Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[Reynard]

I think this is an easy answer, but not a very useful one. First, lots of things that people casually label 'metacurrency' don't mess with everyone's immersion, just some people. Second, immersion isn't a single 'thing' that the same for everyone or subject to the same external factors. The throw a third log onto the fire here, the term 'anti-immersive' is needlessly polarizing even taking into account my first two points.

I mean, they are clearly talking about themselves. i don't think we need to assume every poster is making proclamations about how other people should play.

As to immersion and metacurrency: I get how backtracking/retconning by way of metacurrency might disrupt the sense of immersion that comes with the flow of play, but I personally do not think immersion is of particular importance. it is cool when it happens in the moment, but it is not something I think is worth chasing all the time.

 

[Fenris-77]

I mean, they are clearly talking about themselves. i don't think we need to assume every poster is making proclamations about how other people should play.

As to immersion and metacurrency: I get how backtracking/retconning by way of metacurrency might disrupt the sense of immersion that comes with the flow of play, but I personally do not think immersion is of particular importance. it is cool when it happens in the moment, but it is not something I think is worth chasing all the time.

Some play styles chase immersion specifically, which is fine and cool. Where the mistakes creep in is when people want to talk about it like it's one thing, when its not, or about metacurrency as another and opposite thing, which it isn't. I wasn't taking issue with anyone's playstyle, just in repeating facile talking points that only serve to muddy the waters.

 

[Lanefan]

This sounds like a skill issue. I find it trivially easy to incorporate such things into a consistent narrative. You just build on the things that are already there.

As informed by the initial die roll, right?

This is a misperception I think. Most games that feature such things frame it as the dice roll isn't the final word, precisely because other factors may come in later. This is known as Fortune in the Middle. The dice roll represents a likely outcome - he doesn't seem persuaded, the missile doesn't seem to be on target - that may then be superceded. If people narrate it as 'You're definitely dead and your head falls off, oh wait you're spending a point :rewind noise:', again that seems like a skill issue.

The dice roll directly informs the actual outcome; all the other mechanical effects and-or roleplay that try to alter the odds one way or the other have in theory been done before the dice get rolled, and the dice as the final arbiter then tell me what to narrate.

Which also means that once the dice are rolled an the result known there's no "Hey, wait, I meant to [do something that changes] that roll!". You're too late, and have blown your chance.

"Rewind noise" should never occur, I think we agree on that. But for me it's not a skill issue, it's an integrity issue: are dice rolls, once made and the result known, sacrosanct or not.

 

[Lanefan]

I think we had this conversation quite recently, but a lot of metacurrencies are not things outside the setting. They are things within it such as willpower, luck, magic, or force points. I accept that the representation of those things may not be fully simulative though - the character doesn't have the knowledge or control over it in-setting that the player does in-play.

Underneath it all, I think the bolded is what makes me dislike the concept in principle.

For me, I generally want player knowledge and character knowledge to be as close to the same as reasonably possible (though knowing full well that it'll only ever get sort-of-close-enough and never be perfect), meaning that a mechanic that actively tries to separate the two is directly working against my goals.

 

[Fenris-77]

Sure, but in a lot of cases MC's also represent things that have happened, or been considered, in time that the game-at-table has elided. 'Real' characters would have a very different access to planning than players at the table do, and so there, as in so many other instances, we fall back on 'representation' in one way or another. People might like to think that that are doing real-time immersion stuff, but mostly they aren't. A real heist, for example, takes days or weeks of planning, not 15 minutes of table time. RPGs need, and indeed have to, edit this time down to make the idea useful at the table. This means that planning, to some extent, must be elided, and something needs to 'stand in' for good planning. Various MC mechanics do this very well. and anyone who thinks that simple RP can do the same thing is probably fooling themselves in terms of how time dilates at their table. To quote a great video clip, ain't no one got time for that.

 

[soviet]

As informed by the initial die roll, right?

Here I was more referring to the idea that if metacurrency creates a particular result, you can present that in an artificial and unsatisfying way ('uh, I guess a shotgun just materialises in front of you then') or you can present it in a way that draws on what's already been established in the fiction ('of course, a dive like this would have a shotgun under the bar!). The sense of plausibility an event has comes from the people playing it as much as it does the mechanics that created it.

The dice roll directly informs the actual outcome; all the other mechanical effects and-or roleplay that try to alter the odds one way or the other have in theory been done before the dice get rolled, and the dice as the final arbiter then tell me what to narrate.

Which also means that once the dice are rolled an the result known there's no "Hey, wait, I meant to [do something that changes] that roll!". You're too late, and have blown your chance.

"Rewind noise" should never occur, I think we agree on that. But for me it's not a skill issue, it's an integrity issue: are dice rolls, once made and the result known, sacrosanct or not.

What the dice roll represents varies by game. We are back to the Forge concepts of Fortune at the Start, Fortune in the Middle, and Fortune at the End. While many traditional games might have a lot of Fortune at the End (i.e. the dice roll is the final stage of resolution), a lot of less traditional games that make use of metacurrencies will rely more on Fortune in the Middle (i.e. the dice roll is the middle stage of resolution, meaning that it gives an indicator of a result but can be nudged/pushed by metacurrency).

I think the issue here is projecting a Fortune at the End approach ('the dice roll concludes the matter') onto games that are not built with that assumption in mind.

 

[soviet]

Underneath it all, I think the bolded is what makes me dislike the concept in principle.

For me, I generally want player knowledge and character knowledge to be as close to the same as reasonably possible (though knowing full well that it'll only ever get sort-of-close-enough and never be perfect), meaning that a mechanic that actively tries to separate the two is directly working against my goals.

I don't know what 'reasonably possible' means here. Lots of games have very contrived game systems, for example turn-based ones. No-one thinks their D&D fighter swings a sword at someone and then stands still for nine seconds, or knows that he can take seven crossbow shots before he is at risk of dying. Where the line is drawn is not so straightforward.

 

[Deadstop]

Don't Fate Points in games like Fate work like that?

No. Spending a Fate point gives you a +2 or a reroll. They are not “just declare whatever you want” points.

Fate does have other mechanisms that allow the creation of new truths (aspects) about a scene or character … but in most cases that happens because of an in-character action that sets up that new reality. The room is now “on fire” because you took action to set it on fire. Your foe is “knocked down” because you knocked him down. That kind of thing.

Sometimes perception-type rolls will let you “discover” an aspect that didn’t exist until you just now made it up, but it still has to pass the smell test at the table. “The master villain is actually my best friend, and so he just gives up and goes home” is poor form, same as “My DMPC does everything while you guys watch.” Increased sharing of narrative power does not force the actual people at the table to keep playing if something really stupid just happened, just as when that power is more centralized in the GM’s hands.

How about Blades in the Darks dumb Falshback one? Were you can just alter things saying "yuck yuck, sure is a good thing my character packed that item as we needed it, yuck yuck".

Blades is a heist/caper game. A lot of those nowadays have some mechanism to cover the “actually that was all part of our plan” twists that frequently occur in such stories, without requiring the group to literally plan for every contingency or the GM to have detailed floor plans, maps of the electrical grid, or whatever else a real heist crew might make use of.

If you still think that’s dumb, I cannot help that, but it’s quite deliberate and still doesn’t let you just declare “We win.” Heck, the equipment thing is usually handled by having everyone choose in advance how obviously loaded with stuff they are, and then pick the individual items on the fly … but still from the list that comes with your character.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't know what 'reasonably possible' means here. Lots of games have very contrived game systems, for example turn-based ones. No-one thinks their D&D fighter swings a sword at someone and then stands still for nine seconds, or knows that he can take seven crossbow shots before he is at risk of dying. Where the line is drawn is not so straightforward.

The contrivance of turn-based systems (more on those in a moment) and the player-vs-character knowledge piece aren't necessarily related. The player knows the character is swinging a sword and the character knows the same. The player knows the character has been shot a few times and so does the character.

Strict turn-based systems that in effect work as you describe - I get a flurry of action and movement while everyone else stands still followed by each other participant getting their own flurry of action and movement while I stand still - are IMO very poor means of abstraction that can (and sometimes do) lead to some ridiculous fiction. They can also lead to some nasty table arguments when two characters are intentionally trying to do something simultaneously (e.g. hold hands and move together through an area of darkness in a battle) but the system as written doesn't allow simultaniety and the GM is going by the book.

It's harder, and slower in play, but what's needed is to realize that everything's happening at once and - especially for movement - break it down so that you know where the mover is at any given time within the round, as opposed to their movement effectively being a mini-teleport on the mover's turn. Also, in D&D, allow initiative ties!

 

[soviet]

The contrivance of turn-based systems (more on those in a moment) and the player-vs-character knowledge piece aren't necessarily related. The player knows the character is swinging a sword and the character knows the same. The player knows the character has been shot a few times and so does the character.

Sure, but it's a loose approximation, right? I'm not sure it's all that different in nature from metacurrencies that represent things broadly in-universe such as willpower or the force.

Strict turn-based systems that in effect work as you describe - I get a flurry of action and movement while everyone else stands still followed by each other participant getting their own flurry of action and movement while I stand still - are IMO very poor means of abstraction that can (and sometimes do) lead to some ridiculous fiction. They can also lead to some nasty table arguments when two characters are intentionally trying to do something simultaneously (e.g. hold hands and move together through an area of darkness in a battle) but the system as written doesn't allow simultaniety and the GM is going by the book.

It's harder, and slower in play, but what's needed is to realize that everything's happening at once and - especially for movement - break it down so that you know where the mover is at any given time within the round, as opposed to their movement effectively being a mini-teleport on the mover's turn. Also, in D&D, allow initiative ties!

I still have the Rolemaster Companion that had an alternate system for simultaneous actions - essentially every action had a 'units of effort' points cost and the game just kept counting down until the units had been spent and that action resolved. So every character's actions effectively go into the oven at the same time, with different cooking speeds, and the game continues with players declaring, counting down, and resolving actions without any turn structure.

Sounds interesting but looked like a nightmare, especially if you're the GM running 20 different goblins.