Metagaming and things that exist for OOG reasons but are IG-observable

A

Alex319

Artisan
Is it considered metagaming to express make IG decisions based on/express IG knowledge of phenomena which exist in the game for OOG reasons, but the phenomenon itself is clearly observable by characters IG?

What I mean by that is, something like the following examples:

1. At almost every two-day event there is a large wave battle at around 5:00 PM on Saturday. (This is true at least in the Denver chapter; I am not sure if it is true in other chapters as well.) Obviously the reason for this is OOG (that Plot wants to give players a chance to use all their cool per-day skills and spells before they reset), but, nevertheless, the fact that there's almost always a battle at the same time is something that characters IG could clearly observe. So would it be metagaming to, for instance, if I was sitting in my cabin with my friends at 4:45 PM to say "let's go up to the tavern now, the big battle will probably start soon"?

The argument that it is metagaming, is, of course, that the reason the battle starts at 5:00 is OOG. The argument that it isn't metagaming is that my character has observed (IG) that every month, there's almost always a battle at 5:00 PM, and my character has no reason to expect that pattern to stop, even if my character does not know any reason for that pattern.

2. Consider the following discussion in a different thread about the use of defensive skills:
Norman B: The idea is, and its metagaming sure but, there is always going to be more bad guys [so PCs will save their per-day defensive skills until later in the battle]

Alex319: I am confused here. How is it "metagaming" to decide what skills/defenses to use based on the fact that "there is always going to be more bad guys?" The fact that there are often "more bad guys" is something that characters observe, IG, on numerous occasions...

Norman B: It's metagaming because they aren't fighting as "my character would just go all out because of X reason which is here" they fight defensively and conserve their abilities for the later waves and even then, sometimes they save them further because they know "oh these guys aren't that tough and there has to be more lootz, so there has to be a guy to use these defenses on". Making an IG decision from an OOG standpoint is metagaming.
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This is another example of the same phenomenon. Is knowing that there will likely be more waves an "OOG standpoint"? Again, the reason that the battle has multiple waves is OOG (there is a need to rep more monsters than there are NPCs available) but certainly, if my character has been in wave battles before, the fact that monsters often come in multiple waves is certainly known to him. If I knew there would be more waves for an OOG reason (say because I accidentally saw the plot notes earlier, or because I see lots of white headband NPCs waiting to come in) then it seems clear that there is metagaming going on, but if I just guess that there will be multiple waves based on previous IG battle experience, that seems legitimately IG.

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Note that this question is very different from questions I have asked in other threads such as this one about holds. I get that, for instance, if there is a hold then there is no IG time skip, and that it's up to the players to just ignore it or come up with some ad-hoc IG explanation if necessary. However, in this case, the fact that a battle happened at a specific time, and the fact that the monsters came in waves during this battle, are clearly true and observable IG as well as OOG.
 
Untill routine proves otherwise I am going to continue to assume IC that Evil just friggin loves the 5pm-6pm hour.... something to do with the celestial tide about to turn over making the world antsy or whatever (insert your flavor of imagination-logic here)

Honestly though some things are best just not thought about too hard for the sake of suspending disbelief.
 
Well, look at it this way. You know that it's almost time to study (logistics). Well everyone needs to study, including that "BBG" . They are sitting there think that, If I attack just before study time there is a chance that those pesky adventurers might have depleated their spells and are really tired.
 
Does your character think that way every month? Every day? What about the times when there isn't a big bad guy? How do you know "this is the weekend"?

There shouldn't even be a discussion about how to skirt metagaming. That in itself is gaming the rules. I agree with B.Barber that things like this shouldn't be thought on too hard to maintain the suspension of disbelief.
 
If you are reacting to the natural flow of the way the world presents itself to you time and again that is not metagaming. Metagaming gets thrown around too liberally sometimes. The world of alliance has some weird things about it that the game universe demands. But that is the world.

Joe S.
Resident Jerk
 
Except the world doesn't present itself in perfect cycle. Games do not occur every 4 weeks or the second weekend of every month. How can that be the world presenting itself to me time and again? The game universe doesn't demand it at all actually; it's the real world that demands it (which the OP actually addresses).
 
The problem is you are having to do mental gymnastics to create a sense of what the world is away from event weekends. It is an adjudication nightmare and serves no purpose. Don't like it? Run the game on a varied time schedule. You might find you have allot of unhappy players, but do as you will. Still for the sake of game flow and not creating pointless things for players to try and track with things no one will ever rep (in this case non-game time) I would just move on and roll with it as the presented reality. It is a fantasy world where players have outsized levels of power. The world shifts in their wake. It is easy to explain, and hard to marshal against.

Joe S.
 
IMO it could be considered kind of metagamey, but... not all metagaming is bad. The ARB mentions a few examples of "positive metagaming," e.g. passing up a plot hook because it sounds like a low-level encounter and you want to let the new guys take it even though your character really hates undead or whatever.

Regardless of whether it constitutes metagaming, I don't think that using OOG information is inherently bad if you're not doing it in such a way that it negatively impacts the other players or plot. In the example of knowing OOG that big battles happen at 5 pm, using that information is unlikely to negatively impact anyone's game experience, whereas purposely missing the fight because your character doesn't know it's going to happen is kind of just ruining your own fun for no real reason. However, there's *also* no reason to worry about it enough to invent an IG explanation for why you might know something in order to avoid the appearance of metagaming... as noted above, it's easiest to just avoid thinking about it too much.

Other examples of positive metagaming, off the top of my head:
"This guy is a new NPC so I'm not going to interrogate him about plot things he hasn't heard of even though my character really cares about X"
"I'm going to either kill or release this NPC I captured because keeping him tied up for an hour would be mean to the NPC"
"My character would prioritize doing X mod above anything else but plot is on a schedule so I'll wait until after the town encounter"

Etc.
 
Also, just to clarify, I'm not sure how this is handled in Oregon, but in the Denver chapter:

IG, there is a "gathering of the nobles" in New Acarthia, the IG town in which most of the events take place, every month. Many of the PCs are actually traveling nobles who are based in other, nearby lands, and travel to New Acarthia every month to attend the "ducal gathering." So in Denver, yes, you do know IG that "this is the weekend."
 
Simon said:
The problem is you are having to do mental gymnastics to create a sense of what the world is away from event weekends. It is an adjudication nightmare and serves no purpose. Don't like it? Run the game on a varied time schedule. You might find you have allot of unhappy players, but do as you will. Still for the sake of game flow and not creating pointless things for players to try and track with things no one will ever rep (in this case non-game time) I would just move on and roll with it as the presented reality. It is a fantasy world where players have outsized levels of power. The world shifts in their wake. It is easy to explain, and hard to marshal against.

Joe S.
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Actually we have IBGA to rep the non-game time. It's not an adjudication nightmare at all. We have asked our players to keep in mind time frames between events. We have varied time schedules quite a bit and players seem happy to roll with it.

Alex319 said:
Also, just to clarify, I'm not sure how this is handled in Oregon, but in the Denver chapter:

IG, there is a "gathering of the nobles" in New Acarthia, the IG town in which most of the events take place, every month. Many of the PCs are actually traveling nobles who are based in other, nearby lands, and travel to New Acarthia every month to attend the "ducal gathering." So in Denver, yes, you do know IG that "this is the weekend."
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See we don't have a lot of PC nobles. At least not PC nobles of the area we are at. Our NPC nobles have an entire Duchy or Barony or even Kingdom to run. They don't have time to come every month or two to see our adventurers from distant lands. Our players spend much of their time in the town or over at our sister chapter Seattle playing their characters. So, yeah, we don't think "Oh this weekend is gonna be the weekend of the next big bad scary thing".
 
Sounds like your plot team needs to mix things up a bit? Unless the players like/enjoy/want/crave that kind of clockwork efficiency.

To the question, I think it's inappropriate to do something like this, but that's just me. I try to keep OOG things OOG and keep my character unaware of those kinds of things on purpose for the simple fact that if he were real, and Fortannis were real, that kind of thing just wouldn't happen. You don't see all murders taking place between 16:00 and 17:00 every day, do you?

I like to view Fortannis in that light as my character, and perceive things in that light as well. So if it's a plot-controlled "every Saturday at 17:00, there is an attack", my character is oblivious.

Also:
Do you feel something like that encourages players to NOT use skills earlier in the day because "we have to save them for the wave battle later, in case we get over run!"?
 
kalindra said:
Other examples of positive metagaming, off the top of my head:
"This guy is a new NPC so I'm not going to interrogate him about plot things he hasn't heard of even though my character really cares about X"
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As an aside some of the WORST metagaming I've experienced from the plot side was very experienced PCs interrogating clearly new NPCS in order to get an answer they want (ie 'SURELY there is some way to not have to find the mcguffin right?) and then try to push on plot that what ever the NPC said must be true. Thank Fortannis for the phrase 'He probably would have said anything to get away/make you stop/etc.) I was really disappointed in the folks that pushed this because it happened like 4 times with the same folks per event.
 
jpariury said:
If a given chapter's events play out like clockwork in terms of flow, then taking that as an in-game reality of the local world isn't really much of a metagame - it's responding to the way the in-game world has been made manifest.
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But as I had stated previously, this doesn't happen like clock work. Rarely are games exactly X amount of weeks apart. Sometimes they are 4 weeks apart, sometimes 7 weeks, sometimes 6 months. Now you are interjecting your OOG conciousness onto your character because it's only when you are playing your character are you observing and acting upon this "clockwork". The world continues between games and does not involve some big battle or big bad guy you have to kill every saturday night. It's okay not to be Pavlov's dogs. Although that does make me want to ring a bell before every big fight.
 
As a counterpoint Norm, during non game days a rather large chunk of people go off and do things in other parts of lands ( downtime actions). It's only when everyone gets together that it happens, so maybe it is observable. ;)
 
Now that I think about it I don't think that constitutes "metagaming" so much as "breaking the 4th wall."
 
MaxIrons said:
As a counterpoint Norm, during non game days a rather large chunk of people go off and do things in other parts of lands ( downtime actions). It's only when everyone gets together that it happens, so maybe it is observable. ;)
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But Adventurers aren't the only people in a given area. You should know that :p What about the locals? An -opolis signifies a large city. So a large chunk of adventurers go off but not a large chunk of the area's populace. And since the Adventurers make up a small chunk of the local populace, a majority of the people are still there.

It would seem more like certain individuals draw evil. It would make my character think more of "Who is drawing all this evil?" and "Do we want that person around?" ;)
 
Honestly, I have seen plot lines run where the fact that monsters show up where adventurers are etc. and made things happen around them is a main motivator for the "bad guy". The bottom line is it is not the burden of the player to twist themselves into pretzels to make the world plot presents make sense, it is the job of plot to do so. That is why you do not want great creative writers who have no experience in the flow of a given LARP chapter writing plot. I have seen it tried, these peculiarities of the hobby kill them every time.

Joe S.
Resident Jerk
 
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