Adventures and metagaming. How do you deal with this?

[Ganryu]

I'll use examples from Kingmaker and they will be spoilerish. You might wish to stay away if you're currently playing it. Don't spoil anything specific beyond parts of book 3.

Spoiler:

So. In Kingmaker the adventure structure is slightly different from what it is when playing a player-made adventure (and probably other adventure paths too, to a degree). There's a lot of free roaming.

There are many situations where metagaming opportunities arise, but I am interested in two situations in particular. One applies to dungeons in general. It seems to me the ideal method to traverse a dungeon is by leaving the main badguy of the dungeon alone until you've searched all other rooms. That is, if you know the badguy is in room X, search room Y and room Z first. Of course if you're running low on resources it might be a better idea to go directly for the badguy if you fear that the other areas have monsters which will end up wasting your resources...

That's local metagaming.

Then there's "overworld" level metagaming. If you have a huge map and you know that a big bad is in some particular area, do you go there immediately? How do you explain this in game terms? How do you deal with this in game?

In Kingmaker book 3, the badguy is holed up in a tower in an area that is "opened up" to the players in that book. There are probably other groups who dealt with this differently, but because of pressure from some players our group did this by basicaly visiting the abandoned city, encounter centaurs, head to valley of death, find badguy, die.

In a dungeon scenario the result of going immediately for the badguy is probably less disastrous. After all, a few extra rooms are unlikely to lead to you gaining another level. At best, you'll find some tools that might help you against the baddie, but on a hex grid or similar, this can mean gaining one or more levels.

Do your players discuss this when playing?

Is this a valid strategy? If so, how do you explain it in game terms?

There's also the time aspect. Suppose that you know that the badguy is at some particular location, if you don't go there immediately what are the consequences? The players cannot know, so they cannot act on any knowledge, they can only guess...

Suppose the players find themselves in a large territory of the kind likely densely populated by quests, and they learn there that some place is threatened by supernatural forces. Do you immediately deal with the supernatural forces or do you, for a lack of a better word, "grind" somewhere else first?

This kind of metagaming is difficult to deal with in the game. Common sense would tell you immediately to head for the threat, but gamer logic would tell you to avoid the threat as long as possible (though this is complicated by a possible time limit of some kind the players cannot be sure exists).

[DrDeth]

That's Genre Savvy not maetagaming, and it's legit.

Tactics may also indicate that one shoudl make sure what's going on, scout around.

[Liam Warner]

DrDeth wrote:

That's Genre Savvy not maetagaming, and it's legit.

Tactics may also indicate that one shoudl make sure what's going on, scout around.

Yep bear in mind that adventurers are going to be highly skilled and experienced at their job they're going to work out tacticts that work wether its hit the boss with all we've got and put him down first or make sure all his potential back up is elimianted then go after him. The only situation I'd call metagaming is if they know something out of character but not in and then act on it. For example a character who knows he'll be facing undead prepares to face undead that's just smart tactics.

[Jaelithe]

Does "genre savvy" simply mean that a character can be expected to know the common tropes within their reality, and the uncommon ones for their area of specialty? That seems reasonable to me.

I've never penalized players for having their characters employ the traditional precautions for facing, say, vampires, because I interpret such to be common knowledge in many if not most cases. Same with werewolves. Essentially, if a creature is seen with any regularity in the area in which you're adventuring, ofttimes people are going to know how to deal with it. Whether that knowledge is useful or entirely accurate is another matter, but ... usually it will be.

[Renegadeshepherd]

I don't play premades. Since my players can't know the scenario or its possibilities there is no metagaming. If I were using premades I'd let the individual who knows a out it play as they want but ask them nicely to refrain from giving information to others in the group.

[Ganryu]

DrDeth: I'm not so sure. It's impossible for a character within a story to know that he is part of a story. Even less possible for him to know the genre of the story within which he exists.

Jaelite: That's a different thing, though. It makes sense for adventurers to know about such things specifically because they are adventurers. What I'm referring to in the original post as metagaming is when the players make decisions based on things their characters cannot possibly know (because the characters cannot know they are part of a roleplaying game campaign).

Renegadeshepherd: We're not talking about knowledge about the adventure path itself here. We're talking about knowledge about the story structure itself. Not the same thing.

[Sindakka]

I think it's common enough trope to be used in character.

In this example (I don't recall this specific BBEG), is the villain counting down a doomsday device that the players may know about? You already mentioned that he's holed up in his quaint little dungeon, but seems to be making no moves aggressively? I don't see any reason as to why they should run at him face-on when they know there may be a secret backdoor or kryptonite weapon they could learn about/acquire first. If they want to spend a little time "leveling up" before dealing with the BBEG, what's the difference?

However, meta-gaming can be a huge problem in worse ways; IE, knowing the guy who used sneak attack last round probably has a low Will save, and would be very susceptible to Suggestion would probably be going a bit too far.

Make the players justify their actions in character, and you really don't have to worry.
If it's ruining the story line, perhaps an out-of-game discussion could be had? If the players are enjoying themselves (and the GM is too!), there really isn't an issue, is there?

[Jaelithe]

Ganryu wrote:

Jaelite: That's a different thing, though. It makes sense for adventurers to know about such things specifically because they are adventurers. What I'm referring to in the original post as metagaming is when the players make decisions based on things their characters cannot possibly know (because the characters cannot know they are part of a roleplaying game campaign).

Ah. Very good, then.

I'd nip that in the bud immediately.

[DrDeth]

As Hrun the barbarian said: "You find chokeapples under a chokeapple tree. You find treasure under altars.".

[Quantum Steve]

For local metagaming, the BBEG may start in room X, but he moves around, so do the monsters in Y and Z. If players are intentionally avoiding room X, "oh, what do you know? The BBEG was in room S along with a pile of lieutenants."

The "overworld" metagaming you refer to, is kind of specific to Kingmaker, IMO, especially book 3. In other APs, and most home games, players won't be given adventure hooks until they're ready to undertake the adventure. In VV, the players are given the hooks several levels before they're ready for the adventure. IMO, that's just poor writing.

[Drachasor]

I am not clear how the players know this information if the characters don't.

Are the players told "behind this door is the bad guy" and "in that tower is the big bad" at some point and instructed their characters don't know that? Is that shown on a map that you'd have to edit so they don't see it? Does the map just show where battles should happen and not other landmarks? What?

When they go into a dungeon do you show them the whole map? My DM covers up the maps and they are uncovered as we explore them (or he puts down the room and has each room cut out).

[Ascalaphus]

Sometimes a dungeon offers clues about where the main BBEG is likely to be. Temples tend to have lots of decoration on the walls, and the main room probably has big doors and is connected to the main hallway.

I think a crucial question when trying to avoid the BBEG until you clear the rest of the dungeon is: how likely is he to stay put?

If the GM runs all the rooms in isolation - occupants of other rooms stay put and don't respond to sounds of battle - then this is fair. (And also a bit easy.)

However, if monsters start moving around and responding if the PCs make noise, then leaving the BBEG for last may be a mistake; by that time they may be in a bad tactical spot in the dungeon, for example, with no escape route. With this kind of GM, the players need to adopt more sophisticated tactics. Which I think is fun.

So genre savvy doesn't just apply to the PF genre in general, but to your GM's style in particular.

[Drachasor]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Sometimes a dungeon offers clues about where the main BBEG is likely to be. Temples tend to have lots of decoration on the walls, and the main room probably has big doors and is connected to the main hallway.

I don't think it is really metagaming to figure the big guy is in the biggest and most important room most of the time. Especially if you are adventuring and 9/10 it is like this. But mixing it up and having monsters respond to invasion wouldn't hurt.