Anti-metagaming


Advice


If you have players who consciously or unconsciously metagame, how do you handle them? Should you play along with expectations? Keep up business as usual? Throw in an unexpected plot twist or two? Completely subvert the metagame? Converse and ask them to stop (if that's even possible?) Obfuscate everything as to make metagaming impossible? Build a whole anti-metagame dungeon like Tomb of Horrors? What's your preferred way of addressing metagamers?


It would depend on the meta gaming.

If someone knows the AC of a target before you even hit it, raise it by one.

If they plot to kill a guy in front of him and don't have telepathy, it's not a surprise and act accordingly.

If they know what the adventure is because they played it before, change the rooms around and change the descriptions. Sometimes changing the gender of something is all you need to make someone not realize no real change was made.

Liberty's Edge

Asking them to stop is the most obvious way, and probably the easiest - dealing with people in real life is the easiest way to fix things! Otherwise, the easiest way to deal with it in-game is probably to subvert their expectations. Don't let them find out anything you're going to add in, and then describe demon X, but use stats more similar to demon Y. Or just change the skeletons to DR/slash because these ones were made spongy by the necromancers! That type of thing - they can't effectively metagame if they can't predict what will be happening. Talking is still better.


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Arcaian wrote:
Or just change the skeletons to DR/slash because these ones were made spongy by the necromancers! That type of thing - they can't effectively metagame if they can't predict what will be happening. Talking is still better.

This is an example of exactly what you shouldn't do. Because there's a reason skeletons have DR/bludgeoning. It comes from real differences between the behavior of living and dead bone that any adventurer or farmer or hunter or butcher should be intimately familiar with. And piercing weapons being ineffective is bloody obvious.

Lots of "metagaming" is actually using common knowledge. Break that common knowledge and your world stops making sense and player immersion is lost. Once player immersion is lost there's nothing left but metagaming.

The CR term in the monster knowledge DCs is completely bogus in that knowledge of things that people tend to boast about fighting or write epics about is extremely common. If your players can remember something about a monster without looking it up it's exactly the sort of memorable monster that becomes common knowledge. Any medieval kid would be able to tell you all about the local fey even though not only had they never encountered one, but no one ever had encountered them. Now imagine how well publicized their weaknesses and hunting patterns would be if they actually existed.

And sometimes it's just bloody obvious. That Gelugon has arctic camouflage. Of course it's going to resist cold if not be outright immune. That's not metagaming. That's being vaguely observant.


Generally the cure is going to be worse than the disease. It will require massive metagaming on the part of the GM, and it is no less metagaming when the GM does it.

Liberty's Edge

Atarlost wrote:
Arcaian wrote:
Or just change the skeletons to DR/slash because these ones were made spongy by the necromancers! That type of thing - they can't effectively metagame if they can't predict what will be happening. Talking is still better.

This is an example of exactly what you shouldn't do. Because there's a reason skeletons have DR/bludgeoning. It comes from real differences between the behavior of living and dead bone that any adventurer or farmer or hunter or butcher should be intimately familiar with. And piercing weapons being ineffective is bloody obvious.

Well of course in real life and normal death in Pathfinder, bone becomes more brittle. I wasn't suggesting changing that. But we're dealing with magic that literally reanimates the skeletons, and you're complaining it's not realistic that the consistency of their bones changes? The necromancer went out of their way to do it. Hell, can even make a 1st level spell to do it to a skeleton, if you want to be thorough. Certainly not out of the power level of a variety of spells, and hardly 'weird' for magic in Golarian.

Atarlost wrote:

Lots of "metagaming" is actually using common knowledge. Break that common knowledge and your world stops making sense and player immersion is lost. Once player immersion is lost there's nothing left but metagaming.

'Common knowledge' is represented in knowledge checks - DC5 and DC10 are common knowledge. If the DC is above that, you're trying to apply common knowledge to something that isn't common.


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Well, uh, the GM sort of has to metagame. With very few exceptions, that's kinda how GMing works. It's why we don't have the kobolds all mass in the first room and slaughter the low-level adventurers. It's why we try not to give NPCs tons of save-or-die spells, or worse, tons of defensive buffs that make combats drag on for hours. It's why we put clues in puzzle rooms so the adventurers don't just give up and go home (like how we make "dead end" secret door hallways fairly obvious instead of disguising the door more effectively). It's why we don't include things that we know might trigger a group member's PTSD.

The uality GM doesn't hide behind the "I am the perfect impartial aeon here to arbit this game" speech. The GM tries to make things fun, and adapts to fit the group—which means a bit of metagaming is nearly unavoidable. I'm not even talking about cheating. I'm just talking about design. Hell, even designing an encounter to fit APL is arguably a bit of metagaming.

Talk to the players. Failing that, take a break from GMing, find a new group, or find a way to enjoy the game in spite of the players' bad habits.


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Arcaian wrote:
Atarlost wrote:

Lots of "metagaming" is actually using common knowledge. Break that common knowledge and your world stops making sense and player immersion is lost. Once player immersion is lost there's nothing left but metagaming.

'Common knowledge' is represented in knowledge checks - DC5 and DC10 are common knowledge. If the DC is above that, you're trying to apply common knowledge to something that isn't common.

Common knowledge is that knowledge that normal people are naturally exposed to in the course of growing up in a society. The fact that the monster knowledge checks are stupidly inflated for legendary monsters is irrelevant to the fact that breaking real common knowledge destroys player immersion and consequently ruins the game.


My Self wrote:
If you have players who consciously or unconsciously metagame, how do you handle them? Should you play along with expectations? Keep up business as usual? Throw in an unexpected plot twist or two? Completely subvert the metagame? Converse and ask them to stop (if that's even possible?) Obfuscate everything as to make metagaming impossible? Build a whole anti-metagame dungeon like Tomb of Horrors? What's your preferred way of addressing metagamers?

If it's a trait of the group, I don't see it as a problem at all. Even if one person is metagaming and the rest are trying to play in character, I only see that as problematic if it impacts on the others' enjoyment. (As a DM or player it doesn't impact on mine even if someone else treats the game as a serious of expected value calculations).

In our group we have one person who focusses exclusively on the metagame and whose character is just a bag of numbers who attempts various things the player wants to achieve. The rest of us do our thing and it doesn't really matter at our table.

Liberty's Edge

Atarlost wrote:
Arcaian wrote:
Atarlost wrote:

Lots of "metagaming" is actually using common knowledge. Break that common knowledge and your world stops making sense and player immersion is lost. Once player immersion is lost there's nothing left but metagaming.

'Common knowledge' is represented in knowledge checks - DC5 and DC10 are common knowledge. If the DC is above that, you're trying to apply common knowledge to something that isn't common.
Common knowledge is that knowledge that normal people are naturally exposed to in the course of growing up in a society. The fact that the monster knowledge checks are stupidly inflated for legendary monsters is irrelevant to the fact that breaking real common knowledge destroys player immersion and consequently ruins the game.

Your immersion is somewhat fragile if this ruins the game for you, and I fail to see how it's even immersion breaking. You've grown up hearing stories of the Tarrasque (maybe), but you expect to know which of those are true? Sure, you might know it has regeneration, but you also might know it has the ability to fly and shoot lasers out of its eyes - you don't only get accurate stories. That 'inflated' knowledge DC check is to figure out whats real or not, not just for remembering stories.


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Atarlost and Arcaian are basically representing two interesting, equally valid lines of thought.

Atarlost: "Metagaming" is really just a player roleplaying what the PC knows. If the player happens to know that remorhazzes'...remorhazi's....If the player knows that rock trolls are vulnerable to sonic, that's something the PC knows, too, either through lucky guess ("I wonder if those crystals could be shattered with a high-frequency noise?") or actual knowledge on the matter.

Arcaian: If the GM wants something to be common knowledge, the PCs can feel free to roll for it. Otherwise, the players should abide by the knowledge skills they chose to invest in, and should not be able to circumvent those skills simply by having studied the Bestiaries or having quick access to Google.

The question is, what does the GM prefer? And what does the group prefer?

Liberty's Edge

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Atarlost and Arcaian are basically representing two interesting, equally valid lines of thought.

Atarlost: "Metagaming" is really just a player roleplaying what the PC knows. If the player happens to know that remorhazzes'...remorhazi's....If the player knows that rock trolls are vulnerable to sonic, that's something the PC knows, too, either through lucky guess ("I wonder if those crystals could be shattered with a high-frequency noise?") or actual knowledge on the matter.

Arcaian: If the GM wants something to be common knowledge, the PCs can feel free to roll for it. Otherwise, the players should abide by the knowledge skills they chose to invest in, and should not be able to circumvent those skills simply by having studied the Bestiaries or having quick access to Google.

The question is, what does the GM prefer? And what does the group prefer?

Good way to summarize it, I think - obviously I run it the way I've been describing, but not going to put anyone down for running it differently :)


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I've enjoyed both styles, for the record. It's sort of fun for my monster hunter to just be able to say, "That's a troll! Use the copper dragon snot!", instead of having to ask the GM and let them explain it. Giving players extra roleplaying room is always a plus. But I also like having to really rely on the skills I chose—it allows me to pick out a niche, and saves me from this sort of situation:

GM: A roiling wave of flesh gushes forward. Amid the fatty surge wriggle half-formed limbs and a dripping tumorous face.
Cletus the Barbarian: "Ugh, lemures."
Inexperienced Ranger Player: Okay, stand back, guys. "GM, can I roll to identify this?"
GM: "Sure."
Ranger: *Rolls Knowledge* Okay, everyone, I've hunted one of these before. It's a—
Barbarian: Are lemures. Low-rank in Hell. Insane from torture. Immune fire, acid. Use blessed or silver weapons; also, sonic. Mindless, so mind magic won't work.
Ranger: "Steve, this is the one thing my character's supposed to be better than you at. -_-"
Barbarian: "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"


Kobold Cleaver wrote:

I've enjoyed both styles, for the record. It's sort of fun for my monster hunter to just be able to say, "That's a troll! Use the copper dragon snot!", instead of having to ask the GM and let them explain it. Giving players extra roleplaying room is always a plus. But I also like having to really rely on the skills I chose—it allows me to pick out a niche, and saves me from this sort of situation:

GM: A roiling wave of flesh gushes forward. Amid the fatty surge wriggle half-formed limbs and a dripping tumorous face.
Cletus the Barbarian: "Ugh, lemures."
Inexperienced Ranger Player: Okay, stand back, guys. "GM, can I roll to identify this?"
GM: "Sure."
Ranger: *Rolls Knowledge* Okay, everyone, I've hunted one of these before. It's a—
Barbarian: Are lemures. Low-rank in Hell. Insane from torture. Immune fire, acid. Use blessed or silver weapons; also, sonic. Mindless, so mind magic won't work.
Ranger: "Steve, this is the one thing my character's supposed to be better than you at. -_-"
Barbarian: "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

Sure, but some of that is bloody obvious.

If it's in a context where it's clear that it's demonic you know the resistances and DR because all devils have pretty much the same resistances and DR. Maybe you get some false positives off that because lemures are such a lame devil, but it's not really telling you anything. You can also tell it's mindless, or you would if you were actually in a room with it, because it behaves mindlessly.

So the barbarian may have revealed the type and subtype and spelled out the implications. And a name that does nothing except give the players something to call it.

Now, it probably makes sense for lemures to be obscure. They're native to another plane and don't go out to tempt mortals and get folk tales tole about them. On the other hand if you find yourself fighting someone dressed like a prostitute with bat wings and horns and a barbed tail identifying her as a succubus shouldn't be difficult, nor should figuring out the implications. There would be tons of tales and songs about them because they're the sort of creature that interact with humans and inspire tales and songs. Same for imps and quasits, though I'd be surprised if even a metagamer could tell them apart without some sort of contextual clue like suspecting the alignment of the wizard whose familiar they are.

But what I was strenuously objecting to was malicious reskinning. Monster pictures and descriptions are full of clues as to their nature and properties and mixing them up is both cheating and making the game world feel more arbitrary and less real.

Liberty's Edge

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Atarlost wrote:

Now, it probably makes sense for lemures to be obscure. They're native to another plane and don't go out to tempt mortals and get folk tales tole about them. On the other hand if you find yourself fighting someone dressed like a prostitute with bat wings and horns and a barbed tail identifying her as a succubus shouldn't be difficult, nor should figuring out the implications. There would be tons of tales and songs about them because they're the sort of creature that interact with humans and inspire tales and songs. Same for imps and quasits, though I'd be surprised if even a metagamer could tell them apart without some sort of contextual clue like suspecting the alignment of the wizard whose familiar they are.

But what I was strenuously objecting to was malicious reskinning. Monster pictures and descriptions are full of clues as to their nature and properties and mixing them up is both cheating and making the game world feel more arbitrary and less

I agree that some generalizations about types are obvious to people experienced with them, and it'd make sense to me to allow a common-sense Knowledge Check (DC 5, probably) for someone that has experienced creatures of the same type, and can somehow identify the creature in front of them as the same type, to conclude that they have the same properties. An INT 7 Barbarian might not know that Lemures and Contract Devils are the same type, or if he does, he might not remember the exact details of that type.

There will certainly be folk tales of the Succubi, but that doesn't mean you accurately know everything based on those fairy tales. Being able to say something as specific as what they're immune to, their DR, their position in the hierarchy of their plane, and the like, just from folk tales - there will be so much contradictory information on them that it'd be nigh-impossible to get accurate, in a realistic world, or at least I would argue this. Hard to get an allegory for our world, given that we don't actually have to deal with our monsters, but one that works somewhat is Vampires - what are the weaknesses of Vampires in our mythology? Are they weak to garlic? Stakes through the heart? Flames? Sunlight? Or do they just glitter in the sunlight? Are they super-fast, super-strong, and the like? Are they demons, devils, angels, a mutant human? There are hundreds of stories about them, all with different information given.

And I maintain that it's not 'cheating' or less realistic to have certain, specific examples of creatures differ from their generic counterparts. You can see a Elf, and presume they're not very hardy, but that's not always true. You can see a halfling, and presume they're slower than your average human, but that's not always true. Same thing here - you're dealing with fancy magic, why can't someone summon a skeleton with different properties? I'd guarantee you if you looked through all the scenarios, modules and APs Paizo has published, you'd find many times where a creature is slightly different from the norm due to the specific contexts in which they're made. That's not 'cheating' because it's already in the book, but if you do the same thing it is cheating? If I create a zombie, and then get Stoneskin onto it somehow, is the DR/Adamantine cheating to have on it? There are literally hundreds of in-universe explanations for why things would be different from their norm, it's not unrealistic for things to differ. Hell, you can use Artifacts if you want - they're literally just there to break the rules for the most part.


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To add to it, if it hasn't already been stated, just because your character may have read about (or heard a bard's tale about) a particular creature before, that doesn't mean he can necessarily recall that bit of information in the heat of the moment when the creature springs forth trying to devour the party. That is another valid reason for the knowledge check, or even a survival check.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

During a particular Adventure Path, our adventuring party ran into a particular opponent

Spoiler:
White Ancient Wyrm
and nearly splatted in a particularly gruesome fashion, even with characters in the party that were able to make some guesses as to how to bring it down.

Later in the Path, we encountered a somewhat similar opponent and resolved to *get the drop on it*

It didn't make it past the surprise round, even with it's preparations and precautions. The GM lamented the fact afterwards, but pointed out that because of our experience with the spoilered target, he couldn't fault us for our proactive and clever approach.


My Self wrote:
If you have players who consciously or unconsciously metagame, how do you handle them?

Metagaming doesn't have to be a bad thing. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. For example, one of my character's recently had opportunity and motive to steal the most valuable thing she'd ever seen. But doing so would probably have broken the campaign, and would certainly have meant me playing a different character (which I didn't want to do). So I had a word with the GM about it to come up with reasons why she couldn't (steal the thing). OOC reasons for IC actions = metagaming, here used as a tool not to break everything.


What are they doing that you consider metagame?

Community & Digital Content Director

Removed an unhelpful post.


Feat: Genre Savvy
Prerequisite: 1 rank in any Knowledge skill
Benefit: You may reference an OOC information source (such as a Bestiary) in place of making a Knowledge check. You may not use this in place of an untrained Knowledge check. You can use this ability 3 times per day.


One game I play in has nothing but GMs as players, heavy and excepted metagaming. Another, has a hard bias against, but both are fun. A dm sometime back kept metagaming against the chosen player (not character), hitting my Ftr with heat metal, the disguised mage with anti-arcane thingees, the Ranger never saw one favored enemy make a repeat appearance, etc. I broke Sunless Citadel by shucking my Breastplate and using a leather armor but moving at medium (encumbrance). When the druids started with heat metal, I closed so fast they were down by one. Their spells did but half damage to me and they were down by two. The dm whined that I was metagaming!


Metagaming is hard to stop in general because it turns into a mental exercise of suppressing knowledge. I've even applied it against myself as the DM: more than one campaign where I had paranoid players I went ahead and told them to download a Chat App like WeChat where they could discuss things amongst themselves, in particular key points where the whole campaign WILL pivot on, because it allows me to keep DMing on the fly and not ground the session while the Players have to go into a huddle and figure out if they are about to blow themselves up or whatever the dilemma at hand may be.

Frankly, I always have fun pulling out ye olde Bestiary and narrating choice bits of info about opponents a la National Geographic or other documentary when Players either roll for it or ask for information their character would know (background, traits, etc).

When roles flip and I am the PC in someone else's campaign, I play low-profile until I find a niche I can fill (like in MtG; I will try to choose a deck running different colors than the others) before I fully establish myself. When we encounter any given monster like a Mummy, I won't blurt out to the group "Don't let it touch you Low-Forts!" but I might be able to in-character sneak in a cheesy line like "Augh -kill it with fire! Burn it Nao!" while mimicking terror.

Or when dungeoneering in general, I won't exactly pause at a room/passage after the narrative prompt is read and exclaim: "Oh boy, this innocuous passageway can't surely be trapped, will it?" knowing fully well that it's gotta be dirty as a Player, but as a Druid my character wouldn't know what a crushing wall trap would be until I saw one in action. Patterns emerge over time, as do tactics, so me, Nature-boy in said group would probably prod the shifty-looking tinker kid to do their damn job since these here urban dungeons would be more their expertise, as I would naturally expect to be the main effort come the great outdoors.

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