So can we take a moment to discuss what meta-gaming actually is...

So can we take a moment to discuss what meta-gaming actually is? Because I just got into an argument with my GM because I used an alchemist fire on a troll and apparently, using common knowledge makes me a "power gaming piece of shit rollplayer" even though HE was the one who called it a troll by name and didn't mention any distinguishing characteristics that would've made it different from the bog standard.

Protip: If it's in the PHB or it's a monster that's CR 5 or less, or something that you call out by name, it's common knowledge or at least knowledge that the PC are expected to know. If it's on someone else's character sheet, the GM's notes, another book that isn't the PHB, or it's a monster that's CR6+ then it's not common knowledge.

Now, is that so hard to figure out? I'm sick of pretending to be a retard just so I don't trigger some shitty GM when I sit down at a table.

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d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm
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If your GM says that it isn't common knowledge, then ask if you can roll a test, if he does say it's common knowledge then you have no issue. This isn't about metagaming, it's about the lack of communication between you two, we're not here to justify that for you.

Meta-gaming is a quick sand trap that idiots argue over. I say idiots because that shit has never mattered and never will. Just play the fucking game.

If you get into an argument with your GM, don't make a whiny thread on Veeky Forums complaining about it, because it lets us know that your GM was right and you were wrong.

We wouldn't have a board if people followed this advice.

Your DM is the referee. If you had been smart, you would have asked if you could make a knowledge check to see what your character knew about trolls.

Since you're not smart, you instead came here to complain.

Does your character have prior experience with trolls or has had any experience where he would have learned that trolls are weak to fire? Does your character use alchemist's fire on a multitude of enemies and not just enemies weak to fire? It's not random trivia that everyone in the kingdom knows.

If you can't say "yes" to any of that, then you should have rolled the appropriate knowledge check first rather than assuming your character shares your knowledge that trolls are weak to fire.

>GM identifies a monster by name.
>Doesn't give it any special characterisics
>Somehow it's my fault the GM got triggered
Wanna know how I know you're a shitty GM?

Why should I have to make a knowledge check when everyone and their grandmother already knows what a troll is?

Do I have to roll a knowledge check just to identify the color of the sky, because that's effectively what you're suggesting here.

>it's a party is expected to fuck around for half an hour before they're "allowed" to figure out that the troll is weak to fire adventure
Your GM is shit. Everyone on Veeky Forums will defend your shit GM though.

>Why should I have to make a knowledge check when everyone and their grandmother already knows what a troll is?

Did your GM say that? Is it an established part of the setting that you're aware of? If so does it pertain to your society and not just other parts of the world?

Lol is this your GM?

Let's think about it this way:

What were you supposed to do? What did the GM expect was going to happen? Fight the troll and have it regenerate until you can just overcome the regeneration? That sounds stupid, tedious, and sucky. It's not like fire instantly kills the thing. If the DM really did throw a fit over something so minor then your DM is whiny bitch and should choke on his own baby tears.

>Wanna know how I know you're a shitty GM?
No, I'm staying entertained watching you throw a tantrum instead of talking to your fake GM about this situation that didn't actually happen

If it's not common knowledge then the GM wouldn't have used the creature's actual name. I mean, in a world where information can be spread easily thanks to magic, it seems asinine to assume that just because John Turnip over here doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, the PCs are on the same level of ignorance.

Most peasants don't have access to spells but I can guarentee that they'd know about magic missile if you used it in front of them.

How do you know that fire extinguishers work on fires? Have you used one in real life? Have you seen one get used? How do you know that water puts out fire? Have you ever had to put out a fire in your life at any point? Did you know what to do if you did?

Fire is a real tangible threat in the real world, trolls are a real tangible threat in the D&D world. Trolls being unkillable unless you burn them is common knowledge, same way it's common knowledge that catacombs are full of undead, or that positive energy heals the living.

How do you know that aspirin reduces pain? Do you know how it works? Have you MADE aspirin? Of course you don't, but it's common knowledge because aspirin use is a common tangible thing in this world.

How do you know that fey hate iron? Have you ever seen a fairy? Have you ever stabbed a fairy with iron? Yet in spite of that you know that iron wards away the fair folk. This is common knowledge of folklore, and a common knowledge fact of life in a world where they exist and are very dangerous.

Also, the D&D game for the arcade, one guy berates the shit out of you if you kill the troll boss multiple times and don't burn him, basically saying "Don't you know you have to BURN trolls to kill them, you fucking idiot?"

Exactly what I was thinking

>Did your GM say that?
Yes, he's the one who called it a troll by name and said "it looks just like any other troll" when I asked for a description.

Also, I'm not some dirt farmer from fantasy Idaho here, I'm an adventurer, meaning that I would be aware of more bullshit than the average person just from fighting, surviving, and traveling from place to place.

Okay, and what was your GM's response, presuming you actually explained your end of the argument as to why it would be common knowledge to use fire on trolls?

As far as I'm concerned, you just proved that you were wrong and the GM was right.

No but it is close enough to make me glad that I posted this PSA. Shitty GMs need to learn what actual meta-gaming is.

It basically boiled down
>You don't know what it is.
>Then why did you call it a troll?
>Because that's what it is, wtf else am I going to call it?
>Then we know what it is?
>No!
>Then how the fuck would we know that it's an "ordinary troll" if we don't know what it is.
Then shit just kinda went downhill from there.

I'm a new player and I told my players to stop meta gaming

They were in a cave - and they split up

one half of the party is in a fight, the other is not. the ones that aren't want to go help the ones in the fight, I tell them they don't know they are in a fight. so he says "he has a bad feeling" and wants to go help him

the ones in the fight are spending about a minute+ each trying to figure out the highest dps and talking with other players for strategy

>Protip: If it's in the PHB or it's a monster that's CR 5 or less, or something that you call out by name, it's common knowledge or at least knowledge that the PC are expected to know. If it's on someone else's character sheet, the GM's notes, another book that isn't the PHB, or it's a monster that's CR6+ then it's not common knowledge.

You're completely retarded if you think how strong a monster is determines how common it is.

Your DM is a lazy cunt and he should either learn to describe things without using their names or come up with some more creative encounters.

>Players are supposed to pretend to be absolute retards until the GM is forced to allow them to use common sense.
I guess you would think the GM was right considering you're just as retarded.

I never get this whole "meta game" thing when it comes to trolls and fire.

You see some big beasty regenerating wounds at abnormal speed. What is something that does sustained damage? Fire. So what do you use to stop the regeneration? FIRE

It's basic fucking deduction

I think he was calling it a troll to quickly explain what it is to you, the players, without necessarily implying that your characters know which of the dozen different kinds of brutish, oversized humanoid this is.

If your players start debating a lot and taking forever to take combat actions, declare everything they say to be in character. Now they're standing around jabbering while some cave creature is clobbering their heads in. And honestly I'd probably go for the 'bad feeling' thing depending on the tone of the campaign. Otherwise roll to see if they can discern what's going on or give me a damn good excuse.

Stronger monsters tend to be harder to find.

It's why you can find dozens of goblins in some little rathole outside of town while an adult dragon is usually in some secluded area where nobody would willingly travel to if given the choice.

Thing is, he could've easily used a description and side-stepped this whole debacle.

The DM was just lazy as hell.

Common knowledge isn't all that common in a world before Google and Wikipedia. Even today, if you ask most people what metal fey are weak too, they won't say 'cold iron.' They'll scratch their heads and shrug, maybe the intelligent but uneducated will say silver and maybe one in five will genuinely answer with 'iron' and one in those five with 'cold iron.'

Why would a common person with no experience with trolls or areas where trolls dwell need to know anything about trolls at all? As if they'd actually be capable of killing a troll even if they had fire at their disposal.

>I want my players to pretend to be retarded but I don't want to put in any legwork myself to help them into the mindset
Yeah, nah.

Correct. If you need to obscure knowledge from the players, fucking obscure it instead of forcing some retarded shit. It's completely within the DM's right to do so, but that doesn't make it not shitty DMing.

Fire doesn't damage it and thus counteract the regen, it literally just stops the regen from happening. Otherwise poison would do the trick just like acid and fire does.

It's not using real world logic, it's using mechanics with some real life basis. Fire could easily deal like 1d10 damage and not counteract the regen at all.

You're forgetting that we live in a world where a) adventurers routinely trade stories about the crazy bullshit they've encountered and b) magic allows for fast travel and easy long-ranged communication.

Between these two, a PC has no excuse not to know about CR5 or lower creatures, plain and simple and if you waste everyone's time just to see them dancing on the hook, you're a shitty DM.

>Even today, if you ask most people what metal fey are weak too, they won't say 'cold iron.'
Fey aren't real.

If you asked someone what you pour on a slug to make it shrivel and die a torturous death, chances are they'll know, even though most people don't interact with slugs on any sort of frequent basis at all.

Cold Iron is a poetic meme, it's just plain iron.
Preferably in the form of a horseshoe

Then why the fuck are you making it a rule that

Cold iron is only a 3e thing.

>Fire doesn't damage it and thus counteract the regen, it literally just stops the regen from happening.
Yes, that's how it works mechanically, in the game's terms.
And it is justified as fire just making it incapable to regenerate, in logical terms

"Common sense" says that you don't know what the weaknesses of a monster is unless you pass a relevant knowledge check unless you've faced them before. You're just an entitled piece of shit.

Slugs are a common garden pest and we (in the West) live in a highly educated world where most people know how to read and are able to acquire access to information about whatever they want in an easy and timely manner.

Something like b) in only works if it has led to the equivalent of the internet in your setting. Otherwise, unless your character is an experienced adventurer and has a good reason to know much about trolls, he likely wouldn't be aware of their weaknesses unless another adventurer has passed that information down.

In fact, could the OP tell us about their character? What was their intelligence, did they have any stats in any sort of knowledge at all and what was their general background?

But that isn't logical. Fire doesn't stop healing irl. It just does the opposite, gradual damage. Meaning your real-world-logic falls short because of mechanics.

This. If you don't want players to use their metagame knowledge of monsters, don't call it by name.

>Then why the fuck are you making it a rule that

You think cells are actually capable of replicating, or tissue capable of closing wounds through natural healing process, at extremely high temperature?

You're thinking in shitty terms like "damage", rather than considering what that damage actually IS

If I know what a troll is (or at least enough to know that this troll is a run-of-the-mill troll) then why the fuck do I have to jump through hoops just to throw fire at it?

It's completely asinine, it doesn't even make the game harder, it's just the difference between the troll eating an alchemist fire now or on my next turn after he hits one of us in the face.

Maybe your shitty DM just wanted you to get killed.

If a wizard can contact anyone in the world in less than six seconds to tell them information, it might as well be the internet for the purposes tracking the spread of information.

Not to mention, teleportation circles are a thing, bestiaries are a thing, accounts from retired adventurers are a thing, all this information is right there for the taking yet GMs always assume that everyone lives in a shitty bubble just because peasants don't travel more than five miles away from their homes.

d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm

>Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

>In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

>For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.

d20srd.org/srd/monsters/troll.htm

>Hit Dice: 6d8+36 (63 hp)

So, if you're playing D&D 3.5, you'd be able to identify that the troll was weak to fire if you beat a DC of 16 on a Knowledge (Nature) check, since the vulnerability of a monster qualifies as useful information.

I can't find your "If it's in the PHB or it's a monster that's CR 5 or less" rule anywhere, unfortunately.

Then I suppose I should call any DM that has that sort of magical available in a D&D setting but doesn't have wizard-internet around a shit DM.

It's still a horrible rule than you made up on the spot to justify the troll shit, so that YOU get an advantage. Don't even act like the specific number you chose had a reasoning behind it besides trolls "coincidentally" having a CR of 5. Big surprise there.

Roll for monster knowledge every single time unless you've explicitly encountered it before. Get over yourself.

>Fire doesn't stop healing irl.
Back in the day, cautery was a very common treatment for a lot of things. One of them was destroying tumors.

You'd think an adventurer would have this kind of basic knowledge about the world before they set out to put themselves in harm's way.

The Pathfinder SRD is down, so I'm doing this based off the 3.5 SRD (which is probably identical but not necessarily).

The Knowledge DC to know something about a creature's "special powers or vulnerabilities" is typically 10 + the monster's HD (so for Trolls it's dc 16). I think PF says that creatures that are particularly common in any given area have the dc here reduced by 5, so Trolls would be dc 11 there.

Something is considered "common knowledge" if the DC is 10 or less, so Trolls don't qualify.

Just so you know, people back then didn't have the sensibilities of modern Westerners who take a great deal of care before doing anything risky at all. There was no researching all of the pros and cons of joining the military on the internet, you just got conscripted into a peasant militia and sent into the fray with whatever heavy or sharpened implement your family owns. Unless your adventurer comes from a highly educated background, they likely weren't any better and were just as ill-informed when they went out into the world beyond.

Acting like your bumblefuck adventurer that's challenged by things like a single troll would be educated at all is ridiculous. Get over yourself and roll your fucking Knowledge check.

You should, because magic completely changes the game in terms of how everything works and if he doesn't take that into account then he's obviously a lazy piece of shit.

CR5 are monsters that is expected to be taken out by a level 6 party, which what most games end up cutting off at if the GM doesn't want to deal with level 4 or higher spells fucking up the balance.

YOU get over yourself.

The difference between a peasant and an adventurer is that the latter purposefully goes into dangerous territory to fight these fucking monsters while the former is okay planting turnips until an orc raider shows up to raze his shit into the ground.

Not to mention, is your setting so shit that adventurers don't trade stories between one another or are you the type of anal-retentive who would make them roll three times just to learn that goblins are stupid?

Has an adventurer shared any stories of trolls with OP's character? I'm curious to hear this.

Most people would assume yes since the GM identified the troll by name and told him "oh it looks just like any other troll."

Otherwise, how would he know what it is and whether or not it was an ordinary troll?

Just because the GM is being lazy doesn't mean that the player isn't also being lazy and just assuming that his character would know the ins and outs of trolls without putting appropriate effort into it.

The thing is, by identifying the troll by name and telling the player that it "looks just like any other troll," the GM is forcing the player to meta-game from that point forward.

Either the character uses fire to deal with the threat or the character purposefully DOESN'T use fire and puts himself and his teammates at risk just because the PLAYER doesn't want to look as though they're meta-gaming.

Which is why meta-gaming as a concept is fucking stupid, every decision the player makes is a decision the character makes because the character has no autonomy. If it's information that I'm not supposed to know then DON'T FUCKING TELL ME!

If you're incapable of separating your character from yourself, maybe you should find a new hobby.

>You should leave the hobby because I'm butthurt that you acted upon information that I gave to you.
Okay chief, whatever you say.

Maybe you should take a hike, we already have enough shitty GMs to deal without you adding on to the pile.

The correct response from a player in this situation is to quickly ask "My character would know that trolls are weak to fire right? Or should I roll a knowledge check?"

From the GM's side, you either just let him use it or ask for a low-difficulty knowledge skill to figure it out.

If you're not sure what to do, you can ask the player to invent a tiny bit of backstory to explain how his character knows. He doesn't have to have fought in the Troll Wars for 8 years -he could have heard it from a stranger during a boat ride, read it from a published explorer's journal, remembered it was part of a children's story that he told to his nephew once, or any number of other things. That way everyone wins: the player can use fire on the troll, GM has the situation resolved, and everyone learns something new about the characters and setting.

>If you're not sure what to do, you can ask the player to invent a tiny bit of backstory to explain how his character knows.

At that point you're just wasting time because you have to invent knowledge to justify other knowledge. You're still trying to use a Troll's weakness to fire, but now suddenly you have a reason because you made up a bit of backstory. Why don't you just do that for every monster you encounter?

From OP's account, the GM relied on trolls being a common and recognizable threat, then got mad when the players acted accordingly. You can't be lazy as a GM, or else you're just robbing your players of a good time.

>You're still trying to use a Troll's weakness to fire, but now suddenly you have a reason because you made up a bit of backstory. Why don't you just do that for every monster you encounter?

You absolutely can do that. And if you feel that something is too obscure to simply give out, then you can use rules for lore skills as appropriate to the game system you're using. If the rules indicate that the PC knows the relevant facts, then you can still ask for a quick explanation of how his character knows.

That kind of exercise enriches the game by integrating knowledge and lore skills back into the game-world. It stops being metagaming because the group is establishing in-universe reasons for PCs to know the things they do. When you do that, it's not just Dave remembering because read the monster manual, it's Edmund Sword-Hand calling on his experiences in a time of need.

>wasting time
My most recent GM has been doing this for some time, and it rarely takes more than a minute for me to invent a decent explanation. It usually takes less time than arguing about how common it is to know about troll lore, and in my opinion it's more fun too.

Not him but that's a minute that didn't need to be spent coming up with a bullshit explanation for why you know that trolls are weak to fire.

The rule of thumb for my table is that if the GM mentions it by name, it's something that we're expected to know and so far, we've managed to go through multiple campaigns w/o getting derailed because someone thought that we were metagaming or something.

>peasant militia
>implying

>you just got conscripted into a peasant militia and sent into the fray with whatever heavy or sharpened implement your family owns
I bet you have potatoes in your setting too.

This shit brought back some bad memories
>Be in a pirate campaign
>Ship is attacked by a giant squid
>Barely escape its clutches but we make it back to port
>Decide to spend time at a library learning about giant squid
>Get accused of meta-gaming because the GM thought that I was trying to game the system.
To make things worse, he said nothing when the resident power gamer accurately called out how much HP the giant squid had left when he tried to make us turn back to finish it off.

I'm glad I left that group but come on son.

"The horror Lzyx'y'xskklzyxx attacks the party!"
"I hit it with my +3 Axiomatic Sword"
"STOP METAGAMING REEEEEE YOU FUCKING PEDOPHILE HOW COULD YOU!! YOU DONT KNOW THAT IT'S CHAPOSITCO ALSIGJNEMA MMMUMMMMMYYYYYYYY!!"

Did your DM say it was common knowledge? How common are trolls? Have you ever met one?

Try not to metagame user, it'll make you a better player.

Seems pretty cut and dry here.

Though, I have to admit that the DM was shit at describing the encounter. I love going all out in descriptions of enemies, it always freaks my players out.

>You hear a low rumble.
>A large, green creature tears through the brush and onto the trail, gore hangs from fingers that scrape the ground as it walks in a strange, hunched over way
>It turns towards you, yellow and sunken eyes catching the light, a long hooked nose trails down to a gaping maw of teeth
>Roll initiative

Common enough for us to know what it is by name and know that the troll we were fighting was "an ordinary troll."

QUESTION

Did your GM say, "A huge stinking thing, green-skinned yet at least twice as tall as any orc is revealed by your torchlight," or did your GM say, "you encounter a troll, roll initiative?"

If his description began and ended with "troll," then this is entirely on him. The word "troll" literally means "big thing that recovers from any injuries except fire."

>I use fire on it because I know what trolls are
>Ok the fire makes it split into 5 more trolls that each have the same statistics of the first troll
>OH NO ITS THE FIRE MULTIPLYING TROLL OF PARTHAX SWAMP

Or just change fire to cold etc.

The GM was talking to you, the player. Saying it's an ordinary troll is shorthand, because you know what a troll looks like and what it generally is. Your character, on the other hand, might not know what a troll is, or even that it's called a troll in the first place. Lobbing firebombs or acid the instant you hear the word "troll" is metagaming, because your character might have no idea that that's what kills trolls. Now, if you've been killing everything with fire, then that's a different story, because it's been previously established that it's what your character does.

Dumbass, let's make something clear.

The GM is the only bridge between the players and the setting that they're interacting with, so if the GM calls a monster a troll and responds with "it looks just like any other troll" when asked for further details, he's putting me, the player, in a position where anything short of me sitting there in silence is me meta-gaming.

If I lob fireballs at the troll, I'm metagaming. If I don't lob fireballs and elect to take an action that I know won't work instead, I'm still metagaming. There's no action I can choose to perform that isn't based of my knowledge that this is an ordinary troll so at that point, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

So if you don't want the players to know something, don't fucking mention it.

Worse
>You encounter a troll in the bushes
>Really?
>Yes
>Okay, does it have anything special going on with its appearance?
>No, it looks just like any other troll in the woods.

>If I don't lob fireballs and elect to take an action that I know won't work instead, I'm still metagaming

False.

>So if you don't want the players to know something, don't fucking mention it.
And then you'll bitch that you weren't given enough information to act on.
Because you're a whiny bitch.

>False.
True!

There's no logical reason for my character not to lob a fireball at this particular creature but because I know that it's a troll and trolls are weak to fire, I have to purposefully go out of my way NOT to throw a fireball at it just so I don't get accused of meta-gaming.

Do you understand? If my decision making process is affected by OoC information, whether I choose an optimal action or not, then I'm meta-gaming.

>And then you'll bitch that you weren't given enough information to act on.
How am I going to bitch about information that I don't know exists? If you described it as a big green monster with sharp teeth and a hooked nose, that's already enough detail for me to say "oh, it's a monster, it wants to kill me, let's roll initiative."

It's not rocket science here, I don't know why this basic fact escapes you.

Well, a "troll" could theoretically have the "turns to stone on contact with sunlight" weakness going on, or whatever else. I've heard they're pretty variable as mythological creatures go.

But then if that were true then why would the GM get so pissed off at someone using fire on it?

Not saying that's what's going on in this situation. But "troll" could literally mean something other than "dies to fire" and a more creative DM could blindside a presumptive player by giving them a different kind of troll than they were expecting.

I think you're giving OP's GM too much credit but with that being said, I agree.

Because you're wrong and stupid. By your logic, it's impossible not to meta-game because all decisions are influenced by the player's knowledge. How you're not paralyzed by your own fear of meta-gaming I'll never know. Do you need doors described as "A construction of vertically placed wooden planks attached to the wall by strange metal devices which rotate on a peg"?

It's funny how mad players get when you tell them that the troll seems to be getting healed by the fire.

....is that a troll, moss troll or a sea hag? i cant make the difference......can i roll?


things like that

wait, trying in character to learn from past encounters is metagaming? wut? thats just being smart.....

>Because you're wrong and stupid.
Compelling argument.
>By your logic, it's impossible not to meta-game because all decisions are influenced by the player's knowledge.
Which is why meta-gaming as a concept is retarded as hell and why people need to stop accusing people of doing it.

As long as I'm not quoting something from someone else's character sheet or the GM's notes, I don't see why we have to pretend that the spade isn't a spade and trolls aren't inherently weak to fire.

Still doesn't excuse the DM for bitching about a player using fire since that's a pretty reasonable tactic regardless of a monster's trollness.

Also doesn't excuse OP for making his story up or at least exaggerating it

this. you are correct in my book

yeah, they could suddenly fight a jester, the internet troll of the time. that would have been hilarious

>, I don't see why we have to pretend that the spade isn't a spade and trolls aren't inherently weak to fire.
Because your character might not know that, and hell, it might not be weak to fire. In which case you'd be shitposting on the internet about your bad GM deviating from the rules you so meticulously memorized.

Learn to separate character knowledge from player knowledge, stop being a spaz, and stop meta-gaming.

>....is that a troll, moss troll or a sea hag? i cant make the difference......can i roll?
>things like that

That's the spirit! Even if you're 99.99% certain OOC that it's a troll, you still should try to work through the system to avoid pissing off your GM.

Your professional monster hunting, shit kicking, spell flinging, high level adventurer PC wouldn't know that troll no like fire. Because it's not like other people have ever fought a troll. It's not like it's their job to know how to fight trolls and other baddies. That's like saying using turn undead against a zombie is meta gaming because YOU CANT KNOOOOW THAT ZOMBIE IS UNDEAD! What if it's just a leper, right? Just some kind of angry hobo or something

>Because your character might not know that, and hell, it might not be weak to fire.
What fucking difference does it make, honestly? Either I'm torching it now or I'm torching it later, it doesn't make the fight any harder or anything, it's just semantics that wastes time and distracts from game.

All in all, it's easier just to assume that the characters know what's going on rather than everyone walking on eggshells because they don't want to be accused of metagaming.