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So Metagaming literally means "beyond the game", as in strategies and tactics for a game using outside knowledge above the set rules or whatever, though people seem to be throwing it around.

Phrases like "My meta is Land Raiders, so I use a lot of PKs" Or whatever. (For example)

Has Dakka come to some form of agreement on what their definition of "meta" is when talking about army lists and tactics?

What is its definition?

As a lay-person definition, "meta" refers to the general gaming environment. So while the rules describe what models are capable of doing, they do not describe how they are commonly used, which requires knowledge outside the game of what the gaming environment is like. This understanding is described as the "meta", and can differ based on the environment you play in. A "local" meta usually refers to the people you play with who live near you, while a "tournament" meta refers to the environment you would normally see in a large tournament setting.

You use the knowledge of the armies you expect to face to game the game

MadmanMSU wrote:
As a lay-person definition, "meta" refers to the general gaming environment. So while the rules describe what models are capable of doing, they do not describe how they are commonly used, which requires knowledge outside the game of what the gaming environment is like. This understanding is described as the "meta", and can differ based on the environment you play in. A "local" meta usually refers to the people you play with who live near you, while a "tournament" meta refers to the environment you would normally see in a large tournament setting.

I think this is a pretty good definition. There is a theoretical "meta" which gets discussed here as a sort of general assumption. It's a shifting target, so is hard to pin down. If you were to head down to your FLGS, what armies would you expect to see? That's your local meta. What's being played in tournaments? That's your competitive meta. If all your local shop has is green tide and other foot spam lists, a lot of the "general meta" advice you pick up is going to be useless. If the general consensus is that mech is dead, that's not going to help you if you end up facing AV14 spam lists and you swapped all your melta for plasma.

It's interesting to talk about the overall shape of the game. Rules and codexes change every time GW publishes something. But the local meta is almost never going to match the theoretical one we talk about here. We can talk about meta-game trends. The rise and fall of assault, viability of mech lists, etc.

I recently taught a friend of mine all about the meta arms race - this was concerning TCGs and WoW TCG specifically but the ideas apply to any broad hard counter/soft counter style game like 40K or Warhammer.

Meta is using what you know about the game in the game - generally this is used either as a negative in roleplaying - e.g. you draw your sword because your GM just rolled a D20 and you're guessing it was a spot check - so you're using your knowledge of the game as an advantage your character shouldn't have - this is what is commonly known as metagaming

Or it is used to competitively fine tune picks based on what you are likely to face - e.g. everyone at your local FLGS spams Land Raiders so you're packing your list full of lances or meltas because this will give you an advantage against 75% of the lists you think you will face. This is your meta, playing the meta, predicting the meta etc.

As things become more competitive you have to effectively race the meta - I have never played 40K at this level so this example may be poor but when the DE codex came out a year or 2 ago everyone was running mech/armour lists and MC lists - suddenly lots of poison and cheap lances were released onto the scene -

Someone playing the meta might be grabbing the DE list and putting together a list that shredded Nidzilla, Razor spam, BA dreads and IG tank spam - and that's exactly what a lot of tournaments will have seen as strong lists.

Someone racing the meta will have put together a list that's strong against the existing meta but is also strong against the predictable DE list

The moment the power armoured boltgun marine is the best unit in the game then the cheap AP3 S5 AP11 walker is the best unit in the game cause it murders bolter marines and is invulnerable to them, then ork lootas are as they murder walkers quicker then the walkers can make their points back etc. etc. etc. so the meta is constantly shifting as powerful combos are countered then the counters are countered ad nauseum - and that is the meta

Okay, interesting.

Til now, the only "Metagaming" I knew was the Roleplay-kind as mentioned.

Looks like there is a general consensus on its definition after all.

Cheers,
DaK

Metagaming is simply using outside knowledge of the game in-game.

Meta means something along the line of "above" or "self".

In generall usage it means something a level above normal usage. E.g. Meta-communication means talking about the way people talk with each other.


So if gaming means looking at the rules and using them to their maximum effect, meta-gaming refers to the idea of looking at how other people play the game and (ab-)using this knowledge.

Okay, I got the picture

I am glad I knew what it was for the most part, as my original post has pretty much what people are replying with, just some people are taking it a step further in the explanation. Which I appreciate.

Hopefully this thread helps others who are confused by those who use the term "My Meta", to prevent it from being thrown around loosely.

Cheers,
DaK

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
Okay, I got the picture

I am glad I knew what it was for the most part, as my original post has pretty much what people are replying with, just some people are taking it a step further in the explanation. Which I appreciate.

Hopefully this thread helps others who are confused by those who use the term "My Meta", to prevent it from being thrown around loosely.

Cheers,
DaK

'My meta' is specifically referring to how the metagame is composed in their area. For example, there are a lot of ork players in my area, who are my most frequent opponents. That means when I'm making army lists, I lean them towards dealing with the green menace, because it's a near guarantee that's what I'm going to be coming up against, which means the metagame in my region has a very different look than somebody playing where every army is some stripe of power armor.