D&D General Guns, Germs and Metagaming- Is Meta-gaming Meta-bad or Meta-good?

[damiller]

You drew that? Fantastic stuff.

i did. and my players said nothing about it. i was kinda bummed. i worked hard on this.

 

[overgeeked]

i did. and my players said nothing about it. i was kinda bummed. i worked hard on this.

That’s a shame. It’s good stuff.

 

[Maxperson]

That’s why I like the term “player skill” over metagaming I guess. Metagaming almost always has a negative connotation, which is why I think it’s useful to use another term with less baggage.

Maybe there’s even a better term like “player awareness?”

It's not one or the other, though. There's player skill in using a 10 foot pole to suss out the trigger in the wall for the room's trap. There's no player skill involved when the player simply read the module the DM is running and has his PC walk over and press the correct part of the wall. The former is player skill. The latter is metagaming.

 

[VashVet]

It's not one or the other, though. There's player skill in using a 10 foot pole to suss out the trigger in the wall for the room's trap. There's no player skill involved when the player simply read the module the DM is running and has his PC walk over and press the correct part of the wall. The former is player skill. The latter is metagaming.

The latter is called cheating.

 

[Emerikol]

I will name it “Emrikol’s preferences”. It’s pretty similar to “GorgonZee’s preferences”, but we would definitely not agree on what gaming terms we would apply to those preferences!

When you say Emerikol's preferences, you imply it is unique to me and is just like the way my tastebuds like cherry better than grape. This is the debate. I don't agree with you on this point.

The fact that entire articles have been written about dissociative mechanics by people I've never met argues against your theory. There is a commonality to these mechanics and we as a group dislike. I don't care much about the name other than if I have a name I can reference the view without writing a paragraph every time.

For example, we both are quite happy with hit points. I think, based on your posts, you can think about hit points from a character point of view; it makes sense to you for a character to think “I am halfway to unconsciousness”. For me, hit points are a highly dissociative mechanism. In real life, I have never though about my health on a simple scale so whenever hit points are discussed (basically always!) it’s always an out-of-character thought. But I’m happy with that as it’s a degree of abstraction that makes the game more fun. So for me, hit points are one of the many things I consider as a player skill tool. If I’m on 8 hp and the GM rolls 2d8 damage for it, I figure I’m likely to go down, thinking from a player skill perspective. Since I don’t jump between thought process in my mind, that gets translated to a character decision that I am seriously winded, actually injured, bleeding, poisoned, dazed, or whatever I invent to make HP have a mapping into the character’s world at that point.

I call these things, meta language. A meta language communicates reality from character to player and from player to character. When the DM describes what a character is seeing, the player hears this description and it becomes what the character is seeing in game. It's a communication tool. Now obviously since I hate dissociative mechanics when given two choices, one dissociative and one not dissociative, then I chose long ago the non-dissociative choice. In fact the dissociative one never even occurred to me in those days.

Well, that’s actually a tautology. But I do think the size of that group would be high. But again, even if they agree on what they like doesn’t mean they’ll agree on whether they think they are immersive, meta or whatever other label they might apply.

It would not be a perfect match because there is always interpretation but I could find lots of people that would say these 10 things are dissociative if I make the list. They would all be people who care about such things and of course I'd have to find a way to vet such a group.

Based on our posts, I think we 95% like the same sort of stuff in our games.
Based on our posts, we maybe 50% agree on systems of categorizing them.
We really don’t agree on what breaks immersion for us.

To me though that one difference almost makes it like we are playing different games.

So I am left with the position that I think we could game together, have fun and enjoy the game but mostly disagree about why we liked it. So it is very hard for me to say that there is any form of basis for our likes other than that we like the same sorts of things.

Only if I chose the system. You could choose one like 5e (or 4e) that is rife with dissociative mechanics and we'd be at an impass as I wouldn't play it as written. Sure if I DM'd an older edition of D&D and you accepted the things I allowed or banned then we could play together. But my talents would likely be wasted on you as you wouldn't value what I do so it still might be a waste of a slot in my game.

 

[Emerikol]

Maybe because breaking it down to being about differences in taste is less divisive? As soon as a big honking label is put on something, such as metagaming, then the actual differences in the way people play don’t get discussed - it becomes about debating the label.

But when talking about a group of related mechanics some name has to be given to it. Obviously I use names that are true from my perspective like dissociative mechanics or metagaming. I suspect even if I made up another name it would soon be a point of contention. Those who oppose me cannot accept that it is a "class" of mechanics and that some people do not like that class. They feel COMPELLED to prove it is just personal preference and the "class" does not exist outside of my own preferences. I guess they think if it is an independent thing it somehow ruins their fun but I don't see why.

There is a group of people far bigger than one but not a high percentage of all gamers but a sizable one nonetheless that hates dissociative mechanics. They classify hit points and spell levels are in game knowledge that really represents something in game. They are metalanguage elements. They see things like second winds and daily martial powers as something different and things in that latter class are undesirable for us.

 

[VashVet]

But when talking about a group of related mechanics some name has to be given to it. Obviously I use names that are true from my perspective like dissociative mechanics or metagaming. I suspect even if I made up another name it would soon be a point of contention. Those who oppose me cannot accept that it is a "class" of mechanics and that some people do not like that class. They feel COMPELLED to prove it is just personal preference and the "class" does not exist outside of my own preferences. I guess they think if it is an independent thing it somehow ruins their fun but I don't see why.

There is a group of people far bigger than one but not a high percentage of all gamers but a sizable one nonetheless that hates dissociative mechanics. They classify hit points and spell levels are in game knowledge that really represents something in game. They are metalanguage elements. They see things like second winds and daily martial powers as something different and things in that latter class are undesirable for us.

I guess I reject the premise of your first statement - no, we do not need to put a name on it. The compulsion you describe is also not much different from saying someone disagrees and dismissing their own opinion as though their perspective is unreasonable. Now I don’t particularly have a problem with the phrase “dissociative mechanics” mainly because I haven’t read anything that uses it, but I’m going to imagine that if one were to use it in a negative context, the same way metagaming has been used for years, one could reach the same place with it.

 

[Wolfpack48]

It's not one or the other, though. There's player skill in using a 10 foot pole to suss out the trigger in the wall for the room's trap. There's no player skill involved when the player simply read the module the DM is running and has his PC walk over and press the correct part of the wall. The former is player skill. The latter is metagaming.

Yeah, what I am saying is that by now "metagaming" has such a negative connotation that it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to divvy it up into good and bad metagaming anymore. That ship has sailed. And the problem with trying to use "good" metagaming is that it automatically fights with the pejorative view most people share of the word "metagaming."

I think a better approach would be to create a better term for so-called "good" metagaming. The key is for the phrase to not connote or suggest cheesing or cheating. Some ideas, be fun to toss around more:

"Gygaxian Player Skill (GSP)"
"Problem-Solving Approach"
"Player Awareness"
"Strategic Play"
"Tournament Play"
"Challenge Play"

I happen to like "Player Awareness" because it suggests that player-brain is allowed, even encouraged (within constraints) as part of a roleplaying experience.

 

[Maxperson]

The latter is called cheating.

I've seen multiple folks here say that they are fine with metagaming like that.

Or here's an easier one. The player knowing monster weaknesses because he's been playing for 40 years and having his PC just use them, despite not knowing about them in character.

 

[Emerikol]

I guess I reject the premise of your first statement - no, we do not need to put a name on it. The compulsion you describe is also not much different from saying someone disagrees and dismissing their own opinion as though their perspective is unreasonable. Now I don’t particularly have a problem with the phrase “dissociative mechanics” mainly because I haven’t read anything that uses it, but I’m going to imagine that if one were to use it in a negative context, the same way metagaming has been used for years, one could reach the same place with it.

Negative to me but not to everyone. We have people on here openly saying they are fine with metagaming.

Yes we do need a name because I don't want to write a paragraph every time I speak of it. When I say X is objectionable because it is Y where traditionally I've used either dissociative mechanics or metagaming that is important.