Pack Tactics, our round-table advice column, is becoming Game Changer. We’re consulting with our resident GMing expert, Brian Suskind.

You might recognize Brian’s name from any of a slew of past Kobold Press products such as Campaign Builder: Castles & Crowns and the Tales of the Valiant Monster Vault. Or you might remember the welcome aboard blog post we did for him about three months ago.

Anonymous GM asks:

How much metagame information do I give players? Should they know the DC of ability checks they’re trying to beat? How much do I tell them about a monster they’re encountering? Is there a “standard” way to give players out-of-game knowledge but do it in the game world?

Secrets and Whispers

Information. It’s the lifeblood of folks who want to know stuff. Sometimes, players have the impression that GMs are gatekeeping information. But are you?

Yeah, kinda.

Hang on though! People usually use the word “gatekeeping” to mean unfairly withholding information to keep someone out. What you’re doing as a GM is withholding information to draw people in.

So, apply this thinking to GMing. As the GM do you tell the players the mechanics? Or describe the numbers as if they’re part of the game world?

What is “Metagame” Info?

Metagame information is info about the game, but outside of the game. You know your rogue has to scuttle under a falling stone door before it shuts. But outside the game, you might know that this is a DC 13 DEX (Acrobatics) check. What this is talking about is the balance between immersion and mechanics.

Immersion and mechanics are not opposites. But sometimes they pull in different directions. Neither “side” is wholly wrong—we play this game using a shared assumption of the rule set. That’s what allows it to work. There are rules. There are numbers. There are charts and tables and so forth. Yet it is also a shared storytelling experience. We are weaving a tale of our characters defeating mighty foes and (hopefully) saving the day. Talking about mechanics out loud can facilitate that.

Times to Lower the Screen

There are times when you should absolutely describe things as part of the game world. I prefer to do this when someone succeeds on a save. I might say, “the fireball explodes with concussive force, but you dive to one side, avoiding the blast!” This feels better than “you made your save.”

There are also times when the players benefit from knowing mechanics like DCs or dice values:

Clarity. Tell a player what the number to beat is so they know what’s going on. Although we talk about the shared storytelling space in roleplaying games, in reality every participant has a slightly different vision of what’s happening. Sharing mechanics keeps everyone on the same page.

Pacing. You might ask everyone to roll a DC 12 DEX save against a monster’s weird power, rather than asking each player individually. Everyone is going to figure it out pretty quickly, and it’s not a lot of fun to go one by one. So just cut to mechanics to make things go quickly.

Drama. Other times you might single out a player, telling them the DC or the AC to beat. This can increase the dramatic tension at the table. You can get a ton of milage out of saying, “The demon will surely strike the king down with its next attack if you don’t finish it now. You need to beat AC 18 on your attack. Go for it!”

More than DCs

But there’s more to metagame know-how that just DCs. If you have a foe with resistance to lightning, for example, do you just come out and tell the players?

Mostly this is a matter of preference. I usually say something like, “your lightning bolt spell doesn’t seem as effective as you expected,” which communicates that the attack did half damage without talking numbers. The same thing goes with a high AC. I might describe a weapon skittering down a harden shell or tough hide, rather than just saying, “you didn’t roll high enough.”

But is there a standard way to give out-of-character knowledge? Not really. GMs have different styles, and most folks handle it in their own fashion. Whatever you’re doing is almost certainly not “wrong.”

For me, if I can give out-of-character knowledge in a way that feels like it is in the game world, I default to that. Most things can be described in game world terms.

A successful save against a mind controlling effect could be described as the character exerting their will against insidious and alien thoughts. A high AC is heavy armor. Wings indicate a flying speed.

But there are also times when I’m handling a ton of things at the table during a big battle and don’t have the mental room to formulate a nice turn of phrase. The choice to couch things in game-world terms or to give them to the players as out-of-character knowledge can easily come down to time and situation. If you have the brain space and time for it, give information as part of the game world to keep immersion strong. But don’t make things hard for yourself. If its faster and easier to talk in mechanical terms because you’re busy juggling all of the other aspects of the game, just give them the numbers.

What Do You Think?

How do you share info with your players? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server!

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