Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Hitpoints aren't metagame at all, they are abstract. abstractions are required for the game to function, or you'd spend vastly more time simulating a single sword swing than most sessions last. Further, actually playing the game can't be metagaming so thinking about or using hitpoints is just playing the game.The point is that you don't understand what metagaming is. Geezer's statement about hit points is that there are a thousand mechanics that you interact with that are metagame, even dice rolls could be called "meta". In fact the whole game starts metagame and then proceeds IC, for trad games at least, maybe you only play modern narrative storygames only? That's cool if you do, and then I do understand why you would not get old geezer's point. I don't have a lot of experience in that arena myself with those sorts of pure narrative games.
RPGs have developed this weird idea that metagaming is anything outside the fictional mental state of the character. This is useless as a concept because it presupposes a one-true-way of playing and also moves actually playing the game into the metagame. Metagaming, by definition, is thinking outside the game, not playing it or using abstract mechanics. Metagaming is making sure the party covers all roles, or that someone plays a cleric, or how modern chemistry works. Not hitpoints.
I disagreed when [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] said something similar upthread, but things had moved past that by the time I could respond.