Questions tagged [metagaming]
For questions about topics concerning using, managing, or separating player knowledge and character knowledge.
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How do you discourage "player knowledge" as a GM?
As a trivial random encounter is winding down, a player thinks "That was too easy... The GM wouldn't give us an encounter that doesn't give XP," and starts searching for hidden bad guys or other clues....
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How can I effectively decrease metagaming and increase player immersion?
This question is posed in a great way over on the Paizo boards, where I hang out since I play/run a lot of Pathfinder. Immersion is one of the key parts of the RPG experience to me, so I loved the ...
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How to secretly talk to one of the players while DM'ing?
To cut it short, the players (it's a 3 people party) are in some kind of a Secret Service of a rebel prince who wants the throne. One of my players is working for the current king secretly, feeding ...
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Do reactions that trigger on saving throws give knowledge of saving throws that would otherwise be secret?
Preliminaries.
Some reactions have triggers which are tangible events in the fiction of the game. For example, feather fall's casting time is:
1 reaction, which you take when you or a creature within ...
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How to prevent metagaming induced by trying to not metagame?
We have a lot of questions on how to prevent metagaming on this tag. But usually the metagaming is something like
Using player's knowledge to optimize your character's actions.
Now, I've ...
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Do PCs understand the leveling system and its experience requirements?
Do PCs understand the nature of the leveling system and its experience requirements? For example, suppose a PC is just below the XP requirement for a level and is planning to undertake a major quest. ...
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Can I roll for a PC in secret?
As a GM, can I roll in secret so my players don't even know I rolled?
For example, a PC walks past a secret door; if I ask the player to roll perception he may suspect there is something. Can I roll ...
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What do you roll Insight against when the other person is telling the truth?
Frequently it comes up that characters will be talking to an NPC and one of them will say something similar to "Do I believe him?" "Roll an insight check."
If they're lying, it's simple: an Insight ...
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Are casters aware of spell slots?
Players use spell slots as a meta concept to manage a character. For instance, Liz the Wizard gets so many spell slots at this level, and so many spell slots at that level. It says so right there in ...
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Do characters know if someone else, who they can see, has failed a saving throw?
Do characters know if someone else, who they can see, has failed a saving throw?
In particular, let's consider the following cases:
a caster has cast a spell, that requires a saving throw, and that ...
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How can metagaming retries on poor skill checks be prevented?
I'm sure every DM has had this happen: one PC is trying to find something cool on a dead monster's body. The player rolls poorly, and instead of accepting the paltry 2 copper pieces, the PC calls all ...
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How do I manage a player who is handling traps by metagaming?
I have a high-hitpoint character who barges down hallways without regard to traps because that's what His Guy would do. In reality, he's metagaming: doing this because he knows he has the HPs to soak ...
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How do you deal with metagaming based on die results?
I ran into this problem in a session I had earlier today. My characters were going through a dungeon and after a fairly lengthy fight with a person who lived there, they decided they would question ...
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GMing a setting when your players are more familiar with it than you
My players often ask me to GM games in specific settings we all like. Most of the time, they know FAR more than me about that setting. They will object to events I have happen or how I play an NPC, ...
user4000
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Is the "+1" in "Long Sword +1" for OOC use only?
Do your characters say, "I'd like to buy that Long Sword +1," or is that "+1" for OOC reference only?
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What is the best way to do search checks (or similar), when players knowing the result of their roll will colour their perception of the result?
What is the best way to do search or spot tests (or similar) when knowing the outcome of the roll will colour the players' perception of the result?
I have encountered this problem in a number of ...
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How do I DM and play a PC at the same time without metagaming?
We have a large group of 9 people. As such, it's more manageable when we split into 2 separate teams to take objectives (like one team saves the villagers and the other fights the bandit leader). In ...
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Official self-references in the World of Darkness setting?
Are there official self-references in either World of Darkness setting (that is, "in-game")? Does White Wolf exist within their own universe? Are people playing Vampire: The Masquerade (or The Requiem)...
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Methods for round-robin style DM'ing in AD&D?
Round-robin storytelling has been around for a while, and something I have always been interested in experimenting in AD&D with a variation of GM'ing where players take turns becoming the GM in ...
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Is it wrong to ask a player to justify their character's actions?
When a player has their character do something completely outside of the perceived norm for that character, is it okay to ask them for a justification?
If they can not give satisfactory justification,...
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How should the DM manage the discrepancy between the player's memory and their PC's memory?
It may happen that, during a session, players don't remember the name of a NPC that they met (or, more generally, information about something that happened) during the previous session. Obviously, ...
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How can I give a Ranger advantage on a check due to Favored Enemy without spoiling the story for the player?
The Scenario
I am the DM for a group who have just entered a town that was attacked by cloud giants a few days before their arrival. The players and characters don't know this though, so part of the ...
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Do characters know they did a poor job if the result of a dice roll isn't automatically obvious?
During a discussion I had with @jgn based on the question discussing rolling twice on an investigation check, I realized we were operating with entirely different ideas of how dice rolls actually ...
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How to discuss information only my character knows with the DM during the game?
I'm currently playing in a campaign and I have a character that has a major secret only me and the DM know: that my character is a member of an organization that in the story only my character would ...
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What do I do with a dissonant player?
We have a gaming group that has been playing the game for about 4 years. One of the players is my old friend, with whom I started gaming about 15 years ago. There is also another player, who has also ...
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What to do with a player I have issues with due to metagaming?
I want to start this by saying that I am very new to D&D as a whole. This is my first campaign and I am playing a Lizardfolk paladin (it works in this story); the problem player is playing a gnome ...
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How to prevent metagame in betrayal/PvP scenarios?
Context/Research
Often the metagaming problem is about how the DM presents the things to the players. We have lots of questions and good answers in the metagaming tag. Most of them are about ...
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Does a PC know it rolled low when using stealth?
This happens on a PBP session recently.
I have a goblin on a watch on a tower, but the party doesn't know this. This is an enemy base, so they rolled Dexterity (stealth) to get in.
One of the ...
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If I run a game of Paranoia, will knowing the rules lead to a worse experience if/when I participate as a player in the future?
I received the boxed starter set of Paranoia for Christmas, and find myself in the classic dilemma of tabletop players everywhere: do I want to run this game, or try to find someone else to run it, so ...
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How should I go about stopping metagaming based on Roll20 showing unexplored areas?
In the campaign that I'm running, the party is currently in a dungeon. They cleared most of the entire dungeon except a hidden door to an area that holds some loot but nothing integral to the game.
...
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Metagaming when there isn't actually anything there?
So, it's a fairly common question of how to keep players from metagaming. Typically, these questions are of the sort that a player knows monster x is weak to y despite their character not having ...
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Introducing an unorthodox setting the players know NOTHING about
Just a while back, there has been a question concerning GMing a setting the players know better than the GM. Now, let me ask you sort of an inverse of that question. I.e. how to introduce and ...
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Is it metagaming if I want to build a bomb?
In a hypothetical situation, I want to destroy a castle's walls. To do so I came up with the idea to build a bomb a la Saruman in LOTR. Perhaps my character would have to dig around for records on ...
user25861
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How creative should the DM let an artificer be in terms of what they can build?
Just how creative should the DM let the Artificer be? One of my players is a guy who thinks way too hard on how to solve problems he's not meant to 'Solve' as a player.
For example, I have a little ...
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How can I talk to an experienced player about metagaming?
This is my first campaign as a GM and it is going really well but I have been having trouble with a player. This player is a GM of another campaign that I am playing in and in that campaign he has a ...
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What to do about a player who takes risks and dies (without consequence)? [closed]
I have a solid group of 3-5 players who regularly play together and I DM for them. One of these players regularly dies during our campaign (sometimes multiple times). I typically allow people to re-...
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How to stop a player from looking up monster stat blocks in combat?
In my 5th edition Eberron campaign I have a player who is determined to metagame in combat which makes it really hard for the others to actually get much enjoyment. Recently the problem player gained ...
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Can you decide not to sneak into a room after seeing your roll?
If someone asks to stealthily open a door but rolls poorly, can they just choose not to do it, and let someone else open the door?
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What's the game in which the PCs themselves have character sheets?
Inspired by this question, I was reminded of a role-playing game solicited in a late 90s or early 00s Previews (Diamond Distribution's monthly comic book and associated merchandise--including games--...
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How to distinguish Darkness from being blinded and Silence from being deafened?
If the enemy mage casts a spell and I describe to everybody that it becomes pitch black all around them, they know that a Darkness spell is going on. If on the other hand I ask for a CON save and (...
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Metagaming and Collusion while Gaming in Roll20
Metagaming has always been a facet of tabletop RPGs, for good or for ill. The impact that metagaming has on game itself can run from highly beneficial, such as when a group acts on player information ...
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When do I tell my players when they're under an NPC's class effects that cause disadvantage on attacks?
There's a pretty good chance that my PCs will enter a team-battle tournament soon. One of the characters that they might fight has an ability that would give disadvantage to attack someone other than ...
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How can I avoid metagaming when I know things my character doesn't?
One common problem I run into, as a player, is having to feign not-knowing things my character doesn't but I do, be it rules about certain creatures ("Hmm that rock golem sure looks weak against [...]"...
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How does one go about allowing the Inquisitor to use his Bane Class ability?
What I mean by this is when in combat with a creature or creatures how do you allow the player to activate his Bane while keeping character over player knowledge in mind?
For example, In PF I play a ...
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Is using an ability which affects the next person to hit, knowing a particular PC goes after you, considered meta-gaming? [closed]
Recently I read a question* which asked when to use Spell B, because the asker felt Spell A was a better alternative. One of the answers stated that it would beneficial to use Spell B if:
Your next ...
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Making relaying information less awkward
I recently started DMing for a group of friends that are new to pathfinder. Combat and group conversations went well, but after having the characters roll perception for what they see or after ...
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How to prevent players from metagaming when they split the party?
Let's say that I have a group of 4 players. During the game they decide to split for some reason (e.g. one group goes shopping, the other goes to the tavern).
Now let's say that the group in the ...
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How can I prepare the map for a combat without alerting the players that combat is about to begin?
I am running an adventure in Pathfinder and I use a very large square board and some homemade model walls to define areas such as dungeons or houses and other stuff. However, building maps on the ...
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Will rerolling initiative each round stop meta-gaming about initiative?
I am thinking of implementing Speed Factor Initiative, but I don't really want to use all of it.
Speed Factor Initiative "RAW" would work like this:
Everyone must declare an action prior to rolling
...
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As a Neutral-Good character, how greedy can I be? [closed]
I'm trying to play a neutral good wizard, but recently I came across a large sum of gold while adventuring with the party. Now, some members of the party screwed me out of gold in the past, but in ...
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