I’ve always considered “meta-gaming” to mean making decisions with the needs of the player as the foremost consideration, and/or using knowledge that the character shouldn’t have access to. (“I think I failed a perception check… uh oh…”)
In the game I’m DMing, one of the players is a huge roleplayer. Her character is someone who’s dead set on improving herself - she doesn’t like gifts, or items, or power of any kind, other than her body alone. She naturally pushes herself into positions that create Forte tests for herself. She strives for a Challenging Forte test, but with a Forte of 6, that’s hard to come by.
It doesn’t feel meta to me. It feels like using the system to gain an objective understanding of what the characters understand subjectively - how difficult something will be for them. I feel that this is in no way incompatible with role-playing… that is, taking the needs, interests, and “thoughts” of the character as the foremost consideration.
Yeah, you can say that meta-gaming is making decision according to player’s priorities, what is important to consider is that those priorities may be very different from “having a more powerful/badass/rich character” or “beating the GM’s monsters / traps”.
Those priorities can instead reflect how the player wants to explore the situation presented by the GM.
Of course sometimes it will be directly aligned with what “role-players” would consider the “right thing to do”, but sometimes not, because the player will choose to move the character in an unforseen direction. Of course, when the player takes such a decision, he needs to more or less explicitly explains it in the fiction afterward.
By the way, you can find many examples where Luke says to give player’s knowledge that characters shouldn’t have access to in a more traditional game (e.g. That NPC is lying to you !), that is another form of meta-gaming that is part of BW (usually to push the players towards a limited subset of meaningful choices).
(Since this thread has obviously expanded beyond its original post, I’m Baaaack!)
The term “role-playing” means different things to different gamers.
Some get quite theatrical, always speaking in character and never consider the rules beyond the means to advance play.
Others are always in third person perspective, never actually engaging “in character” but play the game to advance the storyline.
When we “metagame” it’s always about the next level, or the most kills, or the biggest treasure, the best way to twist the rules, basically, the “HOW CAN I WIN” mentality.
Rules are necessary to play any game, and knowing the rules does not constitute metagaming, abusing them “to win” does.
That’s the traditional view, where meta-gaming corresponds to “winning” priorities from the players.
I’m repeating myself, but players can have priorities that have nothing to do with “winning”, let’s call them “plot” priorities, i.e. players may be interested to move the story in a direction independently of what is already established about their characters.
Is advancement in BW the same as “winning” ? To a point yes, but the way it works makes it give a similar result than “plot” priorities, i.e. it moves the story in a unforeseen direction.
Advancement for the sake of advancement (test mongering) is bad, while advancement as a natural outcome of using your abilities to participate within the storyline is good!
Hard and fast litmus test, if everyone is enjoying the game and style of play their fellow gamers are using, it’s good. If people are getting upset at the way others are playing the game, it’s bad.
