Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
I feel like sometimes people refuse to "meta game" in a way that is also metagaming, except targeting bad outcomes instead of good.
Like your characters live in a world with trolls. They're not a secret. Choosing to intentionally avoid fire because "that's metagaming" is also metagaming. You're using your out of character knowledge (fire is effective) and then avoiding it.
Usually cleared up with a "hey dm, what are common knowledge and myths about this stuff? or whatever.
Yes. It's so annoying. A lot of good roleplaying is imagining a way your character would have/know something. Obviously you can take it too far, but it's an important skills for keeping the game moving. Like, say one character is obviously falling for some sort of trap by a doppelganger. OOC you either know or are suspicious, but IC you don't. You want to go with them so they aren't alone. But you can't just say that. Say something like, "I'll tag along, I'm getting stir crazy and could go for a walk." It's technically metagaming but it's a very different situation than doing something like telling that character not to go because the other person is suspicious when you genuinely have no reason to think they are.
Another good example of metagaming that so many people view as okay that they don't even view it as metagaming is telling your party OOC how many hit points you have remaining the healer choosing who to heal and with what spells based on the information. Your character doesn't know that number. A lot of times all you really know IC is if someone has less than half of their hit points remaining and a vague idea that barbarians can take more hits than wizards.
Obviously there are scenarios where this doesn't hold but I find in general that metagaming which benefits everyone, doesn't completely ruin encounters, and is done with an excuse that your character would actually reasonably do is typically okay.
Another example. I remember in one game we were trying to open a creaky rusty door quietly. Someone asked if anyone had oil. We all checked our inventory and nobody did. He explained that my character in heavy armor would likely have some because regular maintenance of it would require that. Which seemed fine. The DM agreed. So my character hands his character some oil.
It's funny. I know a lot of players who think like you, but I and many others go in the completely opposite direction. The tension in my combat encounters has increased significantly since my group and I started to only give vague health info. Suddenly, it's a surprise agin when a character goes down and you can almost feel the tension every round when another hidden death save is rolled!
Combat damage is random and it's still dramatic and exciting knowing everyone's health. I think hiding death saves is better than hiding health though. Because in reality everyone would act super urgently seeing a friend collapse. When I'm DMing I explicitly say when things are bloodied (less than ½) and double bloodied (less than ¼) in addition to qualitative explanations.
I think there are numbers worth hiding, I just don't think character health is one. Like I think stealth rolls should be hidden. You shouldn't have an idea that you're not hiding well.
Like I think stealth rolls should be hidden. You shouldn’t have an idea that you’re not hiding well.
I don't have the players actually make the stealth roll until something opposes it. They're doing the best they can. Here comes the guard. Roll, please.
That's how I did it when I DMed. On the off chance they need to make a check and I don't want to alert them I just use passive or roll for them.
"Dude, you took a big hit, How're you feelin'?"
"On a scale of 1 to 57, I'd say I'm about a 35"
Eh, I know nothing about how to handle most dangerous animals, even ones that live in my area; I'd imagine that even in a world with trolls, regular people wouldn't know anything about them.
If your character is a seasoned adventurer or monster enthusiast, sure, light it up, but if your backstory places you as the village baker for most of your life, running in with alchemist's fire at the ready seems a bit strange.
Ultimately I'd consider it to be on the GM's shoulders - if the only way your group is going to survive the troll encounter is with fire, then put an NPC in the local tavern who warms newcomers of a troll in the area, recommending that they have a lit torch at the ready.
You have other people to manage wildlife, often times, and are probably not likely to encounter said animals. If you are then you know to carry bear spray, for example.
Now imagine you’re in a world where bandits on the road are threat you actually have to consider. Trolls might live down the road and your town sends out memos saying “if you see these signs, run, and if you absolutely must then fire is the only thing that will be effective.” It’s perfectly plausible, you just need to be the littlest bit creative/steal stuff like wildlife advisories from the real world.
You don’t even need an NPC. My first character was a sorceror who didn’t know what he could cast but his will, muscle-memory, and being in certain situations brought it out of him. Any “puzzle fight” should have enough room for players/characters to realize there’s a problem and the discover the solution. You can’t plan ahead, maybe, but there’s no reason you can’t have one roleplay turn and then “get lucky” choosing a fire spell next to see what happens.
Eh, I know nothing about how to handle most dangerous animals, even ones that live in my area; I'd imagine that even in a world with trolls, regular people wouldn't know anything about them.
Debatable. You definitely know a Tigers greatest weakness, and a bears greatest weakness even if you don't know how to use them. >!Bullets!<
Id say that we don't know those things now because we live in modern technological times where you don't have to know those things to survive. If this was the middle ages and you were an adventuring type who could hold their own out in the wilds, you would almost definitely know all of those things.
Metagaming kills the game!
I took some very silly decisions because that’s how I thought the character would behave. Only once did I regret it: I made too shy a character and that made for a boring trip. Usually, it was a lot of fun. Honorable mention: being flown away by an angry dragon that I knew would be defeated soon without my character’s intervention, but my character obviously didn’t care. So they went >splat<. Worthy death at the end of a campaign!
Tip for shy/annoying/cowardly/etc. characters is to make it a thing they overcome. My current character is just a lil’ guy who basically got possessed so he’s constantly scared shitless but he’s trying his best and I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to get him out of his shell or even just to feel like he has to say something whether he likes it or not.
Great suggestion! Will try to work on it next time. I must admit my characters have very little character development usually. I should work on that!
Person on the left is calculating every move and winning battles so the other one can be a careless goober (also they're dating)
This is exactly how my last D&D campaign went!
If your playing a dumb character, then rolling through troll canyon without doing research first is exactly what that character would do...
Respect for the RPing...
EXACTLY.
People in this thread keep saying that they should be expected to keep the information that they as a player have because it's obvious. No one is really giving an argument other than the fact that it hurts my fun. No one else who is making that argument is thinking about how the fact that that hurts other players fun because it makes it all about them.
You are hitting the nail on the head. You are able to have your cake and eat it too if you combine the roleplay with learning the information. You know you're going to a place called Troll Canyon? Go do the research. Suddenly you now do know that they are weak to fire. No one can argue that fact, and everyone can prepare. Moreover, you're also going to be in an area where you could probably get some extra fire stuff to help take care of them. It's also the type of cleverness that a DM will actually reward instead of just going. Oh yeah, of course you would know the thing for no reason.
That absolutely makes sense.
I don't do tabletop, but when I start a new game and am playing it the first time, I don't go around reading guides. This gives me the fun that people say they don't get from games nowadays.
e.g. Playing DOS2:DE, it was from reading something in-game that I realised that Trolls were regenerative and weak to fire.
Then I proceeded to splotch poison on them and then fire up the poison puddle.
And of course, I hadn't played a game with trolls before and didn't know about their special characteristics. But even if I had played such a thing, I would go into another game with a fresh mind, because just having the same name doesn't make the the same entity in 2 different worlds.
if your headed to a place called troll canyon you should probably do some research on what trolls are weak to beforehand
Yeah people complaining about "fire on trolls" as metagaming is a huge bugbear of mine because it's so ubiquitous across RPGs that it's virtually part of the definition of what a fantasy troll is. Imagine actually living in a world where they exist, becoming a professional mercenary, and still not knowing you need fire.
As GM I'd accept that argument from a person with a smart enough player, but not from one whose intelligence attracts penalties and not from one whose background is from an island or at sea or a city rat
In some settings I might have monsters like trolls only in some parts of the world, so you're out of luck if you're not from those places unless you read a lot (and if my group is prone to metagaming, change the monster's weakness)
I feel like trolls are common enough that even a farmer would know they don't like fire or acid. And yet, some DMs will make you roll a dungeoneering or other knowledge check to see if your adventurer knows.
Best of both worlds: Always role play a tactician or veteran if you have a lot of game knowledge and you want to use it.
Play an idiot when you are playing a game set in a world or using a system you are completely unfamiliar with.
Ok, I'll throw my hat in the ring.
Metagaming is fine, actually.
Obviously, don't read the module you're a player in, but knowing to use fire on trolls is just basic game knowledge. It's ok to be good at the game, because it is a game. If you're playing dungeons and dragons, or pathfinder, or any other rpg that spends most of the pages on combat rules, then you're playing a tactics game. I like tactics games (I'm not good at them, but that's a separate conversation).
I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to come up with a brilliant plan to do a thing, and then be told that I'm not allowed to do it because me figuring out the puzzle is metaknowlede.
It is exclusively in the tabletop rpg space that being good at the game is considered a bad thing. It's in a similar vein that I hate tutorials in video games, especially when I'm being prevented from doing things that I already know how to do (because I've been playing games for multiple decades now and I have some amount of media literacy) for no other reason than the game hasn't taught me yet. So arbitrarily, I'm not allowed to use fire damage on the trolls until some npc tells me that trolls are weak to fire? That's asinine.
If you want to play let's pretend with dice, that's fine. just be honest about the kind of game that you're running from the get go so I know not to join your table.
It's really as simple as asking your GM if your character would know this. "Hey GM, would my character know if the troll is weak to fire?" and you'll either get "No, your character is unfamiliar with this region and it creatures" or "Yes, your friend in the town guard recited his tale of falling such a beast at your last posting". A lot of people enjoy this game to role-play, and using knowledge your character wouldn't have can take the fun out of it.
Metagaming is fine, actually.
To some degree, this is why Knowledge Checks exist. If you're going to Troll Canyon and you make your Know(Local) check to have an idea about what a troll is and does and you get a high enough roll, you know. If you don't, maybe you forgot. Maybe trolls aren't common to your neck of the woods. Roleplay your reasons.
That said, I believe DMs reserve the right to mix it up a bit. As an anecdote, I had a friend play in a game in which they were hunting a White Wyrm in the glaciers of the north. The experienced players, knowing that White Dragons breath frost, fully stocked up and pre-buffed with anti-cold gear. When they arrived, they positioned themselves on a large ice-flow and pushed off towards the mouth of the cave. But the cracking of the ice awoke the dragon. Dragon came flying out, spotted the players, and immediately engulfed them in a plume of fire. The ice flow melted, the party floundered in the freezing water, and two of them died to a happy dragon who'd just been offered an easy meal.
The players were initially upset, but the DM tisk-tisked. "Everyone knows that dragons breath fire".
If you want to play let’s pretend with dice, that’s fine. just be honest about the kind of game that you’re running from the get go so I know not to join your table.
If you're not playing "Let's Pretend" with dice, I'm not sure what kind of D&D game you're actually playing. A dumb-as-rocks barbarian should presumably see the troll as some big meat sack to be repeatedly bludgeoned into a fine paste. And that may possibly work, at least to the degree that the threat is neutralized for the purposes of the combat. A savvy Bard probably has a song or two about the proper remedy for persistent trolls - and a clever player might even dash off a cute little poem or song to help the rest of the party recall.
The dice keep the game spicy, but you shouldn't be shy about leaning into the cinematics of the situation.
So arbitrarily, I’m not allowed to use fire damage on the trolls until some npc tells me that trolls are weak to fire?
You say arbitrarily but it's not arbitrary. It is dependant on the situation. If trolls aren't super common and your characters have never dealt with a troll? It makes zero sense that you would know that they're weak to fire damage. Question. Do you know how to escape a car that's upside down and submerged in water? Because if you don't, there are a lot of things that are going to get you killed due to not being aware of what the issue is. Now, you might have learned it in the past due to some particular event or due to reading it in something or being aware due to work stuff or whatever else. But the point is that it's a danger that not everyone on the earth is familiar with despite the fact that it is a hyper common vehicle and water covering the vast majority of the earth's surface.
Now instead of cars and water being everywhere, it's a specific monster in a specific location you've probably never visited and the internet doesn't exist. Want to explain to me how it's "arbitrary" that your character would know the vulnerabilities of a specific creature that is from an area you're not from? That you've got no crossover with? That your character has no experience with?
Your perspective comes from that of a player that is frustrated but not of someone who is looking at the world as a whole. Your whole comment talks about how angry you get from being prevented to do certain things but none of it reflects anything from how the world would work internally.
You call it asinine but it's way more ridiculous to think that as a lower level character from the middle of nowhere that you'd have intimate adventuring knowledge of a creature that isn't super common in most situations.
If you want to play let’s pretend with dice, that’s fine.
I mean that is literally the game... Fun fact on the definition of metagaming.
Metagame thinking means thinking about the game as a game. It’s like when a character in a movie knows it’s a movie and acts accordingly. For example, a player might say, “The DM wouldn’t throw such a powerful monster at us!” or you might hear, “The read-aloud text spent a lot of time describing that door — let’s search it again!”
For a lot of us this isn't a game first. It's a Roleplaying Game first. The way that you want to play is rejecting a lot of the roleplay aspect of it in favor of mechanical benefit. Phrasing that as "play lets pretend with dice" just feels bizarrely tone deaf considering that is literally the entire core concept of the game.
The thing about your comment here that is frustrating to me as a DM is that it doesn't factor in anyone else. It's all about how your plan was ruined and about how things prevent you from doing various things but there's no consideration or reference to anyone else in the party. How enjoyable do you think it is for other players if someone in the party is consistently saying "I would know the thing" and providing no reasonable explanation for why you'd know the thing?
I think there's allowable degrees, and that it's table-dependant.
In general, knowing trolls are vulnerable to fire is fairly common player knowledge. I'll also point out that even in The Hobbit, when the trolls petrified in the sunlight, the narrator says "for trolls, as you probably already know, must be underground before dawn." This troll vulnerability is common knowledge in middle earth!
I think that if a GM wants a little known vulnerability, they can do a little extra work to make that easier for the players to respond appropriately to. Trolls work far better as a fairly tough monster with a fairly well known vulnerability. If you want that to be different, I'd use a troll variant, and make it clear that these creatures don't fear fire!
This fundamentally depends on the people and dm you are playing with. The group I play with has decided that common enemies your players would know how to deal with weaknesses etc. Just like a person from Australia knows which spiders are poisonous or not.
Uncommon enemies you know you have to pry for weaknesses. We also play shadow dark so character longevity depends on the experience gained from previous encounters and PC deaths.
I'll take a meta gamer over someone with "my guy" syndrome any day. At least they'll progress the plot.
My guy syndrome?
Ah, okay then. Hadn't seen it in that phrasing before. Pretty stupid as an idea though. The issue is not that someone wants to follow diagetic character motivations, or even that someone else wants to play with a focus on successful combat encounters regardless of diagetic knowledge. It's that they both ended up at the same table. The DM fucked up by not setting expectations regarding the kind of table they were running. It is our duty as organizers of play to prevent these kinds of people from playing different games at the same table.
It's not just the GM's responsibility. All the players at the table should be having those discussions throughout play
That's why I always play half elves. I mean, they're like 60 to 80 years old. They have seen some shit. They have learned some shit. They've been in human society that entire time, even if they're only physically in their early 20s.
Reasonably, I have enough local background knowledge to address myriad situations.
slightly neurotic diviner who almost always knows what's optimal, and struggles between doing the obviously ideal thing or rejecting that and knowingly doing something suboptimal so they aren't just a puppet to the magic
I get around this by having the memory of a goldfish for metagaming knowledge.
My low wiz eldrich knight that keeps touching blatantly cursed shit and just rolling with it.
My tiny tortle sorcerer is obsessed with putting gems in his mouth. The DM knows this. The party knows this. It makes for some very funny conflicts
I played all of Death Stranding 2 with BOOBA written on my back because I thought it was funny.
Some people just like rolling up new PCs 🤷🏼♂️😅😶