Reverse Metagaming: D&D characters know things their players don't

Sammy the Snek was leading her party on a mission to break into the mayor's mansion and retrieve a ledger proving the mayor is in cahoots with an evil cult. Things seemed to be going pretty well on the way in, but on the way out, the party ran into trouble. They'd chosen to break into the mansion in broad daylight, and several neighbors had seen the party unlock and sneak in through a window. When they came out the same window, the city guard was waiting with an ambush they couldn't roll their way out of. The party was apprehended and thrown in the dungeon.

Here's the problem, though: Sammy the Snek is a burglar by trade. She's been breaking into houses for years and has never been caught. Sammy's friends in the city's underbelly are shocked — she should have known better. It just doesn't make sense that Sammy would botch the job with such a rookie mistake.

Reverse metagaming

In forum discussions of this situation, many people would blame the player for this inconsistency — it was a dumb mistake by inexperienced players. But the problem also could have been (and probably should have been) prevented by the DM.

Bort, the player controlling Sammy the Snek, made a mistake because she doesn't have any experience robbing mansions. She's not a burglar. But Sammy is. It's not fair to punish a player for not knowing something that their characters really should have known.

Just as it's a player's duty to keep from metagaming by acting as if their character doesn't know things the player knows, it's the dungeon master's duty to keep from reverse metagaming -- they need to tell players things their characters know that the players don't. The characters, after all, have lived their entire lives in a different world and they're in the middle of very different career paths than the players who control them.

Reverse metagaming is a term that's had a few different definitions here and there, but I'm defining it as when a DM punishes a player for not knowing things that 1. their characters should know and 2. there's at least a possibility that the player doesn't know.

It helps to break down situations where you run the risk of reverse metagaming into three categories:

1. Things there's at least a chance characters would know.
2. Things characters probably know.
3. Things that are a big part a that character's class, background or backstory and that they almost certainly know. 

1. Things characters might know

For the first category, you can make them roll for it. This is one of the main uses for Intelligence skills like Arcana, History, Nature and Religion are for.

If a character's class, background or backstory include reasons that a character might know what they're rolling for but the info is so obscure that you'd still like them to roll, consider letting them roll with advantage.

2. Things characters probably know

If a player asks about something a character probably knows, just go ahead and tell them. This stuff includes common knowledge, folklore, and non-specialized knowledge related to a character's class or background.

I'd argue that many DMs set the bar too high when it comes to deciding what's common knowledge and what isn't.

For example, is it common knowledge that you need a silvered weapon to kill a werewolf? If you're thinking it's not, please consider that it's common knowledge in the real world that you kill werewolves with silver, and we don't even have werewolves here.

Werewolves and silver are part of our folklore, so it's a good bet that it's part of the folklore of your world. Not only that, adventurers who have fought werewolves are going to brag about it in taverns, and old adventurers training new adventurers are going to teach them as much as they can about every sort of creature they've encountered. So even though your world probably doesn't have electronic communication, don't forget that people have a fundamental need to spread information.

Does a druid know that skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage? Maybe, so make them roll for it. Does a cleric know? Almost certainly! They've got anti-undead abilities, so it makes sense that at some point they've received some sort of anti-undead training.

Or, for example, if a character's backstory says that he was kidnapped by hobgoblins as a kid, it makes sense that they'd know some basic info about hobgoblin characteristics and lairs without rolling for it.

3. Things that don't make sense for characters to be ignorant of

Fighters know a lot about fighting. Rangers know a lot about the range. Burglars know how to burgle. A big part of the fun of roleplaying games is getting to experience things from a new perspective. The R in RPG stands for role.

So if the core premise of D&D is that characters play different roles within the party, it can take a lot away from the game when characters make rookie mistake in the area in which they're supposed to really shine.

So if the DM sees a character acting as if they don't know something they almost certainly know, the DM should pipe up. If the DM doesn't, they're reverse metagaming. If the party is discussing a strategy and it seems like they're gravitating toward a really bad idea, that's the time to jump in with info that the party's experts would have.

Sammy the Snek makes good

Sammy the Snek and her party were planning to break into the mayor's mansion. They huddled around a table in their hideout, reading blueprints by lamplight.

"Let's go over there tomorrow morning, break that window, get in, get out," Barbara the Barbarian says.

"Ahem," the DM says, out of character. "Since Sammy is a professional burglar, she knows that being seen or leaving evidence during a burglary is a one-way ticket to dungeontown."
"That's a terrible idea, Barb," Sammy says. "There's no way I'm getting caught with you clowns. So first, we're going at night. Second, we're wearing masks. Third, anyone more interested in smashing than sneaking can wait in the cart and come clear a getaway path for us if we give the distress signal."

So with just a few nudges to remind players what their characters know and what they're good at, the party pulled off a successful burglary where every party member got to do what they were best at. Nobody even knew that Sammy had stolen the ledger upstairs, because Derek the Druid had wildshaped into a cat and was knocking over vases downstairs. Barbara was keeping the city patrol busy at a nearby tavern, setting fires and being surprisingly good in a barfight for someone who was supposed to be drunk. Ranger Rick got to stand lookout on the dark roof, silent and brooding.