The Meta-First Way

An alternative (and experimental) approach to roleplaying games that does what fiction-first systems cannot.

The Meta-First Way
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In the spirit of releasing drafts this year, I plan on offloading every little idea, hack, and experiment I've ever done. This is one of those experiments. If you make something from it, let me know.
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In other news... I'm doing an AMA on the NSR Cauldron Discord server Friday, January 24th at 5 EST. You can follow along and ask me questions about design, judging, and more (if you're already a member), or catch the answers on the NSR Cauldron forum.

What a thrilling title! It's the kind of title that gets slapped onto a feasibility report, or the sort of thing you hear before plugging your ears and running away. The Meta-First Approach was an experiment I was working on back in 2020. It emerged out of three emergent things:

  • I was playing with new players who were anti-metagaming but also totally lost
  • I was reading Band of Blades (2019) and grew enamored with its housekeeping
  • I was listening to Fear of a Black Dragon and playing some Trophy Gold

It might be helpful to map out the different taxonomies and models of interaction in rpgs, but I'm not going to do that. There's no amount of research in the world that will make the list anything other than incorrect and misleading. And if I'm being honest, I didn't gather a lot of intelligence before I started hacking together the meta-first approach.

Instead, I'll mention the way a lot of games work: fiction-first.

This was a concept I first encountered and internalized from posts in The Forge and then saw codified in games like Apocalypse World. In essence (and perhaps reductively), you play out the fiction in conversation and that triggers and informs the mechanics which then feed back into the fiction.

The genesis of the meta-first approach.

I used to teach roleplaying games to non-gamers in my design and advertising program (where I was a student). I then took that idea and taught roleplaying games to copywriters, art directors, and strategists in Boston. It was rewarding. I got to see folks with no background in gaming learn how to play elves, wizards, and robots with their adult brains. I could see them dusting off their childlike wonder in real time.

I taught them fiction-first because it was a great way to teach. "Don't worry about the mechanics. Imagine you're this character. What would you do in this situation?" But something else started to bloom. I started to see a taxonomy of how the players interacted with myself and others.

Players did one of three things:

  • They would ask questions. "Is there anything in the chest?"
  • They interacted with the fiction. "I try to force open the chest."
  • They created new fiction. "I want to block the door with the chest."

The other important detail about this observation was that some players had an easier time learning the game when they talked about the story in third-person. Like audience members looking down onto the characters in a diorama.

In those games, we regularly talked out of character or "metagamed" to keep the story moving. Sometimes it was things like, "It sounds like you want to know more about these goblins, but how would your character maybe uncover that?" Other times its was simpler, teaching moments like this:

Bree: Is there a correct thing to do right now?
Me: No, not really, it's about what you want to do...
Bree: I'm not sure...
Me: That's totally normal. Try asking me questions instead.

In fiction-first games, we play out the story, it triggers rules, and then we drop the curtain. In meta-first games, we started with the curtains down, triggered the rules, and then raised the curtains to see how the fiction got us there.

At some point, I decided to mechanize it.

The mechanics of the meta-first approach.

This is just one way of creating a meta-first game. Feel free to hack, remix, or start from the ground up. In this exercise, let's pretend we're making a classic fantasy wizard who'd rather be in a library than slogging through a dungeon.

The core resolution mechanic.

This is a roll-under system with stats ranging from 3 to 18. High stats are great. Low stats are terrible. Characters are made up of two different sets of stats.

  • Their diegetic stats. The fictional elements that ground them in the world. These can be traditional things like Intelligence and Wisdom or more like Fate Accelerated's approaches like careful and clever.
  • Their meta stats. The abstract way the players through their characters exert agency over the fiction and change it. More on that later.

When a player wants to control the fiction they pick and combine one stat from each category. One meta stat that defines what the player is trying to do to the story, and one diegetic stat that defines how the character manifests that intent.

The rolled value is compared against the stats. There are 3 possible outcomes:

  • Control. Rolled under both stats. The player gets what they want and the player, GM, and table narrate the fiction that follows.
  • Partial control. Rolled under one stat. The player gets most of what they want but there's a catch, complication, or unexpected outcome decided by the player, GM, and table.
  • Lost control. Rolled over both stats. The player does not get what they want. Instead, something unexpected happens or a conflict arises. This can be brainstormed by the GM with help from the player and table.

What are the meta stats?

The meta stats are scaffolding and taxonomy for "the conversation" of play. They are similar to what you read earlier.

  • Discover. When the player wants to ask questions about the world and uncover elements of the story that the character doesn't know yet.
Dave: I want to discover (16) what's behind the door, and I think my wizard Evad would probably use his wisdom (10) to find out.

The GM nods and tells him to roll 1d20. The result is a 12! That means he gets partial control. The GM asks Dave to ask his question and then how Evad finds the answer.


Dave: I want to know what's hidden here. Evad bends down close to the door, presses his palms against the wood and listens closely. He's listening for the sound of feet, voices, and anything else only his experienced ears can hear.

GM: ...It's like Evad's in the room. He can hear a soldier's boots on stone. The way he drags one foot. The crunch of granite under heel. He can feel the vibrations—this soldier is big—probably armored. There's just one problem...

Dave: Oh no. He's about to open the door isn't he?
  • Interact. When the player wants to manipulate, overcome, or destroy an element of the story that the character is in conflict with.
Dave: Evad might be a weak old wizard, but kicking doors down is a young man's game. I want to interact (8) with this door, get through it, and I want to do it with my conjuration (15).

The GM nods and Dave rolls a 7! That's total control. The GM tells him he's not just going to get through the door—he's going to get through the guard on the other side.

Dave: Wait, there was a guard!? Heck yeah, alright, Evad conjures a giant glowing fist and punches through the door like its made of paper!

GM: And in an explosion of splinters, you see a massive balding mountain of a man get knocked flat on his back.
  • Create. When the player wants to create a new element in the story like an object, plan, or situation.
Dave: There ain't no way Evad's going through that door first. I'd rather he hid behind something and surprised whatever is on the other side.

GM: It sounds like he's creating (12) cover and he's being intelligent (12) about it. Roll 1d20 if that's cool with you.

Dave agrees and rolls a terrible result. A 20. Total loss of control.

GM: Evad gets behind the massive chest in the middle of the room and aims his thoughts towards the door, but he's got a bigger problem. As he presses himself against the chest, the chest presses him back! A mimic!

The Appendix N of meta-first.

In case you're unfamiliar, the Appendix N was a list of books in the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide that inspired Gary Gygax. When playing around with meta-first design—I had my own list of inspirations.

  • Fate Accelerated. I was deep in fate back when it was FUDGE (if that reads like nonsense to you, don't worry, it more or less was). Fate famously breaks down the fiction into meta components like fate currency, but it's Accelerated that introduced approaches—which is essentially how I tread the diegetic stats.
  • Discern Realities. More specifically, I like Jeremy Strandberg's articulation of discern realities from Apocalypse World and how the list of questions forces the player to ask meaningful questions.
  • Fear of a Black Dragon. Jason Cordova has a radically transparent approach to gaming that some might describe as immersion breaking or "metagaming." Back in 2017, I found the expert delves segments incredibly reassuring. It's totally normal to ask players questions point blank—even if they're not playing a story game.

So, what happened to meta-first?

It died on the vine. I stopped running roleplaying games for new people and I wanted a drastically different experience after years of playing Powered by the Apocalypse and Fate. (There was also a pandemic.)

I had, for a brief moment, an idea about making a game about detectives who solve and contain meta-natural (as opposed to super natural) entities and concepts. At the time I was drunk on Twin Peaks (RIP David Lynch), X-Files, 11.22.63, Mage: the Awakening, and SCP stories. I really liked the idea. It meant that a meta-first system could be diegetic in its own way, and things like meta-currencies, re-rolls, and "undoing fate" were the characters manipulating reality. Not without consequence, of course. To quote the 11.22.63 show:

There are times when you feel it push back, you know? You feel it. When you're close to changing something, it's hard to describe, but you'll know. If you do something that really fucks with the past, the past fucks with you.

I eventually abandoned the project for the reason most new creators do—I was putting it off and wanted to playtest it more. Then, like the grim reaper, the game Control came out in 2019. It was better than anything I imagined, and then as expected, the rpgs inspired by Control flooded the market.

Here is what I learned from my short time playing meta-first:

  • The fiction really flowed. By talking about the fiction out of character and resolving the rules first, the fiction grew out of scaffolding. We rarely had to re-do or tweak a scene.
  • Meta-first quickly transformed into meta-loud. In other words, gradually the old rhythms of the conversation returned. A sort of regression to fiction-first. Except by virtue of the mechanics, that overt conversation about player goals always happened. It was a little like having Blades in the Dark's positioning and impact conversation except in (my opinion) a simpler more direct way.
  • The meta-stats matched player types. Players who like exploration naturally loved using the discover stat. Players who liked building and systems gravitated toward the create stat. Players who liked pushing buttons, fighting, and doing stunts were naturals for the interact stat.
  • It took a lot of education to explain how a character with stereotypical "bruiser" stats could use something like "discover." This might have been my table, but the answer was, "Some characters search a room. Your guy tosses it." I think with a larger sample size, and more time, this problem would go away.
  • Some players hated meta-first. Especially if they came from D&D 5E. It was borderline heresy to talk and play in such a meta way. This never went away.

Maybe when The Triangle Agency stops flying off the shelves, I'll come back to it. Until then, I'll keep on exploring.

Hacking the Mothership
Troubleshoot. My hack for Mothership.

The roll-under system eventually re-emerged in another form here. Paradox became doom.


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