I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that metagaming is something that is unavoidable and not all of it is bad. At the end of the day I think it's only an issue if it harms the overall experience of the table. For me at least what is also an issue though is when someone assumes a player is metagaming and jumps on someone for it when in reality they did nothing wrong which can cause unnecessary drama.
We had a bad round of meta gaming in my last group. For a while, I only played with a VERY literal gamemaster, and almost TPK'ed a group AVOIDING as much meta gaming as possible. So... I'm trying balance being judicious with it.
The storm added perfect ambience 😎 I've been lucky to have players who have never metagamed. At most, they'll ask "Is there a chance my character would know X", which makes me more likely to offer them the opportunity to make a check. The exception was something I actually made happen during a Far Realm arc where I was making their characters go insane. The Witcher-esque archer was portrayed by a player familiar with the D&D bestiary, and his "insanity" was giving terrible advice to everyone in the midst of combat (e.g., "trolls are immune to fire, don't use it"). That's about the only exception to metagaming I've had.
I LOVE it when players ask me if they can roll for something. In rare instances the answer will be no, but in 99% of cases I'll find a way to let them do it
I had a great meta game experience. I've been running RPGs since 1998-ish, so I've read through a lot of material across a lot of different RPGs. During a custom 5e campaign, I was running a Cleric/Warlock that was sworn to a god of Secrets and Knowledge (Pacted to his god). We entered into a Water temple style dungeon and ended up staying with some fish folk before heading into the dungeon proper to help fix the issue they were having. Since we were in this underwater city, and going into an underwater temple, I went ahead and memorized create/destroy water for the day. Figuring it will probably come in handy at some point. Several encounters later we enter into the boss lair. Where the boss emerges flanked by two water weirds. Having read through the MM cover to cover, I remembered that the Water Weirds have a few strange things about them. So on my combat turn I got ahead and roll a knowledge check for this particular creature. Thankfully I crit (with a massive from my knowledge skills as well) so I ask "Is it safe to assume I know pretty much everything about this creature?" To which the DM graciously says "sure". So I say "My character will cast destroy water, and destroy the top 1 inch of water directly beneath and surrounding the water weirds. Now for those that don't know, a Water weird has a feature called "Water bound" where the water weird dies if it leaves contact with the water to which it is bound, or if that water is destroyed. So I quickly explain the rule to my confused party members. The DM, who has been a good friend of mine and played at my table since 1999-ish, had the book pulled open to their page since he was running them for the encounter. He just cursed my name (a normal reaction from my friends when I do something ridiculous and unexpected) and said "You destroy the Water weirds". Could he have made a different call? Sure, and I would have supported it. At the end of the day, the meta knowledge was a tool to use within the rules of the game. Maybe my character had once read a treatise on water creatures and learned the obscure rule. Maybe my character's Patron God whispered the secret into his mind at just the right moment. Whatever the reason, the character knew just the right tactic to defeat those enemies.
That's an awesome example of metagaming working well! I personally LOVE it as a DM when a player asks if they can make a roll, to implement some of their player knowledge as character knowledge. It feels fair to have a chance of failure, but also a great opportunity to give the character some backstory/depth too. Thanks for watching 😀
I am sure in one of the games I'm currently playing in one of our guys is totally metagaming. I won't say which campaign it is to avoid spoilers, but in pretty much the 1st session you can get hold of a insanely powerful item that you shouldn't know is an insanely powerful item, you have to take it to a place to reveal this information. And our guy completely beelined for it. He kept getting downed and dropping the item but whenever one of the other party members got hold of it, he would harass them to get it back to him or snatch it from them. At one point he even swallowed the item so one else could get it. When the item was revealed he refused to see what the party wanted to do with it, it was his. The item itself provides some really good concentration spells, including invisibilty. Bit wasted on a barbarian. When we have rogues and wizards. I think reading the campaign bullet points is a bad case of metagaming.
Ah, that sounds VERY annoying. If a player has already read the adventure module, I'm okay with that, as long as they don't USE or share that info to get an advantage. But if like what you described it sounds like they purposely went and read it to "cheat" that's definitely a red flag. Thanks for watching! 😀
I can say that controversial as it is, I largely prefer a situation where failure (not necessarily its consequences) is considered obvious for the character. And it's not about asking for a second opinion or something of a sort, being forced to act upon the obviously false information is just annoying.
Oh absolutely. I think it's a great skill to have, for a DM to be able to give the players hints or clues of certain things in the story. E.g. giving a clue that the imps are immune to poison by having them give off a "poisonous odor"
Is this realy a problem - I mean a game breaking problem? If a fighter does not have an information that his player wants to introduce to the game I let him roll for something appropriierte or just say no. If there is another PC who could have that information, I let him or her roll. The group is satisfied if the information is introduced into the game. Who knew it is most of the time not an issue. And if that's not such a big of a deal meta gaming is not such a big of a deal. At least that's what I think.
If you actually take roleplaying seriously metagaming breaks immersion and is therefor a bad thing. The less you value roleplaying the less of a problem metagaming is.
These videos are so high quality that I genuinely forget I'm watching a relatively new youtuber. Great stuff you're making!
That's super kind of you to say, thanks!
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that metagaming is something that is unavoidable and not all of it is bad. At the end of the day I think it's only an issue if it harms the overall experience of the table. For me at least what is also an issue though is when someone assumes a player is metagaming and jumps on someone for it when in reality they did nothing wrong which can cause unnecessary drama.
Great point! There's definitely players and DMs that can jump the gun when they start pointing fingers. Thanks for watching 😀
We had a bad round of meta gaming in my last group. For a while, I only played with a VERY literal gamemaster, and almost TPK'ed a group AVOIDING as much meta gaming as possible. So... I'm trying balance being judicious with it.
I know exactly how you feel. Finding the balance is always one of the biggest challenges as a DM
The storm added perfect ambience 😎
I've been lucky to have players who have never metagamed. At most, they'll ask "Is there a chance my character would know X", which makes me more likely to offer them the opportunity to make a check.
The exception was something I actually made happen during a Far Realm arc where I was making their characters go insane. The Witcher-esque archer was portrayed by a player familiar with the D&D bestiary, and his "insanity" was giving terrible advice to everyone in the midst of combat (e.g., "trolls are immune to fire, don't use it"). That's about the only exception to metagaming I've had.
I LOVE it when players ask me if they can roll for something. In rare instances the answer will be no, but in 99% of cases I'll find a way to let them do it
I had a great meta game experience. I've been running RPGs since 1998-ish, so I've read through a lot of material across a lot of different RPGs. During a custom 5e campaign, I was running a Cleric/Warlock that was sworn to a god of Secrets and Knowledge (Pacted to his god). We entered into a Water temple style dungeon and ended up staying with some fish folk before heading into the dungeon proper to help fix the issue they were having. Since we were in this underwater city, and going into an underwater temple, I went ahead and memorized create/destroy water for the day. Figuring it will probably come in handy at some point.
Several encounters later we enter into the boss lair. Where the boss emerges flanked by two water weirds. Having read through the MM cover to cover, I remembered that the Water Weirds have a few strange things about them. So on my combat turn I got ahead and roll a knowledge check for this particular creature. Thankfully I crit (with a massive from my knowledge skills as well) so I ask "Is it safe to assume I know pretty much everything about this creature?" To which the DM graciously says "sure". So I say "My character will cast destroy water, and destroy the top 1 inch of water directly beneath and surrounding the water weirds.
Now for those that don't know, a Water weird has a feature called "Water bound" where the water weird dies if it leaves contact with the water to which it is bound, or if that water is destroyed. So I quickly explain the rule to my confused party members. The DM, who has been a good friend of mine and played at my table since 1999-ish, had the book pulled open to their page since he was running them for the encounter. He just cursed my name (a normal reaction from my friends when I do something ridiculous and unexpected) and said "You destroy the Water weirds".
Could he have made a different call? Sure, and I would have supported it. At the end of the day, the meta knowledge was a tool to use within the rules of the game. Maybe my character had once read a treatise on water creatures and learned the obscure rule. Maybe my character's Patron God whispered the secret into his mind at just the right moment. Whatever the reason, the character knew just the right tactic to defeat those enemies.
That's an awesome example of metagaming working well! I personally LOVE it as a DM when a player asks if they can make a roll, to implement some of their player knowledge as character knowledge. It feels fair to have a chance of failure, but also a great opportunity to give the character some backstory/depth too. Thanks for watching 😀
The storm sounded great as a background noise!
I'm glad it worked out to be a positive haha, thanks for watching!
I am sure in one of the games I'm currently playing in one of our guys is totally metagaming. I won't say which campaign it is to avoid spoilers, but in pretty much the 1st session you can get hold of a insanely powerful item that you shouldn't know is an insanely powerful item, you have to take it to a place to reveal this information. And our guy completely beelined for it. He kept getting downed and dropping the item but whenever one of the other party members got hold of it, he would harass them to get it back to him or snatch it from them. At one point he even swallowed the item so one else could get it. When the item was revealed he refused to see what the party wanted to do with it, it was his. The item itself provides some really good concentration spells, including invisibilty. Bit wasted on a barbarian. When we have rogues and wizards. I think reading the campaign bullet points is a bad case of metagaming.
Ah, that sounds VERY annoying. If a player has already read the adventure module, I'm okay with that, as long as they don't USE or share that info to get an advantage. But if like what you described it sounds like they purposely went and read it to "cheat" that's definitely a red flag.
Thanks for watching! 😀
That is a pretty great video that youtube threw at me, Noice content
Edit: Rain sounds make it better haha
Thanks so much! I appreciate that 😀
Fuck it, have a sub at the intro.
Love the video. However, you should name it D&Dilemmas
Ahhh, how did I not think of that...
I can say that controversial as it is, I largely prefer a situation where failure (not necessarily its consequences) is considered obvious for the character. And it's not about asking for a second opinion or something of a sort, being forced to act upon the obviously false information is just annoying.
Oh absolutely. I think it's a great skill to have, for a DM to be able to give the players hints or clues of certain things in the story. E.g. giving a clue that the imps are immune to poison by having them give off a "poisonous odor"
WILLIAM AFTON PLAYS DND???!?!
Absolutely! Mathew Lillard is huge in the D&D space! He is in a ton of online games (I’d recommend The Descent part 2 on TH-cam)
Is this realy a problem - I mean a game breaking problem? If a fighter does not have an information that his player wants to introduce to the game I let him roll for something appropriierte or just say no. If there is another PC who could have that information, I let him or her roll. The group is satisfied if the information is introduced into the game. Who knew it is most of the time not an issue. And if that's not such a big of a deal meta gaming is not such a big of a deal. At least that's what I think.
And yes, the Audio is excellent ☺
As long as the players are asking if they can roll for it, I don't think I'd have any issue 😊 Thanks for watching Frederic!
If you actually take roleplaying seriously metagaming breaks immersion and is therefor a bad thing. The less you value roleplaying the less of a problem metagaming is.
Metagaming...we all seen it. Mostly its crap and fkx stuff up. Screw dm vs players...its not what the game about.
agreed, DM vs Players is always a recipe for a bad game