A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

[Emerikol]

Have you even been paying attention to our conversation?

IMHO, this is the metagame that the player does as part of the "strategic play" of the game. If you want to say that Vancian casting is 'magic,' then we may as well call Fate points 'fate.'

Well if the fate point really existed in the game such that CHARACTERS (not players) knew about them, then they wouldn't be metagame. It is why magic, psionics, etc... are a lot easier to get setup without it being metagame.

In my game world, Wizards discuss the spells in their spell books. They know the levels of those spells (or at least what level signifies if not the literal word level). In one campaign, I had nine scrolls in the great library and wizards used the term "I have a spell that is on the fifth scroll" to symbolize fifth level spells. I'm okay though with level being a known word.

I could contrive a certain type of Fate game where fate points were a real part of the game world. Most Fate games this is not true. The player is acting as director and fate points are not part of the mental state of characters. In general, a mundane character would find it hard to explain fate points. You could though contrive a different sort of world where everyone knows about these fate points (I might use a different name which would be fine) and is trying to accumulate them intentionally.

I think when playing fate though that many of us want to play traditional swords and sorcery, or sci-fi, etc...

 

[Emerikol]

Like I said before, they wouldn't have used the term at the time, but their complaint would have most certainly been that it was metagaming. What stuck in their craw was that it didn't emulate "real life" and a person didn't decide, after they were born, what their charisma or intelligence was. This was a choice that the player was making outside of the world that they thought the rules were trying to imitate.

More to the point, I think that what I was trying to illustrate was that maybe the concept of what metagaming "is" has more to do with what the person writing the definition is used to, and what the new version of the game is doing differently.

That would be what one side seems desperately intent on proving for some reason. I have said prior to the start of the campaign it is all metagaming. The character doesn't exist yet. What I don't like is while I'm actually being my character, roleplaying if you will, that I as the player start making decisions that the character could not make. For example, when I cast a spell and it disappears in game from my prepared spells, my character knows that without a doubt. If though I am a fighter in 4e, and I use a daily power, there is no real in game explanation for why my character is expending this valuable resource. The player knows and tracks it but the character is oblivious.

And sure, metagaming is a broad term and perhaps different people use it different ways. That is why I defined it for the purposes of this discussion. I saw confusion was occurring so I tried to nail down what I meant. Whatever it is that I don't like, whatever name you want to give it, it is a real thing and it bothers real people (to varying degrees of course). It doesn't bother other people and those people seem the hardest to explain the concept to. I believe there is a correlation there.

Other names for the concept include
Dissociative Mechanics - this is so loaded due to the blog post that set all sides into a practically shouting war over the concept. I avoided this term mainly to try to keep us on topic. Let's have some ideas on how to fix this issue for THOSE that think it is an issue. For those that don't think it is an issue, who are not wanting to be condescending or snarky, we welcome your advice to us to help us. Those who can't avoid being disruptive or deny the very existence of the problem should just avoid this thread.

Dissonant Mechanics
Metagame Mechanics
Director / Author mode games

etc..
Again the mere mention of some of those other terms may prove inflammatory which is not my intent. I disagree with the author of the blog post about what roleplaying actually is. His point perhaps should have been that this approach diverges from traditional roleplaying in ways he doesn't like. Again play what you want. That is not my intent. If someone started a blog about running a game in author mode, I'd either try and think of an idea that was really helpful or I'd just skip that thread. I don't need to fill it up with posts about how something that bothers me doesn't really exist and I should just get over it.

 

[Maxperson]

Another idea I've had is having an advantage system where you take the best rolls in the party and everyone else gets advantages worth the difference between their scores and the top person's scores. If you feel the entire party rolled terrible then maybe use some minimum number which if it turns out to be the max, is what everyone compares against.

This sounds interesting, but I don't understand it completely. What are the advantages? How would you rate them?(i.e. if the max is 17, what does an 11 score get vs. a 15)

 

[Emerikol]

Because there is a player awareness of most effective spells that are often best or most useful in the meta of D&D play, and that player awareness will form part of the strategy of "character choices." You can justify it as "character knowledge," but it still fundamentally operates as part of the metagame of D&D. Also, the entire spell organization of spell slots and spell levels is pretty darn metagame.

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

I think you are not understanding metagame. You definitely aren't understanding it as I've defined it above.

In D&D, a world exists where spell slots exist. It may not sit well with you realistically or even as a fantasy trope. That maybe true and is inarguable if you feel that way. It is though a conceit of the D&D game universe. Wizards know all about those things. If the group has any reason to know they face undead, then prepping anti-undead spells is smart.

Lanefan, 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.

 

[Emerikol]

When I played/ran games using pre-mem I saw it just about every time casters did their prep while in the field. Players would use info they had as players (e.g. knowing the DM's preferred monsters, seeing the module cover, etc.).

But, this is to me a minor issue compared to this: with pre-mem a caster is often stuck with spells she can't use and a party is often stuck because the spell they need to continue wasn't memorized. It's these things that eventually led me to drop pre-mem entirely.

Oh that would be very bad news in my campaign. As a DM, not being predictable comes with the territory. As a DM, not divulging any information that is not character information also comes with the territory. So perhaps this is an issue for some groups and not other groups. Mine doesn't have this problem.

 

[Emerikol]

The character can know about lots of things that would still nevertheless constitute metagaming. The character can "know" that they still have a single Second Wind available. The character can "know" that they have one level-one spell left. The character can "know" the placement of allies and foes in combat despite the fact that the character is operating from the players have a tactical advantage via miniatures.

I disagree, as you're just putting lipstick on the metagame pig.

It can be, but I don't think it inherently is. Like others have mentioned before, it's basis for not being metagaming seems more strongly rooted in familiarity and tradition than any real legit analysis.

You are going hard core on this. 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.

No you just don't know what metagaming is and you are starting to embarass yourself by using examples that completely don't fit the concept. It's the people who don't undestand that keep claiming it's just a preference for old mechanics. If it was just a preference for old mechanics then I'd be happy with all of them and be playing 1e right now. I don't like THAC0. I like feats better than random class powers. I like lots of new mechanics some of which run counter to old school gaming. I don't like metagame mechanics though. So it's far more than just a preference for old mechanics.

You should really try harder to understand the concept. Let me help you again.

1. It is making decisions that cause things to happen in game that only the player knows about and the character could not know about.
2. It is not abstract concepts like HP/AC which are in game concepts. How close to death am I? How good an I at avoiding getting hit? They are abstractions. Abstractions may not be realistic (these aren't) but they are not metagame. The character knows about them.
3. It is the character who should be making decisions for that character as that character. When you as the player are truly being that character then make decisions. When you are not being that character do not.
4. Magical/Psionic constructs are, at least in D&D, a part of the game world. It's like you say warp drive is metagame because it doesn't exist in the real world. Wrong! It is not metagame. It is not realistic by what we know today. It is not metagame. The crew of the Starship Enterprise know all about warp drive. It's a real thing in their universe.

 

[Emerikol]

It corresponds to an in-game reality, but the PC can't know that it has 18000xp, or that he's level 3 vs. level 5. Those numbers are representative of metagame ideas. The PC has them and uses them, but doesn't really have a basis for knowing them. He can just know that he's capable of doing more now and has learned a bunch of stuff since he started.

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. The character has been "turned off" and it is only the player when x.p. is being handed out. Since x.p. doesn't come into play during the game at all it doesn't cause problems for someone like me. Losing a level though is something different. The ingame reality is that you've had your life essence drawn out in some way that makes you weaker.

 

[Emerikol]

I dont see it as any more or less meta. Infact I had a discussion with [MENTION=92239]Kobold Boots[/MENTION] regarding planning out 20 levels of your character progression in advance, is that not what a multiclass Cleric/Ranger has done? It effectively does not matter what they do to earn their XP because you know that you are going to level up in Cleric first irregardless of how much Rangering that you have done. And then you have an adventure where you are Clericing your heart out and get enough XP to level up in Ranger.

If you don't care about metagaming though then that doesn't matter to you anyway right? I do think the mechanics of multiclassing planning can be metagaming. Even choosing a feat can be metagame in the fact it is happening in an instant when the reality is it would have been chosen as you lived out your life. All these things though do happen during down time or not at all. Not everyone plans out their character in advance. During game play, these issues don't come into play.

 

[Emerikol]

The complaint, if I'm reading it right, is that characters are all but required to act on metagame elements.

I think that's a problem shared by every game that uses character sheets to record anything other than character backstory.

Since rules are metagame elements, is it really possible to write a rule that fixes the problem?

Try thinking about it some more. I'm obviously not talking about character sheets. That is just information the player knows that the character also knows. We aren't talking about something that helps the player do a better job of being the character.

 

[Emerikol]

I get all of that. My point is that to the wizard, fireball might happen at level 2, 6, 12 or 18 for all he knows. All he is aware of are those changes as he gradually grows stronger. In fact, to the wizard there probably are no levels at all. He just gradually gets stronger and more knowledgeable. Think of yourself in your career. If you have been in it for any length of time, you are very much better at it than when you started, but you couldn't truly name me a level that you were at.

The levels themselves are metagame.

But they are not. 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. For a wizard it's likely something they would all know very well. 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. Wizards would know these spells are harder than these other ones.

For the fighter it is a bit harder conceptually but you really could measure it in world if you really wanted to do that. For example as a fighter you can now hit 5% better than you did. So while sparring you suddenly are able to land blows on enemies a little better.