Definition of Metagaming

[shilsen]

I don't think the defintion of metagaming is the issue; we all seem to haev a good grasp on its basic meaning. The issue is really: How much metagaming is acceptable to your group?

Actually, I would amend that to, or add: What kind of metagaming is acceptable to your group?

IMO, while the volume of metagaming is often a sticking point between people who have different tastes, but the specific kind of metagaming. All groups metagame to some extent. But they differ in the nature of the metagaming. For me, there's good and bad metagaming. When players have antagonistic PCs who find viable in-character ways to coexist, because they happen to be PCs, that's good metagaming for me.

 

[fusangite]

I'm finding the answers most interesting so far. I would like to ask the following question just to stir the pot more and possibly push discussion back to my focus at the outset of the thread:

Now, do I consider that a player asking for advice to other players in a RP situation with an NPC is metagaming? Yes, because the advice obviously influences the situation in-game and it will challenge my suspension of disbelief, personally.

In most other games, when you ask the guy next to you for advice on your next move, you're still gaming. You haven't stopped gaming and started cheating. Why isn't asking the guy next to you for advice something that falls comfortably into the category of just "gaming"?

The ooc communication is certainly metagaming

Is it? Why isn't it just gaming? Is there any prohibition in the rules against asking other players for help?

Metagaming is any activity related to playing the game that occurs out-of-character. Choosing skills or feats when you level is metagaming. Moving your mini on the battlegrid to avoid an AoO is metagaming. Taking notes on NPC names or adventure goals is metagaming.

This seems weird to me. When I do these things, I think I'm gaming. It seems to me that, by your definition, only about 20% of D&D is actual gaming and the rest is metagaming.

Isn't gaming just the act of using abstractions to signify or represent an event for competitive purposes like taking over the world (Risk), winning the second world war (Axis & Allies) or becoming the Shogun (Samurai Swords)? Why do we define interacting with these abstractions as "metagiming" somehow meaning either not gaming or debased gaming.

It seems to me that the term "metagaming" is actually a stumbling block to understanding RPGs or playing characters effectively. It seems to me the be premised on a pair of fallacies:
(a) a player can easily and without assistance guess what a reasonable action would be for his character to take;
(b) it is unrealistic for a character to know the physics of the world he inhabits with any accuracy.
I would like to suggest that most things people call metagaming are simply gaming.

I think there are rare situations like players using knowledge of what the other half of their split party is doing or using their knowledge of a monster's vulnerabilities or a spell's properties from the rule book in place of that of their character when the character's knowledge would clearly be inferior. But I'm not sure it behooves us to use the term "metagaming" to refer to these highly specific things because it seems to have sprawled out into some kind of intellectually incoherent mass of conflicting assumptions and bizarre premises.

 

[wayne62682]

To me, "metagaming" is using out of game concepts in-game. The oft-cited example of the PC confronted with a pit trap who says "There has to be a way around this because the DM has to give us a way across" is metagaming. What I don't get is the people (my own group, included) who would NOT consider it metagaming if the same player said "There has to be a way around this because whoever designed it would have to have a way across." The same exact thing in different words, but one is "roleplaying" and one is "cheating". The fact of the matter is that we're still playing a GAME. Using the terms of said game should not be considered cheating of any sort. That's like saying someone who says "squares" instead of "streets" (or roads, or whatever) in Monopoly is "metagaming".

Example: At 5th level, my group confronted an evil cleric who summoned some skeletons. I was playing a duskblade with the background of being trained in various combat maneuvers (i.e. Power Attack/Combat Expertise/Combat Reflexes), and I was confronted with a skeleton. I used power attack on it, when another player rudely questioned my reason for using it. I thought he was talking to me OOC (technically he was, he asked Wayne, not my character) so I said "That way I do enough damage to overcome its damage reduction" at which point I was promptly yelled at by the rest of the group for metagaming. When I got mad and questioned (citing the fact that at 5TH LEVEL I would reasonably know what the weakness of a CR1 skeleton was), I was told that if I had said "Because it's a skeleton, thus brittle, so a powerful strike should break it", they wouldn't have considered it metagaming.

I do NOT consider it metagaming for someone else OOC to remind me OOC about something my character would know. As fusangite has pointed out, I play only several hours as my character; whereas in the context of the D&D world he plays himself 24-7. I may forget that the assassins guild I hate so much is called the Crimson Hawks, but my character certainly does not; if Bob reminds me out of game, there shouldn't be a problem. Now if Bob OOC knew that the guy I was befriending was a spy for the Crimson Hawks, but I did not, THEN it's metagaming (unless Bob's PC is near mine and can tell me).

Personally, I find metagaming to be an excuse to penalize players for not analyzing every little thing from the mind of their character. People also take it too far.. by personal experience I have had DMs who would ask for Knowledge (Nature) checks to know what common monsters like Hobgoblins and Bugbears are (at level 6, mind you), and if you did not have it as a class skill he would basically tell you "It's a large, hairy goblinoid" and you would get jumped for metagaming if you said "It's a bugbear" (actually, someone would ask you rudely "How does your CHARACTER know that?"). In that same example, we were told of a Wyvern ("A dragon, but it has two legs and attacks with its tail"); in a case like that I could see requiring Knowledge since to the common person, a winged reptilian thing is a dragon, no matter what. However, if you want to get technical as to what "metagaming" is, asking someone "How much HP do you have left?" is metagaming. So is "What's your AC?" because these are abstract roleplaying game terms, not terms used in the context of the fictional world we are playing in.

In short, I hate the term metagaming and see no point in it. It never was an issue when I played 2nd edition, so I have a hard time not doing it in 3rd, even though it results in a lot of arguments with my group.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[LostSoul]

Cool, I had been thinking about starting a thread on this topic for a while.

I'm pretty much with fusangite here. I do use the term "metagaming" for out-of-character talk, suggestions, "remember this?", etc; but I don't draw a distinction between that and "gaming" as a whole. The only place I think I differ from his point of view is that I'm not all that concerned with portraying a role. "Metagaming" is just more fun for me.

fusangite, are there places where you would draw the line? Times where metagaming - let's say acting on player knowledge - totally doesn't jive with the player's knowledge? I'm thinking mostly stats of monsters and spells, but also things like, oh, I don't know... Let's say that Jim is playing a low-CHA PC who's got a crush on this waitress. I know that, my PC doesn't. So I decide to have my high-CHA PC seduce the waitress, in order to create a little love triangle. And then maybe Jim says, "Sweet, I decide to go over to see her, finally getting the courage to tell her how I feel..."

Would something like that bother you?

 

[pawsplay]

Metagaming is just gaming. Meta- means above our transceding, so "metagaming" would be something like, "What would you like to play?" Everything that happens at the table is just gaming.

This discussion seems to be more about IC versus OOC stuff. Certainly, if I get advice from someone, and then play my character in a certain way, that is not invalid. It's not any more OOC than decisions I make on my own. I find a little table talk helps the game run faster and better, and aids suspension of disbelief because everyone can agree or try to agree on what is happening.

 

[buzz]

Why do we define interacting with these abstractions as "metagiming" somehow meaning either not gaming or debased gaming.

I think it was just Reynard who was classifying these things as metagaming, which I don't quite agree with. Using the system to enact character concerns is part of playing the game, and is not metagaming. I.e., moving your mini on the mat, choosing feats, and taking notes is not metagaming.

To re-phrase the definition I posted, Metagaming is basically when an IC decision is made for OOC reasons. I think that with that basic definition in hand, we can have meaningful discussion.

Actually, I would amend that to, or add: What kind of metagaming is acceptable to your group?

I can see that. Though, I might just say that "how much" covers this, as "what kind" is basically asking "To what bits of the game do you allow metagaming?" Lots of bits or few bits?

But that's just me getting all semantic.

 

[buzz]

Metagaming is just gaming.

QFT. Metagaming is a subset of the superset Gaming.

It's also interesting to note that metagaming is often system-dependent as well. In Polaris, not only do GM duties rotate around the table, but you're also not necessarily making decisions for your character based on immersion. I might say, "It would be really cool for my knight to die at the hands of the hydra." From a D&D perspective, that's metagame. In Polaris, that's just how you play.

 

[Thanee]

Metagaming is using knowledge or basing decisions on something you know as a player, but your character cannot know. This can take the form of game mechanics (I use this spell on that monster, because it has weak defense against it), campaign knowledge (player A has heard what an NPC has said to player B's character, but player A's character was not present at that time), or even real-world knowledge (like advanced chemistry or physics in a fantasy world).

Bye
Thanee

 

[ThirdWizard]

Most games don't have an in character and out of character portion to them. D&D has the concept of communication being possible in character. And it can be important. When you're in front of someone in game, in character conversation will be able to be overheard by them. If you talk out of character and assume that all the PCs can share this information you have effectively bypassed that problem. Many people, myself included, would consider this cheating.

Why? Here's an example. PC1 has lots of points in Sense Motive and PC2 has none. PC1 realizes that the NPC is lying to them and PC2 doesn't. If PC1 tells PC2 about this out of character and then PC2 acts on this information he has completely bypassed the effect of not putting points into Sense Motive and the PCs have effectively communicated in front of the NPC without the NPC having any chance to be aware of this.

Or lets say the PCs are fighting an Outsider with fire, cold, and electricity resistance. Nobody has Knowledge (the planes), so they can't know this. But one Player has the book and knows everything about the monster, so he tells hte wizard not to use fire, cold, or electricity attacks on it.

So, its cheating in my games. And, my group, even when faced with this, wouldn't act on the information. I've seen them rush into very deadly situations against monsters because they failed a Knowledge check to know what it was. It's about what you as a person know versus what your character knows and how well you can ignore what you as a person know.

This is how we can determine what is good and what is bad in D&D with regard to conversation among Players, something that doesn't matter in other games. No one cares in Operation if you give advice to the guy going for Water on the Knee. If you start giving other group members advice, though, when your PC is incapable of giving advice, then in my eyes that can only be metagaming.

In the case above with the tattoo, its not up to another Player to step in like that. If this is something the PC should know, the DM should be the one to step in and tell him. If its something he might remember, then an Int check is in order.

 

[wayne62682]

To re-phrase the definition I posted, Metagaming is basically when an IC decision is made for OOC reasons. I think that with that basic definition in hand, we can have meaningful discussion.

Now that I agree with (although I frequently break it...). However, to pose a query: Where is the line drawn? At what point does OOC knowledge (e.g. a monster's weakness) become IC knowledge?

EX: Does a 5th level Fighter know what an Orc is without needing to roll Knowledge (Nature)? Note that the DC doesn't matter (assuming it would be very low to begin with), just would you call someone for metagaming if they saw a tusked humanoid with green-gray skin and immediatly said "Hey, that's an orc."? What about a bugbear? An ogre? How about knowing a Troll is weak against fire at 5th level? What about 15th level? 20th level? Just what is it based on? If we're creating characters at 10th level, what am I assumed to know from x amount of time adventuring? I asked this on the WotC boards a while back and the answer I got was basically "Nothing unless you take the appropriate Knowledge skill".

On that subject, is something metagaming if you apply reasonable IC logic to the action? If I'm facing a Devil, is it metagaming to assume (given that your PC has some modicum of intelligence and that I know it's some kind of devil.. large and horned and appeared out of a gout of fire, for example) that if it came from the Nine Hells it's going to have resistance to fire? Is it metagaming to think that a good-aligned weapon ("A blessed weapon" to speak in-character) would damage it if it's supposed to be a being of pure evil? Is it metagaming to use Power Attack to up your damage output against something with DR vs. Slashing weapons on the (in-character) assumption that it's brittle and a good thwack will hurt it?