[RPG] How to discourage “player knowledge” as a GM

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  • As a trivial random encounter is winding down, a player thinks "That was too easy… The GM wouldn't give us an encounter that doesn't give XP," and starts searching for hidden bad guys or other clues.

  • There are four statues in a room, and you use miniatures to represent them. The players think to themselves "Well if the GM used miniatures, these things are definitely coming to life," and get ready to fight.

  • When you lay down a map of a seemingly random part of the forest trail, the players think "This must be important, let's search around / prepare for battle."

  • You roll a 1 for a player's knowledge check and feed them inaccurate information. They saw the roll and know you're full of it.

Even the most disciplined players sometimes will take advantage of "Player Knowledge" over "Character knowledge." Sometimes it's hard to even tell the difference. You know that you should switch to your frost battleaxe against that Fire Demon, but does your city-raised fighter with the intelligence of an old boot know?

What strategies are there to discourage the use of player knowledge, and how can you cut back on perceptions that players have of the genre itself?

Best Answer

From the DM's perspective, it mostly comes down to obfuscation and training your player base. Don't force your players to resist metagaming if you can reasonably help it.

Going down your list with some concrete examples:

  • Make truly trivial random encounters a regular (but not necessarily frequent) occurrence. If every encounter is non-trivial, then a trivial one will scream "ambush."

  • Again, if you use minis to represent statuary on a regular basis, it will stick out much less.

  • Don't bring the map out until it's actually needed (combat starts, the players need more detail to search). If for some reason you need the map before the PCs realize what's going on, find some pretext for using the map tangential to your actual purpose. In addition, if the PCs start doing more than passive information-gathering, ask them why their characters are suddenly acting the way they are.

  • Don't use public rolls for knowledge checks if misinformation is a possibility. Realistically roleplaying belief in something you know to be untrue is extremely difficult. Alternatively, instead of giving misinformation, give accurate but incomplete information. In this way the players can rely on what they know, but are left to speculate on what's been left out.

Obfuscation and training will slowly help train your players to metagame a bit less. You can help the process along a bit by explaining things... Talk about how you want to add trivial encounters to make them feel powerful, or minis to help make the map feel more three dimensional.

The trick with talking though, is to be honest. If you talk up trivial encounters and then slam them with an ambush, the explanation becomes part of the metagame.

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