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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8061411" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I think this cuts to the heart of the issue. To the anti-metagaming folks, the problem is not that the character thinks any given thing. It’s that the character thinks a thing that the player knows (barring any changes the DM may have made that undermine what the players may know based on published information). The problem isn’t that the character used an attack that does fire damage, the problem is that the player knows trolls are weak to fire, and therefore the DM can’t trust that the player arrived at the decision to use an attack that does fire damage independently of that preexisting player knowledge. It is, ironically, a meta-game concern.Personally, I don’t find what the player knows to be at all a reasonable metric by which to judge what a character can or can’t think. It’s rooted in a weird sort of concern over roleplaying purity. You’re not allowed to roleplay your character that way unless you can prove your own knowledge as a player hasn’t tainted the decision, either with a pre-established pattern of play (e.g. I always attack monsters I haven’t encountered before with fire first) or a successful check to establish knowledge (e.g. Do I know trolls are weak to fire? 17 on my knowledge check.) I frankly find it creepy and thought-policing.This, by the way, is why I joked about anti-metagaming DMs nor properly separating player knowledge from character knowledge. I don’t think the joke landed right in part because it wasn’t clear enough that this was what I meant.In my opinion, nothing at all. Allow the players to establish what their character thinks, without any attempt to police why they want their character to think that. If you wish to combat players’ ability to take advantage of this policy, make changes to published material from time to time so that player knowledge about published material is no longer 100% accurate, and relying on it is no longer an effective strategy. It doesn’t take many changes to encourage the players to take steps (such as knowledge checks) to confirm whether or not the things they decide their character thinks are accurate before acting on them.</blockquote>

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