There's Nothing Wrong with Metagaming - Web DM

hello gamers I'm Pruitt this is Jim and this episode of web DM is one that's payment oh that's the third one in a row you always do this whenever you're doing Pruitt sintra knocked over traps mini sorry about that Oh Travis Travis uh drums God give me the help action yeah unfortunately he did say he was going to get coffee so he's not here that's right that's right okay Pruitt's good at this right I can't get a hint or anything yes but that is DM knowledge so I can't well let me see here we've got this and oh I think I got inspiration I've got inspiration right hang on yes you did make an inspiration pun earlier in the session oh yes inspiration yeah that one alright alright time to nail this web DM intro alright Jim so we're gonna be doing this show like we always do but it's gonna be a minute gaming right just talk about it for a sec okay no way no we should just get into it you want to get into it I mean heavenly arty though we are we just too early meta showing I don't know anymore I don't think this Oni this is the point where I don't know I don't know when the cameras get turned on exactly well it doesn't matter because it's all really no because isn't it all the same thing really is it well for one yeah the simulation and the in reality are the same so the game and reality must be the same that's why there's no definition about metagaming that makes sense because there is no such thing as meta gaming and yet the entire game is a meta game so how would you define meta game in character versus out of character knowledge using that out of character knowledge either from a character or an NPC or something to influence the game world to make a decision or something yeah I just like to state up front at the beginning of the show that that definition is [ __ ] like just forget it throw it out the window and forget it there's a narrow criteria for it that I have personally which is like if everyone at your table DM every player is like listen we want a hard-and-fast boundary between what is in character knowledge and what is out of character knowledge pen all five six seven twenty of us whatever agree to it that's one thing right that's a table rule that you are coming up for yourself but looking at metagaming it's just a bunch of people who are complaining about these very petty very little things that I'm here to tell you as soon as you give up wanting to control that kind of player decision-making the game will just be so much better yeah this like takes a load off and eases so many problems that become like real sticking points between Dungeon Master's and players and I get it there are dungeon masters who want a specific immersive experience and there are players who also want that specific immersive experience and saying like you know how in the world does my character know XYZ how in the world does the villain know this thing that they shouldn't know that they want justification for that and they want there to be a reason for it and just casual metagaming it really gets under their skin you need to work that out with your group that is an out of character problem punish your players for it dunno whatever so it's all time for us to take a deep breath right relax mana Gaming is not a problem yeah well I mean it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be a problem why don't we recognize some types of medication sure sure sure right as we move forward and then you can kind of unpack like what could be a problem what couldn't what's just like you just gotta let that go some things you gotta let that go what are some types of meta games so there's the traditional version right like using out of character knowledge for in character purposes and that applies to players and Dungeon Master's right like this is a thing but there's also a more expansive version of metagaming that's like the social contract of your game is a medic game if you have a social contract that says our party is an adventuring party they stick together yeah they don't fight each other they don't try to stab each other in the back they don't try to undermine each other that's a meta game you've that is a that is a decision that you made out of game that's impacting in-game decisions right and so I think like that's number one there's a lot of groups that have something like that so I part of what I want to do with the episode is show people that number one you guys are metagaming all over the place yeah there's so much metagaming going on in dungeons dragons and other RPGs that's right and it mad about it and someone might say as a counterpart like well you should just do that because people would would do that so they could get along but if you're playing like a rogue that steals [ __ ] why aren't you stealing from the people like right around you it'd be pretty easy wouldn't it right there's in character justifications for it but not always right but it's because you've all decided cuz you're all players and we all want to get along we want to keep playing this game you know there's a shared storytelling techniques and cooperative world building or collaborative world building especially things like a social scene where the dungeon master kind of lays the broad terms for what this social encounter is gonna be like and then the players have a lot more control over setting the terms of what's in that scene sometimes you see DMS do it with like establishing a sense of place and they'll tell the players like okay you guys see XY and Z tell me number one how your character reacts do they see anything that interests them like you're giving players some control to be the author in that scene and that's a technique and a tool you can use that is a metagame technique right the players stepping out from their character just a little bit to describe something that's happening in the game in deciding what would be good for their character to see in that yeah what do you see that might interest you like well is there a thing there my guys always looking for these things yeah you just met again there's things like group character creation your metagaming at that point if you'd sat down and your dungeon master said hey I'm running cursive Strada and you go sweet I'm gonna play a paladin because paladin's are really useful against undead and this is whole things about vampires and werewolves another thing the werewolves aren't I did but you'll see what I mean don't at me and don't at me bro your meta gaming in those moments and if it's like for Dungeon Master's and you see it sometimes that get obsessive about stamping out metagaming yeah there's coming then why didn't you just present everyone with pre generated randomly rolled characters because like your players are always using out of character knowledge to play the game that they are playing they are deciding when to use their character abilities they are deciding when to use the the resources that they have and not all of those are in character decisions yeah they're manipulating the pieces of a game well yeah because I mean this happens in other games right right the one that I'm thinking of the most is magic where I imagine the gathering the idea of the metagame is is sort of at a tournament or competitive play you sort of know what decks are popular what card combos are popular what what other competitors are playing and so the meta game is sort of you can't ignore it you can't you know say like well it's not the game it's the meta game I can't you know I'm you don't make that distinction you incorporate it into your play experience I think Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games are better when you embrace the fact that there is a meta game that exists at your table the classic example of the troll you know how does your character know that the troll is only vulnerable to fire an acid there are so many ways that a character might know that in character but at the bottom line if it's just like if the player knows it because the player is a nerd who plays a lot of fantasy RPGs and other things and they just sort of know that that's what you do with fire or the player is a character that has like a fire or an acid attack at the end of the day the players making a decision to do this like why try to influence that behavior a certain way just to get a certain outcome do you want them to flail ineffectually at a monster that they can't kill while they get resentful of you and then leave the game angry like is that what we want here it's kind of a forced immersion right in other words so you're just like holding their head underwater knowledge is passed down like people know like certain things like that so if the player happens to know you know hey now if it's a demon from like the eighth layer of the abyss that nobody's ever seen before but that one player happened to fight one in the previous campaign yeah that's something a little bit different so this is we're getting right to territory where there are groups and there are people that want a play experience where that level of in character an out of character knowledge there's a clear line right because they want a very most from emotion of an immersive experience a drowning explain what a musical version you want mutual consensual drowning in the RP we're gonna talk about some techniques just a minute to make sure that those boundaries are firmly established but too often what I see online and in online communities and forums and all these others it's like a dungeon master complaining about metagaming I'm here to tell you I have rarely seen players complain about metagaming I've seen a lot of letters complain that decisions that they made were overruled because the DM thought they were metagaming and and it seems like to me that there's a a sense of control that's at play and the dungeon master just needs to be like hey yeah it doesn't what does it matter if you overcame my troll encounter that I thought was gonna be super awesome it's just like think of a better encounter dam like you can do it it's possible but yeah you know you're you're the entire tension in your campaign shouldn't hang on you know the players not or the characters not knowing what a troll is or just reskin that troll we're using the troll example I think because it's the most common one that gets brought up here but there are others that get used and there are ways there are ways to address them and you know before the too many we get too many comments otherwise there is such a thing as bad metagaming which we will talk about as well what are some of the DM considerations to take into too count to maybe be a little bit maybe a little more comfortable or how to think about they're monsters too to be okay with metagaming right so we're assuming here that like the social contract is we want a hard and fast line between in character and out of character knowledge so for Dungeon Master's it's worth thinking about the physics of your world and how all of the game elements work with that I'm thinking of like some of the more common sources of friction between player and Dungeon Master where you know you see Dungeon Master's use the this is in character this is out of character knowledge your character wouldn't know that are things like magic particularly in in game systems like traditional fantasy and Dungeons and Dragons and other mainstream games magic is usually very precise if my fireball always fills the same volume every time 20 foot rings right then how come my my caster isn't like you know a genius with placing it maybe they're not in a Volker so they're not a savant at placing their fireballs but they do know where it bursts the limits of it they can fire their rays of frost and scorching into melee without having to worry about it in the same way that an archer if you want magic to be unpredictable or you're resentful that a player is like using the precision of spells to be like yeah I'm gonna get just the enemy's fireball is gonna stop just short of my allies like is that not a legitimate thing if you don't want it to be then you need to change the way the spell works and you need to let the players know before they even start playing that you have changed magic so that it is more unpredictable so that you can introduce an element of uncertainty if that's the kind of game you want you need to be prepared for the players to go No thank you we don't want to play a magic user because we don't want unpredictable magic I mean if they wanted that they would play a wild sort that's built into the game like that uncertainty the knowledge of how the magic works knowledge of the monsters all of these things help set the foundations for what the characters know what the what the world is like and if that information is important to your group having a solid understanding of how the rules interact with your game world is gonna really help with you know with making sure that that lying isn't crossed but it applies to the dungeon master as well right like you enemies your NPCs are subject to those same conditions as well I'm pretty sure it's happened to you in a game before I mean I've had a DM in the past that didn't really like that much metagaming yet every time we fought them like they knew exactly our tactics yeah and it's like we've never fought this group of enemies how they knew exactly were not gonna do when you're on the other side of the screen and you're a player with a dungeon master who's like hardcore against metagaming and like don't know don't table no talking between rounds of combat no things like this it's just like then it needs to be the same for you and that what that means is that if the enemy knows something about the party they otherwise wouldn't know there is a game effect in play there's a scry spell being used there's a magical spy or something like that now the players can do something about that now I find that style of play very engaging and I try very hard to justify the knowledge that my enemies have of what's going on with the party because that means the party can do something about it they can take countermeasures to make sure that the enemies don't get that information that's because I like playing in that style but there are DMS out there who are like oh yeah I'm just going to you know I automatically know what the you know the party is capable of and I'm designing my combat encounters with that in mind well maybe that game style works because the players want to be challenged to the to their limits every fight and they want enemies that are tailor-made for for them so that they can be challenged in combat because that's why they're playing the game that's one thing using it as a bludgeon against other players who aren't interested in that is entirely different is there a point that you decide what level of metagaming that you engage in like or how does the DM decide what level like in terms of like the metagaming that they do yeah I think that's all part of the social contract that either is explicit or that emerges because you've played together long enough that your styles grow together and merge you know the social contract is one of those things where maybe if you're playing with a new group of people that you've never played with before you lay this out in a session zero like hey guys this is the style of dungeon master I am I'm gonna ask you guys some questions to get a good feel for like what you know what style of games you like but for me you know I always sort of because we played together so long because our home group played together so long our gaming style sort of merged together and we developed practices of play over time that nothing was like so far out of bounds then another player was like hey where this thing's cropped up that we're doing it's like I I don't like it yeah so we kind of just like a social contract emerged from the fact that we played together for so long so there's different ways that a social contract can can come about and it may be its explicit maybe its implicit maybe you've never thought about it at all but there's some unwritten unspoken rule of something at your table that keeps the game flowing and keeps the game going together and if you've never talked about it if you've never taken the chance to like think about the social contract of your table and just the unspoken rules that exist no pvp or done we're not gonna steal magic items from each other then maybe it's time to think about that and talk to your group about it if you think there's a problem Jim is there is there anything that DMS do metagame why's that just goes too far for you like what's the line for you where you're just like guys I so yeah there's two for me um yeah actually there's more than one so the first to it are are the not knowing what the monster does yeah it's like guys if this is a traditional fantasy world then why aren't there nursery rhymes about what trolls are like why aren't there myths and fables and folk tales and folk wisdom and things that people pass down like for good there's our nursery rhyme that exists in 2018 that warns us against the Black Death right like that's like these are art cultural artifacts that are passed down but they have their source in in something real it's like in your fantasy world how come there is not cultural knowledge of how certain monsters work that gives the partyin out if you're a dungeon master who's wanting to maintain a sharp line between in character and out of character knowledge and your players are on board then make sure you have firmly established the player or the characters know this about the monsters and it's not like and go read the monster manual because that's a player behavior that you really should kind of stop yeah but it is a case of like you're you know rural peasants in faerun you know all about different clan you know that goblins are bad news don't go anywhere near them they they're at best a nuisance and at worst quite deadly their giant spiders in the forests and things underground that will come and get you there are dragons that fly around here and not even just driver Griffins hypocrites and wyverns yeah all sorts of things like the world is filled with monsters why don't you know the most common ones in your area okay wait that's one that's one thing that gets me and so there's a lot of arguments about how would you know about this one thing right on black friend of Jack exactly right there you go okay come on anyway the other one were all snakes everyone if you didn't know that it's coral coral the other one for me is the is the prompting a player I touch the thing are you sure are you sure or sometimes it looks like this I touched the thing scribble scribble scribble okay guys what do you do I touch the thing okay you do this you did this what did you say you do again okay and it's just this stalling and and usually what happens here is you've put something in your game that you realize too late is gonna be really bad news yeah and now you're prompting the party to do like are you sure and and it's if they prompt that you subtly send out that you want the player to pick up on to be like oh the dungeon master is asking me if I'm sure maybe I should second-guess myself that's some bad metagaming yeah don't be Regis why is that your final answer that's fine right it's just two things going on here if you put something in your game that can wipe out your party because of just looking under a rock or something like that then that's on you you should not have put that in your game if you weren't willing to see the consequences of that through and if you're at least warned them or at least warned them at least put warning signs is this an ultra deadly trap why aren't there corpses around here where I'll give you an example from the Wizards of the coast product it's one of my favorite parts of any of their products that they've had there's a this is spoilers for the amber temple in cursive straat there is a imagine there's a magic statue there that has a sympathy effect on it simply is like a seventh or eighth level spell it's pretty powerful it makes you be attracted to a certain object or place and it just you can see around the statue are we'll desiccated bodies of people who are just kneeling and so you know something's wrong here these are dead like partially mummified bodies they're just kneeling there you can get close you can examine them they have faces that are twisted in agony you're clutching their stomachs and hunger pains you know something's going on this is a deadly trap most likely it will kill your character if they get stuck here and they cannot magically leave particularly if they're by themselves right yeah but you've warned the party that something's up here and it's a good example of that kind of trap in which I thought that was very clever and I and when I when we discovered it in play your players are veteran players certainly gonna be like yeah we're not going anywhere near that but because you've given them Clues they can use a trap like that against their own enemies they can use it for their own purposes it's an element of play that you've clearly communicated the danger of and now it's on the party to see how much they want to test that danger yeah and if they push their luck sorry your characters dead or your characters debilitated or driven insane or shut down to another dimension or whatever it is yeah sometimes if you take a ride on a tiger you're gonna get bit right right but the other thing about the are you sure is that it to me I have never seen a player that goes like oh I guess I'm not sure I should stop I usually see a player that goes why are you trying to undermine what I want to do yes I touched the thing yes I pull the door open yes I do this yes I do that and then it becomes a you know [ __ ] power play between two people at which the only answer is for one of you to walk away you know like it's just stop it come on the final one for me about the dungeon masters and to me me this perhaps the biggest one it's the using you know a player metagaming as an excuse to punish their character or their player if metagaming has a problem for you then you need to talk about it like an adult like a like an emotionally mature person with the other people around you instead of seeking to punish them and I'm this is the most common thing that I see on message boards and forms all kinds of things as Dungeon Master's go like how do i punish my players for metagaming it's like all of these people talking about what you could do this and that and this it's like dokkum experience take their stuff well with you now for one this was present in the be from the earliest ages the first edition dmg includes punishing players and characters for certain behaviors and Gygax was wrong to include it in that one and it's wrong to do it now for all the the brilliance of some of the founders of the Hobby they were not perfect Saints of gaming you know they were wrong on a great many things but you know so I can see where it enters in it enters into the the common pool of wisdom about how you should run these games and punishing metagaming behavior is one of those things that creeps up but is just like do not do it and if you're a if you're a player who experiences this your reaction should be something like hey why are you doing this and if it keeps up I'm gonna leave I mean we could go into like all different kinds of examples of adversarial DMing and using you know punishing people for for certain behaviors in game the thing is I can I can hear like counter points like well what if I have a player that's constantly like well telling another player like what spell they should use at that exact moment it's like well that to me that's not metagaming that players being a dick you're trying to tell someone how to play their character right you know it's like well no no that's a different behavior you need to stop yes they might be metagaming but the heart of what they're doing is a wholly different behavior it's a little different and this is assuming that the advice isn't wanted right that the other the other player might be like hey I've never played a cleric before you put you usually play all our clear eyes can you help me pick my spells and then Oh a blessed would be good right a bless would be great right now who do you really you know what spiritual weapon is a great Cygnus well those are the kinds of things right you know those are the kinds of things that's how new players learn the game is when they have veteran players next to them who are willing to help them into the Hobby right and so we shouldn't try to stamp that out that again assuming the the advice is you know appreciate advanced war yeah right the game is a collaborative game and whether you're the storyteller deep immersion you want the emotional resonance of exploring a character arc in a complex world that your Dungeon Master creates or you're here to like just beer and pretzels kick down the door and play some Dungeons and Dragons like the point of it is to collaborate with each other and to talk and like talking during combat meeting strategy oh yeah is another one of those where it's like oh my god let them do it I've had DMS that were like okay no no no stop the crosstalk and I'm like people talk during combat I've seen all the movies they do it all the time they shout EJ they shout you together they compare kills they they say hey can you do this and then I'm gonna do that it's called strategy tactics now the thing is if they're doing it they're doing it out loud right the enemies can hear what they're doing I'm like yeah go ahead and do it because your enemies are sitting here listening to you coordinating aloud yeah that's why I allow it right which is also why the party should have a secret language that only they know or really Pathak the brewery's telepathic bond ASAP it's like the best thing is then but it enhances the game when you allow the entire party to get together particularly in comment this is one of the reasons I like simultaneous group initiative is because you can just say you guys go you're gonna tell me what order you go in and what you're doing and now the party gets together they put their heads together number one for those players who have difficulty knowing what to do in their combat round they now have some assistance and can bounce ideas off people they don't feel like the spotlights on them and now they're like uh what do I do they're now part of a group and can take suggestions can offer suggestions without the spotlight being on them that's one thing that it does but it's just it's a more enjoyable way to play and I find it actually speeds things up oh it does cuz yeah when you got your bard your cleric and everybody in there the bard hits the bard hits them with with a with faerie fire and the cleric goes in hits them with a Bane and they don't run in and your fighters attack yeah and then you know it was a traditional initiative of like you know what you know what they call the the term official term it is but you know like Dungeons and Dragons style initiative even like that if you allow for collaboration and talk with rally you know between the characters and players usually a little speed up combat but like the same time Pruitt's saying they are speaking in character and the bad guys will hear them and may adapt to those circumstances gotta watch that battle banter yeah gotta watch the battle banter is their player metagaming that should be avoided there is player metagaming that should be avoided if you're playing through a published adventure don't go by the adventure and read it that's something that's a bad medicated don't go to your game store and just like peruse through to annihilation don't be a Pierce Hawthorne right what is your play I want to do so many things you know don't look at your deems notes if you feel the need to gain that level of advantage yeah then something else is going on yeah Andy you might need to take a step back and realize that maybe you're too invested in something if you feel like you need to win you need to cheat to win yeah when it all colors when it all costs or you're playing some bizarre hyper competitive version of DeeDee in which case the dungeon master should lock up their notes better but I don't know that that thing actually exists and I think it's probably more of a case of you you know a player feeling a need to like win because of Eve they either have an adversarial DM and and they are resentful of that or worried or they want the game to go on because they like playing but they don't want to come you know confront the adversarial DM but it's just like those are all kinds of behaviors that those those are the things that lead to the gaming horror stories that you read about you can also have a DM like me who just shows players their map and just like here's the map I have you know yeah you can look at it for like five seconds and what you're talking about that kind of adversarial relationship in the game that can lead to like like you said hyper-competitive D&D that resembles something like now I want to see D&D from the producers of salt right where the damn of the players are just like they're literally at each other's throats yeah I've been at tables like that before and it's not fun and I've been that diem before with certain players where I've just been like oh this guy yeah and you just and then like every you start scrutinizing every little thing they do is like how did you know that what are you doing how did you get that spell where did you switch that do you sure you didn't switch that after the long rest trust me if you just like [ __ ] let all that go and just be like I don't [ __ ] care man just do what you're gonna do like ones like this is the visitin else game and I know that people's experiences at the table can can really impact their lives but at the same time it's like it's an elf game and shouldn't be that invested that you feel the need to like cheat at that level so that's one style of player metagaming it's like you should do please cut that out there's another kind of like style where if the DM makes a mistake that the the player wants to exploit that mistake that's kind of the same way so like in this case it would be you know I'm certain damage for getting certain damage that your character would have taken automatically or or like you know where they subject to a spell that the DM forgot about the reason why I bring this up is because this is an opportunity as a player for you to speak up and say hey DM you forgot to make that attack against me you said that the monster was attacking you got distracted and then you moved on you've now shown your dungeon master that your truck that your [ __ ] trustworthy right like that you're right you're here to play the game fairly an obsessive adherence to the rules as written in the game and that I find is just as problematic but at the same time we do agree to play to the rules of the game and if if we want something that's skipped over because the Dungeon Master has a lot on their plate they are the dungeon master they're usually doing a [ __ ] ton of stuff and all you're worried about is your one character if they forget something and you speak up then that shows the dungeon master that like hey I can trust this player they're not trying to gain every advantage on me and you can do some amazing [ __ ] gaming if there is a strong bond of trust between players and Dungeon Master's if the the bonds of trust there are that everyone's playing fairly no one's out to screw someone else over no one's out to take out their their personal vendettas at the gaming table or something like that my god all sorts of things open up all those things that you hear about where you're like never do this type of gaming never play an evil campaign like sure you can like what of course you can if you trust the people you play with we had a great time during we had a great time evil evil campaigns were fun as [ __ ] but I wouldn't play one with people I didn't trust and so like that's an opportunity as a player if you instead say I'm not gonna say anything I'm even though I'm in range of spiritual guardians or that fire shield spell the [ __ ] is I'm not gonna yeah because it's not gonna say anything because the demons like a t-rex as long you don't move and say anything right then you're not doing that yeah I understand where those behaviors come from a lot of this stems from adversarial DMing but if you want to start building a bond of trust with your Dungeon Master then making sure that the rules that would apply to your character even if they're detrimental are applied fairly and not not using you know the diems distraction yeah or something like that well and also because what that will lead to is in the future if you say cast hex or hunters mark and you forgot to do all your hunter's mark damage yeah and you hit and you rolled your damage and then the next person start oh crap I forgot to roll my Hunter's bark oh go and roll it cuz you did it cuz you did it it the damage was done we just didn't write it down right like but your team is more likely to go oh yeah go and roll that d6 yeah go ahead and all that as opposed to the like nope sorry you're sorry you missed it because they're gonna think back back yeah its peer Guardians right that's where resentment builds up and bad gaming experiences start to beep in when people just like we're getting very specific on me don't be this is like all of the [ __ ] that's listed under don't be a dick yeah like this we're gonna like gonna go deep into some of these so in turn about dick you can make sure that you don't cross over a line if in that moment of maybe session zero or whatever your your your group has that meta game talk of okay what is and isn't in and out of character knowledge what can I use and bring to the table to to play those are moments where you can establish you know you might say something like yeah done your master my wizard is background like they're far traveled they're they're widely read they know what a lot of things like what does that mean what do I know about the place that I'm in you know seek these answers out before they become problems in the moment and and try to kind of work through some of these things number one working through them before they become problems is another way to build trust between the Dungeon Master and the player it's another way to establish that this is the boundary of what we consider acceptable play versus unacceptable play it gives you a freedom once you know where the limits are then you know how much room you have to roam around in and consequently Dungeon Master's need to be willing to give you a large enough space that you feel like it's a fun game to play in and if they're like all restricted about what they want out of the game because they're sort of worried about meta gaming in some weird way yeah then then that's a red flag and maybe that's something that if you can't work it out then you just might not be with the right group so any any final thoughts there are metagaming metagaming that I see from players sometimes that sometimes gets them into trouble particularly if you have a dungeon master who's like I don't balance my encounters there's gonna be stuff here that is very dangerous is players thinking that there's always a solution and that every fight is winnable and particularly this can happen if you've got you know there are certain styles of traditional role-playing games and and you know sometimes it's Dungeons & Dragons where it's assumed that the party wins that fights are going to be fair and for the most part that that fights will be win a bowl and there's if there's a trap or a puzzle somewhere that there is an obvious solution that that that's at hand I find this is more typical in newer players than in veteran players but I've also seen plenty of veteran players who have only ever played in this style that dump and so the metagaming that occurs there is they come they're playing with a dungeon master who is not like that uses unbalanced encounters and trust me unbalanced encounters are infinitely more fun than balanced encounters and has things in their dungeon that are are deadly and dangerous or just unsolvable like I like to put things in my dungeons that have no obvious solution it's just like I don't know how you're gonna get past this obstacle good luck and then the point of it is is for the players to get their heads together look at what resources they have and to figure something out and if they can't come up with a solution then then they'll have to come back with one that works yeah once you get a key card for that door right but it doesn't need to necessarily be a key card you could disintegrate the door or or a channel around it or demolish the building I mean put say key but you know in Metroid games like that there's always like sometimes there's just a door it's like well you just can't do that right now my you need to be okay with that you need to be okay with that but it's it's the players who should be like well there is a trap there so there must be a way around it but that's something there must be something in there that is a style of metagame thinking that is can lead to a lot of frustrating moments where and you know and when it happens in my games I usually immediately once I spotted I'm kind of like just so you know this may be an unsolvable possible puzzle keep that in mind and and then move on but I'm opening the door and we are leaving the door open to be surprised by the player that once they know it's not a conventional puzzle or trap or challenge or whatever that they might go well I've got this thing that can bypass it that maybe the DM forgot about in which case it's like that's sweet I'm I'm glad to be surprised I like being surprised as a Dungeon Master if I'm never surprised in the game is [ __ ] boring right you know so I I like I like those moments that's why I include challenges that have no obvious solution to them or or no you know no no button that can be pushed to to you know to continue forward so that's that's kind of one that I thought I would see particularly you know as more and more people join the Hobby and as newer newer players join you know they'll start encountering different playstyles in different different groups and a lot of these things that we're describing here and the metagaming show are just matters of taste and you know the the kind of the frantic sort of like I've got to punish my players for metagaming is one of those things it's like you guys need to cut that out like Dungeon Master's we need to we need to stop this there's nothing wrong with metagaming if establishing a firm line between in character and out of character knowledge is important and then that's something you need to talk to your group about but it's not something you to punish them for it's not something you need to lose your mind over it's okay and the game is really very fun on the other side when you're just like all right just don't look at my map unless I show it to you please don't read the adventure yeah you know and I trust you not to and we're gonna have some great gaming and there's gonna be a lot of table talk there's gonna be a lot of metagaming that goes on and it's gonna enhance the game it's going to make it better [Music] oh yeah counting cards it's metagaming right I think I've been playing 21 yeah you're counting cards to keep keep track of everything that's going on and all the possible resources in the encounter right right yeah I guess I can see that it's right again yeah yeah of course there's money on the line and the DM this in this case the dealer yeah doesn't want you to do that no so yeah I can see that there and you know if you if there was something like competitive judgment like I would it here's a situation in which I would be hardcore about metagaming PvP combat oh yeah when when PvP combat happens and I don't mind it if it happens and it law as long as it doesn't look like one of the players is like what the [ __ ] is going on why are they like that why are they given I will then I will allow a limited degree of PvP more than likely because I trust the players not to screw this up and and you know make a big deal yeah sort of make a big problem sometimes they kill each other and occasionally they kill each other and it enriches the the narrative that we're building I haven't [ __ ] forgot where I was going with it but it's just the point was it will hates my characters will yeah I think it's more like if you're doing PvP then then yes you know establishing firmly what the to play what the two characters know about each other which is probably a lot if they've been adventuring together for a while is is gonna be important if only because you want to make sure that you know this is we could do a whole little mini thing on how to successfully run PvP but it I try to keep metagaming under control in PvP combat

Channel: Web DM

Views: 117,118

Rating: 4.8673825 out of 5

Keywords: Dungeons, Dragons, Role, Playing, Tabletop, Game, 5th, Edition, 5e, Web, DM, WebDM, D&D, DND, gaming, metagaming, metagamer, meta, metagame, problems, dungeons and dragons, dungeons & dragons, tutorial, how to, gm tips, dm tips, how to play dungeons & dragons, philosophy, gameplay, problem players, playing the game, player character, table problems, dnd 5e problems, how to play dnd, funny, inspirational, critical role, problem solving, controversial, communication, knowledge, ttrpg, rpg, mollymauk, cheating

Id: wQ3XSZlPnZs

Length: 37min 51sec (2271 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/-Sparrow_]

One of the best intros yet.

[u/Frank3nRabbit]

Best episode so far