RP philosophy topic: what is metagaming?

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I'm not looking to be informed something I already know, but am looking to discuss a grey area topic:

What is metagaming and do we all do it?

Consider the following: there is a server module foig module pve info your character has discovered; now all your future characters know it.

Examples:
Entrances to shadow plain
Custom poisons
Answer to riddle in a dungeon
Best places to grind
Knowledge of economy
Best writs to do (and how to do them)
Where is Waldo
The correct item(s) that are not a waste of money from the oozemaster
Weaknesses of monsters
Etc

Is metagaming only truly relevant when involving player conflicts?

[Anime Sword Fighter]

I like to meta-metagame. Pretend I-as-a-character don't know something when I-as-a-player do.

Ex.
"Oh what are those wrapped up things you just summoned?"
"My mummies."
"Oh. It's nice to meet your moms. They seem like nice ladies."

Something I have done. Is it silly? Yes. But with a low wisdom character, without having experienced mummies before, totally passable, imo.

Adds more buildup before the inevitable "agh you're actually a necromancer! No! I thought your moms just dressed practically to get dirty! You've betrayed me!" than just immediately calling them on it.

We metagame all the time. It's really only terrible when it's negatively impacting others' game play -- or running contra to the server's overall vision and active environment.

[Morgy]

I saw a decent definition of where the line is crossed and it was something like ‘When your OOC knowledge affects the gameplay of others in a detrimental way’.

I guess that could mean the obvious behaviours like knowing someone is a warlock on all characters because you have identified it on one.. but also could be something less immediately damaging like rushing through Dungeon puzzles using ooc knowledge in a party of players trying to RP it as a first experience.

[The Rambling Midget]

Examples:
Entrances to shadow plain
Custom poisons
Answer to riddle in a dungeon
Best places to grind
Knowledge of economy
Best writs to do (and how to do them)
Where is Waldo
The correct item(s) that are not a waste of money from the oozemaster
Weaknesses of monsters
Etc

Play dumb. I do it all the time. My new characters don't know this stuff until someone tells them or they figure it out.

There are limits to what knowledge you can effectively compartmentalize, but a good player will judge a situation and decide whether using their OOC knowledge would make things less fun for others involved, and act accordingly.

Sometimes metagaming is a good thing. Your character magically knows to meet their buddies at a certain place and time in order to set off for an adventure that generates RP. That's good, because it saves everyone the 2-3 hours that it usually takes to get a party together.

Metagaming is the use of knowledge obtained outside of the game world to alter the outcome of events within that world. Whether or not it's good is - as with most things - dependent on how it's used.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

You'll get farther being ignorant/asking for help, than being a know-it-all.

But as Rambling said, if metagaming helps you bring your buddies together, definitely use it. There's nothing worse than logging in 30 minutes after all your crew have set off to go adventuring. In those cases, I often shoot a tell saying, "X character left you a note, come quick!"

More fun to include more people.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Apparently 2nd edition core rules had this thing right in the rules that what you knew is what your character knew. Knew how to swim? Your character can do it (the opposite would also be true). Go to a library and study how to build a catapult, your character can now do it. Its why pc vs pc conflict from old schoolers is sometimes extremely throwned upon because in their world its a player, not just the characters. DM in a fun conversation revealed secrets of his campaign to you? Feel free to abuse them to your advantage, i

l have heard many stories where a plsyer "broke the game" from the old school era in a way that often involved metagaming. Like it was about you as a player beating the game more than it was you as an actor/writer fulfilling a role. Because in all these stories the DM never stopped the player from metagaming because apparently in a world where everything wasnt online, all acquired knowledge was free game. Like that dude who was only beating you at mortal kombat because you couldnt look up the moves.

[DM Senke]

There are 2 types of metagaming:

Benign Metagaming
This type involves using knowledge that your character would not know to facilitate RP happening. Typically this could be talking with another player and figuring out where the player is at to coordinate a meeting/writs. These instances showcase situations where RP is fostered and, importantly, no one is harmed by it. This does not encompass things like using voice chat to set up PvP, etc.

Harmful Metagaming
This type involves using knowledge that your character would not know to gain an unfair advantage in game, or in a way that harms the narrative or other players. Instances of this have gotten players banned (invis-ing through dungeons, etc.).

Some players will argue no metagaming should be allowed. They do not want anything to occur which breaks their RP immersion. This is perfectly fine, and we offer amenities to assist those efforts through -notells, etc. For everyone else, please consider that metagaming is a problem when it is harmful, as defined above, and the team will deal with each situation on a case-by-case basis. The DM team will also be the final decision authority on defining which category each case falls under. We will not tolerate instances of harmful metagaming.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Perhaps I should have named the topic "the history of meta-gaming". I am aware of the benign and harmful categories of metagaming.

I was hoping to discuss beyond Arelith.

If i wanted to stick to arelith as an example, it would be on topic of FOIG mechanics. Every new character for example benefits from knowledge of dungeon secrets or custom poisons of the player. This isnt frowned upon because you are not ruining someone else's rp, but its still an advantage pve all your characters get over a player who doesnt know.

In classical dnd, this was never a problem because there was this sense of accomplishment learning as a player and that exists also in Arelith. But in classical dnd was always party vs environment. So having all your characters be a reflection of you was not a problem. In a pw module, or even more modern DnD, lack of separation of player and character clearly causes problems. So we created a benign vs harmful metagaming definitions. It ends up looking like the ethics "as long as it doesn't hurt anyone it is ok" which on a everyday basis works in both society and in game with exception to when we debate "what constitutes as harm to others". Like the foster care system may think foster parents are being harmful based off their religion (no examples and getting into that right now please) and likewise players may feel other players are "ruining it" when someone finds a bug in solo PvE to exploit, or perhaps less benignly, a player may consider running around full speed in dungeons to be indirectly harmful to others via grinding faster than everyone else with poor rp conduct.

This wasn't in questions and answers for a reason, i enjoy discussing nuances we often take for granted and am not looking to change nor restate current rules of arelith, but discuss the nuances of how it came to be. Seeing the connection of foig pve info carrying over characters can been seen a grandfather of 2nd edition's view of metagaming.

[The Rambling Midget]

It's not worth fretting over, from that perspective, because until DMs have the ability to read minds, there won't be a way to enforce fair play. The best they could ever do is say, "Oh, that guy's leveling just a little too quickly. Better smack him down, because he must be cheating."

D&D is meant to be played under the constant and direct supervision of a Dungeon Master, who can actively confound players that are using outside knowledge. In a largely unsupervised PW, that sort of metagaming is a given, so all you can do is accept it and take it into account when considering balance.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

It's not worth fretting over, from that perspective, because until DMs have the ability to read minds, there won't be a way to enforce fair play. The best they could ever do is say, "Oh, that guy's leveling just a little too quickly. Better smack him down, because he must be cheating."

D&D is meant to be played under the constant and direct supervision of a Dungeon Master, who can actively confound players that are using outside knowledge. In a largely unsupervised PW, that sort of metagaming is a given, so all you can do is accept it and take it into account when considering balance.

Its clear I communicated my OP intent poorly. I was neither fretting nor critisizing/worrying about fair play or balance or rules of Arelith. There were a few things i enjoyed in this discussion and I think everyone has jad goos replies, I just do not think anyone is engaging in what I intended to communicate.

[Mr_Rieper]

I'd say the most meta thing of all is having your character treat everything as though it is just a video game and there are no real consequences. Ignoring the threat of death, always having the most optimal strat, talking IC about optimal character builds, instinctively and instantly recognising best-in-slot items, demonstrating that you could kill other players in the streets and the guards won't protect them etc.

Ordinarily this sort of behaviour is harmless when it's subtle enough. Nobody is really going to scrutinize your RP that closely just because your character knows how to equip themselves and win reliably. Ignoring consequences is the biggest and most obvious indication of this. If your character is repeatedly putting themselves into extremely dangerous situations and shows no regard for their own mortality, it is easy to notice.

You always need to make the choice between convenience and realism. Is it realistic that your character remembers a name from 20 years ago? Probably not, but if it is relevant to the matter at hand and adds to the RP, then realism is getting in the way somewhat. But having perfect memory of everybody's name, all the time and everywhere probably is just convenient and a bit of realism can add to the RP too, because being fallible is relatable on a human level. We all forget names just like we all forget where we put our car keys.

It'd be convenient that your character had the knowledge of a particular subject beamed into their heads. In some ways, they are prevented from ever learning about it unless they find a mentor for the obscure knowledge. Sometimes, you won't find them. Then it's probably more interesting to just have your character know things that you as a player know.

It's convenient that your character has all the perfect and most optimal skills and feats. Why? Because rolling back levels to correct errors absolutely sucks. And because it might be realistic to be weaker than everybody else, but it doesn't add much. Nobody enjoys being a liability to others.

The most common form of metagaming I've seen is bringing things from RL into the world of Forgotten Realms. It's something that players should always be on guard against. I realise that nobody has perfect knowledge of lore, least of all me. But be flexible, and don't be afraid to correct yourself or learn something new.

[DM Axis]

It's not worth fretting over, from that perspective, because until DMs have the ability to read minds, there won't be a way to enforce fair play.

Eheh, sure. We can't. Of course not. That would be crazy.

Joking aside, and maintaining a more objective perspective on this.

Metagaming in itself is a tool, the tool can be used for harm or for good, and far too often falls in the context of things that should not ever be witnessed or done.

Focusing on some of the positive uses it can:
- Save a fair bit of time with some explanations, granted there are still creative ways to say how a character learned something to give it flavor. But explaining where the writ man gets his money to pay every adventurer is not something that can be easily explained since it's a mechanic and not a system of trade or any other commodity.
- Help the narrative along, is and will always be a chief reason and use in my mind for this information. Just because this character that is level 10, and you a level 30 who have been playing for 5 consecutive years have a scuffle doesn't mean you can't (instead of winning through force in a matter of two rounds instead conflict) take a gonne handle to the nose and allow the level 10 to break the nose and immobilize you.
- Teach new players as well, which goes along with the first. But at some point we were all either new, or experiencing new aspects to the server and their mechanics. Even pirates from Sencliff with prior knowledge of Cordor's Treasury system could actually use crafty in game means to teach some of the details of that system.

Metagaming exists, simply put, the responsibility is all about how one decides to employ it.

Edit/Addition: I should also really rope in something about storytelling philosophy as it builds with this theme and topic a bit.

Being able to lose without just mechanical means, accepting defeat, and continuing the roleplay takes a degree of commitment from the players involved as well a metagaming knowledge that death or 'falling in battle' is not necessarily where you hang your hat and punch out for the day. It is an admirable trait in my eyes.

Losing repeatedly, intentionally, disregarding a character's own life on the opposite hand of those willing to lose however is an extremely poor use of metagaming knowledge. And if a pattern exists, you can expect a DM to speak to you in due time.

[TheFox]

I like what the previous user wrote because it is more or less my way of thinking on the topic. Metagaming can be beneficial, as much as it can be detrimental, it just depends on how you use the knowledge.

You are an actor in the play.

Acting is knowing the script, and acting it out anyway. It's knowing that your enemy is level 30, has been grinding for 80% of their time, has all the best gear, and being their enemy anyway.

Do you know you're walking into a trap, OOCly, but you have no reason to suspect that it's a trap ICly? Walk into it anyway - it's good acting.

Do you know that someone you're looking at is disguised? Check to see if your character recognizes them, and then as far as your character knows, they are, or are not, faking it.

Do you know the best leveling spots? Sure, go there - but if your character hasn't been there, act that out.

I've been on some places where "metagaming" meant knowing how the NWN mechanics worked, and I've been some places where "metagaming" was encouraged, in order to facilitate the experience of other players - for instance if you know someone's new to the game, you'll go out of the way (even if it makes little sense) to include them, to enhance their experience.

All of us metagame because all of us know the mechanics of the game we're playing. We know to take weapon focuses, which builds we're going to use, which builds other people are using by watching them OOCly. We know that the disguised elf is probably a drow, or the disguised drow is probably an elf. Or we have our own OOC suspicions about what's going on in game. But the way to keep that from ruining everyone's experience including yours is to remember that you're roleplaying, you're acting out a part in a greater play, and that way it's easy to keep what you know OOCly from affecting your actions ICly.

Just because you might very well know what the script's got in it, just because you've watched Lord of the Rings before, doesn't mean that you're allowed to metagame where the Ringwraiths will spawn and keep your hobbits away from them, or polymorph into a bird to carry them to Mordor before they realize it's necessary to get there.

[xanrael]

Perhaps I should have named the topic "the history of meta-gaming". I am aware of the benign and harmful categories of metagaming.

I was hoping to discuss beyond Arelith.

If i wanted to stick to arelith as an example, it would be on topic of FOIG mechanics. Every new character for example benefits from knowledge of dungeon secrets or custom poisons of the player. This isnt frowned upon because you are not ruining someone else's rp, but its still an advantage pve all your characters get over a player who doesnt know.

In classical dnd, this was never a problem because there was this sense of accomplishment learning as a player and that exists also in Arelith. But in classical dnd was always party vs environment. So having all your characters be a reflection of you was not a problem. In a pw module, or even more modern DnD, lack of separation of player and character clearly causes problems. So we created a benign vs harmful metagaming definitions. It ends up looking like the ethics "as long as it doesn't hurt anyone it is ok" which on a everyday basis works in both society and in game with exception to when we debate "what constitutes as harm to others". Like the foster care system may think foster parents are being harmful based off their religion (no examples and getting into that right now please) and likewise players may feel other players are "ruining it" when someone finds a bug in solo PvE to exploit, or perhaps less benignly, a player may consider running around full speed in dungeons to be indirectly harmful to others via grinding faster than everyone else with poor rp conduct.

This wasn't in questions and answers for a reason, i enjoy discussing nuances we often take for granted and am not looking to change nor restate current rules of arelith, but discuss the nuances of how it came to be. Seeing the connection of foig pve info carrying over characters can been seen a grandfather of 2nd edition's view of metagaming.

I'll try to engage with what you're looking for.

Some RPGs came from wargames/boardgames, including D&D. Bad metagaming at that point would probably be peaking at the DM's notes when they went to the bathroom. Later on that might advance to picking up a copy of the module you were about to play. Or perhaps having DMed the Temple of Elemental Evil module in the past using said knowledge as a player to sidestep pitfalls. On the other hand I've played in a game where 3/4s of the players were very familiar with the module we were running and it was expected for people to metagame at least a bit, intentionally or not. On Arelith a large portion of the populace has played the module before.

Some groups would extend it to breaking character in combat and having OOC discussions about each PC's move in detail to maximize their chances round by round, other groups might not care. Discord voice chat would be a rough equivalent here.

A group that has 2 players that know nothing about fantasy and 2 experienced players but fresh off the boat characters might consider knowing a troll regenerates but burns just fine would be metagaming, while a group of experienced players might not bat an eyelash as "everyone knows that". People on Arelith can take different perspectives on this, for example person A might believe a summoned Erinyes should be mistaken for an angel by adventurers while person B feels it should be the opposite.

Finally in a tabletop game every player generally knows what every other PC is doing barring the DM being a huge fan of passing notes or taking a player into another room to chat. Honestly this is the one I see players in tabletop struggle the most with, wanting to mount a rescue of the rogue that was caught scouting ahead or "suddenly being in the room" when something interesting is about to happen. In a tabletop session it is should be obvious to the DM when this is happening. On Arelith it could take the form of someone sending a tell to a buddy to travel to X spot to rez them or go far more malicious. For example faction A creating a spy alt in faction B and sharing that information on a private Discord. Unlike a tabletop game this might be very hard to know this is happening.

That's my long winded but far from comprehensive take on metagaming in tabletop and how it can vary for a Persistent World. I do think benign/malicious metagaming has existed since the beginning of the term, though which category an instance would be placed might vary table to table.