Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[VHawkwinter]

All the parties involved were fictional, and the measurements were done to support a narrative, not to establish objective reality.

Absolutely true; But that narrative is better supported by continuity that prevents their acts from coming across as Deus-Ex-Machina. Which is more or less what the hard "world simulation" angle (and dislike of metacurrencies) Micah has been saying he likes in a TTRPG is as well, no? Like, no matter how much fidelity you pour into a D&D campaign, it's always going to be fiction. Just highly consistent fiction.

(The "Please don't pull me out of my TTRPG Character-Immersion-Flow-State to manage out of character temporary-GM beans if not absolutely necessary" position I gave back on page 30 which is my objection, being a different but similar objection to metacurrencies).

 

[Micah Sweet]

All the parties involved were fictional, and the measurements were done to support a narrative, not to establish objective reality.

They measured the reality of the imagined world, in comparison to each other and similar effects from that world. Like all sim mechanics. I have many books full of super hero statistics for one game or another that provide measurements that are meaningful for the system and/or setting for which they were created. Nobody in this discussion is talking about a reality outside of the fiction. Sim is about consistency within the measuring system under discussion.

 

[Maxperson]

All of that is true, but nonetheless measurement happens for all of these. A lot, in games, within the comics, by individual. It's not necessarily consistent from example to example, but that kind of measurement and ranking happens all the time with supers.

The point is that measurement doesn't matter when the measurements are 3, 7, 4, 3, 9, 12, 2, 5, and ?(whatever the next guy is going to use). When the "measurements" = whatever the writer feels like, it's no different than Batman who has whatever the writer feels like. You can measure Batman's Bat Shark Repellant after he uses it, too.

 

[Maxperson]

Absolutely true; But that narrative is better supported by continuity that prevents their acts from coming across as Deus-Ex-Machina. Which is more or less what the hard "world simulation" angle (and dislike of metacurrencies) Micah has been saying he likes in a TTRPG is as well, no? Like, no matter how much fidelity you pour into a D&D campaign, it's always going to be fiction. Just highly consistent fiction.

The point is that comics, even for heroes like Spiderman and the Hulk, have never been consistent, let alone highly consistent. Hell, Superman couldn't even fly when he first began life as a hero back in Action Comics #1.

 

[VHawkwinter]

The point is that comics, even for heroes like Spiderman and the Hulk, have never been consistent, let alone highly consistent. Hell, Superman couldn't even fly when he first began life as a hero back in Action Comics #1.

Superman in action comics #1 is a whole other canon from the worlds where Superman could fly, no? I thought DC did a lot of those complete resets and starting over.

But I was a Marvel fan (mostly Spider-Man and X-Men titles) from the late 90s to 2014, and stopped reading Marvel entirely after the incursions universe destruction and continuity break. They were pretty consistent over that ~20 year period, with changes in character abilities normally being explained in advance through in-fiction plot events that made sense.