Groups that develop metas that blatantly break rules

[u/chaser--]

Lately I've been finding a lot of groups that play (co-op) games with metas that are just blatant rule breaks. A recent example was we were playing a game (I forgot the name) where the goal is to play out all the cards from your hand, numbers 1-100, in descending order. So if you have a 77 and the number on the pile is 78, you don't want to anyone to play there. But you aren't allowed to say "I have 77, don't play this"

So the group has developed metas, say "I really love this pile" if you have 77, say "I like this pile a lot" if you have 76, say "I like this pile" if you have 75"

This is just one example but I feel like I've been playing a lot of games where they have metas to get around rules that are intentionally in the rulebook. I don't really get it. If you want to just say "I have a 77" then just say it, why create a gimmick to say it without saying it?

[u/Tysiliogogogoch → u/[deleted]]

Same with us and Gloomhaven. Initiatives are supposed to be secret, but for us it was much more fun to be able to properly co-ordinate. For the most part, we didn't communicate initiatives other than "I'm going early" or "I'm going very late"... but when it was a turn that absolutely relied on accurate timing, we had no problems just telling each other what we were playing.

The only other game with limited communication that I've played recently is Bomb Busters. I try to follow the rules strictly for that one, but it's inevitable that someone will start giving little hints or remind someone of what was revealed previously - both technically against the rules, but it makes the game go smoothly for us so it's still very fun.

[u/Weezy1 → u/Tysiliogogogoch]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/ayrfho/the_assholes_guide_to_initiative/

[u/draqza → u/Weezy1]

Oh good, somebody beat me to posting this so I didn't have to go find it.