I run a campaign for 5 adults. 2 are VERY experienced players, 2 have limited experience and one is brand new. We’ve been doing an ongoing campaign for about 2 years that is loosely based on Lost Mines of Phandelver, Storm King’s Thunder and a few one off adventures that I’ve melded together.
This is the first campaign I’ve run with this group.
During game play, while they all say things like “I don’t want to meta game”, what happens is in fact heavy meta gaming. My background is much more role play focused, and I find the adventures much more compelling when the heroes barely survive (or don’t survive) and there are big character driven moments. The group however, especially the really experienced players, will do things completely out of character because that is the most tactically sound thing to do in the moment.
Examples.
One character has a home brew weapon that can optionally add poison damage to the target, but this poison is very difficult to find and recharge the weapon with. While fighting a monster, after a successful attack roll, the player will ask if the monster is immune/resistant to poison. To me, just asking that question is heavy meta gaming. So I make him roll a history check to see if HIS CHARACTER knows that. Even if he fails miserably and I declare that his character (incorrectly) thinks the monster is susceptible to poison (when in fact it is resistant), he will quickly scour the Monster Manual to see the Monster’s stat block, and then only discharge the poison if the monster is not resistant or immune. If I try to make a DM call in the moment and say the poison didn’t work, they argue and cite the monster manual.
I had them searching a dungeon for 5 different artifacts, which they did not know exactly what they were, they only had vague clues. After finding one, they will say “I want to do a perception check to see if there are any more of the artifacts in this room”. When I ask “What are you looking for?” They respond “Anything that might make sense as an answer to the other clues”. If they roll anything under 20, they say they want to search again. This repeats until they roll 20+ and I declare that there are no more artifacts in this room. When I say “you’ve already searched this room and your character believes it is empty because you rolled poorly”, they respond “But my character is very suspicious that they perhaps missed something, so they want to search again”.
When the party is split, if one group starts to get into trouble, the other will quickly, and without any in game explanation, abandon what they are doing and rush to the aid of their comrades.
If I have a map out, even if it’s covered, they will use their relative position on the map (like if they are close to an edge) to decide which direction to go, even if I say “You hear a cry for help to the East”. They will say “There is no way that East is the right way to go. Look how close it is to the edge. Let’s head West since there’s more dungeon to explore in that direction.”
My conundrum is that THEY LOVE PLAYING THIS WAY. It’s like they are playing a video game and looked up all the maps and cheat codes online. They just want to obliterate all the monsters and never feel any sense of danger. They want to WIN the game. I however, find this style of play very stale and boring, and question whether they should just play a video game.
I know a lot of replies may be “If that’s what they want, then give it to them” or something of that ilk. But the question I’m asking is...
HOW WOULD YOU GO ABOUT CHANGING THE TONE OF THIS GROUP TO BE MORE ROLE PLAY FOCUSED. If your answer is “you shouldn’t”, I already know that, so please don’t reply. This is a mental exercise. Tell me how you would do it if you HAD to.
You're the DM, you kinda need to take control here.
Firstly, it's usually nature, religion, or arcana for the monster check rolls. The fact that you're giving them a history roll tells me without your mention up top just how unfamiliar with DMing you are.
So, you can and should disallow, for instance, additional rolls, or create in-game consequences for them. Make 6 perception checks? yeah, ok, your character spends 2 days in there, and btw, a large group of [monsters/npcs that were angered by pcs before] has not only arrived, but had time to setup a complete blockade of the dungeon in order to trap you and exact revenge for [thing pcs did to make them so angry].
That's 'stick'. For carrot, hand out inspiration for positive roleplaying, and in particular, things that are detrimental but in character. E.g. Brutus strong. Brutus care not for traps. Brutus walk straight through corridor even though ceiling clearly has holes in it for some sort of trap.
I feel with your first example, let them look it up, and when they challenge you as the DM, you just tell them, its a partially home brewed monster, its a home brewed weapon after all.
For the second example, i hey insist on searching that long, you could always add a trap to the room. Make the DC 20 for finding it, and when they do roll that 20+ say, you find a lever or switch, etc... if they activate the trap, have them roll for initiative again. Or you could add a mimic or some other object, like a rug of smothering, Animated Armor that they need to fight. again, make it a slight home brew version of the monster (even if its not).
As for the map issue, let them explore, just roll a random D100 or a D20 when they go the wrong way. you can either use that roll and pick a random encounter, or keep a tally of rolls, and when asked what or why are you rolling, let them know its just for a future encounter.
Also, keep in mind, what each PCs alignment is, are they doing something that a Lawful Good Paladin wouldn't do, make note of it, and if they do say 4 or 5 things, change their alignment to NG, etc... just remember in the end, if you are all having fun, dont worry too much about it.
My theory: Always make INT and WIS checks by yourself secretly, instead of having the players make them. If they roll low on an investigation/perception check, they can always reroll if you let them roll, but when you roll secretly and tell them they don't find anything is a much better option, since it doesn't make them reroll until they roll a 20. They won't know that they rolled bad, so they will go along with it and believe they actually didn't find anything.
I agree you need to take control. There are already some good suggestions above. A few different ideas:
1. For your first example about combat:
Time limits on turns in combat. At my table you have 30 seconds to tell me what you're doing or you lose your turn and I narrate your character freezing up with indecision. No you don't have time to look through the Monster Manual, a Dire Troll is about shred you into pieces. Time pressure is real.
Hard line on no monster manuals at the table during combat. Your character doesn't have one, so neither do you. If your character wants to start keeping a journal of all the things you have fought, and then, if you come up against something similar in the future, you can make a brief intelligence check to see if you can remember what you wrote, that's fine. Otherwise, like JCADUM said above, nature, religion, or arcana checks for monster rolls and what you, the DM, respond, is what the character knows.
Don't ever tell them the name of a creature that they're fighting unless they've seen it before. Instead of saying "two Remorhazes burst from the snow" it's "two creatures that look like huge blue centipedes, with bulbous blue eyes, chitinous armor resembling the hood of a cobra, and red/orange spikes protruding down the length of their backs burst from the snow." Make em' guess.
Encourage them to experiment to "teach" their character about info that they as a player actually know. This one is a little more of an out-of-game conversation that you can just ask them to do, and maybe they'll listen maybe they won't. As a DM who also plays, I try to do this in my playing all the time so that I'm not just hardcore metagaming but I can also bring my knowledge in. To return to the example above, I was recently playing in a game where we were fighting a Dire Troll. I know that Dire Trolls don't regenerate HP if they take acid or fire damage, but my character doesn't. In order to not immediately metagame, I attacked it with a few different spells until I hit on one that dealt fire damage, after which the DM said:
DM: "you notice that it doesn't seem to be regenerating. Make an INT check"
Me: "12"
DM: "You're pretty sure it was the fire"
Me: "Guys, hit it with fire!"
If they insist on bringing in meta-knowledge and exploiting a monster weakness that there's absolutely no way their character would know, a gentle "come on, your character wouldn't know that, what would they REALLY do?" might be the best you can do.
2. For your second problem with skill checks:
What you say goes. What this means is that if you say "you search the room thoroughly and you feel like you've covered every inch. There's nothing here." they shouldn't be allowed to push back with "my character feels like they missed something." No, your character doesn't feel that way, your character feels like they did a great job and doesn't feel the need to search again. If another character feels like they should also look around, fine, that character can make a perception check. But once everyone has made one check, that's it.
Consider giving a "help" option to the person with the highest passive. If you're looking around the room for traps, the person with the highest passive investigation can help, allowing both characters to roll once, or allowing the initial searcher to roll with advantage. Same goes for perception checks and the person with the highest passive. If they don't find what they're looking for, the characters assume it's not there and nobody else gets to roll. You can introduce this mechanic by force-feeding it to them, and it'll look a little something like this:
Average perception character: "I look around for anything unusual"
DM: Make a perception check. And you "Highest Passive Perception Character" go ahead and make one as well, or if you want to help "Average Perception Character" then "Average Perception Character" can roll with advantage."
But pretty soon your players will catch on and it'll evolve to this:
PC1: "i look around for something unusual"
PC2: "I help"
DM: "Okay. Each of you make a perception check or PC1 can make a perception check with advantage"
This style of check brings more meaning to passive skills, and makes it a little more like a real-life situation. After all, if the super-observant rogue who is awesome at finding traps wasn't able to help you find any traps, then why should any other character believe they could do a better job? For the real-world comparison: If my engineer friend can't solve a math problem, I'm not gonna say "well maybe I should take a crack at it just in case." He's better at math than I am, and if he can't solve it then I definitely can't. Time to move on.
3. As for your maps issue:
Try leaving a lot of white space around the edges and covering it up. This will make them think that the dungeon areas extend into places where there's really nothing. The way you hide visual information gives away more than you think, so "hide" all of the nothing on your maps to keep them disoriented.
One thing that you may need to do with the group is tell them that A) you understand that they like to play like this and B) that you don't particularly like to play like this. You can then open a dialog about the options.
They may include:
The party wishes to keep playing like this regardless of your wishes. You can either choose to keep being DM or suggest that someone else step up.
The party agrees to roleplay more. They end up liking it. Everyone is happy.
The party agrees to change some of their behavior. You give them some time. You either find that it's enough to satisfy your needs and everyone's good or someone decides the compromise has compromised their fun too much or you aren't gaining enough from it.
You decide to trade off sessions and roleplay the metagamey ones as being inspired by the gods. The nonmetagamey ones are "the one true god being dissatisfied with their unbelief" and preventing them from talking to their gods. Perhaps clerics and paladins are broken on those days, too.
Just be upfront with them and let them know what the dealbreakers are. Consider what consequences you are willing to live with (ie. Don't get to play at all if they don't want to compromise...good with it!)
I find the adventures much more compelling when the heroes barely survive (or don’t survive)
However, if the characters are barely surviving, then the players know they have to play optimally or near-optimally to avoid death. So they will do so, because they don't want their characters to die. The players need to get the trust that they have room to play suboptimally without dying. They should only be worried about death if they do something ridiculously stupid, and should trust that you will not kill them off if they deliberately play suboptimally for the sake of role-play.
(IMO, this is actually the most important thing, and the hardest to get back. If they honestly believe they have to play their tip-top-very-best to survive, then they WILL do everything they can to play their tip-top-very-best. If you've gotten to that point with them, and they think they'll die if they make one wrong move, the only way to get it back is by an explicit reset. You have to talk to them, say how you want them to change their play, and TELL them you're explicitly lowering the difficulty so that they can play that way.)
Second, you have to enforce some basic DM rules. The first is that what you say, goes. For example, in your first example of combat, you say
One character has a home brew weapon that can optionally add poison damage to the target, but this poison is very difficult to find and recharge the weapon with. While fighting a monster, after a successful attack roll, the player will ask if the monster is immune/resistant to poison. To me, just asking that question is heavy meta gaming. So I make him roll a history check to see if HIS CHARACTER knows that. Even if he fails miserably and I declare that his character (incorrectly) thinks the monster is susceptible to poison (when in fact it is resistant), he will quickly scour the Monster Manual to see the Monster’s stat block, and then only discharge the poison if the monster is not resistant or immune. If I try to make a DM call in the moment and say the poison didn’t work, they argue and cite the monster manual.
Sorry, you get to set the monster stats. The players don't get to point to the monster manual and tell you what your monsters stats are, if you've decided otherwise. That's just not how it works.
I think your solution here - make the player make a check, reward them if they succeed - was perfectly reasonable. Another one could have been to tell the player "you don't know yet, but after you kill the monster you can try to figure it out for future ones" - give them some way to make the check on a dead monster and apply it to all future ones of that type, if they're gonna keep re-encountering similar enemies.
But either way, they don't get to overrule you about monster stats.
I had them searching a dungeon for 5 different artifacts, which they did not know exactly what they were, they only had vague clues. After finding one, they will say “I want to do a perception check to see if there are any more of the artifacts in this room”. When I ask “What are you looking for?” They respond “Anything that might make sense as an answer to the other clues”. If they roll anything under 20, they say they want to search again. This repeats until they roll 20+ and I declare that there are no more artifacts in this room. When I say “you’ve already searched this room and your character believes it is empty because you rolled poorly”, they respond “But my character is very suspicious that they perhaps missed something, so they want to search again”.
There are two things to point out here.
The biggest thing that I'd point out here is that you have to encourage the players to say what they DO, not what check they make. That's key to D&D in general. The players say what they do, the DM decides if any check is needed to decide whether the action succeeds or fails, and then the player rolls if the roll is needed. For example, in this case, the response to "I want to do a perception check" should be, as a DM, to ask "OK, can you describe what your character is doing?" and describe what they see in response to that. Probably if they're just looking around the room, then no check at all is needed! They just see the room, after all. You can describe to them, in fairly superficial detail, what objects are in the room. The color of the walls, the chairs and the furniture, whatever there is. If they say they're examining the objects in more detail, give them more detail on the objects. If there is no doubt in your mind about the success or failure of this action, and it's obvious why, there's no need to roll anything at all. You can still have them roll so they don't know that, but you don't have to.
By the way, this means that the success or failure of the action depends just as much on what the players are doing as on the roll. If there's a hidden passage behind a wall, and the player says "I knock on all the walls looking for hidden hollow areas", well, no need to roll - the character's gonna find the hidden passageway! On the other hand, if the player says "I'm going to rifle through the papers on the desk", then no matter how well they roll, they're never going to find the trapdoor that's behind the bookcase on the other side of the room.
The issue of repeated rolls is also a common one. One solution here is that each roll has to move the action forward in some way. You can't have a roll in which the "rolled low" state is "nothing happens, try again and keep trying". In the case of searching, if the character fails the first roll, that means they didn't find something when looking. If they say they're trying the same thing again, I would interpret that as "I'm going to keep trying UNTIL I SUCCEED". I'd clarify that with the player - does this mean you're gonna keep trying until you're sure you've found everything? The characters can certainly do that! ...but then interpret the next roll appropriately. If they roll low again, that means it has taken them hours and hours and hours, they've searched every nook and cranny they could find. Narrate what they could find with a very thorough search, and figure out what happened with the rest of the dungeon because they spent 6 hours tearing up this particular room they're in.
...and another solution is to explicitly disallow repeated rolls unless the player describes how what they're doing now is different than what they did before. If they try the same thing again, just tell them they get the same result - no need to roll. But let them try again if they actually describe what their character is doing differently! That ties back to the previous point - maybe what they're doing will succeed or fail regardless of the roll. It'll at least get them describing their actions better.
Oh, and this also comes down to what you say, goes. If you say their action succeeds or fails, that's what happens. They don't get to tell you "look, I rolled a 20, so I have to succeed". No, they don't. If you'd already told them the characters have searched the room for hours and hours and found nothing, then their characters continuing to search will still find nothing, unless they're doing something different this time.
When the party is split, if one group starts to get into trouble, the other will quickly, and without any in game explanation, abandon what they are doing and rush to the aid of their comrades.
I don't have a good solution here besides don't split the party.
A not-so-great solution is to roll for initiative and actually track how far the characters could get in a round while things are happening. If the characters are too far apart to get to each other in the 3-4 rounds that combat usually lasts, then that's how it goes.
If I have a map out, even if it’s covered, they will use their relative position on the map (like if they are close to an edge) to decide which direction to go, even if I say “You hear a cry for help to the East”. They will say “There is no way that East is the right way to go. Look how close it is to the edge. Let’s head West since there’s more dungeon to explore in that direction.”
Hehehe... well, this actually has an excellent potential for some trickery. OK, so this could be a jerk move or a hilarious move... but you can totally mess with them this way. Put a whole bunch of useless dungeon on one part of the map (covered up). Or maybe blank space. Give them plenty of in-character hints that that direction is useless to them. Watch them spend a whole bunch of time trying to figure out how to go that way anyway. Have there be nothing of value there, and have the 'right answer' be to go in the other way. ...maybe there's a door at the edge of the map that opens into a second map tile, or whatever.
My conundrum is that THEY LOVE PLAYING THIS WAY. It’s like they are playing a video game and looked up all the maps and cheat codes online. They just want to obliterate all the monsters and never feel any sense of danger. They want to WIN the game. I however, find this style of play very stale and boring, and question whether they should just play a video game.
I know a lot of replies may be “If that’s what they want, then give it to them” or something of that ilk. But the question I’m asking is...
HOW WOULD YOU GO ABOUT CHANGING THE TONE OF THIS GROUP TO BE MORE ROLE PLAY FOCUSED. If your answer is “you shouldn’t”, I already know that, so please don’t reply. This is a mental exercise. Tell me how you would do it if you HAD to.
This part tells me that you have to talk to them to make these changes. Explain what you want out of the game, how it differs from what they're doing now, and work out how to change that together.
Simple one for the monster stats problem, they role a check, they pass.
Tell them the information they want, but then add onto the end of the description "but something looks slightly different about this one, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is something wrong with it!" They then argue and point at the monster manual, you then reply with "but something looks slightly different about this one, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is something wrong with it!" Stick to your guns, they will learn one way or the other.
As I found out recently Mimics, can look like tables, chairs, chests, anything really including friggin ceilings! Have them check a room for traps, once they find nothing and step inside have them role initiative as the mimic drops from the ceiling. It's not technically a trap!
If they insist on keep rolling to find things, have them find something in the back of a hole in the wall, in front of that something have a gelatinous cube!
Only do these things when they are playing at rules lawyering or being knobs and not accepting your decisions as God! Then after the game have a chat with them, see if they realise what they are doing is annoying and if they do great, if they don't then tell them. They will either accept what you are saying or get argumentative with you, just point out that you are the DM and if they don't like it they can always find another game!
We have had meta gaming at our table, but it has always followed the same path really. One of us make a decision to do something, someone else points out we have a better way of doing it in our arsenal and our reply is "Bugger, forgot about that, ahh well I already said I was doing this!" DM occassionaly lets us change our minds, lol
Awesome advice in here that I'm definitely going to steal. >D
If they have actually, explicitly stated that they don't want to metagame, then I think you should point out during the session when they're metagaming. *Player pulls out MM* You: "I thought you all didn't want to metagame? I just told you your character isn't sure, so they're not sure." You could even make it a consequence. "You use your action, bonus action, reaction, and full movement to pull out the MM and look at the statblock. You're also stunned until the start of your next turn." (This is much meaner than I would probably actually be, but this is just an example, obvs)
*Player says they want to keep making perception rolls because they feel they've failed* You: "That's pretty meta - I thought you all didn't want to do that."
etc.
Although, they might have a different idea of what metagaming is? Maybe discuss it with them?
Otherwise, I definitely echo that you should say an MM or VGtM is not allowed at the table (on their side, obvs. I don't know if they would be pedantic about it). That's pretty meta, after all, and they said they didn't want to do that!
For multiple checks, that goes into the realm of how I define passive abilities. If they're going to do something over a long period of time, then use the passive score for that skill. (Remember, all skills have passive scores!) But, as has been mentioned, that takes a lot of time - tell them that this is going to take 30 minutes, 3 hours, or whatever - do you really want to do that?
As for the map thing - you could always do theater of the mind and have the map behind a DM screen. Then, you can draw or set up the map only when combat takes place, and only for the portion of the map that they will be using. Sure, it'll take longer, but I think that might be a way to get around that behavior.
Otherwise, as was said already, I think you should consider having a session 0 type thing with your players. (You can have a session 0 at any time!) Explain that you feel like the game you're running is very much like a video game, and you're not interested running a video game. There's plenty of video games out there that we can play, and this is not supposed to be that.
Just be honest - you want to DM something RP heavy and playing characters like characters rather than pawns to get from point A to point B and level up. If they want to play it like a video game, then someone else can DM or you can play an actual video game together. :/
OK, roll perception. [It's a 15.] You don't find anything.
"I want to search again!"
OK, roll again. [It's an 18.] On a second pass, you find a dead mouse behind the bookcase.
"I want to search again!"
OK, roll again. [It's a 22.] On a third pass you noticed you missed that the dead mouse is actually holding a tiny sign. The sign says "QUIT METAGAMING AND GET ON WITH IT."
One thing that you may need to do with the group is tell them that A) you understand that they like to play like this and B) that you don't particularly like to play like this. You can then open a dialog about the options.
They may include:
The party wishes to keep playing like this regardless of your wishes. You can either choose to keep being DM or suggest that someone else step up.
The party agrees to roleplay more. They end up liking it. Everyone is happy.
The party agrees to change some of their behavior. You give them some time. You either find that it's enough to satisfy your needs and everyone's good or someone decides the compromise has compromised their fun too much or you aren't gaining enough from it.
You decide to trade off sessions and roleplay the metagamey ones as being inspired by the gods. The nonmetagamey ones are "the one true god being dissatisfied with their unbelief" and preventing them from talking to their gods. Perhaps clerics and paladins are broken on those days, too.
Just be upfront with them and let them know what the dealbreakers are. Consider what consequences you are willing to live with (ie. Don't get to play at all if they don't want to compromise...good with it!)
^^^ This.
To the OP:
Very clearly your players (or some of them) enjoy playing one way and you enjoy playing another. and the disconnect is bound to make everyone somewhat unhappy. Clearly it's doing that to you.
Now let me state right here and now before I say anything else that, I agree with you, and I consider what these players are doing to, minimally, be poor sportsmanship, and maximally, down-right cheating (which should not happen in an RPG but we all know it often does). I would be wildly unhappy with a group that does these things and so I would have to have a conversation with them forthwith.
In the old days, I would have absolutely and unambiguously punished these forms of behavior. First of all, in our group -- which was done as rotating DMs -- it was taken for granted that the Monster Manual was not permitted at the table to anyone but the DM. Additionally, looking things up when you went home after the session was not allowed either. OK, we were in high school, we all probably did it from time to time -- I did -- but if you got caught, you'd be in trouble. The main punishment here was, you cheated by looking in MM, so you beat the monster using OOC knowledge. No XP for that encounter. Just one incident of that is enough to get people to stop (or at least try to cover up) their metagaming.
Split party, and the other members "psychically know" the player is in trouble? I'd probably do something mean like a cave-in to keep them perma-separated, or have "wandering monsters" show up, or what have you to make their lives miserable. "Next time don't metagame, boyos."
Using map edges to figure things out -- well, we never had that issue because the DM wouldn't tell you where to start the map and the DM described it and we (by which I mean I, usually) mapped it. The DM might be kind enough to say, "Start near the center on this one" but maybe not, and if we were metagaming the map edges he would absolutely have refused to give us advice and just let the map run off the page. But if you are determined to show them your map, then I'd do all kinds of legerdemain like putting the secret door that leads to the treasure room right on the map edge and having the treasure room on another map.
However...
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do any of those sorts of things now, in my old age (of 50 instead of high school). I think it's better to talk things out and explain to them why you want them to avoid these things -- to increase immersion and improve the RP. If my players steadfastly refused to change, then, I would have to sadly tell them, that they need to find a new DM, as I am not willing to game-master under these circumstances.
That's a tough conversation to have. And you need to make it not be a threat, too. That is, don't word it as "Cut it out or I quit." Rather, reason with them and if they say "No, no, a thousand times no! We are looking in MM and we are going to argue monster stats with you!" then say, "All right, then I will have to stop DMing." And stick to it. Don't let them walk it back and say "We changed our minds" because they haven't -- they're just placating you to get you to keep DMing. Instead I would say "It's clear that you won't like the types of adventures I have in mind so it's better for everyone involved if I stop DMing. I'll happily play alongside you guys if someone else wants to DM."
And if that happens then I urge you, despite the powerful temptation to do so, NOT to do the MM and Map and Party meta stuff back to that DM that he was doing to you... Rather, be a role model for them and let them see how it can be done your way. Maybe they'll change, but probably not.
But you, at least, can put away the Alka-seltzer....
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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.
Thanks for all the tips and advice people! It's greatly appreciated.
I'm definitely going to start making all the Wisdom and Intelligence checks behind the DM screen. That advice is golden. I'll also stop being such a softy. I always try to use the "Rule of Cool" (if it sounds cool, then allow it) and follow the mantra of "Yes, and...". Perhaps I need to be a bit more stringent with what I allow.
Firstly, it's usually nature, religion, or arcana for the monster check rolls. The fact that you're giving them a history roll tells me without your mention up top just how unfamiliar with DMing you are.
My example of history was just the first thing that came to mind. I usually follow this guideline for those types of checks
Arcana - Use this skill to discover more about elemental creatures, creatures of pure magic, arcane creations, and creatures of other planes
History - Use this skill to learn more about creatures that play prominent roles throughout history. For example, goblins, kobolds, and most other humanoid races play significant roles in history.
Nature - Use this skill to learn more about creatures tied directly to nature. Most often, this means animals (wolves, bats, etc.) but it could also be tied to druidic creations, or guardians of nature.
Religion - Use this skill to learn more about creatures of religious creation. Servants of deities, undead, and other holy or unholy beings would be described with this skill.
Sorry if my interpretation of the skill checks is different from yours. I know historically (3E and 4E) there were specific rules about a player character having knowledge about the monster they were fighting, but with 5E, I believe it's more vague and up for interpretation. This is just how I handle it.
I find the adventures much more compelling when the heroes barely survive (or don’t survive)
However, if the characters are barely surviving, then the players know they have to play optimally or near-optimally to avoid death. So they will do so, because they don't want their characters to die. The players need to get the trust that they have room to play suboptimally without dying. They should only be worried about death if they do something ridiculously stupid, and should trust that you will not kill them off if they deliberately play suboptimally for the sake of role-play.
My characters are NOT barely surviving, that's just how I enjoy MY RPG sessions as a player. In this case, the players are obliterating the monsters, and walking away from nearly every encounter with over 50% of their HP. And I'm using higher CR monsters than their level already due to the fact that they meta game so much and always play near perfect tactics. The issue is not that they FEAR they will die if they are less than perfect, it's that they want to one-shot EVERYTHING and feel like gods among insects.
There is a game called Gloomhaven (board game), pick that up and play that instead.
They play Gloomhaven a lot. They love it. They tell me they like D&D more because I "spice things up". I think deep down they WANT to do more role play, but they have a hard time shaking their ties to board games and video games where they player always has perfect knowledge.
Thanks again to everyone who chimed in and offered advice.
Simplest way that might get them in the habit of not metagaming so much, is stop them from being able to metagame. There are more than enough homebrew monsters available or just create some of your own. Can't metagame if you can't find the stats lol, like I said earlier when they encounter something that "looks like" a creature, let them check their stats all they like and do all the checks they like, give them the information "You recognise that this is <insert creature>, but something looks slightly different about this one, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is something wrong with it!" They then argue and point at the monster manual, you then reply with "but something looks slightly different about this one, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is something wrong with it!"
Change a couple of the stats around, give it poison damage, make it death touched so it deals necrotic damage.
Granted this could backfire spectacularly as they enjoy fighting these new monsters so much you end up having to create a lot more, but hey ho lol
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Here is my blight.
I run a campaign for 5 adults. 2 are VERY experienced players, 2 have limited experience and one is brand new. We’ve been doing an ongoing campaign for about 2 years that is loosely based on Lost Mines of Phandelver, Storm King’s Thunder and a few one off adventures that I’ve melded together.
This is the first campaign I’ve run with this group.
During game play, while they all say things like “I don’t want to meta game”, what happens is in fact heavy meta gaming. My background is much more role play focused, and I find the adventures much more compelling when the heroes barely survive (or don’t survive) and there are big character driven moments. The group however, especially the really experienced players, will do things completely out of character because that is the most tactically sound thing to do in the moment.
Examples.
One character has a home brew weapon that can optionally add poison damage to the target, but this poison is very difficult to find and recharge the weapon with. While fighting a monster, after a successful attack roll, the player will ask if the monster is immune/resistant to poison. To me, just asking that question is heavy meta gaming. So I make him roll a history check to see if HIS CHARACTER knows that. Even if he fails miserably and I declare that his character (incorrectly) thinks the monster is susceptible to poison (when in fact it is resistant), he will quickly scour the Monster Manual to see the Monster’s stat block, and then only discharge the poison if the monster is not resistant or immune. If I try to make a DM call in the moment and say the poison didn’t work, they argue and cite the monster manual.
I had them searching a dungeon for 5 different artifacts, which they did not know exactly what they were, they only had vague clues. After finding one, they will say “I want to do a perception check to see if there are any more of the artifacts in this room”. When I ask “What are you looking for?” They respond “Anything that might make sense as an answer to the other clues”. If they roll anything under 20, they say they want to search again. This repeats until they roll 20+ and I declare that there are no more artifacts in this room. When I say “you’ve already searched this room and your character believes it is empty because you rolled poorly”, they respond “But my character is very suspicious that they perhaps missed something, so they want to search again”.
When the party is split, if one group starts to get into trouble, the other will quickly, and without any in game explanation, abandon what they are doing and rush to the aid of their comrades.
If I have a map out, even if it’s covered, they will use their relative position on the map (like if they are close to an edge) to decide which direction to go, even if I say “You hear a cry for help to the East”. They will say “There is no way that East is the right way to go. Look how close it is to the edge. Let’s head West since there’s more dungeon to explore in that direction.”
My conundrum is that THEY LOVE PLAYING THIS WAY. It’s like they are playing a video game and looked up all the maps and cheat codes online. They just want to obliterate all the monsters and never feel any sense of danger. They want to WIN the game. I however, find this style of play very stale and boring, and question whether they should just play a video game.
I know a lot of replies may be “If that’s what they want, then give it to them” or something of that ilk. But the question I’m asking is...
HOW WOULD YOU GO ABOUT CHANGING THE TONE OF THIS GROUP TO BE MORE ROLE PLAY FOCUSED. If your answer is “you shouldn’t”, I already know that, so please don’t reply. This is a mental exercise. Tell me how you would do it if you HAD to.
You're the DM, you kinda need to take control here.
Firstly, it's usually nature, religion, or arcana for the monster check rolls. The fact that you're giving them a history roll tells me without your mention up top just how unfamiliar with DMing you are.
So, you can and should disallow, for instance, additional rolls, or create in-game consequences for them. Make 6 perception checks? yeah, ok, your character spends 2 days in there, and btw, a large group of [monsters/npcs that were angered by pcs before] has not only arrived, but had time to setup a complete blockade of the dungeon in order to trap you and exact revenge for [thing pcs did to make them so angry].
That's 'stick'. For carrot, hand out inspiration for positive roleplaying, and in particular, things that are detrimental but in character. E.g. Brutus strong. Brutus care not for traps. Brutus walk straight through corridor even though ceiling clearly has holes in it for some sort of trap.
I feel with your first example, let them look it up, and when they challenge you as the DM, you just tell them, its a partially home brewed monster, its a home brewed weapon after all.
For the second example, i hey insist on searching that long, you could always add a trap to the room. Make the DC 20 for finding it, and when they do roll that 20+ say, you find a lever or switch, etc... if they activate the trap, have them roll for initiative again. Or you could add a mimic or some other object, like a rug of smothering, Animated Armor that they need to fight. again, make it a slight home brew version of the monster (even if its not).
As for the map issue, let them explore, just roll a random D100 or a D20 when they go the wrong way. you can either use that roll and pick a random encounter, or keep a tally of rolls, and when asked what or why are you rolling, let them know its just for a future encounter.
Also, keep in mind, what each PCs alignment is, are they doing something that a Lawful Good Paladin wouldn't do, make note of it, and if they do say 4 or 5 things, change their alignment to NG, etc... just remember in the end, if you are all having fun, dont worry too much about it.
My theory: Always make INT and WIS checks by yourself secretly, instead of having the players make them. If they roll low on an investigation/perception check, they can always reroll if you let them roll, but when you roll secretly and tell them they don't find anything is a much better option, since it doesn't make them reroll until they roll a 20. They won't know that they rolled bad, so they will go along with it and believe they actually didn't find anything.
I agree you need to take control. There are already some good suggestions above. A few different ideas:
1. For your first example about combat:
If they insist on bringing in meta-knowledge and exploiting a monster weakness that there's absolutely no way their character would know, a gentle "come on, your character wouldn't know that, what would they REALLY do?" might be the best you can do.
2. For your second problem with skill checks:
But pretty soon your players will catch on and it'll evolve to this:
This style of check brings more meaning to passive skills, and makes it a little more like a real-life situation. After all, if the super-observant rogue who is awesome at finding traps wasn't able to help you find any traps, then why should any other character believe they could do a better job? For the real-world comparison: If my engineer friend can't solve a math problem, I'm not gonna say "well maybe I should take a crack at it just in case." He's better at math than I am, and if he can't solve it then I definitely can't. Time to move on.
3. As for your maps issue:
Try leaving a lot of white space around the edges and covering it up. This will make them think that the dungeon areas extend into places where there's really nothing. The way you hide visual information gives away more than you think, so "hide" all of the nothing on your maps to keep them disoriented.
"To die would be an awfully big adventure"
One thing that you may need to do with the group is tell them that A) you understand that they like to play like this and B) that you don't particularly like to play like this. You can then open a dialog about the options.
They may include:
The party wishes to keep playing like this regardless of your wishes. You can either choose to keep being DM or suggest that someone else step up.
The party agrees to roleplay more. They end up liking it. Everyone is happy.
The party agrees to change some of their behavior. You give them some time. You either find that it's enough to satisfy your needs and everyone's good or someone decides the compromise has compromised their fun too much or you aren't gaining enough from it.
You decide to trade off sessions and roleplay the metagamey ones as being inspired by the gods. The nonmetagamey ones are "the one true god being dissatisfied with their unbelief" and preventing them from talking to their gods. Perhaps clerics and paladins are broken on those days, too.
Just be upfront with them and let them know what the dealbreakers are. Consider what consequences you are willing to live with (ie. Don't get to play at all if they don't want to compromise...good with it!)
If I had to, I would do it the following way.
First, lower the difficulty of combat. You say:
Sorry, you get to set the monster stats. The players don't get to point to the monster manual and tell you what your monsters stats are, if you've decided otherwise. That's just not how it works.
I think your solution here - make the player make a check, reward them if they succeed - was perfectly reasonable. Another one could have been to tell the player "you don't know yet, but after you kill the monster you can try to figure it out for future ones" - give them some way to make the check on a dead monster and apply it to all future ones of that type, if they're gonna keep re-encountering similar enemies.
But either way, they don't get to overrule you about monster stats.
There are two things to point out here.
The biggest thing that I'd point out here is that you have to encourage the players to say what they DO, not what check they make. That's key to D&D in general. The players say what they do, the DM decides if any check is needed to decide whether the action succeeds or fails, and then the player rolls if the roll is needed. For example, in this case, the response to "I want to do a perception check" should be, as a DM, to ask "OK, can you describe what your character is doing?" and describe what they see in response to that. Probably if they're just looking around the room, then no check at all is needed! They just see the room, after all. You can describe to them, in fairly superficial detail, what objects are in the room. The color of the walls, the chairs and the furniture, whatever there is. If they say they're examining the objects in more detail, give them more detail on the objects. If there is no doubt in your mind about the success or failure of this action, and it's obvious why, there's no need to roll anything at all. You can still have them roll so they don't know that, but you don't have to.
By the way, this means that the success or failure of the action depends just as much on what the players are doing as on the roll. If there's a hidden passage behind a wall, and the player says "I knock on all the walls looking for hidden hollow areas", well, no need to roll - the character's gonna find the hidden passageway! On the other hand, if the player says "I'm going to rifle through the papers on the desk", then no matter how well they roll, they're never going to find the trapdoor that's behind the bookcase on the other side of the room.
The issue of repeated rolls is also a common one. One solution here is that each roll has to move the action forward in some way. You can't have a roll in which the "rolled low" state is "nothing happens, try again and keep trying". In the case of searching, if the character fails the first roll, that means they didn't find something when looking. If they say they're trying the same thing again, I would interpret that as "I'm going to keep trying UNTIL I SUCCEED". I'd clarify that with the player - does this mean you're gonna keep trying until you're sure you've found everything? The characters can certainly do that! ...but then interpret the next roll appropriately. If they roll low again, that means it has taken them hours and hours and hours, they've searched every nook and cranny they could find. Narrate what they could find with a very thorough search, and figure out what happened with the rest of the dungeon because they spent 6 hours tearing up this particular room they're in.
...and another solution is to explicitly disallow repeated rolls unless the player describes how what they're doing now is different than what they did before. If they try the same thing again, just tell them they get the same result - no need to roll. But let them try again if they actually describe what their character is doing differently! That ties back to the previous point - maybe what they're doing will succeed or fail regardless of the roll. It'll at least get them describing their actions better.
Oh, and this also comes down to what you say, goes. If you say their action succeeds or fails, that's what happens. They don't get to tell you "look, I rolled a 20, so I have to succeed". No, they don't. If you'd already told them the characters have searched the room for hours and hours and found nothing, then their characters continuing to search will still find nothing, unless they're doing something different this time.
I don't have a good solution here besides don't split the party.
A not-so-great solution is to roll for initiative and actually track how far the characters could get in a round while things are happening. If the characters are too far apart to get to each other in the 3-4 rounds that combat usually lasts, then that's how it goes.
Hehehe... well, this actually has an excellent potential for some trickery. OK, so this could be a jerk move or a hilarious move... but you can totally mess with them this way. Put a whole bunch of useless dungeon on one part of the map (covered up). Or maybe blank space. Give them plenty of in-character hints that that direction is useless to them. Watch them spend a whole bunch of time trying to figure out how to go that way anyway. Have there be nothing of value there, and have the 'right answer' be to go in the other way. ...maybe there's a door at the edge of the map that opens into a second map tile, or whatever.
This part tells me that you have to talk to them to make these changes. Explain what you want out of the game, how it differs from what they're doing now, and work out how to change that together.
Simple one for the monster stats problem, they role a check, they pass.
Tell them the information they want, but then add onto the end of the description "but something looks slightly different about this one, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is something wrong with it!" They then argue and point at the monster manual, you then reply with "but something looks slightly different about this one, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is something wrong with it!" Stick to your guns, they will learn one way or the other.
As I found out recently Mimics, can look like tables, chairs, chests, anything really including friggin ceilings! Have them check a room for traps, once they find nothing and step inside have them role initiative as the mimic drops from the ceiling. It's not technically a trap!
If they insist on keep rolling to find things, have them find something in the back of a hole in the wall, in front of that something have a gelatinous cube!
Only do these things when they are playing at rules lawyering or being knobs and not accepting your decisions as God! Then after the game have a chat with them, see if they realise what they are doing is annoying and if they do great, if they don't then tell them. They will either accept what you are saying or get argumentative with you, just point out that you are the DM and if they don't like it they can always find another game!
We have had meta gaming at our table, but it has always followed the same path really. One of us make a decision to do something, someone else points out we have a better way of doing it in our arsenal and our reply is "Bugger, forgot about that, ahh well I already said I was doing this!" DM occassionaly lets us change our minds, lol
From Within Chaos Comes Order!
Awesome advice in here that I'm definitely going to steal. >D
If they have actually, explicitly stated that they don't want to metagame, then I think you should point out during the session when they're metagaming.
*Player pulls out MM*
You: "I thought you all didn't want to metagame? I just told you your character isn't sure, so they're not sure."
You could even make it a consequence. "You use your action, bonus action, reaction, and full movement to pull out the MM and look at the statblock. You're also stunned until the start of your next turn." (This is much meaner than I would probably actually be, but this is just an example, obvs)
*Player says they want to keep making perception rolls because they feel they've failed*
You: "That's pretty meta - I thought you all didn't want to do that."
etc.
Although, they might have a different idea of what metagaming is? Maybe discuss it with them?
Otherwise, I definitely echo that you should say an MM or VGtM is not allowed at the table (on their side, obvs. I don't know if they would be pedantic about it). That's pretty meta, after all, and they said they didn't want to do that!
For multiple checks, that goes into the realm of how I define passive abilities. If they're going to do something over a long period of time, then use the passive score for that skill. (Remember, all skills have passive scores!)
But, as has been mentioned, that takes a lot of time - tell them that this is going to take 30 minutes, 3 hours, or whatever - do you really want to do that?
As for the map thing - you could always do theater of the mind and have the map behind a DM screen. Then, you can draw or set up the map only when combat takes place, and only for the portion of the map that they will be using. Sure, it'll take longer, but I think that might be a way to get around that behavior.
Otherwise, as was said already, I think you should consider having a session 0 type thing with your players. (You can have a session 0 at any time!)
Explain that you feel like the game you're running is very much like a video game, and you're not interested running a video game. There's plenty of video games out there that we can play, and this is not supposed to be that.
Just be honest - you want to DM something RP heavy and playing characters like characters rather than pawns to get from point A to point B and level up. If they want to play it like a video game, then someone else can DM or you can play an actual video game together. :/
Or the following solution:
"I want to search the room!"
OK, roll perception. [It's a 15.] You don't find anything.
"I want to search again!"
OK, roll again. [It's an 18.] On a second pass, you find a dead mouse behind the bookcase.
"I want to search again!"
OK, roll again. [It's a 22.] On a third pass you noticed you missed that the dead mouse is actually holding a tiny sign. The sign says "QUIT METAGAMING AND GET ON WITH IT."
I'm a starter DM and I want people to think I'm a good one,
what do you recommend
^^^ This.
To the OP:
Very clearly your players (or some of them) enjoy playing one way and you enjoy playing another. and the disconnect is bound to make everyone somewhat unhappy. Clearly it's doing that to you.
Now let me state right here and now before I say anything else that, I agree with you, and I consider what these players are doing to, minimally, be poor sportsmanship, and maximally, down-right cheating (which should not happen in an RPG but we all know it often does). I would be wildly unhappy with a group that does these things and so I would have to have a conversation with them forthwith.
In the old days, I would have absolutely and unambiguously punished these forms of behavior. First of all, in our group -- which was done as rotating DMs -- it was taken for granted that the Monster Manual was not permitted at the table to anyone but the DM. Additionally, looking things up when you went home after the session was not allowed either. OK, we were in high school, we all probably did it from time to time -- I did -- but if you got caught, you'd be in trouble. The main punishment here was, you cheated by looking in MM, so you beat the monster using OOC knowledge. No XP for that encounter. Just one incident of that is enough to get people to stop (or at least try to cover up) their metagaming.
Split party, and the other members "psychically know" the player is in trouble? I'd probably do something mean like a cave-in to keep them perma-separated, or have "wandering monsters" show up, or what have you to make their lives miserable. "Next time don't metagame, boyos."
Using map edges to figure things out -- well, we never had that issue because the DM wouldn't tell you where to start the map and the DM described it and we (by which I mean I, usually) mapped it. The DM might be kind enough to say, "Start near the center on this one" but maybe not, and if we were metagaming the map edges he would absolutely have refused to give us advice and just let the map run off the page. But if you are determined to show them your map, then I'd do all kinds of legerdemain like putting the secret door that leads to the treasure room right on the map edge and having the treasure room on another map.
However...
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do any of those sorts of things now, in my old age (of 50 instead of high school). I think it's better to talk things out and explain to them why you want them to avoid these things -- to increase immersion and improve the RP. If my players steadfastly refused to change, then, I would have to sadly tell them, that they need to find a new DM, as I am not willing to game-master under these circumstances.
That's a tough conversation to have. And you need to make it not be a threat, too. That is, don't word it as "Cut it out or I quit." Rather, reason with them and if they say "No, no, a thousand times no! We are looking in MM and we are going to argue monster stats with you!" then say, "All right, then I will have to stop DMing." And stick to it. Don't let them walk it back and say "We changed our minds" because they haven't -- they're just placating you to get you to keep DMing. Instead I would say "It's clear that you won't like the types of adventures I have in mind so it's better for everyone involved if I stop DMing. I'll happily play alongside you guys if someone else wants to DM."
And if that happens then I urge you, despite the powerful temptation to do so, NOT to do the MM and Map and Party meta stuff back to that DM that he was doing to you... Rather, be a role model for them and let them see how it can be done your way. Maybe they'll change, but probably not.
But you, at least, can put away the Alka-seltzer....
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.
Use character names. Rather than, "Amy, what do you do?", ask, "Amy, what does Bêlit do?"
Psychologically this will get the players thinking in their character's mindset, not their own.
Thanks for all the tips and advice people! It's greatly appreciated.
I'm definitely going to start making all the Wisdom and Intelligence checks behind the DM screen. That advice is golden. I'll also stop being such a softy. I always try to use the "Rule of Cool" (if it sounds cool, then allow it) and follow the mantra of "Yes, and...". Perhaps I need to be a bit more stringent with what I allow.
A few responses to some selected posts.
My example of history was just the first thing that came to mind. I usually follow this guideline for those types of checks
Arcana - Use this skill to discover more about elemental creatures, creatures of pure magic, arcane creations, and creatures of other planes
History - Use this skill to learn more about creatures that play prominent roles throughout history. For example, goblins, kobolds, and most other humanoid races play significant roles in history.
Nature - Use this skill to learn more about creatures tied directly to nature. Most often, this means animals (wolves, bats, etc.) but it could also be tied to druidic creations, or guardians of nature.
Religion - Use this skill to learn more about creatures of religious creation. Servants of deities, undead, and other holy or unholy beings would be described with this skill.
Sorry if my interpretation of the skill checks is different from yours. I know historically (3E and 4E) there were specific rules about a player character having knowledge about the monster they were fighting, but with 5E, I believe it's more vague and up for interpretation. This is just how I handle it.
My characters are NOT barely surviving, that's just how I enjoy MY RPG sessions as a player. In this case, the players are obliterating the monsters, and walking away from nearly every encounter with over 50% of their HP. And I'm using higher CR monsters than their level already due to the fact that they meta game so much and always play near perfect tactics. The issue is not that they FEAR they will die if they are less than perfect, it's that they want to one-shot EVERYTHING and feel like gods among insects.
They play Gloomhaven a lot. They love it. They tell me they like D&D more because I "spice things up". I think deep down they WANT to do more role play, but they have a hard time shaking their ties to board games and video games where they player always has perfect knowledge.
Thanks again to everyone who chimed in and offered advice.
Good luck at the the Table!
Simplest way that might get them in the habit of not metagaming so much, is stop them from being able to metagame. There are more than enough homebrew monsters available or just create some of your own. Can't metagame if you can't find the stats lol, like I said earlier when they encounter something that "looks like" a creature, let them check their stats all they like and do all the checks they like, give them the information "You recognise that this is <insert creature>, but something looks slightly different about this one, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is something wrong with it!" They then argue and point at the monster manual, you then reply with "but something looks slightly different about this one, you can't quite put your finger on it, but there is something wrong with it!"
Change a couple of the stats around, give it poison damage, make it death touched so it deals necrotic damage.
Granted this could backfire spectacularly as they enjoy fighting these new monsters so much you end up having to create a lot more, but hey ho lol
From Within Chaos Comes Order!