I think there will be a certain amount of metagaming to a degree. Often it's quite mild and unnoticeable, for example, encouraging people together to an event, I think the important thing is to for the roleplay to be fluid and not to exploit metagaming and suddenly become OP or for it to break character or ruin the flow of roleplay. For example, I've been meaning to make friends with some other FCs, but such plans have not gone ahead due to IC reasons, like one FC I was planning an alliance with due to similar interests, now my character would rather see the FC leader dead or at the very least, castrated. Sometimes plans OOC don't pan out because our characters are dicks, but makes RP that much more interesting.
Arguably, metagaming is unavoidable, even if it's only small scale. Anything you plan OOCly is in effect metagaming, but I think the important thing is not avoiding it, but to adapt to it. I'm running my Masquerade this weekend, which wasn't born out of an RP, but because I thought it would be a cool idea, however, the event has had to adapt to our RP, our players and the events going on ICly. We've had a lot of discussions ICly over it and recent events ICly could have led to the cancellation of the event, but OOCly and ICly we still wanted to do it (but crewmates had their doubts), so we adapted ICly and in turn, I reckon the RP planned will be better than originally planned. In order to make it run smoothly, I have had to plan the events to come and time them, so that it basically doesn't go tits up, but I've avoided any kind of scripting or deciding what people do, other than of course my orders as captain, so how things pan out will depend on characters ICly to keep fluidity.
Also, coincidences genuinely happen, I've found them in game and made use of them. For example, when somebody stole our treasure, we genuinely bumped into a treasure hunter in a bar (Amaare) and we hired him and it played out nicely. Said money went on a ship. A more recent coincidence, Saefinn knew nothing about the tavern knight events with Echo Knights, but ICly he was around Wanderers Palace, it was unintentional and he ended up at the bar, with the event going down. Okay, I suppose I did time it, but I just made use of the convenience so it was a little more fluid.
When it comes to recruiting ICly, we do find we have to set up a meeting - usually I don't know what's going to happen, I just think of something that's happening ICly, and place my character there and the recruit may think what's relevent. Like last night, for instance, we had a new member, ICly we were trying to get back a missing crew member, which ended up putting me in Ul'dah to speak to somebody who could help. So I set the meeting up in a bar (where Saefinn usually meets this person), my new recruit was in there and I had motivation to recruit her - other stuff was happening ICly, which required their Captain's assistence, so things kind of integrated. In essence, I find it best to make use of surroundings.
Arguably, metagaming is unavoidable, even if it's only small scale. Anything you plan OOCly is in effect metagaming, but I think the important thing is not avoiding it, but to adapt to it. I'm running my Masquerade this weekend, which wasn't born out of an RP, but because I thought it would be a cool idea, however, the event has had to adapt to our RP, our players and the events going on ICly. We've had a lot of discussions ICly over it and recent events ICly could have led to the cancellation of the event, but OOCly and ICly we still wanted to do it (but crewmates had their doubts), so we adapted ICly and in turn, I reckon the RP planned will be better than originally planned. In order to make it run smoothly, I have had to plan the events to come and time them, so that it basically doesn't go tits up, but I've avoided any kind of scripting or deciding what people do, other than of course my orders as captain, so how things pan out will depend on characters ICly to keep fluidity.
Also, coincidences genuinely happen, I've found them in game and made use of them. For example, when somebody stole our treasure, we genuinely bumped into a treasure hunter in a bar (Amaare) and we hired him and it played out nicely. Said money went on a ship. A more recent coincidence, Saefinn knew nothing about the tavern knight events with Echo Knights, but ICly he was around Wanderers Palace, it was unintentional and he ended up at the bar, with the event going down. Okay, I suppose I did time it, but I just made use of the convenience so it was a little more fluid.
When it comes to recruiting ICly, we do find we have to set up a meeting - usually I don't know what's going to happen, I just think of something that's happening ICly, and place my character there and the recruit may think what's relevent. Like last night, for instance, we had a new member, ICly we were trying to get back a missing crew member, which ended up putting me in Ul'dah to speak to somebody who could help. So I set the meeting up in a bar (where Saefinn usually meets this person), my new recruit was in there and I had motivation to recruit her - other stuff was happening ICly, which required their Captain's assistence, so things kind of integrated. In essence, I find it best to make use of surroundings.
The Scholar Captain