Talk:Gor RP Etiquette (Rules)

Let's talk about metagaming. This term get's thrown around a lot on role-play servers and every community has a slightly different perspective on it. I am going to walk you through want is and isn't the standard for this community and more specifically what the staff will and won't enforce.

First, Wikipedia defines metagaming as

In tabletop role-playing games, metagaming can refer to aspects of play that occur outside of a given game's fictional universe. In particular, metagaming often refers to having an in-game character act on knowledge that the player has access to, but the character should not.

To be specific - metagaming is not PROVIDING the information out of character, but rather USING the information received out of character as part of your in character actions/knowledge.

Example: If someone says on voice or in discord that their character's like apples THEY are not metagaming. If you take that information into game and your CHARACTER says "Mary likes applies", then YOU are metagaming.

Second, there are two extremes on how meta gaming is handled in most RP communities.

Staff implement rules and punishments to stop it from happening.

Staff educate players on how to manage metagaming themselves and handle only the outlier issues.

This community is comprised primarily Gen Xers who have been playing Gor on Second Life. Was a generation and a community we tend towards encouraging self reliance and a certain "don't sweat the small stuff" mentality. As you may guess from this - we are going to focus on how you can manage metagaming themselves so that we only need to focus on the egregious issues (outlined here).

Talking about Role-play Out of Character

We are absolutely not going to restrict players from talking about THEIR role-play. If someone wants to talk about their role-play that's on them. However, it's also on them if someone uses that information in game.

If you do not want people to metagame knowledge you've given them, then don't give it to them. Don't tell anyone your characters secret name. Don't tell them where you are. Don't tell them what you are doing. Keep the information to yourself. If you accuse someone of metagaming and we learn you were blabbing about it all over voice and discord we are going to link you to this page and tell you to use some sense.

I trust you guys to handle this. I just wanna make one comment about meta gaming before an official post is put up.

I feel that most metagaming can be avoided, simply by players, keeping their mouth shut out of character.

i'd like to make sure we are clear with players that if they are discussing what they're doing or even where they're doing it -- in global or voice we are not going to moderate that.

Also, the looking for role-play tags Have to be considered a valid way of finding players. They are essentially an out of character invitation to come find you. We can't turn around and call it metagaming when someone doesn't like the way the role-play went down.

this is on the players to not use them or turn off the location finder for situations they don't want to be interrupted .