what does metagame mean? i've seen the phrase used but never quite got it.
Challenge the Players, Not the Characters' Stats
what does metagame mean? i've seen the phrase used but never quite got it.
I want characters to be able to do things the players cannot. It does not matter if that is swinging a sword, talking the nose off a brass monkey, or working a calculation of arcane formulae to an inevitable explosive conclusion - these are all things that need some sort of system to stand in for the player.
I have fond that challenging the stats properly means that you do challenge the player - if you make success based on stats questionable, the player will do their best to help things along. On the other hand, if I challenge the player directly due to lack of stats, and the player fails, then is it a personal failure, rather than an in-game failure, which doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun. I am not interested in making my players feel stupid or otherwise inadequate.
So, you may use what system you want, I would like some stats to work with, so I can be open and clearly fair, without risking cheesing off my friends.
I have fond that challenging the stats properly means that you do challenge the player - if you make success based on stats questionable, the player will do their best to help things along. On the other hand, if I challenge the player directly due to lack of stats, and the player fails, then is it a personal failure, rather than an in-game failure, which doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun. I am not interested in making my players feel stupid or otherwise inadequate.
So, you may use what system you want, I would like some stats to work with, so I can be open and clearly fair, without risking cheesing off my friends.
Lord Xtheth
First Post
I kind of agree and kind of don't.
I hate it when I roleplay with people and I hear things like "I seduce them" (Roll dice) "I got a 23"
or
"I force the door open" (roll) "I got a 5"
It realy bugs me when that happens. When I DM I hate even more when I ask people to continue with some kind of description of what they're doing and they stare at me blankly, like rolling the dice WAS what their character did.
On the other hand, I've been in the position where I hadn't the faintest clue what the "win" to a challenge might have been so I resorted to rolling dice.
I can see valid points for both sides of the scenario here and both are equily true for any edition of any game with any amount of rules.
I hate it when I roleplay with people and I hear things like "I seduce them" (Roll dice) "I got a 23"
or
"I force the door open" (roll) "I got a 5"
It realy bugs me when that happens. When I DM I hate even more when I ask people to continue with some kind of description of what they're doing and they stare at me blankly, like rolling the dice WAS what their character did.
On the other hand, I've been in the position where I hadn't the faintest clue what the "win" to a challenge might have been so I resorted to rolling dice.
I can see valid points for both sides of the scenario here and both are equily true for any edition of any game with any amount of rules.
The use of player knowledge for making decisions as opposed to restricting yourself to using only character knowledge. An example would be having your PC immediately using fire or acid on trolls even though your character have never encountered or heard of trolls before.
"Metagame" broadly means "using knowledge of/that you're playing a game within the game itself".
Wikipedia: Metagame
For example - when the player's memorized the Monster Manual, and uses that information to make choices for a character that's never seen a particular monster, that's metagaming.
It isn't always a bad thing. Say you're playing a one-shot adventure. If the player chooses to be reckless, because they know they'll never play the character again, that's metagaming, but can be a lot of fun for everyone involved if there's some agreement on it. Or, knowing when to take (and when to let someone else take) spotlight time is a metagame thing, and is a valuable skill at the table.
I don't see how the 2 can be meaningfully separated.
The whole point of stats is to properly delineate just what your character can and cannot do. Make an athletic check to vault over the pit. Make an attack roll to see if you hit the pit fiend. Make a diplomacy check to see if you can get on the baron's good graces. And so on and so forth.
There is a very huge difference between what a PC can do, and what the players thinks he ought to be capable of achieving. Which is what makes stats all the more important, IMO. You are not your character, so a clear line has to be drawn in the sand.
The whole point of stats is to properly delineate just what your character can and cannot do. Make an athletic check to vault over the pit. Make an attack roll to see if you hit the pit fiend. Make a diplomacy check to see if you can get on the baron's good graces. And so on and so forth.
There is a very huge difference between what a PC can do, and what the players thinks he ought to be capable of achieving. Which is what makes stats all the more important, IMO. You are not your character, so a clear line has to be drawn in the sand.
Irda Ranger
First Post
In high school my friend Jon did that. Carl (the DM) de-metagamed the situation by requiring that all his characters spend at least three Non-Weapon Proficiencies on Monster Lore.
As I recall we all thought that was pretty funny.
We play games in a real-world consequence free environment in order to learn. Learning is intrinsically fun, for anyone who hasn't had the fun of learning burned out of them by, um, less than ideal teaching practices. Failure is a learning experience, even more than winning is some times. Ergo, failure at a task can be just as fun as winning at the task, from a certain point of view.
Winning is cool and exciting, but losing a pretend battle (rather than a real war) doesn't have to be un-fun.
One of a couple of phrases from the Grimm Studios podcast that stuck with me today:
The PC is a vehicle for the player.
I can’t move at 70mph; but in my car, I can. My car can’t negotiate a maze-like parking lot; but my car with me behind the wheel can.
I don’t care if it is old school, new school, or middle school. That’s what I prefer.
And yeah, I prefer not to have intelligence or wisdom as a stat. When a game has them, I tend to view them as something much narrower than the plain meaning of the terms—or even what the game text describes them as.
As far as 4e goes, I haven’t played it enough yet to comment on how it supports or hinders my preferences in this area.
The PC is a vehicle for the player.
I can’t move at 70mph; but in my car, I can. My car can’t negotiate a maze-like parking lot; but my car with me behind the wheel can.
I don’t care if it is old school, new school, or middle school. That’s what I prefer.
And yeah, I prefer not to have intelligence or wisdom as a stat. When a game has them, I tend to view them as something much narrower than the plain meaning of the terms—or even what the game text describes them as.
As far as 4e goes, I haven’t played it enough yet to comment on how it supports or hinders my preferences in this area.
Here’s the thing, though: When people try playing without the clear lines—as long as they don’t have too much immaturity in the group—they are often surprised to find that they really didn’t need them.
In a game that's so frequently about combat, I'd say that increasing combat options and the benefits of tactical play, while reducing the importance of a strong character build by trying to eliminate the potential for overly sub-par character builds, would be a major step towards challenging the player rather than the player's stats.
I'm going to forego discussing how the basics of gaming haven't really changed, and coming up with a plan to save the city from the orc army is basically the same in 4e as it was in 1e since its all freeform player/DM roleplaying. I'm just going to talk about combat itself.
I can't really find a nice way to say it, so I'll just say it- I think that early edition D&D combat, viewed in a vaccuum, is terrible. Its all the fun of scratching off a lottery ticket, or repeatedly pulling a slot machine lever. I had some good times with earlier editions of D&D, but those good times almost exclusively occurred when we found ways to get around or ignore the combat system.
So many roleplaying games seem to be lacking the "game" part to me. Or rather, they make the classic Ameritrash error (MerricB knows what I mean by this, the rest of you can go to BBG and look it up) of assuming that, if you're simulating something cool, you must be having fun, without stopping to pay attention to whether the simulation itself is a fun game. Having a fun game is a key aspect of challenging the player rather than the character's stats.
You can denigrate it all you like- but rather than say that 4e is like a boardgame now, I'd say that 4e combat is like a good boardgame now, and earlier editions were often like poor ones.
I'm probably kicking off an edition war here even though I don't mean to. Read above again, I really enjoyed my Rules Cyclopedia D&D, I just thought the combat was poorly written once I had the chance to see a broader spectrum of gaming.
I'm going to forego discussing how the basics of gaming haven't really changed, and coming up with a plan to save the city from the orc army is basically the same in 4e as it was in 1e since its all freeform player/DM roleplaying. I'm just going to talk about combat itself.
I can't really find a nice way to say it, so I'll just say it- I think that early edition D&D combat, viewed in a vaccuum, is terrible. Its all the fun of scratching off a lottery ticket, or repeatedly pulling a slot machine lever. I had some good times with earlier editions of D&D, but those good times almost exclusively occurred when we found ways to get around or ignore the combat system.
So many roleplaying games seem to be lacking the "game" part to me. Or rather, they make the classic Ameritrash error (MerricB knows what I mean by this, the rest of you can go to BBG and look it up) of assuming that, if you're simulating something cool, you must be having fun, without stopping to pay attention to whether the simulation itself is a fun game. Having a fun game is a key aspect of challenging the player rather than the character's stats.
You can denigrate it all you like- but rather than say that 4e is like a boardgame now, I'd say that 4e combat is like a good boardgame now, and earlier editions were often like poor ones.
I'm probably kicking off an edition war here even though I don't mean to. Read above again, I really enjoyed my Rules Cyclopedia D&D, I just thought the combat was poorly written once I had the chance to see a broader spectrum of gaming.
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