Rich Morris' Comics - YAFGC and The ComixBlog

Yeah, I was. It all arose from an offhand comment that "Cthulhu looks like a giant Mind Flayer with wings." Throw in some Call of Cthulhu players that know that the Elder Gods are in Deities and Demigods (and who weren't there for the original comment), and hey, Presto! Watch the chaos that a simple misunderstanding can unleash.

Did your players ever find out the truth?

A couple of them found out, but I never told the group as a whole. Although it did give me something of a reputation as a "killer DM." At the time, I rarely identified creatures by name, but rather used the given descriptions. Did you know that Ogres and Hill Giants were once nearly identical?

Ugh, i also use the descrpiption. Elsewise, my players start metagaming and i have to pump up the creature to give them a nasty surprise. Then they complain that i don't play by the rules. You know, the ones they break by metagaming!

I found the best way to get around metagaming is to have monsters team up in ways that a) complement their strengths and/or b) conceal each other. If done properly, you can confound the standard tactics that players use. Monsters that can snipe into combat effectively are great for picking off the spellcasters or backshooting the fighters.

Oh, and I almost forgot - using illusions to make one monster look like another is a good way to trip up consistent metagamers.

Heck, a ring of shapeshifting can work wonders. Or give a normally aquatic creature access to an amulet of air breathing.

Spells work better than magic items in situations like this. Because if (when) the players manage the fight, magic items become resources for them.

Although there is a case to be made for fixed-location magic items. If you've ever played Diablo, you'll recall the Shrines, that created a magical effect when touched. Icons carved into walls and the like can allow for monsters to have access to certain magics in a way that prevents the player characters from making off with them when it's all said and done.

That's why you give the opposition stuff that works for them, but isn't very useful to the 'heroes'.

Good point, but I've always felt that particular approach only works well in games where there isn't a secondary market in magical items. And while I have a couple of systems that work that way, most of them ring false to me, although I have experimented with the idea that magic items in general don't just work for anybody, but have to be tuned at creation to certain people.

But in the long run, it's really hard to control people who really feel the need to metagame in order to win. And, as much as I can fall into the trap of trying to do so, there really isn't a point. To a certain degree, when my players would metagame things to death, they were really saying, "Hey! New challenges needed here!" Which made all of the machinations on my part worthwhile. Unlike Morgana's players, mine weren't terribly likely to complain when I mixed things up, unless I flat-out entrapped them. (Having one bandit out a group turn out to be an Ogre Mage was off-limits.)

But I also tended to have random encounters that were pretty random. After all, Hill Giants go grocery shopping, too. (And aren't very keen on being mugged by a bunch of second-level n00bs.) Once my players became used to the idea that I would use the fact that it was a magical world to set things up so that they weren't always what they seemed, my players tended to have more respect for the idea that the game world was a place other than their personal sandbox.

Two that occurred in my presence:
-------------------= First =---------------------
A bunch of serious role-players are trying out a new/young game master who is running a fantasy game in Role-Master (a.k.a. Tables "R" Us). At a dramatic moment in the story, one player (a foppish lordling with a rapier) is facing down the equivalent of a Urukai-Orc (an even match) on a bridge ...

Lordling: In a tired, dismissive voice announces "I thrust him casually through the throat"
GM: "Um, you can't just say that. You need to roll it"
Lordling: "Fine.", and promptly rolls an obscene critical, and repeats "I thrust him casually through the throat!"
GM: Looking at his tables, starts reading "Rapier damage critical... liver punctured, creatures dies in 1-3 rounds"
Lordling: The player gently forces the GM's book closed and says, "I thrust him casually through the throat".
GM: Finally, the light dawns. "You thrust him casually through the throat"

-------------------= Second =---------------------
A group of players and the GM are sitting around a table rolling up D&D 3rd ed. characters using one of the more the more stringent methods where stat rolls cannot be re-arranged to taste, and one of the players has a problem...

Player: "Umm, I'm trying to roll up a mage, but I've got a problem with my Constitution score."
GM: "What Is is?"
Player: "4" (one short of the worst possible in the game. You get negative hit points for this, and for a mage, this means that the common cold is a serious threat!)
GM: "Ouch. Well, since this is a more heroic-style game, trying rolling it again."
Player: Re-rolls. "4"
GM: "Okay, try using just 3 dice straight up" (usually, it is roll four and drop the lowest)
Player: Rolls. "4"
GM: "2 dice?". Other player start gathering around at this point
Player: Rolls. "4"
GM: Now just curious as hell, "1 die?"
Player: Rolls. "4"
GM: Not missing a beat, "Okay, looks like fate has decreed that your character's Constitution is a 4. As a consolation prize, here is a Ring of Regeneration instead of the other starting magic item I was considering for your character..."

-Bun

Wow. I haven't played ChartMaster in ages. But I flash back to it every time someone brings it up. I think it left me with Post-Traumatic Chart Disorder.

Hmmm... "I thrust him casually through the throat" is my new beloved phrase.

To combat metagaming myself, i had a whole campaign where the mcguffin was an artifact that removed monster's weaknesses. The players let it fall into the hands of a succubus (guess why...) and soon they were overwhelmed with combats where previous knowledge meant little -all a legit part of the story.

Best villain i ever pestered players with and she didn't even mean them harm.

oh wow, that constitution score thing was just epic, it definetly looks like someone wanted that wizard to have a con of 4

i am part of a roleplaying group of about ten people and among six have tried their hand at GMing and four are still "active GM". We take our turns at GMing campaigns of ... greatly varying length (from three sessions to thirty) in various universe. Some of them being perfectly homebrewed with a matching game system.

Two of our GMs are .. railroaders. One is a moderate railroader but the other will have nothing derailing his plot. He alternates between the "minefield along the railroad tracks" school and the "empty desert where nothing matters or has any consequence along the tracks" kind.

Here are a couple particularly ... revealing (nonsensical) examples.

7th Sea
GM: The assassin move threateningly toward the nobleman lying on the ground, his blade raised.
Courageous-but-useless-in-combat-PC: I throw myself over the nobleman to shield him with my own body !
GM: ... The assassin's blade skewers both of you and the nobleman dies.
CBUICPC: ... and me ?
GM: You ? Oh ... You are just wounded.

Homebrewed post-apocalyptic setting
GM: You retrieve the astronaut from the wreckage of the crashed shuttle. You hear a feminine voice counting down a self-destruct sequence !
Super-computer-skilled-and-strong-enough-to-benchpress-small-cars-but-useless-in-combat-android-PC (yes it was the same player): I deactivate the self-destruct sequence !
GM: ... the ... keyboard resists !
SCSASETBSCBUICAPC: Wh.. what ?
GM: Yes ! Something is holding the keys in place !

Homebrewed sci-fi setting

In this case, my character was a big four armed mantis alien (space thrikreen if you like) who had been outfitted with the local "Predator" gear, complete with wristblades and stealth suit. He was skilled in melee, close combat, brawling, kickassery, hand-to-hand, general-gunless-fighting and... charm

GM: The short grey alien is running through the spaceship's narrow corridor toward the exit with the precious datadisk in his hands !
Me: As I just returned to the spaceship with my stealth suit still activated from the previous scene, I am between the little guy and the exit. Considering I occupy most of the corridor's space, am an expert in hand-to-hand and I am undetected by the little guy weighting one fifth of me and who is running straight towards my open clawed arms, I intercept him... I rolled a success too.
GM: .. He deftly evades your attack and run past you !
General audience: ?!

I have a lot more nonsensical scenes like those if you wish to hear more. Some require a bit more exposition but are from an objective poit of view funnier