Hello readers. It’s Malcon the Firebringer again. This time I am going to talk about a subject that many dungeon masters complain about. Metagaming. Metagaming is a new concept for me. As I am an all knowing and omnipotent Lich it is rare for the adventurers to be aware of anything that I am not. But I am going to allow Joe Mohr to tell you some more about this subject.
“Thanks Malcon. Joe Mohr here. Malcon is kindly allowing me to guest post on my own blog. Very kind of him. Anyway, I was recently at a small gaming convention in Missouri this fall, where I saw a perfect example of this phenomenon.
To my left at the gaming table was a young man who spent the entire game looking up monsters on his cell phone and telling everyone at the table their attributes and how to defeat them. To my right at the gaming table was an older gentleman who was greatly offended by this and who repeatedly advised the young man to stop metagaming. The Dungeon Master seemed oblivious to all of it. I kept silent. It was a Sunday afternoon gaming session. If I left early I was going to just have to begin my drive home to Arkansas early. There was little chance of that happening.
So now back to Malcon for some tips on how to handle this situation in your own campaigns. He tells me that he has some wonderful ideas.”
Ok so how do we deal with such behavior at the gaming table? I have some suggestions for you. Now obviously you could just kill the young man’s character off immediately so that he leaves the gaming table early. That is one possibility. But I have some other suggestions that might prove more amusing.
- Reverse all your spell effects and change all of your monster attack attributes. The young punk with the cell phone will not know what hit them.
- Add in lots of new features and attributes to your creatures. Your trolls don’t drain levels when they touch? Mine would.
- Use monsters from sources outside of the core books. I wrote a wonderful article (all my articles are wonderful of course) about some fine books called the Tome of Horrors which adds many new species of monster to your game. There are many other such tomes out there if you look for them.
- Have one of your other player characters at the table turn out to be an assassin hired to kill that talkative metagaming kid with the cellphone!
There is an interesting article about this subject that I found on the web. It was posted by someone calling themselves “The Angry DM.” Now personally, I believe, that all DMs should play angry. After all….these adventurers are vermin that are invading your dungeons. You should be angry. But anyway he says that Metagaming is the fault of the dungeon master who allows it to happen. I agree. You can find this article at the following link:
Dear GMs: Metagaming is Your Fault
The article is rather long. But then again…I am a Lich….and I have all the time in the world to read such things. The gist of it is that Metagaming is only a problem if you let it become one.
On a side note there is also a fine gaming shop called Metagames in the same town here this convention took place, Springfield, Missouri. One day I should like to visit this land called Missouri. Perhaps after I finish taking over Zanzia I will conquer it next……
According to Joe Mohr this shop has an extensive community that plays Dungeons and Dragons there nightly along with other games. And it also sells used Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books and other out of print role playing material.
Until next time….kill some adventurers for me….please….
