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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7328304" data-attributes="member: 29398">Ah, I think I see where my lack of clarity may be getting in the way here.Meta-gaming on the player side is always bad.  Metagaming on the GM side is in many cases just part of the job....but with that said, there's desireable DM metagaming and undesireable DM metagaming.An example of desireable DM metagaming is when the DM uses her knowledge of what's where and how things fit together in the game world to drop clues and hints, and make a mystery out of something.  She could, for example, have had the PCs at some point find a very cryptic map showing (somewhat ironically) where in the castle the map they're looking for is hidden - cryptic enough that when the sought map is found the PCs will look at this other one and say "Ahhh, that's what it was trying to show us!".  She can't do anything like this if she doesn't know where the map is going to be found.  She could also eariler have put out some hints and clues that pointed (more or less cryptically) at this castle rather than the other one across the valley (for which she has a different adventure or module all ready to go, knowing there's at least a 50% chance that the PCs are going to head over there and explore it at some point because that's what adventurers do).An example of undesireable DM metagaming is when the DM changes the next adventure to feature less combat once she sees the players aren't bringing any front-liners to the dance and haven't thought to recruit or hire any.The map certainly could be in the study - that's why we're looking for it there.  But we've turned the place upside down and given it the most thorough search we can and lo and behold: no map.  So we'll move on to the library and search there; then the drawing room, then the bedrooms...and if those come up dry we'll move on to less likely locations such as the wine cellar or the kitchen.  Long story short, we know it's here somewhere - we just have to find it.And who knows, on the way to finding the map we might find all kinds of other neat interesting stuff!Lan-"though experiences tells me one of two things will happen: they'll search for weeks and find nothing, or they'll beeline right for it as soon as they're on site as if they knew where it was all along"-efan</blockquote>

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