Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[Micah Sweet]

I've been fine with them ever since I was introduced to them in the Ghostbusters roleplaying game.

For me... there is a distinct split between the mechanics of a game and the narrative that we are experiencing at the table. The narrative is what is truly important-- what is happening, what the characters are doing and experiencing, what the results of character and world actions are. It is a narrative that the players are improvising in and around the beats the GM is introducing, and describing to them.

The mechanics are merely the ways the improvision is guided by both players and GM. They have no actual "reality" in the story-- the mechanics do not actually exist-- they are just the "audience suggestions" the table receives that drive the story in certain directions. As a result... all meta-currency is is just additional mechanics that create variant "audience suggestions"... ones that are more likely better geared towards the story already being experienced in a way that increases the dramatics of the situation. The same way an improvisor might not take the very first suggestion by the audience, but perhaps the second or third they hear because that suggestion is probably better geared to a more interesting scene. Likewise... a meta-currency used by a player to hopefully increase the odds or results of a "success" has a better chance of increasing the dramatic action and tension within the scene. If they are wanting a specific narrative decision to have more import in the story at the table... they use their meta-currency to make it more likely that it will happen. And the GM will often then take that knowledge that this meta-currency was used to decide in the narrative the more unique successful result. Basically the same sort of thing a Dungeon Master in D&D might attribute a Nat 1 or a Nat 20 when they narrate the results of a check. A character didn't just succeed on their check and the DM narrates a standard successful result... the player rolled a Nat 20 and the DM gives a little more shine to the success.

So to me... meta-currencies are just rules of the game. They are one and the same. They are all just mechanics giving us cool ideas that we narrate as to our actions, emotions, and beliefs.

This is an excellent example of just how differently we can play RPGs. I explicitly don't want the rules of the game to do any of the things you are talking about here. All I want from the rules is to model the world and how we interact with it.

 

[bloodtide]

I greatly dislike metacurrency.

As the DM is running and making the whole game play plot story and everything, it is so odd to say "okay DM just sit there and do nothing. You canonly act if you have a DM point and your current total is zero, haha!" So then the players just dance around and have some sort of activity while the DM watches. And the whole idea of the DM being forced to do anything as "a player used a point" is crazy.

I hate 'fate points' or such where a player can alter game reality. It's so pointless. When the player stands up so proud and says "I use a fate point and the moon falls on top the the dragon god and my character gets all the XP and Loot! Huzza!", my reaction is more like "okay, fine your character rules the world. Whatever. Go home and rule the world, no point in playing a game with you."

Now, more like an inspiration point were the player can take some bonus action or effect, like the effect of the 'wish', but no the hostile alter game reality directed at the DM. I use such inspiration in my games all the time.

I do see most of the casual DMs loving metacurrancy. They can just show up to the game and have the players tell them what to do, or even go as far as let the players just run the game. I guess that is fun for some people, but not me.

 

[Nytmare]

I greatly dislike metacurrency.

As the DM is running and making the whole game play plot story and everything, it is so odd to say "okay DM just sit there and do nothing. You canonly act if you have a DM point and your current total is zero, haha!" So then the players just dance around and have some sort of activity while the DM watches. And the whole idea of the DM being forced to do anything as "a player used a point" is crazy.

I hate 'fate points' or such where a player can alter game reality. It's so pointless. When the player stands up so proud and says "I use a fate point and the moon falls on top the the dragon god and my character gets all the XP and Loot! Huzza!", my reaction is more like "okay, fine your character rules the world. Whatever. Go home and rule the world, no point in playing a game with you."

Now, more like an inspiration point were the player can take some bonus action or effect, like the effect of the 'wish', but no the hostile alter game reality directed at the DM. I use such inspiration in my games all the time.

I do see most of the casual DMs loving metacurrancy. They can just show up to the game and have the players tell them what to do, or even go as far as let the players just run the game. I guess that is fun for some people, but not me.

All of these read like boogeyman versions of what someone who has never played with a metacurrency thinks that they are.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Reading through this, it seems like others use the term "meta-currency" differently than I do. (And maybe my version isn't just different but wrong.)

I use it to mean any currency/resource whose only purpose is to gate the use of abilities, but that doesn't map to a "real" resource. So hit points may be abstract, but they aren't meta-currency. But a Battlemaster's "expertise dice" are a meta-currency, even if the thing they are spent on isn't a "meta-game" intervention.

 

[Nytmare]

Reading through this, it seems like others use the term "meta-currency" differently than I do. (And maybe my version isn't just different but wrong.)

I use it to mean any currency/resource whose only purpose is to gate the use of abilities, but that doesn't map to a "real" resource. So hit points may be abstract, but they aren't meta-currency. But a Battlemaster's "expertise dice" are a meta-currency, even if the thing they are spent on isn't a "meta-game" intervention.

From my vantage point, at least when I first saw it being used, it was a resource that the player spent, that the character had no knowledge or understanding of, that typically affected the game in a way that was outside the realm of what the character would realistically be able to affect.

Spending a point to make a skill check to see if the character knew something: not a metacurrency. Spending a drama point so that you can make a roll to introduce a scene where your character was in a lecture hall in their fourth year of study at the academy and they were being taught about the very thing that you now wanted your character to know about: metacurrency.

It gets extra nebulous when you're dealing with systems where rolls can be about how much of an effect happens as opposed to how well a character has accomplished a task.

That definition though is very outdated and WELL past its prime.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Reading through this, it seems like others use the term "meta-currency" differently than I do. (And maybe my version isn't just different but wrong.)

I use it to mean any currency/resource whose only purpose is to gate the use of abilities, but that doesn't map to a "real" resource. So hit points may be abstract, but they aren't meta-currency. But a Battlemaster's "expertise dice" are a meta-currency, even if the thing they are spent on isn't a "meta-game" intervention.

That is exactly how I use it.

 

[Scribe]

One of the reasons I like GM facing metacurrencies is because it helps alleviate the question of whether the GM was acting fairly. Don't get me wrong: everyone at the table is tere to have a good time, and I don't think we should forgive bad GMs for abusing their fiat power in trad games. But, I do think that the GM saying "I spend 2 Threat to bring in a second wave of mooks" has the benefit of completely circumventing the fairness question. The players are like "Oh, crap, he spent 2 precious resource points to get us!" and that feels good, as opposed to a general grumbling that the GM is just piling on.

Yes. I'm not well read on other systems, so when I saw this with Hope/Fear, and how it can be driven through the dice as well, loved it.

Ultimately there's a bit too much going on in DH anyway, Shadowdark is just 'it' for me at this stage of my life, but I really dig how Fear is generated/used/done.

 

[dragoner]

Hit points are a metacurrency.

 

[Bill Zebub]

That is exactly how I use it.

Whoah.

We should game together!

 

[bloodtide]

All of these read like boogeyman versions of what someone who has never played with a metacurrency thinks that they are.

Of course they do, that is how it works.

If your a GM that loves metacurrancy then you love having a blank "sandbox" game where you don't have any big plans. You can just show up and react to whatever the players do. So you love it when a player "uses a point" to say something like "I want a plot twist"! It's great, as you had nothing planned anyway, but now you can do what the player tells you to do and the player will be happy. It is a win win for everybody: the player gets whatever they want and the GM likes being told what to do.