In praise of Metagaming...

[pogre]

I really appreciate the way my group works at cooperating. It's important for my enjoyment of the game. PC on PC conflict might prove interesting on paper, but it is less fun at the table for most folks. It's a legitimate way to play, just not my cup of tea.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I'd just rather play my character and let other people play theirs, without all this meta-game baggage; and let the chips fall where they may.

Lanefan

And if the other people in your group don't enjoy the resulting chip fall? Is your fun more important than their fun?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

and let the chips fall where they may.

Well, some will let them fall onto your head I'm sure.

 

[pallandrome]

Honestly, as DM I expect a small degree of metagaming on the part of the players. I mean, adventuring is an INCREDIBLY dangerous profession, and most people simply aren'y cut out for it, so why would they keep throwing themselves in harms way?

Fortunately I have a good group right now. One of the players recently decided that adventuring was just too dangerous for her character to continue doing, so instead of asking me to shoe-horn her in, she simply retired the character. I appreciate that kind of up-frint attitude in a player.

Also, if you want to play a loner hero, I'm fine with that. In my game, if you don't want to come along with the group, I'm not going to make you do so. This doesn't mean I'll make a little side adventure for you, it just means the character and the player will both have a dull day. I WON'T railroad you into playing my games.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Also, if you want to play a loner hero, I'm fine with that. In my game, if you don't want to come along with the group, I'm not going to make you do so. This doesn't mean I'll make a little side adventure for you, it just means the character and the player will both have a dull day. I WON'T railroad you into playing my games.

Yep, I gave up on that, too. Now I just tell players flat out : "I expect you to play your character. I also expect you to create a character who will participate in the adventure and who you can play without ruining other people's fun or forcing them not to play their characters."

 

[Li Shenron]

Today I come to praise the Metagamer. ...

A reasonable thought... Except that I wouldn't call that metagaming exactly, but perhaps maybe "metametagaming"

 

[Faraer]

I agree that 'metagaming' is very imprecise jargon for 'using out-of-character knowledge to a PC's "advantage"', which is a very limited case of it. Only absolute simulationists, who probably don't exist, reject 'metagaming' entirely.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I like the word metagaming, it's usually obvious from the context whether one is referring to the good or the bad kind. If not you could always add good/bad or positive/negative eg 'positive metagaming'. The meaning is actually very precise - using out of character information. Much more precise than useless words like 'munchkin'. Everyone knows munchkin means bad, but no one agrees on what it actually is.

It depends on whether you want to know whether a writer likes X or whether you want to know what X is. I prefer to know the latter. I can decide for myself if it's good or not.

 

[fusangite]

I am distrustful of big, imprecise terms for things we don't like. I find that such terms are often used like an area rug in a Tom & Jerry cartoon: we take all the contradictions in our own way of thinking and sweep them under the big term, like a bunch of dust under a rug. This allows our views to appear consistent and uncluttered to us because we've swept all their messiness and inconsistency under this one big term.

The meaning is actually very precise - using out of character information.

Except that there is no stable idea of what "out of character information" is. Many (I might even assert most) "metagaming" debates are not debates about whether or not to use out-of-character information but about what information is actually known or understood by the characters. But because the term "metagaming" gets bandied about in these debates, the often become incoherent.

Of course, I may be coming in with some baggage here -- I just geneally hate any term with "meta" affixed to it and feel that the prefix has done much damage to the intellectual life of our species.

 

[shilsen]

Of course, I may be coming in with some baggage here -- I just geneally hate any term with "meta" affixed to it and feel that the prefix has done much damage to the intellectual life of our species.

Whereas I figure that most human beings have done a lot of damage to the intellectual life of our species. Of course, I might be a teensy bit cynical.