I am new to dming, but I have been playing another campaign for just over a year. Well we just started a prewritten module that I am dming. And I found out one of my players looked up the module and skimmed ahead. Should I let that slide? Any tips are appreciated. Thank you.
It depends on how you want to deal with it. Do you want to punish them or to confront them and give them a chance to come clean?
Under no circumstances should you let it slide. If the other players find out, it could ruin your campaign (they might leave or do the same).
I would not say anything, but I would also change significant parts of the campaign in a way that would surprise the player. If their cheating became aparent, so that I would have no doubt about it, I would then punish their character in game (make them the prefered target in combat, or curse them, or something more creative).
Another, more straight forward way to handle it, is to confront the player. Tell them what you are thinking and ask for their honesty on how far ahead they have read. I know that asking a cheater to be honest might be asking for much, but you never know. If they are honest, modify the campaign up to the point they have read and tell them that if they do it again they will be kicked from the game. If they have read a big part or even the whole thing, either modify as much as you can (which can be a lot of work) or kick them from the game, explaining that there is no point in playing if they know the campaign.
As I am playing online with my group, in the beginning everyone was rolling their own dice and telling me the result. I trusted them, as we are all adults and I had told them that cheating would only make the game boring. After a while, it became clear to me (and most of the other players) that one player had been cheating. I did not cheat to punish him, I just waited for the right moment and when it came I used it. Needless to say he is still trying to reverse the effect of what happened. The second thing we did was agree to roll dice on the discord channel with AVRAE, thus ending the problem. Your problem is more complex, though.
Second. No one actually runs published adventures as written and neither will you, no matter how much you try to stick to it. Inevitably your players will do something that will derail the intended story. Adventures aren't scripts, they are an inspiration and you are going to add enough of your own flavor that having read the adventure isn't likely to help anyone.
Three. Knowing what's coming doesn't make it any easier to deal with and if you sniff out that a player knows something they shouldn't, change it on the fly, surprise the hell out of them anyway.
I guess my point is that this is not that big of a deal. I wouldn't even bother with a confrontation. I ran Keep on the Borderland a few months back for a group of old school players who have all run, read and played the adventure a dozen times over and it was no less fun and there were no less surprises for them.
I disagree slightly with the last part but fully support the first two that I quoted:
1) You're going to be making changes to the adventure because it's on the fly
2) You can make a point of changing things up just to keep everyone guessing.
That said, I would talk to the player and just lay out some ground rules and expectations. I'm presently running Curse of Strahd for the 2nd time on stream (so my audience in theory has seen it, or members of my chat at least have seen parts of it) and in both games at least one player had actually RUN the adventure as a DM. It wasn't a problem for the group.
For one, I do change things up, modify some aspects of the story etc. For another, while they may KNOW that there's such and such coming at location X, that knowledge only can carry them so far. If it's a spell caster, maybe they prep a different set of spells in the morning. Maybe they sand bag a bit in an easy fight because they know what could/should be in the next one. End of the day that prior knowledge only does so much.
On the other hand, a lot comes down to how much the players want to get into surprises and story vs tactical combat and door kicking. For some people knowing the AC and HP of all the beasties before a fight starts just really deflates the game. Knowing who is going to betray the party is another one of those things that if the whole table knows, so much of the fun is ruined. I'd talk to the player and find out what their plan is for their knowledge and ensure that they're on board with keeping the surprises for the rest of the party. Depending on the outcome of that conversation, talk to the rest of the table about it and get everyone on board with the same views about what is fun, what they expect and what the general plan is going forward.
I would definitely not punish the player for it. But if their attitude is one of adversarial "I wanted to get a leg up on you so we could beat you" I would consider a stronger response such as asking them to leave. Life's too short for a players in a DND game to take an us vs them mentality with the DM.
My 2cp on this is: assess whether or not the player has done anything to damage the fun had by the rest of the table, and this includes the idea that you might need/want to intentionally alter some of the statblocks of the bog-standard monsters in the pre-written book. By default, I generally alter the standard monsters anywhere, so metagaming doesn't always work with my table, but even if it does, the person's fun that is damaged is potentially only the perpetrator. If the only damage done is to the perpetrator, by their own actions, they've effectively punished themselves. The only win condition for D&D is that everyone have fun. If your player cheated themselves out of the only win condition of the game, that's strictly a player problem that requires player remediation.
If, on the other hand, the player confronts you about changing up the module, or provides some type of "gotcha" question with the intent to initiate a confrontation, address the confrontation, not the metagaming. You are free to ask how a PC would know that information or understand what that information means. In the end, their metagaming (or cheating, however you see it) shouldn't be allowed to alter the fun of the other players.
I have a player that is indeed a DM for another group, and he admittedly struggles actively at the table with the difference between player knowledge and PC knowledge. Not everyone can adhere to the social contract of keeping player knowledge compartmentaly separate from PC knowledge.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Don't let it slide and you should talk to the player one-on-one in order to stop it from happening again in the future. After that mix up the adventure like others have already said. Pre-written modules are really suggestions anyways. It's your campaign so get creative! However you handle the situation remember the other players at the table. Don't focus so much on dealing with the one player that it results in the others having less fun. It's not a huge deal and it'll happen again with other groups if you DM over a long time. Good luck!
Talk to the player about it, and just tell them that they've spoiled the surprises for themself and that you're not happy about it.
Then take something where they clearly will know the answer - one of the puzzles - and subtly change it. When they go for the answer they've read, have a mouth bite their arm off permanently.
Talk to the player about it, and just tell them that they've spoiled the surprises for themself and that you're not happy about it.
Then take something where they clearly will know the answer - one of the puzzles - and subtly change it. When they go for the answer they've read, have a mouth bite their arm off permanently.
Or tell the player outright that they cannot contribute to solving any of the problems, since they already know the answer - instead the player should sit to one side while the other players get to solve it.
And this applies to any ongoing plot as well - if the player knows the plot then they should be sidelined from any discussions about what might be happening (since that player KNOWS what is happening).
I'd talk to the player about it. The fact that they told you they skimmed it (or at least didn't hide it) is an indication that they weren't trying to hide something from you or "cheat" by knowing things they shouldn't.
Sometimes people are concerned a module will have content they don't care for or something they might find triggering so they might take a look to see if the content is something they would like. (Curse of Strahd is a prime candidate in this regard since there are elements that are racist, controversial or distasteful .. never mind whether horror and vampires are something you might like). However, this is something they should talk to the DM about rather than reading ahead in the adventure.
A discussion with the player, explaining that reading ahead can spoil the adventure for them as well as for others if the player uses their knowledge (and it is hard to avoid doing so). There will be encounters or problems that may have multiple solutions and reading ahead can be unfair to everyone else in the game. However, you also need to emphasize to the player that the module contains a set of guidelines and suggestions for running the adventure. The DM will always make changes either in response to character actions or because the plot for that DMs game will make more sense with the changes or might interact better with this particular party. As a result, whatever the person reads could end up being completely wrong or it might not.
"Thats not in the book!" or "That's not how the book says it should go" are both meaningless statements a person who reads ahead might make but they need to understand that how the adventure is being run IS the adventure and whatever guidance there is in the module, the DM might run it that way or they might not.
If the player wants to gain some insight into DMing, then suggest that they read the module sections AFTER the party has played them - that way they get to deal with the module as a new experience and still pick up some cool insights.
Finally, I'd ask them to stop reading ahead. :)
P.S.
However, when you have a more experienced group of players/DM - it is quite possible to decide to play a module or hard cover that some might have played in the past. In this case, if needed, ask the folks who have played it before to avoid saying too much and let the players who haven't have a bigger chance to contribute ... of course, if they get stuck, it can be very convenient to have a player who has an idea of how things might go to interject a comment or two without giving things away.
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I am new to dming, but I have been playing another campaign for just over a year. Well we just started a prewritten module that I am dming. And I found out one of my players looked up the module and skimmed ahead. Should I let that slide? Any tips are appreciated. Thank you.
It depends on how you want to deal with it. Do you want to punish them or to confront them and give them a chance to come clean?
Under no circumstances should you let it slide. If the other players find out, it could ruin your campaign (they might leave or do the same).
I would not say anything, but I would also change significant parts of the campaign in a way that would surprise the player. If their cheating became aparent, so that I would have no doubt about it, I would then punish their character in game (make them the prefered target in combat, or curse them, or something more creative).
Another, more straight forward way to handle it, is to confront the player. Tell them what you are thinking and ask for their honesty on how far ahead they have read. I know that asking a cheater to be honest might be asking for much, but you never know. If they are honest, modify the campaign up to the point they have read and tell them that if they do it again they will be kicked from the game. If they have read a big part or even the whole thing, either modify as much as you can (which can be a lot of work) or kick them from the game, explaining that there is no point in playing if they know the campaign.
As I am playing online with my group, in the beginning everyone was rolling their own dice and telling me the result. I trusted them, as we are all adults and I had told them that cheating would only make the game boring. After a while, it became clear to me (and most of the other players) that one player had been cheating. I did not cheat to punish him, I just waited for the right moment and when it came I used it. Needless to say he is still trying to reverse the effect of what happened. The second thing we did was agree to roll dice on the discord channel with AVRAE, thus ending the problem. Your problem is more complex, though.
I disagree slightly with the last part but fully support the first two that I quoted:
1) You're going to be making changes to the adventure because it's on the fly
2) You can make a point of changing things up just to keep everyone guessing.
That said, I would talk to the player and just lay out some ground rules and expectations. I'm presently running Curse of Strahd for the 2nd time on stream (so my audience in theory has seen it, or members of my chat at least have seen parts of it) and in both games at least one player had actually RUN the adventure as a DM. It wasn't a problem for the group.
For one, I do change things up, modify some aspects of the story etc. For another, while they may KNOW that there's such and such coming at location X, that knowledge only can carry them so far. If it's a spell caster, maybe they prep a different set of spells in the morning. Maybe they sand bag a bit in an easy fight because they know what could/should be in the next one. End of the day that prior knowledge only does so much.
On the other hand, a lot comes down to how much the players want to get into surprises and story vs tactical combat and door kicking. For some people knowing the AC and HP of all the beasties before a fight starts just really deflates the game. Knowing who is going to betray the party is another one of those things that if the whole table knows, so much of the fun is ruined. I'd talk to the player and find out what their plan is for their knowledge and ensure that they're on board with keeping the surprises for the rest of the party. Depending on the outcome of that conversation, talk to the rest of the table about it and get everyone on board with the same views about what is fun, what they expect and what the general plan is going forward.
I would definitely not punish the player for it. But if their attitude is one of adversarial "I wanted to get a leg up on you so we could beat you" I would consider a stronger response such as asking them to leave. Life's too short for a players in a DND game to take an us vs them mentality with the DM.
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I'll start with this:
My 2cp on this is: assess whether or not the player has done anything to damage the fun had by the rest of the table, and this includes the idea that you might need/want to intentionally alter some of the statblocks of the bog-standard monsters in the pre-written book. By default, I generally alter the standard monsters anywhere, so metagaming doesn't always work with my table, but even if it does, the person's fun that is damaged is potentially only the perpetrator. If the only damage done is to the perpetrator, by their own actions, they've effectively punished themselves. The only win condition for D&D is that everyone have fun. If your player cheated themselves out of the only win condition of the game, that's strictly a player problem that requires player remediation.
If, on the other hand, the player confronts you about changing up the module, or provides some type of "gotcha" question with the intent to initiate a confrontation, address the confrontation, not the metagaming. You are free to ask how a PC would know that information or understand what that information means. In the end, their metagaming (or cheating, however you see it) shouldn't be allowed to alter the fun of the other players.
I have a player that is indeed a DM for another group, and he admittedly struggles actively at the table with the difference between player knowledge and PC knowledge. Not everyone can adhere to the social contract of keeping player knowledge compartmentaly separate from PC knowledge.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Don't let it slide and you should talk to the player one-on-one in order to stop it from happening again in the future. After that mix up the adventure like others have already said. Pre-written modules are really suggestions anyways. It's your campaign so get creative! However you handle the situation remember the other players at the table. Don't focus so much on dealing with the one player that it results in the others having less fun. It's not a huge deal and it'll happen again with other groups if you DM over a long time. Good luck!
Talk to the player about it, and just tell them that they've spoiled the surprises for themself and that you're not happy about it.
Then take something where they clearly will know the answer - one of the puzzles - and subtly change it. When they go for the answer they've read, have a mouth bite their arm off permanently.
Or tell the player outright that they cannot contribute to solving any of the problems, since they already know the answer - instead the player should sit to one side while the other players get to solve it.
And this applies to any ongoing plot as well - if the player knows the plot then they should be sidelined from any discussions about what might be happening (since that player KNOWS what is happening).
I'd talk to the player about it. The fact that they told you they skimmed it (or at least didn't hide it) is an indication that they weren't trying to hide something from you or "cheat" by knowing things they shouldn't.
Sometimes people are concerned a module will have content they don't care for or something they might find triggering so they might take a look to see if the content is something they would like. (Curse of Strahd is a prime candidate in this regard since there are elements that are racist, controversial or distasteful .. never mind whether horror and vampires are something you might like). However, this is something they should talk to the DM about rather than reading ahead in the adventure.
A discussion with the player, explaining that reading ahead can spoil the adventure for them as well as for others if the player uses their knowledge (and it is hard to avoid doing so). There will be encounters or problems that may have multiple solutions and reading ahead can be unfair to everyone else in the game. However, you also need to emphasize to the player that the module contains a set of guidelines and suggestions for running the adventure. The DM will always make changes either in response to character actions or because the plot for that DMs game will make more sense with the changes or might interact better with this particular party. As a result, whatever the person reads could end up being completely wrong or it might not.
"Thats not in the book!" or "That's not how the book says it should go" are both meaningless statements a person who reads ahead might make but they need to understand that how the adventure is being run IS the adventure and whatever guidance there is in the module, the DM might run it that way or they might not.
If the player wants to gain some insight into DMing, then suggest that they read the module sections AFTER the party has played them - that way they get to deal with the module as a new experience and still pick up some cool insights.
Finally, I'd ask them to stop reading ahead. :)
P.S.
However, when you have a more experienced group of players/DM - it is quite possible to decide to play a module or hard cover that some might have played in the past. In this case, if needed, ask the folks who have played it before to avoid saying too much and let the players who haven't have a bigger chance to contribute ... of course, if they get stuck, it can be very convenient to have a player who has an idea of how things might go to interject a comment or two without giving things away.