I think it the context of number 2: GM vs Players, you particularly meant having a hostile GM, but there was one time I was GMing a Mass Effect game and I used number 2 hard to save their collective asses. They had to storm this weapon designer firm at the top of a tower and recover some evidence from it. There were 6 players, and for whatever reason, they decided to leave half of their team behind for absolutely no good reason (even some of their better combat characters too!). They were to basically wait in the lobby until they were needed. I had planned two successive nail-biting, balls to the walls encounters for them in this firm. They had even been warned that it was fairly well guarded. Their first encounter was to be against four biotic powered Asari elite-guards. I GM'd it so that instead it was merely two. They barely managed to kill the guards, and were too damaged to continue, so they fled along with the rest of their party back to the ship before the cops showed up. I know as a GM, one shouldn't be afraid of killing PCs off, but I decided that massacring half the party in an unwinnable fight wouldn't have been much fun for the table. And besides, I would have killed them, had the dice fallen that way.
It's a great example. What system were you using if I may ask and if you tell me the Mass Effect RPG I shall throw money at it until I get it. It can be a great challenge when the party makes really, really, really, obviously dumb decisions. I often call it - Hitler'ing. Invading two different parts of the planet at the same time is just dumb, especially if one of those parts is an ally. Thank you for sharing - its a good example of meta-gaming for good purposes!
The game is a free fan made PDF for a d6 system (there is also a d20 version somewhere). masseffectd6.blogspot.com/ The rules at first are a little wonky to figure out, we completely screwed up character creation first time out (granted, it was our first RPG ever, so that factored in) We played a couple of sessions with it, and once you figure out the rules, it seemed to be a pretty solid system. Give it a whirl.
When I heard your example of the players using a hot air balloon to avoid a gatehouse full of traps and such it took me back to all the old games I ran. Whenever the PC's "outwitted" my best laid plans I would just shelve the ideas for a later adventure (a'la throw them back into my GM toolbox) and I would make it a point of rewarding them for being able to do so (e.g. have their immediate follow up activities work significantly better than expected). I encourage my players to "out think" me, it makes things even more enjoyable for the players but also the GM. Great videos by the way, really enjoying them!
That for me is half the fun. Solving problems - me versus the players - though not as an antagonistic game, but as a creative game of lateral thinking.
In general I just don't spend a lot of time preparing things like that. The players will usually go in another direction any way. I've found that making elaborate preparations usually entices me to railroading.
For the type 1 metagaming gm, I think you can use your own knowledge to add flavor to a game or campaign, but it MUST be readily and obviously accessible to the party. I had a puzzle for a dungeon once that was sort of an Indiana Jones style set of candles that matched star charts, but the relevant star charts as well as history books of the previous uses by the locals (who were described by npcs to be dabble in astronomy and astrology) that described the basics of how the mechanism worked. I'm an astrophysicist and I used my study to inform the puzzle, but it was "dumbed down" for the party and could be solved with info I gave to them and they loved it. I wish I could constantly make the game as for them as that was.
For #3: What if all these NPCs actually *are* a hivemind? See? Every problem can be solved by adding mind flayers. Except "too many mind flayers" I suppose, but that's hardly a problem, now is it?
I used Moon Rats once. It took the players a very long time to figure out the rats I put into nearly every scene in the port city they were in, were the actual threat and mastermind.
I think this applies: During a campaign, my players are hiding in a house and being attacked on all sides by a coordinated sect of ghouls, hiding in the wheat fields. PC Druid goes: "Dry wheat burns well!" and Lights the fields on fire. I told him that it won't kill ghouls, they're not going to stay and burn to death in grass, but it will smoke them out. He was alright with that. Here is where it comes into play: I COULD say that the grass is wet cause itd been raining all day and wont light up, or that the ghouls had buckets of water or whatever, but instead I played it out logically and developed unforeseen circumstances for the PCs. Mainly: the grass burning is going to generate a lot of smoke, I hope they have high Fortitude saves. This kind of thing is okay. Did they circumvent my guerrilla tactics? Yes, and I'm damn proud of them for it, but there are unforeseen side effects of burning an entire crop of wheat. Muhahaha!
I like your mind. Your raining option was good to avoid unless you'd made mention of the rain before the party arrived at the farmhouse! Oh the merry joy at starvation due to reckless action!
0:49 *"We are the Ringmasters. The ones who run the circus"* "Only by the consent of the clowns!" - Mr Bent (a.k.a. Charlie Benito), Making Money by Terry Pratchett
Kartissa damm you now i want to reread making money (Last time i read it i kept reading it again, not touching my increasing pile of books for the better half of 3 months)
Thank you so much for this video. I ran a game in a world of my own making, and not one player liked it. No one has wanted to have me run a game since (years). No one could articulate what I had done so so wrong. This video has shown me, how badly I was Metta-gaming my pore players. Your videos are giving me hope I will GM again. Thanks again.
Small story: We were playing DnD out of the abyss and during our session we fought an elite creature and destroyed it easily. However few minutes later the entire part almost got wiped from falling off a cliff because we all rolled 1. The DM At that moment said "I give you elite monstrosities and you kill them easily but almost die off a cliff?" Point of the story, It's not the monsters that you should worry about it's the environment that you should fear.
Frost Dragon King as I am a new dm myself, I'm finding that more and more true that players find ways to kill themselves as opposed to me finding ways to do it for them lol
I had some very smart players for a few years who were very good at staying alive and in general defeat anything I could think of. Higher level DnD tends towards that in general, but one of these players just ended up breaking the system and basically became a god at level 15, so that's what happened and I ended the campaign there and decided to not play DnD with these friends any more. I found Star Wars Saga Edition a lot more manageable.
As they all say you are essentially the god of the universe and you can with couple words turn that character to normal again but with some divine intervention or someone stole some of his godly power made him weaker in some way. But it's up to you my friend hope you're enjoying the star wars game.
Whenever my players do something stupid ( Murder ) I roll a D20 and set a difficulty based on their location for a possibility of a witness or someone discovering the body. I always show them the consequences of their actions and signs of an occurring investigation. - A Funeral. - A Gathering crowd. - Investigators asking people around. - Gossip in taverns about the murder. - Very rarely wanted posters ( Only if there is an eye witness ). Even in our modern age of technology where information is shared almost instantaneously murderers and criminals are rarely caught on the spot. Progression and Escalation must make sense in the world otherwise the players will feel that you are out there to get them and that is really bad.
Well done video as usual, but there's one metagaming aspect that the GM can be guilty of that I didn't see, and that's Monster Metagaming. monster Metagaming occurs when creatures that shouldn't be able to identify or know certain things about the player's characters that they act upon. Oozes shouldn't target the Ranger because his Favored Enemy ability happens to be with oozes and he has 3 feats designed to deal with them, they should go for whatever's closest. The Frost Wolves of Agkross 7 shouldn't go after the guy that's 8' 6" in his power armor, they should go after the 5' 3" guy in the back in the robes. Until they get blasted with a sonic pulse coming from the Technomage, that is. Now, obviously to a degree this can be dealt with by way of ecology. If you feel like the mage hasn't been targeted enough, make those oozes eat mana, making that mage a far tastier treat. In the same manner, those Frost Wolves might be ferrovores, making that 8' 6" of power armor far more worth the fight than the 5' 3" guy. Obviously, creatures without the mental score to handle it can't have a hatred of creatures with the Favored Enemy class ability, and unless given outside influence owls in a certain area shouldn't have an aversion to people named Chuck. The change to ecology has to be broad enough to make sense within the world.
YES! Damn it, I love this channel. Even if it is my own. You raise an excellent excellent point. Monster Meta. The 4th Meta. Thank you for adding this. Well.. now I have to do another video :)
I usually monster meta when playing high level spell casters, because I don't have a supra-genius or godlike intellect in real life. I might, for instance, pick his spells straight from the book during the encounter, assuming ie. that the lich''s intellect would indicate that he generally had mastered what spells to bring for the any particular occasion. That doesn't mean I am personally hell bent on the destruction of the party, but it is fun for the party to take down this supra genius tactical magic user that never seems to make mistakes (and the goal in my meta gaming is to make him seem like he is a tactical genius).
I think this is something I focus a lot on as well as a GM. When I decide on what the NPC is going to do in battle, I try to approach it much more as a narrative story than a strategic battlegame. A berserk, charging Orc for instance is probably just going to smash whatever puny fool comes into his path first A pack of wolf might go for what they perceive as the weakest member that is located the furthest from the party. Trained humanoids though, like soldiers, might have been told to "Kill the guy in the fancy dress who's conjuring up pretty lights and muttering strange words" first :P The only time I embrace near full-knowledge of the party's abilities on the monster's side is mainly in special cases, like if a Witch Hunter or Assassin is tasked with hunting down the party, as those are usually prone to do their research beforehand.
This was very good and sparked my own thoughts! I enjoyed the humor you sprinkled into it :) I actually have an issue related to this topic. How do you deal with divination being used against players? It's very easy for it to come across meta-gaming against the players, and I hate having to outright tell my players "There are reasons for this". My players pissed off a fey lord and he had been continuously sending creatures to assassinate them. He had captured one of the players prior to all of this and had ample opportunity to pluck a hair or two for his mage to use for scrying (and they know he has a mage strong enough to cast Gate). One player voiced he thought I was singling him out (and I am, but for in-game reasons) and I had to tell him, "There are reasons for this. I'm not trying to bully you." This satisfied him, but it made me feel like I failed in a way. I would love for them to just trust that I wouldn't do that by now. Anyway, was there a better way for me to handle this?
I think it's about 'set-up'. A way of making sure the players know what is happening - even if their characters don't - would have been to have the mage - during the characters captivity - come up to him and purposefully cut locks of hair from the character, drain some blood, and strip the character of his pants (for players who don't pick up on the subtle, sometimes we need to use a hammer) and never once say why. So with set-up - and that's only 3 clues as to what is happening, you could put in more. The darker or more demented the more memorable. However critically you need to give the characters the chance fairly soon of meeting this wizard and stopping him, otherwise it will feel like a hopeless situation. Or at least meeting some old crone who has an amulet of non-detection for sale. Which is faulty and works sometimes and doesn't work, or emits a zone of detection if it gets wet etc. Those are my initial thoughts :)
Thanks, this is good advice. I definitely didn't give the player a chance to see this happen as he was unconscious at the time. Perhaps I should have been more obvious about her cutting a lock of hair from the character and doing it while the character was actually conscious. Thanks a lot!
I'll admit, I've used GM knowledge to try and make a fight more threatening. my players spotted it right away and called me out on it. after 30 years of gaming, over half of which I GM'd, this was the first time I felt truley ashamed of myself. Lesson learned though, and I have not done such again.
Man, don't be ashamed. I've been through campaigns where the GM meta-gamed almost every encounter. I recall a recent one playing 5th ed DnD, the conversation went something like this: GM: This enemy shoots a dart at you. You take... 2 piercing damage. Me: Cool GM: ...and you take 56 poison damage. Me: Okay, I'm immune to poison damage, so I take none, right? GM: It's magical poison. Me: But that's still poison damage, right? GM: FINE. It's necrotic damage. Me: ... You can't just change the damage type like that because you don't like that I'm immune to it, that's some metagaming bullshit, man. GM: But you CAN'T be immune to poison when they all use poison! Me: I mean you literally designed the encounter. What's the point of me being immune to poison if nobody ever uses it against me? Also how in the hell would anyone know I'm immune to poison damage? They literally have no way of knowing. You weren't this bad, right?
The 2nd and 3rd ones were what we have been dealing with for a couple sessions now. All the combat encounters we deal with have all the monsters playing against us with meta knowledge. They use specific things against specific characters without any real evidence of the monster learning the party weakness. It must be difficult for a GM, but regardless it isn't fun going into fights having to learn the encounter while the GM is already using the enemies efficiently against our party comp.
one of my first games with a very new DM was meta gamed by them so hard my character was effectively neutered. I made total pyromancer dragon born Dragonborn sorcerer with as much fire spells I could pack in. Then he had us fight in a magical forest where the forest god would kill me if I used fire because he didnt want to deal with setting the forest on fire then dropped 8 giant spiders on us and we all died. great game, one for the ages.
The mention of an NPC hive mind actually got me thinking about how potentially scary a hive mind enemy could be. Some home-brewed enemy monsters that are all connected with a hive-mind could perfectly coordinate attacks, regardless of location, provided at least just ONE is currently fighting and/or knows what the player characters are doing.
That was very insightful. It's better to never speak planning in front of the GM, but kind of unlikely to actually practice at the table. While getting into a huddle in the next room is probably a good idea, laziness abounds once we're comfy. I can see the wheels turning behind their eyes sometimes, as the GM listens, and craftily plots a believable counter plan - because they predicted that very move!
It's a tricky decision as the GM does need to know what is going on, as it shouldn't be a GM versus Players but a GM and the Players running through an awesome story. But then again sometimes the GM's don't know that.
I think like a lot of things about being a GM it's about reading the table. Figuring out what kind of players you are working with and tailoring your story to them. If you know you all have shared knowledge in something (like maybe everyone at the table is a massive comic book nerd) then you can use that shared knowledge to meta-game effectively.
I think that meta gaming is a very interesting topic. I would have commented on the player version of this, but I wanted to hear what you had to say on this bad boy. First of all, every game has its own kind of social contracts. If you look up some articles on the topic you can find some interesting writings about playing in pawn stance vs actor stance vs author stance. Certainly a topic that has a lot of philosophies that feed into it. For example, some players and even GMs enjoy meta gaming when it occurs in this fashion: PC A is about to have his face eaten by a vampire. PC B doesn't know this but says "you know I forgot to tell PC A something" and heads back to find PC A and save him. Or even does the opposite to increase the drama of PC A trying to escape the vampire. Here, meta gaming occurred but it was justified with some back tracking to provide reasonable causes for the PC's actions. While I do not like this type of meta gaming myself, I have played in a game or two that very much favors this. For instance, maybe Player A knows that PC B is having issues with loneliness and has PC A do something randomly nice for lonely PC B, justifying their PC's action by some other means. It can be interesting narratively, though technically meta gaming. Again, a very interesting topic that I'm sure is rather controversial to many. I would also like to note that when you purely don't metagame it can be frustrating as well. a ghost appears. Your barbarian player knows his sword won't hurt it. However, his character wouldn't know that. I think many of us who have played have been someplace like here before. It does not feel very nice to sigh and walk up to the ghost and impotently swing at the thing, putting you in very real danger when you know better. While it might be neat narratively, but don't forget, this is a game. People do not like making themselves "lose". Like most things, there are pros and cons and extremes should be avoided. There is also a question about what the player's goal is for doing this sort of thing that can come into play. As a GM I like to help the players out a bit here. "well, you see the ghost and he looks like more smoke that beast. You as a tribesman know that smoke is not killed with blade." Something to help the players out a tad if they find themselves in a spot where this becomes an issue. Or simply having a rule where you can't role deception against your own party to control their actions (a very interesting topic that I would be curious to one day see a video about). Your first type of GM metagaming I won't touch on too much as it generally tends to be something that just hurts the verisimilitude of the world. The second type, I don't think is a universal negative. Yes, I do find that in your example it was you simply making things hard on the players. However, this same type of GM meta gaming shows up a great deal of the very popular show Critical Role where it is used to great effect. It can create situations where, by GM construction, things that are important to the PCs become important to the plot. Making things like the main villain is the guy who killed your father or it is your brother who is trying to free the slaves of Grey Mountain Keep. Sometimes, in a game going for narrative over realism or a game that is really interested in challenging the PCs emotionally can really benefit from this type of meta gaming. Assuming you've backed it up with reasonable justification without shattering suspension of disbelief too much. The hive mind is not the best. However, sometimes your campaign can profit from having a very well informed NPC or two. In any event, this is a huge topic that I think only the surface of which has been scratched. Certainly something to look at.
I really like your thinking and the way you presented this. There is so so much more, but I wanted to just raise the specter of meta-gaming. Thank you for adding to this discussion!
There is one metagame type of gm that I know that was not mentioned. I know it exists because shamefully enough I was one (I try to combat that instinct in me now) It's the "comedic stupid move" gm. Sometimes a player will do a thing and the GM will catch them on a word, or notice an action that might result in a comedic solution (in his mind) if he twists it in the right way to change the actions of the player against him, or at best to inconvenience him/make him look foolish. "Player forgot that a grenade was tossed here and ran over, but OOPS says the GM you ran over this cloud of sleep gas and you pass out with a funny look on your face". It might get a laugh out of the other players and the gm himself but it frustrates the player (especially since often the same player tends to commit those mistakes) I've done that (and even recently couldn't resist one perfect opportunity despite my trying to better myself) a couple of times. Never with anything superbly evil; but each and every time I regretted it and it resulted in net loss of fun for my player and in result a net loss of fun for me. So guys, the players forgetting to see if the door is locked might be funny once, but don't make them "check" every time. It doesn't add to anything and slows you down.
There's a 4th type of metagaming as a GM. We know (usually) what their characters have/can do. If you design encounters to continually work against your players strengths it gets frustrating. I got accused of this once when a player at my table (a wizard) tried to use his spells against a monster, that monster happened to be immune to poison and illusions which was pretty much everything that PC had prepared. Now luckily for me that player immediately chimed in that I never look at his spell list so there's no way I'd have known that. But situations like this can be brutally frustrating for a PC. We're a group of a fighter, cleric, barbarian so the DM decides that as we approach this area we're going to be attacked but all the enemies are using ranged and we have no access to spiderclimb or whatever. Sure we survive but it's not fun. It's very important as a DM we use our knowledge of the PC's carefully.
Excellent video, however one caveat. The futuristic bunker. It is not bad to have touch screens and other super-science littered about. It is bad to have those function as the ONLY solution. The arcane variety of this crops up in my Call of Cthulhu sessions; and the point is to confront the characters with something so out of their knowledge it shocks them, and then giving them a chance to come up with a workaround with a hint that something dire is coming. In fact, the direct "bunker with ultra-tech" has shown up in a fantasy game or two, and the result was quite enjoyable for the whole group as they explored the room, eventually found the maintenance bot access tunnel, and thus freed themselves from their predicament without ever once having to figure out how to type "GUEST" on the keypad. Yes, the dead owners of the bunker had some very lax security.
I once was in a game with a 'meta two type GM' and everything we said or did would not work because he said so. I got so angry after two hours I was yelling at him "what do you want us to do then?" after which he just shrugged his shoulders needles to say I didn't go back. I think the person had some strange narcissistic mental health problem. That was one of the worst game I have ever played.
Do you need a hug? It sounds like you need a hug. HUG. It drives me nuts when people complicate the story for the sake of complication. There was a TV show called 24... that was all about complicating a situation into 24 long hours... lol.
Yes, happened to me as well. For every action we did, the GM tried to come up with a simple complication. Tried to go to a town, but there's a dangerous river inbetween. Got to the bridge to get over the dangerous river, but the bridge (over the heavily frequented trading route!) has collapsed with no replacement in sight. Swam over the river, nearly drowned even though the rolls were great, got a permanent debuff out of that. And so on and so on. I tried to help him understand the problem with that approach, but in the end I just gave up on that group.
Yeah, in one game The GM made my +2 warhammer break after using thunderous smite and blowing a bandit chief from here to kingdom come, oh well, I think, I'll get it fixed in the next city, walk into the Smith, look around (roll high on perception so he tells me he's a shoddy smith) So I refuse to let him fix it. "oh he's the only Smith in this massive city" okay... I go and look for a nearby village. "Oh no, the city's under quarantine, you didn't notice because you didn't roll perception" dude, you never told us to roll perception. "oh that's because I used passive perception" And so the paladin decided to burn down as much of the city as he could before committing suicide.
I'd probably go more subtle and derail the whole campaign by investigating endlessly why there is only a single smith in a massive town. Don't leave any stone unturned. Maybe that smith bullied the others trying to open shop to avoid competition. Maybe there's a curse on the city, and the only flame that can get hot enough is where that Smith opened up his shop (gotta ask the clerics of the town). Try to get the smith to train you, so you can open up another one in town yourself, to see where you get roadblocks. etc etc etc.
one of the problems I've run into before basically encompasses all three types and that is the GM using knowledge of your character sheet to build MPC specifically designed to counter you and using knowledge that they would have no reasonable way of knowing against you
The Hive Mind is a problem in video games too. xD But I think a mirror puzzle could work in a fantasy setting if you impart the player characters with the knowledge during their trip to the puzzle. Even if the characters don't know it, a character with high intelligence might figure it out if there are enough hints during the journey/dungeon. I think that would work great and would be a fantastic puzzle.
Huh. I just finished commenting on your previous video how there are four degrees of metagaming and two special cases. And I come here and there are three levels of metagaming! Funny, that. Must've been clued on watching the video into your train of thought.
I think there is another type of meta gaming, the meta meta-gaming. Meaning the fact that as GM, you know the players are, consciously or not, metagaming. You know that because when they play they learn the game, the rules and the world you created mechanics, but also because they know you what you like you’re referencing your sources of inspiration, etc... And in response to that knowledge they’re going to, consciously or not, anticipate, to modify their behavior their play style. And in return I tried to anticipate what they are going to anticipate in order to surprise them, to change the tone of the game (I always try not to make them feel like they’ve been tricked). For example, once at the beginning of the game I’ve played a vicious, ruthless, merciless GM. When the players realized, it wasn’t a gentle adventure I placed a little side quest with no danger at all. So, the players were literally looking for danger beneath every stone. And we all had fun because they were totally paranoid and tried the craziest thing. And because of that difference in contrast they were not confused after that when I started to master the game in a more balanced way. Another example I’m preparing for my next story. In this adventure, I want my player to slowly realize that the dead are coming back to life and that is totally unusual in the universe they are about to play in. In order to achieve that, and to create an ambiguous situation at first, I’m planning to make references to other fictional universe in which some dead can come back to life. For instance, I've planned a dungeon like the ones in skyrim with draugr. I know they have the reference and I know they know I have the reference. Like that I hope they’re going to accept the fact that there is living deads without questioning it too soon. And I also hope that afterward they will think back and realize it wasn’t ok at all and I didn’t do it because of laziness, lack of time or I inspired myself too much from one universe. I hope you get what I mean. I think it's very tricky to do it properly and it can be frustrating because it doesn't always work. Anyway, I'd be curious what you think about that.
You are right, but it is perhaps the ultimate form of meta-gaming and it drifts out of meta-game and into collective narrative expectation. What we have all learned via books, TV, and film if common enough between the table members becomes not meta- but expectation. At least that is how I see it!
I realize I'm real late to this, but this comment caught my attention. In one of my D&D campaigns we have a problem where I unconsciously metagame the DM and almost always know where he's going with something or how to best interact with his NPCs. This is because in addition to having eerily similar personalities and senses of humor we have read almost all the same books, played almost all the same video games, seen most of the same movies and TV shows, regularly recommend all forms of media to one another, and have known each other since we were about 12. (We're now in our mid-twenties.) Sometimes, I am able to spot inspirations he did not actually know he had. Recently there was a crazy arcane dwarf in a tower I eventually realized was a dead ringer in personality type and brand of madness for an etherealist from Jim Butcher's new Cinder Spires series. He did not consciously realize that was what he was doing until I told him, and I didn't consciously realize it until after the session and role-playing my way through the interaction perfectly. I had recommended the series to him a few weeks before and he had taken my recommendation. It gets freaking weird.
I play with a dm where no one can play squishy casters because he will make monsters ignore everyone to attack the squishy, the monsters will take tones of opportunity attacks just to kill the squishy
I think #3 is the most insidious, and it really hinders the player's sense of agency. I remember once having my character killed off without having any opportunity to roll any dice or role play any sort of defense, because the "thieve's guild" knew I had committed an unauthorized theft in their city. I was disguised with a natural 20 to make myself look like an old mage while selling it, and it was something that had been entrusted to us, so I couldn't possibly have been seen stealing it. Basically, nothing I could do, say, or roll, could have protected me from the laser guided karma. I guess that's why you don't go and sell the quest item while telling your party you're going to have the enchantment on it identified. I suppose the GM just had no idea how he could keep me in the story at that point.
I do not understand the hot air balloon example. If balloons are available to the players, then balloons are available to everyone and therefore a castle would have defence against it, since defence is the whole point of a castle.
Schwarzer Ritter yeah, most castles were build to protect from any attack the architect could think of, and even if hot air balloons were rare it would be worth at least having something to defend against them.
Okay, so I have question which is related to metagaming. What do you do when the party makes an totally, obviously, stupid decision which should lead to nothing but instant, anti-climactic death for the whole party? For example, I had a Star Wars: EotE game where the party wanted to explore a planet that was forbidden to outsiders by the Empire, due to heavily classified things on the planet. (Trespassers would be killed) The party left in a small pod and went into the planet's atmosphere, where they were soon discovered and caught in a gravity well. (A bubble around the ship producing it is formed and if you try to leave you get sucked back in) The Imperial captain told them "Turn back now, and we will disable the gravity well for you te leave, If you continue to the planet, you will be trapped again and destroyed." After recieving this warning, the party decided to keep going... there was nothing else I could logically do except reactivate the gravity well, and now it was an unarmed pod vs a Star Destroyer with no way to run. What should be done in a situation like this? I don''t want to kill the whole party, but there is no way to escape the situation, and I gave them a warning of exactly what would happen if they continued... should they have just been all killed?
I would have had them tractor beamed onto the ISD, and then interrogated as to why they were so determined to go the planet. That is suspicious behavior in my opinion. After that, if I felt they were not repentant enough of ignoring warnings, I'd send them to Kessel to mine their way out of their captivity. Blasting them to pieces does seem like a horrid way to end a campaign.
Clumsy0015 I will often step "out of character" as GM and say, "This plan is dumb and you should feel dumb. Please don't make me kill all of you." I like to make my authority figures keep their dire promises and will drop entire bureaucracies/garrisons/Police departments/etc. on their heads if they do something horribly egregious. It forces them to think before they act and since I run a lot of heist/infiltration style games it's a dynamic that works. I've never actually had to follow through on the threat to go after them with that level of force but they know I am willing to use drones, artillery, tanks, and air support (or the appropriate setting equivalents) ruthlessly if they get that horribly far in over their heads. Militaries and government agencies in my worlds don't fuck around and won't send in waves of easily-defeated grunts. Ammunition is cheaper than lives and the NPCs are as fond of living as the players, (sometimes even moreso depending on the PC's backstory/personality.) How To Be a Great GM's advice is better in a multitude ways for most gaming groups, though. I'm playing exclusively with close friends and this is something that is explicit at Session 0. I realize it sounds like I victimize my players but I really don't. They just have to be cognizant of their limitations and that actions have consequences. There is also the fact that I tend to sacrifice mechanics in favor of realism, so players are more used to thinking like this is the real world, which especially works well in games like Shadowrun. (Shadowrun is a cyberpunk game heavily themed around heists, infiltrations, assassinations, and other secretive work by plausibly deniable criminal hires.) If they have a guy tied up and a knife at his throat, a perfect shot dialed in by the expert sniper, or complete and total surprise on a guard they're about to kill with a bullet or blade to the brain stem because they did their legwork and figured out the guards' shift schedule and nailed their stealth rolls, the target dies. Simple as that. You don't need to roll to do what your character is an expert at in a situation where you've properly accounted for the variables. This heavily incentivizes doing your research and going in with a solid plan. I give the players more control to help balance the more dangerous world and the fact that I account for things like radio communication, guards checking when a colleague misses the scheduled check-in (as real-world professionals do), guards traveling in teams and investigating in teams, and the propensity of every type of professional, especially law enforcement, to call for backup under almost all circumstances that seem even remotely dangerous. Security cameras, guard dogs, guard drones, tripwire lasers, barbed wire, and other active defenses are also in play, though obviously this is all dependent on the setting's technology level. My NPCs are smart, dangerous, and really don't want to die, so the players have to use their brains. Of course, this style works better in a game like Shadowrun where there isn't an overwhelming level of variation in the ability to tank damage and so, much moreso than games like D&D with large HP totals, everyone is (roughly) equally mortal. Plus, the internet exists in that setting and so does bureaucracy, so most things have at least some blueprints on file somewhere or some similar information source that can be exploited. Bureaucracy leaves a lot of records if you go digging. They can even Google shit to try for more intel. I have to work differently when DMing D&D or another fantastical game, though my basic ruthlessness still applies in the way city guards, holy orders, churches, and kingdoms treat the elimination of dangerous problems. The world used to execute people for petty theft in some places. Maybe look into local laws before engaging in errant bullshittery. Tucker's Kobolds writ large, I suppose.
Since you mentioned scientific knowledge, an interesting question: what should we follow for that, the percieved mathematical and scientific level for that period or the actual one? To make an example, actually the existence of light specters generating from prisms was well known even in older times, they just didn't know what it meant, and the ancient greeks already had enough knowledge to know the Earth was round and to calculate some integers (in specific cases, of course), on the other hand the theory of gravity, the understanding of the infinites (both small and big) and the idea of probability all were born after the first three examples, but it's unlikely to follow that order (particullary for probability, we are used to see it applied in ancient times that just wouldn't have those formae mentis, while considering other phenomena known to those ages as too advanced). I hoped I didn't overdo with exposition over there, the point is, however, that following the actual order could often contrast with what we take as given for a certain time period, and while better on the accuracy point of view it could lead to more metagaming with the need to constantly check how it was in real life, so what do you think it'd be the best way to deal with it?
All them Latin terms - must be important... :) You raise an excellent point - how much is too much or too little when it comes to 'what was known' or 'not known'. If one looks at Herodotus or Ptolemy and what they were writing about, and at the education system of the individuals rather than the masses what we take as common knowledge - my copy of Herodotus cost me less than a Dollar from a second hand book store would have cost a small fortune to be manually transcribed a thousand years ago. So the 'average' individual would not know of the light specters, the humours of the body would still be earth, air, fire, and water - even though to us we've hopefully not seen a cut up body, yet we know there is no fire within us... The point however becomes a purely academic one because in most RPG's the world is full of magic and wizardry, and as much as we have written on the subject I truly believe that no one has written a world where these amazing powers exist, and represented it as it would actually be. So in a world with mages learning must be something that is common, in a world where priests can actually talk to their gods, why develop beyond that? What I'm saying in short... long ... is that we really cannot fathom what would be known and not known. DnD 2nd edition have things called Non-Weapon Proficiencies. Reading and writing one - per language. And I think mages began with a grand total of 4 non-weapon profs they could allocate. So that world spoke of a very poor level of education. In today's 5th Edition there is nothing about a skill for reading and writing. It's assumed everyone can. What I meant to say - and my reply was by way of proving this - is we need to make sure that whatever we put into our games, is done so in a clever way that makes it feel part of the setting and not just dumped in because we needed a quick puzzle or trap. If you throw in a prism problem - have the Bard remember a poem about the crystal and the specters and how when a young maiden lied to her betrothed, he turned to crystal and shattered before her. Such was her evil that the crystal shards broke the light into a thousand coloured specters - blue, purple, green, yellow, orange, red - and each specter consumed a piece of her until only her black heart remained. Rather than just - you plonk a prism down and it splits the light. Does that perhaps make more sense? In terms of how much do the players characters know - it's a judgement call. I mention these as extreme examples because you really are correct - you cannot get bogged down in debate over who knows what.
(Sorry, I don't do it on purpose, some of them just are closer to the italian words than the english ones, so they sometimes come easier to me). Yeah, bringin in magic and gods actually raises even more questions, arcane magic particullary (since wizards are based on intelligence and analysis) at the same time give you the ability to work around technological limitations (actually, it could work around some of today's ones), but at the same time gives you many things that just don't follow the law of nature (and what is considered "natural" there could be another interesting topic): it'd be much easier to understand how birds can fly, but you'd then have dragons and harpies that blatantly violate those rules. Personally, I resolved that issue by having science more advanced in practical things (so even the uneducated blacksmiths know how to work with iron and steel, while astronomy works well with taking notes about names and positions of stars, but has no clue whatsoever about the nature of stars, and mostly doesn't care), while science and philosophy are the same discipline (as you said, clerics can talk to gods, and they explicitally know many things are like that because the gods made them that way, so "why did the god chose that way?" becomes actually a legittimate scientific question).
I dont think that gm meta gaming has to be bad. I really like to give challenges that are ether far to strong for them that they can only win because one player prepared a lot or took a special feat or have then win a battle in no time because they hit the enemies week point. And I like this kind of meta gaming and the players feel always like Heroes. Just have 2 make sure that I dont overdo it^^
There is a insidious way of player to gm metagame - one of my players mentions player knowledge aloud "flying so close in the atmosphere of a gas giant would crush our space ship" or anything alike. Which sometimes left me feeling "compelt" to change the game according to this. This can be very minor things, too (emphasizing the effects of the weather on the characters) if you notice such a thing, be sure to tell said player.. it isn't ill intended, rather a sublimal level of meta-gaming of the player to "enhance" the game according to his/her ideas - which can influence the whole group
In a sci-fi RPG setting, anyone aboard a space would probably know at least as much about space travel. However, it sounds like the players aren't so much meta-gaming as doing a version of "continuity lore lawyering". That is sort of like rules-lawyering, but instead of correcting the GM's game mechanic calls, the lore lawyer corrects the GM about the facts the in-game universe.
So you do indeed touch on something - using the informal chit chat of the players to enhance your story. That's a different video, and is not what I'd label as meta-gaming but collective narrative through investigation and observation.
Metagaming as a GM is definitely bad. It's not fun for the players. I did it on my 1st and 2nd sessions as a GM, and the players did not enjoy it. It's good to put yourself in the perspective of the world, rather than the perspective of a live person listening to the players.
This just makes sense. A GM that metagames in these three ways is cheating the players, and nobody likes a cheat (except maybe the Rogue, but we’re not talking about her 😉).
Thank you for your video, it was instructive fun. One idea that I pick for your speech is that the "gm stories" needs to make sense. Well I agree wholeheartedly with that, but how do you deal when the mechanic doesn't make sense aka magic. I've got GM often saying "it's magic" when trying to explain the "senseless story" he just pitched out. So the question is, how to make sense of thing we, as a (should be) humain, do not understand at all ? (gods, magic, super far technology, women and so on...) Should we simply accept it or should we create a science of it ?
Ooooo... there is a really complex question. Traditionally in story telling we never use magic/sci-fi/gods to just wave a device and everything works out OK. It feels like a cheat to the audience. And a waste of time. So magic should be a device to propel the story forward, sci-fi gadgets should push us in a certain direction, but ultimately the CHARACTER must make decisions that result in the outcome (good or bad). As humans that's our only really satisfactory narrative - the INDIVIDUAL made the RIGHT or WRONG choice and we see the outcome as JUST.
I feel like magic can be a valid reason for things to work the way they do, as long as it is consistent with the rest of the narrative. Like with a lot of subjects, it all comes down to setting your plot devices up properly. If reality-altering magical events are a common occurrence in your campaign, it is the DM's job to set that up ahead of time. Setting it up ahead of time allows players to understand what's happening, and in the best case even to use it to their advantage. As long as the magic in question is consistent with everything else that has been set up so far, it makes sense and should be ok to do. However, if what the DM does comes completely out of nowhere, has never happened prior in the same or a similar way, outright contradicts what you know about the world, and just overall seems like a poor attempt at forcing the story in a certain direction, then that's quite bad. As a DM, if you're planning to have a huge phantastical event later and you're worried that your players are not going to believe it because at face-value it's kind of absurd: Try to put in a scene where something similar happens on a much smaller scale before you get to the big one. People are far more accepting of weird stuff if they've already seen it happen before.
i have once had a similar situation to when you where talking about the hacker thou the reason the other officer ran after the player was becose the player ran into a police officer and then decided to go "OH SHIT" and ran police only know someone ran into him and then stared running away he thought it was a pickpocket
What is your take on the overpowering secret society? So we are in a city, ant there is a underground society since the founding of that city, and it is established, that everything you do, plot or invent is almost immediatly found out and if you want to use other NPCs they're most likely to be controlled sooner or later if it doesn't match their agenda. So is it still metagaming if it is established? even if there is almost no possible and reasonable way for them to know everything?
My Own Music As a GM you can do pretty much anything. The actual question is not if you can, but if you should. If players come up with innovative plans that support the narrative, then you should not fight that. As a GM you should support ideas but keep it difficult to achieve. I can‘t tell you if you should shoot them down, as I don‘t know how your game went so far. As a basic rule: players should often succeed but not always. So it would make sense to start some opposition (like shooting) but not in a way that they have no chance of success. Don‘t fight ideas because you didn‘t expect them, instead provide a challenge. Also: a little bit of meta is ok, just don‘t break the illusion. I.e. let the ballon start as planned, but when they reach the castle they may get attacked by a gargoyle (the meta as it may not have been there in your original set-up), but leave them the possibility to defeat the gargoyle. Like this you didn’t just say no to their idea (aka the 100 ballistas), but still used your knowledge of their plan to provide some challenge.
I don't like dungeon crawls, and especially hate the "classic DnD" ones that do a lot of type-1 meta gaming. The ones where you have to know the Fibonacci Sequence, or characters form some seventies TV show or all sons of Abraham. The game should challenge the characters, not the players.
Guy--please help! I'm running a sci-fi game and one of my players keeps poking holes in my logic (admittedly, most of the time he's right on at least some level), i cant think of everything when I'm controlling an entire world invented completely from scratch and he's only got one character to think of
Judging from all the videos I've seen discussing players who like to interrupt, you're going to have to talk to him on the side. Civilly explain your issue with his behavior and come to a solution (or at the very least, a compromise).
Keep very thorough notes. Make a note of the loopholes he finds. Close them if possible. Allow the foes to take advantage of them if not. Spend some time immersed in your world, and try to think of the possible 'unintended consequences' of the setting
Well name-sake - it's an interesting dilemma you face. I can hardly say: Well make your logic better. But what you can do is tone down the setting to a space that you are more comfortable with. So if its a big sci-fi game and he's calling you out on space travel time dilation issues a glib answer would be The QDC in your ships engine solves that. (Quantum Dissonance Compensator). All of the sci-fi in the history of mankind requires a McGuffin - a piece of story or technology that just closes up the gap (because if it was real we would have it in real life and then it wouldn't be sci-fi it would be modern setting). Star Trek had it with Heisenberg Compensators for their transports, subspace bubbles, and dilithium crystals. Star Wars has it with Hyperdrive motivator. Mass Effect has it with quantum entanglement (which although is theoretically possible is currently practically impossible). Just be careful not to over use it, and of course, you then need to keep track of those terms because you know the players will use it again you later.
I did and I didn't. I cheat when it comes to cultures. My Sejet Elves (desert elves) are basically Egyptian. My Drow are Roman. My hobgoblins are Nazi's. I take and twist and turn those cultures to be more interesting or a better fit for the race but it's an easy broadstroke technique to give some flavour and allow me to on the fly give descriptions which are vivid.
Also... if the player characters can come up with a magic DnD airship.. there will have been rumors (at least) of such vessels, if they aren't commonly used to avoid some of the worst dangers of sending shipments by road and sea. Mage-Ex when your package absolutely has to be there next week.
this video felt a little two heavily based on just DnD and me being the weirdo i am don't play DnD that much (currently GMing All flesh must be eaten and Dark Heresy)
Well done video as usual, but there's one metagaming aspect that the GM can be guilty of that I didn't see, and that's Monster Metagaming. monster Metagaming occurs when creatures that shouldn't be able to identify or know certain things about the player's characters that they act upon. Oozes shouldn't target the Ranger because his Favored Enemy ability happens to be with oozes and he has 3 feats designed to deal with them, they should go for whatever's closest. The Frost Wolves of Agkross 7 shouldn't go after the guy that's 8' 6" in his power armor, they should go after the 5' 3" guy in the back in the robes. Until they get blasted with a sonic pulse coming from the Technomage, that is. Now, obviously to a degree this can be dealt with by way of ecology. If you feel like the mage hasn't been targeted enough, make those oozes eat mana, making that mage a far tastier treat. In the same manner, those Frost Wolves might be ferrovores, making that 8' 6" of power armor far more worth the fight than the 5' 3" guy. Obviously, creatures without the mental score to handle it can't have a hatred of creatures with the Favored Enemy class ability, and unless given outside influence owls in a certain area shouldn't have an aversion to people named Chuck. The change to ecology has to be broad enough to make sense within the world.
