Ok here is some background. I have a huge campaign set up to take my players all the way from level 1 to 20, and here is the party I have to deal with: 

Player 1: Dwarf Barbarian. Most experienced player in the group, but still not very experienced. Sometimes he takes it seriously, sometimes he doesn't. I was in a group with him before where we were both players and he did some serious cheating from time to time. He is definitely the biggest metagamer.

Player 2: Wood Elf Rogue. He is somewhat inexperienced. He has played before with Player 4 (who is his younger brother) while having Player 5 as the DM. The problem with this is that none of them took it seriously and they ignored a lot of rules. P5 as a DM gave them a lot of free stuff with no explanation or logic involved (e.g. P4 becomes a street dancer and gets platinum coins thrown at him from his audience. Yeah). This resulted in P2 and P4 having a different view of the game then usual. P2, being the older one, is open to learning the rules, but still metagames quite a lot (e.g. reading out of the monster manual as we go through a combat encounter). P4 is more immature about it (I'll get to that later). P2 is my second biggest metagamer.

Player 3: Human Rogue. Does not metagame. He has never played before but is a good learner. He takes it more seriously than anyone else, and he really does enjoy playing. As mentioned before, he does not cheat in any way (I guess there aren't any ways to cheat at this game, but this is the word I am going to use). 

Player 4: Dragonborn Monk. I pretty much have a conversation like this every session with him (true story): P4: (yes he really said this)"Can I have a pet ancient red dragon?" Me: "Do you want me to give you one or do you want to find one?" "I want you to give me one." "Why would I give you one?" "*Player 5* let me have one." "I'm not *Player 5*."

Player 5: Half-Elf Monk. The infamous DM. I would like to point out now that his effect on P2 and P4 is not the problem I am here to ask you for help with, this is just background information. P5 misses most of the meetings and isn't particularly problematic, so I don't have much to say here.

Me, the DM: I normally try to be somewhat laid back and not to strict so that my players aren't having fun, but I think this has led to them not taking me seriously. I gave them a huge speech on why metagaming is bad and I hate it during our first few sessions, but they think it's funny and they do it to purposely make my job harder (i probably shouldn't have mentioned in my speech that it "makes my job harder", because that probably set them off). Despite this, they still cheat because they think it's funny. Now, the campaign that I spent ages working on starts with the published adventure "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist." I chose this one because I know my players, and this introduction includes elements that they would really enjoy. The setting also sets up the groundwork for the "Big Stuff" I have planned for when they complete that adventure. For those familiar with the adventure, they have recently acquired Trollskull Manor and they are all getting side jobs to earn enough money to pay for guild licenses and renovations so they can reopen the tavern. I would also like to note that Players 1,2, and 3 attend the most out of the group, and players 4 and 5 miss a lot of the sessions. 

Ok, with all of that out of the way, here is my dilemma: Players 1 and 2 have teamed up for a metagaming nightmare. They went to our local game store and spent about 45 minutes reading straight out of the store's copy of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. They then left (probably kicked out) and came over to my house. I was in a meeting in a different room, and they were in my room reading from my copy without my knowledge. When I got off my meeting, I came in to them hurriedly shoving my book back into my bag of DnD stuff. I questioned them into revealing what they knew, and they told me that they had only read the section that we were on. So I pretended to dismiss this and spoke with them about other DnD stuff, and they accidentally revealed a lot. (including that they were at the game store). I was beyond mad, and they think it's hilarious. I have threatened them a lot in the past that metagaming will be punished, but since I have given them so any chances of redemption and haven't actually done anything yet, they don't believe me. The time has come. Lets roll out the Punishments.

Here are the ones I already have planned, but I would like your feedback on the situation.

Punishment 1: I crush you like you crushed me. P2 has taken up bounty hunting as his side job, and in his first job he hunted down an insane homicidal maniac for the city watch. This was before the incident previously described. Upon finding his house, the criminal jumped out the window of his 2nd story room at the inn. P2 inspected the area, and found a barrel of smokepowder. P1 (who was 2 blocks away) told him it was gunpowder and P2 couldn't resist but light it. He rolled successfully, and jumped out of the smashed window as the building behind him exploded. Note that I never explicitly stated that the whole building exploded. He apprehended the criminal, was payed, and took up another bounty, assisted by P2. They hunted down a rogue wizard who was disguised and gave him to the watch for questioning. They are currently making they're way back home. The punishment is that the building that P2 damaged will fall on the 2 of them on their way home. Pros: They will easily conect this event with my punishment threats and learn metagaming is bad. Cons: They could create new characters and derail my campaign in revenge.

Punishment 2: /ban. This one is pretty drastic, and I'm not to keen on it, but if it needs to be done, I'll do it. I'll just straight up kick them out of the group. If they're going to act this way, I'll let them do that. Just do it to someone else. Pros: I won't have to deal with them. Cons: These are really close friends of mine and I wouldn't want this to affect our relationship. This group is also some of the only connections they have to playing the game.

Punishment 3: Do nothing. Overall, they are a pretty stupid group. No offense. They never take notes, and they never think things completely through. I have to find ways to constantly remind them of important info through NPC's and such so that they don't forget. And sometimes they get pretty so we don't always get much done, which leads to them forgetting what happened last session. I think just leaving them alone and not interfering at all can and will lead to them making really dumb decisions and that they will be their own undoing.

Punishment 4: Change gears. If I make some changes to the campaign, they will still not know what's coming, or I can ditch the whole Dragon Heist adventure and move on to the "Big Stuff." This will also lead to some dumb decisions and self-punishment on their behalf as (for example) they attempt to prepare for the Fireball chapter by spending lots of money on an event that won't happen. Pros: It gives me the element of surprise and it will result in them losing the chance to get 500,000 gold due to their actions. Cons: It will affect the Players who don't deserve the punishment.

So guys, please help me out by giving your experiences or new ideas. Any kind of feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 No D&D is better than bad D&D, and these folks don't sound like they're going to stop. If they're doing this in part specifically to make your job harder, I wouldn't want them in my game. I don't know if I'd want people like that as friends. If they're not going to respect you as the DM, but you really don't want to go so far as questioning their friendship, the best I can suggest is seeing if someone else will DM. But I wouldn't continue to DM for them.

See if they can metagame the following scenario.........Rocks fall players die. Then they can create new characters if they want to act right. If not I agree with pocketmouse that no D&D is better than what you are dealing with now.

There are also other options for you to play/DM. Since I have got back into playing all of it is done on here PbP as I live in a rural area with no one I know of that would be interested in playing.

pocketmouse's advice is great...another option might be to just say they're done - they're now level 5, they have 5,000 gp each and the game is over for them - they can come back when the rest of group finishes the book (give each remaining player a sidekick if it helps them out). doing what they did is a slap in the face to you - basically saying all that additional time you're putting into preping and making it an enjoyable experience for everyone is worthless.   if you don't put a stop to it now it won't stop....and it won't be fun for the other players either.

edit: good luck

The solution is: do not play with these people (except for P3). They will do nothing but ruin your experience, because their idea of what is fun (goofing around, not taking it seriously, asking and expecting to get a pet ancient red dragon, cheating by looking up monsters and looking your books) is contrary to yours. You want them to play the game seriously, not cheat, and so on, but they think doing this is fun. If you lower the hammer on them, they're not going to change. They're just going to think you have an iron rod up your you-know-where.

There is no point to punishing these players. Your issue is not with the individual acts they are taking, but with their fundamental approach to the game. It's like when I used to play tennis with my sister. She just wanted to hit the ball around and was not particularly worried if it went in or out (as long as it was hittable), and had absolutely no interest in keeping score. I had to stop playing with her, because I wanted to play an actual match. I had to play with friends who also wanted to win sets, earn break points, and so on. I love my sister, but it is not fun for me to just whack the ball around with no purpose. I want the backhand passing shot up the line to mean something more than that she just didn't hit it, etc.

This doesn't mean my sister plays tennis "wrong." She just plays in a way I don't find fun, and I play it (by keeping score) in a way she doesn't fine fun. So the best solution was for her to play with her (like-minded) friends, and me to play with mine. 

Likewise here -- you find it fun to play "traditional" D&D, in which the players don't cheat, don't read MM or DMG to find out what the monsters can do, don't read the module ahead of time, and don't ask for off-the-wall things like pet red dragons at 1st level. P1, 2, and 4 don't want to play the traditional way. Now, it is possible that if they played the traditional way with a more classical DM, they might find they liked the game better. But there are no guarantees, and depending on their personality, it might never happen.

Your best bet is to take P3 aside, and ask if he wants to keep playing with all this silliness with another DM (because this is not up your street, as it were), or would he rather continue with you playing D&D "straight". If he says yes, then you and he find a couple more people who want to play it "straight" and let the other guys find a game in which the off-the-wall stuff is acceptable to their DM.

Yeah, just tell them this isn’t the way you want to play and that continuing this way is going to affect your friendship. Send them packing and find some new players. I guarantee if you post a “DM looking for players” on the Looking for Players & Groups forum here, you’ll have four new players in about an hour.

I’ve started to DM most of the time, but I also play sometimes too. It’s much more fun for me when I’m playing to forget that I know half of the Monster Manual by heart and just play my character based on what HE knows. It was more fun casting a spell that does cold damage on a monster that is resistant to cold damage than it would have been metagaming and casting different spells based on my knowledge that my PC didn’t have. 

My DM appreciated it, and he laughed when I told him about it after the session and he told me that he’d forgotten about the resistance and I was doing full damage when I should have been doing half damage. But what’s important is everyone at the table had fun, where if I would have rattled off our opponent’s weaknesses it would have made the discovery and adventure less fun and boring for everyone!

I’m DMing a campaign right now where 2 of the 4 players have played and/or DMed every single published adventure over the last 20 years. They both enjoy the fact that I’m home brewing the world and the campaign because they’re encountering things that they don’t know and have never seen. It’s more fun for them than playing adventures that they know is because they’re experiencing the mystery of new things that they’ve never seen. Don’t give me too much credit, I’m using the map of our world and the political groups from the times of the Roman Empire so I don’t have to put in that much work. Maybe you can completely home brew a side quest and use monsters that you create yourself so they don’t have a clue what any of them are and they don’t know anything about the scenario, the challenges, or their opponents. And after the side quest ask them if it was more fun or less fun than when they read ahead and know everything before the sessions the way they have been doing. I guarantee that they’ll have more fun because I have more fun when I don’t know what’s coming next! The question is if they’ll admit it or not. 

Have you tried being direct with them about (1) your expectations they not do these kinds of things, and (2) the reasons why?

It's not clear from your post whether you have had that conversation! If so, and they're not respecting it, then it's up to you whether continuing to play with them is worth the frustration.  But if you've straight up asked them to stop and they haven't, I wouldn't expect that to magically change.

But -- if you haven't been direct with them yet you could try straight up saying something like, "If you are going to play in a game I DM, I need you not to deliberately seek out spoilers for the campaign to learn more about it than the other players know." And explain WHY that kind of thing makes the game less fun for everyone.  This may get you better results than "because I'm the DM and I said so."

Willingness and ability to DM gives you a lot of options other than letting people be rude to you.  I've actually been looking for a DM to run the Waterdeep modules for me and my friends! I bet you could find another group to DM for without too much trouble.  But I hope you're able to work things out with your friends.   Good luck!

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Quote from BCDNDTurtleS >>

 

 and came over to my house. I was in a meeting in a different room, and they were in my room reading from my copy without my knowledge. When I got off my meeting, I came in to them hurriedly shoving my book back into my bag of DnD stuff. 

 That right there. Going into your stuff without your consent. 

Forget that crap, I wouldn't put up with it. They'd be gone. 

Continue with Player 3 and 5.

I'm with Wysperra. I don't know how close you are to these people, but if I found someone going through my stuff without that being an accepted practice, I would be livid and they'd be gone from the game and my life. Now, if they're you're friends, thats a bit different because you might not want to cut people like that, even if they're being jerks. If going through each others D&D stuff is common practice for you guys, all well and good then.

Assuming you want to continue the game with these people, change gears. it's really your only option. Change some of the bigger bad guys' abilities and spells. Change some of the maps. Change as much as you are willing to put the work in. Bonus points for changing something only enough that metgaming with the original knowledge will get them into even MORE trouble. They say they know "Captain Bob"? Well, Captain Bob had to resign in disgrace because it turned out he was dealing info to the thieves guild, so now they have some questions for the party. etc etc.

The other thing we have not really mentioned but should have...

In the future, before you start playing, make sure you have a good, long, 2-3 hour, open, honest "session 0" with your table, to ensure that everyone is on the same page about the kind of game you want to play.

If you still really want to play with them, maybe try changing modules without telling them. They've made it pretty clear that they don't want to play Dragon Heist, rather they just want to know everything and recite what they know, which doesn't even sound like playing, more just like work. 

If they didn't realize how or why what they did was wrong, I'm sure scrapping the module and starting a new one will get the message across. If they ask about it, tell them "well, you cheated, so clearly you weren't having fun, so we're playing something else now."

It sounds like what P1 and P2 find fun is not what you as a DM would find fun. They obviously dont like drama suspense, or learning things in game. Waterdeep is a terrible module for those types of players. Perhaps they want to 'win,' and they feel like they will have more fun if they know whats coming.

Maybe they dont trust you as a DM to help them have fun, and they feel more comfortable knowing ahead of time what they are going to deal with. The easiest solution is to have them find a different DM and you find different players. If you want to keep this group, there needs to be a very comprehensive conversation out of game about what everyone likes and see if it can be salvaged. 

I suspect that they also feel like its us vs. DM and the odds are unfair in their favor, and they felt like they were just trying to even the playing field.

I guess I would look at priorities. Despite any flaws(we're only human), are these people all good friends to you? If so, maybe take the focus away from D&D a little. Everyone is more into or less into the same things as others. Maybe the ones who take D&D less seriously just want to joke around and have social interaction, and for your part knowing this, could allow a game that caters to that mentality. You only have one serious player, maybe you and that player could be part of a second group that is more serious about the game overall.

I don't want to make too many assumptions but, it sounds like you are all pretty young with time to burn. If that is the case just enjoy being with your friends and don't take it too seriously. As far as doling out punishments or bannings, I feel that really solves nothing. It only gives rise to more real life problems, like losing friends. Anyone just saying "drop them" or "I wouldn't put up with that", really? You don't have any friends or family that you love dearly yet, also drive you nuts at times, due to their faults? Life is short, by the time you realize this, it might already be too late.

Quote from Wtfdndad >>

I guess I would look at priorities. Despite any flaws(we're only human), are these people all good friends to you? If so, maybe take the focus away from D&D a little. Everyone is more into or less into the same things as others. Maybe the ones who take D&D less seriously just want to joke around and have social interaction, and for your part knowing this, could allow a game that caters to that mentality. You only have one serious player, maybe you and that player could be part of a second group that is more serious about the game overall.

I don't want to make too many assumptions but, it sounds like you are all pretty young with time to burn. If that is the case just enjoy being with your friends and don't take it too seriously. As far as doling out punishments or bannings, I feel that really solves nothing. It only gives rise to more real life problems, like losing friends. Anyone just saying "drop them" or "I wouldn't put up with that", really? You don't have any friends or family that you love dearly yet, also drive you nuts at times, due to their faults? Life is short, by the time you realize this, it might already be too late.

 I agree completely, but it seems like this D&D game is not and probably won't be fun for you. I would drop this game and propose to do something else as a group. Some examples could be playing video games or some kind of sport (if it is possible in this Covid-19 world we live in). Then you could start a new game with player 3 and some other people as well. The important thing is to play with people who share your idea of a fun game but also to keep your old friends too.

I agree with the last couple of posters. "Straight" (traditional, follow-the-rules-mostly-as-written) D&D seems to be of interest to some of you (you and P3, mainly) but not to the others (P1, P2, and P4 for sure, and probably P5 based on your descriptions of how he DMed). So find a game for which you all agree on the same playstyle and can have fun together.

 Thank you guys so much! Your feedback has been so great! I honestly did not expect to get this many replies so soon, but it is lucky that I did because we are planning on having another session today. I think that I should have mentioned in the post that my problem players, despite their behavior, really do enjoy playing DnD and are pretty into my campaign. They are all constantly begging to play pretty much every day (which is pretty annoying, I admit), but I think that the source of the problem might be that they see me as a friend, and not as a DM, and act accordingly. I think that they see their actions as joking between friends and that they fail to see the impact it is having on our gameplay. These are really good friends of mine, and I don't want something like this to change that. I want you to know that I really do appreciate all of the feedback you have given me. I think in todays session I am going to have a sincere and serious talk with all of them and maybe even show them this thread so that they can see the other side of their actions. 

Best of luck with it. I hope you can all get onto the same page and find a way to enjoy the same campaign.

Look up some ideas on how to run a session 0. It's OK if you're a few sessions into it. You can still stop and say, "Today we are going to have a session 0, which we should have had at the beginning." and then do the things that are advised in a session 0. Like... talk about what everyone wants out of a game, and what kind of campaign they want to play, and whatnot.

Three questions I ask during session 0, which I got from the Dungeon Dudes, who have a great video on this, are:

1. What is your favorite thing to do in D&D?
2. What is something you've always wanted to do in D&D but never gotten to do?
3. What is your number one pet peeve of D&D?

Getting everyone to express these things before the group is a good way to have everyone see what each other's likes and dislikes are.

How'd everything go, Turtles?

I agree with @Pocketmouse.

Good luck.