Questions tagged [metagaming]
For questions about topics concerning using, managing, or separating player knowledge and character knowledge.
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Do players/characters know when a monster uses its Legendary Resistance?
Assuming that players are causing a monster with the Legendary Resistance ability to make enough saving throws that it will use them all up, should the players be aware when that point has come? (As a ...
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What can I do about a fellow player who forgets his class features and metagames?
I need advice on how to handle the behavior of a fellow PC.
Situation
Our group formed about 4 Months ago, we are 4PCs + 1DM. We are playing D&D 5e Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. Our DM ...
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Magic Items and their allocation [closed]
I have a predicament I've come across in a campaign I'm running. Here it is.
In a past session my DM (a friend of mine) challenged me to complete the entire trial with strict restrictions.
The ...
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How to stop everyone taking a crack at a challenge? [duplicate]
I'm relatively new to DMing and I'm struggling to manage the flow of the game when there's an "obvious" skill or ability check, such as a barred door.
If, for example, the wizard confidently ...
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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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One game's great GM is another game's problem player-- How to handle for a novice GM?
I am a player in a long-term Pathfinder campaign which I like very much. The players in that campaign are myself, my fiance, the GM's fiance, and the GM's co-worker. We're all in our twenties, and I ...
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What if one PC wants to do something without party?
As a player, how would you approach your DM about your character doing something out of session that neither the others players/party wouldn't witness.? (Example, asking to sneak away from the party) ...
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Metagaming Concern? Or just normal player culture?
I am a DM for 5e who recently gave the team a magical item. Everyone is very excited for it, however the player who chose to keep it in their inventory has been researching it. He has looked up how ...
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Should players know other creatures' HP? How do you deal with players not knowing the opponent's HP if not?
I recently started playing D&D, and I was wondering about this.
I know it is up to the DM to choose whether or not players know enemies' remaining HP in combat: is it recommended to do so?
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How to avoid alienation by expected but slow mood shift, and still keep players out of spoilers?
I run a My Little Pony(MLP) campaign. By design, at the start of the campaign what the citizens (PCs) know about the world is true, but it's not the whole and complete truth, and many issues of the ...
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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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Does a character know the source of an unseen force attempting (and failing) to act upon their mind? [closed]
If a creature attempts to Dominate, deal save-or-suck psychic damage, or otherwise psychologically influence a PC, what do they know about the attempt?
Obviously the player themselves know when I say, ...
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Should I warn the GM of probable mistakes he made or could make?
The question isn't strictly bound to rules - although sometimes there are mistakes about those too, the GM is kind of a novice - but is mostly related to reading some statblocks in the book.
To better ...
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Does my character know he's ill while incubating a disease?
My character was bitten by a Dire Rat and through accidental meta-gaming reasons, I know he's incubating Filth Fever. I want to ask the Paladin in our party to remove it before it can affect my stats, ...
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Using succubi as villains in a low-sexuality game
Question
I'm seeking expertise regarding using iconically sexual creatures without leaning on that nature.
Specifically, one of the players in my group has a backstory that prominently features ...
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How to provide knowledge to players?
I've read a lot of articles on player vs. character knowledge, where the crux of the article is always that players know more than their characters, and metagaming is an issue. For good or for bad, I ...
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How can I handle a player who seems to utilize skills their characters don't have?
Well the tag is slightly misleading as these players do not cause problems. However I have encountered several players who exhibit skills their real life counterpart has without actually metagaming. ...
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Is there a reason to investigate illusions like Phantasmal Force other than some kind of metagaming?
If I cast phantasmal force on an NPC to make him think a creature has jumped onto his back and is trying to strangle him, assuming he fails his initial roll, why would he use an action to make an ...
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What do you think of 1/session items? Or help me find a better way to solve this plot hook. I'm stumped [closed]
I wanted to give my players a homebrew item, but I'm having a hard time balancing it around in-game / in-universe limitations. Normally this is like 1/day, 1/encounter etc.
I was thinking of doing 1/...
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How to handle rolls for in-game DND game [closed]
My group is playing a scenario set in the modern everyday world (late 20th century) and we have got into a position where the characters must play a DND game. The outcome of this game is important ...
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How do I play in an adventure as a player that I have run as a DM?
After playing the starter edition as a DM, a player that I was playing with wanted to give DMing a shot and asked me to join him. And I happily did.
We are now 2 sessions in and I have noticed a ...
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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 fool characters while avoiding metagame
Normally, both player and DM rely on stealth checks and secret messages when one player wants to do something without the rest of the party knowing, regardless of the motivation behind it.
This ...
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Player is out of character and refuses to play her character correctly [closed]
A player in my campaign (I am the DM) is going way out of control-by not playing her character.
Whenever I point this out, she says that it is something her character would do, but a look at her ...
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Improving Lie Detection and Credibility Assessment Rules
Many systems have two or more skills/traits/other numeric values that can be pitted against each other in situations where side A tries to assess side B's credibility, where side B may or may not be ...
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Can you use your action to interrupt another player's action from earlier in the same round?
I play in a game when everyone plays the way they want on their own turn : saying to another player what he should do is forbidden. Your turn = your action.
I think this is pretty fun and it adds a ...
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What techniques can I use to seduce a PC without arousing suspicion of ulterior motives?
I am looking to have an NPC try and seduce one of the PCs in my party. The NPC has an ulterior motive of course, but I don't want the player immediately suspecting a succubus or similar.
What ...
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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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Should my "average" PC be able to discern the potential of encountering a gelatinous cube from subtle clues?
Relatively new to DnD/TTRPGs. Playing a Barb with +0 to INT and -1 to WIS. I just realized that my party might be walking right into a gelatinous cube. What is considered "average" intelligence and ...
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How aware is a character of the damage their spells/attacks deal?
Say a character casts two Fireballs at CL 10. The character aims at a field intentionally and hits nothing. Normally That'd be 10d6 damage. But in this scenario the first deals minimum damage (10) and ...
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As a DM, how to avoid unconscious metagaming when dealing with a high AC character?
In my previous campaign, a player started the campaign with a tanky fighter build with a chain mail, a shield, and Defense fighting style, for a total of 19 starting AC. For a level 1.
I was still ...
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How can I find out about the game world without meta-influencing it?
I'm a fairly new D&D player and as you can see from one of my other questions I'm attempting to play as spoiler free a game as possible.
With this in mind I try and keep my reading about D&D ...
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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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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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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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How can I enjoy being a DM when I have an explorer personality?
I live in a small Finnish town with my wife and we want to play. But we cannot find any GMs there. So I decided to try to be GM myself. The problem is - I love to explore the worlds, story, monsters, ...
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I deciphered the meaning of a cryptic language out-of-game: should my character know what the meaning is?
I have just started my first D&D 5e campaign, and have encountered a seemingly mind-controlled bandit who keeps writing the same thing over and over on the wall. Our DM wrote out what it looks ...
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Do ability scores force a character to act in a certain way? [duplicate]
As a group, most of the players at our table are fans of rolling for stats. This leads and has led to multiple amazing characters and some .. a bit less amazing.
Something that is rather consistent ...
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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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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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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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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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Was this “severe" metagaming or cheating per Adventurers League rules? [closed]
It is the night before our last session to finish Tomb of Annihilation.
For the previous three sessions we had seen things in the tomb that gave us a clue to what creature we might face. [spoilers]
...
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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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Advice for dealing with a metagaming player. [closed]
This is my first post here, so bear with me.
I've been running a dnd group with some friends over the past couple months. Doing some one off adventures to start but have lately been doing a full ...
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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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If I overheal someone with Lay on Hands do the extra points return to my pool?
One of my player's asked me what happens if the number they choose for Lay on Hands is greater than the difference between the target's current and maximum HP. Will they will get refunded the ...
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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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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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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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