Party is having visions

>party is having visions
>tell each player individually to discourage meta-gaming
>players keep their visions to themselves
>each player's vision fits together with another
>all their visions put together tell them where the magic mcguffin is
>everyone refuses to divulge information to each other because "that's why my character would do"
>campaign is quickly going nowhere
>have an npc bring up a book that 3 out of 5 of the players have seen in their vision
>they acknowledge they know of it and then shrug it off and continue doing nothing

Is this my fault for even giving them the option of being this edgy and cutting the rest of the party out of their info?

>tell each player individually to discourage meta-gaming

Yo if you wanted the entire party to know you should have fucking told the entire party.

My DM did something much like this once and we didn't tell each other SHIT because we thought there was a reason he told us individually instead of together.

My main issue is that they werent biting any bait I sent their way but were getting annoyed at not having anything to do. So I wanted to be more direct without being the exposition fairy.

>that's what my character would do
So give their characters more reason to cooperate?

Go a step further and nip this shit in the bud when you're planning your game.

Don't just say "Oh, you all meet in a dusky tavern," give each player a connection to each other and / or some shared story element that means they trust each other slightly more than Jessie Q Public. Just something to answer the question "Wait, why am I working with these dumb assholes?"

Why do you think organized play games like Pathfinder Society have PCs as part of an organization? So there's consequences if they go full lulzrandom and stab everyone in sight.

We did this to our GM once. He was more interested in telling his story than letting us play how we wanted so we started fucking with him in similar ways, like not sharing info, ignoring plot hooks and at one point, leaving a big battle via teleport to go have lunch in another city because we really had no reason to get involved. Eventually he figured it out and let us do what we wanted and thus began an epic adventure of a handful of high level adventurers leading an archaeology dig on a long lost ancient civilization with hundreds of support staff, airships and enough equipment and supplies to last months.

This is session 5. They have been living and working together for a month now.
I'm trying to railroad them as little as possible but they asked me to be more direct because they can't figure out anything to do.

Doesn't matter if they fucking grew up with one another. They consider it out of character to share there visions. Maybe you should find out why. Try to understand their position rather than just complaining it's not what you want.

I mean, there IS a reason he's telling them individually, it's to encoueage them to talk in character and discover the solution as their characters would, rather than giving them all the information so the PLAYERS know what's going, and they have to try to trickle that down to the characters

If they asked you to be more direct then maybe say something like "You all have the information you need, you just need to piece it together, when was the last time your characters had a strategy meeting?" or maybe, "The PCs are confused about where to go too, maybe they should talk to each other." or possibly just inform your party, "I want to see how the party interacts" and then put them in the location they're camped out and tell them to roleplay, maybe throwing some hints from the scenery. That last option may be too indirect, but maybe something similar would work.

I feel like those are little nudges without explicitly telling them what to do.

You fucking dumbass, you specifically told them not to metagame and the told them about these dreams.

They think telling the other party members about it is metagaming because why the fuck else would you mention the two so closely together, so now they'll refuse to unti you tell them it isn't metagaming to fucking discuss it.

You've literally made the associate meta gaming with the specific information from the dream.

My god this must be bait, no on is this stupid.

I didn't tell them anything about metagaming. Chill. And for that matter, how can sharing in game knowledge possibly be contorted to be seen as meta gaming?

I m pretty sure the OP didn't tell them the reason he told then all individually, or else they would realize the dreams are connected, he likely just told each of them their dreams and left it at that.

Mis-read the first bit, and it can easily because unless hold real significance in this world, and unless one character actually does discuss their dreams regularly, why the hell would they suddenly(see: conveniently) start now?

Also considering you told each of them separately, they're probably thinking it's their own personal visions or some shit not worth mentioning to the other members, along with the above.

This is why shared visions and dreams exist as plot points.

This. Metagaming is the glue that holds the game together.

Does each PC have a strong motivation to act upon their dream, besides them needing direction and the dream being mysterious?
If they don't have a solid motive to act, they won't.
The end.

And ironically enough to just talk about it or force them to discuss it without reason would be metagaming.

Our DM told us not to heavily meta game so we heavily metagamed and ruined the campaign

Ok there, kid.

Sounds like you were all idiots.

Let me tell you a secret: Every option they could possibly take is metagaming.

Sounds like it's entirely your fault for not showing them the visions together, and for some reason trusting the PCs to organically start talking about the dreams they're having.
Being afraid of the "metagame" phantom fucked your game up, learn from that.

You set yourself to failure, I'm the most fervent advocate for player agency but you still agree at the very start of any campaign, that there's an end goal in the center of the dms plot, and your party agrees to respect that end goal. if they take a roundabout way to get there, or find ways to get to it that you didn't expect, that's fine, but outright ignoring plot hooks is unacceptable, at least on your part if you never gave them good motivations to follow said hooks through.

if your players aren't connected to the setting and the rest of the party, you'll always devolve into edgelords going separate ways and ignoring your plot. so make make a better effort next time, this is the most important thing for any campaign ever, your group must be part of the world and their motivations and objective must steer them into the direction you need them to go, and it must feel genuine both in character as out of it, for them to crave wanting to see the end.