A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

Neonchameleon said:

On the other hand the impacts are huge. I don't think that death spirals would be good for the game (and neither, from memory, did Gygax) - but far from being not worth applying this is a deliberate design decision to make hit points not represent anything much (Gygax claims it's absurd to think of them as physical damage) other than a mix of luck, fate, and stamina, to get a better game. And if they are luck and fate they are getting pretty meta.

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Everything that Gygax has ever stated on the topic is in agreement that hit points do include a physical component. The question at hand is simply whether there are two distinct pools, or just one: Is it that the top 90% of your HP are meta-physical, and you are only scratched when you get into the bottom 10%? Or is each individual point 90% meta-physical and 10% physical, such that a 7-point wound on the high-level character is only one-tenth as severe? There are enough conflicting details to support either side, if you really wanted to argue it.

Relevant to the topic at hand, if you wanted to choose the latter interpretation, it would mean that there is a (relatively minor) physical symptom associated with every instance of HP damage, which means that characters can observe and plan address them. Only in the former case - when you take a wound purely to your luck - would it be meta-gaming to try and Cure that.

Saelorn said:

Everything that Gygax has ever stated on the topic is in agreement that hit points do include a physical component. The question at hand is simply whether there are two distinct pools, or just one: Is it that the top 90% of your HP are meta-physical, and you are only scratched when you get into the bottom 10%? Or is each individual point 90% meta-physical and 10% physical, such that a 7-point wound on the high-level character is only one-tenth as severe? There are enough conflicting details to support either side, if you really wanted to argue it.

Relevant to the topic at hand, if you wanted to choose the latter interpretation, it would mean that there is a (relatively minor) physical symptom associated with every instance of HP damage, which means that characters can observe and plan address them. Only in the former case - when you take a wound purely to your luck - would it be meta-gaming to try and Cure that.

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Yeah lets not open that can of worms. I am in the latter camp. Your physical body doesn't change that much though maybe a little. You just turn deadly attacks into far less deadly ones. For me there is always a physical component but again let's just not go there. In my games, hit points abstractly represent in game knowledge and always have. So I likely won't stop playing them that way.

Saelorn said:

I'll take your word for it, but it's at odds with everything I've read from him prior to that, so maybe he just changed his mind at some point. That does make it hard to use him as a reference for anything, though, since he's said enough conflicting things that he can support any position.

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Saelorn said:

Everything that Gygax has ever stated on the topic is in agreement that hit points do include a physical component. .

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Seriously?

I will admit to not reading the whole thread, but if you're looking to hack 5e to get rid of the elements you list on the front page that are more narrative than simulationist, I have a few suggestions:

1. Hit Dice - eliminate HD healing entirely and just give all characters 2HD per level instead of 1. That's functionally what short rest healing does - it splits your hp into two separate pools that you can't access all at once and gives you a narrative where when you rest you restore some energy. Editions prior to 4e didn't need it, so if you don't like it get rid of it. You could also just get rid of HD entirely and not double their hp - the only impact would be to reduce the length of the adventuring day as your front line can't keep fighting as long and will need to take a long rest sooner.

2. Action Surge - replace the "player's choice" version of this with one that is triggered on an event that happens on a rough schedule of once per combat for a fighter. One version of this - utterly unplaytested - would be "when you roll a natural 17 or higher on an attack roll against a foe, you have gotten lucky and have somehow outmaneuvered or confounded or otherwise tricked your foe. You may take an extra action." No recharge on a short rest, no player choice as to whether or not to use the power, no recharge on the power - just luck of the battle that gives them a momentary advantage. It could come up multiple times in a battle or it could come up zero times in the battle so that's a bit of a trade off, but on average if your combats go 5 rounds on average it should average out to 1/battle. (If your combats are shorter on average you'd might make the range larger - if your average combat goes 6+ round you might make the range smaller, but only if you're really worried about it coming up 1/battle on average - if you're willling to just take the luck of the draw, I'd probably jut make it 17 or 18+ and be done with it ) At 17th level you can double the range so that it probably happens twice per battle on average. It's not as much fun as Action Surge because you can' get the "he failed on his first attack but used Action Surge to swing around and succeed on a second swing" narrative in there, but when you cut narrative control away from the players something has to give.

The other option would be to replace it with a damage bonus for fighters. The rough benefit of Action Surge is that a fighter will once per combat have one more chance to attack. It would probably be fair to exchange this feature for one that gives the fighter a +1 bonus to all damage rolls (or maybe a +2 bonus - I'd have to think about it, and then double i when you get to 17th level). Not as flashy or as fun as an extra attack, and if your combats tend to be short it's going to be less damage than an extra attack would give you on average, but it's not as swingy either.

3. Second Wind - again, take away the player's conrol of this. There are two easy ways to do this - one would be to have it trigger on an event - I'd have it be automatic once the PC falls to half hp the first time in a battle. If you still think that's too weird and not simulationist enough, another idea would be to acknowlege that this class feature basically gives the Fighter an extra 10 + level hp times the number of encounters they see in a day. You could just hand the fighter an extra number of hp based on that up front - of course this means the Fighter has tons of hp, but in reality the Fighter DOES have tons of hp compared to other character classes - they're just hidden. Mathematically it would be roughly equivalent. (I personally prefer the triggered Second Wind option at half hp, but YMMV).

4. Inspiration - ignore it. It's a narrative and roleplaying cookie that can give players a bit of help in a variety of ways but it does't break the game if you never give out inspiration. It just means your players have to work a bit harder and will fail a bit more often on die rolls if they don't actively look for things they can do in game to gain advantage.

Dunno if you'll like any of these suggestions, but that's how I'd hack 5e to try to keep it roughly in line with expectations while removing player narrative control. Move actions that are triggered by player choice to being triggered by other events outside of player control, mostly based either on predictable events that will always happen once in the battle or triggered on random rolls during the battle that represent the chaos of the battlefield rather than player choice.

[MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]

Not to get off track here too far but assuming I wanted to play a sci-fi game some time where does N.E.W. fall on the metagame axis?

Emerikol said:

While I have a strong opinion on metagame design elements, I by no means intend to imply that those who enjoy such concepts are doing it wrong or should convert to my way of thinking. This is about a preference. It would be just as silly to try to convert everyone who prefers chocolate ice cream to vanilla. Vanilla is better in my opinion but philosophically "a matter of taste cannot be disputed"

So a short definition: Metagaming.
Metagaming is when a player makes a decision that the character the player is playing could never conceive of or know about.


Here are some examples of metagame rules in 5e.

1. The player chooses the number of hit dice to apply towards healing during a short rest. There seems to be no analog for the character. There also seems to be a resource being consumed but what is that resource? Potential healing?

2. Action surge. Why is this limited (besides game balance) early on to once between short rests? Can a fighter really only once in the course of a battle choose an exact moment to make an extra effort and then not again? This again seems like the player is choosing something the fighter would know nothing about.

3. Second Wind. A player decides to give his character a surge of energy. The character just gets it apparently unexpectedly. It happens in the fast and furious furer of combat so it's not even something the character could think about much.

4. Inspiration. Since this part of the game is pretty optional (and my guess is anyone close to my thinking ignores it anyway), it's not that big a deal.


I realize I'm picking on the fighter but the fighter is pretty egregious in these areas. I'm sure may of the other classes have at least some issues like this though perhaps not to the same degree.

So how do you guys with my own sentiments (or at least some sympathy for my sentiments) handle these things. What house rules have you developed? Is the game salvageable for someone like us?

I've been thinking about Pathfinder 2e as another possibility. Do you think it will do better in that particular area? Worse? I'm going to check out the pdf.

What about you old schoolers? There is a lot to like in some of the old school games but I find them not systematic enough for me. Heck 5e probably isn't as much as I'd like. Everything is a special class rule. I do think feats as a mechanic might be better ala Pf2e. But I am also thinking they'll make some pretty awful feats as well.

Thoughts?

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I got thoughts.

For one, I’m sympathetic that 5E’s design didn’t quite deliver on the dials and tweaks that might’ve accommodated your preferences and mine alongside one another. But I’ll leave that aside for a sec and see if I might take a stab at some of your fighter concerns.

Biggest ‘offenders’ (or let’s say ‘areas of opportunity for change’) I see are Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable. Each of these, the player decides to use when they wish, and then must rest some amount of time before they can be used again. So we’re looking for the smallest possible alterations we can make so that the choice to use these abilities originates from the character, doesn’t have an arbitrary limit on use, or perhaps replaces the ability with a functional equivalent.

Second Wind regains hit points commensurate with the fighter’s level, and can be used any time, but you need a rest to use it again. In an average day, the fighter has one 8 hour rest of sleep, and realistically one or two short rests of an hour during an adventuring day. In short, he can regain 3d10 plus 3 times his level hit points every day. Practically speaking, you could easily replace Second Wind with a couple Cure Wounds Spells, a packet of bonus hit points (that maybe increases as they level), or a slight resistance to damage.
I propose: “True Grit” - whenever you are damaged by an attack, reduce the incoming damage by an amount equal to your constitution modifier (minimum 1). No problems now, the fighter is just a bit more durable on average than everyone else.

Action Surge. This lets you take an extra action in one combat, and you have to rest before you can do it again. Alright that’s tougher. We have to look at some averages to gauge a replacement. It’s said there’s 6-8 medium difficulty encounters in an adventuring day. It’s said that each encounter is about 3 combat rounds. So it looks like you get one extra action every other combat. There’s no real limit on what that action can do. But after about 11th level, if you’re not using it for attacks, I’m a monkey’s uncle. That’s 6 attacks in one of your combat turns! A damage bonus might be sufficient. I think that’s sufficient but boring.
I propose: “Grand Slam” On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to zero hit points with one, you can use the momentum of your devastating strike to carry you forward and take another action this turn. This keeps the extra action fun, but changes the frequency of use so that it doesn’t conflict with your sensibilities. It happens in particular circumstances, based on battle conditions and in-world effects.

Finally we have Indomitable: re-roll a failed saving throw. Recharge after a rest. This is like how the AD&D fighter had the most favorable saving throw progression. I think we solve it the same way - improve the saving throw. It could be as simple as “you have advantage on all saving throws.” Here’s why: you were only ever going to re-roll failed ones, and you would only ever take the best result. Practically speaking, there’s a very small boost in giving a blanket advantage to all saving throws over Indomitable-as-written. Alternatively, you could gain proficiency in a new saving throw at 9th, another at 13th, and another at 17th. I’d personally stick with advantage on all saving throws, but whatever. Either way, we don’t run into arbitrary use or limits.

In each change I’ve proposed, your fighter is always trying their best. Not selectively - all the time. And the changes aren’t even big. Just a replacement sentence at most. That ought to make this class more palatable to your particular taste. Let me know what you think.

Bawylie said:

I got thoughts.

For one, I’m sympathetic that 5E’s design didn’t quite deliver on the dials and tweaks that might’ve accommodated your preferences and mine alongside one another. But I’ll leave that aside for a sec and see if I might take a stab at some of your fighter concerns.

Biggest ‘offenders’ (or let’s say ‘areas of opportunity for change’) I see are Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable. Each of these, the player decides to use when they wish, and then must rest some amount of time before they can be used again. So we’re looking for the smallest possible alterations we can make so that the choice to use these abilities originates from the character, doesn’t have an arbitrary limit on use, or perhaps replaces the ability with a functional equivalent.

Second Wind regains hit points commensurate with the fighter’s level, and can be used any time, but you need a rest to use it again. In an average day, the fighter has one 8 hour rest of sleep, and realistically one or two short rests of an hour during an adventuring day. In short, he can regain 3d10 plus 3 times his level hit points every day. Practically speaking, you could easily replace Second Wind with a couple Cure Wounds Spells, a packet of bonus hit points (that maybe increases as they level), or a slight resistance to damage.
I propose: “True Grit” - whenever you are damaged by an attack, reduce the incoming damage by an amount equal to your constitution modifier (minimum 1). No problems now, the fighter is just a bit more durable on average than everyone else.

Action Surge. This lets you take an extra action in one combat, and you have to rest before you can do it again. Alright that’s tougher. We have to look at some averages to gauge a replacement. It’s said there’s 6-8 medium difficulty encounters in an adventuring day. It’s said that each encounter is about 3 combat rounds. So it looks like you get one extra action every other combat. There’s no real limit on what that action can do. But after about 11th level, if you’re not using it for attacks, I’m a monkey’s uncle. That’s 6 attacks in one of your combat turns! A damage bonus might be sufficient. I think that’s sufficient but boring.
I propose: “Grand Slam” On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to zero hit points with one, you can use the momentum of your devastating strike to carry you forward and take another action this turn. This keeps the extra action fun, but changes the frequency of use so that it doesn’t conflict with your sensibilities. It happens in particular circumstances, based on battle conditions and in-world effects.

Finally we have Indomitable: re-roll a failed saving throw. Recharge after a rest. This is like how the AD&D fighter had the most favorable saving throw progression. I think we solve it the same way - improve the saving throw. It could be as simple as “you have advantage on all saving throws.” Here’s why: you were only ever going to re-roll failed ones, and you would only ever take the best result. Practically speaking, there’s a very small boost in giving a blanket advantage to all saving throws over Indomitable-as-written. Alternatively, you could gain proficiency in a new saving throw at 9th, another at 13th, and another at 17th. I’d personally stick with advantage on all saving throws, but whatever. Either way, we don’t run into arbitrary use or limits.

In each change I’ve proposed, your fighter is always trying their best. Not selectively - all the time. And the changes aren’t even big. Just a replacement sentence at most. That ought to make this class more palatable to your particular taste. Let me know what you think.

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Further thoughts. Hit dice - remove them. If you prefer challenge the way I think you do, just remove these. Go with fixed healing after a long rest and spells, OG style. If you want to keep hit dice, here’s a proposal: you only get hit dice equal to your proficiency score. Whenever you rest (short, long, whatever), roll ALL your hit dice and regain that much HP. Or half on a short rest and full on a long rest. It’s a bit of healing at low levels but nothing to truly count on at mid-to-high levels. I suspect you wouldn’t miss anything removing them though and removing them has no further ramifications on your game.

Inspiration - also remove. It’s a sort of carrot for role playing your character. You and your group will not miss it.

Before I respond, let me say thanks for this effort.

Jer said:

I will admit to not reading the whole thread, but if you're looking to hack 5e to get rid of the elements you list on the front page that are more narrative than simulationist, I have a few suggestions:

1. Hit Dice - eliminate HD healing entirely and just give all characters 2HD per level instead of 1. That's functionally what short rest healing does - it splits your hp into two separate pools that you can't access all at once and gives you a narrative where when you rest you restore some energy. Editions prior to 4e didn't need it, so if you don't like it get rid of it. You could also just get rid of HD entirely and not double their hp - the only impact would be to reduce the length of the adventuring day as your front line can't keep fighting as long and will need to take a long rest sooner.

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A complaint I've heard about 5e is that it is too easy. My characters are brutally efficient so I might just leave as is in this case and maybe adjust on the monster end later if it shows up as an issue. And yes I know that efficiency is what I've been rewarding so that is what I am getting. Glad to get it.

Jer said:

2. Action Surge - replace the "player's choice" version of this with one that is triggered on an event that happens on a rough schedule of once per combat for a fighter. One version of this - utterly unplaytested - would be "when you roll a natural 17 or higher on an attack roll against a foe, you have gotten lucky and have somehow outmaneuvered or confounded or otherwise tricked your foe. You may take an extra action." No recharge on a short rest, no player choice as to whether or not to use the power, no recharge on the power - just luck of the battle that gives them a momentary advantage. It could come up multiple times in a battle or it could come up zero times in the battle so that's a bit of a trade off, but on average if your combats go 5 rounds on average it should average out to 1/battle. (If your combats are shorter on average you'd might make the range larger - if your average combat goes 6+ round you might make the range smaller, but only if you're really worried about it coming up 1/battle on average - if you're willling to just take the luck of the draw, I'd probably jut make it 17 or 18+ and be done with it ) At 17th level you can double the range so that it probably happens twice per battle on average. It's not as much fun as Action Surge because you can' get the "he failed on his first attack but used Action Surge to swing around and succeed on a second swing" narrative in there, but when you cut narrative control away from the players something has to give.

The other option would be to replace it with a damage bonus for fighters. The rough benefit of Action Surge is that a fighter will once per combat have one more chance to attack. It would probably be fair to exchange this feature for one that gives the fighter a +1 bonus to all damage rolls (or maybe a +2 bonus - I'd have to think about it, and then double i when you get to 17th level). Not as flashy or as fun as an extra attack, and if your combats tend to be short it's going to be less damage than an extra attack would give you on average, but it's not as swingy either.

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I like the damage bonus idea the best I think but it could be a player choice.

Jer said:

3. Second Wind - again, take away the player's conrol of this. There are two easy ways to do this - one would be to have it trigger on an event - I'd have it be automatic once the PC falls to half hp the first time in a battle. If you still think that's too weird and not simulationist enough, another idea would be to acknowlege that this class feature basically gives the Fighter an extra 10 + level hp times the number of encounters they see in a day. You could just hand the fighter an extra number of hp based on that up front - of course this means the Fighter has tons of hp, but in reality the Fighter DOES have tons of hp compared to other character classes - they're just hidden. Mathematically it would be roughly equivalent. (I personally prefer the triggered Second Wind option at half hp, but YMMV).

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yeah for me it makes more sense to add the hit points. I think I'd just increase per level hit points for the fighter. I think I wouldn't increase them though as much as your suggesting. The ability to heal them back up is a significant advantage so maybe I just add +1 per level max.

Jer said:

4. Inspiration - ignore it. It's a narrative and roleplaying cookie that can give players a bit of help in a variety of ways but it does't break the game if you never give out inspiration. It just means your players have to work a bit harder and will fail a bit more often on die rolls if they don't actively look for things they can do in game to gain advantage.

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Sure. Inspiration is my favorite metagame mechanic. Very easy to remove.

Jer said:

Dunno if you'll like any of these suggestions, but that's how I'd hack 5e to try to keep it roughly in line with expectations while removing player narrative control. Move actions that are triggered by player choice to being triggered by other events outside of player control, mostly based either on predictable events that will always happen once in the battle or triggered on random rolls during the battle that represent the chaos of the battlefield rather than player choice.

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They are good suggestions. I admit many of them have crossed my mind. It's a big hack. It's also probably not complete in that I'd have other changes too that weren't mentioned in my original post. I didn't list every single thing, just some illustrative stuff. Also the fighter is my pet peeve so may that is another reason I focused on it.

Thanks for doing this and you definitely game me some thoughts to consider. I appreciate knowing what you think is a balanced tradeoff.

It's nice to see you on here Bawylie. If you post a thread with your needs, I'll be happy to try and help you out if I can.

I also appreciate that you seem to truly understand my needs on a level I haven't seen on this thread yet. No offense to those others trying. Bawylie and I have a long history so he knows me better than most and understands all my old arguments from times past.

Bawylie said:

I got thoughts.

For one, I’m sympathetic that 5E’s design didn’t quite deliver on the dials and tweaks that might’ve accommodated your preferences and mine alongside one another. But I’ll leave that aside for a sec and see if I might take a stab at some of your fighter concerns.

Biggest ‘offenders’ (or let’s say ‘areas of opportunity for change’) I see are Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable. Each of these, the player decides to use when they wish, and then must rest some amount of time before they can be used again. So we’re looking for the smallest possible alterations we can make so that the choice to use these abilities originates from the character, doesn’t have an arbitrary limit on use, or perhaps replaces the ability with a functional equivalent.

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You are dead on in your analysis of the problem areas on the fighter.

Bawylie said:

Second Wind regains hit points commensurate with the fighter’s level, and can be used any time, but you need a rest to use it again. In an average day, the fighter has one 8 hour rest of sleep, and realistically one or two short rests of an hour during an adventuring day. In short, he can regain 3d10 plus 3 times his level hit points every day. Practically speaking, you could easily replace Second Wind with a couple Cure Wounds Spells, a packet of bonus hit points (that maybe increases as they level), or a slight resistance to damage.
I propose: “True Grit” - whenever you are damaged by an attack, reduce the incoming damage by an amount equal to your constitution modifier (minimum 1). No problems now, the fighter is just a bit more durable on average than everyone else.

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This is a decent idea and still seems iconic for the fighter.

Bawylie said:

Action Surge. This lets you take an extra action in one combat, and you have to rest before you can do it again. Alright that’s tougher. We have to look at some averages to gauge a replacement. It’s said there’s 6-8 medium difficulty encounters in an adventuring day. It’s said that each encounter is about 3 combat rounds. So it looks like you get one extra action every other combat. There’s no real limit on what that action can do. But after about 11th level, if you’re not using it for attacks, I’m a monkey’s uncle. That’s 6 attacks in one of your combat turns! A damage bonus might be sufficient. I think that’s sufficient but boring.
I propose: “Grand Slam” On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to zero hit points with one, you can use the momentum of your devastating strike to carry you forward and take another action this turn. This keeps the extra action fun, but changes the frequency of use so that it doesn’t conflict with your sensibilities. It happens in particular circumstances, based on battle conditions and in-world effects.

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I like this a lot. It also makes the fighter a real lawnmower when it comes to mooks. That is okay and cool. In my book that is his job.

Bawylie said:

Finally we have Indomitable: re-roll a failed saving throw. Recharge after a rest. This is like how the AD&D fighter had the most favorable saving throw progression. I think we solve it the same way - improve the saving throw. It could be as simple as “you have advantage on all saving throws.” Here’s why: you were only ever going to re-roll failed ones, and you would only ever take the best result. Practically speaking, there’s a very small boost in giving a blanket advantage to all saving throws over Indomitable-as-written. Alternatively, you could gain proficiency in a new saving throw at 9th, another at 13th, and another at 17th. I’d personally stick with advantage on all saving throws, but whatever. Either way, we don’t run into arbitrary use or limits.

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I like the advantage idea.

Bawylie said:

In each change I’ve proposed, your fighter is always trying their best. Not selectively - all the time. And the changes aren’t even big. Just a replacement sentence at most. That ought to make this class more palatable to your particular taste. Let me know what you think.

Click to expand...

I like. If I'm getting free help from you, I may need you to quickly peruse the Rogue. I think the Cleric and Wizard will be okay but those four are my only absolute requirements.

Bawylie said:

Further thoughts. Hit dice - remove them. If you prefer challenge the way I think you do, just remove these. Go with fixed healing after a long rest and spells, OG style. If you want to keep hit dice, here’s a proposal: you only get hit dice equal to your proficiency score. Whenever you rest (short, long, whatever), roll ALL your hit dice and regain that much HP. Or half on a short rest and full on a long rest. It’s a bit of healing at low levels but nothing to truly count on at mid-to-high levels. I suspect you wouldn’t miss anything removing them though and removing them has no further ramifications on your game.

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You are right. The game I've heard is too easy which is a criticism I had for 4e as well. I'm not surprised. Again they are likely targeting new and inexperienced players.

Bawylie said:

Inspiration - also remove. It’s a sort of carrot for role playing your character. You and your group will not miss it.

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To me it's already optional it's so set apart.


This is really interesting. I want to see what drops this August on Pf2e but you've made me rethink 5e.

What are you playing these days yourself? Still using 4e or trying 5e? Or maybe something else entirely?