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It's nice to see DM meta gaming addressed in conversation. That's the behavior that's behind the reputations of "killer DMs".

"Always look for the body..."

This video has one of, if not my actual favorite DM to player interactions "Always find the body Pruitt." "We tried, though!" "I know, you tried, you tried." "Ohhhh my God." the subtly implied "you're possibly screwed" in Jim's voice is amazing.

Napalm dragon is easily the best thing I've heard of so far this month! The horror!

I know it was likely a throw-away comment, but trail rations (as of earlier editions anyway) were intended to be trail-stable. They were things like dried meat and fruit, ship's biscuits or hard tack, honey, and other things like that which don't spoil very easily.

Pretty sure the only way to defeat a Hydra is to "GET UP ON THE HYDRA'S BACK!!!"

Love the series! Keep it up, guys. I love that napalm dragon idea. Idea for a future episode: how do you deal with players who've just got the wrong idea about something? Like they're planning a complex heist and are making too many assumptions about what will succeed, or they're lying to NPCs and really have no idea what they're talking about, or they're exploring a room and think they're missing something that's just not there. How do you reel them in without just breaking the fourth wall and saying, "Hey, drop it, you're wrong and it's time to move on."

I had someone pull up on their tablet on how to fight a Will o Wisp. He knew how angry I was

Why you guys don't have more subs yet I cannot fathom. You are one of the most comprehensive and well-delivered D&D KZfaq channels out there. I know how successful the other guys are, so I'm wondering what it is that you guys aren't doing that is holding you back. is it an outreach thing? Is it maybe a lack of social-media participation? I have no clue as I haven't gone looking for you in those other places yet. I kind of hope you get the sub count you deserve which is much more than you have. I am putting the word out that this is a great channel for D&D tips and knowledge, but I'm only one person.

Really liked that y'all touched on DM metagaming as well. I have to remind myself all the time that my evil henchmen don't know that the dragonborn carrying the halberd can attack them using a reaction if they don't attack him instead of the giant bear trying to maul them. Or that that same Dragonborn can't be disengaged and ran from without causing an attack of opportunity......Sentinel is a very nasty feat by the way.

I see that HeroQuest game in the background! So much nostalgia! Very fun game to play still to this day. Great videos guys!

Love the show guys! Keep it up. I'm excited about future episodes.

Our table has what we call the "metagaming die". It's one of those d20 that's really a d10, with numbers 0-9 (representing 1-10) but each number is repeated. If a player is getting uppity or tries to use information a dm/player has said out of character, the DM has them roll their next attack or skill check on the "metagaming die". Thus, their check can only roll between a zero and a nine.

I am playing in a game right now where I am even keeping track of empty healing potion bottles.

Black/red dragon firing napalm...Imma use this.

Lol John's horror as he learned that both wizards got away

you guys do great episodes, and have inspired me alot and give great perspectives and ideas :D i totally subscribed ;)

So I found you guys because one of your videos came up as a suggestion while I was watching DawnforgedCast, and I have to say I like your setup better. Having two people spitball off of each other is way more entertaining to watch than one person monolouging (don't get me wrong I do like DFC). Keep up the great work guys!

Sometimes if you are not sure whether or not the players have or rather had the foresight to prepare for particular situation you could have the players roll a skill check (say INT or WIS) as a Preparedness check with a set DC. If the check passes then the players have the gear to make a camp, fit all the loot in their bag, light a torch, eat, etc (increasing DCs show the desperation of the situation. Credit to KEN & ROBIN TALK ABOUT STUFF podcast and other gaming system rules. Thanks Web DM, p.s. do you have any online games and do you want any new players? :)

That red dragon Wizard part was really funny.

My solution to metagamming is that adventurers are licensed by the crown after going through training. If a player knows trolls are best handled with fire, that's fine...it was part of their training. More obscure things require rolls.

Hey I like the show nice. I'm new to D&D and I like this. Nice job.

I've only used the monstrous manual as a bare guideline for years. I always let new players know that they can use my house rule "monster lore" skill if they wish to know. The manual really works well as a base guideline in some editions, but I think there's something special about having your own ones that just work better (thematically or mechanically) making more sense in a dynamic world.

no single big bad, have an interesting rogues gallery of villians.

+Web DM I remember a fight against a dragon once where I played a Psionic character for the first time (Mind you this was in AD&D 2nd) and I had an ability that would absorb elemental damage and made me shed light like a torch for the duration in rounds per point of damage the elemental attack would deliver. And if I made my safe as well no damage would be inflicted on me. So after learning about the dragon's existence we managed to approach it's lair and I volunteered to be bait, which was risky, but since I was the best protected player against elemental damage (we knew the dragon had a breath weapon, but we were unaware of it's type), I decided it was worth the risk. The dragon rushed us (in character as the dragon was very territorial and I had just loudly announced myself) and gave me a full blast of it's breath weapon (again in character) and I luckily and barely made my safe and was preparing for 100+ rounds of light at least, when the DM realised I remained undamaged from the attack of his monster. And he changed the type of dragon on the spot (cheating) and after that he realised that the dragon he changed did not charge outright and was way more subtle about it's attacks (I learned this later btw). But the dragon was a neutral type of dragon and had acces to psionics as well and so a psionic battle erupted as well. And in psionic battle there was a sort of rock, paper, scissor system of attacks and defences. And the way to go about that should have been we both write out attack/defence on a piece of paper and show it at the same time. This will either not influence or give you an advantage/disadvantage in certain combinations, but instead he let me declare what I wanted to use and surprisingly every time the best offence against my defence was placed. I would not have minded that the dragon would have been able to outsmart my character every now and then, but every time was not fair. Technically you should play the 'rock/paper/scissor' every round and see what happens, but I would not have minded if the dragon made an intelligence roll it would have an strategic advantage on me, considering it's high intelligence. That would have been fair in my eyes as I played a fairly intelligent int 13 or something against an int 18 dragon. But this way I didn't stand a chance whatsoever and it wasn't fun either. Needless to say that session was the last session we had with that DM as DM.

In my d&d games I have a house rule that whenever you roll a d20 for an attack against a target creature aka a crit, your damage is doubled and your first damage dice is max value.

Pruitt, that MC1 t-shirt is awesome!

Your guys' videos are excellent. I'm contributing a great deal to a basic dungeon mastering article on dandwiki.com, and I'm trying to incorporate as much knowledge from across the internet as I can find. You guys have been deeply influential to me as a DM, and now as a literal resource.

ROLE play, not ROLL play 1) Keep rules at arms length... a good DM will be so fair (and descriptive ) as to not need micro rules. They simply slow play down. 2) Metagaming - award small but significant XP for players who stay in character even when it's to their disadvantage ( subtract if visa versa ) Players often enjoy failing if it's turned into fun rather than 'you miss' or 'you fail'; there's a million ways to make missing/failing/falling/even being injured into part of a good narrative. Brilliant show btw...

A monster might not know that a specific PC can cast fireball but intelligent monsters will know that area of effect spells are a possibility and act accordingly. They don't have to know that a specific PC can cast fireball to know that casters exist and that some can cast spells that hit a wide area making bunching up dangerous.

Pruitt has beautiful eyes.

I always love hearing other House Rules * scribble *

Moral is in the DMG

*I don't have Rations spoil .* *I treat Rations as if they are MREs .* *That is my gift to player's in my Games as i tend to run games in my own variant of classic Gygaxian sandbox style .*

I'd be interested on what specifics you Home Rule for morale. I generally have my own rules on "morale in combat" but nothing with defined numbers....etc. Mostly a feel. Minions run when 2/3 of their numbers are dead or the boss leaves combat. That sort of thing. Meta is a part of the game. I try to limit content to "character driven things" that I think the PC would know. Mechanics usually require rolls but common things I can adjudicate well enough.

Is there a way I can reward people for avoiding meta gaming, especially when it actually hurts the character? I'm DMing a group of mostly new players, and one of the guys had heated his door handle to prevent being attacked in the night (the villain had planned to come through the floor anyway) so when one of the other PC's went to this guys aid, he said "Ironhammer is going to open the door, but he doesn't know the door handle is heated, so I expect this to go poorly." They're all level ones so I only had the heated door handle as one or two damage, but I still think that's dedication.

UGH I just finished a 12 hours session. My only complaint is the fucking meta-gaming. HELP

In my group i was wild shaped as a rat and our evil scorer who is a pc was like " I see three rats im going to use my most expensive poison on the one to the very left (Me) and stomp on it and stab it." so meta I didn't even wild shape in front of him

I hope you still look at these comments because I have a question. I have a character concept that I want to achieve but don't feel I can with the available options, how would you go about approaching that issue? They were a Bloodrager from Pathfinder that I want to convert to 5e for a campaign starting at 11th level, obviously a Barbarian/Sorcerer multiclass can't cast spells while raging.

For mixing and matching monster types, my all-time favourite example is the Albino-Red Dragon ;)

I think meta gaming is not really a problem for the DM if you are mixing difficult fight and easy one where PC can apply their skills. I think the common rule for a DM would be : if your players are complaining of a situation because each combat or event : they are not being able to cast something : fireballs, any element resistance, charm, some kind of attack as archery or any weaponry..., they might something you are doing wrong. You should give to every player a situation where they can shine. For player metagaming, as DM, if you are finding a player doing something on purpose, you can always do some little twist. Simple rolls of knowledge or even change slightly a monster as long as you are describing it well and being consistent.

always ask for a Knowledge check, then players can metagame until where the dice has told'em they can.

I say metagaming is alright as far as combat. ..because some of the stronger monsters in 5th (like the ones with immunity or resistance to alot of damage types) usually require some foreknowledge to fight or else people will probably die and i'm kind of a big MMO player so I treat alot of the higher CR enemies as raidbosses. study their abilities, memorize what they are capable of and manage . I'm not saying i'm flipping through the book mid-fight but I be sure to memorize the higher CR enemies as they need to be fought a certain way or it could be a TPK guaranteed. now for me Metagaming roleplay choices is really dumb you know the rogue successfully pickpockets the paladin in his sleep the paladin immediately tries to wake up and check his stuff in the middle of the night...despite having no reason to do so due to the rouge successfully being stealthy.

A way i was creative as a player was that my ranger c in a campaign was able to read,write and draw. And as a result used his abilities to create a book about the various monsters that he and his party encountered and how to deal with them. I also employed my party's bard to actually discuss with other adventurers/adventurer parties that we encountered to expand upon thier gathered intel. My Dm actually gave me mmmadd exp for it.

I know this comment is a bit late and probably wont be answered but I want to ask anyway. How do you all handle called shots with magic missile. I have a friend who whenever he cast magic missile he likes to use called shots because it cant miss. Could you make him roll to see if his called shots miss? Like the magic missile still hits but not were he wanted? Or could it be since magic missile really doesn't do much damage that hitting them in the hand for lets say 3-4 damage really wouldn't be strong enough to make someone drop there weapon?

stop the video at 02:01 hahaha

could be acceptable if your playing strahd and hes been spying on you alot because everyone has no perception, and scrying.

ahahah, now theres the monster hunter that just lets people metagame.

our dm lets ous metagame how much we desire to were 11 to 13 years old and he always makes monsters have cool and new things and abilities im the only one how does it beacuse im the most intriged and cirious but i do it mostly on places and npcs that are legendery like lord soth and it leats ous know more about the world and our characters so we like it

As the DM I reserve the right to metagame. If a player happens to notice then they are metagaming too much. Don't worry about my side of the screen.

4:15 I find this excessive. The monster manual is a good read. It is a waste to have passages from it hastily vomited on you after a roll. And keeping yourself, the player, ignorant of things your character wouldn't know, doesn't that actually go against the spirit of player-character separation?

So you're saying that goblins (presumably unlike farmboys) DO NOT know that spellcasters like to use area of effect spells? Like Sleep? If farmboys know about trolls, for fuck's sake, then goblins know about the sleep and fireball spells. And they and therefore know not to bunch up in combat. Jesus Christ.