The Desire to Win – Many players are driven by competitive instincts – metagaming provides an advantage to overcome challenges and be victorious in-game. Metagaming arises for several key psychological reasons: Economical metagaming was the least common, at around 12%. In a survey by Gamers Nexus, informational metagaming was the most common, with 78% of players admitting to using real world knowledge to gain an advantage. Physical – Exploiting out-of-game body language, glances, or other 'tells' between players at a tabletop game. Performative – Focusing on entertaining any spectators rather than playing true to character. Such as farming expensive items to sell for real money. For example, looking up monster weaknesses online for your D&D character to exploit.įictional – Manipulating fictional elements of the game through outside techniques – like rerolling a new character optimized for certain fights.Įconomical – Making decisions based on real life economics rather than in-game motivations. Informational – The most common type, using real world facts and data your character is unlikely to know themselves. Analysts break down the concept into a few major categories: According to expert gamer, it‘s 'approaching the game from outside the prescribed rules to gain an advantage.' Varieties of Metagaming While definitions vary, metagaming generally refers to any gameplay decision made using out-of-character knowledge. Tricking Medusa into looking into a mirror when your character doesn‘t know about her petrifying gaze ability. Rerolling a new World of Warcraft character specialized in fire spells after struggling with a high level fire elemental on your last character. Using knowledge about a dragon‘s weakness to ice to prepare your attacks accordingly, when your low level character has never encountered one. Metagaming happens when a player utilizes real world information their character wouldn‘t actually have access to in-game. In gaming, it refers to knowledge, strategies, and practices that transcend the game itself. The term 'metagaming' stems from the Greek word 'meta' – meaning beyond. In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll cover what exactly metagaming is, its different forms, perspectives on it, and tips for balancing metagaming in your own games.

Some see it as outright cheating, while others view it as an inevitable part of competitive play. Metagaming – using out-of-character knowledge – is a polarizing topic. Sometimes structural and preservation metadata are considered subsets of administrative metadata.As an experienced meta gamer and data analyst, I‘ve seen my fair share of metagaming controversies. This might include a history of actions on the resource or the software needed to interact with it. Preservation metadata: provides information necessary to aid in the preservation of a resource.Is it a physical book or a digital image? Does it have chapters? What are the relationships of the pieces of information and how is it organized? This kind of metadata might be used to aid navigation or denote versions, among other things. Structural metadata: provides information about how the data or resource is organized, for example, the intellectual or physical elements.This includes information about copyright restrictions, digitization details (like resolution), creation date and more. Administrative metadata: provides information related to the management, creation or maintenance of a resource.

Who wrote it or otherwise created the resource? What is the title? What is the subject matter of the data or resource? It describes what is sometimes referred to as the 'aboutness' of a resource.

Descriptive metadata: provides a description of what the resource is.

Metadata is the engine that powers the library catalog.Ĭross stitch entitled Same Old Message, Different Day by Ann KardosĪlphabet chart and border design from Improper Cross Stitch by Haley Pierson-Cox (2018)

Patrons probably rarely see metadata librarians and catalogers, but their work is what allows for users to come into a library or search the online catalog and find something they need. Metadata librarians and catalogers support research by creating, storing, enhancing, fixing and maintaining the data that describes all types of library resources. Metadata is structured information that allows someone to identify, locate and retrieve a resource. The people who work with library metadata are called metadata librarians or catalogers. It's probably more useful to learn about where metadata comes from and what it does. The Oxford Dictionary defines metadata as 'data whose purpose is to describe and give information about other data.' While one can read this definition and make sense of the words, what exactly does it mean? It's not a particularly useful definition.

Meta meaning example