What do you consider Metagaming?

[vong]

I have to agree with Ankhanu on the fact that the GM should be running and nudging the game in the right direction.

As for the meta-gaming - I do think it is part of the game, to a point. I always let my character co-ordinate, discuss and such activities while pausing an encounter, so they can have a better chance at succeeding. They are the heroes of the story, and they dont have all the knowledge that their characters have, so they do need some help in that regard. But if the party splits up, or one character has not told the rest of the part some information given to it, then i dont allow them to talk between the groups, or use that bit of information. (but they usually do end up using it)
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[scott2978]

[Endwyn]

I think what everyone is trying to say is that the GM must have a story arc and see that the players become aware of the revelations of that arc in a paced way. It's like writing a script for a TV series, there is an over-arc and a season arc. The GM has to understand the direction if the whole campaign and the purpose the current story plays in that. The players can and should still do as they want, react in character; and enjoy the story.

It's just that if the players don't pick up on these arc's it's the GM's responsibility to find another way to make them aware of it. If the players choose to ignore it or go in another direction then so be it.
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[Gry Sarth]

Well, now we're discussing Gamemastering styles, and NOBODY is in a position to say what is the RIGHT way to gamemaster. There is no such thing. If in the end of the gaming session, everybody had fun, then you gamemastered correctly. Whether it was a fully scripted adventure that you had completely preconceived in your mind, and your players merely played their part in the story with the illusion of freewill, or whether you were merely a passive judge that let the players lead the story in whatever direction their characters desired, if everybody had fun, then you, my friend, are a great GM, and conduced your game flawlessly.

It's all about knowing what everybody will enjoy and giving them that. That might mean railroading for the sake of a great story for some groups, that might mean complete freedom for the sake of full immersion for other groups, or that might mean mixing things up from time to time, so the players never know quite where the boundaries lie.

Anyway, have fun, share your advices, but don't advocate your way as the "right" way.
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[Ankhanu]

[masque]

[ifurin]

i ran a campain where i had a player who put into his backstory that he was a bumbling fool, he always did the wrong thing at the wrong time. we ran this by the rest of the group and they thought it was funny so we allowed it. the player would meta-game inorder to know when to jump into a situation, in order to "help." it was a lot of fun for us and everyone enjoyed that game. most of the time, one guy didn't like his thought out plans screwed but everyone elso enjoyed it and much of the campain wrote itself.

[Gry Sarth]

[scott2978]

I have had some great scripted campaigns too, the best one I ever ran in fact. I wasn't actually trying to steer the discussion into one of GM styles, I was trying to point out that metagaming can be used to make the game better, even blatant, totally implausible metagaming, something like what ifurin wrote. I got the idea from reading about some indie game systems, and the narratavist game style. There are a lot of ways metagaming can be put to constructive fun use, and weather it's plausible or not doesn't necessarrilly mean it's going to ruin the fun.

I guess I'm just bad at explaining complex ideas...

And yes Ankhanu, we do agree on virtually every point. I'm glad most everyone around here is agreeable even during disagreements. I've never seen a real flame war on these forums. Quite pleasant.

[Ankhanu]

[Tupteq]

[Ankhanu]

Ah, ok.
It can actually work fairly well with Star Wars... or at least Narrative Lite can ;P We've played some excellent sessions or strings of sessions where dice rolls were infrequent to absent, letting everything rest on the roleplaying. It can be very rewarding, though tough and eventually the dice do have to come back in.

[scott2978]

I like the idea of allowing the players to dictate some of the action. This is really where metagaming meets role playing. In some narrativist games, the players can dictate what happens in the game under certain circumstances, instead of rolling dice to get a randomized outcome. There is also a system called The Pool where you roll dice to see if your character succeeds in a conflict (it's important to make the distinction between a simple action and a conflict - swining a sword is an action, but the outcome of a battle is a conflict), and if so the player gets to take over the game and narrates what happens for a while. It's those types of games that first got me thinking about how metagaming might not be the taboo that we have always thought. So I started trying to get my gaming group to take more initiative and use metagame knowledge when it would benefit the game and make things fun. Anyway, that's sort of what I was trying to get at before, the GM's role in the metagaming, when people started thinking I was changing the subject over to GM styles. I guess I need to work on my communication skills :)

[Cool McCool]

[garhkal]

With a bunch of new folk we have garnered, i felt it was time to bring this question back up.
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