Why do you hate meta-gaming? (And what does it mean to you?)

[innerdude]

I think I'm willing to argue that metagaming has taken on a specialized meaning in pen and paper roleplaying. Would you disagree?

I think the term metagaming in pen and paper roleplaying does have a specialized meaning, because it's the only type of game where the shared fiction is the real "venue" for play, and metagaming in an RPG has a unique set of impacts on play that is absent any other variety game.

When I'm metagaming about Settlers of Catan, I'm not concerned how my discussion of the red numbers versus black letters affects the poor people of Catan's ability to survive on the island without sheep; I'm merely trying to optimize my play of the game. The "fiction" (if you can even call it that) in Catan is irrelevant, whereas in an RPG, the resulting shared fiction is the entire point of play.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Double-Post

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You realize this is impossible, right? As a 20th century human, I'm tainted by modern thought and culture. If I'm trying to roleplay a medieval era character, I'm already influenced by thoughts and ideas, as well as be lacking a necessary and infinite amount of potential information (that my character would know) as I relate to any given scenario. There is no perfection; there's only the attempt at fictional plausibility.

Nobody's perfect, but at least you can try. Everyone tries in good faith, and hopefully the end result is close enough that everyone has fun with the experience. That's most of what people are complaining about, when it comes to meta-gaming, is that someone is forgetting the premise and not acting in good faith. You can usually tell when someone is making a reasonable attempt to keep player knowledge separate from character knowledge. (You don't need to prove anything, because this is a social activity, and you don't need a reason to stop socializing with someone; simply disliking them is sufficient justification to kick them from the group.)

It also helps to remember that we aren't (usually) playing in anything like real Medieval Europe, but rather in a fantasy world that is inspired by widely-understood tropes. One of the reasons why fantasy is so popular (as compared to science fiction) is that people are familiar enough with the tropes that we can trust them to fill in the unexplained gaps with things that are genre-appropriate, and they aren't too far off between different players. A good GM will give you enough information that you can make reasonable in-character decisions.

 

[rhombism]

I've really enjoyed reading this thread, as I've only recently gotten back involved in RPG play, and am playing with a group I'm not entirely familiar with yet. Because the group has played together for a long time, there is a lot of what seems like social metagaming that can take up a lot of time in play and also makes it difficult to stay in character at times. As a player, it seems like you'd sort of have to focus yourself on staying in your role, and like a lot of things, the meta-gaming disruption might stem from a lack of communication about what is expected in the group.

The other thing it seems to me would be effective is some subtle manipulation by the GM to discourage it. There's nothing keeping a species of troll in this part of the multiverse from being immune to fire, but susceptible to cold instead. It seems to me also that if a player insists on trotting out knowledge of the hit dice and vulnerabilities of each monster the party encounters that it might be time for the GM to adjust that players stats, feats, background, skills or proficiencies in ways that match their play. If Phil knows so much about devil subclasses and their capabilities, perhaps that's because Phil was really lying about his early years in the military and spent the better part of his apprentice years with a necromancer who had him running errands and not getting proficient in any of those martial weapons he'd like to be able to use more effectively...

I trust in the GMs of the world to sort out meta-gaming to the extent that they need to in their individual campaigns. I've found my GM to be fairly adept at rewarding in game play and punishing the abuse of knowledge in ways that further both the story and the fun. And some of the old stories have been the more hilarious moments in the campaign.

So I guess for me, the best definition of meta-gaming is that it's something you'd do when you're not having fun just playing a character, or when your GM isn't in control of the game. Like profanity, it's fun to do for a laugh or a little shocking effect, as long as you're prepared to deal with the consequences, but if you're using it hatefully against your fellow players or GM, you should probably go find another way to spend your time.

 

[Nytmare]

Adding to the list what is probably the most common bit of metagaming, and the one that usually ends up bothering me the most: the insistence of the stereotypical four class fighter/cleric/caster/rogue party makeup.

I would also caution against [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] 's suggestion that metagaming is not, or is even the antithesis of roleplaying. I know that that doesn't hold true for every group. Not only is metagaming a sliding scale, but the hardcore roleplaying end of the spectrum doesn't own the rights to the term.

 

[Maxperson]

'Meta-gaming' is what people say when they want to feel superior to another player who is 'doing it wrong'.

Not even close to being true, but by all means, keep slinging mud at something you can't refute.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Adding to the list what is probably the most common bit of metagaming, and the one that usually ends up bothering me the most: the insistence of the stereotypical four class fighter/cleric/caster/rogue party makeup.

It really depends on how you go about it. If you have a formal adventuring party, then it would make sense that the fighter and wizard would recognize that they need a healer and a trapfinder to round out their group, and recruit such.

If you're all coordinating out-of-game to introduce characters who happen to synergize, then that isn't meta-gaming either, at least as I understand it. I mean, meta-gaming is specifically about how you make decisions in the game - whether you do it from the player's perspective, or from the character's perspective - and deciding which sort of character to make for the game is something that happens entirely outside of the game.

You might call it meta-gaming to say that the new character who shows up happens to fill a perceived hole in your party composition, but it's meta-gaming to have a new character show up at that point anyway, so the nature of the character doesn't change how well that character is role-played.

I would also caution against Saelorn's suggestion that metagaming is not, or is even the antithesis of roleplaying. I know that that doesn't hold true for every group. Not only is metagaming a sliding scale, but the hardcore roleplaying end of the spectrum doesn't own the rights to the term.

That really depends on your definitions, but as I've presented them, they are diametrically opposed. You can try to claim some other definitions, if you really want to, but you're fighting with decades of history on that front. Sorry, but role-players actually do have effective control over the title, in much the same way that hardcore basketballers have control over that definition.

If you want to claim some other definitions, and then make arguments based on those new definitions, then that's entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

 

[Jhaelen]

"We're playing a Living Module and the XP budget only allows so much, so that dragon cannot be real. I ignore it and attack the other guy"

"Although my character has no knowledge of aboleths, I do, so I stay at the back and let the other players charge it"

"I read about Tomb of Horrors online, so I'll let the others climb into that mouth and not die myself"

"The Gm knows that the young kid playing the druid will get super-upset when their animal companion gets hurt, so we'll use it to scout ahead"

In all cases, these are often unvoiced thoughts.

Exactly. So, you'd advocate to have a thought police in the game? It is often unavoidable to have a certain amount of player knowledge. But how does it affect how you have your character act?

Let's look at the examples:
1) Now, I haven't played any Living Modules, but I'd never rule out a dragon encounter, in which I'm not supposed to actually fight the dragon. And if I, the player, suspect the dragon may be just an illusion, I'd try to call on my character's knowledge, e.g. "Wow, there's a dragon living in this area and no one has yet reported anything about it? Surely it would have been noticed before."

2) That's, imho, simply playing it carefully: "There's a scary-looking, huge monstrosity hiding in that dark pool? Charging _anything_ unknown strikes me as a bad idea, and this seems triply so."

3) Another case of simple suvival instincts: "Climbing into a mouth of unfathomable darkness? Err, have we really exhausted all other options? How about trying to delve it first in some way?"

4) At first, I didn't even get what this example is about. It took me a while to figure out, you're assuming the GM is taking favorites. Sorry, this is simply not an issue in my games. No one and nothing is ever safe from harm. And even if the GM did take care not to harm the animal companion, how is that supposed to make it safe for the rest of the party to let the companion do the scouting? It could just as easily lead an angry mob of monsters to the party while fleeing from the resulting fight and hiding safely in a tiny crevice.

Since I'm most often the GM, I tend to have the highest potential of having player knowledge that is beyond my character's. My ways to mitigate that lies in choosing appropriate (knowledge) skills, acting cautiously as a default and often playing the devil's advocate (i.e. I'm doing it whether I suspect to know what's going on or not).

As a GM, I also often make good use from what a player _believes_ to be 'meta-knowledge' when she's actually completely mistaken. E.g. one of the players in my group is a walking monster encyclopedia, but he only knows the monsters from D&D 2e. So, in my 3e and 4e campaigns he's a useful source of 'rumours'. Some of his information is accurate, some of it is completely wrong. He also doesn't always correctly identify monsters. Monster templates work wonders in obscuring what the party is actually encountering.

 

[Nytmare]

It really depends on how you go about it. If you have a formal adventuring party, then it would make sense that the fighter and wizard would recognize that they need a healer and a trapfinder to round out their group, and recruit such.

I'm not saying that it's wrong, but in my experience the majority of D&D gaming groups (and that's in games I've run, played in, watched, and in countless conversations both online and in real life) don't look at party design by asking "who would be here" or "why is this group together." Granted there are definitely campaign settings (like Ptolus) that very specifically build a world in which specialized almost militarized adventuring groups are the norm, and there's nothing wrong with saying that you can't decide to play a game where you're a crack team of professional dungeon delvers. But for a significant chunk of the games that exist the decision is a metagame decision where they throw a handful random strangers into a tavern and who all accidentally fit a very specific tank/healer/aoe/ranged profile.

That really depends on your definitions, but as I've presented them, they are diametrically opposed. You can try to claim some other definitions, if you really want to, but you're fighting with decades of history on that front. Sorry, but role-players actually do have effective control over the title, in much the same way that hardcore basketballers have control over that definition.

If you want to claim some other definitions, and then make arguments based on those new definitions, then that's entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

These aren't new definitions, they're textbook definitions that have existed prior to RPG communities grabbing hold of them and turning them into insults. People who are playing in an RPG are playing a role playing game, regardless of whether they're method actors or they're wargamers who don't even bother to write character names on their sheets. Those tactical wargamers aren't doing it wrong, they're just doing it differently than a person who would write up an eight page character history. A professional basketball player can say that the one on one game in a parking lot isn't a "real" basketball game all they want. It doesn't make it true.



[TANGENTIAL SIDE NOTE] There used to be a game here in Pittsburgh that adopted an "Order of the Stick" kind of view of the world for their game. It was a dramatic, heavy RP world, but instead of sweating and trying to separate all the meta knowledge from the game, they just folded it all in and ignored that it was strange. People in the world referred to themselves by their classes and their level. People talked about things in character with regards to mathematical bonuses. And the fourth wall barely existed, the characters (both PCs and NPCs) knew that they were just pawns in a game moved by invisible hands. I never got to see it in action (and don't know if it still even exists) but it's a freaking brilliant idea.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

These aren't new definitions, they're textbook definitions that have existed prior to RPG communities grabbing hold of them and turning them into insults. People who are playing in an RPG are playing a role playing game, regardless of whether they're method actors or they're wargamers who don't even bother to write character names on their sheets. Those tactical wargamers aren't doing it wrong, they're just doing it differently than a person who would write up an eight page character history.

The definitions I gave have been standard since the late eighties. You can play an RPG as a game without role-playing, but you're doing it wrong. Literally, it says in the book (depending on the book) that you are supposed to be role-playing, and they use as many words as are necessary to convey that concept to their perceived target audience.

A wargamer can play an RPG as a wargame, with various degrees of success and enjoyment (depending on the game at hand), but it's not role-playing unless they actually play the role. You should only take that as an insult if you falsely claim to care about role-playing when you actually care about wargaming or storytelling or something else. I'm also not going to claim that role-playing is superior to wargaming or storytelling, because they really are different things entirely, but personally I am a fan of role-playing and that's why I play RPGs rather than wargames or FATE.