Meta-gaming and You.

[therew]

I really liked cressey's post. Alot of valid points and definite things to look out for. Though, this may sound weird, something else people should look out for is reverse meta gaming. Rping that your character doesn't know something even though the fact is slapping them in the face. Example: On a NWN server a Wizard, bard, and some other class were having a talk about how someone was acting weird. This person was a dragon disguised as a hin, but it kept acting like a dragon. Eating things hin's would not eat, burping smoke, melting objects with its breath. This person has been known to call people on meta gaming so even though they had pages and pages of evidence that strongly suggested that this person was in fact a dragon, they wouldn't call her on it and despite being characters who have high lore skill and high intelligence they could not bring themselves to put one and one together at risk of being called meta gamers. Being the person I am, called her character on being a dragon, I got a long ooc rant about how I was a meta gamer and was reported.

[Sourpuddle]

I think you should add a section about your character knowing the lore and realities intelligence.

Think about it; how would an Orc know that Arthas rose Sylvanas as a banshee? How would a Human know that the Tauren were nomadic? They wouldn't, not unless they were told by someone who did know. Otherwise, you're taking OOC information and implimenting it in your characters mind.

On another scale, off the knowledge of the lore, my Mage encountered a Gnome. When she offered the Gnome the book (Which was about water) she said to my character that water is clear, not blue. Now, I know that water reflects the colour blue off of the sky. Heck, I'm studying it in Science class (Really) and my character said what she would say. . .Well, it's only blue when it's in a large amount. A small amount would provide a clear colour. Geez, doesn't that Gnome know proper physical science? Hehe. But of course, I think it'd be valid for the Gnome to know it because Gnomes are very oriented with science along with many other intellectual skills. The thing I'm saying here is, your character shouldn't know everything that you do.

[therew]

Sour your point is very valid but the main thing I wanted to be noticed there is that the people who refused to know what the person was was ignoring common knowledge, and the main thing that pushed my button about it was that it was a Bard, a class that gets lore by leveling up, and a wizard, a class who Iq is though the roof. The odds of them not knowing the basics of dragon behavior is little to none espically since both characters were post epic ( Past level 20). The things they were over looking were things like breathing smoke, eating metals and gems, things you would need a lore score of about 10 to link to a dragon. If the hints they had were more along the lines of that she didn't like sweets ( don't ask me how i know so much about dragon lore), then I could understand them not making the connection. Some people don't like sweets. But when its something as painfully obvious as picking up a pearl and eating it, melting a candle with your breath ( of fire), and being able to hold your breath with out the assistance of magic for hours, lastly never being harmed by fire its kinda hard not to say dragon without reverse meta gaming. I was reported for meta gaming but after i presented all that to the admin who was trying me, my charges were drooped and she got in trouble for abusing the rules.

Whole point though, it would be wise to make sure that you don't drop a ton of hints. Its not meta gaming ( in my book) if you drop enough hints for someone to figure it out. Calling meta gaming because you drooped a ton of hints is abusing the rules and could ruin a legit players reputation when all that person did was play an intelligent character who put two and two together. If you don't want everyone to know you are able to do something then be very careful who you do it around.

[Maxwell]

Whole point though, it would be wise to make sure that you don't drop a ton of hints. Its not meta gaming ( in my book) if you drop enough hints for someone to figure it out. Calling meta gaming because you drooped a ton of hints is abusing the rules and could ruin a legit players reputation when all that person did was play an intelligent character who put two and two together. If you don't want everyone to know you are able to do something then be very careful who you do it around.

The issue with meta-gaming is knowing things that are impossible to know ICly, such as a character's name and allegiances right off the bat.

[Theik]

That's not his point though. He's saying that calling metagaming on somebody / other people having to pretend they don't know after you dropped dozens of hints is just as bad. For example, we have Theriel the Paladin. After an expedition to Northrend, he's back in Stormwind. But he replaced his golden armour with dark armour covered in skull. He's brandishing a runeblade in public, and nobody sees him wield the light any longer. In fact, there were people who say they saw him raise the dead and utter "The Damned stand ready."

At that point, only the thickest of characters, or the ones entirely clueless about paladins, wouldn't be able to piece together that something is wrong. A clueless person on lore would likely be able to piece together that they're no longer a paladin. One who's more knowledgeable will know that they're a death knight now, after having seen other ones of their kind in Stormwind, now that the Ebon Blade is accepted. One who's been in experience with the Scourge before however, such as the Ebon Blade Deathknights, would surely be able to piece together that he's working for the scourge, because they know their own order wouldn't raise random dead to offend Stormwind or utter Scourge Acolyte phrases.

[Cressy]

Updated!

[Darkneon]

I found myself accidently meta-gaming at some points (Mostly names and an occasionally finding myself treating someone differently because I know what guild they represent). It's not always intentional, but sometimes things you know OOC slip in ICly when you don't pay attention. I eventually decided to go to Interface>Names and just uncheck everything. So keeping myself from knowing things OOCly prevented accidental issues of minor metagaming. Even if I found it slightly inconvienent at times, it's created a lot of unique and fun situations in which I wasn't able to identify one of my character's friends because they changed their hair one day and dressed differently and the like. Also, I try my best not to target people when unnecessary, because it also leaves things like level and class unknown; which is always for the best. Simply doing something like that added a whole new sense of realism to the way I roleplay and kept these minor things that are hard to avoid OOCly at bay.

[Piken]

We all tend to metagame one way or another, it's just inevitable. Sometimes it's a tiny subconsious thing. :/ Other times it's a slip-of-the-tongue, or.. whatever the term is, thing. I tend to do it sometimes while RPing. Especially if you have two characters you RP and both are on massively different intellectual levels. I've made stupid characters smart on accident.. Just gotta catch yoself! ..werd.

And yeah, sometimes that happens. Honestly, in my opinion, it'd be best to keep the names on and work on not doing that so much, ya know?

[ToxinDoctor]

Excellent and informative! If more starting players had resources like this to look into, the quality of roleplaying would grow substantially. I appreciate all the guide-like topics like this because it not only helps others but it also helps me review issues that are going on! Thanks again, Cressy!

[Aphetoros]

I agree with this greatly, and my concern though, is people may be too harsh on it! I remember when I was new to coth (and RP, hadn't been RPing that long), and I slipped up and said someone's name that I didn't know. They flipped out on meh! (I don't remember who it was, but I do remember it happening, heh.) They thought I did it intentionally, but it took quite a while to explain that I didn't do it on purpose, because they were typing a lot of stuff... o_O

I'm just saying I agree with the whispering someone thing before you overreact!

Another thing that irks me, is this: My character is a necromancer. His OOC class is warlock. I was in Booty Bay, and even though Astus was acting completely normal, and though when he did lie it was smoothly (what I think is smooth lying, though I'm no expert on it oocly) and convincingly, and yet the lies only had to do about his disguise-- where he was from, who he was, etc. If anyone asked. I'm saying that I dislike how people are suspicious about characters who hold 'shady' and or 'evil' classes, even if their character would have no basis for knowing it ICly! Thats all, 8D

Awesome guide.