A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

Bedrockgames said:

With this attitude, you are never going to understand what you are examining.

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Ipse dixit

Lanefan said:

You forgot to mention the more telling question: has (or should have) the Troll heard how to defeat the PC?

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Ah, the troll wouldn't listen anyway.

Numidius said:

Ipse dixit

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If you have total contempt for the style of play you are examining and sneer at the people who make and play mainstream stuff, I am sorry but I do think that skews your ability to understand. If you can’t put yourself in other peoples shoes but instead assume their reasons for liking these things just have something to do with idiocy, how can you really see what they find of value?

Bedrockgames said:

If you have total contempt for the style of play you are examining and sneer at the people who make and play mainstream stuff, I am sorry but I do think that skews your ability to understand. If you can’t put yourself in other peoples shoes but instead assume their reasons for liking these things just have something to do with idiocy, how can you really see what they find of value?

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Man, these are your words, not mine.

Ovinomancer said:

I think we're having a fundamental failure to communicate, here. Settlers and Squad Leader both have metagames. Granted, Settlers' meta is a bit light, but IIRC there are a few ways to use SL's rules to achieve unintended outcomes that allowed for a higher win rate. That's meta -- treating the game as something to be gamed rather than played.


Again, playing the game cannot be metagaming.

I'll say it again, actually playing a game cannot be metagaming. Definitionally. Metagaming is gaming the game, ie, thinking outside of the rules of the game to find ways to twist/use/employ those rules in ways not intended to achieve a goal. MtG meta is about the current deck zeitgeist -- what decks are being played and how is not part of the game rules or actually playing the game, but building to take advantage or counter that meta is very much a big part of competitive play. This is acceptable and preferred for competitive MtG play.

In the scope of RPGs, planning out your party as you're making characters to ensure that you cover all of the basics is metagaming -- you're considering the game as a game and making choices to ensure the best outcome from most to all game situations possible. This isn't part of actually playing the game, though, so it's metagaming. Similarly, using your real-world knowledge of chemistry to try to force an outcome in game is metagaming, because real world chemistry is not part of the game.

Conversely, using your player knowledge of trolls being weak to fire is technically not metagaming because that is part of the game and knowledge of rules isn't usually considered a form of metagaming in most cases. However, there's a large set of playstyles that considers using knowledge of "secret" GM notes to be metagaming (and, in some cases it clearly is definitionally), but then what counts as "secret" GM notes varies widely. In some cases it's monster stats, although this is obviously not universally understood to be metagaming in RPGs as demonstrated by this very thread (and many others). Sadly, NOT using "secret" knowledge is also metagaming, as you're making choices for play using that knowledge by avoiding those choices that said knowledge implicates. It's a catch-22, really, but those that are worried about it seem to prefer the version of metagaming that preserves the danger of "secret" GM knowledge best. It's funny how it's almost always the danger that gets this treatment, though.



Sigh, Fate Points are not meta. They are a game mechanic. They are dissociated, often, but not meta.

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+1 for giving a thoughtful response.

In war games, we call the players that game the rules, rules lawyers, vs metagaming. Could you call it metagaming? Sure, and that puts you right back into my point is that there are acceptable and unacceptable levels of metagaming in RPG's. Pretty much the same with war and board games where there are acceptable and unacceptable levels of rules lawyering. The fact that you are mentioning as a catch 22, which it is, I agree; it is a lie agreed upon. No metagaming except what is considered acceptable. Fate points are a good example of the whole argument, vs other games, because that's the target definition moving for each game. It's like the party composition, because that could be thought of as playing the game also, yet it is still metagaming, it's something you need to do to make the game function.

pemerton said:

I think this is an extremely shallow reading of LotR. Aragorn's status as the rightful king is fundamental to his character from the moment he enters the story.

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Utterly central. The very first scene in Frodo's room at the Prancing Pony is enough to drive this home. Frodo can SEE it, the nobility of the line of Elendil, and Aragorn reinforces it, he swears on the shards of Narsil that he will help Frodo, and nobody doubts that he means it for one second. Not even Sam; albeit he starts as a skeptic!

Assuming you use the standard D&D rules for starting money, aren't they exactly an example of this?

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Yeah, this is HIGHLY unnatural! It is however, 'balanced' in a purely gamist sense. It is actually an example (albeit involving a different model of play) to what we are talking about. This is one of the ironies of the whole 'OSR' thing, I am pretty convinced that Gary Gygax, sitting down today to play one of these modern narrativist games, would be thrilled and would think of it as very much in keeping with what he was doing, albeit recognizing the significant differences in how the game play is conceptualized and structured. I think he would absolutely love Dungeon World and totally get it.

Bedrockgames said:

No it isn't. You are once again building a straw man here. That isn't meta gaming at all. I don't think Maxperson has been advocating against people discussing the game during play (or rulings the GM makes). He is talking about players using out of character knowledge to inform their actions in play. A ban on that kind of meta gaming is in no way contradictory with what the text advises.

Here is the wikipedia definition:

Metagaming is a term used in role-playing games, which describes a player's use of real-life knowledge concerning the state of the game to determine their character's actions, when said character has no relevant knowledge or awareness under the circumstances. This can refer to plot information in the game such as secrets or events occurring away from the character, as well as facets of the game's mechanics such as abstract statistics or the precise limits of abilities. Metagaming is an example of "breaking character", as the character is making decisions based on information they couldn't know and thus would not make in reality.

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I have to agree with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], this IS meta-gaming. The players know that they need to work together in order to have an enjoyable game experience. There's no reason for it which arises within the game, except secondarily as a lampshade over the fact that it is driven by necessary table dynamics. This is why problems like thieves and paladins not being able to get along are an issue, because the game mechanics and necessary process of play actively conflict!

Everyone who's ever seen this happen at a table knows this is absolutely meta-gaming, and it goes on at a low level in every game. The characters get along, like, and trust one another in a way that is HIGHLY unnatural for real human beings, and it is utterly at the service of the table, something which does not exist within the game itself.

dragoner said:

+1 for giving a thoughtful response.

In war games, we call the players that game the rules, rules lawyers, vs metagaming. Could you call it metagaming? Sure, and that puts you right back into my point is that there are acceptable and unacceptable levels of metagaming in RPG's. Pretty much the same with war and board games where there are acceptable and unacceptable levels of rules lawyering. The fact that you are mentioning as a catch 22, which it is, I agree; it is a lie agreed upon. No metagaming except what is considered acceptable. Fate points are a good example of the whole argument, vs other games, because that's the target definition moving for each game. It's like the party composition, because that could be thought of as playing the game also, yet it is still metagaming, it's something you need to do to make the game function.

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Okay, let's try again. In a wargame, yes, you can exploit rules and that's likely metagaming (gaming the game), but you can also know your opponent, and know that when Bob plays, he likes to flank left, so you can set up a feint to draw in Bob's flanking left and then crush it. This is also metagaming; you're using your out of game knowledge about how Bob plays to beat him in the game. Normally, this isn't considered bad at all, but part of the competitive nature of wargames.

Metagaming just means outside of the game. It's what the word literally means, "meta" meaning "beyond" and "game" meaning, well, game. Metagame concepts exist outside of the defined scope of the game. So, if there's a rule in the game, like Fate points, then that is not metagaming because that's not outside the game.

In RPGs, this gets twisted up a bit, as there's a large swath of players that consider thinking only in character and only with the information the GM provides to the character to be a constraint on players in the game. In this case, knowledge of trolls and fire may be metagaming if that information has not been afforded to the characters by the GM yet. The catch-22 comes from the fact that you can't actually remove the knowledge from the players, so they're acting on out of game knowledge one way or the other. It's generally preferable by groups that play in this style to pretend ignorance until the necessary gates are opened by the GM, but that doesn't actually make the play non-metagame. It's just the preferred metagame.

Quite often, metagame is used as a synonym for cheating in these discussions, rightly or no. What's missed by this is that metagaming is part and parcel of most games, especially the social ones. You're always tailoring your play to how your GM and other players engage the game. If, for instance, you know your GM doesn't allow hiding in combat (a seemingly not-uncommon ruling in 5e) so you don't spend resources on stealth because it won't come up often, then that's metagaming -- you're playing the game based on out of game considerations. I don't think anyone would be too upset by this, though. However, in the metagaming = cheating mindset, this is often just flatly denied to even be metagaming, despite it clearly being so, because metagaming is only those behaviors that are disapproved. This is the problem with frank and clear discussions about metagaming -- it's far too loaded a term in RPG contexts because how it's defined is so variable based on the individual.

This conversation we're having is a good example of these variable definitions -- you keep moving back to metagaming being things that don't obviously follow from the fiction (Fate points) with a side of the "secret" knowledge wall (trolls and fire). I'm using metagaming as it's actually defined and not considering it automatically negative (in fact, it's often beneficial). As such, we've been unable to effectively discuss metagaming.

To put metagaming in a slightly different context to showcase a few things, let's look at two cases of metagaming in baseball.

The first is the current trend towards statistical analysis of long-term play to build rosters (ignoring that roster building is meta to baseball as well). The movie Moneyball showcases this in an entertaining way (or, at least, I enjoyed the flick).

The second is the complicated set of signals and false signals used on the field to communicate play instructions. This is a metagame around baseball, and it's a heavily played one as signals constantly change to confuse other teams and efforts to break the code are always being used to gain advantage by knowing what the other team is about to do.

Numidius said:

Fair enough. It was you in that game and I have to take your words as final.

I am left with the suspicion that your Gm had everything planned in advance, and the events went accordingly. Which is fine, btw.
I value drama (hard choices) also from the Gm perspective, so having all planned detracts from my enjoyment when I run. And I consider drama best served as emergent in play: be it from a strong premise, or from unexpected dice rolls, rather than from a Gm's planning.

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The planning isn't as important in our games as you might think. Upthread quite a ways I mentioned how I once prepped a demon invasion storyline. First session in, the players were like, "Demons!? Screw this. Let's go south, steal a ship and become pirates. So that's what they did. The demon story progressed without them. They heard about it mostly via rumors, but occasionally it affected them in minor ways directly, as it was a very large spanning plot, but beyond that it was entirely pirates. If they had in the middle of being pirates decided to take their booty, hire mercenaries and builders, and go to Chult to carve out a small kingdom, that's the direction the game would have gone and the pirates portion would be over.

My group has three of us who DM. I DM about 80% of the time, and the other two give me breaks sometimes by running the other 20% of the time. They run the game like I do. Nobody is required to take the story hook or follow a plot, and none of us gets bitter about it if the players don't want to engage. The players choose the direction that the game goes, and the DM preps along those lines.

First time I read "armchair quarterback"

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Really? It's a fairly common saying.