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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
A discussion of metagame concepts in game design
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<blockquote data-quote="Guest 6801328" data-source="post: 7462846"><p>I have observed that when people just simply don't like certain aspects/rules/behaviors in an RPG they will concoct elaborate...and sometimes impressively sophisticated...theories to explain why this is not just their opinion, but that these things are objectively bad. In particular, people will latch onto arguments invoking "realism" and "metagaming" to prove why they are right. </p><p></p><p>I remember Emerikol from the old WotC forums. IIRC, he hated...<em>hated</em>...any non-magical power that wasn't at will. Effectively, "If a fighter knows how to do something, why can't he do it twice?" He's ok with the sheer improbability of a "whirlwind" attack allowing a Fighter to attack all targets within reach in one attack; what he can't abide by is that the number of uses is somehow restricted. In other words, it's the "at-will martial abilities" sinkhole.</p><p></p><p>And it's a fair question, philosophically: "If I know how to do it, why can I only do it once per day?" I would have thought a satisfactory answer would be "because if all non-magical abilities were at-will, all non-magical abilities would have to be relatively weaker, for game balance, and you wouldn't get cool moves like Whirlwind attacks" (a.k.a. "this is why we can't have nice things").</p><p></p><p>But given all the ways we have to metagame to play these games, it strikes me as somewhat odd to latch onto this argument to justify the aesthetic preference. You don't have to justify it: you don't like it. That's cool.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I'm fine with the "narrativist" answer: circumstances rarely align in which you get to do this cool thing, both for game balance and storytelling reasons (cool things are only cool if they are relatively uncommon). You, the player, are given narrative control to decide when that occurs. Yes, your character would do it every "round" (omg metagame construct warning!) if he could, but he can't. You are hereby empowered to narrate the reason why not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Guest 6801328, post: 7462846"] I have observed that when people just simply don't like certain aspects/rules/behaviors in an RPG they will concoct elaborate...and sometimes impressively sophisticated...theories to explain why this is not just their opinion, but that these things are objectively bad. In particular, people will latch onto arguments invoking "realism" and "metagaming" to prove why they are right. I remember Emerikol from the old WotC forums. IIRC, he hated...[I]hated[/I]...any non-magical power that wasn't at will. Effectively, "If a fighter knows how to do something, why can't he do it twice?" He's ok with the sheer improbability of a "whirlwind" attack allowing a Fighter to attack all targets within reach in one attack; what he can't abide by is that the number of uses is somehow restricted. In other words, it's the "at-will martial abilities" sinkhole. And it's a fair question, philosophically: "If I know how to do it, why can I only do it once per day?" I would have thought a satisfactory answer would be "because if all non-magical abilities were at-will, all non-magical abilities would have to be relatively weaker, for game balance, and you wouldn't get cool moves like Whirlwind attacks" (a.k.a. "this is why we can't have nice things"). But given all the ways we have to metagame to play these games, it strikes me as somewhat odd to latch onto this argument to justify the aesthetic preference. You don't have to justify it: you don't like it. That's cool. Personally, I'm fine with the "narrativist" answer: circumstances rarely align in which you get to do this cool thing, both for game balance and storytelling reasons (cool things are only cool if they are relatively uncommon). You, the player, are given narrative control to decide when that occurs. Yes, your character would do it every "round" (omg metagame construct warning!) if he could, but he can't. You are hereby empowered to narrate the reason why not. [/QUOTE]
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