No matter how much we say it’s the DM’s world, the players know the game too. They have access to all the books, all the lore, even all the monster stats! Sometimes that’s a big help. Other times, it can be a problem for the campaign you want to run.
Have you ever had players who actively spoil what all the monsters do? Or players who think they know what your NPCs are all about? Or a fellow DM who’s DMed every Ravenloft module D&D has produced and is trying not to spoil your run through Curse of Strahd? How do you handle players who don’t separate their personal knowledge from what their characters would know?
Thorin, Tony and Dave go off-book a lot, homebrewing, up-scaling, and repurposing all the time. In this episode they talk about what is OK and not OK metagaming, problems metagaming has created in their games, and how they deal with the players and situations it spawns.
1:00 Dueling Strahds: Metagaming rears its blood-sucking head
3:00 What out-of-character knowledge is or isn’t a problem?
6:00 How metagame expectations can undermine attempts to create original adventures
10:00 How we sometimes struggle with meta-knowledge as PCs
15:00 Reimagining Strahd
18:00 Really, how should PCs react when literally The Devil invites them to dinner or to do a job?
23:00 The Strahd dinners that might’ve been…
29:00 What to do when players think they know what the monsters do?
36:00 “You just don’t want us to win!” When the world doesn’t work the way the players assumed, and they blame the DM
38:00 The Deck of Many Editions: What worked then doesn’t work now, and some players hate that!
45:00 In-depth on vampire challenge levels and the problem with nonmagical damage immunities and
53:00 Changing monsters to create interesting thematic, cinematic, moments
58:00 Metagaming: How do you get players to cut it out and respect your “authority”?
68:00 Monk Owl Bears are too far … Or are they?
72:00 Final thoughts
Good podcast, but what have you guys done for Power gamers in your table? I’m a forever DM (5 years to be exact), and I currently have 3 power gamers and 2 role players with a little of power gaming. They are my best friends and I appreciate their investment both time and financial into the game. I find myself doing extra research for monsters and spells so it presents a good challenge for them.
Hi Carlos, thanks for writing in! We’ve talked about that in a couple places.
Check out our guide to DMing power gamers: https://3wisedms.com/10-dos-and-donts-for-dming-power-gamers/
Also take a look at our rundown of the 8 player types and how to DM them:
https://3wisedms.com/the-8-dd-player-types-and-how-to-dm-them/
Those have some of our best advice on that topic. We hope it helps!
(When all us fails, add more dragons. ;-))