It's my new game. In M&M, you play the part of a person playing a roleplaying game. You gain experience points for actions such as taking advantage of rules, hammy acting, and shaking up your friends soda before you give it to him. It will invoke an unbending class/level system.

Just kidding.

Actually, I'm a little confused on this issue. What makes a mechanic a metagame mechanic, and is there such thing as a non-metagame mechanic. Examples appreciated.

IIRC the difference is thus:

Your character attempts to jump the ravine. You compare your character's Jumping score to the difficulty rating of the ravine and roll the appropriate dice.

That's a mechanic.

You roll poorly so you spend a point that you can use to make a failure into a success.

That's a metagame mechanic.

To be honest, I have never really cared for the distinction and even tried to start a thread about it once. Everyone else seems to like so who am I to judge?

MachMoth wrote: What makes a mechanic a metagame mechanic, and is there such thing as a non-metagame mechanic. Examples appreciated.

So, does that make meta-game mechanics anologous to trumps? Or would that make trumps a form of meta-game mechanic?

In plain english.

Are meta-game mechanics a resource to be used at an opportune moment, a form of karma mechanism? Or are they any mechanism that outranks all other mechanics? Or are they like trumps where both definitions are valid.

Cemendur wrote: Are meta-game mechanics a resource to be used at an opportune moment, a form of karma mechanism?

Cemendur wrote: Or are they any mechanism that outranks all other mechanics?

Cemendur wrote: Or are they like trumps where both definitions are valid.

I always thought meta-rules were "rules about rules," and meta-mechanics were "mechanics that affect standard mechanics."

Hmmm, to needlessly GNS here.... Pure Sim gaming pretty much disallows meta-mechnics. If it isn't simulated in the mechanics of the rules of the world (character, flavour, etc), it shouldn't be in the game.

Tangentially, meta-mechanics pretty much operate a Directorial level, AFAICS. Perhaps some slide towards authorial, but certainly not actor.

Just blowing out ideas, hoping they're wrong in all sorts of interesting ways.

Okay, so I've done some definition hunting, and I got this:
Mechanic: rules (I'd rather not reference the "What's a Mechanic" thread. It made my head hurt.)
Metagame: Anything that is not in the game, or is happening literally "above" the game. Rule discussions, bathroom breaks, character creation, talking about your date last night. Anything that happens outside of actually running the game.
Metagaming: Out of character discussion, usually based on the game. D&D is hypocritical on this point. They say to avoid it, but it is gamist in nature, and thus encourages that kind of behavior.

So, by my guess, a metagame rule refers to rules that do not effect in character play, such as whether rolls count if they fall off the table, who's allowed to touch who's miniature, and how to pay for pizza and drinks. It makes sense like this, but if that's the case, then I've been hearing the term grossly miss used on these boards. So I'm inclined to think I'm wrong.

Actually, now that I look around, I'm seeing it used to refer to any Gamist Mechanic. I'm a horrid gamist (and sim-ist while we are being honest) so that sort of concept is a bit lost on me. Any gamist element I insert, usually has a narrative goal. I'm going to shut up right there, before someone thinks they're in the wrong forum.

Hello,

The problem you're running into is that there aren't just "two levels."

The biggest level, including all the others, is Social Contract. This the pizza money, who drives who to the game, and who's sleeping with whom, as well as stuff like "which rules do we just ignore," and can you say "You suck!" to another player, and so forth.

Now let's look at the rules themselves, by which we're playing.

A whole bunch of them typically concern "in-game events," just as Jack described. The character's abilities, the width of the chasm, and so forth.

In many games, you also see a few "override" rules, most notably "burn experience points for a bonus" which began as a house-rule practically from the beginnings of the hobby. These allow a person, say a player, to alter the effects of the system, whether before or after the system is applied (e.g. rolled).

Therefore the "meta" in metagame is not referring to Social Contract, but rather to the distinction between in-game causality and "inserted" effects as determined by the people who are playing. "Game" in metagame is referring to the in-game causality.

Now, to make things even trickier, a whole helluva lotta games lately have taken metagame mechanics and made them integral, even primary to play. At which point, they become ... just the mechanics, and not "meta" at all, even though in their details they are much like what were metagame mechanics in previous games.

Best,
Ron

Whoops! Forgot to include these in my post:

Check out the old thread Metagame mechanics, which laid down the terms pretty solidly. You can also read more about them in my essay GNS and other matters of role-playing theory.

Best,
Ron

The problem I have with metagame seems to be that in the big GNS essay, they're discussed as if they are on the same level as effectiveness and resources. This is similar to say you have books with red covers, books with yellow covers and you have books written in Spanish. The sketchy example I gave above describes a metagame mechanic. It is also a resource. It is both unless you have a narrow definition of what a resource can be. If so, where do you draw the line?

I understand that effectiveness and resources are meant to relate to the character. Therefore, stats are effectiveness and things like ammo are a resource. Also Hit Points are an abstract resource for character health and wounds. However, Orkworld's Trouble has been cited as a metagame mechanics, yet is also related to the character as a kharmic force brought on by the character's actions. So, is it metagame or just another resource? I think it is both.

Personally, while I can see some value to this inside character/outside character distinction, I find it more useful to only look at the mechanics as they relate to the player, in which case Trouble is simply effectiveness.

What are called metagame can be either resource or effectiveness in terms of how they are used.

Ron Edwards wrote: Now, to make things even trickier, a whole helluva lotta games lately have taken metagame mechanics and made them integral, even primary to play. At which point, they become ... just the mechanics, and not "meta" at all, even though in their details they are much like what were metagame mechanics in previous games.

Hi Jack,

You're mistaking "metagame" as a component of Character for "metagame mechanics." They're not necessarily related.

All characters in all role-playing have a metagame component - it relates to their role in the Exploration and to the players' Social Contract with one another.

Sometimes it's explicit: When I choose "DNPC: girlfriend, 14 or less" as a disadvantage in Champions, it conveys an immense amount of obligation on my part in terms of my character's behavior, as well as demands obligations on the GM's part in terms of preparing and running sessions.

Sometimes it's not: Establishing a girlfriend character and playing toward her in a certain way in a Rolemaster game isn't on the sheet anywhere, but if the Social Contract reinforces exactly the same expectations as in the Champions game, then she's a metagame component of my character.

None of the above is necessarily related to "metagame mechanics" as being discussed in this thread, which are a subset of Resolution.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: You're mistaking "metagame" as a component of Character for "metagame mechanics." They're not necessarily related.

Cemendur wrote: Or are they like trumps where both definitions are valid.

Andrew Martin wrote:
I'm unfamiliar with trumps, so I can't say. Yes?

MachMoth wrote: It's my new game. In M&M, you play the part of a person playing a roleplaying game. You gain experience points for actions such as taking advantage of rules, hammy acting, and shaking up your friends soda before you give it to him. It will invoke an unbending class/level system.

Just kidding.

As a literate newbie here, it seems like local jargon contradicts English -- or at least my understanding of it. It seems that you (no one specific) think:

Some rules about how you play a given game can be called "metagame" rules. (Ignoring for now what differentiates these from "normal" rules.)

Is that right?

I think that metagaming describes something larger than any one game. And I think it's centered on an individual rather than a social context.

I maintained a metagame strategy for many years in which I would always, always follow through on an agreement. I applied this to my characters in D&D, Gamma World, etc. I held to it in Diplomacy and other board- or war-games. Sometimes it cost me a victory of some kind in some games. Sometimes I felt like a doorknob for being taken advantage of. But over those years, people came to understand that when I said something, they knew it was rock solid. And overall I think I harvested more benefit than detriment from it.

One problem might be that as a prefix, meta- means several things. Meta- doesn't mean exactly the same thing in metamorphosis and metacognition. Beyond and above aren't really the same. And scanning the dictionaries, there are more. It seems that in common use, "one level of description up" is what people are shooting for. But is it really one level up, or all the levels up? And how does this relate to the "about itself" understanding in which metacognition is thinking about thinking and metalinguistics is talking about language?

Either way, spending a point to turn defeat to victory isn't a metagame rule, it's just a rule. Even if you and the GM just decided to add it to your D&D game.

I don't think I buy that metagame rules even exist. I think there are metagame strategies. And offhand, they seem to largely be gamist oriented (or maybe I only think so because that's where most of my experience lies). To always punish betrayal, no matter what the cost, no matter what character you're playing, and no matter what game, is a metagaming strategy...at least the way I'm thinking about it.

Metagaming is the way you game games. Social contract-level rules are not metagaming, though the two things probably shape one another.

If you think I'm looking at it wrongly, I'd like to hear why.

Chris

Hi there Christopher,

All of what you say is logical and straightforward ...

... except that gamer culture and history plays a role in the issue and in the terms. Rules that permit the real people to fiddle with the in-game causality are quite problematic for some modes and preferences of role-playing. When they started to crop up more and more often in game texts, "rules," at that time, as a term, had taken on a specially-privileged meaning of "in-game causality." Calling something like Fudge Points (spend one for a re-roll) merely a "rule" or "game mechanic" was not acceptable to many - it "broke" the imagined in-game causality and needed to be marked or signalled as a social phenomenon, not an in-game-world one.

I agree with you that the "social and intellectual approach to play" is one thing, and that the "procedures and fixed protocols of play" are another, and also that what we're here calling "metagame mechanics" clearly belong to the latter and not the former.

But historically, you get the latter by the former modifying a current rules-set. And the terms reflect the history of that transition.

Best,
Ron

I think I have a problem with the definition of Metagame mechanics as Ron defined them from an earlier post as:

"They are those mechanics which permit a player to over-ride the "usual" resolution system of the game."

The explicit concept of "override" is what I have a problem with. In its purest definition, Meta means, "among, with after or change". However, in everyday colloquial speech, it tends to mean "about". In computer terms, when you talk about Meta-data, it is data about data. When a linguist talks of Metalanguage, he is talking about a language to describe a language. I do not see how "override" comes into play in any other semantic usage of the term meta.

So to me, Metamechanics are mechanics which describe the mechanics themselves. They are another layer, but they do not necessarily override the in-game mechanics. Instead they simply describe, define or sometimes alter the mechanics.

As a technology example, XML is metadata. It is a language that holds data...but describes and structures that data itself. XML on its own does nothing to data other than organize it and structure it. However, XML can alter data in a sense by changing the definition of that data.

So I think metagame mechanics should be descriptions and definitions of the rules, and possibly a means to alter the rules. So what makes this different than "override"? Well, the best explanation I can think of is that by knowing the metagame mechanics, you can change the rules to better suit different contexts. For example, let's say that your game only has melee weapons, and every weapon has a damage characteristic. Unfortunately though, you don't know what these damage numbers mean. If you have metagame mechanics, these mechanics explain and describe what exactly the damage characteristics are in relation to the health of characters (for example, perhaps the damage characteristics of weapons are based off of the wound area and mass of the weapon). Armed with this metagame mechanic, you can now "manipulate" the in-game mechanics to create guns, energy weapons, etc. etc. Nothing is "over-ridden" per se, but rather using the metagame mechanics one is able to change the in-game mechanics to better suit the environment the in-game mechanics will use.

So the best way to think of it is that the metagame mechanics are the foundation...the very essence of roleplaying design (in terms of the rules and mechanics). They are the rules that you use to build other rules with. One can then alter in-game rules by knowing the metagame mechanics.

Hello,

This thread is beginning to look a lot like samples of "What meta means to me." Unfortunately, that is not helpful. Regardless of how insightful, consistent, etc, etc, any of these statements are, they fail on one crucial point:

Historically, the term metagame mechanic was utilized in the way I've described. The rules text that springs to mind is Fudge, over ten years ago, although I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up before then.

I am pretty certain that people who are currently posting are not familiar with the text-based approach to jargon that's used here. We're stuck, you see, with terms people have used. Unless you want to propose a reworking of all the related terms, you have to live with the old ones.

Bear in mind, I'm not referring to my essay. I'm referring to texts of role-playing games.

Here's my point. Sure, we could consider whether "polyhedrons" is a far better term than dice, and perhaps a few well-argued posts could make such a good case, that we all agree. OK, everyone, "polyhedron" it is.

The real question is whether that is a powerful addition to the understanding of role-playing, or needless wheel-spinning, when "dice" is (if inaccurate according to the hypothetical posts) adequate and does relatively little harm.

So ... all that said, I do agree with the logic presented by Dauntless and Christopher. Yes, the jargon contradicts "ordinary English" - all jargon does. Some of that is due to careful specification through dialogue here, and some of it is due to historical constraints. "Metagame mechanic" is one of the latter.

Wanna change that? Then present a history of role-playing mechanics that distinguishes among various sorts of resolution, relative to player and to character, with terms that communicate the distinctions as well as you can. I'm listening.

Best,
Ron

For what it's worth, I buy the historical explanation you provided. I also agree that the whole point of jargon is to be different from "proper English," else why have a special term for it?

But at the same time, changing 'dice' to polyhedra is not only wrong (e.g. polyhedra don't have pips, not all dice use polyhedral forms), it's also trivial. I'm not sure that clearing up the understanding, or even setting the terms to rights -- if one were so inclined, of 'metagame' is similarly trivial.

Chris

Hi Christopher,

Agreed - the issue of "metagame [X]" as a term is definitely not trivial, unlike the dice/polyhedron example. That's why further discussion is welcome, perhaps on a new thread.

But it'll have to be a really hefty discussion, and not a "what meta means to me" free-association session. To be worth the time, it'll have to present a pretty detailed re-cap of role-playing procedure and resolution methods, using whatever terms it uses in some detail.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Wanna change that? Then present a history of role-playing mechanics that distinguishes among various sorts of resolution, relative to player and to character, with terms that communicate the distinctions as well as you can. I'm listening.

Hello,

That's up to whoever wants to address it, Jack. I think the terms as they stand are usable, although they are potentially aggravating at the level that Christopher and Dauntless are talking about. If anyone disagrees and wants to pursue it further, they can. They'll have to answer your question when they do.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: That's up to whoever wants to address it, Jack. ... They'll have to answer your question when they do.

Ron Edwards wrote: Historically, the term metagame mechanic was utilized in the way I've described. The rules text that springs to mind is Fudge, over ten years ago, although I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up before then.
...
I do agree with the logic presented by Dauntless and Christopher. Yes, the jargon contradicts "ordinary English" - all jargon does. Some of that is due to careful specification through dialogue here, and some of it is due to historical constraints. "Metagame mechanic" is one of the latter.

Fudge points are meta-game gifts that may be used to buy "luck" during a game -- they let the players fudge a game result. These are "meta-game" gifts because they operate at a player-GM level, not character-character level. Not every GM will allow Fudge Points -- those who prefer very realistic games should probably not use them.

John Kim wrote: There will naturally be grey areas. Just as there is a grey area between abstract and representational in visual art. However, I think the distinction still has validity and is important to some people.

Christopher wrote:
But at the same time, changing 'dice' to polyhedra is not only wrong (e.g. polyhedra don't have pips, not all dice use polyhedral forms), it's also trivial. I'm not sure that clearing up the understanding, or even setting the terms to rights -- if one were so inclined, of 'metagame' is similarly trivial.

Ron-
We don't have to settle for past definitions or colloquial meanings as long as everyone abides by a standardized definition of it now (at least for The Forge members).

Afterall, a definition is just an explanation of a concept which by consensus we all agree upon. If we change the semantics now, we may cause confusion to people who do not regularly visit this site, but at least we will have a standard definition that applies to The Forge members.

And I further posit that the definition I proposed makes more sense and is more applicable....especially to an outsider of roleplaying games. If you asked someone who's never played role-playing games and asked them what a Metamechanic is....if he has a good grasp of the English language, he will say "mechanics about mechanics". If roleplaying game design is ever to advance beyond a niche hobby market, and into serious academic endeavor (don't laugh...look at the computer game industry which is set to surpass Hollywood in revenue generated and already has several Universities offering Game Design BA degrees) then I think we should seriously look at a standardized definition that "makes sense".

And a Metamechanic are essentially rules about rules. As someone earlier pointed out, I think we are mistaking Meta-(game rules) for (metagame)-rules. The former is what we are trying to formally create a definition of. The latter is the social contract and the things that make gaming fun (the game about the game).

If we merely define metamechanics as rules which allow one to override in-game rules, then it misses the essence of what they truly are. Metamechanics are the underlying principles, foundations and guidelines that are used to develop the rules themselves. By knowing these underlying principles, you can alter in-game effects. It also allows one to get rid of the seemingly circular definition that:

"...to make things even trickier, a whole helluva lotta games lately have taken metagame mechanics and made them integral, even primary to play. At which point, they become ... just the mechanics, and not "meta" at all, even though in their details they are much like what were metagame mechanics in previous games.

In such a case, the author of the game has simply taken his knowledge of the metamechanics and created a regular in-game mechanic that allows one to redefine what happens (much like in XML, if you redefine a tag, it changes the definition of that element...but the element itself has the same value). So my definition circumvents this "trickiness" altogether because it subsumes the ability to override, and allows for other aspects as well.

O_o
Yeah, uh, wow. I know what it means now...

Since Metagaming Rule covers a concept that really doesn't exist outside of "classic" gaming, I really don't think it needs any indepth discussion. Now, if I see it, I'll know what it means, and I'll probably never use it in my entire life. I prefer calling it "Custom rule for making people not die as much." Yeah, I know, I'll never learn.

Dauntless wrote: We don't have to settle for past definitions or colloquial meanings as long as everyone abides by a standardized definition of it now (at least for The Forge members).

Afterall, a definition is just an explanation of a concept which by consensus we all agree upon. If we change the semantics now, we may cause confusion to people who do not regularly visit this site, but at least we will have a standard definition that applies to The Forge members.

And I further posit that the definition I proposed makes more sense and is more applicable....especially to an outsider of roleplaying games. If you asked someone who's never played role-playing games and asked them what a Metamechanic is....if he has a good grasp of the English language, he will say "mechanics about mechanics".

If you asked someone who's never played role-playing games and asked them what a Metamechanic is....if he has a good grasp of the English language, he will say "mechanics about mechanics".

I too would identify Meta-mechanic as "mechanic about mechanic" (coming from the realm of meta-data which is, of couse, data about another body of data).

The point about metastatis/morphosis is well taken though. It's correct to say that meta, in the wild so to speak, is impossible to correctly quantify.

That said, using the term to help define what a met-mech is doesn't get any clearer from my off-the-cuff-definition.

I think the most meaningful usage for me is drawn from physical-metaphysical.

Mechanics handle the physics of the game world. Meta-mechanics handle resolution "above" the physics of the world--in the "hey, it's just a game and here's some rules to mess with the shared imaginary space."

That would sort of make all drama mechanics meta-mechanics (except for worlds like, maybe Puppet Land where the mechanics, wonky as they are, are the physical rules of the universe).

It'd, I think, make most Narrativist games heavy on the meta-side as well (and GURPS almost all in the pure mechanic arena).

I guess what I'm saying is that that distinction might be usefu or at least interesting.

-Marco

I think the term meta-mechanics, or meta-game, arises essentially from the sim assumptions of most games: the bulk of the rules are there to provide a simulation of a world, but there are some rules that allow players to "override" the simulation in the service of drama (most commonly).

Strictly, unless they are explicitly changing the way the game is played, or altering the rules, they shouldn't be called meta mechanics, but hey. In nar biased designs, the idea of meta-mechanics tends to be depreciated becuse most of the rules are about moderating the story, not the world. In conventional sim terms, all the mechanics are meta.

Or I could be due a break. I dunno.

I'm not so sure there is a common definition that everyone agrees upon for the term Metamechanic...which is why it's a good idea to nail down the definition now to avoid confusion later. Just look at this thread alone and see how everyone interprets the connotation of Metamechanic, and I think you'll agree that there's no consensus of the definition yet.

And most words have several different meanings depending on the context of the situation, but I think the most common usage of meta is "about". Take for example using a meta search engine like Infoseek. If I say Metasearch engine, most people probably realize it's a search engine that uses other search engines to find things on the internet.

I therefore think the definition I have laid out is more universal and intuitive, and also contains in part the definition that Ron Edwards used, as a Metamechanic can alter or change the in-game rules (in a way). However, in the sense that Ron has defined a Metamechanic, if the game rules actually explicitly state rules that allow for this "overriding", then it is no longer a Metamechanic, but simply another game mechanic.

The best example I've seen given is for the Hero System in the 5th edition supplement of Fantasy Hero. In this supplement, Steve Long says that absolute conditions in game terms, such as for example being able to dispel alll Fire attacks, no matter the power level is something the Hero System discouraged. Why? Because one of the underlying principles, or Meta rules of the game is that absolute powers are too imbalancing (it was a rule about a rule). In other words, Steve Long had to explicitly mention that one of the Meta rules of the Hero System was that such absolute conditions were looked at with an unfavorable eye, but in the fantasy genre, such absolute powers were common. So Steve "overrode" the normal in-game mechanics of balancing costs by using the knowledge of this meta rule of the Hero System to adjust it for the setting. These meta mechanics are not explicitly stated in the Hero System, but if you read between the lines, you can figure out much of what they are.

Another example could be Greg Porter's older TimeLords and SpaceTime games and how the concept of damage is arrived at. If you looked at the DV (Damage Values) for weapons, it might just seem like an arbitrary numbering within common sense (larger calibre weapons do more damage than smaller calibre weapons...usually). But if you buy BTRC's supplement, Guns!Guns!Guns!, then you actually get to look "behind the scenes" at the meta mechanics used to actually derive the in-game mechanics (all the weapon stats). If you as the GM want to change the lethality of the game, you know have a more formalized set of rules and conditions (the metamechanics) to tweak the in-game mechanics. For example, I did a little mathematical tweaking of some of the numbers to provide for a base damage value and a penetration score (the TimeLords system combined raw energy input and Force/Area into one value called DV, I seperated the two values). In other words, I used the explicit knowledge of the meta-mechanics involved to change the in-game mechanics.