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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8575253" data-attributes="member: 7023840">Two things-First, I have somewhat recently played 5e with a group of ... newbies ... who didn't know the "troll rule." Their expectations of trolls was from Troll Hunter, and things like that. Anyway, watching them try to deal with regenerating trolls was fun AND hilarious (and fire didn't come up as a solution until a very long time into it).Second-One of the problems with D&D is that the players always know too much. This is news? “You obtain surprise over three Clickclicks.” “Clickclicks? Oh, yeah, they’re in Supplement Three. Hand it to me. And where’s Greyhawk? It had a note about them.” A pause. “We shout out ‘November’.” “That’s right, the Clickclicks fall over dead.” Sound familiar?Where is that from? The lament that players know too much about monsters? That players are .... horrors .... metagaming? That would be Dragon Magazine, October ... 1977. The essential problem with the framing we have here is that any time you are playing a TTRPG, you are engaging in metagaming (unless you're like Tom Hanks' character in Mazes and Monsters). If you, as a player, know that trolls are affected by fire, then:A. You attack with fire. Metagaming.B. You don't attack with fire. Metagaming, because you are ruling out something you might try but for your out-of-game knowledge.C. You call for a roll to see if your character would know this. Metagaming, because you wouldn't ask for the roll if you didn't know it would probably succeed.The issue is that "metagaming" has a pejorative connotation in TTRPGs in general, and D&D specifically, because it's been called out in the rules books. The DM's guide in the third, fourth, and fifth editions all "call out" metagaming-"Metagame thinking means thinking about the game as a game. It's like a character in a movie knowing he's in a movie and acting accordingly."  (DMG 4e p. 15)Because of this, and related discourse around "metagaming," it's usually unhelpful to introduce it as a concept since players are supposed to be encouraged to think in "in-game terms." But viewed more broadly, metagaming is always present. Always. Using the term is usually either (a) a distraction from the actual topic of conversation; or (b) a rhetorical hammer used to make a point by employing the negative connotation of the term.Either way, unhelpful. And if you want to fireball that troll, go right ahead.</blockquote>

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