Intentionally giving people metagame abilities.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Here are some examples of abilities I mean by that:

• Have the ability to, once per adventure, have one of your contacts show up whenever you want to. The player needs to come up with a reason why they were there; even 'pure coincidence' works.
• A one-time bonus where an enemy force has some sort of malady they received offscreen before the combat; the militia got into some bad rations and are violently ill, the owlbear recently tore his arm out of a bear trap, the necromancer's hold over the skeletons is weakening due to a special trinket a PC is wearing.
• A PC can bumble, Inspector Gadget-style, to an item. For the next (unit of game time) any action they take will lead them towards what they were looking for as long as they have a reasonable belief what they were doing could take them there and they can automatically choose to bypass/negate/defang one obstacle of their choice on the way to it.
• The city bureaucracy greatly aids the PC in some way. Maybe some crooked judge has a change of heart and rules fairly for once. Maybe the one honest cop in the force brings the attention of the thieves' guild (who has been harassing the PCs) to the attention of the dimwitted king. Maybe the Chief Sage takes a shine to one of the PCs and pushes them to the head of the line for some research.

Things like that. Basically rare, but profound ways for players to directly affect the plot.

[K]

I think those kinds of abilities undermine the kind of immersion required for roleplaying.

It works for beer and pretzels games where you don't even care if you win or lose, but at that point you might as well just spend the evening playing Arkham Horror.

[Username17]

For a cooperative storytelling game, I have no problem with mechanics like Edge or Fate points that allow individual players to seize control of the story for a moment. You don't have to tell everything in first person to be a player.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

If you want those kinds of events to come up in play there is no reason why you shouldn't have a mechanic (however vague) that causes them to do so.

You want coincidental encounters with a running contact to happen? Encourage it with a mechanic, that's exactly what rules should be doing. Encouraging stuff you want to happen.

[Caid]

Reminds me a bit of the cards you could play in Shatterzone from West End Games. I never actually tried that game, but it seemed like an interesting concept. You were dealt cards that could be played both to gain mechanic edges (bonuses to rolls, automatically get initiative in a combat round etc) but also story related control, such as having an NPC grow attached to you, invoking a contact from your background or have the "cavalry" arrive in a moment of need.

[NineInchNall]

Ironically, I remember a thread waaaaaaaaaaay back in which K suggested exactly this sort of thing for warrior types as a way to rectify certain warrior:caster imbalances.

[MGuy]

Here are some examples of abilities I mean by that:

• Have the ability to, once per adventure, have one of your contacts show up whenever you want to. The player needs to come up with a reason why they were there; even 'pure coincidence' works.
• A one-time bonus where an enemy force has some sort of malady they received offscreen before the combat; the militia got into some bad rations and are violently ill, the owlbear recently tore his arm out of a bear trap, the necromancer's hold over the skeletons is weakening due to a special trinket a PC is wearing.
• A PC can bumble, Inspector Gadget-style, to an item. For the next (unit of game time) any action they take will lead them towards what they were looking for as long as they have a reasonable belief what they were doing could take them there and they can automatically choose to bypass/negate/defang one obstacle of their choice on the way to it.
• The city bureaucracy greatly aids the PC in some way. Maybe some crooked judge has a change of heart and rules fairly for once. Maybe the one honest cop in the force brings the attention of the thieves' guild (who has been harassing the PCs) to the attention of the dimwitted king. Maybe the Chief Sage takes a shine to one of the PCs and pushes them to the head of the line for some research.

Things like that. Basically rare, but profound ways for players to directly affect the plot.

Ive been muddling around with stuff like this. I have a class I made [going through naming issues for right now its Leader] who has that contact ability on his list. I'm thinking about making several like it so this is relevant to my interests if you have anymore.

[Orion]

Spirit of the Century does this *extensively*

My favorite example is Master of Diguise, which lets you remove your PC from play. At any time afterwards, you may declare that a minor NPC is actually you.

[TheFlatline]

Here are some examples of abilities I mean by that:

• Have the ability to, once per adventure, have one of your contacts show up whenever you want to. The player needs to come up with a reason why they were there; even 'pure coincidence' works.
• A one-time bonus where an enemy force has some sort of malady they received offscreen before the combat; the militia got into some bad rations and are violently ill, the owlbear recently tore his arm out of a bear trap, the necromancer's hold over the skeletons is weakening due to a special trinket a PC is wearing.
• A PC can bumble, Inspector Gadget-style, to an item. For the next (unit of game time) any action they take will lead them towards what they were looking for as long as they have a reasonable belief what they were doing could take them there and they can automatically choose to bypass/negate/defang one obstacle of their choice on the way to it.
• The city bureaucracy greatly aids the PC in some way. Maybe some crooked judge has a change of heart and rules fairly for once. Maybe the one honest cop in the force brings the attention of the thieves' guild (who has been harassing the PCs) to the attention of the dimwitted king. Maybe the Chief Sage takes a shine to one of the PCs and pushes them to the head of the line for some research.

Things like that. Basically rare, but profound ways for players to directly affect the plot.

You've described probably a third of all the class abilities in Spycraft as such.

Check out Spycraft, and look at their level 14 abilities. Crap like "once per session, you may study a target for at least 5 minutes. After this, you replace your character sheet with the target's, and are a perfect mimicry of the target".

Their level 14 "game-breakers" are pretty insane metagame abilities.

Still, the game is a lot of fun, because it's intended to be over the top stupid powerful.

[souran]

The real problem with meta-game abilities comes on the DM end.

the abilities are awesome, except that its totally impossible for the game master to either A plan for them, or B really let you get the full use of them without wrecking the story to shit.

Take that "master of disgue" spirit of the century thing. I can see that being cool once. However I see an evening that progresses much more like this:

Players: We charge into the ballroom of the Mad Duke during his masquarde! Standing before the assembled nobles we present our evidence that the Duke is one who used the evil baddie talsiman!

GM: The duke claps his hands slowly tuantingly, and says "Bravo heroes, you have unmaskqued me and well before midnight. However, I see you are down one of your compatriots and the x of you will cannot possibly...."

Disguised Player: "Just as he says that I throw off the robs of his advisor that was following him aruond the other times we talked to the duke and say.."
Gm: "you can't do that"
Player: "Yes I can see, it says any minor character"
GM: "well the adivisor isn't minor, he's actually the mastermind behind the whole plot and a lich."
Player: "oh, ok well then I throw off the costume of one of the noblemen and..."
GM: "Ok, you give your speach and the Lich-advisor reveals that the duke is a puppet and the nobles are all zombies"
Player-who-was-disguesed: "Wait, so when I stole the costume I didn't realize the dude was a zombie?
GM: "No you probably did because the costumes are supposed to hide the fact that they are zombies"
Player: "Then why didn't I tell the rest that theres a bunch of noble-zombies?"
Players: Yeah we would not have charged into this now obvious trap had we known about the zombie masque trap!


Metagamming is bad because it leads to paradoxes, crazyness, and nonsense. Much like metaphysics.

A player who makes a leap of faith off a high ledge becuase his diety tells him to is dramatic. A character who leaps from a high ledge because he figures he can get a res, or a redo, or make a cloned character just makes the game stupid.

Similarly, the above situation shows an information paradox whereby the players feel they would have had access to ingame information that came from a metagame source selected after the fact. The players woudl not have charged a room of zombies. However their only way of knowing was through use of a player ability the player wouldn't have used unless the players charged the room.


Anyway, metagame abilties are awesome if your a player. However, as a DM trying to play the game around the ability of the players to even accidentally to torpedeo the logic and internal consistancy of the story seems problematic at best and likely to turn an otherwise functioning game into magic tea party at worst.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Players: Yeah we would not have charged into this now obvious trap had we known about the zombie masque trap!

Your example is really stupid to hold up as a 'gee, this is a bad idea!' example. This kind of plot derailment happens all of the freaking time unless your players are content to be led around the nose.

In this situation, the DM should have told the switching character that after they 'traded' spots with the person you realized that one of the nobles is a zombie. They could either go along with the charade (and risk whatever consequences pretending to be in the thrall of a necromancer might bring) or drop it immediately. If the PC happens to tell their party members the jig's up, then the jig's up.

Seriously, what would you have done if one of the PCs had a 'detect undead' ability on their amulet or one of their talking swords said that they can't detect the lifeforce of one of the nobles with their deathwatch ability? Would the DM have just gone 'lol your abilities don't work?'

A player who makes a leap of faith off a high ledge becuase his diety tells him to is dramatic. A character who leaps from a high ledge because he figures he can get a res, or a redo, or make a cloned character just makes the game stupid.

So someone killing themselves because they heard the voice of a sky fairy tell them to do it is great. A character killing themselves because they know a rezzer / they believe that their family will carry on their legacy / they have some sort of contingency or wish spell to back their ass up is dumb. Glad to know.

[TheWorid]

Seriously, what would you have done if one of the PCs had a 'detect undead' ability on their amulet or one of their talking swords said that they can't detect the lifeforce of one of the nobles with their deathwatch ability? Would the DM have just gone 'lol your abilities don't work?'

The problem is that they learned that the noblemen were undead, it's that they didn't learn it beforehand, as the operation of the metagame ability would dictate. A metagame power of that sort creates a chronological problem; lifeforce detection does not.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Shouldn't the player have declared that they were removing their character from play long before the moment of truth arrived?

I mean, here's the ability:

My favorite example is Master of Diguise, which lets you remove your PC from play. At any time afterwards, you may declare that a minor NPC is actually you.

I mean, what, was the player just with the party in the party area the whole time but when the reveal came the player retroactively revealed that he wasn't with the party after all? Otherwise it ends up as a situation where they spent the last 30 seconds or so being disguised, which doesn't create a chronological problem at all.

Unless it's one of those things where you can pull a Schrodinger's Cat on the entire NPC staff where you don't have to have a specific NPC in mind at all. In which case, yes, it's a dumb ability.

[TheWorid]

Master of Disguise
The character can convincingly pass himself off as nearly anyone with a
little time and preparation. To use this ability, the player pays a fate point
and temporarily stops playing. His character is presumed to have donned
a disguise and gone “off camera”. At any subsequent point during play
the player may choose any nameless, filler character (a villain’s minion, a
bellboy in the hotel, the cop who just pulled you over) in a scene and reveal
that that character is actually the PC in disguise!

It's the latter, dumb option.

[the_taken]

Master of Disguise
The character can convincingly pass himself off as nearly anyone with a little time and preparation. To use this ability, the player pays a fate point and temporarily stops playing. His character is presumed to have donned a disguise and gone “off camera”. At any subsequent point during play the player may declare that he will reveal himself, and the GM chooses an appropriate filler character in the scene (a villain’s minion, a bellboy in the hotel, the cop who just pulled you over) and reveals that that character is actually the PC in disguise!

Problem solved. You owe me 67$.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, souran/TheWorld in that case all metagame abilities should specifically come with the clause of:

'Speak with the DM before activating them--the metagame ability should not be done in such a way that contradicts chronological or logical order. For example, if the adventure is 'rescue the captured bandit king' the player should not be allowed to make the bandit king show up at some tavern. Regardless, the DM should do their utmost to try not to just throw the ability out of the window, instead tweaking it to fit the plot. For example, instead of having the bandit king show up it could be their spouse or protege, who has similar information. If the ability can just not be made to work no matter what, the DM should just say so and return the use of the ability.'

[Psychic Robot]

I'm not a huge fan of metagame abilities. Minor things like rerolls I'm okay with, but things like that Master of Disguise ability aren't my cup of tea.

[TheWorid]

Well, souran/TheWorld in that case all metagame abilities should specifically come with the clause of:

'Speak with the DM before activating them--the metagame ability should not be done in such a way that contradicts chronological or logical order. For example, if the adventure is 'rescue the captured bandit king' the player should not be allowed to make the bandit king show up at some tavern. Regardless, the DM should do their utmost to try not to just throw the ability out of the window, instead tweaking it to fit the plot. For example, instead of having the bandit king show up it could be their spouse or protege, who has similar information. If the ability can just not be made to work no matter what, the DM should just say so and return the use of the ability.'

Even then, you can used the ability in question to gain metagame knowledge:

Player: Can I be the noble?
GM: No.
Player: Ah, then he's important. Look out for the noble, guys.

All it does it create headaches for both the GM and the players with little benefit.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why the hell wouldn't you let the PC be the noble? If it's because the noble is supposed to be some long-lost son of Zeus and the plot is to find the long-lost son of Zeus, why not instead just make some other NPC the MacGuffin? Unless the players know this ahead of time it wouldn't matter as the adventure unfolds.

[Crissa]

How about, 'you can't choose, idiot. I get to choose how close you could get.'

If there's any time for DM ruling, there's it.

-Crissa

[TheFlatline]

Why the hell wouldn't you let the PC be the noble? If it's because the noble is supposed to be some long-lost son of Zeus and the plot is to find the long-lost son of Zeus, why not instead just make some other NPC the MacGuffin? Unless the players know this ahead of time it wouldn't matter as the adventure unfolds.

The rule as written though gives the choice of NPCs to the GM, not the player, in order to maintain such control.

Besides, I'd argue that a "minor NPC" would be someone that doesn't have a name in the game. Goon #3, Cup-bearer, courtesan, etc etc.

If the players had met the noble, or had heard of him, he's not minor. That's abuse of the intent of the ability to check the NPC's relevance to the plot.

I'd be tempted to drop a cow out of orbit onto a player for doing just such a thing.

[Josh_Kablack]

I think those kinds of abilities undermine the kind of immersion required for roleplaying.

I fail to see how abilities that are common in serialized character driven fiction are in any way destructive to immersion in a game of co-operatively telling serialized character driven fiction.

Pick a set of SAME game -style obstacles. Now think about what happens when a half-dozen different characters from The Simpsons have to run through them. Homer is going to use bumbling and his ability to take massive physical punishment. Bart is going to use smartassery and skateboard tricks. Lisa is going to use levelheadedness and logic, Mr Burns is going to use his wealth and pragmatic evil, while Flanders is going to use kindliness and his generally blessed life.

Most RPGs have abilities that let PCs have Homer's high pain threshhold and Bart's skateboard tricks. Many let PCs have abilities like mr Burn's wealth. A few even have abilities that let PCs have useful Smartassery and Levelheadedness. But damn few have abilities that let PCs have abilities like Homer's bumbling or Flanders blessed life.

And the only real reason that RPG abilities tend to be segregated like that are the wargaming roots of the hobby.

[TheWorid]

Why the hell wouldn't you let the PC be the noble? If it's because the noble is supposed to be some long-lost son of Zeus and the plot is to find the long-lost son of Zeus, why not instead just make some other NPC the MacGuffin? Unless the players know this ahead of time it wouldn't matter as the adventure unfolds.

Exactly, more headaches for the GM. More fumbling around trying (possibly unsuccessfully) to silently retcon things to force the campaign into a semblance of coherency.

The rule as written though gives the choice of NPCs to the GM, not the player, in order to maintain such control.

Besides, I'd argue that a "minor NPC" would be someone that doesn't have a name in the game. Goon #3, Cup-bearer, courtesan, etc etc.

If the players had met the noble, or had heard of him, he's not minor. That's abuse of the intent of the ability to check the NPC's relevance to the plot.

I'd be tempted to drop a cow out of orbit onto a player for doing just such a thing.

You'd be tempted to kill a PC because he failed to read your mind and know who you planned to make important at a later date?

[squee_nabob]

I once made a character (in hero system) based around Mr. Magoo. Basically he had lots of indirect, invisible power effect abilites; which made them not originate from him, nor was he obvious as the user of these powers. Basically he could walk around causing flower pots to drop on people and having a force field with the special effect that he bent over at just the right moment to dodge an attack.

He was immediately banned from ever seeing play (due to being silly), but there are some meta-game powers characters can have that don't upset the game. Some others do, and it comes down to a case by case basis and a plot by plot basis if they will be a problem.

[Kaelik]

What possible purpose does the metagame ability serve that isn't served better by a rogue with a disguise skill and a sap?

If the answer is "None" then you should not have that meta ability.

Replace rogue with sap and disguise as appropriate for all other metagame abilities before implementing any of them.