spoiling the encounter via metagaming.

[krupintupple]

the forums have already eaten this message three times and i feel rather stupid and frustrated because of this, so i'll make this short and sweet:

How does enworld deal with certain players who see fit to spoil an encounter by blurting out most of the important details of a monster or mechanic, when their character has no ranks in any form of knowledge related to it?

My example would be someone basically giving a laundry list of what a Will-O-Wisp can do, and its stats and what it's weak against, even though they only know this because the player knows this.

I deal with it by changing the creature just enough that their advice won't work, or giving it new attack forms that would throw the party off, but not overly unbalance the encounter.

What do you do?

 

[green slime]

the forums have already eaten this message three times and i feel rather stupid and frustrated because of this, so i'll make this short and sweet:

How does enworld deal with certain players who see fit to spoil an encounter by blurting out most of the important details of a monster or mechanic, when their character has no ranks in any form of knowledge related to it?

My example would be someone basically giving a laundry list of what a Will-O-Wisp can do, and its stats and what it's weak against, even though they only know this because the player knows this.

I deal with it by changing the creature just enough that their advice won't work, or giving it new attack forms that would throw the party off, but not overly unbalance the encounter.

What do you do?

Yes, it is irritating to some extent when certain players just can't contain themselves. On the other hand, I put that information down to information picked up during an adventurer's pub round. The best method, I find, is to just avoid using staple monsters. I prefer a humanoid centric campaign (Is that a wizard? A sorcerer? A bard? Something else?), and create attendant monster stats as I need. Of course, certain monsters as defined by the conjuration family summon monster are well known.

But basically, there are enough changes that the players really have no clue.

 

[Runestar]

One way is to change the appearance of the creature, so your players don't really know what they are facing, and thus cannot use their metagame knowledge effectively. For example, your will of the wisp could be reflavoured as some sort of pixie wielding a shocking whip. Of course, it would still be mechanically similar, knowledge checks yield the same results etc.

Another way could be to play against type. If you know that players know that a treant is vulnerable to fire and are sure to use this to their advantage, then throw a half red-dragon treant at them instead (can fly and is immune to fire).

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Don't skirt the issue, talk to the player. Or better yet, talk to the whole group. Tell them, "It really bothers me when you do X, because Y. Please stop."

If the player continues to metagame, suggest he find another group to play with.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

You could try referring to creatures in "folksy" terms, the words the PCs might have learned as children around the campfire or listening to bedtime stories. So "troll" in their eyes might be a troll, a hill giant, an ogre or even a really big orc. Likewise, a "dragon" might be a real dragon, a salamander, a wyvern, a couatl or whatever. (And the exact "folksy" words you use can add a little flavor to the campaign, as these words tell a lot about the mindset and experience of run-of-the-mill commoners in the world.)

This doesn't work well with really distinctive creatures like beholders or illithids, though. In such cases, you could
(1) "re-skin" them (eg, make the mindflayer pallid green with great yellow eyes and replace the tentacles with a barbed tongue);
(2) throw a few decoys at them (eg, have them encounter a few real will o' wisps - mere swampgas - before (or during!) the encounter witth the real thing);
(3) confuse the PCs with vague descriptions, eliciting horror or the "fog of war";
(4) use unusual conditions (lighting, invisibility, cover, illusion) to hide the real nature of their enemy.

 

[Shin Okada]

You may take yet different approach, as shown in the core rules. Encourage PCs to take various knowledge skills and let them use it (either let them check all the possible knowledge skills they have, or you may roll secretly). Even if a player is memorizing all the monsters in WotC supplements, a PC (and it's player) still need to make an appropriate Knowledge check to, say, distinguish a Illithilich from usual Illithids, a Skeletal Dragon from Dracoliches, a Blast Spore from True Beholders, a Rust Dragon from some Metallic dragons, etc.

 

[Jhaelen]

One way is to change the appearance of the creature, so your players don't really know what they are facing, and thus cannot use their metagame knowledge effectively.
[...]
Another way could be to play against type. If you know that players know that a treant is vulnerable to fire and are sure to use this to their advantage, then throw a half red-dragon treant at them instead (can fly and is immune to fire).

Yup. I'm using both methods (altered appearance & templating) to great effect to defeat my metagaming players.

Unless they succeed with the appropriate knowledge checks they don't know the name or type of the creature.

It also helps that one of my players is really only knowledgable regarding the 2.0 versions of monsters, so whenever he recognizes (or believes to recognize) a monster, he blurts out outdated information that confuses more than it helps - just as if it was information the player's character had picked up from tall tavern tales

 

[azhrei_fje]

If you talk to the player and they can't control themselves, warn them that if they do it again, the creature will suddenly gain infinite SR against their spells and DR 50/-.

Then when it happens, DO IT. And make sure to let the player try once or twice to hit it, then "remind" them of the creature's newfound abilities against their spells and/or weapons.

I really don't like doing this. But I had a rather immature player a few years back who loved to show off his knowledge of the monsters. After this happened twice, the rest of the players told him to SHUT UP.

 

[thorimar]

I am currently DM for a group of middle aged gamers (age 35-40) but we are about to include one of the members sons in our group, a young teenager from the PC/console game generation. OVer the last year he has come to watch us play and learn how things should or shouldn't be done at the table. During my last session I introduced a summoned demon as a wandering monster (Glabrezu) and I got halfway through my description when he blurted out the name and looked ready to expand. I paused and then very calmly explained that metagaming is not welcome at the table and considered rude. He is a WoW junkie, so he has a different backround and trigger point than the rest of us, so we are trying to educate him to the way we want him to behave. We'll see if it works, but I recommend the direct approach. No one is served well by not addressing it or doing lots of extra work on simple 2HD monsters so you can't tell they are zombies or something. And if they can't fix it, off their character in some classically simple way (poison is my favorite). Humbling experience. Good luck

 

[Derro]

I'm sorta guilty of this. I GM a lot so I'm very familiar with monster stats and I sometimes get a bit enthusiastic when I know what a monster is. I'm not that bad but sometimes when I start jumping up and down and clamping my mouth shut the GM gives me the hairy eyeball. As combat progresses I generally don't use OOG knowledge unless we're getting our butts handed too us. Mostly I'm pretty good though. Mostly.

For dealing with meta-gamers I find that on the fly substitutions can work if you pay attention to what you are doing. Change energy types and vulnerabilities, switch up what breaches DR. Minor alterations that don't change the power level of the creature are totally acceptable in my book.

Just as a guideline I generally go with Knowledge (appropriate) DC 5 + CR to reveal basic facts (type, HD range, attack bonus range) and add some more facts per 5 over the DC. As an aside I do the same thing for polymorph, DC 10 + creatures HD.