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Emerikol Your post was very well-written and easy to understand, thanks. I have a question for you about what some people call "ret-conning". What if this happened at the game table: Melias the thief missed an earlier conversation about a large gem kept in a secret stash behind one of the...

@Tequila_Sunrise What do you think of steenan's definition? It seems to be virtually the same as yours, yet you come to different conclusions. You seem to agree with Saelorn that meta-gaming is a temptation, or perhaps a necessary evil for some. Yet steenan states that OOC knowledge is...

Saelorn, I think your definition of role-playing would simply be my definition of being "in character (IC)". My RP journey didn't start until the 90s, so I can't speak for groups in the late eighties. But I can say that I've read texts from the 80s and before, and I have yet to find a...

I can think of at least 3 sources that I believe this kind of doubt in playing ability stems from 1) New players who haven't "gotten it" yet 2) Underdeveloped imagination 3) That popular style of D&D that emerged at some point (and has been actively promoted by WotC's D&D design) whereby combat...

Don't get me wrong, I think random encounters are awesome. The way I prefer to use random tables these days is to use random tables to generate a random encounters tables. But this takes a lot more tables, and definitely more time than grabbing a pre-made random table and going with it. So...

In my next campaign, I'm going to try my hand at the old ways. That is, the verbal description of the dungeon only. And more than this, it will only be described by the meager light and shadows of their lamps. Everything beyond will be walls of darkness, glowing eyes and glints and glimmers...

27) If you make a ridiculous continuity mistake and the players notice it, be dead-pan, pretend like you aren't surprised, and don't admit to making a blunder. Later when you have a moment, ask yourself the question "under what circumstances could that actually have happened?" You might even...

This sounds like the premise for an anime

I splurged on the premium reprint because I've never gotten anything premium D&D before, and that era of D&D is probably the one I like most these days. Although technically I prefer the OSR variations of it.

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...

Sure, the very first, broad definition given by wikipedia works great, it turns out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Author Players are authors because they use their imagination to create PC action. I would maintain that an improv actor could also be described as an "actor/author".

I think I'm willing to argue that metagaming has taken on a specialized meaning in pen and paper roleplaying. Would you disagree? If you agree, would you also agree that this definition has by now even broken away from its roots as a specialized a subcategory of broader metagaming, and has...

Summarizing info gathered so far, two or more (quite different) definitions of meta-gaming have so far emerged. So there is already not one clear meaning to "meta-gaming" when people use it without some explanation. This one has been the most popular so far Meta-gaming is a subset of cheating...

Neither of those links indicate a lack of authorship on the part of players. Link1 talks about the Author Stance, which comes from the role-playing theory of player stances (which I'm aware of). It's unrelated to authorial control and direction. His and my meaning of author are unrelated...

Am I incorrect in restating it thus: "The use of knowledge of mechanical constructs of the game to manipulate outcomes in the game such that they a) become implausible, or d) are considering cheating" ? That's what I was talking about in my OP. If the two main objectives to meta-gaming are...

These are good example, so I'll start here 1) This is an implausible description of a person's roleplaying. If it's already been stated that a dragon is present, then to say it's not (without explanation, such as the dragon being invisible, or imaginary in the first place, etc, etc)...

Hah, bonus points for managing to fit a TNG episode into your explanation.

I want to carefully read the entire thread before reposting, so thanks for the input so far! But I want to say that "myth" was maybe the wrong word. I think maybe "meaningless" is a better word for what I mean? My point is that the concept of meta-gaming doesn't accomplish or communicate...

Actually, my statement is that role-playing is a unique medium, and that players take on the role of actors and authors equally and simultaneously. Who creates the character? The player does. Who determines what course of action the character does? The player does. Actors in plays, movies...

Update (with my conclusion so far): It's no surprise that I found metagaming to be a myth. There are at least two very different definitions of the term, presented below the OP. When I wrote the OP, I was going by the second definition, and had no knowledge of the first. Well, I had the...