Metagame Threats

beeber · July 14, 2007, 05:56:16 PM

Quote from: J ArcaneI think it's boring as hell, and kills character investment, when you make death that cheap. If death is the high cost of living, then I damn well want to get my money's worth.

well, life was pretty cheap in basic or ad&d. character investment was just emotional, for the most part. wasn't like you spent so much time tweaking your uber-build or something, like in later editions :rolleyes:

the point isn't about freak accidents. some critters will fuck you up so bad, you just stay away from them or learn tactics to deal with them. and if you understand (as a player) level-draining undead, then you deal with it. just a part of the game, that's all. now if the dm abuses their use, like overwhelming spectre hordes or whatever, then that's just poor refereeing. but i think the mechanic is still an effective one for directing characters.

Balbinus · July 14, 2007, 06:08:14 PM

Quote from: J Arcane. . . or you could realize that maybe the players don't want to play that way, and not try to force them to bend to your will.

I think that was what James was saying in part, although for me Tony has utterly owned the thread with his credible threat post. I think that's golden, and incidentally shows that he gets old school play.

J Arcane · July 14, 2007, 06:21:11 PM

Quotewell, life was pretty cheap in basic or ad&d. character investment was just emotional, for the most part. wasn't like you spent so much time tweaking your uber-build or something, like in later editions

Oooh, some more 3.x hate. That seems to in vogue here lately.

And just what, exactly, makes you assume that character investment has anything to do with systems, eh? Or that what I have said solely applies to one particular edition of the game?

Hmm? You seem to be bringing a whole heap of unrelated biases into the equation, none of them even accurate.

What's next, "roleplaying vs. rollplaying"?

James McMurray · July 14, 2007, 06:41:34 PM

Quote from: TonyLBI ... don't see the dividing line here.

An in-game threat is a threat to take away some fictional resource that the players are attached to (i.e. their character's lives) when that threat is interpreted as danger in the fiction.

A meta-game threat is a threat to take away some fictional resource that the players are attached to (i.e. their character's lives) when that threat is interpreted as danger at the gaming table.

Suppose I say "The spectre reaches for you, and you feel your vigor, your experience ... the very essence of who you are and what you've accomplished ... becoming grey and pale and meaningless." That could be some pretty scary shit, in-fiction! Naturally, the mechanics would back that up with some level-draining (just as the mechanics back up the fiction of "being pierced by dozens of spears" with the loss of the character), but if the players are paying attention to the fictional elements of the threat then it's no longer a meta-game threat ... is it?

Seems to me that it's all in the eye of the beholder. Yes, people tend to interpret level-drains in a meta way, and bloodshed in an in-fiction way, because the fictional elements of bloodshed are easier (and more fun!) to envision ... but does that mean that they're fundamentally different things?

I've never seen a player not react to the metagame aspect of level drains. It's a system that reaches out of the game, back through time, and strips away the mechanical benfits of your last month or more of real world play time. You'd think character death would be the same, but for whatever reasons it doesn't evoke the same metagame reactions, and can therefor be more easily reacted to in character.

That's all IMX of course, your game group may differ.

beeber · July 14, 2007, 07:27:00 PM

Quote from: J ArcaneOooh, some more 3.x hate. That seems to in vogue here lately.

And just what, exactly, makes you assume that character investment has anything to do with systems, eh? Or that what I have said solely applies to one particular edition of the game?

Hmm? You seem to be bringing a whole heap of unrelated biases into the equation, none of them even accurate.

What's next, "roleplaying vs. rollplaying"?

oh please :rolleyes:
first, it's not "3.x hate." level drains are just part of d&d, period.
second, investment is time, it is mechanical builds, it is emotional time spent with a character. older editions had less mechanical stuff associated with character development. the more time, both emotional and mechanical, you spend on a character, the more you've invested. simple, really. some systems require more. duh!
third, biases? :confused: :what:
whatever. a threat really isn't one unless there's something meta to back it up. just the nature of games. the only way to separate from it is to deny knowledge of the game's mechanics to the players, then no metagaming is possible.

arminius · July 14, 2007, 08:38:15 PM

Okay, only skimmed the thread but that's because I think it's founded on a completely faulty premise. Just because some goober said that level drains are a metagame threat doesn't make it so. They're no more a metagame threat than hit points are a metagame mechanic or leveling up is a metagame phenomenon. Which is to say you can see them as such, but that way leads to the Lumpleyist doctrine of viewing all game mechanics as metagame, and the rules as just a way to organize the social relations of the players. (In short rather sterile reductionism.)

Level drains aren't metagame. They represent the terrifying in-game ability of certain creatures to drain away life force.

David R · July 14, 2007, 08:41:02 PM

I'm a bit unsure of what exactly constitutes a credible threat. I mean the Pundit's post is spot on I think about player behaviour. And J's line about "the high cost of living" also struck a cord.

I'll give you an example or rather I hope this is an example. In my OtE campaign I use time limits when it comes to decision making. I think this is an example of the meta enroaching into the game world and it's effect is there for the players to feel the tension which translates to their character feeling the heat.

Now, I'm not to sure whether this falls into the instadeath category or level drain but I'm sure it's up there with all the other meta game tactics...I think.

Regards,
David R

David R · July 14, 2007, 08:42:24 PM

Elliot haven't we had this level drain/poison/instadeath discussion before ?

Regards,
David R

arminius · July 14, 2007, 08:48:55 PM

We did discuss it before, but the subject was rather different. Before, it was (essentially) people attacking and defending the basic fairness & fun-ness of such mechanics. Nothing to do with metagame.

RPGPundit · July 15, 2007, 05:01:28 AM

Quote from: TonyLBPlayers feeling capable because they've got the strategic situation well in hand ... is the problem?

Its a problem if that confidence comes from metagame reasons and not from anything going on in the actual roleplay.

RPGPundit

RPGPundit · July 15, 2007, 05:03:17 AM

Quote from: TonyLBHey, you want me (in my squad-tactics mode) to sit up and pay attention, the procedure is very simple: Provide a real, credible threat.

Don't tell me "Oh, you should fake being irrationally scared of a horde of kobolds ... uh ... because I say so, and I think it would be better roleplaying!" 'cuz, fuck man, I know the danger that the kobold horde poses, and it's not much.

Now if you have that same horde of kobolds sniping from cover, then retreating further into a complex ... that might well make me start to sweat. "Why the hell didn't we come equipped with a Cloudkill scroll? These fuckers are going to nickel-and-dime us to death with guerrilla tactics."

The cure to complacency is not to tell people "Well, pretend that it's a challenge!" The solution is to provide them with a real challenge.

See, the first real solution to all of this is to not call them Kobolds. Create the same encounter, one with a creature the players know from its entry in the Monster Manual, and another absolutely identical encounter with a creature that is unidentified, and in the second the players will play their characters with MUCH more caution, even if their PCs in both situations should have no reason to act different one time or the other.

RPGPundit

RPGPundit · July 15, 2007, 05:05:44 AM

Quote from: beeberwell, life was pretty cheap in basic or ad&d. character investment was just emotional, for the most part. wasn't like you spent so much time tweaking your uber-build or something, like in later editions :rolleyes:

Emphasis added. There's no "just" about it, buddy. That's the problem right there: that these days the "investment" is more often because of the time and effort you spend minmaxing the character, and not because of the emotional investment you create with having a character manage to survive a bunch of near-fatal encounters that you KNOW can really wipe you out. Take away that danger, that unpredictability, and you also take away a lot of what makes one truly attached to the character in a positive way.

RPGpundit

David R · July 15, 2007, 06:46:50 AM

Quote from: RPGPunditThat's the problem right there: that these days the "investment" is more often because of the time and effort you spend minmaxing the character, and not because of the emotional investment you create with having a character manage to survive a bunch of near-fatal encounters that you KNOW can really wipe you out. Take away that danger, that unpredictability, and you also take away a lot of what makes one truly attached to the character in a positive way.

I think this is a very good point. IME or rather my players meta game threats (or whatever they are called) are an effective way of generating some emotional investment. It's not really about minmaxing (I don't really run very how powered or munchkiny games) but rather about losing "something" as a character - something you'ev invested some time/relationsips etc in gaining.

Regards,
David R

TonyLB · July 15, 2007, 07:58:19 AM

Quote from: RPGPunditIts a problem if that confidence comes from metagame reasons and not from anything going on in the actual roleplay.

It may not be the style you prefer, but I like it fine, and so do ... well ... an awful lot of mainstream D&D players.

Weren't you the great populist, once? "Anything thousands upon thousands of D&D players have been enjoying for decades can't be wrong" and all that?

James McMurray · July 15, 2007, 11:57:58 AM

Quote from: RPGPunditSee, the first real solution to all of this is to not call them Kobolds. Create the same encounter, one with a creature the players know from its entry in the Monster Manual, and another absolutely identical encounter with a creature that is unidentified, and in the second the players will play their characters with MUCH more caution, even if their PCs in both situations should have no reason to act different one time or the other.

RPGPundit

This is very true. I've done this for entire campaigns and the feel of the game changes when the players know only as much as the PCs know. Even though the enemies were just orcs, kobolds, and gnolls with modified descriptions, the players went in slower and thought more because there was no "It's only 1/2 hit die, we can easily take them" in the back of their minds.