4-RD Ford's page

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a bit of advice regarding something that is occurring in a game that I play in on a fortnightly basis.

I happen to be one of the more knowledgeable players at the table and often find myself making off hand remarks OOC about cool things in the area (Locations, monsters, etc) to the GM.

But recently they have advised me that this is 'Metagaming', and that I am talking about things my character should not know, and also by mentioning interesting creatures in the area I am forcing them to add encounters that they were not originally intending to have, thus bogging down the story/game.

I genuinely feel quite guilty because it never crossed my mind that saying things like "oh this country has some awesome J R Random creatures around, like blah and blah" was forcing the GM to add extra encounters and sacrifice story development.
But I also find myself thinking "it's up to the GM if they want to add a monster or not, just because I mention it shouldn't force their hand in anyway, should it?"

I also find myself EXTREMELY concerned about what I say OOC being considered Metagaming, particularly since I generally take a rather strong stance against it due to having played with some friends who metagamed rather heavily and ruined what was up to that point quite an enjoyable game.

I have always run under the impression that Metagaming is when your character acts with knowledge that they should not have, and I have racked my brains and gone through my journal to try and find an instance when I have done anything that could be considered that, but found nothing.

All monsters my character has known things about have been due to successful knowledge rolls, and any location we know about is because a NPC told us about it.
But despite this I cannot help but feel concerned, because just because I don't recall it doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

I am posting this in an effort to get a bit of advise as how to handle this, seeing as tomorrow we have another session, which will be preceded with a "Review", where we basically say what we think about things and what needs to be improved/changed, and this will be the first session since the GM notified me in a quick text on their way to work of my metagaming, with no example of what exactly what had been an act of metagaming.

The primary concern is that the GM is likely considering what I say out of character as metagaming since my character would not have that knowledge and that they feel my 'fanboying' interesting things in the region is forcing their hand regarding encounters.
Is this actually a screw-up on my side? Am I actually doing something wrong here?

Thanks in advance for any advice as to how to resolve this situation without hurting the GM's feelings or taking a whipping for something that wasn't my fault.

I am currently looking into ways to supplement the weak combat skills of my Oracle and am wondering what the usual ruling is with using Mage Hand to throw dirt or broken glass into and opponents eyes?

Near as I can figure, it should be possible, being under 5lbs and an unattended object.