Great GM - Smaller ways a Game Master can Meta Game aka Minor Metas - Don't do it! - Gm tips 

My PCs were trying to read a tablet in a cave and were getting disadvantage on the intelligence checks because it was so dark in the cave because during a fight they had been in the roof had collapsed were hole were that shed light from the surface, and I'm frustrated cause they just Defeated a powerful custom made enemy and I wanted them to get their reward and yet none of them thought "hey let's shed some light on the subject" and I didn't want to tell them because that's not the GM I am, so I get up and turn on the lights in the room and one of my players ask why and I say "It's a little to hard to read cause it's so dark" and then they all face palmed and groaned in unison

If you want to beat a paladin just use neutral creatures in an environment that requires lots of skill checks. If you want to beat a wizard use creatures that grapple or silence. And if you want to beat the GM just tell him you're bored and go do something else.

I would say if you feel like you want to have a survival game type travel through the wilderness: Make a little mini game. I've done this with players, where they were being chased. I'd let them use a time *currency* to explore, scavenge food, or rest. Leveraging the exhaustion rules and a bunch of pre planned encounters. It was super super fun and I'd definitely recommend it.

this channel resparked my desire to game

meta stuff, always interesting. Player ability and monster meta are both irritating. They come from a good place, but can irritate players. I largely agree with you on most of these topics. I do wish you had talked a bit about how to deal with game breaking characters. Honestly, the only things I've ever seen is to either talk to the player or to meta them a bit. I would argue that environmental and real world meta are a bit different. I would argue that they are not really meta gaming and are a problem with different sources. I would argue that there are 2 different situations showing up here. The first has to do with game expectations and the other has to do with player vs character knowledge. 1. Game Expectations This is something I bring up a lot. However, I do so because I feel it is important. You see some of the things you described might be very desirable for players if they are onboard. Games like GURPS for example are systems all about realistic problems and survival situations. If your players are onboard with it and part of the fun for them is feeling like they are in a real world where something like an undertow might drown them, then go for it. For example, the snake bite kills you scenario. I have recently finished DMing a campaign of stars without number, and in that game there was a psychic who literally died in the first session she appeared by being stabbed with a knife. It was one attack roll and she died. However, everyone had a chuckle and nobody was upset, because all the players had signed on for this very sort of thing. They wanted a game filled with danger where a man with a knife could be the end of any of them if they weren't careful. They acknowledged that this happens and the player whose character died happily rolled a new character. 2. Player vs Character knowledge A lot of the situations discussed were tough because the players failed where their characters should have known better. This is why it is important to feed your players information that their characters would surely know. In the desert dehydration example sure the players have never gone on a long journey, but their characters who are hardy adventurers and heroes have. Also, they would have had days not minutes to think about packing for the travel. At this point the DM should just say, "and you guys know that a journey of 2000 miles on foot will likely take upward of 80 days of travel. You each realize that if you're going to dare to try this feat you will need to bring a large sum of water... blah blah blah" This way the players can do something. They can respond to the problem and feel more immersed. I think the biggest problem with these two can be a lack of player agency. The trick to making heavily realistic problems functional is to have the players get a chance to respond to it. You never want to find yourself creating a sniper on the roof situation, where the players have no defense. Have them see the sniper on the roof or something before their big meeting, warm the player who has a sailer background about undertow, inform the players that the will have a hard time hitting an object underwater because of the bending of light. These things can be problems that are fun and interesting as long as everyone is on board and everyone has agency. This is a game and nobody likes to just lose with no element of control. Also, as you might guess from my handle, I have traveled through a Louisiana bayou or two in my time. It's not that bad. XD

I kind of meta the other way at times, setting up what I like to call "Mook" fights. So, say we've got that Paladin, and a Cleric in the group, and they're blinged out for crushing the hordes of the undead. Well, let's give 'em some undead to play with, really let them show off for a bit. Oh, the ranger took goblinoids and Magical Beasts as favored enemies? Well, let's send a warband of goblins and worgs in, let the Ranger play for a bit. Rogue's specced out for a Mad Wizard's Keep scenario? Let's make sure there's cunning traps for the Rogue to get through, some simple, some difficult, and some puzzles and such that they can use to their advantage. I've found this really helps the PCs to feel good about their characters, to engage in the areas that they wanted to specialize in, and let them really stunt off in some fights before we get into the more dire circumstances down the line. It also takes the pressure off when later, I want to mess with them a bit on the subject by taking them out of their element. They don't feel robbed, because they haven't been. I remember playing a Ranger, and I remarked to the GM I had taken Favored Enemy (Goblinoids) for his campaign. I felt so cheated when we never ran into ANY goblinoids, in his entire GOBLIN WAR CAMPAIGN. Fuck you! There just isn't even cause for that one. It fit with the description of the setting, the region my character was from, and the stated campaign itself. Seriously, more than 40, and not even so much as a single goblin scout. No hobgoblins or bugbears either.

Great advice, I rather enjoy "suspending" physics to further the dramatic narrative of my games. Nothing is more amusing that when I do it to the pragmatic players at my table. The scenario usually turns into "But if I fall from this height it should deal 20d6 points of damage regardless of the inertial dampening effect of a haystack. It can't negate 20d6 points of damage, in fact it should really be more than 20d6 because you shouldn't be able to survive a fall from that height." I usually opt to sit quietly allowing the player to continue and when they realize that I'm not responding I throw back... "No no please do go on. I'm intrigued, tell me more about how your character dies."

Watching you plan and then run your one-shot was extremely motivational and has helped me with my time management during games. I had previously watched the video on one shots where I think this was discussed, but seeing it played out really drove it home. I would love to see a video where you plan a general story line for an entire campaign. Demonstrating the 121 or 122 method in terms of several-sessions-long grand story arc in a little more detail. I think it would help me practice it better if I could see it in action, just like the session planning. Of course, the videos on storytelling have already greatly improved my game and I can't thank you enough for helping provide a structure to what was previously just a jumbled mess of mad notes. ------------ Tldr; Guy is fantastic! Also, a deep dive into campaign arcs would be a great video (piecing together info from Villians, Storytelling Basics, etc.)

Instead of instakilling characters who fall from heights you make them take the 20d6 damage and they will break both their legs if not succeeding crazy constitution saves. Now the character is useless but no dead, and they have a new side-quest to find a powerful healer or something like that.

In one of my earlier Pathfinder campaigns, I had a kingdom that was very fearful of the arcane for reasons. They developed a magical spire and put one in each of their cities. This spire disabled magical items below a certain level (8th level) and all spells cast by arcane casters must succeed in a DC 16 Caster Level check to go off. I didn't do this to spite any characters, more of a plot device. And they knew what they were walking into. I don't like to think it was meta in any way (maybe I'm wrong), but it certainly proved for some interesting roleplay and combat moments. His comment on anti-magic fields reminded me of this.

Great video! Good thing to sum up the juicy and rich comments of theses videos. For anyone not doing it yet, DO IT ! It's a great part of the experience !

Agree with the main points great video. In my limited time as gm I have run into these. What I have done is roll for the monsters tactics on where they attack. As long as they have the ability to that is. Taking away power. My best thought was to make sure there were encounters that were designed to make certain characters better while not completely excluding the others from being able to contribute. Going along with that I make sure the story and encounters have monsters that challenge the players characters abilities at certain points. So far being the gm has been fun thanks for the videos again they have helped.

"Don't do that, don't hit your friends with a broadsword" Aww, so you're saying I bought this thing for nothing? Spoilsport :P

If i was a wolf.. would I rather bite someone covered in steel armor, or someone wearing thin cloth?

Great video! These are great pitfalls to avoid. It is helpful to regularly self-check to make sure that your players are having fun and that you are not punishing them.

Your pronunciation is so good, the auto generated captions are almost perfect

Wow, I'm quite happy to have contributed to another one of your fine videos. I love the content please keep it up, I've recommended your videos to our GM.

Thank you for my completely undeserved callout! :) I agree with all the points presented here, and on the point of player abilities I think in very extreme cases and with proper warning it can lead to some interesting scenarios (like the anti magic shield thing) but the players need to be aware of the situation before it arises. So that they can either prepare on choose not to participate in that specific event (as a group ofc). But even in that scenario it definitely ought to be a rare thing.

Watching a few playlists, I know a few parts of the things you keep saying but some things do keep me thinking, I never considered looking at a map to build my own as I normally know enough to build them myself. About the player ability meta, I've found a combination of darkmantles and grey oozes are very good at crippling strong targets, both invisible till they move and when attacking in tandem are stupidly powerful. Which I did do when a warrior kept trying to take the rogues job and then tried entering rooms without the party even deciding to move. The surviving player characters have grown heavily paranoid about the two creatures as they can appear from nowhere. Beyond that, I'm kinda glad your videos popped up even though they weren't related to the videos I was watching earlier in the day; even though I've not learnt a lot, that is only because I've thought of a few questions I've never asked myself about in reflection, than about how I go about things.

One of my friends was in a Pathfinder campaign with someone who I believe to be the worst DM ever. He had a dragon with levels in a Rogue archetype attack the party along with two or three of its dragon children. Well, I SAY they attacked the 'party', but they were attacking the Fighter exclusively - staying just out of range of his weapons and using a combination of fly-by attacks and reach attacks. The Fighter had no ranged weapons to fight back with, so the entire fight he just took the Total Defense action while the rest of the party fought to save him. Even as the younglings were struck down, the dragon continued to target the Fighter, even going so far as to attack him when he eventually hit negative hit points to finish him off. By this point the dragon was on its last legs, so with its final action... he attacks the Fighter's corpse, and the DM stated that this incinerated all of his gear beyond repair. The Fighter had done nothing to wrong the dragon, either before or during the battle, nor did the dragon give any indication that he was fighting to avenge a sin caused by him or his ancestors. The DM simply created this encounter for the sole purpose of eliminating the Fighter because he had great gear and was too effective in all combats up to that point.

The collapsing rope bridge, like all "bottomless pit" encounters (make your skill roll or die) I'd prefer to make in to an opportunity to place the PCs at a disadvantage. The question isn't "Do you make it safely across the rope bridge without falling to your death?", instead it becomes "Do you make it safely across the rope bridge before it snaps, leaving those who failed danging from half of the rope bridge, when the Goblin Patrol turns up?" It is the same with "Do you discover the clue?" or "Do you find the secret trapdoor?", the real question is "Do you do the thing before the Goblin Patrol turns up?"

I heard a story from one person about the DM hurting the party through something similar to Environmental Meta. The party had a long journey and the DM proceeded to timeskip to several weeks later... and proceeded to tell them that their characters were extremely weak because they had never stopped to eat or rest during the trip. I'll admit that on one occasion I was at least somewhat guilty of Player Ability Meta. The party was going through a cult's HQ and they came to a grand hall where one of the high priests was overseeing a ritual. The high priest had multiple magical sensors set up throughout the dungeon and knew that the party would be arriving soon, and she was holding an action to cast a spell on the first person to make a move once the hall's doors opened. Cue the party's druid getting nailed with a powerful spell when he tried to cast one of his own. The party's cleric, who I'd honestly grown sick of by this point because of him almost constantly having a buff active that made him and the rest of the party both harder to fight and immune to low-level magic (which he'd bragged about when I tried to have a semi-neutral devil cast _silence_ on a PC who kept interrupting him earlier), wanted to counter the high priest's spell and I refused to let him. Fortunately, another player who was effectively a co-DM (since he was a lot more experienced than me), stepped in to defuse the situation by pointing out that in that game system you can't attempt to counter a spell without readying an action to do so, which the cleric had never done.

A thought about player ability meta as a DM: I do think that if one player is always stealing the spotlight or making every encounter resolve samey because they've figured out a silver bullet ability that works for everything, that the rule of fun should drive the DM to innovate to make up for it. This doesn't have to feel forced, and can be an interesting way to get the players to think outside the box. What if the overpowered Mage gets framed for a crime, and the party gets thrown in jail with most of their items taken away? Now the monk gets to be useful for a change, and without spell components, perhaps smuggling contraband or making deals with other inmates becomes a new story challenge for the Mage to get what he needs to cast spells from memory so the party can make a spectacular prison break? Maybe the Mage now has to solve problems with some other method now that he doesn't have his crutch. For me it isn't about proving a point. It's about keeping things dynamic and fun for the entire group.

A note on using environmental challenges: the degree of challenge in various places can be used to define the precise "flavor" of that environment. This video reminded me of a point in the Harry Dresden book "Changes," where the character describe a jungle as "not as bad as Cambodia." To simulate this in-game, one jungle setting might have more frequent random encounter checks or checks against natural hazards than another; to continue the desert idea, the Sea of Fire in Saudia Arabia would probably require more and more difficult checks than the edge of the Sahara or many parts of the Western US Badlands or some places in Australia, where it's definitely desert, but there are still trees and grass and the occasional herd of animals. Or you might say that one place (the Sea of Fire) would have more environmental difficulties, while the other (the Australian desert) would have more creature challenges, while a third (the Badlands, if time-traveled back a century or so) has more humanoid encounters, outlaws, bandits, and that sort of thing. And so forth: a great opportunity to use the metagame as a way to legitimately influence the flavor of the game world itself.

I actually do use the "remove a character's skill from play via x" thing, but not as punishment, I make it very clear that these are tests of the characters/players to see if they can adapt their tactics to win without whatever ability was disabled

I've been a victim of major DM meta-gaming, and on a turn of the roles around the table, I have been accused of meta-gaming when DMing. Best bit of advice I can give is don't let it ruin your game. If a person has a grudge against you, try to resolve it away from the table and prying ears. If the dispute is resolvable, take the high road!

Once had a DM have an entire group of monsters suddenly attack our party and only attack me. Because (AND I QUOTE) " You are the only one not wearing armor, and have no weapons other than that little whip you keep hidden." When i questioned why the hell a group of goblins cared who was wearing what and went after the only one who was wearing a cloth shirt and had no valuables he then said my character is wanted for something when it was our first session and no where in my backstory did it say I was wanted or a criminal.

I think that GM's do monster meta either to: 1. Make the fight more challenging. 2. Win (because they have the mistaken idea that it's them vs the players). GM's that do 2 need to have a long hard look at their GM style and habits. GM's that do 1 need to become more creative in their encounters. Mix ranged enemies with melee ones. Orc would rather shoot at the mage in the back than at the paladin surrounded by their friends. Have the enemy shaman engange in a magic duel with the mage. Ambush them from behind. Or just turn up the difficulty a bit.

Very thought provoking. I always try to be realistic but only really pushed it if a player insisted he/she didn't heed my warnings. I would use an NPC as an example to hit home the seriousness of the situation.

12:05 - the situation you have provided is blocking, not limiting. In a situation, where you want to block out a wizard in your party - let them know straight away, that there is some sort of witchhunt going on in the city and magic is outlawed, so you give your magic user a choice: be BALLSY about it and stick to being the center of attention, leading to problems down the line OR let him CHOOSE to hood it up and keep it low, so he won't get his party in trouble. As soon as the players have a choice - it's okay to limit something and sometimes it even makes the world even more immersive. For the "magic blocking dungeon" - again, why not? Just make sure you have some sort of disableable device in there, that is actually in charge of generating the anti-magic shield and throw an npc at the front, that is dead or dying, that can clarify the situation (either through finding his notes, him telling that or whatever means you want to use). Speaking of "paladin and gods thing" - why not, actually? Let the paladin know, that their magic is fading away and nobody knows why. Let them seek priests of the said god, so that the party - get to know any updates on the situation. From there they can learn, that the influence of said god - is faiding for reasons unknown, let them seek some sort of audience with said god or with a high priest of said church and let them SAVE the god or destroy whatever is blocking the magic source of the said gods followers. That way you: - Disable your paladin for a time, making him just a warrior and it's immersive - Create an epic journey, that in the end - would bond the party, since the issue - was actually centered around one of the party members, even if "THE WHOLE WORLD IS AFFECTED OHMYGHAAAAD!!!". You made it personal, you disabled the paladin for some time and you have created a memorable journey for the party. Besides, usually paladins are mostly OP during level 5-7, so by the time the quest ends - they should probably beat the treshold and reach the point of balance again. Yes, this MIGHT frustrate the paladin player, so be sure to reward him for his pilgramage, since he pretty much saved the faith and the gods influence of his devotion, at least throw him a boon ffs :D

I have to say, some enemy that is smart enough or with some kind of ability to do this could work, say a creature that is magically feral, explain it that it's drawn to the magic energy from the mage, or a creature that is intimidated enough to only attack the little man in the light clothes but be really scared of the big man in the shiny armor. A personal favorite of mine is getting the girls in the chain-mail bikini's or the beefcakes with no shirt on bitten by snakes or spiders, it's nice to go for crazy poisons like ones that makes the character hallucinate or get a disadvantage to future rolls, rather than the boring death type of poison.

I really appreciated the last one, I've had a -lot- of DMs that would do that, and oftentimes not to characters that were particularly powerful, a few seemed to just arbitrarily pick a player for the 'bitch' role for a session and include only encounters and situations that would uniquely negate their abilities. I think they were attempting to create challenge honestly, but the problem with their method was it was the hamfisted "Superman is strong, so kryptonite all the time!" mentality. Others on the other hand, would just pick a player, decide they didn't like their character even if they liked the player, and make them nonfunctional. The number of elementalists I've seen fumble about because everything was immune to their element, or the times that someone played a telepathic being only to find out that we were only fighting undead that cannot have their minds read or tampered with.... well, I'll say that I took a long break from tabletop gaming from that wholly unpleasant stimulation, even when it wasn't me, watching my friends sitting at the table having a miserable time was just as miserable, and knowing that next time it could be me didn't help.

Great video ! :)

Something really important on the last point of player ability : It's not about punishment here or about making the point IRL, but also about balancing the game. As a GM, you are annoyed perhaps, but your goal is also to balance the game, to get that paladin on the same level as the rest of the group, because perhaps they are just not having fun. An important part here that i think was understated in the video, is that you must not punish GAMEPLAY with STORY, and vice versa. Get a situation where that short range fighter is less useful, by having ranged enemies or invisible assassins. Have the paladin have a lost spirit to protect that is a little too adventurous. Look up the other members of the party, see what they have that the paladin does not. Rule of thumb : Never deny power, while avoiding one trick characters

I have a GM once who kept shooting down my characters or stopping them from working because I wasn't playing the cookie cutter hero of light type. Main kicker, the party had an evil assassin, that's fine, a manipulative witch aiming for immortality, legit. An amoral golem, a-ok. But a hexer trying to use and learn curse magic to undo curses and save people? No, can't do that, he's evil and not allowed to do that. And when I finally convinced him to allow it, everything we ran into were immune to my curses.

Dragon age inquisition makes it kinda fun where your enemies will constantly shout "KILL THE WARRIOR" or "KILL THE WIZARD" because they're humans and it makes sense that they would see a particular kind of character as more of a threat than others. Enemies can know things about the party by just looking at them or learn about them after a few rounds of combat, and you can probably justify some enemies strategizing who they should kill first or focus most of their efforts towards, especially if that character is doing massive amounts of ranged magical damage to them. I would much rather fight enemies who are smart because that makes them feel more dangerous, unless it's supposed to be a dumb beast that swings at whatever is nearest.

that's how the undertow of an actual sinking ship works. It's powerful enough to tug on you a bit. If it's a really big ship it might even pull you under. But unless you're stuck inside it, you're probably going to be fine.

May I make a request. Please may you do a video on how to make sure you have a variety of encounters? I've had GM's (and been one myself ) who only really do one style of encounter without much variety

9:40 my thing about the drop and kill is that as a seasoned player and a partly new dm. I find it hard to kill people off not because they fell,but because they are a monk or a wizard smart enough to get feather fall or just being a monk with slow fall.

Yes! Best gaming/DMing advice Meow has heardededededededededed in along time.

I am unfortunately a Real World Meta DM but ONLY when I don't know the specific rules about what is being done. (ex. someone casts burning hands into a forest to try and hit a goblin but i dont know the rules about forests and cover and such so I simply make it so that the flames have disadvantage because of all of the trees blocking the path)

Great vids as always. The info is always helpful and insightful. I do have a question though: Maps. Sometimes my players want a map to do combat with whatever they fight. This applies a fun board game feel to it, but I've identified a meta problem: you have a Pac-man style view of the entire board. The players know what's where and how it's going when they otherwise wouldn't. This can be a problem especially with players who don't always take into account outside knowledge that their characters would have no way of knowing. I guess my question boils down to this: do you use maps, if so when, how often, etc. What's an appropriate time to use a board, whether it's grid, or a blank piece of paper with some vague lines drawn on it? Do you think there's merit to playing on a board, or is imagination the absolute best way to go? Either way, your vids are fuel. I don't think our RPG sessions would ever be the same without the strong content to back it up. :)

The only time i deny the characters a power is teleportation. It would make sense that you cannot teleport into the villains lair immediately. Or if it is a more futurist campaign with a higher focus in technology sometimes important buildings like factories or castles.

I had a game where I allowed Home-brew races (Not classes.) and someone chose a race that could opt to regrow limbs during a long rest instead of gain all the other bonuses of a long rest. Soooo.... When the party was lost in a desert and ran out of rations they just ate this guys legs and arms which regrew during a long rest. Him being a barbarian, he had a lot of health and just had to spend on long rest after a few to regain health... These players just ate their friends own flesh until they crossed the desert, to make matters worse the player who was the "Food Supply" cannibalized his own flesh to survive. It was OP as shit but I had never had him use the racial feature before because I don't go around cutting players limbs off so I allowed. Long story short it was really funny and the players were role-playing pretty well and never wanted to eat their friends flesh again due to psychological strain.

A proper way of meta-attacking ovepowered PCs is the fact that, as compaign progresses, they get famous for their deeds... that that means a lot of enemies will prepare better against them - A mighty charging knight? Ambushes won't happen in open plains. - Maxxed Fireball with insane AoE damage? The boss will soak the room in flammable oil or fight near lots of gunpowder barrels... - Sneaky assassin dealing a fuckton of damage? Final boss will cast an illusion of himself and only show up after said menace actually show up. - Immortal swordsman? archers will be attacking on swampy ground.... or mindcontrol the fighter for a few turns :D The trick isn't disabling them entirely. Instead forcing the players to act smarter and explore more of the character's possibilities

about the monster-meta: If you have the choice of attacking a heavily armored guy with a shield or some mage with a robe, whom would you attack? I think that, unless they have to go through the heavily armored people/are being attacked by them, they should logically attack the people who look easier to kill

great outro song!

Well in example of a mage being way too good to be true, there are a few things to deal with this. 1) Play against his magic (Which this means, lets say he is a master in fire magic, and are shit in everything else, and now the party is up against a fire resistant, or immune monster / being. This will still keep him engadged, as he might have the information the party needs to defeat the monster or being). 2) You can walk into a big area that cause a heavier drain on magic, divine and such (This causes mages, paladins, druids and what not, not able to spam spells and gain fatigue cause of it, so they need to rest between spell casts, this would not take them out of the game, but they would be more sparing on their actions). 3) The party can walk into a magic energy distortion field, that reduce the effectiveness of magic (This depends on the gms, but general is 50% reduction to spell damage, or spell effects / durations, again causing the player to still be involved, he just ain't as powerful as before). 4) Walks into a land, place, or area that is Anti-magic, nullifying any and all magic, even items (This is not recommended, but this will also cause the mage to maybe take a tactical roll, give orders, and try to figure out problems without using magic, it can be fun, but again it is not recommended unless it is a party that knows you, and you know their ability to work together to solve a problem head-on).

Now to what the game is about: the original edition of D&D was to played while including two games. These games were the wargame "chainmail" and the game "wilderness survival". We got the very concept of a random encounter from that very game. So I would say that your argument about what the game is about is a mere opinion. Here is my alternative: The game isn't just about the crowning moments of awesome. The players play characters who are out to savee the world, but they need to face various challenges along the way. One of these challenges is travelling through areas which aren't save and have a lack of supplies. These challenges include organizing duties at the camp - including night watch. Even the watch is a challenge. Preparation is one way to deal with challenges - and at least a minimum should be required to succeed. Even while on the road, they may notice that the enemy is trying to stop them. All of this will ultimatelly culminate in the scene which will go down in legends. But the characters may remember that time when William the Paladin fell asleep during his watch more because wild animals stole the rations that night. The day after this, the Elsbeth, the rogue used her skills in stealth and trapping to hunt some game. That day, William learned to respect the chaotic criminal - he took it on himself to turn her actiions towards good, started to see the good in her. And now he is telling this story to the children they have together. Or how about the time when Elsbeth was bitten by a snake ith no help in sight. William knew that his ability to lay on hands couldn't cure poison, but he prayed with all his heart - raged against fatee itself, but never gave up. And this one time - his hands cured poison. These are the kinds of situations in which the players went into the kind of situation you describe as a minor meta. However, the GM didn't just say "well, you're dead" but gave the players a chance to understand what kind of problematic situation they are in and he was thankful he hadn't have to kill the characters because of this stuff.

(DISCLAIMER: Pretty new to the scene, haven't been Gm yet, played one game of D&D before) Well Monster attacking problems can be tackled by looking how intelligent your monsters are. For example its natural to try to group up against a powerful single force if "monsters" are raiders or organized soldiers, take down the big one first style of thinking or the visible one with ranged weapons. If attackers are beasts they normally go for the shortest one or the smallest, cause its likely to be a baby when looking from a eye of a beast that wants food. Also if handling master mages or other powerful creatures they should have the intelligent to chose the targets that can be shut down fast. Ofc staying logical is the goal and sometimes dice roll to choose just who to attack and who gets to be safe is an idea? I know there is another comment about attack behavior of monsters, but I wan to make my own as a stand alone comment.

One thing to possibly circumvent the "Monster Focusing" Meta, when you truly want to get that mage, would be have a monster acting as the leader of the monster party, just waiting and watching, and barking orders to have the lesser monsters focus on someone.

A problem I've had several times over the decades that I've played DnD was that one player's character got just so much stronger than the other party members that anything that would be a mild challenge to them would only have to sneeze to kill the rest of the party. All of this within the rules the game was setting. For example in our AD&D 2E game we used the character creation rules directly from the Player Handbook. 3d6 six times in order. We had characters with scores as low as 4 and the highest was 12. Then one character died and the player rolled a new character and didn't roll under 16 with an 18/75 for STR. I have a worse example from DnD 3.5, but that requires more explaining and led me to the conclusion that DnD is just broken by design. That character I made into a god at level 15, when even most of the existing gods didn't offer a challenge any more. In the Forgotten Realms.

I think a character merely being out of commission after getting poisoned until he reaches a healer would be a neat occurrence.

Often when I GM and one of the characters are too strong, I slowly make sure the bad guy uses monsters that don't work well with the really powerful mage.

Once I rolled a nice game based on a real-world meta in space. Made a batch of rules about space and xenomorphs. Players was as scared of the aliens as from the cold vast space.

the meta monster thing is easy to play out as one of the monsters attacks and sees this guy isn't gonna be be able anytime soon so it relays info to the other monsters. depending on the monster, this would be viable.

That monster meta concept doesn't seem like a problem at all; it helps bring all the players more fully into the combat. Every DM I've played with has simply tended to split attacking monsters up, so about the same number attack each individual player (unless one or two people are purposefully hanging way back). It would be pretty dull if the monsters only attacked the tanks, even if that's technically the more logical approach.

Hhm I would say monster focus depends on monster, more clever the more likely this is. That said non canned food wins canned food even for beasts

had a funny thought. what if your gm monster meta's you...so after combat you "investigate" what was different about that creature to cause it to attack the mage...then watch the GM squirm lol

I'm starting to dislike my current GM, i have 21 AC and everybody keeps hitting me and leaving me with 7/13 HP, i think he gets frustated because of that AC and punishes me, then says "oh, he rolls +7 so it's easy to hit you", that's a straight up lie, i went in a 1x1 just for fun with one of the party members and he also rolls +7, he didn't hit me one single time, and every monster in the FREAKING UNIVERSE is able to hit my Dragonborn Fighter with low hp and high AC. If i knew HP would be more important i would focus on that, but i wish i didn't have to choose. GMs that cheat like that are not good gms. I have my own campaing you know... And the good thing about that bad GM is that i learn how to be a good gm, all i have to do is not repeat what he does.

Our DM usually doesn't make us pack rations, since our world is fairly densely populated (Although less than it used to be after a few world-affecting things, like a two-mile long dragon attack and an invasion from billions of ratmen) and he just assumes we hunt, pick up food for a few coppers, or otherwise make do. I really prefer this a lot -- I dont have to worry about managing a million things in my inventory or a sudden change of destination meaning we need to go back to town and spend our hard-earned gold on nonense (especially given our gold rewards tend to be low, unless we do some REAL dangerous stuff -- not a complaint, it really makes you value your moneys) For example, our party of 4 are level 8, and have done CR 10 dungeons to get 2750 gold. It was a heck of a lot of fun. We got eaten by angry bedsheets and ambushed by Drow, and I almost killed an enveloped teammate with a sneak attack (I was trying to save him, I swear!)

So I have a query for you. I help DM a game wherein we have a Cleric with a knowledge spec who uses things like Identify Magic at every opportunity. The result if we simply handed him the complete readout of everything he encounters is that we can't have magic involved in anything mysterious or unclear because he's gonna read it like a book every time. We wanted to keep the idea of one character's nature and origins shrouded for a bit so we ruled that Identify Magic works on *conventional* magic, that is items crafted by casters using the conventions of the day. So items that are eons old, crafted directly by a deity(rather than through servants) or which have no parallel in magic encountered by most adventurers, can have incomplete reports or not provide anything at all. I can see where this might fall under the "punish the player" meta issue but our goal is to produce playable stories and curtail the ability of a single low-level spell to tear mysteries apart. We justified it at the time and have since formulated a decent idea of why this might be the case. Modern chemistry can pretty well identify anything we've seen or made before, by checking for certain factors we can import prior knowledge of the substance. I figure magic works this way, I can probe the spell and gauge reactions to see if I recognize the spell. If the thing is completely new, I can' t expect it to work, but I may have some success. Do you think we're justifying a cheat? How do you handle abilities that are flattening every mystery/encounter into a routine?

Kind of the 1 type of GM, but I make sure that it was set up before hand... Kind of... So as an example, I just had my party fave wolves. As a creature with pack tactics, I thought that maybe I should actually add tactics with this one. So heres what I did... I was thinking that carnivores usually go for the weak ones, usually the ones that arent bigger. So heres what I made them do, I had a group of wolves fail a stealth attack from the front, whilst another, sneaking group of wolves would sneak in from the side. The wolves appear, deal some damage, then they take what they would think is the weakest target(I try putting myself in their perspective). The other wolves would intentionally draw the attacks of the players by intentionally provoking opportunity attacks, and then the previously sneaking group would grapple and drag the one whom they assumed to be weakest. They would then either A. Drop said weakest player from a high place(they were in a tundra setting at the time) Or B. Isolate the guy so the entire pack could gang up on one guy Idk, personally it felt like something that real wolves would do, but idk

sorry, mythbusters already busted the idea that a ship has an undertow to it... it doesn't. So it goes down, you just get wet and left on the surface (if you naturally float. Dwarves in full plate armor... maybe not)

What about saying that a player can't cast featherfall because they are surprised about the bridge breaking. Because mainly, the rickety rope bridge breaking is not a surprise.

Just asking do you think it is ever ok to meta game a consequence for a player. I have worked at a facility for kids dealing with behavior problems. Some of them were fairly severe and so they had minimal opportunities to go to outside activities. I started a game for them and one kiddo started using create water to just go around spraying people in the face. At first it was just a bit of chaos and no problem. But then he started speaking over other players in the middle of their character conversations to do it and make the every interaction about him. I spoke with him twice out of game, but he continued interupting other players and ruining their fun. I didn't want to kick him out because of the lack of opportunity. So the last chance I gave him I had a water elemental appear and talk about how his unbalanced use of the spell was disrupting the water plane. An Undine character was able to step in to the interaction and in character talk through his frustrations. Once the create water kiddo saw there would be in game consequences to ruining other people's fun, he stopped.

I allways treat poisons and venoms very siriusly. If you eat a deadly mashroom or bite by something deadly without treatmeant you die. I just simply dont force this kind of encounters upon my players. And if i do i usually make them aware this kind of danger so they can avoid it but still they sometimes make stupid decisions.

Would the following be okay? (Please keep in mind that I haven't even played a single session yet but I intend to join my friends soon. I've been watching all 3 of your channels a lot recently to see how fun gaming can be.) I listened to your thoughts on the last type of lesser meta and thought up the following scenario: The party walks into town and all of a sudden they're made aware of this anti-magic mechanic that will seriously hamper the abilities of your lime-light player. Because what parties tend to do is stick together anyway (unless they don't and then they've just saved you a step) they'll try to tackle the challenge together even with a weakened wizard - a trap snaps shut however and separates the wizard from the rest of the party with no feasible way of reuniting in any quick way and so the wizard will have to set off on some other quest of self-discovery where they'll still make it through but it would have been a damned sight easier if they had the abilities of all those friends that were usually outshone. Reward the wizard with discovering a way to disable the magic ward (maybe coming upon the source of it) and then drop them through a trapdoor on top of the others just in time to take down the dungeon boss that has a weakpoint that only wizard could expose (but not defeat alone). I dunno. Maybe this sounds like taking the worst of your advices and making something hideous. Sounds like a filler episode from a tv show to me. A little Mary Sue too.

I dont think that you have to hint/seed EVERYTHING.For example: if a hacker sneakily hacks someones phone and listens to someone talking the PC might not know. Of course, they might find out when time arises, but there would be a "Why do they know that" moment. I might let the players roll and even tell him "yeah, someone is sneakily hacking you", but I dislike this because it takes away the surprise - Things that happen secretly are rolled behind the screen. Its fine, as long as there is a reason and a way. I dont postpone things to "Oh yeah, back then you where hacked", because that would be kinda cheap. Then again, I play Shadowrun and not DnD.

13:10 this was very similar to my responce of a railroady game where I left after two sessions, my character was supposed to be very good at pretending to be people and was specked entirely for that, then I get thrown into a cell first session and spent two sessions just getting out of the prison only to learn that I wasn't even close to the nearest city and am not going to get there for another two sessions, where all I did was combat encounters that were poorly balanced and posed a threat every time een against things as weak as RATS. What even was the point of coming to the sesion when all I do is hang on in the sidelines?

Traps every GM should keep in mind...thanks

Eating snow does give you water. Drinking sea water does not, well it dehydrates you (because your urine is less salty than the sea). Also 20d6 max damage from falling is quite realistic. People have fallen and survived from amazing heights, even from airplanes.

I'm GMing a game where strategy is emphasized. A majority of the enemies are either soldiers, knights, or bandits, all of which are human/humanoid. Whenever a player moves their character into a risky position where they're particularly vulnerable, I tend to punish that character by smacking them around as much as I can before they get the chance to move around again. I'm not sure whether I'm just being vindictive, aptly punishing a character for a poor move, or Monster meta gaming. What's your take on this?

If the PCs can have it... there is a possibility of someone else having similar. There's ALWAYS a stronger monster and some monsters are intelligent. Intelligent monsters might know that the front line is the meat shield, protecting the real threat. In mass battles, the king often sits on his horse on a hill, directing messengers to relay orders... the other side does the same... and both sides know that if the opposing leader falls, the battle is going to swing their way rapidly. This is standard tactics of the middle ages and back to the beginning of recorded history.

the one i experienced was i got 1 shot downed by GMNPC other Player did grab me and did hide me(was warrier and i was pretty light mage) GMNPC first run with full Speed away from us, so we though we would be safe for 1-2 rounds and the Warrrier run back to grab the next PC which go NPC just to find out the GMNPC just run back full Speed into my hidden room to prepare killing blow to me being dying

And, I might add, never hate a player who makes you remember the NPCs you thought were just random encounters with no tangible benefits. (Yes, I am the mafia and I do use my environment which does include the people.) I am fairly efficient at it and enjoy making the world richer by my actions. However, it is a lot to take in and I would hate to be at a loss for a notebook as a GM for someone like me.

See, i feel Meta Environment isn't that severe. especially if they have someone who can create water / food. all else fails, a survival check could be used to find water underground or a cactus Though I will agree the every mile check is redic. i'd argue a check per day of travel. that way a failure isn't horrible. two failures starts to get dangerous. but then there's always that ability to buy scrolls that could conjure a ton of water.

If one single person is always in the spotlight then the GM isn't doing their job. You shouldn't have to try and nerf them. Take it back to basics: OP Guy is searching the bookcase, 2nd player is searching the desk. "2nd player you notice some symbols on a letter. Roll INT to see if you recognise them" OP Guys says 'oh I'll roll because mine is the highest.' Gm's response "No, you are searching to bookcase you don't know what we are talking about." Or you have a group roll "make a group Dex." OP Guy rolls because theirs is highest. Then the next time you have someone else roll for it. If you have a wizard or someone (usually a wizard, lets be honest) that you can never get to in a fight then don't have your enemies act weird for no reason- just design a better fight. In a game I'm running I'm about to have the group walk in on a 'trial' where a person will be burned if found guilty. (This is NOT coming from nowhere, this is the result of a long arc progression- don't pull this shit from nowhere and expect to get away with it.) The person in question is connect to a character and is surrounded by 10 guards and 30 angry peasants. If the person wants to save the victim then they will HAVE to get into the middle of things, not position themselves safely at the back.

Question about the Snake Venom thing... Say you do make the Venom deadly but you give the Players a chance to cure it... Like it's slow acting and the next town has a Temple or something along those lines that can make it so it doesn't kill them or make it a part of the narrative so it's a race against time to look of a cure... Or if the Players want to, give them an Item that makes them a Vampire or something along those lines... Just wanted to know your thoughts on the matter...

Sometimes I wonder why my ducks haven't arrived yet. PS: 9:35 - 9:39 did I just hear you say a character could die? Who are you? *(rolls insight to check for a controlling symbiot or mind control spell)*

Quick question, would it still be metagaming if the animals were the type that split into groups and attack multiple sides anyway? In example wild dogs in Africa that split into different groups to lead prey.

Really all of these metas could to some extent be summarized as "Don't be a petty GM and punish players that you dont like". Still, I don't suppose there's anything bad in spelling the specifics out.

When I DM, I have a good reason for denying an ability one of my players has. he used a BS backstory reason to have a skill he is not supposed to have until level 17 at level 1, so of course that is totally op, so I have to keep him in check. Right?

I somewhat disagree with the first point. Unless the enemy creatures have an intelligence score of 2 or something, reducing the number of combatants by picking off vulnerable targets first is a very valid strategy. Then, once the squishy ones in the back are dealt with, the creatures can focus on the heavily armored one with superior numbers on their side. If the creatures are intelligent enough to have common sense, this approach is reasonable and not meta. As for the second one, I feel like the problem can be remedied by giving your players a chance to recover before death. If they venture into the desert ill-prepared, they'll run out of water halfway through. But they shouldn't just die. This is a great opportunity for a quest hook. "You're stranded in the desert with no water. Go find some before you die." Maybe have them come across an encampment of outlaw travelers. Or they'll find the lair of a crazy desert-dwelling warlock who's been cast out from civilization for performing abhorrent rituals. They'll get an opportunity to do good by beating up some villains and then get to steal their supplies. Though once they find water, that water should be enough to get them out of the desert safely. Otherwise it'd get boring and repetitive.

I came to this video way late. I admit I've had to meta monsters before and I try not to punish players for their characters. What does one do when the cleric spams Spirit Guardians every combat session and literally burns up most of his spell slots casting it if he breaks concentration the round before (even if they are facing only one monster). I've had to outfit some of the monsters/humanoids that they potentially face with spells like counterspell to allow the other party members to take more of a role in combat. Is that being too meta? I have ways of justifying the reason their enemies would be equipped with such spells (such as a hag coven they're facing has been able scry on the players because they've stolen bits of hair or pieces of the adventurers and faced them numerous times to learn how the party interacts and fights). I just don't want to pull the player aside and tell them to go easy with the spell because it is their character and I don't want to limit play like that.

This video brings up a really good point. Where are my DUCKS?!!

I only kill off one person max if it's environmental, and if all but one are falling, then I create a situation where they have to follow with them. Say, your pirate man crosses a rope bridge first, but everyone else falls when the troll chasing them tries to follow, now there are five other trolls emerging from the forest on the other side of the chasm, so the captain does a little johnny depp impression and leaps to join the party.

In my Mind the first example with the wizzard is weird. If for example the foe is humaniod and have some Intelligence, would the "sworm the mage tactic", really be metagaming? I would exspect that, if i assume human like intelligence in the monsters. P.S. i am really focus on a "real" world meta.

Question for any who can answer: I have a Warlord in my DnD 4e game who keeps using Inspiring Word on injured NPCs outside of combat. More often than not, these injuries are things like broken bones, sickness, and concussions. On one hand, I'm glad he's thinking out of the box with his character's powers, but on the other hand, it is more than a little destructive to the mood/tone of the game. How can I address this without being meta-y or a GM Dick?

I once had to solo a four hundred man brawl with Angel beings as an Eldritch Knight without any of my EK powers for, reasons... Needless to say after about twenty minutes I threw in the towel and said kill the character push the story I'm out. I spent that 20 minutes searching for options in a blank arena surrounded by an anti-magic field. Meta gaming sucks

I have a question, as a GM how do you deal with players who are power gamers? The kind that actively try to crunch the numbers to make themselves basically untouchable to everything besides divine intervention. I (thankfully) haven't had to deal with one of these kinds of players in a while, but I could never figure out how to deal with them, and I know that they aren't fun to play with as a player either, because I was in a campaign with a power gamer before and I didn't have much fun.

Hey Guy. I once metagamed as a GM by healing a character inexplicably as she walked into a city. The character in question had had her tongue ripped out in her backstory and I didn't want that to be an excuse to not be involved in an upcoming RP event (being set up to take the fall for an assassination). Do you think that kind of metagaming is okay or is it more important to respect the player's choices, even if it potentially gives them a Get Out of RP Free card?

I am a GM/DM for many a roleplaying game (Mainly 5e D&D and Pathfinder) and I have the tendency to just do things without GM consent. Typically when im building a character. The reason I do this is because my ability to connect with most of my GM's hinge on saturday evenings, which is also the time when we game. So I don't really have time to talk stuff over with him, should I take up more time away from the session to further work on my character with the GM? Or should I just make the character and change things as it happens?

with your comment that the monster has no reason to ignore this Paladin and go for the Mage I always assume if they are intelligent then after one spell attack, or I some cases before, they will go for the squishy spell caster. it's what the players would do so why wouldn't intelligent monsters

One kind of minor meta I dislike is the „unlimited dice roll meta“: a GM or players can force the end result of a dice roll by piling them up endlessly. A GM wants to punish players? Just let them make a huge amount of survival checks, ultimately they will fail. A player fails to climb a cliff? Just let them repeat the dice roll several times, he will succeed some day. I really hate this, because it invalidates the roll. It also connects to the environmental meta where an endless stream of survival rolls just turns the game into something really boring. In most cases one roll is just enough, only start rolling again for something new.

An incredibly minor example of player ability meta in an otherwise very well run game: Your party with a Monk starts to see a dwindling number of non-arcane ranged attackers. :/

I don't think that a gm should ever have to make a creature or enemy do something that they normally wouldn't. If your party is fighting some wolves one of them won't go "this paladin is hitting me, but I should go after the wizard in the back instead". But if they are fighting a bunch of bandits they should be able to go "that guy is using magic, he might become a big problem in a second". Also tailor fights to your players, to an extent. I don't think it's a bad thing to make something challenging for a pc that hasn't taken any damage yet and they're a few levels in. But like you said, make it so it's not out of the blue. Give something that lets them know the road ahead will be difficult.

Hey! I have a question. I'm gonna run an elder scrolls themed campaign in the Summer. I played my player's origin story in a couple sessions in December and I "believed" I had the hang of it. But what I wanted to know is how much lore and background do you apply to a campaign on a theme/world/story that isn't necessarily yours? Or is it the same like any other campaign based in a DND world? Thanks!

Late to the game on this one, but why wouldn't a monster not hunt down the clear dps? Why wouldn't they not attack the greatest threat and have at least the intelligence of a bear or hippo or elephant?

So I play with my buddy, and he makes it so that his monsters / enemies, because sometimes they are playable races, seek out their matching class and go against them; the ranged classes will focus the ranged classes, mages against mages, fighters for fighters and tanks charging tanks. Is this meta monster? I only started playing a few months ago.