Spells that encourage the DM to metagame.

[Pex]

Do you consider that metagaming to make our player's choices not only ineffectual, but also a waste of ressources, is good DMing?



Actually, it has not. Because it's not metagaming.

Contrarily to everyone in the kingdom being suddenly capable to realize illusions are illusions.





This is true, too.

If you cast Sleep on people and don't KO everyone, then the ones who aren't affected will probably consider waking them up. Hypnotic Pattern's the same, the affected persons are visibly affected.

It's not like Phantasmal Force that has everything be in the target's mind, so their buddies should be confused by what is going on with the target (though the sharp one will probably put "enemy cast some sort of spell" and "buddy is acting weird" together").

It is *not* the same thing as every enemy being able to see your illusions are illusions or the other signs the DM is neutralizing your character's powers so they don't "ruin his scenario".

And doing that is bad DMing. You're DM-fiating a character into uselessness because you don't want to be beaten or similar trains of thought.

More than PCs ruining the scenario, I think it's more fear of players getting away with something. The players are forcing the bad guys to behave a certain way. They're controlling the scenario altering reality, but the DM can't help but know it's a trick. The players for a moment have virtual power over the DM, but it's a house of cards. If only the NPC realized this one thing it falls apart and power returns to the DM deciding how NPCs behave; therefore, the NPC realizes the one thing to make this happen.

[Boci]

Edit: Two good articles, one on Metagaming and the other on player character separation, and how it's so often unnecessary.
1) https://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-meta...is-your-fault/

Ah yes. "The wizard who always cast fire spells, casts fire spells at a troll and the DM gets angry"

That a well balanced, totally not strawmany example of how DMs can object to metagaming.

[CantigThimble]

No, he's right. Metagaming is creating an artificial and unnecessary separation of player / PC knowledge. Not whether you unnecessarily create that separation, and then act on it anyway.

The least Metagaming thing you can do is not create that artificial and unnecessary separation in the first place. Although in some cases it may be necessary to do so. Such as when you have already run an adventure on a different character.

Edit: Two good articles, one on Metagaming and the other on player character separation, and how it's so often unnecessary.
1) https://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-meta...is-your-fault/
2) https://theangrygm.com/through-a-gla...er-seperation/

I apologze if I come off a bit abrasive in this post but reading stuff like Angry tends to lead to me mirroring that style.

Those articles are BS. The only good advice in them is 'don't be a jerk' but that's pretty much useless without good particulars. He gives lots of things NOT to do but doesn't have a bit of advice on how to productively distinguish player and character. His opinion basically boils down to:

"Sometimes when people try to do things like this it makes the game less fun and it's pretty hard to draw the line anyway so just don't. Except kinda sometimes, but lets not at ALL go into how to look at these things productively and just make it sound like anyone who says 'metagaming' just hates fun."

I mean seriously, if there were NO player/character divide I wouldn't even play the game, that's half the fun. If my character were just 'me' then I'd be bored as hell. That doesn't mean I need to saw my brain in half and never let anything I as a player know influence the decisions I make on behalf of my character, it just means I need to recognize what motivations my character has and figure out how to use them to achieve what I, the player, want. It also means that if what I, the player want directly contradicts what my character's motivations are then I shouldn't just change that every damn time it comes up.

Seriously, if it were so impossible to separate your own motivations from your characters' or try to see things from their perspective instead of yours then I guess every work of fiction with more than one character is goddamn sorcery.

The only thing I agree with him on is that your shouldn't use 'metagaming' to be a massive jerk to your friends, but even then I think he just invented a new way to be a jerk by hyping up condemnation of anything related to metagaming at the same time.

[MaxWilson]

Also known as...

Oh, so that's why I just spent the last three hours reading about the Last Action Hero on TVTropes. It was you! Curse you, Chris Basken! [shakes fist]

[EggKookoo]

Oh, so that's why I just spent the last three hours reading about the Last Action Hero on TVTropes. It was you! Curse you, Chris Basken! [shakes fist]

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life

[strangebloke]

I apologze if I come off a bit abrasive in this post but reading stuff like Angry tends to lead to me mirroring that style.

Those articles are BS. The only good advice in them is 'don't be a jerk' but that's pretty much useless without good particulars. He gives lots of things NOT to do but doesn't have a bit of advice on how to productively distinguish player and character. His opinion basically boils down to:

"Sometimes when people try to do things like this it makes the game less fun and it's pretty hard to draw the line anyway so just don't. Except kinda sometimes, but lets not at ALL go into how to look at these things productively and just make it sound like anyone who says 'metagaming' just hates fun."

I mean seriously, if there were NO player/character divide I wouldn't even play the game, that's half the fun. If my character were just 'me' then I'd be bored as hell. That doesn't mean I need to saw my brain in half and never let anything I as a player know influence the decisions I make on behalf of my character, it just means I need to recognize what motivations my character has and figure out how to use them to achieve what I, the player, want. It also means that if what I, the player want directly contradicts what my character's motivations are then I shouldn't just change that every damn time it comes up.

Seriously, if it were so impossible to separate your own motivations from your characters' or try to see things from their perspective instead of yours then I guess every work of fiction with more than one character is goddamn sorcery.

The only thing I agree with him on is that your shouldn't use 'metagaming' to be a massive jerk to your friends, but even then I think he just invented a new way to be a jerk by hyping up condemnation of anything related to metagaming at the same time.

This is the inevitable place that every discussion on metagaming goes. People don't define their terms, and different amounts of all the things that people consider 'metagaming' are or aren't allowed under various circumstances.

From the rest of Angry's posts, he tends to run a pretty straightforward beat-em-up campaign where combat is the key focus. He's outright stated that he has no patience for FATE or other such systems, and while he does create things like 'social encounter rules', most of his writing centers on combat encounters.

And the thing is, in a combat encounter, 'metagaming' typically isn't a problem. Like he said, you throw a firebolt at the troll cause that's something you've heard in real life and why wouldn't a professional adventurer not know such basic monster lore? You throw a charisma save at the same troll because you think he's got low charisma. And who knows, maybe he doesn't? Maybe the Troll's been enchanted to be resistant to fire?

The problem with metagaming comes in two other places.
1: When the DM makes all of his NPCs clairvoyant. This is a problem because it ruins player agency. After all, why layer defenses on yourself if the enemy is instantly going to notice that you're there even when silent and invisible? AngryGM and pretty much all the DND folks out there in the internet have skewered this style of play from time to time. Angry himself writes a lot about 'figuring out the monsters motivation.'

2: When the party is keeping secrets from each other. Obviously if a PC is secretly an incubus, and that gets revealed OOC, its going to be a pain when the paladin keeps trying to use divine sense at random times, and comes up with some BS justification for it.

[MaxWilson]

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life

Averted. :-P Nice try.

[Unoriginal]

Those articles are BS.

I honestly never read a good article from AngryGM.

I've been told that his stuff can be useful for DMs who have some experience but are still finding their footings.

[stoutstien]

No. That's role playing.

If you know a troll is weak to fire and you use that information to decide your character will attack with fire when it is something your character does NOT know. THAT is meta-gaming.

USING knowledge that your character does NOT know which the player is aware of from outside game world (i.e. reading the rule books) ... THAT is meta-gaming.

REFUSING to use something the player is aware of but the character is not aware of ... THAT is role playing since you play the character within the constraints of what the character knows and not what the player knows.

Yeah I don't see how that not Metagaming. See my earlier posts. You pretending you don't know it's still metagaming. you can call it good role playing, or whatever but the fact still remains you're using your player knowledge to affect your characters decisions.
I cant see how some people get a sense of accomplishment when they pretend they don't know something and then act like they discover it.

[TheYell]

you can call it good role playing, or whatever but the fact still remains you're using your player knowledge to affect your characters decisions.

If you don't approach the character as knowing less than the player then you are basically playing the same character your whole career with different stats and feats in any given situation.

[Darth Ultron]

This is a Classic DM vs Player problem:

DM: NPC's in the game will have different levels of intelligence, but few will be very dumb

Player: Every NPC must be super dumb all the time so my character can be awesome.

You can basically blame movies, TV shows and video games. And worst of all cartoons. Again. They all very often have very, very, very dumb characters...and for a very simple reason: to make the Stars of the show look Awesome.

[stoutstien]

If you don't approach the character as knowing less than the player then you are basically playing the same character your whole career with different stats and feats in any given situation.

I'm not saying role playing is voided by Metagaming. I'm saying role playing IS Metagaming. You bring up a good point though. Can anyone honestly say they can create a new character without drawing on experience from past ones?

[Boci]

This is a Classic DM vs Player problem:

DM: NPC's in the game will have different levels of intelligence, but few will be very dumb

That's the good way of doing it yes, but come on, you know there are some DM who are:

DM: All NPCs will instictive know which PC is the best target. Lowely goblins will all act as if shaving off another 3 HP from the party was their life's goal and trying in the face of death will let them die happily

Can anyone honestly say they can create a new character without drawing on experience from past ones?

Yes. I can make character uninfluenced by past ones I've made.

[TheYell]

I always use my experience to try and make something fun and coherent. THat said, I make characters with gaps. My fat cloistered GOOLock made errors that the ranger wouldn't, because he didn't know better.

I am coming to hate getting banzai-charged by determined XP meat. It's one thing for goblins, but come on, a fey with higher INT than our wizard should recognize it is a) half dead and b) failing to drop even one of the seven people hurting it.

What if the wizard, before casting simulacrum, has a Diplomacy roll to ask the other wizard to do that again, verrry slowwly

[Tanarii]

His opinion basically boils down to:

"Sometimes when people try to do things like this it makes the game less fun and it's pretty hard to draw the line anyway so just don't. Except kinda sometimes, but lets not at ALL go into how to look at these things productively and just make it sound like anyone who says 'metagaming' just hates fun."

Accurate.

And guess what? People who talk about Metagaming are typically causing less fun by unnecessarily insisting on player/character separation. So yeah, characterizing them as hating fun is a good way to approach the topic.

[Pelle]

And guess what? People who talk about Metagaming are typically causing less fun by unnecessarily insisting on player/character separation. So yeah, characterizing them as hating fun is a good way to approach the topic.

I think it's usually more about that people recognize what they find fun themselves. For example, let's say the party splits up, and one group learns something (like the secret identity of the villain). Then if another character that isn't there acts on that information without any in-character justification, that's simply less fun for me. It's not trying hate fun, it's just a personal preference. No positive thinking will change that. Establishing some logical or arbitrary reason in-game will make it fun, however. It's not about metagaming though, it's about not making too clearly out-of-character decisions.

[EggKookoo]

I think it's usually more about that people recognize what they find fun themselves. For example, let's say the party splits up, and one group learns something (like the secret identity of the villain). Then if another character that isn't there acts on that information without any in-character justification, that's simply less fun for me. It's not trying hate fun, it's just a personal preference. No positive thinking will change that. Establishing some logical or arbitrary reason in-game will make it fun, however. It's not about metagaming though, it's about not making too clearly out-of-character decisions.

That's why you never split the party!

[Pelle]

That's why you never split the party!

Splitting the party is fine, just 'metagame' a little to bring it back together again. But in doing that, be sure to add some token in-character justification as well! If you do that well, I have more fun than if you don't.

[GloatingSwine]

Let me ask you this.

Imagine you're a DM.
Imagine you have an encounter of 20 skeletons in a large cave.
Are those skeletons bunched up or spread out?

This is where I would put on my simulationist hat and ask myself: Why are the skeletons there? How did they get there? Are they the animated remains of a previous battle? If so they're in clumps where they fell fighting each other. Is it a burial chamber? Then they're probably in some sort of organised ranks.

Are they sentries set on purpose? Then there's a clump near the thing that needs guarding then a few more spread out around the cave.

Most of these sort of "does wizard get to play with fireball today" type questions have simulationist answers.


Same with things like sleep. It's reasonable that most intelligent beings will try and do something about it if their fellows suddenly faint and fall over (what they'll do about it is going to depend on how much they like each other, it might be a concerned shake from the city guard or a kick in the head from an orc raider).

But that also depends what else is happening. If it's happening in combat they've got other things to worry about and probably shouldn't. If the players wanted to use it to sneak past and someone made their save, that's the situation now you've got a couple of rounds before the one you missed wakes someone else up.

[Darth Ultron]

DM: All NPCs will instictive know which PC is the best target.

This is a problem, yes.

[EggKookoo]

This is a problem, yes.

I typically roll randomly to determine which PC an NPC will target initially (or they attack nearest, which amounts to the same thing since I don't use minis so much these days). Once blows have been exchanged, there's usually a sensible process for determining it.

[KorvinStarmast]

You can use an Arcana check to identify a spell based on the Verbal and Somatic components you witness. At least that's how I do it at my table.

And it costs the NPC an action for that turn, right? ( I am not referring to the optional rule in XGtE).

The player declares they are casting a spell and hold the spell card or whatever they're using is a place holder for it where I cant see it. Then I metagame as the NPC and make the decision how I react. Once I declare the NPC reaction the player exposes what spell they cast.

Interesting technique.

I apologze if I come off a bit abrasive in this post but reading stuff like Angry tends to lead to me mirroring that style. Those articles are BS.

The writing style is annoying, since you have to cut through 50% of the noise to get to the meat. But there's some good stuff in there.

From the rest of Angry's posts, he tends to run a pretty straightforward beat-em-up campaign where combat is the key focus. He's outright stated that he has no patience for FATE or other such systems, and while he does create things like 'social encounter rules', most of his writing centers on combat encounters.

Indeed; his major project at the moment is a mega dungeon/dungeon crawl.

The problem with metagaming comes in two other places.

1: When the DM makes all of his NPCs clairvoyant. This is a problem because it ruins player agency. After all, why layer defenses on yourself if the enemy is instantly going to notice that you're there even when silent and invisible? AngryGM and pretty much all the DND folks out there in the internet have skewered this style of play from time to time. Angry himself writes a lot about 'figuring out the monsters motivation.'

2: When the party is keeping secrets from each other. Obviously if a PC is secretly an incubus, and that gets revealed OOC, its going to be a pain when the paladin keeps trying to use divine sense at random times, and comes up with some BS justification for it.

Yeah.

I honestly never read a good article from AngryGM.

I am buying his book and giving one to my brother.

This is a Classic DM vs Player problem:
DM: NPC's in the game will have different levels of intelligence, but few will be very dumb
Player: Every NPC must be super dumb all the time so my character can be awesome.

You can basically blame movies, TV shows and video games. And worst of all cartoons. {snip} to make the Stars of the show look Awesome.

Yeah, good point.

[stoutstien]

I typically roll randomly to determine which PC an NPC will target initially (or they attack nearest, which amounts to the same thing since I don't use minis so much these days). Once blows have been exchanged, there's usually a sensible process for determining it.

i think a lot of DM don't give the NPC goals, motives and personalities. kobold guarding hatchery are going to fight to the death to protect the young. same kobold will gladly run away at a drop of a pin if there nothing to gain from sticking around other than dead kobolds. don't want your players to treat npcs like bags of HP that drop xp. don't present them as such. the problem i have with random pciking targets is no it is just a stat block then.

[EggKookoo]

i think a lot of DM don't give the NPC goals, motives and personalities. kobold guarding hatchery are going to fight to the death to protect the young. same kobold will gladly run away at a drop of a pin if there nothing to gain from sticking around other than dead kobolds. don't want your players to treat npcs like bags of HP that drop xp. don't present them as such. the problem i have with random pciking targets is no it is just a stat block then.

Well, I should have clarified I do the random thing when there's no obvious reason for the NPCs to pick specific targets. Bunch of goblin archers waiting to ambush the players as they pass through a bend in the path? Random targets.

OTOH one time my players ran into a room hell-bent on destruction. Fighter got a good roll and took away over half the first goblin's HP. That goblin collapsed out of shock, and the one next to him dramatically grasped at his chest and fell over playing dead CUZ SCREW DAT!

[stoutstien]

Well, I should have clarified I do the random thing when there's no obvious reason for the NPCs to pick specific targets. Bunch of goblin archers waiting to ambush the players as they pass through a bend in the path? Random targets.

OTOH one time my players ran into a room hell-bent on destruction. Fighter got a good roll and took away over half the first goblin's HP. That goblin collapsed out of shock, and the one next to him dramatically grasped at his chest and fell over playing dead CUZ SCREW DAT!

Goblins be goblins 🤣

[Unoriginal]

I am buying his book and giving one to my brother.

Which one(s) of his articles would you recommand?

[stoutstien]

Which one(s) of his articles would you recommand?

His minion and general custom boss NPCs are easy to understand and some of the ideas like gated HP work really well. I enjoy that at least addressed some common game management issues such as the lack of universal time reference points when not in combat.

[mephnick]

Which one(s) of his articles would you recommand?

His Paragon monster rules work a hell of a lot better than Legendary Actions. Legendary Actions do virtually nothing to fix the problems with single monster combats.

[MaxWilson]

His Paragon monster rules work... a lot better than Legendary Actions. Legendary Actions do virtually nothing to fix the problems with single monster combats.

The problems with single monster combats are created by the PHB initiative system's insistence on serializing player access to the DM. Toss it and use a better one like a
WEGO variant (everybody declares, then everybody acts, rolling initiative where necessary to resolve ordering dependencies) instead of the Legendary Action kludge. Your players will use more team tactics, won't be bored during each other's turns, and single monsters will not be boring any more.

[EggKookoo]

His Paragon monster rules work a hell of a lot better than Legendary Actions. Legendary Actions do virtually nothing to fix the problems with single monster combats.

I'm itching to try that.