I do change things from time to time, both stats and lore, so the smart play is to try to verify their assumptions before acting on them. They might well be right, but if they are wrong, that can be catastrophic!

I find this is more inclusive of most player's preferences. The only players put off by it in my experience are those that insist on other players portraying their characters as knowing or not knowing particiular things. And those players don't get invited back.

 

[el-remmen]

I prefer to leave it as "You establish what your characters think," which leaves it up to the player to decide if they think, for example, red dragons breathe fire. If they want to portray their character as not knowing this, they're free to do so. I also let players know in advance that I do change things from time to time, both stats and lore, so the smart play is to try to verify their assumptions before acting on them. They might well be right, but if they are wrong, that can be catastrophic!

I find this is more inclusive of most player's preferences.

This is exactly how I handle it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

So, on the list of house rules many players hate is my metagame rules. so, I'm tossing it out there.

The basic rule is: Whatever you the player knows the character knows. With the only real exception game mechanical rules. It's simple. But a lot of players dislike it.

So the start of the dislike here is so many players, and more often DMs in their own games, don't like the idea that the character might know "secrets" from the rulebooks. Many a DM will be screaming that the "character" does not know any monster lore in the books. Like that werewolves can be hurt by silver. But too many players also will say they must run over to a werewolf with a mundane weapon as "their character would not know better".

It does not matter much in my game. I don't care much what the books say with the suggestions. And this is where many players trun to hating this house rule. Sure some generic werewolves might have that whole silver thing, but any specific foe, and even more an NPC will like be special in some way. Even if they just have an amulet of protection from silver(oh, sorry that's not in the books).

Of course, I'm also using foes, creatures and monsters from all of D&D and more. So the typical younger 5E player will be clueless no matter how much they flip through the 5E books. Not that 5E even has very much lore. Oh, you never heard of a dharculus? Oh well....

For setting lore, I think it's great when players and characters know things. Of course, for 5E there is very little setting lore anyway. But again I'm not locked into whatever scribbles are on a page. So even when the player try something annoying like "King Bob is only 2nd, lets go kill him and rule the kingdom!", they will find Bob has a 13th level bodyguard(oh, sorry that was not in the books).

If a player just wants to know stuff, that's fine; but I do encourage them to role play knowing the information. A common one is to have it be a story "an uncle Tal" told them. Or they read it in a in-universe book. And I give experience, and other rewards for role playing knowing information.

So started a new 5E game with some younger players. As said, they all hated my metagame rule. And they refused to use it. For example when they first heard about a red dragon nearby, Ken there normal DM, made sure to tell everyone that "Remember our characters DO NOT know that red dragons breathe fire until our characters learn that in game". And, yea, that's what they did...until the characters "learned" a red dragon breathes fire, when it breathed on them.

So a couple weeks ago, Ken, sat in on one of my 3X games. He was blown away by how much each of the players in that game both knew about everything and were constantly using the information in the game. Of course we were using the bulk ton of 2E/3X/PP3 lore. He loved that there were whole books of lore for things: he saw the Von richen guides and some of those 3PP slayer guides. But he loved it. So much that he has now adopted it for his own game. And he thought we should share it....

I fully support this, but it doesn't seem to me it's a "rule". It's more like an absence of a rule.

Or it's like the fight scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. "The first rule is...there are no rules."

Unless, of course, you take it to the symmetric extreme of the anti-metagaming Don Quixotes of the world and use it to play their characters for them. "No, you MUST burn the trolls. I know you know about trolls, Eugene, therefore your character does, too, and since she has an Int score of 11 she would choose burn the trolls. Here, I'll even roll for you..." That would qualify as a "rule".

 

[Bill Zebub]

The only players put off by it in my experience are those that insist on other players portraying their characters as knowing or not knowing particiular things.

In general, across so many of these topics, I find that the positions I disagree with the most are the ones based on fear of how other people will play the game.

 

[Xamnam]

So the start of the dislike here is so many players, and more often DMs in their own games, don't like the idea that the character might know "secrets" from the rulebooks.

I'll admit, I don't think I would have come to that rule of my own volition, but in thinking about it, I'm struggling to think of any thing from the 5e player facing rulebooks that I would be bothered by a character using knowledge of. You're right, it's simple, and it seems to work better than I would have expected.

 

[Flamestrike]

For example when they first heard about a red dragon nearby, Ken there normal DM, made sure to tell everyone that "Remember our characters DO NOT know that red dragons breathe fire until our characters learn that in game".

For the love of Bane, surely the fact 'Dragons breathe fire' is common knowledge surely? I'd assume pretty much everyone (in a standard DnD world like Greyhawk or Faerun) knows (at a bare minimum):

1) Dragons have breath weapons.
2) Different dragons have different breath weapons.
3) The color (and appearance) of a dragon, generally determines what that dragons breath weapon is likely to be.

The illiterate commoners of Westeross are more than aware that 'Dragons exist, and they breathe fire'.

 

[Bill Zebub]

For the love of Bane, surely the fact 'Dragons breathe fire' is common knowledge surely? I'd assume pretty much everyone (in a standard DnD world like Greyhawk or Faerun) knows (at a bare minimum):

1) Dragons have breath weapons.
2) Different dragons have different breath weapons.
3) The color (and appearance) of a dragon, generally determines what that dragons breath weapon is likely to be.

The illiterate commoners of Westeross are more than aware that 'Dragons exist, and they breathe fire'.

I personally love it when somebody argues along the lines of "if I, as DM, say that vampires don't exist in my universe, and then I decide that they suddenly do, there is NO WAY that any character in that universe has prior knowledge of them."

Let's see...what other universe can I think of in which vampires don't actually exist, and yet a surprisingly large number of people know a lot about them? Hmmm.....hmmm......

 

[Bill Zebub]

By the way, I was reading the Jaquays classic adventure Caverns of Thracia the other day, and found this gem:

 

[Clint_L]

I don't like meta gaming; I think it's lame. If it makes sense for your character to know something in the story, then that's fine, and rolling a lore check if you think your character might know is fine, too. But I think the game is more fun when players try to act from the perspective of their characters, not themselves.

I also don't buy the argument that characters would automatically know the complete details of every creature in D&D because that would be necessary to survival. Yeah, they'd know that some dragons breathe fire. But would they really know the exact details of an aboleth or a green slaad, right down to the spell list?

And it leads to the kind of meta gaming that makes me want to just switch to a board game, like when players want to spend 20 minutes before combat gaming out the entire encounter, right down to how to counter each of the special abilities or spells that might be used.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I don't like meta gaming; I think it's lame. If it makes sense for your character to know something in the story, then that's fine, and rolling a lore check if you think your character might know is fine, too. But I think the game is more fun when players try to act from the perspective of their characters, not themselves.

I also don't buy the argument that characters would automatically know the complete details of every creature in D&D because that would be necessary to survival. Yeah, they'd know that some dragons breathe fire. But would they really know the exact details of an aboleth or a green slaad, right down to the spell list?

I can't speak for the OP, but I think the general argument is that although your point is valid, it's simply not worth the energy trying to police where the dividing line is. And if it's really important to you, it's easier to change the green slaad's spell list than to argue with players.

My rule of thumb is that it's impossible to write rules that prevent jerks from being jerks, but easy to avoid playing with jerks more than once.

 

[iserith]

I don't like meta gaming; I think it's lame. If it makes sense for your character to know something in the story, then that's fine, and rolling a lore check if you think your character might know is fine, too. But I think the game is more fun when players try to act from the perspective of their characters, not themselves.

I also don't buy the argument that characters would automatically know the complete details of every creature in D&D because that would be necessary to survival. Yeah, they'd know that some dragons breathe fire. But would they really know the exact details of an aboleth or a green slaad, right down to the spell list?

They're welcome in my games to say what their character thinks they know, and act on that information, but that's an assumption. Maybe they're right. But maybe they are horribly, disastrously wrong. That's their risk to take, and has the effect of curtailing the behavior without any of the policing.

 

[cbwjm]

Things like trolls being hurt by fire or werewolves being hurt by silver are definitely common knowledge in my games. Trolls being hurt bu acid might be uncommon knowledge but if a player mentions hitting one with melfs acid arrow, I'd say that's a fair comment. Too many DMs seem to want to penalise players making decisions based on what I feel should be common knowledge for the people of the setting.

 

[tetrasodium]

Things like trolls being hurt by fire or werewolves being hurt by silver are definitely common knowledge in my games. Trolls being hurt bu acid might be uncommon knowledge but if a player mentions hitting one with melfs acid arrow, I'd say that's a fair comment. Too many DMs seem to want to penalise players making decisions based on what I feel should be common knowledge for the people of the setting.

Well the trouble is that stories grow for drama & get confused over time in retelling. Of course everyone knows that you need silver that's been bathed in willowsap or gifted from a blood relation of the werewolf! Don't get people started on if trols need to be standing in a cloud of red oak or bloodthorn smoke when damaged by fire because most people who choose wrongly don't live to report back. Common knowledge is often mixed with good intentions & guesses.

 

[Laurefindel]

I encourage metagaming too, but more in the sense that I want characters to get along because their players are IRL friends, not because the characters themselves should naturally get along and stick together. Similarly, I like when players to actively seek ways for their characters to get aboard the adventure even if logically, their characters would likely do otherwise. Otherwise, I prefer when the characters get to discover their world and adventure independently from player knowledge. Heck, I even narrate prologues and epilogues where the bad guys are revealed doing things the PCs have no way to know (yet).

But I think there’s a lot of information that should be relatively well known in the gaming world. Things like killing werewolves requires silver weapons, vampires cannot withstand sunlight, trolls regenerate if not burnt, red dragon breathe fire, etc. These should be present in nursery rhymes and children tales.

As a DM, I also sneak false information from NPC as people are often misinformed or else folklore has deformed truth. Things like dragons acquire different breath weapons with age, vampires are repelled by garlic, mundane prayers will protect you from demons, etc. More often than not, my players are aware of these falsehoods and I leave it up to them to decide whether their characters know it. In doubt, they usually seek someone who would know…

A healthy level of metagaming is required IMO, but I wouldn’t go as far as PC knowledge = player knowledge personally.