D&D 5E player knowlege vs character knowlege (spoiler)

[Guest 6801328]

For the fiction to make sense. The actions must make sense from in-character perspective. That's roleplaying.

It's trivially easy to make up explanations for why those actions make sense from an in-character perspective. Maybe they are not the things that would probably happen in a real, boring, non-fantasy world, but this is supposed to be a world of fantastic events and improbable occurrences.

So, sure, sometimes the reason will really add something to the story. In those cases, I find that players tend to volunteer it anyway. And, in other cases, it's just not very exciting. "I had an uncle who told me about trolls..." I don't really want to pause the game while a player comes up with a plausible but boring explanation.

And when the DM starts demanding a reason, though...that's adversarial. It says, "I think you're a dirty metagamer so you'd better justify this action."

 

[Cadence]

It was pretty hard for me to believe it would work at first. It was just so contrary to what I perceived to be common knowledge that I couldn’t imagine how it would work. But seeing a lot of DMs who’s opinions I respected making very strong arguments in favor of it, I figured there had to be something to it. So, I gave it a try for myself and what do you know, my game improved dramatically.

What kind of situations did you run into before you switched and how often?

I'm trying to figure out what made it improve dramatically. (I'm struggling to remember a full handful of cases over the decades where blatant out of character knowledge use came up in a game I played in or ran).

 

[Charlaquin]

What kind of situations did you run into before you switched and how often?

I'm trying to figure out what made it improve dramatically. (I'm struggling to remember a full handful of cases over the decades where blatant out of character knowledge use came up in a game I played in or ran).

Prefacing this with a disclaimer, because I did some dumb stuff as a fledgling DM. Please do not assume I am accusing anyone of doing these things in their game. I am speaking only for myself here.

So, I used to worry a lot about metagaming, to the point that it really warped a lot of my DMing practices. For instance, I used to agonize about the fact that seeing the number they had rolled would give the player access to precise information the character couldn’t have - seeing that 2 on your Perception check might lead you to think there was something to be found that you had simply missed due to a low roll; but the character couldn’t know it was a low roll! That’s metagaming! And what about in combat? If the players paid attention to what rolls they hit on and what rolls they missed on, they might be able to figure out the target’s AC! Characters don’t know what AC is! That’s metagaming!

Now, I never went so far as to actually rule that I would make all the rolls for the players behind the screen and tell them the results in strictly narrative terms, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t seriously considered it. What I did do, however, was try to combat this perceived metagaming by being incredibly stingy with information. I didn’t want to give anything away to the players that the characters shouldn’t know, and almost everything looked like something the players shouldn’t know, so I was often very brief and very vague in my narration. Which lead to players not having enough to go on to reliably make decisions, which lead to a lot of questions, and not a lot of action. And when actions were declared they were similarly vague: players simply announcing “I make a (whatever) check” and calling out a number. In trying to combat what I considered to be metagaming, I was actually making the game far more meta.

Less extreme examples of what I would do to try and combat metagaming would be to ask players to leave the room during scenes where their characters weren’t present, which lead to disengagement as the players spent as much time away from the table as around it. And, of course, if I thought a player was making a decision based on out of character information, I would tell them their character wouldn’t think to do that, and therefore they couldn’t do it. That didn’t happen terribly often, but I have pulled it a few times.

 

[Maxperson]

If you let players write this stuff up before the game starts, why not let them write it up on the fly?

For the same reason that during the background I let them make up NPCs and towns, but I don't let them DM once the game starts.

Would you be ok with "...and I had an uncle who was a famous troll-hunter tell me all about them..." in a backstory? If not, why not? Is it because you are the arbiter of what is a good backstory and what is not? And if you would allow it, why not allow it to be invented right before an encounter with trolls?

Because one is genuine backstory and the other is a thinly veiled attempt to justify metagaming.

How is "asking for that purpose" (which you would not do) substantively different from "asking why his PC has that knowledge" (which you would do)?

You really don't see how asking for one purpose(to say no) is different than asking for a completely different purpose(to see whether a roll is required or not)?

Weren't you one of the people arguing months ago that "I roll Stealth" is effectively identical to "I try to sneak up on the bad guy"?

No, that wasn't me. Rolling stealth is not the same as trying to sneak up on the bad guy. Sure, you need to roll stealth to sneak up on the bad guy, but you can roll stealth for a number of other reasons as well.

 

[Cadence]

So, I used to worry a lot about metagaming, to the point that it really warped a lot of my DMing practices.

Thank you for sharing that.

It makes me glad that RAW officially supports what you found works best for you!

 

[Guest 6801328]

You really don't see how asking for one purpose(to say no) is different than asking for a completely different purpose(to see whether a roll is required or not)?

If the result is that on a failed roll you tell them they aren't allowed to take their action (which, by the way, you didn't answer), then, no, there's not really any meaningful difference. You're still just policing their actions.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I am really not merely talking about things like mechanical vulnerabilities. Though even with them there needs to be some in-character justification for why the character would know that for the acting on that information to make sense in the fiction, regardless of by whom the information was provided. But the issue is much bigger than that and I have hard time grasping how one could not see it. There is a lot of information in the setting books and modules that the players might know yet the characters wouldn't. I really don't get how this can be controversial at all. And the GM constantly changing the setting to counter the metagaming is an absurd solution.

Re: settings -- this isn't a problem I see, still, or, if it is, it's the GM's fault, not the player's. If the GM is presenting scenes that hinge on setting details being secret, then that's on them if a player is well read. It's pretty trivial to present scenes where setting details are present but not the crux of the problem, so if a player knows that detail it's neat and interesting and is possibly something that can be leveraged through clever action, but knowing doesn't obviate the challenge. This is a pretty simple approach change, where you look at a setting detail not as "oh, I'll make an adventure about discovering this detail, and finding out will be the crux of it!" to "oh, I like this detail, I'll make an adventure that uses this detail as a thematic element, but it's not the crux!" The latter lets players enjoy seeing things they know operate in the game, the former leads to acrimony or forced pretend ignorance.

Re: modules -- this is trickier and goes to "don't play with jerks." If the premise of your game is that you'll be running a module, or you add one in the middle, the table should expect the players to pipe up when they realize it and say they've played/read/run that module before. Then you and that player can discuss how you want to approach it. If, instead, a player keeps that information to themselves, this isn't a metagame problem, it's a jerk player problem. As @Elfcrusher keeps beating, this drum is pretty darned important. Let's not make a jerk player a vector to criticize someone's playstyle. Also as previously noted, this player, if clever enough (and that's not very), can still disrupt a game with a "no metagaming" rule -- they just are a tad sneakier.

Here's a fun anecdote regarding how my previous stance against metagaming caused an issue. I was running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (a module I still have a soft spot for, despite it's problems) and one of my players, having very rarely ever searched for a secret door (in fact, the party rarely searched for them), suddenly and out of the blue declared they were searching for a secret door in the exact 10' section of wall where one existed. And, secret doors weren't very common in that section of the module (the mines). I was completely taken aback, and my first instinct was that cheating had occurred. I immediately challenged the declaration with a, "how did you know this secret door was here!" What saved this from ugliness was the player's reaction of, "What?! Really?! There's actually a secret door there?!" They just got a wild hair and randomly decided to search. Now, this wouldn't even be a problem -- I'd laugh if it happened again and would never even ask. Finding secret doors is awesome fun.

 

[Maxperson]

If the result is that on a failed roll you tell them they aren't allowed to take their action (which, by the way, you didn't answer), then, no, there's not really any meaningful difference. You're still just policing their actions.

Well, that's factually wrong. If that's your view, there's no point in talking to you about it anymore. Have a good day.

 

[Wishbone]

Less extreme examples of what I would do to try and combat metagaming would be to ask players to leave the room during scenes where their characters weren’t present, which lead to disengagement as the players spent as much time away from the table as around it. And, of course, if I thought a player was making a decision based on out of character information, I would tell them their character wouldn’t think to do that, and therefore they couldn’t do it. That didn’t happen terribly often, but I have pulled it a few times.

Matt Mercer used to do this a lot during the first campaign for Critical Role even after he had been DMing for a very long time, which seemed to fit their playstyle fine, but may have not been modeling the best behavior for others picking up the game from watching their liveplay.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Well, that's factually wrong. If that's your view, there's no point in talking to you about it anymore. Have a good day.

I guess I'm not getting an answer to my question.