Hi There. I'm a DM and I've been playing with a group for about two years now. I do twice as many games as a player as I do as a DM, so I am primarily a player. But I have also been DMing for awhile now as well, and I have been told my adventurers are fun by the players. I am not a softy to my players either and I frequently hit them with challenges that they enjoy.
Every other DM I know complains a ton about Power Gamers and Meta-Gaming... it drives me nuts. It makes the mood gloomy and negative and players are now afraid that they might accidentally meta-game and make you angry. I have a few tips for how to deal with it without being a total complainy butthead.
TIPS FOR HANDLING POWERGAMERS WITHOUT BEING A WHINY BUTTHEAD!
1. Do not make the BBEG by yourself before you've even know who you are playing with. I've seen a lot of DM's write their own worlds... make their own cities... have interlocking stories and whatnot. My advice? Be willing to adjust that story or make it very simple and let the players fill in the details.
2. IF YOU CAN, have a one on one session with each player and ask them detailed questions about their characters. Session zero is always the best way to go. If you get really good at Tip 2, you can ignore Tip 1 and build an amazing world, but only if you've incorporated your player characters into them properly.
3. Learn the subclasses your players are taking and playtest them in combat. Run a 6 round combat playtest by yourself or one on one with the player. Learn their features at higher levels. No seriously, learn their action economy for 6 rounds at every level one way or another. Optimize it. Power game before they do. Do that INSTEAD of writing your epic backstory for that one NPC you made up as a surrogate player character. Suddenly, power gamers won't be a problem anymore. DMs who complain about power gamers the most are oftentimes the DMs who don't understand every class fully and are surprised by a built in class feature that has nothing to do with power-gaming and everything to do with the subclass. Then they assume that the player read it wrong and open a rule book to gaze at the class feature for five minutes only to admit that the player was right all along or to accuse the player of cheating because the player misread their ability. That's not a good thing. Better that you and the players are on the same page with action economies.
4. If a player has a ridiculous goal, learn it, and HELP THEM ACCOMPLISH IT. For instance, if your player wants to min/max speed and travel a mile in a split second as their story, that can be a really fun long term goal for them and the party. If they want to find Blackrazor as a warlock and reunite it with Whelm and Wave, that is an amazing story. Pursue it. I've seen too many DMs just shoot down good story opportunities because it did not fit their vision for the story. That is a dumb dumb move. HUMOR YOUR PLAYERS.
5. Be generous. For once, give your players something good. If you know their classes, you can better reward them, don't roll randomly on the treasure table. Take note of the magic items they need or that could be useful to them. Don't immediately jump to the best stuff either... just start with common items that work with their classes well and scale that up slowly. But make sure you are rewarding them for letting you play God. If you do, they will find your campaign very fun, and will keep playing with fewer complaints.
6. Avoid Complaining. Just don't do it.
7. If they make you mad, just throw a few creatures about 3 or 4 CRs too high at them without saying a word about the transgression. If things get too hairy for the party, just reduce the super hard creatures by about 50 health points in secret and let your party have a narrowly earned victory. It makes them very aware you could decide to kill them at any moment and you don't have to complain about them or say anything to them to do it.
Now your players are still powergamers, but they feel they can trust you. You are surprised less by their antics, and they are grateful to you for being such a good and kindhearted DM. Not to mention, you are doing way less work every week and getting way better results. You are welcome.
META-GAMING
Ugh. Just please stop complaining about your players having good communication. The reason the word meta-gaming was made up was to enforce a rule that reduces the amount of communication the players have between each other.
Are your players all accomplished actors? Are ALL of them SUPER CREATIVE? If the answer is no, don't expect them to understand how not to meta-game.
Programming minded people almost NEED to meta-game to have fun and they are the LARGE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of players.
I want to say that covers all the bases but it doesn't, because I've seen the all encompassing term Meta-Gaming also used to undermine super creative and fun ideas for no reason.
"Your character's intelligence score isn't high enough to have thought of that."
That is just about the worst thing you can do as a DM. The players are having fun trying to solve the puzzle you've created. One person, the person who rolled a 10 intelligence because that stat is utterly useless for a bard, came up with a brilliant way of solving your ill-thought out puzzle. Now you've decided to retcon that out of existence because ALL OF A SUDDEN the intelligence stat is now super important. You, in your infinite DM wisdom, were not prepared for the solution they devised and you don't have an improvisational bone in your body. That is the only time DMs enforce the "No Meta-Gaming" rule at the table and everyone knows it.
Never. Ever. Do this. Even if their intelligence is 8. Even a broken clock is right twice a day and maybe that character was suddenly brilliant for a small moment.
Meta-gaming is largely just figuring out how the rules work. It's easy to read them but extremely difficult to internalize them. You need to allow your players to do this, mainly because Meta-gaming is simply a stage of learning.
I used to teach dancing. There was similar concept among dancers when it came to meta-gaming. Looking down at your feet. It's kind of like that. Meta-gaming is like looking down at your feet. Once you actually learn how to dance, you stop looking down at your feet and you look where you are going. But you have to look at your feet first to make sure they are doing the right thing. As a teacher I never complained about that, although it was annoying, but rather I gave the dancers a gentle reminder to look at their surroundings instead.
Once the players have talked it out enough, they will stop meta-gaming, and roleplay N A T U R A L L Y and it actually makes them better roleplayers. They'll be looking at the world you created, rather than at a giant set of rules with many confusing exceptions. It's a natural progression, not something you can force.
Okay, that does it for my rant. I realize many of you won't like this at all. That's okay with me. Post your disagreements. Love to hear 'em.
P.S. There are actually bad players out there too. Those are not who I am talking about. Problem players are entirely different subject. This is for DMs who get angry because they think all anyone does in this game is power game.
So if I get this post right: 1. you're frustrated by other DM's being to harsh towards players for metagaming or powerplaying 2. in your opinion the main cause is DM's being to harsh, unknowing or too demanding and 3. you think by making this post you will help them?
Just to cover for the reactions you already make some disclaimers and unrelated remarks by the end of your post.
Look, I am not the best DM, I enjoy the game as player just as well independent of the playstyle. I think you should really ask yourself, why you are so frustrated by this - like you said it's part of the learning experience - this is also true for every DM. And yes, there are some valid points in your post - especially the session zero remark - but this won't solve anything besides fulfilling your desire to empty your heart into this post and starting another frustrating debate in a topic.
Your tips make perfect sense so put them on paper and talk about it with the people at your table that this is how you feel and like to play your games, if it doesn't match find other groups. But for this forum, I really don't see the purpose of this post.
to;dr: Don’t worry, be happy. Power gaming doesn’t really exist, know your party, challenge the party, CR is a guideline, not a law. Metagaming also doesn’t really exist, it is the DM’s world, things only exist if you allow them to exist. Orcs as the bad guys cause the MM says so, not so fast, what if they are the good guys in your world? As long as any changes to the core mechanics of the game are communicated, everything else is fluff, and fluff is malleable.
The purpose of this post is to share my findings with DMs. I feel like I see a lot of complaining about Power-Gaming and Meta-Gaming, this is meant to address those DMs. I stated this purpose at the beginning of my post and end of my post.
"Every other DM I know complains a ton about Power Gamers and Meta-Gaming... it drives me nuts. It makes the mood gloomy and negative and players are now afraid that they might accidentally meta-game and make you angry. I have a few tips for how to deal with it without being a total complainy butthead."
And then I even clarified what I meant in a Post Script.
"P.S. There are actually bad players out there too. Those are not who I am talking about. Problem players are an entirely different subject. This is for DMs who get angry because they think all anyone does in this game is power game."
The purpose of this forum is in the title.
"DUNGEON MASTERS ONLY"
I am a Dungeon Master, and this advice is for Dungeon Masters only, in order to help them become better Dungeon Masters.
I hope that is good enough for you.
Edit: I removed a line because I thought it was a bit meaner sounding than I meant it to be. I apologize for that if you saw it. In this post, I'm just trying to build a very solid case for the purpose of this post, not to be condescending.
"but this won't solve anything besides fulfilling your desire to empty your heart into this post and starting another frustrating debate in a topic."
It has helped me already. Putting my techniques on paper has actually help solidify my methods as a DM. Writing down the rules I have in my head has actually helped me think through my process as a Dungeon Master.
I'm also open to criticism, which is something I really need in order to become better. That's another primary purpose of this post. I need someone to disagree with me so that I can refine my methods and maybe incorporate some of the critiques into my playstyle as a DM if they are better suggestions.
Another thing is, I also fell into the trap of complaining about Power Gaming and Meta Gaming and then I decided against it. So when I call DMs whiny buttheads, I'm really talking to my past self who is guilty of those mistakes.
So I wholeheartedly and fully disagree with you on this point. This has accomplished, at least for me, much more than emptying my heart and starting another frustrating debate.
I think in my post I almost get to this point. Don't squash the thoughts of your players before they can act. Likewise, don't squash my post before I get a chance to get feedback and become better.
I personally have zero issues with meta-gaming. I don't even see it as something that is undesirable. Players are having fun playing avatars in a fantasy world. If they want to use out of world game knowledge to make decisions that's totally fine with me.
Power-gamers on the other hand, I have a problem with, but I don't think what I mean by that term in exactly the way you mean. Or I could be wrong. I mean gamers who enjoy finding and repeatedly using exploits in the rules to cancel encounters before they even get started; usually also making the rest of the players feel they are redundant. I don't have any problem with a player that wants to do cool stuff with their character that plays to their strengths - that's totally normal and should even be encouraged.
I personally have zero issues with meta-gaming. I don't even see it as something that is undesirable. Players are having fun playing avatars in a fantasy world. If they want to use out of world game knowledge to make decisions that's totally fine with me.
Power-gamers on the other hand, I have a problem with, but I don't think what I mean by that term in exactly the way you mean. Or I could be wrong. I mean gamers who enjoy finding and repeatedly using exploits in the rules to cancel encounters before they even get started; usually also making the rest of the players feel they are redundant. I don't have any problem with a player that wants to do cool stuff with their character that plays to their strengths - that's totally normal and should even be encouraged.
By power gamers, I am referring to min-maxing. That sounds like what I would describe as problem gamers. I want to have encounters as a player and I enjoy combat. I'll give a quick definition of my version of a power gamer, which also could be wrong.
Power Gamers: Gamers who min-max their characters, work to do the most damage possible, have the best defenses possible, and always want to choose the best possible way to accomplish a goal or defeat a monster.
In my experience they don't usually avoid encounters, but rather seek them out... but not to the degree a murder hobo would.
What your describing sounds like a problem gamer by my definition. In my opinion a power gamer would use an encounter to show off their power, instead of avoiding it altogether.
Again, my definitions could be wrong.
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Hi There. I'm a DM and I've been playing with a group for about two years now. I do twice as many games as a player as I do as a DM, so I am primarily a player. But I have also been DMing for awhile now as well, and I have been told my adventurers are fun by the players. I am not a softy to my players either and I frequently hit them with challenges that they enjoy.
Every other DM I know complains a ton about Power Gamers and Meta-Gaming... it drives me nuts. It makes the mood gloomy and negative and players are now afraid that they might accidentally meta-game and make you angry. I have a few tips for how to deal with it without being a total complainy butthead.
TIPS FOR HANDLING POWERGAMERS WITHOUT BEING A WHINY BUTTHEAD!
1. Do not make the BBEG by yourself before you've even know who you are playing with. I've seen a lot of DM's write their own worlds... make their own cities... have interlocking stories and whatnot. My advice? Be willing to adjust that story or make it very simple and let the players fill in the details.
2. IF YOU CAN, have a one on one session with each player and ask them detailed questions about their characters. Session zero is always the best way to go. If you get really good at Tip 2, you can ignore Tip 1 and build an amazing world, but only if you've incorporated your player characters into them properly.
3. Learn the subclasses your players are taking and playtest them in combat. Run a 6 round combat playtest by yourself or one on one with the player. Learn their features at higher levels. No seriously, learn their action economy for 6 rounds at every level one way or another. Optimize it. Power game before they do. Do that INSTEAD of writing your epic backstory for that one NPC you made up as a surrogate player character. Suddenly, power gamers won't be a problem anymore. DMs who complain about power gamers the most are oftentimes the DMs who don't understand every class fully and are surprised by a built in class feature that has nothing to do with power-gaming and everything to do with the subclass. Then they assume that the player read it wrong and open a rule book to gaze at the class feature for five minutes only to admit that the player was right all along or to accuse the player of cheating because the player misread their ability. That's not a good thing. Better that you and the players are on the same page with action economies.
4. If a player has a ridiculous goal, learn it, and HELP THEM ACCOMPLISH IT. For instance, if your player wants to min/max speed and travel a mile in a split second as their story, that can be a really fun long term goal for them and the party. If they want to find Blackrazor as a warlock and reunite it with Whelm and Wave, that is an amazing story. Pursue it. I've seen too many DMs just shoot down good story opportunities because it did not fit their vision for the story. That is a dumb dumb move. HUMOR YOUR PLAYERS.
5. Be generous. For once, give your players something good. If you know their classes, you can better reward them, don't roll randomly on the treasure table. Take note of the magic items they need or that could be useful to them. Don't immediately jump to the best stuff either... just start with common items that work with their classes well and scale that up slowly. But make sure you are rewarding them for letting you play God. If you do, they will find your campaign very fun, and will keep playing with fewer complaints.
6. Avoid Complaining. Just don't do it.
7. If they make you mad, just throw a few creatures about 3 or 4 CRs too high at them without saying a word about the transgression. If things get too hairy for the party, just reduce the super hard creatures by about 50 health points in secret and let your party have a narrowly earned victory. It makes them very aware you could decide to kill them at any moment and you don't have to complain about them or say anything to them to do it.
Now your players are still powergamers, but they feel they can trust you. You are surprised less by their antics, and they are grateful to you for being such a good and kindhearted DM. Not to mention, you are doing way less work every week and getting way better results. You are welcome.
META-GAMING
Ugh. Just please stop complaining about your players having good communication. The reason the word meta-gaming was made up was to enforce a rule that reduces the amount of communication the players have between each other.
Are your players all accomplished actors? Are ALL of them SUPER CREATIVE? If the answer is no, don't expect them to understand how not to meta-game.
Programming minded people almost NEED to meta-game to have fun and they are the LARGE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of players.
I want to say that covers all the bases but it doesn't, because I've seen the all encompassing term Meta-Gaming also used to undermine super creative and fun ideas for no reason.
"Your character's intelligence score isn't high enough to have thought of that."
That is just about the worst thing you can do as a DM. The players are having fun trying to solve the puzzle you've created. One person, the person who rolled a 10 intelligence because that stat is utterly useless for a bard, came up with a brilliant way of solving your ill-thought out puzzle. Now you've decided to retcon that out of existence because ALL OF A SUDDEN the intelligence stat is now super important. You, in your infinite DM wisdom, were not prepared for the solution they devised and you don't have an improvisational bone in your body. That is the only time DMs enforce the "No Meta-Gaming" rule at the table and everyone knows it.
Never. Ever. Do this. Even if their intelligence is 8. Even a broken clock is right twice a day and maybe that character was suddenly brilliant for a small moment.
Meta-gaming is largely just figuring out how the rules work. It's easy to read them but extremely difficult to internalize them. You need to allow your players to do this, mainly because Meta-gaming is simply a stage of learning.
I used to teach dancing. There was similar concept among dancers when it came to meta-gaming. Looking down at your feet. It's kind of like that. Meta-gaming is like looking down at your feet. Once you actually learn how to dance, you stop looking down at your feet and you look where you are going. But you have to look at your feet first to make sure they are doing the right thing. As a teacher I never complained about that, although it was annoying, but rather I gave the dancers a gentle reminder to look at their surroundings instead.
Once the players have talked it out enough, they will stop meta-gaming, and roleplay N A T U R A L L Y and it actually makes them better roleplayers. They'll be looking at the world you created, rather than at a giant set of rules with many confusing exceptions. It's a natural progression, not something you can force.
Okay, that does it for my rant. I realize many of you won't like this at all. That's okay with me. Post your disagreements. Love to hear 'em.
P.S. There are actually bad players out there too. Those are not who I am talking about. Problem players are entirely different subject. This is for DMs who get angry because they think all anyone does in this game is power game.
So if I get this post right: 1. you're frustrated by other DM's being to harsh towards players for metagaming or powerplaying 2. in your opinion the main cause is DM's being to harsh, unknowing or too demanding and 3. you think by making this post you will help them?
Just to cover for the reactions you already make some disclaimers and unrelated remarks by the end of your post.
Look, I am not the best DM, I enjoy the game as player just as well independent of the playstyle. I think you should really ask yourself, why you are so frustrated by this - like you said it's part of the learning experience - this is also true for every DM. And yes, there are some valid points in your post - especially the session zero remark - but this won't solve anything besides fulfilling your desire to empty your heart into this post and starting another frustrating debate in a topic.
Your tips make perfect sense so put them on paper and talk about it with the people at your table that this is how you feel and like to play your games, if it doesn't match find other groups. But for this forum, I really don't see the purpose of this post.
to;dr: Don’t worry, be happy.
Power gaming doesn’t really exist, know your party, challenge the party, CR is a guideline, not a law.
Metagaming also doesn’t really exist, it is the DM’s world, things only exist if you allow them to exist. Orcs as the bad guys cause the MM says so, not so fast, what if they are the good guys in your world? As long as any changes to the core mechanics of the game are communicated, everything else is fluff, and fluff is malleable.
Rob,
The purpose of this post is to share my findings with DMs. I feel like I see a lot of complaining about Power-Gaming and Meta-Gaming, this is meant to address those DMs. I stated this purpose at the beginning of my post and end of my post.
"Every other DM I know complains a ton about Power Gamers and Meta-Gaming... it drives me nuts. It makes the mood gloomy and negative and players are now afraid that they might accidentally meta-game and make you angry. I have a few tips for how to deal with it without being a total complainy butthead."
And then I even clarified what I meant in a Post Script.
"P.S. There are actually bad players out there too. Those are not who I am talking about. Problem players are an entirely different subject. This is for DMs who get angry because they think all anyone does in this game is power game."
The purpose of this forum is in the title.
"DUNGEON MASTERS ONLY"
I am a Dungeon Master, and this advice is for Dungeon Masters only, in order to help them become better Dungeon Masters.
I hope that is good enough for you.
Edit: I removed a line because I thought it was a bit meaner sounding than I meant it to be. I apologize for that if you saw it. In this post, I'm just trying to build a very solid case for the purpose of this post, not to be condescending.
Edit 2: Grammar
"but this won't solve anything besides fulfilling your desire to empty your heart into this post and starting another frustrating debate in a topic."
It has helped me already. Putting my techniques on paper has actually help solidify my methods as a DM. Writing down the rules I have in my head has actually helped me think through my process as a Dungeon Master.
I'm also open to criticism, which is something I really need in order to become better. That's another primary purpose of this post. I need someone to disagree with me so that I can refine my methods and maybe incorporate some of the critiques into my playstyle as a DM if they are better suggestions.
Another thing is, I also fell into the trap of complaining about Power Gaming and Meta Gaming and then I decided against it. So when I call DMs whiny buttheads, I'm really talking to my past self who is guilty of those mistakes.
So I wholeheartedly and fully disagree with you on this point. This has accomplished, at least for me, much more than emptying my heart and starting another frustrating debate.
I think in my post I almost get to this point. Don't squash the thoughts of your players before they can act. Likewise, don't squash my post before I get a chance to get feedback and become better.
I personally have zero issues with meta-gaming. I don't even see it as something that is undesirable. Players are having fun playing avatars in a fantasy world. If they want to use out of world game knowledge to make decisions that's totally fine with me.
Power-gamers on the other hand, I have a problem with, but I don't think what I mean by that term in exactly the way you mean. Or I could be wrong. I mean gamers who enjoy finding and repeatedly using exploits in the rules to cancel encounters before they even get started; usually also making the rest of the players feel they are redundant. I don't have any problem with a player that wants to do cool stuff with their character that plays to their strengths - that's totally normal and should even be encouraged.
By power gamers, I am referring to min-maxing. That sounds like what I would describe as problem gamers. I want to have encounters as a player and I enjoy combat. I'll give a quick definition of my version of a power gamer, which also could be wrong.
Power Gamers: Gamers who min-max their characters, work to do the most damage possible, have the best defenses possible, and always want to choose the best possible way to accomplish a goal or defeat a monster.
In my experience they don't usually avoid encounters, but rather seek them out... but not to the degree a murder hobo would.
What your describing sounds like a problem gamer by my definition. In my opinion a power gamer would use an encounter to show off their power, instead of avoiding it altogether.
Again, my definitions could be wrong.