Regressing Harder Is How To Escape The Meta In RPGs

Look around either tabletop or videogame forums and you'll see talk of The Metagame.

I've referred to this as Mech-Piloting, because the discussion is all in terms one would use when building a customized vehicle for racing or combat or whatever, and RPGs can be thought of as nothing more than remote-piloting a flesh-mech.

There's one thing I've neglected in that original post which drives The Meta: multi-player.

Note that I did not say "PVP". This is just as strong in cooperative play vs. AI or a GM-controlled opposition, and it plays into something Josh Strife Hayes talked about recently in a video about efficiency and gaming. The game that is not only sufficiently complex to be a machine, but also grants users the tools to optmize their interactions with it, is a game that will be solved sooner than later.

That means nothing to a stand-alone single-player experience, as anyone watching Elden Ring playthroughs (or any other Soulslike game) will see in concrete fashion.

This changes the instant that multi-player is implemented. Be it competitive or cooperative, optimization becomes mandatory because no one likes to lose. This is why MMO raiding always turns into Best Or Benched, and why PVP inevitably turns into Rocket Tag between dueling IWIN button spammers. Tabletop players can and do filter out people that don't optimize because suboptimal characters are detriments to the team--the unit--in mathematically-quantifiable measures where it actually counts- in combat, where success or failure is decided. This is especially so in tourmanent play.

The consequences? The game mechanics of that RPG will be reduced to its base elements over time in the name of game balance. Overperforming elements will be nerfed, underperformers buffed, and eventually all distinctions will be reduced to cosmetics with no substance on gameplay. The real choices will be the only ones left standing, and those can be reduced to exactly those necessary for group play funtion (for PVE) or core gameplay function (for PVP). Take a look at the dominant metas in RPGs that have either a strong PVP or a strong PVE multi-player and you'll find exactly this; this is akin to what you see in other gernes with multi-player and thus with metagames.

What are the alternatives?

• Take away player access to character creation. Go with strict random generation, and go Rogue(like). This works.
• Single-player only. This works.
• Lean harder on things usually considered intangible, but nonetheless present and adjudicable. Can work if you know what you're doing, and you can make that intangible matter in actual play.
• Scale player-characters down to human scale capabilities. This is mission-critical. Without this the intangibles don't matter; this is also why superhero gaming goes off the rails so routinely, as ordinary restraints are ineffective against superhumans.

The catch? All of these directly conflict with Corporate Bagmen turning RPGs into whale-hunting expeditions, especially in videogames, but you'll find this "Create the problem, sell the solution" scam going on increasingly in corporate tabletop also as they go out of their way to replicate Games Workshop's cult-like loyalty and with it slavish adherance to Muh Officialdum- all, believe or not, as part of turning the corporate IP into a lifestyle brand.

Brand Cultists are groomed to become whales, only instead of engaging in predatory microtransactions they're sucked in the manner of a MLM sales funnel into participating in a "community" where games are played in a controlled space (for those that still play the core game) and upsold relentlessly on product and accessories that they could get dirt cheap or free with an Internet connection (and, in the case of tangibles, an approriate printer).

This is expanded with branded "experiences", teritiary merchandise, and other consumerist crap all meant to suck the whales dry while giving no real value in return- only some false sense of solving a fake problem when the real problem is being suckered into a cult masquerading as a respectible hobby.

This, folks, is why the OSR--and the #BROSR especially--gets the reactions that it does. Less Pop Cult, more hobby.

And if you think that can't be done in videogames, you're not paying attention. It is, its ongoing, and one need only look at the indies to see that we're not doomed to Death Cult wankery and Gatch Hell forever.

But the core of the problem is that players have the ability to "design" characters. Take that away, and the core of the meta goes with it. 3d6 in order, no Mulligans, and GO!