RPGMemes

My potentially controversial take is that metagaming is neither good nor bad. A metagaming problem is really just some other problem that rears its head through metagaming.

You can metagame and be a good player. It's like doing improv with dramatic irony. If you're prioritizing the gameplay and everyone's enjoyment, it's a useful tool.

If you're using it for the personal advantage of your character, though... that can also be fine. Some old-school games, especially dungeon crawls, are like strategy games testing the players as well as their characters.

It's when there's a disconnect between how people are playing the game that you get problems. If someone wants to play a strategy game while others want to play improv, and they're not thinking about what kind of approach is appropriate and when, that you get issues.

I don't get it.

I think this is a totally fine method tbh.

This is one of those things I love about PF2. There is the Secret trait on quite a few different checks, which means the GM rolls in secret.

We play virtually so players initiate the roll but the result is blindly sent to the GM. Great example of this is stealth checks - there's no "oh, I rolled poorly so just kidding I actually only barely move".

My first experience with Pen&Papers was on a summer camp, where a bunch of older guys were mastering RPGs for us. They didn't use any kind of rules system, and just told us to describe what we're trying to do and they would roll a D10 and just kind of improvise from there.

I'm really glad they did that, because it made us, teens having their first experience with Pen&Paper, focus much more on roleplaying rather than rules and numbers. And even when I later switched to rule-based systems, this experience has stuck with me, and all of my friends who played there too, and even though we did have rules and numbers now, we still kept focusing on the RP side and never really paid them much attention.

I've once played with a new group of people at my new job, who were obviously used to playing with rules, and it was such a massive difference in how they approached the game. They usually thought and talked about numbers first, and then figured out some kind of RP to go with it, but it should be the other way around! The game felt so bland, most of the talk was OOC, and it just felt more like a board game than a Pen&Paper.

So, in my opinion, as much rolls as possible should just be done by the GM without the knowledge of the player. It just makes the experience a lot better. Even though I'm actively trying to pay no mind to the dice rolls when playing, and have no problem with separating IC and OOC knowledge, playing to entertain and not to win, just seeing that failed perception/WP roll will nag you and influence you, no matter how you try to avoid it. It's better to just not know. If it would be feasible, I'd preffer for the DM to do all rolls in secret, and handle each players rules, just asking them for reaction if it's appropriate. But that would be almost impossible and put a lot of strain on the already busy GM.

But, if you've never tried it, try running a session with no rules, and GM just rolling D10 and improvising of the number he gets, based on the action you're describing. It's a lot more fun, and especially for new players, it teaches them an important aspect of the Pen & Paper RPGs - the rules and numbers are there as an afterthought, you are not supposed to think about them. You are supposed to live and roleplay the character, describe his actions, and cooperate with others to build a nice and immersive story. And if it turns out that what you just described is something your character is bad at? Who cares, it's going to be fun.

I more or less do this for stealth or deception checks. I get the players to tell me their modifier, and then roll behind the screen. And then I'll give them a description like "try as you might, you can't seem to make your armor stop squeaking" or "to the best of your knowledge, you are quiet and unseen" or whatever. But I don't actually tell them what they rolled, and let the scenario play out.

My players seem to actually prefer this, since it allows them to blissfully ignore the metagaming elements.

You know what's fun? If you have perception and stealth related stats for the PCs on your GM screen, you don't even need to inform them that they're making checks. And when they hear the dice roll, they'll reflexively assume you're rolling for other, unseen creatures in the area.

Gets em good and paranoid.

Fortunately Metagaming Bob isn't at my table, but we are going to try this out with death saves

This is cool in theory, but kind of annoying if you are trying to modify the roll with something like Favored by the Gods from Divine Soul Sorcerer that specifically can activate if you fail the roll.

You add an additional 2d4 to your attack/save that fails.

I’m not sure if ANY other dice modifications work after knowing failure, but I know this one does. I know when I play divine souls I always like to save it for those random Int/Wis saves that’ll get ya.

The only time I experienced meta gaming that was shitty was when, due to everyone else asking me to, I played my evil cleric character. The one guy who absolutely loves my character more than even I do made a paladin and spent the entire campaign trying to prove my character was evil.

He didn't succeed, which made it hilarious, but it was still kinda annoying that every time I did anything I had to beat his fucking sense motive checks, and he would often try to claim he snuck around to watch me recast my daily rituals (because I basically kept Undetectable Alignment on 24/7) to try and glipse my aura.

I would be so down for that. I think metagaming kind of sucks a lot of the fun out of the roleplay so I try not to do it, but when I roll 2 on a wisdom check and the DM goes "this looks like a perfectly normal weapon" it obviously feels suspect.

I had such player at my table but it was more that they could ignore what they knew. So they still were doing perception checks and I was still responding but randomly, without saying it.

Once, for a critical failure on a perception check, I said they saw the lord was too bright, too clean, and wait are those scales? Could be a dragonborn or even more? They spend the full enquiry rejecting the possibility to have a dragon in disguise. Sad for them.

Now I'm curious about DMs opinion on anti-metagamers, who seek chaos and destruction

Just ask what their advantage/skill bonus is and roll it yourself where they cant see.