So a debate I got into on the bottom half of You Tube related to a youtube DnD campaign. In that campaign the party have a player who is an amazing note taker, they make notes about everything that happens at the table regardless if they are "in the scene" or not and later on will remind the other players of details, either out of character or in character. In addition the DM has explained that they fully accept that stuff happens in the game away from the table or off screen, so, if a few days of game time have gone then it is accepted that the party share and swap information between themselves.
The debate was one person stating that this note taker is meta gaming and that every player should be making individual notes that they refer to. and if they forget stuff no other player should ever be allowed to remind them.
I get that there is a wide rainbow when it comes to this so, where do you sit. Do you ignore Meta when it comes to in game information, you just want the story to flow, so anyone can remind anyone else of anything or characters can fill in the gaps of conversations with information they didn't get first hand, or do you assume that players only know what the characters know and what is written in their note section, any attempt by any player to remind or help another is shot down as being meta gaming. Or something in the middle.
I will say that personally I really dont care how information is stored and shared amongst the players. From a roleplay perspective if the rogue has just been told the thing is stolen and the other players where not there then I expect the players to roleplay that until they meet the rogue, but I am happy with the rogue paraphrasing or simply saying, I repeat everything. However in following sessions I am much more flexible mainly because what for the character could be 5 mins the player might have had many sleeps since hearing it. I have DM'd and played on tables with a fantastic note taker and it does help everything flow so much smoother. I have also DM's and played with parties where everyone kept their own notes, that could get bogged down as different people ask the DM to repeat different information from the same dialogue/description.
So as a DM what do you prefer and where do you draw the line? I am also intrigued if your approach has changed over the years.
I’ve accepted reminding my idiot players of stuff as part of the game. Do I like it ? No, I hate it, but I like the friends I play with, so I’m willing to do it.
So a debate I got into on the bottom half of You Tube related to a youtube DnD campaign.
Red alert! Shields up! Evasive maneuvers! Reverse engines!
As a wise person once said, "Never read the bottom half of the internet."
That being said...
In that campaign the party have a player who is an amazing note taker, they make notes about everything that happens at the table regardless if they are "in the scene" or not and later on will remind the other players of details, either out of character or in character. In addition the DM has explained that they fully accept that stuff happens in the game away from the table or off screen, so, if a few days of game time have gone then it is accepted that the party share and swap information between themselves.
I see no problem with this. Unless someone is RPing that their character is secretive, and especially if it has been RPed that the party is highly cooperative, there is no reason why they can't share what they know during long rests. Surely one would not require to RP every little swapping of notes, or it would take 8 actual hours to do an 8 hour long rest.
I don't have any formal house rules about this, but if I wrote some, they'd probably look something like this... "We will assume that after a Long Rest, all characters have shared all notes except as explicitly mentioned as being held secret by a player."
The debate was one person stating that this note taker is meta gaming and that every player should be making individual notes that they refer to. and if they forget stuff no other player should ever be allowed to remind them.
The person saying that is actually the one metagaming. Sessions happen with time in between. We have real lives. We, as players, will forget things that IC, our characters, who haven't got groceries to buy, kids to pick up at school, work to do, etc., would not forget from session to session. My party right now is like 4 sessions into what is about a 48 hour period. Without extensive notes, the 8 weeks that have gone by would lead to a lot of forgetfulness. Heck, I even go the extra step of having one player write up an IC journal entry for the session, and all others are free to read it. The players are good at keeping what they would know IC vs. OOC separate.
So it is not metagaming. In the old days, it would have been done normally -- you had roles assigned. One player was the "caller" -- told the DM what each character was doing. One player was the "map maker." One player was treasurer. And one player took notes. Everyone could see the map, look at the treasury, or read the notes. This is not metagming. It's playing D&D.
I will say that personally I really dont care how information is stored and shared amongst the players. From a roleplay perspective if the rogue has just been told the thing is stolen and the other players where not there then I expect the players to roleplay that until they meet the rogue, but I am happy with the rogue paraphrasing or simply saying, I repeat everything.
Yes, that is logical. it would be a huge waste of time for the rogue to RP telling people everything verbatim, since the players were all sitting there listening to it the first time.
So as a DM what do you prefer and where do you draw the line? I am also intrigued if your approach has changed over the years.
I do not draw any major lines, except for them not to RP having knowledge their character would not, or should not, logically have. I'm perfectly happy for a player to say, "Can we assume X told us about this during last night's rest?" I'll usually say, "Well X, did you tell them?" If X says, "Actually, no, I would not have told," then I will say, "Then you must assume you have no knowledge." Etc.
Again, my players are quite good about this and it has not been an issue. But if I had to make a house rule about note-sharing, it would be quite flexible. Not everyone wants to take notes, and some people actually can't -- for instance, playing on Zoom, they might be physically incapable because of their tech setup to take good notes while also being on camera and looking at stuff in the VTT. I'm not going to punish someone like that when one of the players has an extra monitor and can easily take notes and the others can't.
Personally I really don't care if my players remind each other of information. I've found they tend to self regulate anyways, sometimes they'll share, other times they'll say my character wasn't/isn't there, or they'll share information at the table in character. Even if they did constantly share I think that would be fine too anyways.
The only time I get concerned about "Meta Gaming" is when one player starts to override another player's agency. Totally fine with players reminding each other of information but if one starts trying to tell another player how they should act with said information I'll step in.
So a debate I got into on the bottom half of You Tube related to a youtube DnD campaign.
Red alert! Shields up! Evasive maneuvers! Reverse engines!
As a wise person once said, "Never read the bottom half of the internet."
That being said...
In that campaign the party have a player who is an amazing note taker, they make notes about everything that happens at the table regardless if they are "in the scene" or not and later on will remind the other players of details, either out of character or in character. In addition the DM has explained that they fully accept that stuff happens in the game away from the table or off screen, so, if a few days of game time have gone then it is accepted that the party share and swap information between themselves.
I see no problem with this. Unless someone is RPing that their character is secretive, and especially if it has been RPed that the party is highly cooperative, there is no reason why they can't share what they know during long rests. Surely one would not require to RP every little swapping of notes, or it would take 8 actual hours to do an 8 hour long rest.
I don't have any formal house rules about this, but if I wrote some, they'd probably look something like this... "We will assume that after a Long Rest, all characters have shared all notes except as explicitly mentioned as being held secret by a player."
The debate was one person stating that this note taker is meta gaming and that every player should be making individual notes that they refer to. and if they forget stuff no other player should ever be allowed to remind them.
The person saying that is actually the one metagaming. Sessions happen with time in between. We have real lives. We, as players, will forget things that IC, our characters, who haven't got groceries to buy, kids to pick up at school, work to do, etc., would not forget from session to session. My party right now is like 4 sessions into what is about a 48 hour period. Without extensive notes, the 8 weeks that have gone by would lead to a lot of forgetfulness. Heck, I even go the extra step of having one player write up an IC journal entry for the session, and all others are free to read it. The players are good at keeping what they would know IC vs. OOC separate.
So it is not metagaming. In the old days, it would have been done normally -- you had roles assigned. One player was the "caller" -- told the DM what each character was doing. One player was the "map maker." One player was treasurer. And one player took notes. Everyone could see the map, look at the treasury, or read the notes. This is not metagming. It's playing D&D.
I will say that personally I really dont care how information is stored and shared amongst the players. From a roleplay perspective if the rogue has just been told the thing is stolen and the other players where not there then I expect the players to roleplay that until they meet the rogue, but I am happy with the rogue paraphrasing or simply saying, I repeat everything.
Yes, that is logical. it would be a huge waste of time for the rogue to RP telling people everything verbatim, since the players were all sitting there listening to it the first time.
So as a DM what do you prefer and where do you draw the line? I am also intrigued if your approach has changed over the years.
I do not draw any major lines, except for them not to RP having knowledge their character would not, or should not, logically have. I'm perfectly happy for a player to say, "Can we assume X told us about this during last night's rest?" I'll usually say, "Well X, did you tell them?" If X says, "Actually, no, I would not have told," then I will say, "Then you must assume you have no knowledge." Etc.
Again, my players are quite good about this and it has not been an issue. But if I had to make a house rule about note-sharing, it would be quite flexible. Not everyone wants to take notes, and some people actually can't -- for instance, playing on Zoom, they might be physically incapable because of their tech setup to take good notes while also being on camera and looking at stuff in the VTT. I'm not going to punish someone like that when one of the players has an extra monitor and can easily take notes and the others can't.
One of the issues about wading into the bottom half of the internet is that you sometimes find yourself thinking, wait, is my balanced normal view actually wrong and stupid lol. Think we are pretty much aligned which makes me feel like I am not getting something wrong here lol.
Personally I really don't care if my players remind each other of information. I've found they tend to self regulate anyways, sometimes they'll share, other times they'll say my character wasn't/isn't there, or they'll share information at the table in character. Even if they did constantly share I think that would be fine too anyways.
The only time I get concerned about "Meta Gaming" is when one player starts to override another player's agency. Totally fine with players reminding each other of information but if one starts trying to tell another player how they should act with said information I'll step in.
One of the issues about wading into the bottom half of the internet is that you sometimes find yourself thinking, wait, is my balanced normal view actually wrong and stupid lol. Think we are pretty much aligned which makes me feel like I am not getting something wrong here
As in all things, what works for your table is paramount. If your group likes to RP that your notes are "in character" notes and nobody can use anyone else's notes without RPing reading them, and maybe even things like, "you can't take notes in combat because your character wouldn't have time" -- that is all perfectly fine if that is how your table wants to run things. It depends on what you like.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I think this is way too hard to apply to a single situation. I encourage a lot of meta gaming for first-time players. It sucks to have all these rules (it’s especially harder for first-time spellcasters) that they may not understand and to be like “No! You can’t offer advice!”
That aside, I prefer to limit advice for players out of turn. I generally say that each player can offer 1 suggestion per round. You can shout a suggestion during combat out of turn, but you can’t carry on conversation.
When a player passes a skill check, like perception or investigation, I treat it as that they automatically let the rest of the party know. It’s too convoluted to be like “you haven’t been told that Player A saw this and Player B divined that.” The players have all heard you say it and it should be treated accordingly. Some groups of hardcore role players are good at separating themselves from the character, but (in my experience) most are not. And that’s okay by me.
That being said, if I send a secret message to a player, that message is meant to be in confidence UNLESS the player wants to discuss it with the group.
Basically, if I say something out loud then it’s understood to be communicated with the whole group. If I say something privately with a player, it is up to them to treat that info as they wish. I try not to bog down too much into the “your may know X, but your CHARACTER does not!” I will step in when it comes to specified knowledge, but generalized things I will either let slide or outright subvert to teach them a lesson about making assumptions.
I play to have fun. For myself and for others. If the party enjoys stricter rules, then I’m happy to oblige. If they abuse things to make the game too easy and inject too much meta, then I will step in because part of the fun (whether they know or admit it) is being challenged. I’m happy to facilitate OOC conversations, but I don’t want it to become one or two players telling everyone else how to optimally play their characters. It’s hard to fully explain, but there is a balance that is appropriate for each and every group and you need to find that balance between yourself and your group.
I'm the DM for my campaign and I'm the one who makes the notes for a party. I keep an updated 'quest log' style document that the party can access at anytime, it's a very exploratory and side quest heavy campaign so I thought it would be easier on the players if I just kept track of their quests for them.
I don't consider note sharing metagaming, if people don't want to take notes I shouldn't force them to start taking them, especially if their bad at it (Like most of my party are, hence why I'm the one keeping notes for them).
So a debate I got into on the bottom half of You Tube related to a youtube DnD campaign. In that campaign the party have a player who is an amazing note taker, they make notes about everything that happens at the table regardless if they are "in the scene" or not and later on will remind the other players of details, either out of character or in character. In addition the DM has explained that they fully accept that stuff happens in the game away from the table or off screen, so, if a few days of game time have gone then it is accepted that the party share and swap information between themselves.
The debate was one person stating that this note taker is meta gaming and that every player should be making individual notes that they refer to. and if they forget stuff no other player should ever be allowed to remind them.
I get that there is a wide rainbow when it comes to this so, where do you sit. Do you ignore Meta when it comes to in game information, you just want the story to flow, so anyone can remind anyone else of anything or characters can fill in the gaps of conversations with information they didn't get first hand, or do you assume that players only know what the characters know and what is written in their note section, any attempt by any player to remind or help another is shot down as being meta gaming. Or something in the middle.
I will say that personally I really dont care how information is stored and shared amongst the players. From a roleplay perspective if the rogue has just been told the thing is stolen and the other players where not there then I expect the players to roleplay that until they meet the rogue, but I am happy with the rogue paraphrasing or simply saying, I repeat everything. However in following sessions I am much more flexible mainly because what for the character could be 5 mins the player might have had many sleeps since hearing it. I have DM'd and played on tables with a fantastic note taker and it does help everything flow so much smoother. I have also DM's and played with parties where everyone kept their own notes, that could get bogged down as different people ask the DM to repeat different information from the same dialogue/description.
So as a DM what do you prefer and where do you draw the line? I am also intrigued if your approach has changed over the years.
I’ve accepted reminding my idiot players of stuff as part of the game. Do I like it ? No, I hate it, but I like the friends I play with, so I’m willing to do it.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Red alert! Shields up! Evasive maneuvers! Reverse engines!
As a wise person once said, "Never read the bottom half of the internet."
That being said...
I see no problem with this. Unless someone is RPing that their character is secretive, and especially if it has been RPed that the party is highly cooperative, there is no reason why they can't share what they know during long rests. Surely one would not require to RP every little swapping of notes, or it would take 8 actual hours to do an 8 hour long rest.
I don't have any formal house rules about this, but if I wrote some, they'd probably look something like this... "We will assume that after a Long Rest, all characters have shared all notes except as explicitly mentioned as being held secret by a player."
The person saying that is actually the one metagaming. Sessions happen with time in between. We have real lives. We, as players, will forget things that IC, our characters, who haven't got groceries to buy, kids to pick up at school, work to do, etc., would not forget from session to session. My party right now is like 4 sessions into what is about a 48 hour period. Without extensive notes, the 8 weeks that have gone by would lead to a lot of forgetfulness. Heck, I even go the extra step of having one player write up an IC journal entry for the session, and all others are free to read it. The players are good at keeping what they would know IC vs. OOC separate.
So it is not metagaming. In the old days, it would have been done normally -- you had roles assigned. One player was the "caller" -- told the DM what each character was doing. One player was the "map maker." One player was treasurer. And one player took notes. Everyone could see the map, look at the treasury, or read the notes. This is not metagming. It's playing D&D.
Yes, that is logical. it would be a huge waste of time for the rogue to RP telling people everything verbatim, since the players were all sitting there listening to it the first time.
I do not draw any major lines, except for them not to RP having knowledge their character would not, or should not, logically have. I'm perfectly happy for a player to say, "Can we assume X told us about this during last night's rest?" I'll usually say, "Well X, did you tell them?" If X says, "Actually, no, I would not have told," then I will say, "Then you must assume you have no knowledge." Etc.
Again, my players are quite good about this and it has not been an issue. But if I had to make a house rule about note-sharing, it would be quite flexible. Not everyone wants to take notes, and some people actually can't -- for instance, playing on Zoom, they might be physically incapable because of their tech setup to take good notes while also being on camera and looking at stuff in the VTT. I'm not going to punish someone like that when one of the players has an extra monitor and can easily take notes and the others can't.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Personally I really don't care if my players remind each other of information. I've found they tend to self regulate anyways, sometimes they'll share, other times they'll say my character wasn't/isn't there, or they'll share information at the table in character. Even if they did constantly share I think that would be fine too anyways.
The only time I get concerned about "Meta Gaming" is when one player starts to override another player's agency. Totally fine with players reminding each other of information but if one starts trying to tell another player how they should act with said information I'll step in.
This. 100%.
One of the issues about wading into the bottom half of the internet is that you sometimes find yourself thinking, wait, is my balanced normal view actually wrong and stupid lol. Think we are pretty much aligned which makes me feel like I am not getting something wrong here lol.
Yep pretty much how I play :).
As in all things, what works for your table is paramount. If your group likes to RP that your notes are "in character" notes and nobody can use anyone else's notes without RPing reading them, and maybe even things like, "you can't take notes in combat because your character wouldn't have time" -- that is all perfectly fine if that is how your table wants to run things. It depends on what you like.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I think this is way too hard to apply to a single situation. I encourage a lot of meta gaming for first-time players. It sucks to have all these rules (it’s especially harder for first-time spellcasters) that they may not understand and to be like “No! You can’t offer advice!”
That aside, I prefer to limit advice for players out of turn. I generally say that each player can offer 1 suggestion per round. You can shout a suggestion during combat out of turn, but you can’t carry on conversation.
When a player passes a skill check, like perception or investigation, I treat it as that they automatically let the rest of the party know. It’s too convoluted to be like “you haven’t been told that Player A saw this and Player B divined that.” The players have all heard you say it and it should be treated accordingly. Some groups of hardcore role players are good at separating themselves from the character, but (in my experience) most are not. And that’s okay by me.
That being said, if I send a secret message to a player, that message is meant to be in confidence UNLESS the player wants to discuss it with the group.
Basically, if I say something out loud then it’s understood to be communicated with the whole group. If I say something privately with a player, it is up to them to treat that info as they wish. I try not to bog down too much into the “your may know X, but your CHARACTER does not!” I will step in when it comes to specified knowledge, but generalized things I will either let slide or outright subvert to teach them a lesson about making assumptions.
I play to have fun. For myself and for others. If the party enjoys stricter rules, then I’m happy to oblige. If they abuse things to make the game too easy and inject too much meta, then I will step in because part of the fun (whether they know or admit it) is being challenged. I’m happy to facilitate OOC conversations, but I don’t want it to become one or two players telling everyone else how to optimally play their characters. It’s hard to fully explain, but there is a balance that is appropriate for each and every group and you need to find that balance between yourself and your group.
That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too.
I'm the DM for my campaign and I'm the one who makes the notes for a party. I keep an updated 'quest log' style document that the party can access at anytime, it's a very exploratory and side quest heavy campaign so I thought it would be easier on the players if I just kept track of their quests for them.
I don't consider note sharing metagaming, if people don't want to take notes I shouldn't force them to start taking them, especially if their bad at it (Like most of my party are, hence why I'm the one keeping notes for them).