Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
What are the biggest RPG crimes?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7556412" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Most of these terms are Forge speak, or at least coined by someone heavily influence by The Forge back in the early '2000s' and who have an interest in formalizing how we talk about games - such as The Alexandrian. I don't know who exactly coined this one, and I really wish someone would publish a dictionary. Of course, the problem with the dictionary is that I'm not sure anyone has the authority assert the 'true' definition, and there will always be quibbles over the term. So, if you use it slightly differently than how other people use it, you aren't any different than the rest of us.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah, we're going to end up in a debate about that. I don't consider meta-gaming a particularly bad sin, and at the least I don't consider it a correctable flaw. When it is a problem, the root cause isn't metagaming, but the motivation to metagame (which typically is a bad motivation whether you metagame or not). I consider it a sign of bad DMing that you'd always be complaining about the players metagaming. Of course they are. They exist outside of the game. How can they not metagame? Everything they choose to do would be metagaming? For example, a module can't be unread. A player that has already played a module or read a module can't be expected to not metagame, since regardless how he acts, he'll still be reacting to what he knows and remembers. The real flaw here is running an adventure for someone who has already seen the secret. You don't want the players to metagame? Don't let slip the secrets you as the secret keeper were charged with keeping. PC's cheating is a whole other issue, but metagaming itself I think misses the mark on what the problem is.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm struggling with your definition of metagaming as well. While declaring the big bad is a family relative could be metagaming, it doesn't have to be, nor is it necessarily changing how the world actually was all along. I could have decided at the time that the character was introduced, that the PC's estranged brother would be exactly in the capacity of Lord Voldemort or Darth Vader. Or conversely, the PC's estranged brother could have become the Big Bad precisely because he was the PC's estranged brother in a game where before hand I had never designated an NPC to be the 'big bad', but instead the position evolved through the choices of play. The PC's estranged brother is the big bad because the PC's choose that character to be their foil through their interactions.</p><p></p><p>Metagaming has to do with making choices based on information that you as a participant in the game have, but which the characters in the game do not. An example of criminal DM metagaming would be raising the DC of locks in the dungeon because the player takes Skill Focus (Open Locks), selecting creatures that have Fire Resistance because one of the PC's is a pyromancer, or playing a supposedly 8 INT orc as a cunning genius that fully anticipates all the PC's abiliites and movements. 'Tucker's Kobolds' are something I associate with DM metagaming. "Luke, Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father..." isn't in my opinion Metagaming. It can be, and often is, simply good storytelling and most players I've run the game for want their characters to be special in the game world. You can usually tell when the player really does want their character to be an ordinary nobody who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and doesn't care about backstory and is only interested in forestory, and there is nothing wrong with that and I try to give that player what they want. But if at the same table, there is a player who leaves their parentage in doubt and hints around in the backstory about a mystery, then I feel like I'm not metagaming in the slightest if it turns out they are a kidnapped princess whom a witch swapped at birth with the current heir to the throne or something of that sort.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I can think of worse things. Though, I do get your point about "enforcing preferential outcomes". One of the worst things a DM can do is get addicted to imagining how future scenes will play out, particularly when it comes to how the players will react to those scenes (you can plot out how NPCs will react to potential moves by the PCs all you like) because really this is not something you have any control over. You can't even really select a Big Bad, or if you do, you should always be aware the NPC you selected will die in Act 1, Scene III, through some contrivance you didn't anticipate. This has to do with player agency: a player's choices should be meaningful. GMs have to be OK with letting the story happen as it is, and not just the way they want it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, but I'd argue that this is true for a novel as well! If things happen because you think "it makes for a good story" but they don't happen because they are the logical course of events, given the facts presented in the story and the choices of everyone involved, then it isn't a very good story whether it comes in the medium of a novel or an RPG session. I personally hate novels where characters jump through hoops of stupidity in order to hit a set of pre-determined plot points. Writing a novel that depends on a series of ludicrous ineptly presented forcing events that don't feel like they could reasonably happen, is bad writing just as much as running a game that way is bad GMing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7556412, member: 4937"] Most of these terms are Forge speak, or at least coined by someone heavily influence by The Forge back in the early '2000s' and who have an interest in formalizing how we talk about games - such as The Alexandrian. I don't know who exactly coined this one, and I really wish someone would publish a dictionary. Of course, the problem with the dictionary is that I'm not sure anyone has the authority assert the 'true' definition, and there will always be quibbles over the term. So, if you use it slightly differently than how other people use it, you aren't any different than the rest of us. Yeah, we're going to end up in a debate about that. I don't consider meta-gaming a particularly bad sin, and at the least I don't consider it a correctable flaw. When it is a problem, the root cause isn't metagaming, but the motivation to metagame (which typically is a bad motivation whether you metagame or not). I consider it a sign of bad DMing that you'd always be complaining about the players metagaming. Of course they are. They exist outside of the game. How can they not metagame? Everything they choose to do would be metagaming? For example, a module can't be unread. A player that has already played a module or read a module can't be expected to not metagame, since regardless how he acts, he'll still be reacting to what he knows and remembers. The real flaw here is running an adventure for someone who has already seen the secret. You don't want the players to metagame? Don't let slip the secrets you as the secret keeper were charged with keeping. PC's cheating is a whole other issue, but metagaming itself I think misses the mark on what the problem is. I'm struggling with your definition of metagaming as well. While declaring the big bad is a family relative could be metagaming, it doesn't have to be, nor is it necessarily changing how the world actually was all along. I could have decided at the time that the character was introduced, that the PC's estranged brother would be exactly in the capacity of Lord Voldemort or Darth Vader. Or conversely, the PC's estranged brother could have become the Big Bad precisely because he was the PC's estranged brother in a game where before hand I had never designated an NPC to be the 'big bad', but instead the position evolved through the choices of play. The PC's estranged brother is the big bad because the PC's choose that character to be their foil through their interactions. Metagaming has to do with making choices based on information that you as a participant in the game have, but which the characters in the game do not. An example of criminal DM metagaming would be raising the DC of locks in the dungeon because the player takes Skill Focus (Open Locks), selecting creatures that have Fire Resistance because one of the PC's is a pyromancer, or playing a supposedly 8 INT orc as a cunning genius that fully anticipates all the PC's abiliites and movements. 'Tucker's Kobolds' are something I associate with DM metagaming. "Luke, Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father..." isn't in my opinion Metagaming. It can be, and often is, simply good storytelling and most players I've run the game for want their characters to be special in the game world. You can usually tell when the player really does want their character to be an ordinary nobody who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and doesn't care about backstory and is only interested in forestory, and there is nothing wrong with that and I try to give that player what they want. But if at the same table, there is a player who leaves their parentage in doubt and hints around in the backstory about a mystery, then I feel like I'm not metagaming in the slightest if it turns out they are a kidnapped princess whom a witch swapped at birth with the current heir to the throne or something of that sort. I can think of worse things. Though, I do get your point about "enforcing preferential outcomes". One of the worst things a DM can do is get addicted to imagining how future scenes will play out, particularly when it comes to how the players will react to those scenes (you can plot out how NPCs will react to potential moves by the PCs all you like) because really this is not something you have any control over. You can't even really select a Big Bad, or if you do, you should always be aware the NPC you selected will die in Act 1, Scene III, through some contrivance you didn't anticipate. This has to do with player agency: a player's choices should be meaningful. GMs have to be OK with letting the story happen as it is, and not just the way they want it. Yes, but I'd argue that this is true for a novel as well! If things happen because you think "it makes for a good story" but they don't happen because they are the logical course of events, given the facts presented in the story and the choices of everyone involved, then it isn't a very good story whether it comes in the medium of a novel or an RPG session. I personally hate novels where characters jump through hoops of stupidity in order to hit a set of pre-determined plot points. Writing a novel that depends on a series of ludicrous ineptly presented forcing events that don't feel like they could reasonably happen, is bad writing just as much as running a game that way is bad GMing. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
What are the biggest RPG crimes?
Top