Metagaming Isn’t Always Bad

What I am challenging is the fact a player should ONLY act on what his character can perceive and what they know.

– Ian O’Rourke, www.fandomlife.net

What is metagaming? It’s dirty, rotten cheating that’s what it is and should be avoided at all costs and stamped out at your gaming table wherever and whenever it occurs. We know this because it involves players having their characters acting on knowledge they don’t possess. 

There’s that acting term again. What if you’re all playing as authors? When you do that you may need to moderate your view of metagaming as not all metagaming is bad.

We’re Not Advocating Cheating

Let’s be clear what we’re not discussing to avoid people slamming their mouse down and shouting at the monitor. Some metagaming is obviously cheating and detrimental to the game. We all know the obvious examples, a player acting on knowledge of a monster that their character does not possess. 

If someone makes decisions on the abilities and vulnerabilities of a creature they do not know then it’s usually a bad thing and we’re not advocating that. If someone is ‘cheesing’ the situation for advantage we also know it’s wrong.

Let’s put all that stuff in a box, put it under the table and forget about it, as we all agree that’s bad.

What I am challenging is the fact a player should ONLY act on what his character can perceive and what they know. Context is important. After all, if you’re shifting your approach to being an author, rather than actor, what comes with that is the acceptance that sometimes you will make decisions based on what you know as the author of your character’s story…

….not just the player acting your character’s part.

When Metagaming Is Good?

Let’s consider it practically. When you play a TTRPG do you make all your decisions exclusively from and within the limits of what your character knows? In this approach, almost everything beyond your character’s understanding, knowledge, visible or audible range is off-limits.

But if you’re an author is that correct? Is that really your only choice as a player, which is an entity in the game above and beyond your character? Could you make your choices based on what is entertaining, but plausible, motivated by what you, as a player, knows will enhance the intentional story and drama?

If so, by definition what you’re entertaining is a certain level of metagaming.

You might decide, as a player, to interact with another character based on a previous interaction your character wasn’t involved in, because you know, as a player, your intended participant in the scene has changed their views and your scene will progress the story in interesting ways. Your character isn’t aware the previous interaction took place, but it’s plausible your character could talk, so as a player, you decide it’s a good idea based on knowledge outside of what your character knows.

You also might decide as a player to intervene in an on-going scene because the story would be enhanced by your character entering at the right dramatic moment? That decision is purely made as a player. Your character may not be aware the scene is unfolding without a conscious decision as a player to encounter it.

Once you move down this road, possibly your approach at the table goes even further, and you take it upon yourself to create and author facts and truths about the elements of a scene or the world itself. Possibly you decide props you need in a scene are there because it broadly makes sense they would be? You might weave in historical events and places out of nothing to support the story in the present?

Possibly the DM literally asks you to decide whole facts about the scenes location, the characters involved in it and their names? Let’s go full-on and like in a heist film or spy drama you create flashbacks in the moment to support why you are so well prepared in the present?

Yes, this does mean you move into DM territory, and this is a feature of author focused play. The line between DM and player blurs significantly. Some games even have tools and rules embedded in the game to moderate such an experience, albeit Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t.

Why Is This Important?

The idea that all metagaming isn’t bad and can be a positive tool in increasing the drama and storytelling at your table is important because a lot of the tools and techniques that are going to be introduced in the proceeding articles could be said to include an inherent level of metagaming so it was important to make the case early.

The story becomes something that is being written in the moment with a level of explicit intent, rather than just being something that happens by accident in retrospect. All this is done without knowing the story in advance or forcing players down set roads, quite the opposite, but it will introduce a level of metagaming.

Next, we start on the techniques.