A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

Neonchameleon · Jul 3, 2018

Emerikol said:
No. I'm saying that in my style of play character knowledge and player knowledge is the same. So whatever you choose to do you are already basing it on character knowledge alone because as DM that is all I'm giving you.

And this is where I have little understanding of where you are coming from.

As a player I can not see what my character sees. I can not smell what my character smells. I don't know the history of the world or the smell of salt air on the breeze in the way my character does. No matter how much the GM describes I will not and can not see the setting in the same detail as my character unless my character is literally blind and being guided around by someone describing things.

Also as a player my character is unable to look at their own character sheet. My character can't say how many hit points they have left, and far from an exact knowledge of their stats they normally have a version of the (real rather than cartoon) Dunning Krueger Effect, thinking they are a bit above average no matter whether they are poor or exceptional. And they certainly don't have objective information that way.

I often try to approximate the two as closely as I possibly can and there are many ways of doing this (and giving narrative control helps in some circumstances but not all).

And then there's background knowledge. The more time a character spends in a city the more they know it. If someone was playing a character who'd lived in a large city all their life and wanted to e.g. find a certain type of second hand bookshop they would know roughly where to find it, and I'd let them describe the bookshop as this (as opposed to exact knowledge of the books on the shelves) would be in character knowledge.

And regarding Fate, last time I played it we were playing Dresden Files. Fate Points were spent for precisely one purpose in the half dozen sessions. It always and without exception happened where the character was saying "This is what is important to me. Here is where I am going to grit my teeth, spend my physical and mental stamina, and make sure I get this right." An entirely in character decision. (And yes, we had remarkably few compels that game). And to me this is one of the weaknesses of most forms of D&D - the inability to pace yourself and to decide when to really go all out mechanically takes what should be an obvious choice in character and means there's no weight behind it.

As for the question of whether to spend hit dice, my normal assumption is that you spend hit dice when bandaging your wounds and recovering your strength. An in character decision to take a rest and to bandage yourselves. How many you spend is obvious - you spend until you are in about as good shape as you think you are going to get with the only question being that extra layer of bandages that will do a fractionally better job but may get in the way (i.e. do you spend hit dice when you are close to but not at full hit points).

The Crimson Binome · Jul 3, 2018

Neonchameleon said:
As a player I can not see what my character sees. I can not smell what my character smells. I don't know the history of the world or the smell of salt air on the breeze in the way my character does. No matter how much the GM describes I will not and can not see the setting in the same detail as my character unless my character is literally blind and being guided around by someone describing things.

Also as a player my character is unable to look at their own character sheet. My character can't say how many hit points they have left, and far from an exact knowledge of their stats they normally have a version of the (real rather than cartoon) Dunning Krueger Effect, thinking they are a bit above average no matter whether they are poor or exceptional. And they certainly don't have objective information that way.

As you say, you cannot see the world as well as your character does. We really should be giving the benefit of the doubt to these characters, far more often than some people like to portray. The character knows a lot more about the world than what the DM can convey.

No, the character cannot see their own character sheet, but they don't need to. They can see the actual reality, of which those stats are merely a pale reflection. They can see how strong someone actually is, by their appearance and how they walk. They can see the blood flowing from a wound, which gives them far more information than we have. Every single item on a character sheet corresponds to information that is objectively observable within the game world.

Emerikol · Jul 3, 2018

Neonchameleon said:
And this is where I have little understanding of where you are coming from.

As a player I can not see what my character sees. I can not smell what my character smells. I don't know the history of the world or the smell of salt air on the breeze in the way my character does. No matter how much the GM describes I will not and can not see the setting in the same detail as my character unless my character is literally blind and being guided around by someone describing things.

As regards sensory perception, it is a limitation of the system that the DM has to describe those things. I don't feel it is a fatal limitation. Meaning the player hears the description imagines what is happening and then the character acts.

As regards history, I work really hard on my worlds to provide a lot of depth. So I know a ton as DM. Often though I have the characters start out in territory unknown to them for this reason. Even so there does come a time when a player can ask, "Does my character recognize any of those books". I either know as DM or I roll. The player is told. Nothing has happened in game though. What we as humans recognize instantly in realize has to travel from DM to player to character. It is though still real knowledge the character ultimately has.

Neonchameleon said:
Also as a player my character is unable to look at their own character sheet. My character can't say how many hit points they have left, and far from an exact knowledge of their stats they normally have a version of the (real rather than cartoon) Dunning Krueger Effect, thinking they are a bit above average no matter whether they are poor or exceptional. And they certainly don't have objective information that way.

I play the game as the stats are description of what the character perceives about himself. The granularity may be too fine but I don't find it that unbelievable. I guess I just don't find that information to really be metagame. Perhaps the character does know too much or in too fine grained a detail but it's still about in game things.

Neonchameleon said:
I often try to approximate the two as closely as I possibly can and there are many ways of doing this (and giving narrative control helps in some circumstances but not all).

And then there's background knowledge. The more time a character spends in a city the more they know it. If someone was playing a character who'd lived in a large city all their life and wanted to e.g. find a certain type of second hand bookshop they would know roughly where to find it, and I'd let them describe the bookshop as this (as opposed to exact knowledge of the books on the shelves) would be in character knowledge.

I addressed this above. If I really wanted one of my characters to be a local I'd give him literally a book of information about the city.

Neonchameleon said:
And regarding Fate, last time I played it we were playing Dresden Files. Fate Points were spent for precisely one purpose in the half dozen sessions. It always and without exception happened where the character was saying "This is what is important to me. Here is where I am going to grit my teeth, spend my physical and mental stamina, and make sure I get this right." An entirely in character decision. (And yes, we had remarkably few compels that game). And to me this is one of the weaknesses of most forms of D&D - the inability to pace yourself and to decide when to really go all out mechanically takes what should be an obvious choice in character and means there's no weight behind it.

I guess I don't really buy the idea of saving up some reasons or making one great effort that uses that resource. I think in the course of a round of combat that your great exertion is that moment when you really try to hit the enemy as opposed to feinting etc...

Neonchameleon said:
As for the question of whether to spend hit dice, my normal assumption is that you spend hit dice when bandaging your wounds and recovering your strength. An in character decision to take a rest and to bandage yourselves. How many you spend is obvious - you spend until you are in about as good shape as you think you are going to get with the only question being that extra layer of bandages that will do a fractionally better job but may get in the way (i.e. do you spend hit dice when you are close to but not at full hit points).

I appreciate your view but it just doesn't work for me. I think any reasonable character would 100% of the time try to get as healthy as possible. This would not be optimal thinking though as a player who wants to manage hit dice. I've got even bigger issues with healing in 5e in general and would undoubtedly use one of the optional systems or create my own if I did play 5e.

I find it fun to debate with the people trying to convert me but I believe I'm pretty unconvertible. So don't feel bad. I don't tend to take up positions lightly but once I've considered everything it's hard to change me.

I'm more interested in the best approach to get a game I like. Not change my own views on gaming. No offense. I am genuinely glad you all enjoy playing the game the way you do. The world is big enough for more than one playstyle. I'm just trying to figure out which game system is closest so I can hack it. I doubt any system is right there.

I am following all the posts about pf2e. I keep thinking that it would be so easy to just eliminate any feat or even archetype I found objectionable. I'd ban the goblin so fast it's tiny head would spin. But so what? If the basic infrastructure would work, I could then just build up from that. Not sure it will of course as I haven't seen that rulebook but I will look it over in August. Maybe.

Emerikol · Jul 3, 2018

Neonchameleon said:
And this is where I have little understanding of where you are coming from.

As an additional aside, I do think there is a big disconnect between people who care and those who don't. It's definitely a matter of degrees too. So it's like people fall on a scale from 1 to 10 where 10 is someone like me. A lot of people opposed 4e for some of it's metagame and perhaps those people are 5's or 7's but they accept 5e's similar approaches because they aren't as far along that line as me.

For those who really aren't bothered at all about it, they seem to have little empathy and how could they. They just don't feel what I feel. Whether it's left brain, right brain or whatever. It might even be that for some people D&D is just like playing any other game. They have no empathy about my concerns. I play other games like that but for me roleplaying provides a far deeper and richer experience. I can lose myself in another world in ways playing a board game or a minis game just doesn't satisfy. And when the rpg becomes more like those other games to me it's a poor version of that sort of fun.

So that was all just me theorizing. I don't claim to have a Ph.D in anything on such matters. My observation is that people's tastes are different. Shocking.

. Why they are we may never know. I enjoy talking about it and theorizing about it but not sure that will change anything or anyone.

Neonchameleon · Jul 3, 2018

Emerikol said:
As regards sensory perception, it is a limitation of the system that the DM has to describe those things. I don't feel it is a fatal limitation. Meaning the player hears the description imagines what is happening and then the character acts.

I do however regard it as a limitation and one that if there is some way of mitigating it can be useful to do so.

I play the game as the stats are description of what the character perceives about himself. The granularity may be too fine but I don't find it that unbelievable. I guess I just don't find that information to really be metagame. Perhaps the character does know too much or in too fine grained a detail but it's still about in game things.

And here's the heart of the matter.

I guess I don't really buy the idea of saving up some reasons or making one great effort that uses that resource. I think in the course of a round of combat that your great exertion is that moment when you really try to hit the enemy as opposed to feinting etc...

Whereas I think that any warrior who isn't terminally stupid who is fighting kobolds and knows that they will be fighting a dragon later will deliberately pace themselves against the kobolds and go all out against the dragon. In the one case they die only if they

up, and in the other they die if they don't bring their A game.

I appreciate your view but it just doesn't work for me.

And here is where castigate just about every designer of a class based game between E. Gary Gygax in 1974 and D. Vincent Baker in 2010. Because to me "it just doesn't work for me" is a big part of what should be the beauty of a class based game.

If I see a fighter (as I do) as an athlete who paces themselves and who needs some form of mechanic to indicate when they are going all out against the enemy in order to fit the archetype and you see a fighter as someone who always performs at the same level then, in a class based game, there is precisely no reason we shouldn't be able to have our two fighters sitting side by side at the same table from different classes or subclasses. And whereas I'd find yours mechanically tedious, stifling, and anti-immersive and you'd find mine dissasociated and anti-immersive who cares? I don't have to play yours and you don't have to play mine.

Designing a class in a class based game should essentially be designing almost an entirely new game (and both Gygax and Baker got that; the oD&D fighter, magic user, and cleric were basically playing entirely different games based on their relationship to exploration and loot while Baker's Apocalypse World and its good hacks are essentially a different game per playbook with some overlap).

I think any reasonable character would 100% of the time try to get as healthy as possible.

First, I think most adventurers would be unreasonable people or they wouldn't make their living as adventurers. Second I work in a hospital and I can tell you this isn't true.

I'm more interested in the best approach to get a game I like. Not change my own views on gaming. No offense. I am genuinely glad you all enjoy playing the game the way you do. The world is big enough for more than one playstyle. I'm just trying to figure out which game system is closest so I can hack it. I doubt any system is right there.

And one question I'd ask is whether you want to control the parts of the game you interface with for your playstyle or you need all the players to interface with the game the same way. As I said, one of the key strengths of a class based game is that different people can handle things differently.

Umbran · Jul 3, 2018

Saelorn said:
If I want to play a flawed character in D&D, then I can do that. I will choose to make the wrong choices, because I'm role-playing a flawed character, and that's what they would do. Rewarding that choice should not be necessary.

You should reward the choices of the form you want players to make. If you want players to make exquisite tactical plans, you should present them with situations where those plans work well, so that they'll win and be rewarded for those plans. If you want them to improvise and shoot from the hip, you should provide them with situations where that's the best approach. If you want them to use diplomacy, you should reward them when they use diplomacy.

And, if you want them to display the flaws of a character? Well, you should reward them for that.

And if you have a preferred playstyle, that means you do have types of choices you want the players to take over other types.

That's not a very nice thing to say about Squirrel Girl.

Yeah, I'm not actually a fan of Squirrel Girl. Or Deadpool. Or Batman. If they've had a comic of the form "Character beats up *everyone else*" I'm probably not a big fan.

Umbran · Jul 3, 2018

Emerikol said:
You always seem to twist my words into a strawman.

I am trying to take your words as they are stated.

The characters though are trying to act optimally.

And I'm saying that's the unrealistic bit. Real people don't always even try to act optimally, much less achieve it.

For example - many real world people smoke tobacco. The number of people born in the US after 1970 who do not know that smoking is a really bad idea is vanishingly small. But about 17% of adults still smoke - they are not even trying to be optimal. People do all sort of suboptimal things, not just because they don't have all the information, not just because their logical abilities are limited, but because humans have conflicting drives. They don't want just one thing, to which an optimal route is available. Humans often want conflicting, mutually exclusive things, such that there's no optimal route to what they want. And sometimes, they act sub-optimally just because!

It is past midnight, and I have a job interview tomorrow, and I'm here discussing how to pretend to be elves! Not optimal! Insomnia keeps me from having access to anything even vaguely optimal at the moment. So, I just pick something, until something better comes along.

Defeat is a lot of things. Death is one and it's always there in a world in my games. But failing to rescue someone, having to retreat due to a superior enemy, springing a trap (small defeat), or the bad guys just plain getting away with the treasure are all defeats. Failure to achieve the goal.

I can't win for losing. In another discussion, I try to convince someone that death isn't the only source of suspense in a game, and they were having none of it. Here, I can't get someone to accept death as the clearest consequence for screwing up in D&D.

Make up your minds, people!

Every one of those things though not perfect are representative of things characters know in game. They know the big sword tends to do more than the small dagger. They know some people are better at avoiding spell damage than others. They all know that hit points represent their overall well being and nearness to death. My characters all know that. That is in game knowledge every bit of it.

Do they look up in books during a fight which sword does more damage? 'Cause that's something players do.

I think maybe I've triggered you which is not my intention.

With respect, nothing you can say can "trigger" me. You can't moderate boards like this as long as I have and be "triggered" by piddling things like differences of opinion on how to pretend to be elves.

And that word is wildly overused. Let's reserve it for people who have PTSD, like it was intended, please

This thread is getting off track. I don't agree with what you think is metagame which to me is not. Just realize that for me it is not. I think it's not for others too in many cases but again that is unimportant to the questions I'm asking.

Okay, actually, if we do want to get this back to something you care about, it is really an important bit. We cannot advise you on how to achieve no-metagame when your conception of what constitutes metagame is different than ours. If there's one thing here we should *not* discard, it is this. Yoru conception of what constitutes metagame is *central* to the issue.

The Crimson Binome · Jul 3, 2018

Umbran said:
And, if you want them to display the flaws of a character? Well, you should reward them for that.

That's not a very impartial way of adjudicating uncertainty in action resolution. It's a highly biased method, for promoting certain outcomes above others, by encouraging the player to meta-game. It basically violates every tenet of traditional role-playing games.

Umbran said:
Yeah, I'm not actually a fan of Squirrel Girl.

:-(

Umbran · Jul 3, 2018

Saelorn said:
That's not a very impartial way of adjudicating uncertainty in action resolution. It's a highly biased method, for promoting certain outcomes above others, by encouraging the player to meta-game. It basically violates every tenet of traditional role-playing games.

Oh, really? You sure?

AD&D (1e) DMG, pg 110: Conducting The Game

"In many situations it is correct and fun to have the players dice things such as melee hits and saving throws. However, it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll dice for the players. You might do this to keep them from knowing a specific fact. You might also want to give them an edge in finding a particular clue.... You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur."

Those are the words of Gary Gygax. Nothing more "traditional" than that! Clearly, the most traditional tenets of role-playing games are *NOT* of totally impartially adjudicated uncertainty. When a Gygaxian GM wants something to happen a certain way, it happens, action resolution system be darned! Your having action resolution be inviolate is the new-fangled, non-traditional thing, I dare say. As far as Gygax was concerned, the GM most certainly had some say in what way things were going to go.

Be that as it may, I'm not trying to advocate mucking with the action resolution system. Quite the contrary - I'm talking more about influencing what choice of actions the players make, not about influencing how those actions are resolved once chosen. I'm talking about an action resolution system that rewards a type of play *naturally*, without the GM having to intervene directly in the course of play!

Alternatively, a few of the things I mentioned are probably best handled by adventure design that encourages one style of play over another, without touching the rules.

There's more than one way for the GM to set up the rewards for playstyle.

pemerton · Jul 3, 2018

Emerikol said:
If I really wanted one of my characters to be a local I'd give him literally a book of information about the city.

I think that's actually quite impractical for a lot of RPGing situations. And also still doesn't do the job. No doubt there's stuff in the Lonely Planet guide to Melbourne that I don't know; but as far as knowing the shortcuts and alleyways around my house, I know them better than the Lonely Planet will tell you about them.

Emerikol said:
I guess I don't really buy the idea of saving up some reasons or making one great effort that uses that resource. I think in the course of a round of combat that your great exertion is that moment when you really try to hit the enemy as opposed to feinting etc...

<snip>

I think any reasonable character would 100% of the time try to get as healthy as possible. This would not be optimal thinking though as a player who wants to manage hit dice.

Neonchameleon said:
I think that any warrior who isn't terminally stupid who is fighting kobolds and knows that they will be fighting a dragon later will deliberately pace themselves against the kobolds and go all out against the dragon. In the one case they die only if they up, and in the other they die if they don't bring their A game.

<snip>

I see a fighter (as I do) as an athlete who paces themselves and who needs some form of mechanic to indicate when they are going all out against the enemy

I think having mechanics that allow a PC to pace him-/herself, and to try harder (or not) are not at odds with "realism". It's realistic for serious athletes to do this.

Emerikol said:
I do think there is a big disconnect between people who care and those who don't.

<snip>

For those who really aren't bothered at all about it, they seem to have little empathy and how could they. They just don't feel what I feel.

To be honest I find this a little melodramatic. I've GMed thousands of hours of Rolemaster, and have played RQ and other games, all of which are largely metagame free. A big part of the appeal of those games, compared to classic D&D, is that they are metagame free (especially in their combat mechanics, but also their spellcasting - spell memorisation encourages metagaming, like @Immaculata's example with the undead, even though there is a veneer of in-fiction justification layered over the top - and in their advancement mechanics too - no "gold for XP" in those systems!).

So I think I've got a pretty good handle on the appeal of metagame-free RPGing. What I don't get is why anyone who plays mostly D&D would advocate for it.