Dirty Words in Gaming - Overview

Not your normal dirty words, no. These are words that are spoken with vileness and disdain. Words that offend the people on the receiving end. Words like power-gamer, munchkin, twink, metagame, and min-max. These terms typically refer to things that go on around, about, or outside of the general game and therfore they all fall under the umbrella of metagame.

The strict definition for meta (from Wikipedia): ...the prefix meta is used to mean about (its own category). For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced them, when, what format the data are in and so on).

So metagame means the game about the game. This can cover areas like building characters and player vs character knowledge. People in general have a very disparaging view about metagaming.

I used to play both Magic: The Gathering and Legend of the Five Rings quasi-professionally. I did fairly well at tournaments and was very good at building decks. This involved the metagame. You had to be aware of what other people were playing, counters to their strategies, counters to their counters, and so on.

My involvement in that particular environment has shaped my views on metagame. Whether you consider metagaming good or bad, it is necessary. It can speed gameplay up through tedious times, it can save explanation, it can even help players build characters.

So philosophically, metagaming isn't bad; like everything else intent matters. When done to increase everyone's fun it's good. If you try to do it to "win" it's bad.