A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

So let me try to give a more precise definition....

When a player decides something for his character that his character could not know about because it is not an in world concept, it is a metagame mechanic. When the player does it during the play session while the character is in action, then it creates dissonance for some people.

In a D&D style sword and sorcery game, I expect the martial characters such as fighter and rogue to have no innate magical abilities. Beyond those two characters I really don't care because I probably wouldn't see the others get played anyway. So in D&D, I don't want fighters/rogues with powers they choose to use when they like that recharge. Without magic, those types of decisions have to be metagame decisions.

Abstractions that convey information rapidly from DM to player and back are not metagame if they have a real world analog. Hit points in D&D reflect your distance from death. In my campaigns, my PCs know that fact. It may be totally unrealistic but it is not metagame if the characters have that knowledge. The same for AC and Attributes. It's numerical quantization of data that is known by the characters.

I readily admit that other games with other flavors may take a looser stance on what is the reality of the world and who has magic. So what would be metagame in those styles of games would vary.

None of the above is what this thread is about. This thread is about coming up with ideas for dealing with the issue for people who care about the issue. If you don't care or can't wrap your head around the problem to even provide constructive feedback then why are you here? You just want to attack anyone who tries to understand their own preferences in gaming and try to claim that any "systemic" way of thinking they may profess is an illusion? I think at this trollishness needs to stop.

If you don't believe my preferences can be systematized then just leave. I am certain you can't contribute to the discussion productively.

Shasarak said:

I love the metagame and on the other hand in ADnD the rules for multiclassing just dont even make a lick of sense.

and dont even get me started about being locked into planning out every character in advance from level 1. :shake fist:

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Really? I thought 1e made a lot more sense than 3e. In 1e, you are for all intents and purposes inventing a new class. You are not a fighter or a magic user. You are a fighter/magic-user. You are advancing both capabilities at the exact same time. You are using them both at the same time. Dual classing made no sense to me but multiclassing made a lot of sense.

Ratskinner said:

Now, that doesn't mean that I want total simulationism. It means that I want narrative to matter.

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What 'matters' in a game is very much an issue of preference and perception. A lot of people seem to want the narrative of injury to matter elsewhere within the mechanics, to make it harder for someone to jump or swing a sword or whatever.

Personally, I see the narration as the goal, rather than the process. Basically, the whole point of game mechanics (to me) is to translate a world into a mathematical language, so it can be easily manipulated, and then translated back into narrative. If the end result of combat is that you have a fractured sternum, then I'm fine with that as the end of the narrative (until it's healed). If having a fractured sternum doesn't affect your ability to jump, then that seems like a reasonable compromise in a system that measures the entire range of human strength on a scale from 4 to 20. You don't need that level of detailed interaction, if the thing that matters is just how you narrate it.

Ratskinner said:

Because HP don't tell you how badly you are hurt, they only tell you how close you are to dying. Which, sounds odd, I know. But remember all that Divine favor stuff? They are a clock or countdown timer, more than an indicator of condition.

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You could certainly run it that way, if you wanted to, but there are drawbacks associated with that model. The question of how any character would know how far their cosmic clock has counted down, and therefore which grade of healing potion to drink, is an important one. I don't know that it's possible to solve that problem, short of giving characters an in-game doom-meter that they can use to see how close to death they are.

If you instead use HP damage as a measure of how beaten up someone is, then that problem is solved, because it's something that every character can observe.

Ratskinner said:

The HP mechanic basically forces all injuries to be a collection of minor scrapes and bruises up until the point of the last HP. Which... is weird. It kinda makes the D&D world (well, and most of the rest of them, too) into a Disney version of fantasy.

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Or JRRT, who is about as sentimental as Disney.

I think one solution to this is one that Gygax at least gestures towards in his DMG: narrate it one way (Disney-esque) for PCs, but otherwise for monsters and NPCs who won't be coming back.

You probably won't be surprised that I regard 4e as the most coherent presentation of hp-as-sentimentality-towards-the-heroes: that's why they can be roused by a reassuring word from a charismatic friend!

Maxperson said:

But what makes that more likely than there being 3 levels? Low level, which begins with level 1 spells, hits level 2 spells midway, and ends with level 3 spells. Mid level, which is levels 4-6, and high level, which would be 7-9. Or some other method of tracking than 1 new level every time you get more spells?

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There are wizards within the game world who can cast spells that we (out of game) would label as first level, but cannot cast spells that we would call second level. There are wizards in the game world who can cast spells that we would call first level or second level, but cannot cast spells that we could call third level. And so on, all the way up to wizards who can cast spells that we would call first-through-eighth level, but cannot cast spells that we would call ninth level. There are nine distinct plateaus, where some wizards can cast spells of this complexity and every lower complexity, and others cannot (or ten plateaus, if you assume that apprentices can only cast cantrips).

Wizards know that there are not just three levels of spells, because they can observe a wizard who can learn Magic Missile but cannot learn Levitate or Fireball. If there were only three levels of spells, as you describe, then anyone who could learn Magic Missile would also be capable of learning Levitate and Fireball. Therefore, they would be aware that those are three distinct levels of power, if they're paying attention - which they probably are, because they're wizards, and they study magic professionally.

Maxperson said:

Yes, the fighter would feel himself get the second wind. The fighter would not have control over when that happens.

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Why not? An AD&D monk can control when s/he goes into a cataleptic trance that feigns death, ro when s/he recovers lost hit points by way of self-healing. A 3E or 5e barbarian can control when s/he gets really angry. Why can't a 5e fighter control when s/he gets his/her second wind?

Emerikol said:

I readily admit that any metagame mechanic can be made whole by turning them into magic.

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Emerikol said:

First if Second Wind is anything remotely like real second winds, you don't activate them so they are metagame. If they are some power, that humans in the D&D world have but humans in the real world don't have then they should have mentioned that. I prefer to start with baseline humans.

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Emerikol said:

I am happy enough with a moderately unrealistic system like hit points for a high fantasy super heroic game. I might also enjoy a less super heroic game. In such cases maybe WOIN or GURPS or even RQ would work. This is a totally different axis from metagame.

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I think there is some tension here. You don't seem to regard "moderately unrealistic" hit points as magic, yet you deny they're metagame. I don't understand on what basis you are insisting that second wind must be something different.

Emerikol said:

In my one campaign, I'd say things like "such and such wizard is known to have cast a spell that is on the seventh scroll". My characters then could surmise he can cast seventh level spells.

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I think you mean "players" in that last sentence - the character isn't surmising anything beyond what s/he already knows, that the NPC in question can cast spells on the seventh scroll.

Emerikol said:

If a world existed with magic. The second you could cast a second level spell you would know you'd reach a new level of experience. You can do things you couldn't do before. Getting that second second level spell might be viewed as a more gradual advance but all these things are really happening in game.

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Maxperson said:

There are no in game class levels to correlate it with. The gradual increase which you just described, and I described to you in my post, could just as easily happen without any levels at all as far as the wizard in the game world is concerned.

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Maxperson said:

But what makes that more likely than there being 3 levels? Low level, which begins with level 1 spells, hits level 2 spells midway, and ends with level 3 spells. Mid level, which is levels 4-6, and high level, which would be 7-9. Or some other method of tracking than 1 new level every time you get more spells?

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On this point I think that [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] is obviously right. Why would anyone use a grading system that can't distinguish between the character who can cast only Magic Missile, and the character who can cast Fireball? Especially when the ranking of capabilities is a repeated and rigid phenomenon across all the wizards in the land?

As soon as you treat spell levels and slots as real, ingame phenomena, then the wizards in their schools will be able to establish a ranking system that every wizard (at least until 9th level) sits within, and that correlates exactly to the levels set out in the PHB.

Emerikol said:

They are abstract concepts but they are not metagame. For one they don't really come into play during game time but that is an aside. A player doesn't know about levels per se but he knows how good a fighter he is relative to others around him. I agree x.p. is unrealistic or metagame and in this case I side with metagame in my campaign because x.p. is never a concept discussed in game.

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How do you handle wights, wraiths and other level-draining undead, then? Or magic item creation in 3E?

Emerikol said:

I think you are wrong here. This is just character skill. Your character knows his spells and their capabilities. He knows their relative power.

<snip>

I love preparation of spells because I want to reward good preparation. Choosing the right equipment is another form of preparation because I don't allow the PCs to pack everything under the sun. Right? My players pack all sorts of things especially at lower levels to give them an edge in the dungeon. Chalk, string, a candle, oil, iron spikes, etc... If they don't pack it they don't have it. The wizard is figuring out his spells.

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Maxperson said:

There's no metagame involved with picking generally good spells. The wizard knows which spells are generally good.

<snip>

A PC wizard who knows that certain spells are very good in a general way and selects those, is not acting on any knowledge it does not possess, so no metagaming is happening.

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Following [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s reasoning, choosing equipment in D&D also has a strong metagame aspect to it: iron spikes, 10' poles, Find Traps, etc - the logic of all these is established by the D&D dungeoneering framework. Again, layering a veneer of infiction rationale over this doesn't change the underlying logic.

pemerton said:

Why not? An AD&D monk can control when s/he goes into a cataleptic trance that feigns death, ro when s/he recovers lost hit points by way of self-healing. A 3E or 5e barbarian can control when s/he gets really angry. Why can't a 5e fighter control when s/he gets his/her second wind?

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I considered it magic. Chi or Ki or whatever. I never had a Barbarian ever and one monk. We really do tend for the big four with paladin popular.

pemerton said:

I think there is some tension here. You don't seem to regard "moderately unrealistic" hit points as magic, yet you deny they're metagame. I don't understand on what basis you are insisting that second wind must be something different.

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It's a good question. Second wind is an action you take as a character. Hit points are an abstract way of conveying information. I accept abstractions as a means of conveying complex ideas. Face it, well being or closeness to death would be hard to describe without some abstract representation. Whereas, second wind is for all intents a power. The player is choose for the character and having his second wind kick in. The character never chose.

pemerton said:

I think you mean "players" in that last sentence - the character isn't surmising anything beyond what s/he already knows, that the NPC in question can cast spells on the seventh scroll.

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Yes but level is another one of those abstract concepts. When I know a someone can cast spells on the seventh scroll, I know something about them power wise as well. The more powerful a wizard the higher the scroll he can cast from. I may flavor up all this with different words but if I just said level it wouldn't be that draconian. For me it is very much in game knowledge.

pemerton said:

On this point I think that [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] is obviously right. Why would anyone use a grading system that can't distinguish between the character who can cast only Magic Missile, and the character who can cast Fireball? Especially when the ranking of capabilities is a repeated and rigid phenomenon across all the wizards in the land?

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This kind of supports my point above as well.

pemerton said:

As soon as you treat spell levels and slots as real, ingame phenomena, then the wizards in their schools will be able to establish a ranking system that every wizard (at least until 9th level) sits within, and that correlates exactly to the levels set out in the PHB.

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pemerton said:

How do you handle wights, wraiths and other level-draining undead, then? Or magic item creation in 3E?

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I handle it by level loss not x.p. loss. So a character hit by undead feels a definite weakening. He can no longer do what he could do before. It is likely shocking the first time it happens. But I play it straight up that way.

pemerton said:

Following [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s reasoning, choosing equipment in D&D also has a strong metagame aspect to it: iron spikes, 10' poles, Find Traps, etc - the logic of all these is established by the D&D dungeoneering framework. Again, layering a veneer of infiction rationale over this doesn't change the underlying logic.

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I don't agree. If a world is filled with dungeons for whatever reason, then all those things make sense. Adventurers would adapt to the world as it is. A D&D world is filled with dungeons (or many are).

A lot of the conflict over this stuff is how we played 1e. I played it straight in a way where almost everything was in world knowledge and the game worked. I think Gygax designed it that way intentionally. It by no means required you to view it that way though. That was the beauty of his system. It was flexible enough to bear multiple interpretations. We lost that in recent editions.

Saelorn said:

What 'matters' in a game is very much an issue of preference and perception. A lot of people seem to want the narrative of injury to matter elsewhere within the mechanics, to make it harder for someone to jump or swing a sword or whatever.

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Oh I agree that what matter is subjective. I'm just trying to answer your question about why I find HP bothersome.

Saelorn said:

Personally, I see the narration as the goal, rather than the process. Basically, the whole point of game mechanics (to me) is to translate a world into a mathematical language, so it can be easily manipulated, and then translated back into narrative.

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I get that. I've played/run a lot of oddball games, and that has lost a lot of shine for me because:

a) Whatever "mathematical" language you use will inevitably create a pseudo-physics model for that universe. (HP are an example of a bad version of this for me.)
b) I've regularly found that, for my purposes, traditional rpg models are often more headache than they are worth.

Saelorn said:

You could certainly run it that way, if you wanted to, but there are drawbacks associated with that model. The question of how any character would know how far their cosmic clock has counted down, and therefore which grade of healing potion to drink, is an important one. I don't know that it's possible to solve that problem, short of giving characters an in-game doom-meter that they can use to see how close to death they are.

If you instead use HP damage as a measure of how beaten up someone is, then that problem is solved, because it's something that every character can observe.

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For me its not "run it that way" its "thats how it runs". Your last sentence makes no sense to my experience because the character is in no observable/measurable way "beaten up", but they do have an observable/measurable "doom clock". This whole conversation started as a response to the idea that players shouldn't use "metagame" information/mechanics to inform their decisions. Well, If HP loss has no implications for the character's physical performance...then it can't be having physical effects that the character can notice, can it? The "injuries" exist solely on the meta-level of that "doom-meter". So, effectively, for me, everyone in a D&D world is wallking around with a little bar floating over their heads, which gets shorter the more you attack them. Its why HP are "metagame" mechanic.

Emerikol said:

So let me try to give a more precise definition....

When a player decides something for his character that his character could not know about because it is not an in world concept, it is a metagame mechanic. When the player does it during the play session while the character is in action, then it creates dissonance for some people.

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The definition that I've seen used pretty reliably is not a player deciding something for his character that the character could not know about because it is not an in world concept. The definition is when a player decides something for his character that the character does not know. For example, a PC who has never heard of vampires preparing a stake to stab it in the heart, trying push it into the sun, or drown it in running water. That's metagaming, regardless of the fact that those things are in world concepts.

Saelorn said:

There are wizards within the game world who can cast spells that we (out of game) would label as first level, but cannot cast spells that we would call second level. There are wizards in the game world who can cast spells that we would call first level or second level, but cannot cast spells that we could call third level. And so on, all the way up to wizards who can cast spells that we would call first-through-eighth level, but cannot cast spells that we would call ninth level. There are nine distinct plateaus, where some wizards can cast spells of this complexity and every lower complexity, and others cannot (or ten plateaus, if you assume that apprentices can only cast cantrips).

Wizards know that there are not just three levels of spells, because they can observe a wizard who can learn Magic Missile but cannot learn Levitate or Fireball. If there were only three levels of spells, as you describe, then anyone who could learn Magic Missile would also be capable of learning Levitate and Fireball. Therefore, they would be aware that those are three distinct levels of power, if they're paying attention - which they probably are, because they're wizards, and they study magic professionally.

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If that's your response to me, then you clearly did not understand what I was saying. What I said takes that all into consideration.