The Anti Meta-info/gaming club.

[Tekill]

It sucks when you are part of an interaction and you discover that the main force of the interaction is ooc knowledge that would not be known IC. The interaction become broken and you feel like an idiot for even being a participant.

It also sucks when we start suspecting Meta gaming, rule breaking, or bad faith from other players with prejudice. For a vocal minority, it becomes a sort of ego stoking, witch hunt, and a driving force in thier game play. Arrogance grows, cliques form, and everything becomes a little less fun- especially for a new player who just wanted to pretend he was a knight killing some orcs for a couple hours.

If you think about it there is quite a bit of a learning process involved with grasping the nuances and the subtleties involved. Some of us are more hardcore RPers, than others. I know I have learned a lot since I started playing on this server. Sometimes when I hear others complain I think they forget this fact.

Every action and decision requires a skill check - or we give ourselves a bit of liberty. How to use, or at least not exploit, said liberty, needs to be learned over time.

And we experienced Adventurers need to be tolerant and patient while others are learning.

A good thread though....I for one could use the reminder.

[c2k]

It also sucks when we start suspecting Meta gaming, rule breaking, or bad faith from other players with prejudice. For a vocal minority, it becomes a sort of ego stoking, witch hunt, and a driving force in thier game play. Arrogance grows, cliques form, and everything becomes a little less fun- especially for a new player who just wanted to pretend he was a knight killing some orcs for a couple hours.

Oddly enough, the biggest offenders of meta-gaming are the cliques with their discord chats.

[DaloLorn]

It also sucks when we start suspecting Meta gaming, rule breaking, or bad faith from other players with prejudice. For a vocal minority, it becomes a sort of ego stoking, witch hunt, and a driving force in thier game play. Arrogance grows, cliques form, and everything becomes a little less fun- especially for a new player who just wanted to pretend he was a knight killing some orcs for a couple hours.

Oddly enough, the biggest offenders of meta-gaming are the cliques with their discord chats.

Other toxic behaviors seem more common in such Discords, too...

[Snarfy]

If you think about it there is quite a bit of a learning process involved with grasping the nuances and the subtleties involved. Some of us are more hardcore RPers, than others.

This is an important thing to note. I remember years ago running into issues where other characters, despite the fact that they had never heard it IC'ly, would walk up and call mine by name simply because it was floating over my characters head. Lets just say that I did not handle these instances very well.

It also sucks when we start suspecting Meta gaming, rule breaking, or bad faith from other players with prejudice.

It really, really does suck. Being party to experiencing(or being on the receiving end of) meta-gaming tends to instill a certain sense of ever-present/growing paranoia I find... at least it has for me. On the flip-side, experiencing enough of it does tend to train a person in discerning patterns of meta behavior in other players/cliques... which of course leads to OOC'ly avoiding said players/cliques as a means of preserving personal enjoyment. End result: spontaneity and organic RP take a huge kick in the family jewels. It's like a never-ending catch 22.

And... I could go on a rant about discord. Personally speaking, I think the use of it has been one of the most detrimental things, in terms of meta-sharing, to ever come to BG. There's a reason why it took me so long to join it, and even then I bailed out of the BG channel in about 2 or 3 days, primarily because I hate spam and OOC(or anything that takes me out of the experience), but also because the meta implications were daunting.

[Steve]

Well, I'm gonna say it: meta information really isn't an issue at all, unless the goal of a player(s) is to "get over" on other players. Thing is, in a truly collaborative Role-play experience, it wouldn't matter if you knew your IC partner was LE and your PC is CG, or that they had a background in the Zhentarim but are hiding that from others in an attempt to infiltrate another faction—all this meta that one can gleam from the Forum or Discord or the Sunday paper is worthless if the goal is collaborative storytelling, and a reliance on neutral/chaos based outcomes—essentially Dice Rolls—to determine the result (after RP determined action of course).

Sure, our community members (players, DM, Staff) can always do better to be aware of the info "sharing," and we could all try to allow for more neutral/chaos-based mechanics to lead us through our role-play experience, but unfortunately neither of these things and the many other things mentioned in this thread are going to get better or get changed because of the following fact:

Too many of us dislike each other, personally.

And with that essential sickness underneath masks of good sportsmanship and community support, few are going to have compassion about other players unless they are involved within their own group-think/feel clique. Far too many of us dislike a substantial portion of the "others" of this community, that we'd probably NOT sit down at a table and have PnP D&D together. Because its obvious right now, on this Server, how many ignore, cajole, intentionally attempt to insult each other...and many have simply moved off this Forum to BGTSSC Discord or a private Discord, where their dislike and semi-anonymous Internet selves can easily talk and be consequence free—in most cases...—just go full on meta and full on negative against others.

Look, though I see this as such and am willing to write about it, I actually don't think it is that weird, honestly. It's no different now on the Internet than it was in the mid-nineties...nor is the Internet that different from how shitty things can be in RL, when a group cliques up and does their best to make your life miserable. Human beings have a tendency to prefer like-to-like, even though, thankfully so, we have the capacity to be truly open to others (it's not easy, takes training, though firstly, willingness).

What is probably most unfortunate, for the BGTSSC community, is the lack of honesty. Many will be saying shit about you behind your back, but won't say it to your (digital) face. Far too many cannot muster the honesty to say "I do not want to RP with you," and move on in a honest and polite way. And even worse, many will think and attempt to subvert your RP on BGTSCC through their meta usage and private groups, because of their actual interest in "seeing you fail" cause "they annoy me." I've seen it from playerside and DM side on BGTSCC. I am doubtful of its change.

Lastly, even though this Server can really eat you up with the meta-gaming and the cliques and the rather non-compassionate combative game play (anti-collaborative), IT IS STILL POSSIBLE to find people to HAVE a great experience in RP on BGTSCC...but even and when you find it, you'll have to accept and somehow do your best to steer clear of the shit going down in parallel and/or dark corners of the Server.

Essentially, in order to combat the clique-ish crap, you have to form your own clique. How F-ed up is that?!!? You have to meta-create a group that you can OOC feel good with, and hope that it lasts, meaning those people you find don't randomly drop off with saying goodbye or that they rage quit because they just can't handle anything shitty that comes to them outside their safety bubble, created-in-defense clique. I mean, I just saw this happening again 2-3 months ago with a player that reached out to me for "perspective," and it was sadly shocking to think that it STILL happens and the/any player is pretty much left on their own to try and "fix" the problem, because of the lack of honesty and the lack of compassion (or at least, the idea that being neutral towards what is going on is the best rule of action, which often times, is indirectly supportive of the bad behavior).

Feeling good yet?

But yeah, one more thing: people—players, Staff, etc.—are always showing up trying to do better, make it better. It often feels like a losing battle, but hey, if you aren't at least trying for something better, you got zero chance to flip the script. See, again...we need to always have that 5% chance!!!

PS- I know some of you are going to read the above and react: "But Steve, you're a total (person)!" Sure, I can be at times. That's me being honest (about myself). I'm simply not a brown noser, but that means I can also say thank you, and mean it, because I'm not looking to gain anything from it. Oh, and yes, I dislike my fair share of players and staff past and present, and most know why—again, honesty! Side note: critical thought and response is NOT dislike. Anyway, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, I say. And...get off Discord.

[c2k]

I do think this community is great. its been what? 12 years this server has been around? That's an amazing feat. That is the power of this community, whether you are staff, players, scripting, etc.

But the one thing this community is poor at: Conflict. I think I know only of a handful of players in over 12 years that could handle conflict correctly. And its not just players, its DMs, custom content, QC, Everyone!!. And it is somewhat understandable, this is not sold to you as a PvP game, and the PnP DnD game is not meant to be a PvP environment (though you can most certainly modify it).

Metagaming happens, and to be fair, there is the innocent, "mind-hiccup" metagaming that can easily be fixed with a "OOC: that information was never divulged". Like some people have said, we read forums, perhaps listen to people in the Nexus(which is considered OOC and not legit information to use in-game, to those unaware). It happens, just ask for it to be corrected, and its usually harmless.

The most vicious forms of metagame come from guilds and cliques who conspire to thwart a particular group/person or try to "set the laws of the land". Forming hit squads, of blacklisting players/groups, even ignoring others with a "you are with us or against us" mentality. And I've seen times in the past when a DM or two would be involved in something like this as well. This server can't handle that kind of nonsense, and that is what needs to change.

The fix for metagaming is, ironically, communication. DnD has always been a game of social communication. Its ok to disagree and argue OOC, perhaps even have a mediation OOC outside of the IC RP. But never let the OOC kniowlege dictate where the IC RP can lead, because then you cheat everyone, including yourself, in making the stories of this server great.

[DaloLorn]

And...get off Discord.

Heeey! How else are people supposed to summon me?

More seriously... I think these last couple of posts have really hit the mark. There is definitely something that needs to be worked on here, and this conversation may only be symptomatic of a deeper problem.

[K'yon Oblodra]

Meta gaming gets really ugly if it has a personal and ill-intent.
I fear once it is an issue it's just a thing between the people involved that is hard to get over once it's come to that point.

My only idea in that regard has been avoidance of said other person or party.

[Snarfy]

Meta gaming gets really ugly if it has a personal and ill-intent.
I fear once it is an issue it's just a thing between the people involved that is hard to get over once it's come to that point.

My only idea in that regard has been avoidance of said other person or party.

This is what I tend to do as well. Unfortunately the list can get rather long, to the point where you lose track of the people you're trying to avoid

And...get off Discord.

On the subject of discord, and much to my dismay, the other day I was privy to a player calling out a character OOC'ly on one of the channels I'm in.
It went something like:
"Someone <insert meta-info about said character here> is griefing** lowbies by <insert meta-info about said characters location>...
... <insert some meta-info about said characters abilities> etc etc. Someone called <insert meta-info about said characters name here>..."

Now, griefing** attempt or not, this kind of thing is ridiculous. It doesn't belong on discord. If you think someone is griefing**, take screenshots and report them to the DM's. That's it, that's all.

** ... read the next bit at your own peril...

Hidden: show

And now for the rub... are you ready? I witnessed the latter half of this incident on one of my characters(said "griefer" was not me). There was no hostile set, there was no IC/OOC threat of PVP made in general chat(that I noticed), and nothing transpired in terms of the "griefing" rules being violated that I could see. What I DID see was everyone RP'ing the encounter, and from my back-seat POV, everyones RP was entertaining as heck. Furthermore, the accused griefer in question seemed to have been disguised, and lucky thing for them, as I have zero doubts their characters name would have been blasted on discord and into the minds of everyone that read it. And just like that *snaps fingers* #Rip to that whole RP encounter.

And no, I'm not going name names, and this isn't me trying to call anyone out(besides, if it comes to that, I have screenshots and logs). I'm simply sharing this for the purposes of showing how potentially destructive and misleading meta-info can be.