A side-comment by one of the players in my Zenith-3 campaign the last time we played raised some interesting questions.

The player was speculating that the solution to a side-mystery that the PCs are currently investigating might have repercussions beyond those the players were presently aware of, simply to cause trouble between political authorities and the PCs, based purely on the fact that I had done that before.

His point was that my pattern of behavior – my style as a GM – was a potential indicator of what in-game circumstances I might seek to exploit and what I might do, at a plot level, with those circumstances.

This, of course, is metagaming, but it’s justifiable as a guide to in-game thinking by the character in question as a “lesson from history” – i.e. “there is a potential land-mine here, this sort of situation has blown up in our faces before.”

Thinking about this situation has yielded four insights that will be of interest, and potential value, to other GMs.

To Your Own Self Be True

The player in question clearly had a valid point, both at an in-game level and at a metagame level. To a certain extent, a GM has to be true to his style, and that can make him a little more predictable at a metagame level, which in turn is a reflection in-game on life-lessons discovered the hard way through past PC experiences.

Trying to move the game in a different direction is clearly something that would not come naturally to a GM; he would be fighting his natural style, which is part of what the players bought into when they signed up for the campaign.

At the same time, while this may be just as valid at a metagame level, it is only justifiable speculation at an in-game level if the characters have sufficient exposure to game history to produce a reasonable Life Lesson in respect to the principle being applied. If that experience is not present, such thinking represents an unjustifiable level of paranoia.

This is a key differentiator between smaller campaigns and the sort of multi-year deals that are my stock in trade; as a campaign proceeds, there is clearly a significant evolution of the relationship between metagame and in-game thinking.

Unpredictability Is The Spice Of RPG Life

At the same time, however, simply repeating exactly the same things that you’ve done before will eventually grow dull. You need to be true to the principles that you have established as your modus operandi while presenting different situations and distinctive plot twists that are unpredictable.

This points, I think, to one aspect in which a campaign has a limited life-span. When you reach the point of repeating yourself and predictability, that campaign needs to close (or it will die a slow death); the GM needs the stimulus of new characters, new settings and contexts, in order to be able to devise new plotlines.

Campaign Longevity mandates Diversity

The converse of this thought is that being sufficiently creative that you can continue to explore new thoughts and new directions within the context of the existing campaign is a sign that it has not reached the end of it’s natural lifespan. If plotting is one of your GMing strengths, the result will be a campaign that can last for decades, as mine has.

This is not solely the province of the GM’s abilities, either. In any campaign that lasts this long, characters and players will come and go, providing fresh stimulation and evolving the campaign; but this demands creativity on the part of the players, who have the responsibility for the creation of those original characters. Should the well run dry – and I’ve seen it happen – the player has to bow out of the campaign, for his enjoyment thereafter will be crippled, and will negatively impact on the entertainment to the others.

Depth of characterization and background are also critical factors; these need to be rich enough to support variety of situation and response over a long period of time. This is an area in which some game systems excel, while others do not.

The Hero Games system, by virtue of digging into the psychology and ongoing circumstances surrounding a character through the Disadvantages sub-systems, encourages this sort of depth, for example, while D&D and Pathfinder do not mandate anything of the sort. This tends to blur the line between player and character a little more, and many of the distinctive features of a character are defined in terms of class and race – and (to all intents and purposes) are shared with everyone else who also possesses those attributes.

Which is a somewhat roundabout way of suggesting that some game systems better support campaign longevity than others. Ironically, being more open in terms of leaving things up to the players, impairs campaign longevity, while being more defined and hence restricted, encourages it.

Metagaming can be a useful tool for both Players and GM

Finally, I find it enlightening that these truths were revealed through the analytic gaze of metagaming. I have to wonder what else might be revealed through this unexpected tool?

Metagaming means viewing in-game developments from the loftier perspective of player knowledge. As such, you should be able to see bigger pictures, and their relationship to the smaller details of in-play experiences, more clearly. It means viewing game mechanics from the perspective of the use that the GM is making of them – which may be quite different to the usage suggested by the rule-books. Metagaming is all about applying purpose to everything else – either the GM’s purpose or a players’ purpose. That includes, plot, characterization, game mechanics, and even paranoia!

There is a perception that metagaming is inherently something bad. I tend to think it’s something positive that can be abused. The distinction is one of motive: why are you employing a meta-perspective? If the reason is positive – for example, arranging in-game circumstances to equalize screen time amongst players – then I think there’s nothing wrong with metagaming. If it is being used by the GM to maintain dominance over his players, manipulating and coercing them, and limiting their freedom of choice within the parameters of their characters, then it is a form of abuse of position, and not acceptable.

Purpose matters. Intentions matter. Everything else is just mechanism.