http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mudreading/~3/183422352/metathinking

Meta-game thinking, which I’ll abbreviate here as metathinking, is the term for when players in an RPG use their knowledge about the game as a game in order for their characters to make decisions that real people would not make. For example, if player knows that they have 51 HP and that jumping off the 50 foot cliff can only do up to 50 damage to them, and they jump off the cliff knowing they will certainly survive, they just made a decision that a real person would probably not make. Real people can’t make decisions about jumping off 50 foot cliffs that way.

In RPI MUDs players try to avoid the practice. In a way, it’s the exact opposite of roleplaying.

The problem is that its hard not to metathink. A player is acutely aware that they’re playing a game, and short of some Matrixesque scenario, they always will be. Acting as though you do not know something is just not a natural behavior. Outside of roleplaying, its usual applications are common in courthouses.

How do you avoid it? Lots of practice and lots of honesty with yourself. Writing is good practice, as it involves putting yourself in someone else’s shoes where that someone else’s actions don’t result in a punishment or reward to you: If you write a book in which a character dies, you don’t have to start over with a new book at level 1.

In a hack-and-slash MUD the opposite may be ideal. To some degree a hack-and-slash MUD is a numbers game. You have to weigh the risk of losing 27 HP against gaining 57 gold fighting a level 3 goblin. Metathinking is the way of life here. Some RPGs have taken to doing some of the math for you. For example, World of Warcraft shows you your DPS, which is a useful number derived from some other information. Players were already able to calculate it, so might as well make things easier.

For a game administrator interesting questions arise. An administrator can choose how much information that could be used for metathinking they want to provide. RPI MUDs typically try to minimize it, leading to hidden skill levels and fuzzy mechanics. In general, this helps roleplayers with their difficult task of avoiding metathinking.

Sometimes outside influences, such as other players, create a need for metathinking. If another player tells me that Fido isn’t really a normal rabbit, he’s a dog disguised as a rabbit, then I’m forced to pretend I didn’t know that in order to realistically play my character. I may not enjoy this, and I may mistakenly act on my knowledge. This is one reason some RPI MUDs require such a strict separation of IC and OOC information. Another reason, of course, is that it can be disappointing to have secrets spoiled, for you and for others involved in the plot.

It’s not always so clear which is preferable. Say a player sees a thief, but decides that their character could not have seen the thief and thus they decide to play from there on out as if they never knew there was a thief. I’m going to refer to this as “mushy” roleplaying, referring to MUSHs where this type of roleplaying is more prominent. This does make things harder for the player: they have to maintain two sets of knowledge, one for them and one for their character. It requires metathinking in order to determine what your character does. A less “mushy” way of roleplaying would be saying that if the code told you there was a thief, your character must know it. If the code is written in a way that this is reasonable, this turns out to work just as well, and no metathinking was involved. On the other hand, it may be less realistic in the end.

Here is another, tougher situation. Say I’m cornered between green ogres wearing raccoon-skin armor and a cliff. I know, as a player, that jumping off the cliff will certainly kill me. But my character doesn’t know that. Do I need to seriously consider jumping off the cliff? This is a very difficult question. It might seem reasonable to assume that my character’s lack of knowledge about the deadliness of the cliff is a shortcoming of the game, and that I can instill a little intuition into the character so they don’t leap to their demise. Even the strictest anti-metathinking activist will pause here.

In the end it’s a sliding-scale. Players will have different preferences, and MUDs will generally nudge players toward some point in the spectrum. It seems, however, that you can’t be 100% one way or the other. In any case, good awareness of what metathinking is and the situations it influences does help keep the game enjoyable for everybody.