That's one of the main reasons to stop worrying about metagaming. Every time a player plays the game, they learn more about monsters, traps, Ancient Magic, and what-have-you. They can't turn that knowledge off, and imposing ever harsher penalties for things like "How DARE you, a fire mage who uses your Fire Bolt on every enemy you see, use fire damage against this troll! METAGAMING PENALTY! DX" is just ridiculous. Some things, like hydras regrowing heads or trolls not dying if you don't burn them, are the Least Secret Secrets in D&D.
The best defense against that is to monkey with critter stat blocks. The best defense against "you weren't there for that!" metagaming is to not care. The best defense against "Actually I ran this same module myself last time so I know where all the secrets are" is to fiddle with the module, or just run a different game. Or to not care.
Metagaming is one of those things that should probably be settled on in Session 0/pre-campaign prep. Defining what it is, whether anyone cares, and how to deal with it if the answer is 'yes'. I find myself fond of the notion of Paradox, brought up earlier. Perhaps, every time the players do something that breaks the specific table's rules on metagaming, the party as a whole earns a Paradox Point. At any time, the DM can burn one of those Paradox points to muck with the rules herself in ways the party isn't ready for. Party sitting on a bunch of paradox after screwing hard with the local town to gain information on their red dragon target? Perhaps the first breath weapon attack the dragon uses deals cold damage, 'due to the paradoxical nature of the universe'.
Heh. Perhaps the BBEG of the campaign gains abilities fueled by paradox points. If the players learn about this early, they know that every time they screw with the narrative, they give the BBEG ammunition for his reality-warping superpowers. Could even be a kernel for the entire campaign - the characters are exceptional/The Chosen Destinous Ones because they have the unique ability to pull knowledge from a formless void they cannot understand or explain (i.e. the players' brains), but each time they do they introduce a little bit more chaos into the world - and their enemy can use that chaos to further his own ends.
One of the issues is trying to actually define what's metagaming and what isn't. The RAW tend to have silly levels of restriction on what a character knows about a given creature- I've had GMs who would accuse a player of metagaming for having their dwarven ranger with favored enemy: giants know that you need to use fire or acid to kill a troll. Reasonably, that should be something that pretty much everyone who lives in a world with trolls should know, unless trolls are incredibly rare.
That particular instance would be aggravating. Trolls being giants, the Ranger would know everything about them.
Oh, that GM was very aggravating. He seemed to be on the assumption that Adventurers spontaneously formed at adulthood rather than actually grow up in the game world and didn't know anything about any sort of monsters or how the world worked. He'd accuse you of metagaming if your wizard, who had Ghoul Touch memorized that day, warned the party that ghouls can paralyze you with a touch.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If it hasn't been mentioned already, if the players start planning stuff out loud, treat it as an in-game conversation. People/monsters/gods will hear them and act accordingly.
One of the issues is trying to actually define what's metagaming and what isn't. The RAW tend to have silly levels of restriction on what a character knows about a given creature- I've had GMs who would accuse a player of metagaming for having their dwarven ranger with favored enemy: giants know that you need to use fire or acid to kill a troll. Reasonably, that should be something that pretty much everyone who lives in a world with trolls should know, unless trolls are incredibly rare.
The only Metagaming issue that I have encountered on a regular basis is with players assuming that they know what other characters know.
For example
Two players leave the group to do something that they don't want the rest of the party knowing about. Then another party member acts on the information they over heard as players even though their character was no where near by and could not possibly know.
We don't play with that guy any more, but sometimes the blending of player knowledge and character knowledge still pops up. When it does, I just say "hey, your character doesn't know that" and they say "oh yeah" and we move on.
That's one of the main reasons to stop worrying about metagaming. Every time a player plays the game, they learn more about monsters, traps, Ancient Magic, and what-have-you. They can't turn that knowledge off, and imposing ever harsher penalties for things like "How DARE you, a fire mage who uses your Fire Bolt on every enemy you see, use fire damage against this troll! METAGAMING PENALTY! DX" is just ridiculous. Some things, like hydras regrowing heads or trolls not dying if you don't burn them, are the Least Secret Secrets in D&D.
The best defense against that is to monkey with critter stat blocks. The best defense against "you weren't there for that!" metagaming is to not care. The best defense against "Actually I ran this same module myself last time so I know where all the secrets are" is to fiddle with the module, or just run a different game. Or to not care.
Metagaming is one of those things that should probably be settled on in Session 0/pre-campaign prep. Defining what it is, whether anyone cares, and how to deal with it if the answer is 'yes'. I find myself fond of the notion of Paradox, brought up earlier. Perhaps, every time the players do something that breaks the specific table's rules on metagaming, the party as a whole earns a Paradox Point. At any time, the DM can burn one of those Paradox points to muck with the rules herself in ways the party isn't ready for. Party sitting on a bunch of paradox after screwing hard with the local town to gain information on their red dragon target? Perhaps the first breath weapon attack the dragon uses deals cold damage, 'due to the paradoxical nature of the universe'.
Heh. Perhaps the BBEG of the campaign gains abilities fueled by paradox points. If the players learn about this early, they know that every time they screw with the narrative, they give the BBEG ammunition for his reality-warping superpowers. Could even be a kernel for the entire campaign - the characters are exceptional/The Chosen Destinous Ones because they have the unique ability to pull knowledge from a formless void they cannot understand or explain (i.e. the players' brains), but each time they do they introduce a little bit more chaos into the world - and their enemy can use that chaos to further his own ends.
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Oh, that GM was very aggravating. He seemed to be on the assumption that Adventurers spontaneously formed at adulthood rather than actually grow up in the game world and didn't know anything about any sort of monsters or how the world worked. He'd accuse you of metagaming if your wizard, who had Ghoul Touch memorized that day, warned the party that ghouls can paralyze you with a touch.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If it hasn't been mentioned already, if the players start planning stuff out loud, treat it as an in-game conversation. People/monsters/gods will hear them and act accordingly.
Good point
The only Metagaming issue that I have encountered on a regular basis is with players assuming that they know what other characters know.
For example
Two players leave the group to do something that they don't want the rest of the party knowing about. Then another party member acts on the information they over heard as players even though their character was no where near by and could not possibly know.
We don't play with that guy any more, but sometimes the blending of player knowledge and character knowledge still pops up. When it does, I just say "hey, your character doesn't know that" and they say "oh yeah" and we move on.
I guess that is not really "fun" though sorry
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master