So first off, Meta-gaming in DnD is a bit weird. It’s both acceptable and not acceptable, depending on the limitations therein. Like it is technically metagaming to have one PC trust another after just meeting in the game for the first time but this is not just acceptable but actively encouraged in some games because you don’t want to draw out being untrustworthy of your party in the first session when the whole goal is to play together.
But the flipside is bad metagaming like if you read a module ahead of time, have information about that and then use that to take actions like fetching a bad guys bugout bag and investigating a specific wall to see through the illusion (Fuck you, you giant turtle asshole… sorry. Bad experience) then that is just you being shitty because you’re not really playing the game. This is taken a step further with dice rolls. You may or may not notice that some DMs will ask for a specific DC and other ones will just ask for a roll and then tell you if you succeeded/failed after the fact. The ones who ask for it after the fact have typically dealt with a lot of Metagaming Bobs. People who, when they hear a specific DC, will roll just barely that DC or roll to beat it. Especially if it is a big and important roll. They don’t want the dice to tell the story, they just want to win. They don’t understand the game. To them it’s being the hero or succeeding everytime so they’ll lie about the dice rolls.
Metagaming bob is upset in this instance because the DM has elected to have all players roll in a specific thing so that only the DM can see the roll. That way only the DM knows whether they succeeded or failed. Bob feels like his agency has been taken away and he doesn’t trust the DM. He thinks the DM will just lie about the rolls because Bob can’t understand playing the game in any way other than how he sees it. He is mentally accusing the DM of doing what he does. So when he says that there is a problem, the DM knows that he has caught Bob.
From this point, Bob will typically flame out of the party. He will get upset about something and either be pushed out by all other players and the DM or just leave himself. Less often, Bob starts to learn the error of his ways and accepts the dice as the true storytellers and all of us just along for the ride.
I hope that helps and I hope that you have a fantastic session next weekend! May you always roll with advantage and the dice be forever in your favor <3
I took it another way, where Wisdom specifically controls skills like Perception, Insight, and Animal Handling. Basically, skills that allow your character to notice or intuit things about the environment/NPCs.
Let’s say an NPC tells a lie, and you ask whether or not they’re lying. The DM asks you to roll an Insight check, and see that you rolled a 1. This means you (as the player) know you can’t trust when the DM says the NPC is being truthful. But your character believes the NPC, because you obviously failed the Insight roll. And that’s where the metagaming comes into play, with the player finding alternative ways to be able to act on what they believe was a lie, even though their character believes something to be a truth.
By hiding the Insight roll from the players, it obfuscates the pass/fail, and eliminates the entire “player knows someone was lying but their character doesn’t” metagame.
And that’s where the metagaming comes into play, with the player finding alternative ways to be able to act on what they believe was a lie, even though their character believes something to be a truth.
My favorite solution to this comes from Fate’s compels. In short, you bribe the player with the equivalent of Inspiration for buying in.
So, yeah, maybe the NPC is lying, but I can invoke their “Very Trustworthy” aspect, because the dice said they’re coming off as very trustworthy, and you get a nice shiny fate point so long as you go along with it.
It can channels the metagamer’s desire to win in a more story friendly direction.
So first off, Meta-gaming in DnD is a bit weird. It’s both acceptable and not acceptable, depending on the limitations therein. Like it is technically metagaming to have one PC trust another after just meeting in the game for the first time but this is not just acceptable but actively encouraged in some games because you don’t want to draw out being untrustworthy of your party in the first session when the whole goal is to play together.
But the flipside is bad metagaming like if you read a module ahead of time, have information about that and then use that to take actions like fetching a bad guys bugout bag and investigating a specific wall to see through the illusion (Fuck you, you giant turtle asshole… sorry. Bad experience) then that is just you being shitty because you’re not really playing the game. This is taken a step further with dice rolls. You may or may not notice that some DMs will ask for a specific DC and other ones will just ask for a roll and then tell you if you succeeded/failed after the fact. The ones who ask for it after the fact have typically dealt with a lot of Metagaming Bobs. People who, when they hear a specific DC, will roll just barely that DC or roll to beat it. Especially if it is a big and important roll. They don’t want the dice to tell the story, they just want to win. They don’t understand the game. To them it’s being the hero or succeeding everytime so they’ll lie about the dice rolls.
Metagaming bob is upset in this instance because the DM has elected to have all players roll in a specific thing so that only the DM can see the roll. That way only the DM knows whether they succeeded or failed. Bob feels like his agency has been taken away and he doesn’t trust the DM. He thinks the DM will just lie about the rolls because Bob can’t understand playing the game in any way other than how he sees it. He is mentally accusing the DM of doing what he does. So when he says that there is a problem, the DM knows that he has caught Bob.
From this point, Bob will typically flame out of the party. He will get upset about something and either be pushed out by all other players and the DM or just leave himself. Less often, Bob starts to learn the error of his ways and accepts the dice as the true storytellers and all of us just along for the ride.
I hope that helps and I hope that you have a fantastic session next weekend! May you always roll with advantage and the dice be forever in your favor <3
I took it another way, where Wisdom specifically controls skills like Perception, Insight, and Animal Handling. Basically, skills that allow your character to notice or intuit things about the environment/NPCs.
Let’s say an NPC tells a lie, and you ask whether or not they’re lying. The DM asks you to roll an Insight check, and see that you rolled a 1. This means you (as the player) know you can’t trust when the DM says the NPC is being truthful. But your character believes the NPC, because you obviously failed the Insight roll. And that’s where the metagaming comes into play, with the player finding alternative ways to be able to act on what they believe was a lie, even though their character believes something to be a truth.
By hiding the Insight roll from the players, it obfuscates the pass/fail, and eliminates the entire “player knows someone was lying but their character doesn’t” metagame.
My favorite solution to this comes from Fate’s compels. In short, you bribe the player with the equivalent of Inspiration for buying in.
So, yeah, maybe the NPC is lying, but I can invoke their “Very Trustworthy” aspect, because the dice said they’re coming off as very trustworthy, and you get a nice shiny fate point so long as you go along with it.
It can channels the metagamer’s desire to win in a more story friendly direction.