metagaming vs performance/growth

[Vitello]

I've heard people reference going for the best/most efficient as metagaming. Where does the line rest between reseanoble performance and twinking? If it is improper why is it coded so extensively to have such a variety of performance/effectiveness. Just curious as sometimes the learning curve is a bit sharp and if you don't use the proper method you don't get anywhere.

[Lysse]

The way I've always looked at it in any Roleplaying game is, you should make choices that suit your character the best, as opposed to the mechanically optimal option. And generally speaking, it's been my experience that when someone makes a character that would "always choose the optimal choice", they usually don't have a very well fleshed out character.

So, if for instance you wanted to be an Utasa. And you wanted to be a fancy-man/woman type character, that duels people. You probably shouldn't use a great sword, even though it has a high damage output than, say, a rapier.

[Elystole]

I've heard people reference going for the best/most efficient as metagaming. Where does the line rest between reseanoble performance and twinking? If it is improper why is it coded so extensively to have such a variety of performance/effectiveness. Just curious as sometimes the learning curve is a bit sharp and if you don't use the proper method you don't get anywhere.

I am becoming increasingly leery of anyone who tries to tell other people how to play the game except for those cases where someone is actually being disruptive, so I don't think there's much point in trying to determine what is "reasonable performance" and what is "twinking." That is always going to be subjective and there are going to be people worried about their performance in any game with coded abilities. That's skill-based or exp-based. I took a break to play some Wildstar over the past few days and while I was running around exploring the area, hunting down as much lore and as many achievements as possible while making sure to do every quest, and commenting on how pretty things were, there were people running past me talking about grinding experience as quickly as possible to just get through the area and onto the next one.

I let my RP determine what kind of character I am playing, and then I set out to be the best whatever that is. I don't think that is bad RP. Most people want to be good at what they do. Elystole has a strong sense of duty and sees his job as important, so for training hard is very in-character and he'll let people know he's doing it. He's long been bothered by not performing at his best when lives are at stake.

Also, I think the learning curve in CLOK is pretty forgiving. True, you won't get maximum efficiency and optimal skill gains right out of the gate, but if you just start doing what it is you want to do you'll learn something. Throw in a quick lesson and you're doing pretty well.

[Rias]

It's not an easy thing to define, and pretty much impossible to enforce code-wise because it changes by situation, character, and other non-definite things.

Here's an example I thought of, regarding the type of "metagaming" that bugs me. Imagine hypothetical worlds, and we'll compare them.

World 1: Essentially the same as our current CLOK world, except let's say there are a bunch of hydromancers in this world. They all have their reasons for taking up hydromancy, nice and varied. A few of them, due to their character's theme, worship Naia or Nereia, because - water goddesses, hydromancy - it works, right? Makes for a fun theme to roleplay. Awesome.

World 2: Exactly the same as World 1, but in this world, worshipping an Immortal grants mechanical benefits. Worshipping Nereia or Naia gives you increased hydromancy gains, makes your hydro powers more effective, and some other neat stuff like that. The cynic in me predicts that the vast majority of hydromancers in this world will worship Naia or Nereia - most of them not because they think it's a fun theme they want to be a part of their character and roleplay, but because they get mechanical benefits from it. They don't really care about the Rivers/Lakes or the Ocean and their associated stewardesses/goddesses, they just know that if they have a flag in their character's code that says "worships Naia/Nereia", they'll get a boost to their skills and powers, so what the heck - might as well, right? No reason not to.

[Elystole]

Here's an example I thought of, regarding the type of "metagaming" that bugs me. Imagine hypothetical worlds, and we'll compare them.

World 1: Essentially the same as our current CLOK world, except let's say there are a bunch of hydromancers in this world. They all have their reasons for taking up hydromancy, nice and varied. A few of them, due to their character's theme, worship Naia or Nereia, because - water goddesses, hydromancy - it works, right? Makes for a fun theme to roleplay. Awesome.

World 2: Exactly the same as World 1, but in this world, worshipping an Immortal grants mechanical benefits. Worshipping Nereia or Naia gives you increased hydromancy gains, makes your hydro powers more effective, and some other neat stuff like that. The cynic in me predicts that the vast majority of hydromancers in this world will worship Naia or Nereia - most of them not because they think it's a fun theme they want to be a part of their character and roleplay, but because they get mechanical benefits from it. They don't really care about the Rivers/Lakes or the Ocean and their associated stewardesses/goddesses, they just know that if they have a flag in their character's code that says "worships Naia/Nereia", they'll get a boost to their skills and powers, so what the heck - might as well, right? No reason not to.

For the sake of a good discussion: What's so wrong with that second example? Most people join a religion because it offers them some sort of benefit. The ancients often worshiped a deity precisely because it was supposed to benefit their city, their trade, their voyage, or whatever else. Nowadays people like to act like we've moved beyond that, but the prevalence of things like "prosperity gospel" show that the model of "worship in exchange for benefit" is alive and well. At a more foundational level, how many people join a religion just because they don't want to be damned? That's a benefit.

In World 2, I'd make the idea that Naia or Nereia boost your hydromancy an in-character promise. It's what the goddesses dangle in front of people to entice them to worship them and having hydromancers flock to them is exactly what they want. The trade-off is that the goddesses then get to make demands of you and if you slip up... well...

[Rias]

The problem would be that they don't actually worship Naia or Nereia, or care for them or their domains. They just do what's required mecahnics-wise so they can get their benefits and move on. In my ideal World 2, I'd say those goddesses would only want followers who were actually interested in/concerned about their associated domains, rather than "employees" whom they would have to constantly entice with rewards in order to get any use out of the otherwise apathetic individuals. If a student went to Naia's shrine with the attitude of "I want to serve you so you'll help me use hydromancy better", their prayers/offer of servitude would be ignored. They don't care about Naia or her domain - they only care about what rewards Naia can give them.

These goddesses aren't out to convert the world by any means (they're not even actively seeking followers), and nobody wants a servant whom you have to constantly convince/persuade/oversee/moderate/remind/chastise/forgive if you don't need them. The hassle far outweighs the benefit.

Now if you went to the Blood Cult with the attitude of "I just want to join up and serve the Blood God so I can achieve immortality", that might be another story ...

[Rias]

At a more foundational level, how many people join a religion just because they don't want to be damned? That's a benefit.

You probably won't see any "good" organizations/philosophies/religions with the recruitment tactic of "join us, or you're screwed."

(Heavily snipped/edited, because I was inevitably going to offend someone with what I had here before.)

[jilliana]

I did always find it slightly pretencious, even on an IC level that someone only do something solely for mechanical reasons.
The example of the Church of Light and Thaumaturgy may be a slightly overused one, but it's easily understandable. I have always liked the idea of proving oneself before being trained to benefit from something the majority of humans are supposed to have to begin with. That method in particular keeps one from going into the mechanics and actually thinking about their character.

I find the idea of wrapping one's character around the mechanics of the game instead of letting them create themselves naturally very OOC.

This topic is one of those where there isn't a clear answer because in the end everyone's going to do what they want anyways for the reason that Rias mentioned- it's hard to enforce code-wise.b

[Rias]

Another example is what I posted in another thread a while back. I considered the possibility of making cooking able to produce foods that give a slight "morale boost" with some minor mechanical advantages. I then had visions of every single character grinding cooking just so they could get that +3% to whatever, even if it didn't make sense for their character to be a master chef.

"It makes sense, because my character would want to be the best possible, and if cooking helps that then they would take up cooking and be a master chef!" Yeah, I'm not buying it.

I have a serious love/hate relationship with CLOK's open skill system.

[Xzean]

I prefer an open skill system because of a single argument. If class systems exist and they have strict skill sets then that is telling me in said game world that as a mage I can never learn to swing a sword. Ever. That in itself breaks my immersion.

[xavier]

so here is a suggestion to compromise with not breaking emersion and still having an open skill system.
Designate certain skills to certain guilds, for example:
Brotherhood of the Fist
these skills increase at a slightly increased rate.
brawling, melee, dodge, first aid.
These skills increase at a slightly reduced rate.
swords, hafted, polearms, armor use, shield use, other skills that would naturally be used in engaged position but are not specifically designed to be used with brawling.
These skills will increase at a drastically reduced rate.
Archery, marksmanship, and other such skills that are way far beyond the normal range of a brawler.

This is just one example and chosen because the lines are fairly clear. I personally don't like how members of the western coalition can master all the trade skills, it seems kind of wrong to be able to become a master of mining/forging, mining/jewelry/lapidary, logging/woodworking/bowary, and all the other various crafting permutations. they should make that choice in their guild abilities for a maximum of two and those particular skill sets should increase more naturally while others are slower.
Anyway, that's just my two cents. I never personally liked the open skill system without restrictions, ever.