Post by Kakita Kyoshi on Mar 13, 2011 9:57:21 GMT -5
I thing we have to talk about metagaming...
The forum rules say:
[/li][li] 9. Metagaming is strictly forbidden! The chat box at the bottom of the site is strictly out of character.[/quote]
Strictly forbidden? Still it happens here in many threads without being even noticed. So it seems that many do not understand what metagaming truly is.
What is Metagaming?
Metagaming is when someone uses in play information he accessed out of play. This is in itself not necessary a bad thing.
Metagaming is like a knife, you can create things with it, but you also can destroy things with it. But are knifes strictly forbidden in homes because the can be used in harmful ways? No, and the same should go for metagaming.
What kind of positive metagaming happens here on the forums and in roleplay in general?
All the threads about someone talking about an RP thread he wants to start are metagaming. They talk there who will show up and what's the purpose of the thread should be. This out of character planing affects in game actions (like showing up or figuring out how it is done best, like the undead spider thing).
In general metagaming is when people do things to enhance the experience of the story. You know that a certain player starts to feel bored and you do something in-game to trigger an reaction from said player (even if it is just to go where his character is and start a conversation there). But it is also the knowledge that certain things could ruin the roleplay, and you don't use them because of that in play (Like not mention Spiders, because one player has an phobia, which means that maybe whole plots can not be played when certain players are around).
So the positive side of metagaming is all about figuring out how the characters can play together without annoying any one.
What's the negative side?
The negative side is when a player abuses his/her knowledge to get an advantage (something I personally don't mind much, as long it affects no other player).
Many roleplayers think that this is a bad thing (like powergaming, which is also a misunderstood thing). But there are things that can affect other players in the same way without metagaming. One such thing is method-acting (see Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering), which can with the absence of metagaming lead to exact the same problems (still most roleplayer do not think method-acting as something bad).
Why is megaming seen as such a bad thing while other gaming habits are not?
Somewhere in the 90ies roleplay evolved more into a storytelling game it was before (White Wolf did play a huge role in this). The players (including GMs) started to approach roleplay more from the story side than the gaming side it happened before (sure, during the 80ies there was already games that saw both as equal, but in the 90ies the emphasis on story started for the first time to become more important than all the other things). With that the players who played more story focused started to think of themselves as superior roleplayers (White Wolf told in their books how mature their storytelling approach is). We got games with terrible game mechanics which claimed that rules don't matter (AEG is pretty much still not out of that state of mind). So, character-play at all cost became a valued thing, while powergaming (using the rules) was looked down upon. In the last decade stared a new movement in the roleplay-scene, folks who created roleplay theories and games that used there meta thinking about the game to build rules for that. The early signs were already seen in the late 90ies. Games like 7th Sea had game mechanics that directly influenced what stories will be told in the game (I am talking about the Backgrounds there). So the metagaming sneaked back into the gaming groups who just want to play roleplaying as a story focused game, but they failed to see what they are started to use (Yes, all the Kickes, Flags and what have you that can be found on roleplay theory threads/forums/discussions are metagaming, even the good old hook gamemasters use are metagaming).
Hope that this helps to understand that metagaming is not a bad thing, but just a misunderstood one.
Should anyone has a question, I am open to discuss it (as long I am still here, not knowing if I will get banned soon). But since it can be a hot topic, I wish that everybody stays calm. So that we can discuss things here, not have just a flame war...
The forum rules say:
[/li][li] 9. Metagaming is strictly forbidden! The chat box at the bottom of the site is strictly out of character.[/quote]
Strictly forbidden? Still it happens here in many threads without being even noticed. So it seems that many do not understand what metagaming truly is.
What is Metagaming?
Metagaming is when someone uses in play information he accessed out of play. This is in itself not necessary a bad thing.
Metagaming is like a knife, you can create things with it, but you also can destroy things with it. But are knifes strictly forbidden in homes because the can be used in harmful ways? No, and the same should go for metagaming.
What kind of positive metagaming happens here on the forums and in roleplay in general?
All the threads about someone talking about an RP thread he wants to start are metagaming. They talk there who will show up and what's the purpose of the thread should be. This out of character planing affects in game actions (like showing up or figuring out how it is done best, like the undead spider thing).
In general metagaming is when people do things to enhance the experience of the story. You know that a certain player starts to feel bored and you do something in-game to trigger an reaction from said player (even if it is just to go where his character is and start a conversation there). But it is also the knowledge that certain things could ruin the roleplay, and you don't use them because of that in play (Like not mention Spiders, because one player has an phobia, which means that maybe whole plots can not be played when certain players are around).
So the positive side of metagaming is all about figuring out how the characters can play together without annoying any one.
What's the negative side?
The negative side is when a player abuses his/her knowledge to get an advantage (something I personally don't mind much, as long it affects no other player).
Many roleplayers think that this is a bad thing (like powergaming, which is also a misunderstood thing). But there are things that can affect other players in the same way without metagaming. One such thing is method-acting (see Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering), which can with the absence of metagaming lead to exact the same problems (still most roleplayer do not think method-acting as something bad).
Why is megaming seen as such a bad thing while other gaming habits are not?
Somewhere in the 90ies roleplay evolved more into a storytelling game it was before (White Wolf did play a huge role in this). The players (including GMs) started to approach roleplay more from the story side than the gaming side it happened before (sure, during the 80ies there was already games that saw both as equal, but in the 90ies the emphasis on story started for the first time to become more important than all the other things). With that the players who played more story focused started to think of themselves as superior roleplayers (White Wolf told in their books how mature their storytelling approach is). We got games with terrible game mechanics which claimed that rules don't matter (AEG is pretty much still not out of that state of mind). So, character-play at all cost became a valued thing, while powergaming (using the rules) was looked down upon. In the last decade stared a new movement in the roleplay-scene, folks who created roleplay theories and games that used there meta thinking about the game to build rules for that. The early signs were already seen in the late 90ies. Games like 7th Sea had game mechanics that directly influenced what stories will be told in the game (I am talking about the Backgrounds there). So the metagaming sneaked back into the gaming groups who just want to play roleplaying as a story focused game, but they failed to see what they are started to use (Yes, all the Kickes, Flags and what have you that can be found on roleplay theory threads/forums/discussions are metagaming, even the good old hook gamemasters use are metagaming).
Hope that this helps to understand that metagaming is not a bad thing, but just a misunderstood one.
Should anyone has a question, I am open to discuss it (as long I am still here, not knowing if I will get banned soon). But since it can be a hot topic, I wish that everybody stays calm. So that we can discuss things here, not have just a flame war...