Gaming the Meta: Metagame Culture and Player Motivation in RPGs
It is a Saturday afternoon and I am watching my four-year-old daughter play Hide and Seek with other neighborhood children. As is often the case in these kinds of game, the rules are remarkably vague and often revised on the spot. Beyond setting a limit for number of seconds to count, and where ‘home base’ is located, things are largely open. It is her turn to be ‘it’ so she dutifully closes her eyes and counts to twenty. After completing her count, she opens her eyes, abruptly turns, and without hesitation walks directly to a tree a good distance from home base. As she nears the tree, one of her friends sees her coming, and tries to make a break for home base. My daughter tags her on the way, signaling to the other children that this round is finished, and a new person is now ‘it’. This produces uproar from her friend, with accusations of cheating and claims that ‘she watched me hide there’. Like any parent, I wade into the fray to sort out the details, assuage bruised egos and hurt feelings, and make some attempt to restore order. In doing so, I pull my daughter aside and ask her how she knew her friend was hiding behind the tree (we had already had an earlier conversation with another boy in the group that ‘peeking’ was against the rules and not a nice way to play). She looks at me with a completely serious face and says without hesitation: ‘Daddy, she always hides there every time we play, so I just knew she’d be there.’
This declaration drives home a very simple point about how we play. The question here is where the information in question in this child’s game comes from. The implication of cheating would suggest that acting on the knowledge of another player’s tendencies is somehow acting in bad faith on the conditions of the game. It suggests that players ought only to use those skills and literacies that come during the act of play. The trouble is, the kind of information at stake in this sample exchange has no clearly defined location in the play act. It is, in part, outside the play context because it draws on knowledge generated not in the exact moment of play where it was used. My daughter did not ‘know’ in any empirical sense that her friend was behind the tree. Her ‘knowledge’ in question came from repeated observations of a strategy. In this case, her claim to certainty represented more of a strong probability coming from previous play sessions in a long-running game. In this sense, her knowledge is not outside the moment of play. It is in this schism that we experience the multiple iterations of metagaming.
In itself, metagaming is nothing new. It has been a regular feature of our play for as long as there have been games. While it can function at the kind of conscious level that my daughter described in her account of the game, the awareness of it as an element of play, both tied to the game yet outside of it, is often blurry. In this sense, it would be fair to say that how we play is as important as what and why we play. The tricky business here is establishing how metagaming functions, and to what degree it is an unavoidable part of the gaming experience, and how our practices of play have evolved out of our metagame tendencies.
The guiding purpose of this project is to explore the various motivations that we bring to bear in playing DRPGs – motivations that are, at best, difficult to account for. The following section outlines an approach to metagaming and its relationship to RPGs, from pen-and-paper games to current digital games. The emphasis is on accounting for the multiple motivations driving decision-making strategies involved in play. This is followed by an examination of the Suikoden franchise of games (in particular Suikoden II), focusing on player literacies in drawing resources from various locations to inform their strategies, decisions, and motivations.
The example of something as simple and childlike as Hide and Seek invokes questions of where our game ‘knowledge’ comes from. What does the game communicate to us, what do our fellow players communicate to us, and how do we use that information? The issue of where the information is located reinforces older arguments about games and the magic circle of play space (Huizinga 1938; Niewdorp 2005; Salen and Zimmerman 2003) and the spaces where play takes place. If we think of the magic circle as the membrane that separates the experience of a game from other contexts, then the question becomes: where do play strategies fall on the dividing line between what is ‘in-game’ and ‘out-of-game?’ Determining the boundaries of play, or of play space, and locating the particulars of a given experience is exactly the grey area of metagaming. What complicates this example is that in the case of the Hide and Seek match, the information is not automatically given as a result of experiencing the gameplay. The children do not watch each other hide while they attempt to seek them out. Rather, these actions are broken down into distinct turns or phases in which players stake the outcome of the game on their actions and then experience how those actions unfold. It is in the children’s assumptions about how the game functions that the complications arise. While each phase is clearly separate and distinct, they all exist as a kind of ‘whole play’ in the longer narrative of time spent in their social engagement with this activity.
Role-playing games complicate this work by adding additional classifications for how a person plays. From pen-and-paper games like Dungeons & Dragons to current DRPGs, players must juggle increasingly complicated rules and roles as ongoing agents in the experience of play. Originally understood as a matter of computational matrices, metagaming outlines the mathematical chances of particular outcomes given any gaming scenario. Graphed as topological trees, Melvin Dresher offered a vision of game theory as a means to find the ‘saddle points’ in games with ‘perfect information’ (1981). In this regard, gaming serves as a means to uncover ‘optimal strategies’ for any given scenario. This is contingent on what knowledge the player has, both of the possible actions in any gaming scenario, as well as the corresponding outcomes and subsequent actions of those moves. Thus, the analysis of strategy here serves as a kind of causality awareness.2
In similar fashion, Nigel Howard offered a vision of metagaming, not only as computational matrices, but as an analytical tool for understanding the decision-making strategies of participants in game-like scenarios. Howard’s framework examines not just the probability of outcomes, but seeks to extend the computational possibility of mathematical approaches to games by focusing on the analysis of options within any scenario (1971). Thus the emphasis shifts from probability analysis to causal relationships and the generation of a ‘“strategic map” that reveals how stakeholders can use their power to move from one scenario to another, and which moves are likely to occur in view of the stakeholders’ preferences’ (Bots and Hermans 2003, 648). In some respects, this works from a management rhetoric of direction and control. Stakeholder analysis relies on the generation of a map accounting for each party involved, and the various permutations of their responses to any given situation (Howard 1989; Bots and Hermans 2003; Holland, Jenkins, and Squire 2003). It also allows for a more complex discussion, accounting not only for the causes and consequences of any given game action, but also the emotional investments and outcomes – what Howard refers to as the ‘drama’ of metagaming, or ‘the way in which players “reframe” their situation so as to create for themselves a new, different game’ (1996, 125).
This shift from computational probability to stakeholder analysis moves us closer to the conventional rhetoric of metagaming as many players understand it. Metagaming is a frequent enough feature of role-playing that it receives regular attention in rules of gameplay. For example, the Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Master’s Guide, 3.5 Edition3 offers the following language for how to handle metagaming as a part of role-playing:
Any time players base their characters’ actions on logic that depends on the fact that they’re playing a game, they’re using metagame thinking. This behavior should always be discouraged, because it detracts from real role-playing and spoils the suspension of disbelief […] In short, when possible you should encourage the players to employ in-game logic […] It shows smart thinking as well as respect for the verisimilitude of the gameworld. (2003, 11)
The first issue of note in this description is the pejorative value placed on metagaming as a part of play. It is framed here as a kind of bad faith interaction when weighed against more serious modes of attention to the game’s verisimilitude. The implications here are clear for how we play role-playing games: the work of the player is to further the story through their character’s involvement, not to invest oneself around the game’s mechanics any more than necessary.
The second point of interest is the clearly implied line between in-game and out-of-game information, and the difficulty with locating play behaviors in accordance with that spectrum. Ostensibly, part of the point of the gameplay here is to become (as much as possible) the character the player embodies. This level of identification is intended to blur the lines between what the character knows and what the player knows. The classic example of a player in D&D fighting a troll for the first time highlights this distinction. In traditional D&D, trolls can only be killed with fire or acid, otherwise they will eventually regenerate. A third-level character encounters a troll for the first time and decides ‘Trolls can only be killed with fire, so I’ll use my torch as a weapon’. Unless there is something particular to that character’s skills, back-story, or specialized knowledge as indicated on their character sheet, the odds are that as a third-level character they would be unlikely to know the weaknesses of a Troll. What is more likely is that the player is drawing on knowledge of the game’s systems and rules as a means to achieve their objectives. Thus, the verisimilitude is (ostensibly) somehow lessened, and the play experience somehow cheapened. It is worth noting here that while the Dungeon Master’s Guide addresses this issue, there is no similar passage located in the Player’s Handbook. The message here is clear. Metagaming is the province of the Dungeon Master to police, and the player to avoid at all costs.
This is not a new tension for role-playing. Neither is this view of metagaming as a problem necessarily universal. Notable indie game designer and founder of The Forge community, Ron Edwards, speaks to this aspect of games in the creation of the games systems ‘GNS’ (an acronym for Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist) and its later iteration ‘The Big Model’4. Edwards offers an articulation of how these tensions may be understood and accounted for, not as antithetical to the experience of the role-playing game, but as an inevitable and essential part of engaging with complex play. Edwards offers a vision of role-playing that is defined by a general set of three ‘stances’ that players may work from: Actor, Author, and Director. The tensions of metagaming addressed so far fall into the lines that divide Actor and Author stance:
In Actor stance, a person determines a character’s decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have. In Author stance, a person determines a character’s decisions and actions based on the real person’s priorities, then retroactively ‘motivates’ the character to perform them.
(GNS and Other Matters of Role Playing Theory, Chapter 3, 2001).
Edwards’ stance distinction highlights the same tensions offered in the earlier examples of metagaming by making them an unavoidable part of the ways we play at role-playing games. These stances represent generalized approaches, or strategies for decision-making, ‘with people shifting among the stances frequently and even without deliberation or reflection’ (2001). Edwards’ distinction offers alternate affordances for the play experience, assuming that players might simply play differently out of habit, or might actively seek alternate play styles depending on the circumstances. This distinction acknowledges that these alternate play styles are extensions of multiple possible objectives in any given game – what Edwards refers to as ‘premises’. Thus, ‘gamist premises’ operate under the assumption that metagame goals are an inevitable possible outcome of how we might play, and that while they may complicate certain story-driven elements (narrativist premises), they are certainly not antithetical to one another, and they equally respect the interests and investments of players. Likewise, to be a narrativist player does not mean playing to the exclusion of gamist motivations and approaches.
We see more recent iterations of this thinking in digital game studies in Burn’s and Carr’s scholarship exploring Anarchy Online (Funcom 2001). Exploring the immersive qualities of games, they offer a similar triumvirate of approaches. These ‘motivations’ are broken down into the ‘representational’, the ‘ludic’, and the ‘communal’ (2003). These distinctions further highlight the multiple approaches a player make take to any given gaming context, outlining the various affordances games enable for player participation.
There is considerable evidence of this stance-dancing when we look at the recent rise of achievement culture and player habits. Most obvious in this regard is the development of the ‘gamerscore’ and achievement system for the Xbox 360 and its online play5. For this current generation of consoles, games are no longer unlinked ephemera, or self-contained play experiences, but are collectively linked by an overarching metagame comprised of achievements. Each game is designed with a specific number of achievements, each with a corresponding point value. Accomplishing a specific trigger event (or series of trigger events) registers an achievement as ‘unlocked’, awarding the corresponding point value to the player’s total gamerscore. These scores are linked to an individual player profile, offering a kind of progress report for how one plays, and what a player has accomplished. This system offers players alternate possibilities for engaging their games, by articulating what Dresher would call ‘win conditions’ outside of the game itself. For example, several of the achievements listed for BioWare’s science fiction blockbuster Mass Effect (BioWare 2007) are based on time played with a particular party member. In order to unlock the achievement ‘Sentinel Ally’ a player must ‘Complete the majority of the game with the Alliance sentinel squad member’ (BioWare 2007). Note the achievement description does not dictate a specific amount of time, offering only a general description. Player consensus on this matter suggests that the appropriate amount of time is roughly 75 percent of the game’s missions and story arcs (GameFAQs 2011).5
There are interesting possibilities for how we play implicated by this. Mikael Jakobsen has suggested that the rise of metagame achievements contributes to both sales numbers and player replayability (2009). Depending on my play style (or stance), I may or may not be moved by the existence of these additional win conditions. Even if I am invested in the metagame of my gamerscore, I may not be moved to invest myself in the conditions necessary to reach this particular achievement. What is striking though, is the sheer volume of player discussion6 focusing on the ‘need’ for players to complete additional game playthroughs in order to reach each of these objectives. While we might go so far as to say that there may be a kind of distancing of player investment in the verisimilitude of the experience, it would be a stretch to assume that they are not invested differently in this particular experience of play. Making this problematic assumption runs the risk of re-invoking the false either/or dichotomy of narratology versus ludology7. Indeed, players who invest themselves in these multiple modes of play have been doing so for some time. Much like the phenomenon of metagaming in general, this is nothing new to how we play.
It is in this tension that we see metagaming not only as a mode of play, but as an inevitable part of the role-playing experience. Digital role-playing games require players to code-switch between these available stances as a regular feature of their experience. This kind of shifting play operates as an extension of earlier role-playing games in multiple ways. The absence of social elements in most console RPGs forces players into a kind of reciprocal character relationship with the game’s verisimilitude8. Pen-and-paper games suggest a social space where enacting a character through gamist and narrativist stances would reinforce the group’s social contract and collective will (Edwards 2004). In a single-player digital game, the player reinforces only the directing will behind the play and the game contexts that inform that will – in other words, whatever stance the player adopts reinforces the acting drive that informs it. Hence, Edwards’ point that players shift at will highlights the nature of the RPG as a character-driven narrative that is engaged through a ludological interface of game mechanics.
Of the multiple possible ways in which metagaming can be enacted, playing in meta ways often allows players access to forms of control. Doing so requires a kind shifting of one’s subjectivity in the game, variably prioritizing one’s possible roles as player. Again, this could be read as antithetical to the traditional assumptions about player presence in RPGs, but, if so, it is less the case than in pen-and-paper games. Edwards’ concerns about the social contract of players are mitigated by the absence of other bodies. The degree to which the lines are blurred between player-as-player and player-as-narrative-subject depends heavily on the immersive elements of the game, and how the game’s mechanics allow a player access to the game’s immersive elements. Jesper Juul names this as the ‘half-real’ condition of games, highlighting the necessary levels of abstraction required to separate rules from fiction (2005, 2007). Juul’s distinction reinforces the conversations about Edwards’ ‘stances’ that players might bring to play. To engage with the fictional or dramatistic elements, players might operate under a narrativist stance, while engaging with rules might ask players to operate as gamist or simulationist.
Konami’s Suikoden franchise employs this to regular effect, most notably in the second installment of the series Suikoden II (1999). The series itself is a striking example of the narrative possibilities of metagaming for the ways that each iteration of the franchise builds on or extends both the narrative as well as the ludic elements of the series’ previous installments. One of the first console games to employ a progressive save feature, Suikoden players are invited into a world that is, in many ways, the product of their decisions and efforts in previous installments. At the very beginning of Suikoden II (Konami 1999), players are invited to import their save game from the original Suikoden (Konami 1996) title. This save game carries several important flags that alter the second game. Most importantly, the player character from the first game, Tir McDohl (assuming the player does not rename him) can be recruited into the party, assuming certain conditions are met by the player during the second game. This feature is replicated across the franchise, with the player carrying over save games and unique elements from one game to the next.
BioWare has recently popularized this concept in both their Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises, inviting a new level of engagement with games. Much like the idea of gamerscore, this links games across multiple titles, removing the experience of them as individualized ephemera. To play a Suikoden game is to immerse oneself in the narrative history of the world, and the player’s choices in the evolution of that history. Even if a player has not completed other titles in the franchise, the game’s invitation to load one’s preceding game data makes it clear that the player’s role is significant.
It is this significance of the player and their actions that make the Suikoden franchise such an interesting example. DRPGs are often known for having a wide cast of characters that the player can interact with, form parties from, and who support the ongoing game. As a franchise, Suikoden takes this to nearly unheard-of extremes. Each game in the series operates under a narrative mythology of one hundred and eight ‘Stars of Destiny’. While some of these are largely non-player characters (NPCs) who run shops in your army’s base, or further the plot, most are actually party characters with story arcs that cross multiple games in the series. Some of these characters join the player’s cause automatically as the narrative unfolds. Still, the player must actively seek the larger number out, and meet certain conditions in order to enlist them in your army. What makes this recruitment an essential component of the game is the understanding in fan/player culture that each game in the franchise has multiple endings, with one being imagined as a ‘best’ ending or outcome. In each game, one of the (often many) necessary conditions for achieving the ‘best ending’ is the successful recruitment of all one hundred and eight characters (called the Stars of Destiny).
If we think about this in Dresher and Howard’s terms, the successful recruitment of each individual character is the outcome of meeting specific ‘win conditions’ at particular ‘saddle points’ in the game’s progress. Some conditions are met through simply playing the game, while others require complex decisions from the player. Given the volume of characters, and the linked complexity of each character’s ‘win condition’, the odds are slim that any given player will be successful in recruiting every possible star of destiny on a first playthrough – that is, unless they use some form of meta-knowledge about the game in the form of a walkthrough, strategy guide, player wiki (more on this shortly), or other means to help them piece together ‘perfect information’ for the game’s ludic topology. Even on subsequent replays, the game itself does not provide all the information directly necessary for the successful recruitment of each character. While there are certainly clues in most cases, not every win condition is visible or discernable.
Throughout the franchise, each game presents its own complications with recruiting characters. This presents the player with multiple opportunities to ‘miss’ achieving the best ending in any given play attempt. Suikoden II, much like other iterations of the franchise, adds an additional component to achieving a perfect game. Simply recruiting all the characters is not enough. There are additional win triggers that must be satisfied. Once a player has recruited each required character (there are also extras that do not count), the story must proceed to a particular point. The player leads his army in an assault on an enemy fortress. During the assault, the main character is targeted in several volleys of arrows. The scripted story dictates that Nanami, the hero’s sister, jumps in front of him and attempts to deflect each volley. She fails on the third and final volley, suffering a critical injury. This is where the player is faced with a sequence of ‘saddle points’ which will dictate the ending received for the game. Successfully navigating this requires either significant foreknowledge and metagaming or a tremendous stroke of luck. The following section, taken from ‘Suikosource’, the wiki devoted to the Suikoden franchise, details the general player consensus regarding how to achieve the best ending for the game:
In order to save Nanami and see the ‘best’ ending, you must first gather the 108 Stars of Destiny before choosing to invade Rockaxe. You will know you have accomplished this task if Leknaat appears during the rally and unlocks the fourth level spell of the Bright Shield, Forgiver Sign. Then Nanami must have a total DEF value of 121 or greater (you can use equipment to boost her DEF) when she and Riou reach Gorudo during the siege of Matilda Castle. Then you must select either dialogue option when she is deflecting the arrows; there is a time limit for this dialogue selection. Afterwards, Huan should have a private word with Shu after he claims to have failed to save Nanami. Please note that Nanami will still be unavailable for the rest of the game. With that being said, in order to see Nanami alive you must get the ‘best’ ending, which consists of not entering the meeting room in your castle but instead going to Tenzan Pass to meet Jowy at the place the friends swore to wait for each other if separated. Do not defeat Jowy in the duels he forces upon Riou, and when he tries to give you his true rune, keep rejecting it. Eventually, the end sequence will start.
(Suikoden II Secrets 2011)
Clearly this is an involved process. It is also clear from this description why people who play RPGs cling desperately to the SNSO (Save Now Save Often) acronym. The prospects of having to replay each possible outcome in this topological tree open up a lengthy series of options for players to explore. Knowing how to navigate this series of options is essential to its successful completion.
While there are numerous examples of situations like this in Suikoden II that we might draw upon, this particular example highlights some important aspects of metagaming. Specifically, the scene in which Nanami defends the hero (Riou) presents a dialogue selection menu which offers the player two distinct options: when arrows strike Nanami, the two dialogue options are ‘NANAMI!’ or ‘Watch out Nanami!’ (Konami 1999). What makes this noteworthy is that, ultimately, the dialogue choice made here does not count. What matters is the speed with which an option is chosen. There is no clear consensus on the exact amount of time afforded the player, but the general idea is a few short seconds. This time limit functions as a key analysis moment for the game. It is a pivotal saddle point for determining the final outcome. Knowing how to successfully navigate this requires players to operate in particular ways. The trick is in locating which stance (or stances) this particular action belongs to.
In one sense, we could read this as a narrativist moment. Given the context of the story, the hero has just watched his sister receive a mortal wound. Given the elevated tension of the moment, we might imagine a player selecting an immediate response as a performative gesture, simulating the felt anxiety of the hero. Unfortunately, that analysis is complicated by the larger play patterns of a narrativist construction. Dialogue options, such as those presented in Suikoden II, afford moments of control – the possibility for the player to dictate outcomes according to their sense of what the narrative should be, and how they can perform their characters actions accordingly. While certainly not as open as one might expect in pen-and-paper games, there is clear character distinction discernable in the two options. Selecting the simple response ‘NANAMI!’ could be read as recognition of her potential death, the impending danger, shock at the situation, even rage at the soldiers responsible for her wound. Each of these is possible. Likewise, we might read in the response ‘Watch out Nanami!’ something that is less certain about her injury. Perhaps we are warning her, hoping to make the incident less potentially fatal. Perhaps we are simply warning her too late.
The ways in which we read (and possibly select) these responses speak to the very notion of narrativist agenda that players bring to the game. How we read each of these responses is dictated by how we imagine those responses serving as a reflection of the hero as directed by the player. It speaks to the issue of leerstellen inherent in this sort of reader response moment that Jesper Juul worried through in his original thesis A Clash Between Game and Narrative (1999, 46). Drawing on reader response theories, Juul’s early work highlights the complexity of navigation that players bring to games by focusing on how they fill in the ‘textual gaps’ of meaning as represented in Wolfgang Iser’s notion of leerstellen (1978). In other words, how a player reads the distinction in these responses is as much a matter of player motivation, or stance, as it is framing context provided by the game’s narrative. In Iser’s words, ‘as text and reader thus merge into a single situation, the division between subject and object no longer applies, and it therefore follows that meaning is no longer an object to be defined, but is an effect to be experienced’ (1978, 10–11).
Given this, reading the action through the lens of a gamist stance decision is simpler, but not necessarily easier, to parse and determine. In this case, the player must make the choice in a particular way to satisfy the specific parameters of the gameplay. Again, foreknowledge is an issue here, as the odds of a player simply stumbling into the complex sequence of win conditions are ridiculously low. Given the time limit tied to this specific moment, it is likely a player must act as player, rather than character, in order to succeed. The gamist agenda operates with a meta-directive in mind – in this case, to obtain the ‘best ending’; given that, the narrative contexts that inform the dialogue options become moot. If a player wants to achieve this particular goal, considering the implications of narrative options is a detriment. Thus both answers are equally valid, so long as the overarching goal of the time limit is adhered to.
The final crux, though, is in making the determination of player motivation. While achieving a best ending in Suikoden II virtually requires a player to work, at some level, from a gamist stance, the desire or motivation that informs the sense that that ‘best’ ending is the desirable outcome is not as easily located. A player draws equally from gamist or narrativist agendas in this regard. This opens room for the kinds of stance-dancing that Edwards sees as integral to RPGs. If a player is interested in achieving the ‘perfect ending’ for Suikoden II, then they must, at some level, shift the motivation they bring to their play. This level of play negotiation is reflective of the complex literacies that players bring to their games, of their ability to ‘read and write’ the game. If players pause to consider the narrativist weight and implications each potential dialogue option represents, they risk losing the window of opportunity for achieving a best ending. Likewise, if we pause attempting to calculate gamist outcomes, we equally risk our window. In both cases, the playing pause is natural, even expected. To successfully achieve a win condition here, players must operate with a metagame logic in mind, one that potentially collapses both gamist and narrativist ends. Thus the answer here lies not in any one stance or approach, but in parsing out the complex interactions of each.
While the complexity of a game like Suikoden II makes it perhaps an extreme example, it is by no means wholly unique in this regard. Many recent RPGs offer up similar issues of complexity, both in narrative and mechanics. Both of BioWare’s current bestselling franchises Mass Effect and Dragon Age present increasingly complex character negotiations, considering they require players to track narrative arcs and party character development across multiple titles. Uncovering the multiple permutations of both gamist and narrativist possibilities requires both planning and foreknowledge on the part of the player. These are just current examples of something that is increasingly commonplace in game culture. What these examples clearly show is the increasingly complex set of negotiations players undertake as a result of play. To engage the game means to challenge oneself to read and write the gameplay experience in complex ways: through metagame strategies, various motivational affordances, and social negotiations.
Given the frequency with which RPGs require these kinds of complex interaction, it was inevitable that players would respond by creating archival repositories of game information. Ranging from the well-established networks like IGN and GameFAQs to the rise of fan-developed wiki spaces, players continuously contribute to the collective knowledge base that underpins their collective ability to metagame. For example, when Suikoden II was initially released, fans had yet to construct much of the online wiki material. Instead, game portals like GameFAQs housed much of the available information. The oldest fan-created file for Suikoden II hosted on the game giant’s site dates to 1999 (shortly after the game’s US release) and covers some initial basics of the game. This has grown over nearly a decade (the most recent files are dated 2007) offering a range of fan-generated content, from complete walkthroughs to the most recent ‘Perfect Game Guide’. From the culture generated around sites like GameFAQs to more focused sites like Suikosource, the trend towards metagaming is tied directly to the rise of shared digital spaces used to collect and collaborate on these resources.
James Gee is particularly interested in the potential of such shared spaces, highlighting their ability to promote learning and literacy. Building on an analysis of Age of Mythology, Gee offers a taxonomy of these spaces that highlights their non-hierarchical structure and ability to both rely on and resource its respective membership (2007, 102). The general characteristics of affinity spaces work in concert with the metagame tendency of players by privileging the ‘common endeavor’ of the game itself, encouraging ‘intensive and extensive knowledge’ as well as ‘individual and distributed knowledge’ (2007, 102). Players come together, sharing not only the particulars of their specific play experience (strategy, motivation, and outcome), but also a kind of accountable history of the information they gather. The collected knowledge is socially vetted, confirmed and parsed, and then disseminated. In effect, this allows players to generate the kind of topographical mapping of game and its possible outcomes, accounting for each conceivable saddle point.
Gee’s analysis of affinity spaces is rooted in his earlier work exploring ‘semiotic domains’ or ‘any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities (e.g. oral or written language, images, equations, symbols, sounds, gestures, graphs, artifacts, etc.) to communicate different types of meanings’ (2003, 17). The very spaces that support the possibility of metagaming are constructed out of the need/desire of players to exert some level of control over the games they play. Looking at the examples covered in this chapter, it is easy to see that as games become increasingly complex, the multiple possibilities they afford us may outstrip our available time to engage them. As is, RPGs like Suikoden II can require upward of fifty to sixty hours of game time. Given the number of possible permutations and combinations of gameplay outcomes resulting from an extensive number of saddle points, coupled with the possibility of lost time due to missing any one saddle point, it is unsurprising that players tend towards strategies that make their play more efficient. A player could invest hundreds of hours in any one game without seeing or achieving every possible outcome.
As a result, relying on these affinity spaces has become an unmistakable part of game culture. It is a vehicle for players not only to showcase their literacy through expertise, but also to perform their various and multiple motivations for playing in the first place. Thus, stance-dancing and the shift of player disposition become reinforced as just another way we play. This opens up new levels of complexity for how players define, invest in, and experience games. As RPGs in particular develop increasingly complex narratives and mechanics, we can expect this phenomenon of metagaming to increase, becoming its own locus of study, practice, and investment. As it is, we already game the meta. The next step is to explore what these literacies afford us, and how we develop them further as our games grow increasingly complex.
Notes
1 For Mom and Dad: thanks for introducing me to a lifetime of games.
2 While outside the scope of this chapter, there is considerable work to be done uncovering and documenting this trend in MMORPGs, and the rise of modding and add-ons – in particular, the frequency with which players are designing and distributing third-party software as an addition to a game’s interface. The website Curse Gaming, while also clearly an affinity space, serves as a singular example of this trend.
3 While the 3.5 Edition of Dungeons & Dragons is not the most current edition, it still retains the largest level of saturation in the player-base, largely due to the rise of the d20 model and the Open Gaming License (OGL). Market share analysis has variously pinpointed the D&D saturation at anywhere between 45 to 66 percent as recently as 2009, although the 1999 Wizards of the Coast marketing survey and Ken Hite’s 2002 market share analysis are often cited as useful benchmarks.
4 Both GNS and The Big Model cover mutual elements. Edwards’ original goal was to develop a universal and holistic system for RPGs that would encourage collaboration through social contracts, while also not limiting the desire and agency of players, game masters, and designers equally. The impact of his utopian vision for role-playing can be seen in more contemporary pen-and-paper games such as Wushu or Nobilis.
5 While the PlayStation Network (PSN) has a system of trophies that is similar to Xbox Live, the latter has specific features that distinguish it as a more directed metagame. Specifically, Xbox Live uses gamerscore to rank players in relation to one another through the attribution of point value to each achievement. PSN’s Trophy Card model is both more complex in its ranking and less prominently visible on the interface.
6 The various Mass Effect forums are not a unique anomaly in this regard. One could look to the multiple Suikoden games, Dragon Age, Growlanser, and others. The idea of ‘playing to perfection’, something long held in gamer discourse, is intimately tied to this idea of metagaming; a notion of ‘knowing the whole story’.
7 While I’m not interested in revisiting the battle lines of narratology vs. ludology, it is interesting to note that the argument itself has a historical trajectory that extends well beyond digital games. Gonzalo Frasca’s work ‘Ludologists Love Stories Too: Notes From a Debate that Never Took Place’ hints at this as well.
8 This is a potentially contentious claim, as console RPGs are pushing the boundaries of the social. Even setting aside specific console games that are also MMOs, recent titles such as Atlus Software’s Demon’s Souls (2009) present players with social contracts to navigate that are more complex than the traditional single-player RPG. For the purposes of this project, I am focusing specifically on the single-player RPG.
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