Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[mamba]

5e NPCs aren’t built with PC rules and don’t take feats, though.

pretty sure @Micah Sweet does not like that to begin with, so I do not see that as a problem here

As I said, if you treat the characters as the chosen ones this is not true, and distinguishing NPCs and PCs pretty much gets you down that path quite a bit

 

[mamba]

There are tons of feats, and I don't play 5.5, so everyone doesn't start with one. And even if I did, how many people pick that feat, and how do they learn it in-setting? Assumptions upon assumptions.

How many does it take, if every 100th person picks it, your setting is overrun with low level mages already...

 

[Maxperson]

So narrative drives the events. Whatever the author wants to tell, is what we get to see happen. And at no point do they do anything more than a gut check for power levels, world physics etc. Again, see Wolverine fight Galactus, its silly with how much it blows past reality.

I can do as much to Galactus as Wolverine could. If he fought and beat Galactus in the comics, that story is as silly as Cosmic Spiderman fighting the Beyonder one on one. Speaking of Spiderman, he couldn't beat the Hulk, either.

If the Marvel game allows either of them a chance, it's gone off the rails of what even a narrative focused game should allow.

 

[Maxperson]

Since everything I place during prep is done in accordance with my judgement on what makes sense to be there in the setting as a high priority, I don't really see it as meta. You are welcome to disagree. In any case, luck mechanics and other meta-currencies are a different beast, and that's what this thread is about, not whether or not GM prep counts as "meta".

This is you, "And meta means outside/above the setting/fiction"

It doesn't matter what your reasons for placing a dungeon are, there was no dungeon there, then you made a meta decision outside/above the setting/fiction to place it into the setting/fiction. At the point when it's in the setting, now it can be interacted with in a non-meta fashion.

That applies to every decision you make about things yet to be placed into the setting/fiction. They are all outside/above it.
You can disagree that it's meta, but even your own definition makes those decisions meta, and it meets the other definitions of meta.
Disagreement doesn't change what it is.

 

[Umbran]

I can do as much to Galactus as Wolverine could. If he fought and beat Galactus in the comics, that story is as silly...

So, they are called COMIC books. People running around in spandex, wearing their underwear on the outside, beating each other up? Deeply serious, stuff, that....

Speaking of Spiderman, he couldn't beat the Hulk, either.

Dude, he's beaten the Hulk several times. Just not by slugging it out toe-to-toe like a doofus.

Once, Spidey beat Hulk with a knock-knock joke.

Deeeeeeeply serious stuff.

If the Marvel game allows either of them a chance, it's gone off the rails of what even a narrative focused game should allow.

If the Marvel game gives him a chance... so long as he's using his vastly superior speed, intelligence, and creativity, instead of just his muscles, then it is exactly on the rails.

 

[Deadstop]

How many does it take, if every 100th person picks it, your setting is overrun with low level mages already...

But the in-world reality isn’t “picks a feat, which everyone gets a choice of at adulthood.” That’s how the ability is gated for PCs. It is not a necessary consequence of that rule that any particular percentage of NPCs have acquired that exact mix of learned abilities, nor does it say anything about how hard it was or how long it took. Other than the real-world reality that they use a different set of build rules because they serve a different role in the campaign, PCs don’t have to be diegetically Chosen Ones (tm) to possess abilities that are rare in the general population.

 

[mamba]

But the in-world reality isn’t “picks a feat, which everyone gets a choice of at adulthood.” That’s how the ability is gated for PCs. It is not a necessary consequence of that rule that any particular percentage of NPCs have acquired that exact mix of learned abilitie

As I said, that PCs and NPCs are different is something @Micah Sweet already disagrees with, so any argument that hinges on the PCs being special and distinct from the rest of the world is irrelevant here

Yes, if the PCs are the chosen ones then they might be the only ones with magic in the world while everyone else has not yet figured out how to make a fire. But if PCs are just regular people like everyone else, then things look very different

 

[Umbran]

Deeeeeeeply serious stuff.

Nobody wants to read a dry old textbook about what it means to be human, about trauma, or leadership, or ethical living, or the like. Which can make teaching values around these hard.

We want to read stories. And the stories contain the author's choice of those sometimes deeply serious things, and then coats in in colorful spandex so we can consume it without vomiting over the sincerity of it all.

But, "with great power comes great responsibility" is still a household phrase.

And you'll find that when they are showing that Spidey is holding up his responsibilities, even to the point of self-destruction, even to the point of the Hulk pulping his skull onto the pavement, somehow, those powers will be enough. And that's how we teach people that being brave is a good thing, and reinforce it as a cultural norm - by handing those values to icons.

Deeeply serious stuff.

 

[Umbran]

As I said, that PCs and NPCs are different is something @Micah Sweet already disagrees with....

So, that's actually an interesting bit.

Because, those of us who have doe or currently do actual simulation of reality for, say, scientific purposes, know you can't simulate it all at the highest level of fidelity. You don't have the simulating power required.

So, really good, effective simulations pick their battles. They simulate at highest fidelity the bits that they need there, and sketch other bits only to the level that's absolutely necessary.

 

[mamba]

So, really good, effective simulations pick their battles.

yes, even Micah does not have 10 million NPCs going about their daily lives in detail when ‘no one is looking’ and the characters are in a town a continent away. There might still be things going on at a higher level, cults plotting evil plots, thousands of soldiers dying in a horrific battle between two rival kingdoms, but we will never know the names and story of every single one of them.

That is very different from saying that conceptually PCs and NPCs are the same and you just not detailing out every NPC to that level. That conceptual equality is bleeding into the setting itself.

If you design the setting and take the premise of PCs and NPCs being fundamentally the same thing into account, your setting will look different from one where the PCs are indeed the chosen ones and none of the NPCs are anything like them. The latter can be much more varied in what the setting is like, because there are fewer rules / restrictions imposed by the rules

If you follow through with basing the setting on the game rules then a high magic system like D&D will have a high magic setting. Eberron fits the D&D rules much better than Middle-earth does.