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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1206624" data-attributes="member: 7240">Mark calls me, I'm thinking of including that in my sig file. How very complimentary -- that's exactly who I'm trying to be.Joshua Dyal says, The term metagaming is a catch-all category that doesn't really make sense. That's what makes it imprecise. It encompasses all playing based on information the character doesn't consciously have. I'm suggesting that this is too broad a category. It also suggests that you can actually situate yourself in your character's mindset given the minute amount of information you have about the campaign world.Much as I am loath to compare RPGs to novels, I think the metaphor might be useful here. When you read books, don't you enjoy anticipating what might happen next based on symbolic and mythic clues in the narrative? When I read GRR Martin's Song of Ice & Fire series, from the moment King Robert died, I was wondering how things would play out in Tyrion's temporary wardship of his nephews and how it would involve imprisonment in the tower. For me, being swept up in a story includes not only being carried along by the characters but also by the symbol system the author uses. But D&D rules aren't designed to facilitate being swept up in the story. If you want to be swept up in the story, you are using the wrong rules. If story is your primary goal in a game, I'm all for that. I've run such games. But I would never, in a million years, use D&D if that were the game I wanted to run. Classes and levels -- that's a ridiculous mechanic if your priority is story. Rules grafted to a system of physics based on Victorian-era spiritualism? How does that facilitate storytelling? Alignment!? Need I go on?When I read a novel, I'm experiencing the book on all three levels: I'm counting the pages between where I am and the end of the book and imagining what the author will do with only that many pages; I'm engaged in the characters' lives and the narrative of the story; and I'm engaged in deciphering the symbol sytem, guessing what inspired the author and discerning the themes.I guess I assume that adding levels of sophistication to things is often inherently enjoyable.One of the reasons I chose the D&D rules system is that I found that my players had not been engaging in physical confrontations to solve problems. If I had just wanted to move to a rules-heavy system, I might have chosen Runequest or some other game in which combat is often lethal but instead, I chose to go with a game whose rules encourage combat. You're right. I suppose that doesn't directly bear on what I said above.</blockquote>

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