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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
A discussion of metagame concepts in game design
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7460983" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>[MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] - there was a whole generation of fantasy RPGers who, because they disliked metagame mechanics, dropped D&D for metagame-free systems like RQ, RM and the like. (At the time, these were promoted as "realistic" systems.)</p><p></p><p>Those systems all drop AC. They all drop combat-as-hp-attrition. (Though they may use hp for other purposes - as meat points in RQ, as a measure of bruising, blood loss and (some) exhaustion in RM.) Armour becomes a source of damage reduction (in RQ it affects damage dice; in RM it affects the attack-and-damage chart, and can also mitigate crit results).</p><p></p><p>They all drop D&D-style classes. (RQ in total. RM uses class as a device for allocating skill costs.)</p><p></p><p>They all drop D&D-style casting, which promotes metagame thinking (as in, "What spell load-out do I probably need to beat this bit of this GM's dungeon?").</p><p></p><p>They all drop XP-from-gold, and move towards a more realistic mode of progression (practice and training in RQ; XP through "hard field training" in RM).</p><p></p><p>There were, at the same time, D&D players who were proposing different approaches to XP, and defending hp and AC as "realistic" or "simulationist" - which often involved adopting different rules for falling damage, and sometimes for fireball damage also (see eg Roger Musson's "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive" in a fairly early number of White Dward).</p><p></p><p>I am a long-time RM player who has also played plenty of Traveller, RQ and other metagame free systems. I look at, say, AD&D or 3E and <em>cannot</em> see how anyone can see those as metagame free except by dint of familiarity (as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] suggested) - eg the action economy in 3E is obviously metagame, and so is hp as soaking falling damage or dragon's breath in all of them (the parrying rationale only makes sense of a fairly narrow category of melee combat).</p><p></p><p>If I had your preferences, I would be playing RQ, RM or HARP - or perhaps HERO or GURPS (I don't know those systems as well, though.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7460983, member: 42582"] [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] - there was a whole generation of fantasy RPGers who, because they disliked metagame mechanics, dropped D&D for metagame-free systems like RQ, RM and the like. (At the time, these were promoted as "realistic" systems.) Those systems all drop AC. They all drop combat-as-hp-attrition. (Though they may use hp for other purposes - as meat points in RQ, as a measure of bruising, blood loss and (some) exhaustion in RM.) Armour becomes a source of damage reduction (in RQ it affects damage dice; in RM it affects the attack-and-damage chart, and can also mitigate crit results). They all drop D&D-style classes. (RQ in total. RM uses class as a device for allocating skill costs.) They all drop D&D-style casting, which promotes metagame thinking (as in, "What spell load-out do I probably need to beat this bit of this GM's dungeon?"). They all drop XP-from-gold, and move towards a more realistic mode of progression (practice and training in RQ; XP through "hard field training" in RM). There were, at the same time, D&D players who were proposing different approaches to XP, and defending hp and AC as "realistic" or "simulationist" - which often involved adopting different rules for falling damage, and sometimes for fireball damage also (see eg Roger Musson's "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive" in a fairly early number of White Dward). I am a long-time RM player who has also played plenty of Traveller, RQ and other metagame free systems. I look at, say, AD&D or 3E and [I]cannot[/I] see how anyone can see those as metagame free except by dint of familiarity (as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] suggested) - eg the action economy in 3E is obviously metagame, and so is hp as soaking falling damage or dragon's breath in all of them (the parrying rationale only makes sense of a fairly narrow category of melee combat). If I had your preferences, I would be playing RQ, RM or HARP - or perhaps HERO or GURPS (I don't know those systems as well, though.) [/QUOTE]
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