Metagaming

[Reverend Del]

Hmm. I'm seeing a lot of threads just recently talking about bad RP and I'm noticing a bit of a trend. A lot seem to concern the practice of Metagaming, and I'd like to take a few moments of your time to discuss and define the term.

For me the term Metagaming means using out of game knowledge to determine the in game actions of your characters, such as using the Message dumps to gain information on your enemies. This is wrong in all possible ways. There is a whole load of information contained within infocards about weapon and ship stats, that is there not for your character but for you, the player. Your character does not know every single fighter stat and every gun stat, he should only be aware of what he has encountered on an extended level. For example, a Corsair will know that his Titan is a big heavily armoured fighter, he knows it's not as agile as a Sabre but he does not know exactly the numerical difference between the two, he does not know how much damage the Outcast weapons do, he does not know how much energy his opponents have. He knows what he can deduce and nothing more.

Also metagaming covers using knowledge of the rules to gain an advantage ingame, otherwise known as ruleslawyering. Rules lawyers are a barnacle on the bottom of the gaming world everywhere they are found. No-one apreciates a person yelling rules at them where everyone can hear. Plus it upsets people who aren't on eihter end of the conversation. In Disco terms, if you must quote rules, quote them in private. But don't try and use the rules to give you an advantage in game. Chief example of this is someone who cruises away from a possible fight, if you didn't get him out of cruise, it was never a fight to begin with, you metagame when demanding that the cruiser leave the system.

In simple terms, metagaming blows. It's not fun and it's not clever. It takes more work to disregard information you have that your character does not, but it makes the RP that much better.



I am about to post up my faction proposal for all to see and it contains information that will not be known until Sunday. If I catch anyone trying to interfere with something they couln't possible know about, I'll be seeing what I can do to get an Admin to break your kneecaps.

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Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.

[.Cowboy]

You can borrow my crowbar, or maybe the baseball bat. I don't think the mace would be appropriate.

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.Cowboy : Back to being a bounty hunter due to Liberty politics, Flies a manta.
Gyrfalcon: The bounty hunting Bretonian corvette. At least, it will be if approved, Flown by "Cowboy" also.
LNS-Patriot : The little gunboat that could.... and then someday will be a beautiful LABC.
Freebyrd.II : insane trader/geneticist who has a whole hydro lab in his ship, he designs and grows his OWN.
Sky.High.Marin : Corsair praetorian pilot, with a love for fuzzy dice.
Kane.Taggart : Mad scientist in a hacker gunship being a buccaneer of the spacelanes.
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[marauder]

No blunt objects.

Shoot them in the knee caps, perment limp, assuming they don't lose the leg, and everyone will know they annoyed someone.

If anyone does interfere they will have a 'weapon malfunction' with my phantom character.

Unless their lawful, then they'll have a large 'wanted alive, not unharmed but alive' bounty on them, oh and the person who does capture the target will get what they deserve.

Anyway, as for metagaming.

You could consider using anything that their character didn't personally witness, or get told about, to be metagaming.

My view on it, hmm. You can know the information as long as you don't use it. Which is why I only read the message dumps of the factions I'm in. Or if I've joined then I read it from start to the latest post.

As an example my [TAZ] character is currently trading to afford a better ship. But the only routes I've used and am using are the ones between bases I've already landed on an have a commodity price list for. I'm not doing the Rheinland - Kusari route because I haven't landed on any Kusari bases yet.

I'm currently doing a run between frankfurt and sigma 13, because my character is paranoid the ship dealer will sell the last one of the ship he wants while he's away.

[Xoria]

There is one thing worse than metagaming :

Complaints about other people metagaming.

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[onca]

Del, that's a good round-up. I agree with most things you say. Except about weapons/ship stats.

I do believe characters would have access to that information -- example, you go buy a car, the manufacturer lists everything from engine size to curb weight, acceleration, fuel economy, etc. There are also motoring and trade journals which do road tests and compare various models. The same with weps.... ever picked up a Jane's?;)

Applying to FL... you go to weapons shop, and the guy behind the counter would have all the info you need on a wep before you buy. Same with ships. In addition there would be many online resources outlining most kinds of ship and equipment available in Sirius.

Of course some things would be "classified", like advanced military hardware and codies. Kind of the same for pirate equipment, although I would expect that info to be in the public domain, too. (wikipedia anyone?:P

Anyhow the rest of what you said, spot on.

[cgaWolf]

About the whole weaponstat thing: As far as i'm concerned, those stats are known to people, however that doesn't mean you get to pick the most efficient energy usage / refire cycle weapon, or the highest DPS one just because you know it. There's the whole issue of faction pride (ie: you're allowed to pick the best your faction and its allies provide), and some irrational factors, as well as stats not telling the whole story.
[The Glock 17 & 19 are very popular weapons for example, but tbh they're kinda crap where stopping power is concerned. Stat at the time didn't show the difference in stopping power between a 9mm and 10mm bullet, so 2000+ precincts in the US ran with what's at best an underpowered sidearm].

As such, i can for example say i weapon sucks too much energy, or say one of them hits harder than the other. That's still little reason to procure a Hornviper or Buckshot as Blood Dragon for example. On the other side of that fence is ofc the pride in getting a codename... they might actually be worse than a comparable weapon, but that wouldn't stop my newbie pirate Ookami to use them.
That said, i'd switch a better codename to a worse one, just to have a pair of them mounted on the ship, even if it's 0.3 worse energy efficiency / refire cycle, or 500 less damage. In fact, i've mounted crapo codes for the simple reason that can pair them up (thanks for that timely server restart btw ^^), and because i really like the "bullet with circletrail" effect on the diamondbacks/silver fires/etc..; as opposed to Archangels (mostly because i think they projectile looks crap). 700 damage difference/slot doesn't make a difference for me anyway, considering how bad a pilot i am.

Last but not least is the 'how to get them' problem. Ookami saw an antimatter cannon (supernova to be precise) first time in his life yesterday. Yes, he wants one now, but going to grind Order rep is out of the question. He does know where they're sold by the Order, but he's not about to go begging them for one. So unless i buy one off a player, or I find one in BD ZoI, i'm out of luck.
__

As to trading/rep metagaming, i do that to keep reputation synched between two ships because they're supposed to be flown by the same person. So i kinda dispute the 'metagaming always sucks' stance. It only sucks when you use it to annoy other players, be a munchkin or a ruleslawyer.

[pchwang]

Right...someone else brought up stopping/penetrating power in another weapons discussion...

That is different from the amount of damage dealt.

And for Ookami's information, the supernova is also sold on Planet Gammu, a Zoner planet.

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[7:42:05 PM][6:51:36 PM] Igor (Smokey): btw terry
[6:51:48 PM] Terrance Cooper: Ye?
[6:52:00 PM] Igor (Smokey): nothin
[6:52:03 PM] Igor (Smokey): just sayin btw
[6:52:05 PM] Terrance Cooper: <_<

Johnny_Haas: you shot anti criuse speed rockets!!!
Johnny_Haas: but why????
Johnny_Haas: ??
Johnny_Haas: why you shoot criuse speed rockets?

[Zapp]

Yeah, I don't like metagaming. As a result of my RP story of Carina, Zacarias Poncho has access to all comms-lines (secure or not) in Sirius. Do I use that? No. I just RP it as him being too lazy to watch the comms, and Carina having better things to do. I don't feel good, and I forget what else I wanted to say, so I'ma shut up now.

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