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What are the biggest RPG crimes?
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7556445" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>Fortunately, we don't have to do that here, or now. I'm not the only one to bring up meta-gaming as an RPG crime, and you didn't object when I mentioned it originally. Let it suffice to say that some people find meta-gaming to be one of the biggest RPG crimes, and just move on for now.</p><p>This is one definition that I know is well-accepted. When role-playing, meta-gaming is the act of having a character act on information that they don't (or can't) know. It can include knowing that trolls are weak to fire (if the character wouldn't otherwise know that), and it can include making an assumption that a puzzle is solvable because the GM presented it to you.</p><p></p><p>So the question is, why did this specific NPC make all of the necessary decisions that led them to become the preeminent villain of the setting? If the answer is "to provide a compelling foe for the PC" then that's meta-gaming. While it's possible to have their motivations be entirely in-character, and for that to be established before the GM ever finds out who the PC will be, it is nevertheless highly improbable. There are millions of people that could potentially rise to power in opposition of the Big Bad, and the likelihood of them being related is insignificant, unless the GM is arranging such things behind-the-scenes. (Note that you can raise the probability of such events significantly, if you let the players play nobility. If you're playing the Prince of England, then the likelihood that the mysterious villain is somehow related to you is actually pretty good.)</p><p>That's a matter of causality, though. At least according to the writers I follow on Quora, they usually develop the outline of a story before they figure out the specifics. The ultimate resolution of the story is usually known, long before the writer knows how you get there. And hopefully they can connect the dots to make it <em>seem</em> like internal causality rather than plot device; but ultimately, the characters are just story elements devoid of free will, and their bottom line is already written.</p><p></p><p>That's not the case, for characters in an RPG. Their bottom line is not written yet. The choices they make - the choices that we imagine them to make, while we pretend to be them - <em>actually</em> matter, because their world is <em>actually</em> controlled by internal causality rather than plot contrivance.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7556445, member: 6775031"] Fortunately, we don't have to do that here, or now. I'm not the only one to bring up meta-gaming as an RPG crime, and you didn't object when I mentioned it originally. Let it suffice to say that some people find meta-gaming to be one of the biggest RPG crimes, and just move on for now. This is one definition that I know is well-accepted. When role-playing, meta-gaming is the act of having a character act on information that they don't (or can't) know. It can include knowing that trolls are weak to fire (if the character wouldn't otherwise know that), and it can include making an assumption that a puzzle is solvable because the GM presented it to you. So the question is, why did this specific NPC make all of the necessary decisions that led them to become the preeminent villain of the setting? If the answer is "to provide a compelling foe for the PC" then that's meta-gaming. While it's possible to have their motivations be entirely in-character, and for that to be established before the GM ever finds out who the PC will be, it is nevertheless highly improbable. There are millions of people that could potentially rise to power in opposition of the Big Bad, and the likelihood of them being related is insignificant, unless the GM is arranging such things behind-the-scenes. (Note that you can raise the probability of such events significantly, if you let the players play nobility. If you're playing the Prince of England, then the likelihood that the mysterious villain is somehow related to you is actually pretty good.) That's a matter of causality, though. At least according to the writers I follow on Quora, they usually develop the outline of a story before they figure out the specifics. The ultimate resolution of the story is usually known, long before the writer knows how you get there. And hopefully they can connect the dots to make it [I]seem[/I] like internal causality rather than plot device; but ultimately, the characters are just story elements devoid of free will, and their bottom line is already written. That's not the case, for characters in an RPG. Their bottom line is not written yet. The choices they make - the choices that we imagine them to make, while we pretend to be them - [I]actually[/I] matter, because their world is [I]actually[/I] controlled by internal causality rather than plot contrivance. [/QUOTE]
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