Effectiveness, Resource, Metagame: Is there an M?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I've been going of the GNS essay lately. I'm pretty sure that I had gone over this before, but from the examples given in the essay, it is unclear to me just what Metagame is as oppossed to the other two.

Effectiveness is a statement of what a character is able to do or not do. Or, to be a bit more accurate, is a set statement that outlines what tools are available to the player to effect the game world. This can be expressed numerically (Strength 18 30/100) or may be a sentence such as in Puppetland: "This puppet can shout really loud." The value of the statement may change over time of be modified during play (and, I guess the actual Effectiveness score is the modified value and not the raw score) but in play the effectiveness statement remains fixed for the most part, which differentiates it from...

Resource which is an ever-changing value by nature during play. That is, while Effectiveness is a fixed value for the most part during play, Rescoures fluxuate, going up or down, during play. By necessity, this has to be expressed as a numeric score, although I am sure someone will find a non-numeric resource.

Now Metagame is defined as "includes all positioning and behavioral statement about the character, as well as player rights to override the existing Effectiveness rules." I, however, don't really see this. At least I don't see where the line is draw and why. I could see things like Psychologic Disadvantages, Code va Killing, and alignment as being Effectiveness since they do outline "fixed" values that provide tools for the player to effect game events. In this case they limit rather than allow, but should is that a real difference worth calling it by a different term instead of simply expanding the definition of Effectiveness to include such things since they do very similar things? Would a Puppetland statement od "This puppet is afraid of spiders" be Effectiveness or Metagame.

I can see Luck Points, which permits a re-roll or are points that can modify Effectiveness either before or after a dice roll, as a Resource. I can see that is is described as Metagame since it does override the existing Effectiveness rules, but it can be argued that things like Hit Points are Metagame, then. The original D&D was based on the wargame Chainmail which, like many wargames then and now, only required one hit to "kill" a model on the table. Hit Points allows the player to override this. Again, where does one draw the line?

I think the main problem I have with the Metagame category is that it really does not fit with the other two. Effectiveness and Resource are defined by their physical trait

[*]Effectiveness is a fixed value
[*]Resource is a fluxuating value
[/list:u]

Metagame is defined by how it is used rather than what it is, which is mostly character behavior statements and rights to override the effectiveness rules. Physically, they can resemble either Effectiveness and Resource, sometimes both (Orkworld Trouble IIRC, Sorcerer Humanity).

"Metagame issues are initmately related to Balance of Power, which is defined as the relative degrees to which players and GM's are privileged to have an impact on the events of play."

I put forth that this also describes Resource and Effectiveness. That and I also don't see behavioral parameters as being much more that just another form of Effectiveness and system override as just being either Resource or Effectiveness, depending on how it actually works.

Thoughts?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jack,

Actually, I think we need to dissect and revise your reading of the text. You've managed to confuse a lot of things.

1) Fluctuation vs. fixed is a total red herring. Effectiveness often fluctuates, in many game systems. Yes, Resource fluctuates quite a lot, but you might be surprised at some of the exceptions in which it's pretty fixed.

2) "Value" refers to anything comparative, usually a number (not always, but nearly always). Any of the three categories can have values.

3) Here's the real issue. A given system mechanic is often a hop-skip-step among the categories. Say I have a Luck pool. It's a resource, which when spent, improves Effectiveness. Is this a contradiction? No! It's merely an application of the principles I've laid out.

[GNS - can't mix'em as priorities per instance of play; doesn't work.]
[DFK - infinitely combinable, but each "piece" is one of the three]
[ERM - totally mixable and combinable in infinite ways. Don't apply the sharper categorizations of the above two classifications to this one.]

You're creating a secondary problem here by providing a confusing rules-reading (or vagueness), which then is erroneously used as an example of vagueness in the categories. Let's do Puppetland right.

"This puppet is afraid of spiders" is valid only for a phrase in the "This puppet is" category, in which case it's metagame. If it were instead in the "This puppet cannot" section, it would have to be rewritten to something like "This puppet cannot fight spiders," in which case it's Effectiveness. These are the only two options, I think, and classifying them is pretty easy.

However, my re-write of the example is misleading in another way which I'd like to avoid. Let me clarify in full: these three things exist all the time for any role-playing character. The stuff on the character sheet expresses them in some fashion, sometimes organized and numeric, sometimes not. It's not the other way around, taking the stuff on the sheet and seeing which is what in some kind of labelling way.

Best,
Ron