I've got two obsessions: good stories, and interesting game chemistry. I like character intereactions, and I like seeing game mechanics and options interact, and while I have a great GM who provides plenty of the former, I'm seriously lacking in the way of the latter.
What are your favorite metagames, interesting interactions between player options, and the like? I'll accept vidya as well as Veeky Forums if you believe it's notable.
3.5 is a horrible system for it's intended purpose, but nobody in the sane mind would actually play it. No, you theorycraft and make builds.
>wah, I'm literally too stupid for a game that even 10 year olds know how to play
What's shitty system are you trying to convert people to today?
4e
While phrased it in a way that makes me think he's posting from the Dead Sea, it's not entirely wrong. The pure amount of stuff published for 3.x, with all the strictly-betters and work-arounds, added on to it leaning much more towards the G in RPG, makes it one of the few RPGs that's able to have a proper metagame. Pretty much everything else is too small in either community or content, or isn't billed in a way to attract the same level of CharOp, so there's not as much, if any, metagame.
What do you have in mind exactly?
I'm not sure I understad the way you use metagame in. In the context of RPGs it's kinda hard to define, unless you mean builds and theorycrafting stuff.
Anyway... I like Strike! and it's got pretty good gamist gameplay imo.
Stop shilling Strike!
Why does Veeky Forums keep shilling Strike!?
It's the weekend, I have nothing better to do...
>No, you theorycraft and make builds.
Can confirm this with PF too. My old Pathfinder GM used to spend more time theorycrafting than actually running the game (to the point where every couple of sessions we would have new houserules and 3rd party content being introducted) and the players spent more time coming up with character sheets than actually playing with their abilities.
>What are your favorite metagames, interesting interactions between player options, and the like?
There are probably better people to explain the game, but Legends Of The Wulin.
Monsterhearts is one of the few games I've encountered were metagaming like all hell is the best way of making the game more interesting
>It's not flawed, you're just too dumb to like it!
That's a new one. Really. I honestly haven't heard that one before..
> my anecdotal evidence applies because it has to do with a game Veeky Forums hates
Never change, Veeky Forums
Legends of the Wulin has a pretty fascinating metagame with its various Secret Arts.
Secret Arts are part of each Archetype, Warrior, Scholar, Doctor, Priest and Courtier. The latter four have the most interesting Secret Arts in a metagame/utility sense.
Priests, Doctors and Courtiers are all roughly similar. They can create or 'discover' (justify with evidence and make a roll to declare a condition already existed) Chi Conditions in people through various means, which acts as a way of manipulating people and their actions.
Chi Conditions are a combination of a narrative clause with a mechanical bonus or penalty. Obey the clause and get the bonus for positive ones, obey the clause or suffer the penalty for the negative.
These work very well as a 'soft' influence on the actions of both PCs and NPCs. You're always free to choose, but that freedom comes with a mechanical cost, penalising you if you act against the various influences on you.
Finding and sustaining positive Chi Conditions on allies, or negative ones on enemies, is a complex but intriguing part of the system which can set you up for a fight or let you gain influence by fixing a problem you 'discovered' for them.
And then there are Scholars, which are just crazy. Other Archetypes can relatively quickly create and manipulate conditions on individuals. Scholars can create Predictions which affect the entire world. They're the slowest archetype, and the hardest to make stick, but if a Scholar lands a prediction? It creates a chi condition which will affect everyone, everywhere, forever. Of course, the narrower you make the prediction the easier it is to land, so knowing how to restrict it is part of the skill of the prophecy, but having the power to create sweeping change in a setting by empowering or weakening a particular cause, organisation or making an event more or less likely to happen is a somewhat incredible level of influence I don't think I've ever seen in another game.
Well, duh. That's what we mean whenever we use the word "Objectively," sorta like how we use Autism to mean anti-social or interruptive behavior, not actual autism.
Having played a short bit of Monster Hearts before , how did you guys meta game that system? I'd assume by stacking strings and things on people like crazy to really fuck them up, but how did you guys do it?
basiclly what you just said, making sure you can take advantage of strings and/or conditions wherever possible, this requires a few set-up actions which are usually more interesting than the main action, hence why metagaming ends up making the game more interesting
I have, but then I've seen an awful lot of 3eaboo shitpostrs here.
>I can dismiss his personal experience out of hand because I don't like what he's saying
Never change, 3eaboos.
>favorite metagames
Earthdawn, and the concepts of threads, patterns, and legend. Created an excellent dynamic where players were free to make characters true to form and mechanically sound, but which could still step off archetype with little to no penalty (and even gain notoriety for doing such!). That plus step dice really made the system.
A lot of narrativist games are built around trying to get players to metagame even harder. Dogs in the Vineyard is more metagame than actual game.
ah yes DitV, the game in which being blind makes you better at shooting
While technically correct it's also a disingenuous way of putting it.
Especially since negative traits tend to give you small dice, which are worse to have when it comes to conflict resolution.
And if you take blindness as a positive trait, well, the blind master thing has been a cliche for a long time for a reason, it's a fun thing to play around with.
Real Life. People are still arguing over the metanarrative, and some people can really lose their heads when someone disagrees with their interpretation