Metagaming | Running the Game

Episode 56. What is Metagaming and is it always bad? Mmm...I dunno, but here are my thoughts.

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[themiddlespaces]

This reminds me how I named a ranger character’s slain mentor Xavier Peters, so he could rush into battle bellowing “FOR X.P.!” and it be an in-game thing. 🤓😜

[crss]

VERY TARDY but...

"We have bypassed all these warriors in this fortress. If we attack their master, he may summon them. And then we'd have to fight them all at once! Maybe we should go back and try to pick them off in manageable quantities." Is NOT metagaming. It's astute self preservation.

"NAH!! Let's attack the master now. The GM wouldn't throw 20 encounters worth of enemies at us at a time. We'd have no chance." THAT'S metegaming.

[nekrial]

Though the audio issues are obvious, I feel like it sort of fades into the background due to the quality of the video itself. I think deciding not to redo it was a good choice.

[joemaison]

One of my favorite things to tell new players is "you as a person are not your character. They live these things so it may take you a minute to think of what would occur to them immediately."

[thehulkster]

People tend to cry metagaming whenever numbers are brought up, but the numbers do represent something. I had someone insist that players shouldn't know if they hit because that allows them to reverse engineer armor class, and since AC isn't a real thing, knowing it is metagaming. Yet AC does represent something real (how hard it is to land a meaningful hit), and characters would know if they got a good hit in or if their attack bounced harmlessly off the dragon's scales, and they would know roughly what level of force, edge alignment, precision, etc. it would take to get in a hit of any significance. As mentioned, the same goes for skill checks. A character knows what they are good at, and the guy with expertise in stealth probably is aware that he is better at sneaking than the rest of the party. They wouldn't have the number to associate with it, but they would know that it's true.

It's generally safe to assume that the characters have awareness of the world they live in and generally know at least the ideas the numbers represent, even though they wouldn't think in numbers. They would know that it takes more energy to cast fireball than to cast shield, even if they don't think in terms of spell levels. They would understand that their magical energy is depleted, even if they don't think in terms of spell slots. They would know that they are pretty sore and beat up, even if they don't know that they are at 2 hit points

[ItWasSaucerShaped]

'The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade.'

'FFS Elrond, stop metagaming!'

[DungeonDad]

I have a player in my current game who is a terrible coward. To roleplay this, he has decided that he always fails saves against fear effects. It has been so great to watch.

[StilltheApllyon]

I don't think players noticing patterns in the DM's storytelling or personal tropes is metagaming, because the PCs would notice the same things. If the DM throws low value minions to bait the paladin into wasting smites, it might works twice or maybe three times, but eventually a PC is going to twig to it and say "Mike, don't use your smite, don't you remember what happened last time?" The DM's patterns are real to the PCs and they will learn from them just as players would.

[miles]

Why I hate metagaming:
Once, the party walked into a castle, and I was describing the various NPCS that where milling about.
Our paladin, in character, walked up to the court mage....
Paladin: "Yo, B, I know you gonna deadass have a quest for me. Give it up."
Mage: "What? Who are you, what are you talking about?"
Paladin: "You got a quest, right? You're the first person Miles(me, DM) described. So gimme a quest, boi."
Mage: "Stop, go away! Don't you have something better to do then heckle a poor old man?"
Paladin "Ugh, I'll go away, just gimme something first. Like a quest, or some loot or a treasure map or something."
Party Rogue (to paladin): "Uhh, dude, leave him alone"
Paladin: "No, this guy has a quest, I just wanna know what it is! We haven't killed anyone in like a week so-"
Mage:

[FaustinaFalcon]

Roses are red, the audio's fine.
The video starts at 1:29

[zeedar]

I've been the tactician before. I was playing with a friend, who was really roleplay-heavy. I was irritated because she played a druid, but never used her wild shapes, or spell slots. All she was doing was throw knives in combat, and sometimes cast a cantrip. I was probably insufferable with my constant "why are you doing that?".

[surelylune]

every time i think of this video im reminded of my first dnd game with my current online group.
my gunslinger gnome had an ability that would allow her to grant temporary hit points to another creature that can hear her. i knew that the fight was going sideways, but i didnt know if the sorcerer or druid (our party composition was a little wacky lmao) were hurting more, so i asked the players, "hey, what are your hitpoints at?" to which everyone, INCLUDING the DM, responded, "you wouldnt know that, thats metagaming."
this response is absolutely baffling to me, because of the same reason that matt brings up here about characters knowing their own skill check values.
sure, i may not know that you have 3 hit points out of 9 currently, but i would be able to tell which of us are hardiest, which of us are currently hurting the most, and therefore who currently needs help the most as of right now. obstructing my knowledge of your current hit points does nothing other than make the game harder to play, and make your character more likely to die.
EDIT: i learned recently they still think this way. dark gods end me

[hyoomanmaol]

Matt's first example of the Gelatinous Cube isn't really so egregious.

Keep in mind that in most settings, people KNOW about monsters. Even back in olden times, people would be aware of all sorts of dangers, because it's a matter of survival.

Gelatinous Cubes are a huge danger, because the special knowledge of their nature is critical to avoiding them. Also, they're very interesting and unusual creatures, which makes it even more likely that traveling minstrels and bards or adventurers would tell about them.

Now, even though in our real world, we might pass that off as hyperbole, the people in a D&D setting likely are keenly aware of the fact that fantastic creatures exist, and people who set off to be adventurers ESPECIALLY would take this information to heart.

So to me, I feel like even a low level PC knowing about a Gelatinous Cube is really a very fair thing to do.

It's another thing to know the Frightful Presence DC of an Adult Red Dragon, obviously.

[RyuukoKobayashi]

Years on, Baldur's Gate 3 shows character skill self-awareness pretty well. There's a short I saw the other day showing that there are some character dialogue differences when you come to an encounter before or after a certain level threshold. The characters don't know they're level 4 or 5, but they know how strong they are in less certain terms and can size up their opponents and get a feel for how tough the fight looks.

[mollybolton]

Audio quality isn't too perturbing, good video Matt!

[johnturner]

DMs send mixed messages in metagaming. Relying on player knowledge and intelligence to solve riddles, but not knowing things about critters.

[KyleMaxwell]

The fact that the video with the """bad""" audio is one of my favorite RtG videos in a while says a lot about the importance of content vs presentation.

[stevethedragonborn]

I think it's a proven, scientific fact that if your name is Matthew your ability to DM raises by roughly 50%.

[illyagnatenko]

24:42
"The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience."

- Frank Herbert, 'Dune'.

[AzraelThanatos]

Matt, for the rolls thing, well, the easy way to get players to stop is to pretty much have a random pile of random info about the area written down along with just random rolls.

Having the druid make the check might give some insight to what is actually going on, but the bard might just get the "insight" that the tree they just passed was where some random brigand who ended up in a story was hanged fifty years prior and has nothing to do with the adventure.

Also random perception checks for the party is very useful there as well for just upping paranoia