We’ve all had it beaten into our heads at this point: “Don’t metagame! Metagaming is bad!” There’s a couple problems with this, however. First, everyone has different opinions of what constitutes metagaming. The definition everyone eventually agrees upon is incredibly broad: Using out-of-game information within the game. But that brings us to the second problem: there is actually a good form of metagaming that gets ignored…

Metagaming is one of those topics that, like alignment, can start a civil war among almost any gaming group. It’s divisive, and nearly every gamer feels very passionate about it. This is because metagaming has the potential to absolutely derail the game. If the point of tabletop roleplaying is to escape into an awesome fantasy, why the hell would you risk breaking that fourth wall and letting reality seep back in?

I’m sure we’ve all encountered this, and we all remember how it ruined a session, or even an entire game. There’s the player that reads through the adventure manual and knows the solutions to the puzzles. There’s the player that says, “Wait, I failed a spot check, everyone else try a spot check, too!” There’s the player that pipes up to say “Ooh, these monsters are vulnerable to fire,” despite their character having never met the creatures before. And perhaps the most heinous metagaming crime of all is when one player tells another player how their character should act: “Well, since you’re a cleric, you should do this.“

I’ve seen tables literally flipped in rage over this!

But there’s hope, in good metagaming. Good metagaming is when out-of-game information is used within the game to improve the experience for everyone. This is probably most apparent and most critical during the very first session of a game.

I encourage players to collaborate on their party as a whole. When a bunch of random characters come together, it can only be a crap-shoot on how they will function as a party. Why not work together, discussing the characters, and deciding on reasons to help them mesh not only with each other, but with the setting and the adventure, as well? Sure, that’s using out-of-game information within the game… But I argue that having everyone on the same page from the get-go is a tremendous boost to the game’s fun!

Also at any point during the game, metagaming can and should be used to clear up confusion. Consider the following (actual) scenario, in which I was scolded for metagaming:

Player A: Brian’s character is a liar. My character no longer trusts a thing his character says, and starts to hate his character.

Me: Why does your character think mine is lying?

Player A: I do not have to explain my character to you.

Me: Just so you know, my character is not actually lying. Here is proof, which your character seems to have forgotten or ignored. I find this odd, because your character is generally incredibly intelligent.

Player A: That’s metagaming! Foul!

What happened was Player A willfully ignored some information so that her character would believe mine was lying about something. She thought that having to explain her character to me, and me attempting to understand her character, were metagaming. Because although I as a player knew that her character was highly intelligent, my character might not necessarily know that. The character conflict was fine; but the confusion led to player conflict. That’s a huge no-no!

Instead, she should have understood that this was an opportunity for good metagaming. She should have explained what was going on. The truth behind the incident, as I later found out, was that she had interpreted the same exact information in a different way for her character. If she had simply revealed that tidbit, it would have prevented the argument at the very least, and at the very most given us a moment to collaborate on how to use this character conflict to improve the game for everyone else at the table.

I could go on and on with examples. But there is a common thread here, very fine line between good metagaming and bad metagaming — and that is who the out-of-game information is intended to benefit.

The best gaming experiences happen when everyone at the table is committed to working together to have as much fun as possible. Metagaming gets a bad rap because people often forget that it can be as much a tool for collaboration as it is a wrecking ball for gamers. Don’t be afraid to use your metagaming powers responsibly — and don’t be so quick to cry foul when someone else metagames. As long as people are having fun, that’s all that matters, in the end.