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the balance of the game in the favor of the players by using knowledge their character wouldn't normally have, is a bad thing.

Unfortunately, once someone has expressed knowledge through meta-gaming, whether the player meant to or not, the damage is done because the rest of the players now have, and can act on, that knowledge as well, and will seek ways to use it, whether directly or indirectly. Indeed, it's difficult for players who also have copies of the game being played to keep their knowledge under control, but it is fundamentally essential they do so. This is not, however, restricted to knowledge gleaned from role-playing games, but also to any source information the GM has which may also be in the possession of one or more players.

It is difficult enough for a GM to come up with a story line that hasn't been constructed before, a unique concept within the game, and a unique ending, whether it has been done in novels, movies, television, video games, or even other role-playing games. Therefore, like any good novelist, a GM will draw from any source of interest that may bring their game into focus for the players, giving them a relatively common frame of reference, but remain vague enough to all but the studied, to be relatively new in the minds of the players. Studied player(s) may take advantage of any knowledge they have to get through the GMs scenario, and that is bad enough. However, when a scenario is absolutely corrupted by a player who shares knowledge about the solution to a puzzle, obstacle or opponent, including statistics and quirks of the opponents they've read about or seen, it is something that may prove to be more than frustrating to a plan carefully written by the GM.

In Dice RPGs, GamesMasters have the opportunity to use statistics within the game to punish the characters, and subsequently their players, if meta-knowledge is entered into the game. However, in diceless games the statistics become more description than numbers and it can be more difficult, unless you have a devious GM, to punish the characters, let alone the player(s) who put the meta-knowledge in the game in the first place, because there is no quantifiable means by which players can see their characters taking damage so they are made to understand how meta-gaming affects the GM and/or the other players.

In all, Diceless games can be every bit as fun as Dice and Paper RPGs, and although I have never spent much time in them myself, I would recommend them for the more cerebral groups of friends who feel the game mechanics of DnP games are cumbersome and unnecessary.

Learn more about this author, Paul Emerson.
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