Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7581519" data-attributes="member: 16814">I think we're having a fundamental failure to communicate, here.  Settlers and Squad Leader both have metagames.  Granted, Settlers' meta is a bit light, but IIRC there are a few ways to use SL's rules to achieve unintended outcomes that allowed for a higher win rate.  That's meta -- treating the game as something to be gamed rather than played. Again, playing the game cannot be metagaming.  I'll say it again, actually playing a game cannot be metagaming.  Definitionally.  Metagaming is gaming the game, ie, thinking outside of the rules of the game to find ways to twist/use/employ those rules in ways not intended to achieve a goal.  MtG meta is about the current deck zeitgeist -- what decks are being played and how is not part of the game rules or actually playing the game, but building to take advantage or counter that meta is very much a big part of competitive play.  This is acceptable and preferred for competitive MtG play.  In the scope of RPGs, planning out your party as you're making characters to ensure that you cover all of the basics is metagaming -- you're considering the game as a game and making choices to ensure the best outcome from most to all game situations possible.  This isn't part of actually playing the game, though, so it's metagaming.  Similarly, using your real-world knowledge of chemistry to try to force an outcome in game is metagaming, because real world chemistry is not part of the game.  Conversely, using your player knowledge of trolls being weak to fire is technically not metagaming because that is part of the game and knowledge of rules isn't usually considered a form of metagaming in most cases.  However, there's a large set of playstyles that considers using knowledge of "secret" GM notes to be metagaming (and, in some cases it clearly is definitionally), but then what counts as "secret" GM notes varies widely.  In some cases it's monster stats, although this is obviously not universally understood to be metagaming in RPGs as demonstrated by this very thread (and many others).  Sadly, NOT using "secret" knowledge is also metagaming, as you're making choices for play using that knowledge by avoiding those choices that said knowledge implicates.  It's a catch-22, really, but those that are worried about it seem to prefer the version of metagaming that preserves the danger of "secret" GM knowledge best.  It's funny how it's almost always the danger that gets this treatment, though. Sigh, Fate Points are not meta.  They are a game mechanic.  They are dissociated, often, but not meta.</blockquote>

Verification