Quote from: Old Geezer;743840"Metaplot" to me means "Luke Skywalker will fight Darth Vader, who will then kill the Emperor.  NOTHING the players do will, or can, alter that."

That bad metaplot and defeats the purpose of why anybody would play a tabletop RPG. Goto the movie for that stuff.

what people are calling meta plot in this thread is not a "bad thing" in my book. As long you treat as a plan of battle.

Why a plan of batte? Well, as Old Geezer would known, general who slavishly followed the original battle plan often wound up losing. Why they keep making battle plans if following them just causes your forces to lose?

Because a good plan provides a structure and a focus to what the general wants to accomplish. And a good general will be willing to alter it in the face of changing circumstances and even throw it way if called for.

But without it the army would be a disorganized rabble not knowing where to go or where anything is.

So it is a balance. On one hand slavishly following it will cause you to lose, but on the other with out you won't be able to get anything done.

The same with tabletop roleplaying. There is nothing wrong in having a metaplot or a timeline as long as you willing to alter it, FAIRLY, in light of the players actions as their characters.

PCs could fight Darth Vader and kill him before Luke does anything to him in my SW campaign.

As estar just pointed out, anything that's posited for the future is an hypothetical in a role playing game, IF the PCs don't mess with the events leading to it in any way, shape or form.

So, as written, was the OWOD metaplot something that could be significantly altered by PCs?
Whattabout Tribe 8?

What other RPGs had big metaplots going on over various books?

I wonder if the old ones in CoC count... because it's kind of assumed that someday the stars WILL be right and they WILL return... and that's a bad thing and there's not much that can be done about it.

A little bit of metaplot is fun.  The problem is that, down the line, the metaplot diverges from your campaign, invalidating some part of future published material.  Sure, you can ignore the Star Wars trilogy as laid out in metaplot in the Star Wars sourcebooks, but don't look for an Alderaan sourcebook in the future

Quote from: jan paparazzi;743818I was thinking about that sandbox/world in motion topic I had lately. It was about plot point campaigns and eventually moved into the sandbox or not territory. On thing that makes sanbox really good is the "world in motion". It increases immersion.

Now I am still playing the new world of darkness games and I have to admit I get more "world in motion" out of the old world of darkness, because of metaplot. Despite the metaplot probably gets lumbed into the same category as railroading. I liked the fact I knew which sects controlled which parts of the world and which clans came from which country and had their powerbase there. It felt like stuff was moving without the players being involved. The new world feels more like a city exists in a vacuum.

Anyone has any ideas about this?

People online tend toward extremes.  This includes the pro-sandbox/anti-metaplotty railroad faction.  Some metaplot and railroading is fine with the overwhelming majority of gamers.  Most people are pretty flexible.

I think that, as a general rule, having the world have shit going on in it outside of what the players can do is pretty cool.

That said, the game is about the fucking PCs, whether that's four of them in a permanent party, or fifty of them in an open table game.  If the shit going on outside of the PCs' influence is more important (read: has more impact at the table) than the shit the PCs do, something is wrong.

Things that the PCs can only indirectly influence at best should have only indirect impact on the PCs.  (Generalization, there are clearly exceptions).  If you're playing Star Wars, and the movie events are going on, then the game shouldn't be about taking down the Imperials because the players can't do that.  A smuggling game set in some backwater where the rebellion is causing additional issues and opportunities for smugglers?  Awesome!

Quote from: soltakss;743971Unless they turn Luke to the Dark Side, or kill him, or stop him from joining the rebellion.

The way I see it, the GM can say "Here is the metaplot, this is what is going to happen no matter what" and the steamroller happily flattens anything in its path. Or, the GM can say "Here is the metaplot, it is flexible and can be altered by player activity" and it becomes one of the many strands in the game.

I prefer the second approach.

That is the thing though.

For some metaplot is the stuff the PCs arent interacting with and might never interact with.

For others the metaplot is something that the PCs can potentially interact with and even de-rail totally.

Astrodomini Cluster is a good example of that. There are quite a few metaplots all running in tandem that the PCs might never even know of. Or if they knew of. They might not care to intervene.

Quote from: Omega;744040For others the metaplot is something that the PCs can potentially interact with and even de-rail totally.

Astrodomini Cluster is a good example of that. There are quite a few metaplots all running in tandem that the PCs might never even know of. Or if they knew of. They might not care to intervene.

In my view setting detail, metalplot, etc boil down to two broad areas that impact a campaign. The first is defines locales. For example a metaplot where the evil overlord is planning to invade the kingdom in a surprise attack from the wilderness could mean there is a fort that was built to stage the attack from.

However the most important effect that is the ultimate reason why the various NPCs act the way they do. I define religions, cultures, and detail histories not because my players will "discover" them but because they allow me to get a grip on roleplaying the cast of thousands that the players interact with.

While people have free will, the stage on which their choices are exercised is defined by the various cultures that make up civilization. And why the various cultures came about is because of their past, the combined weight of the choices of all those who preceded the present.

Since we are talking about a leisure activity we don't have to be academically rigorous. Thus free to apply stereotypes and tropes. But history and other setting detail help step the campaign up to the level for those who enjoy a richer palette when interacting with NPCs.

I've run a few games where background actions in the setting set the tone and influence the options available to the players. A few of my Conan games were set up around these kinds of concepts: in one, the players were fleeing from a plague epidemic (which gave them both a goal and a reason to not stick around too long anywhere) and in another one, they started off fleeing from a lost battle.

In my Star Wars game, the players were the leaders of a separatist faction of the Empire, who played second fiddle to the Rebellion in many ways and wouldn't affect the outcome of the war significantly but played an important role in many of the events that we saw in the movies, since they were tenuously allied with the Rebels. So they fought post-Hoth to help the Rebels escape and brought a fleet of their own to help out at Endor.

From the player POV in these campaigns, the important part isn't what's going on in the big picture, but how they affect what's going on in their game. The Endor thing, for instance led into the Imperial fleet's picket line surrendering to the players instead of the Rebels, which soured relations between the players' faction and the Rebellion, so the game takes a new course from then onwards.

Quote from: estar;743987Because a good plan provides a structure and a focus to what the general wants to accomplish. And a good general will be willing to alter it in the face of changing circumstances and even throw it way if called for.

But without it the army would be a disorganized rabble not knowing where to go or where anything is.

So it is a balance. On one hand slavishly following it will cause you to lose, but on the other with out you won't be able to get anything done.

The same with tabletop roleplaying. There is nothing wrong in having a metaplot or a timeline as long as you willing to alter it, FAIRLY, in light of the players actions as their characters.

I am tagging onto this one.  We  both play giant, old sandboxes, so it is not surprising we have the same ideas and the same bemused, "Why is this even a question?" attitude.

There are a lot of skills you can break down into building a good GM. Really, lots. from memory to improvisational acting to descriptive vocabulary to social leadership skills...I can go on...really.

but many of these skills add onto each other for creating some small amount of verisimilitude, some level of being able to see and feel your character in that setting.  And a lot of this comes from having that World in Motion idea...
which depends on having this mutable, consistent timeline of DYNAMIC events that create and build a chain of later events, that happen around the PCs.

We often talk about the ability to breath life into an NPC or an interaction, but the Metaplots and smaller dynamic events that trickle down from them are, together with the notes and facts and personalities, create the personality of the setting.  And at the end of the day, the PCs play the protagonists, we play the way the rest of the world reacts to the actions of the protagonists.  And a good GM uses Dynamic Metaplot to give the setting a life and a feel all its own, unique and different from a generic 'orcs and evil wizards' game.

It seems like people are using different definitions of "metaplot".  Having a game where the world is full of NPCs that have motivations, history, and goals is not metaplot.  That is "situation" or maybe "plot".  Metaplot is when the world changes over the course of supplements.  The supplements tell a story, and as such, future supplements may have a significantly different take on places, NPCs, and objects.  High King Pantysniffer may be described in several supplements, and then a book comes out that reveals him as being a zombie and thereafter all supplements consider him a zombie.  This is annoying because if you were waiting for the Realm Book that was about his realm, well now it is different than it was when the game launched.

I hate metaplot.

metaplot = story told through game supplements.

Quote from: Obeeron;744093It seems like people are using different definitions of "metaplot".  Having a game where the world is full of NPCs that have motivations, history, and goals is not metaplot.  That is "situation" or maybe "plot".  Metaplot is when the world changes over the course of supplements.  The supplements tell a story, and as such, future supplements may have a significantly different take on places, NPCs, and objects.  High King Pantysniffer may be described in several supplements, and then a book comes out that reveals him as being a zombie and thereafter all supplements consider him a zombie.  This is annoying because if you were waiting for the Realm Book that was about his realm, well now it is different than it was when the game launched.

I hate metaplot.

metaplot = story told through game supplements.

I think of metaplot as setting development through supplements as well. While I dont mind the idea of a suggested future historical timeline, where it should be obvious actions taken by the PCs can alter its course, i find metaplot too heavy handed and overkill. All you really need is a small timeline int he back of the setting book, possibly with some explanatory text, saying what future events are likely to occur. But frankly, this is stuff the GM himself can usualy handle bettern on his own anyways. I do like the idea that the campaign keeps develing and for those developments to have some thought put into them. I have never really encountered metaplot that achieves that very well though. A lot of times, developers just use metaplot to "fix" the setting or tell a story.

Quote from: Obeeron;744093It seems like people are using different definitions of "metaplot".  Having a game where the world is full of NPCs that have motivations, history, and goals is not metaplot.

I disagree for the simple fact that people (and characters) don't act the way they do without context. People have a free will, but it exercised within the context of their circumstances.

Even if you studiously avoid writing a story as your metaplot and focus on just the NPCs there will be a metaplot none the less. At the very least it will arise out of how the NPCs react to the PCs actions

A perfectly good campaigns can be managed like this. However since we are talking about a game with human referee it is easy to get muddled when trying to manage the interaction of dozen or so distinct character. A plan or metaplot that is a high level view of what going on will mitigate this problem.

It similar to how historians sift through dozens of personal accounts, letters,  and reports to develop an overview that people recognize as a history. People don't deliberately try to create history. Instead history arise from the actions of many individuals with varying levels of impact.

The metaplot is a possible future history that acts a guide for a human referee in deciding how his NPCs will act. Moreso it reduces work because it provides the referee with guidance on how to handle unexpected interactions created by the PCs.

Quote from: Obeeron;744093Metaplot is when the world changes over the course of supplements.  The supplements tell a story, and as such, future supplements may have a significantly different take on places, NPCs, and objects.

The problem with many publishers handling of metaplot and supplements is that it either too much or too little. If you imagine a setting as a real place, time will progress. If a publisher wants to incorporate that in his product line then he has to decide how to present it.

Having each products incrementally build up the timeline is the wrong way to go about this in my opinion. The alternative, if you want to introduce the progression of time, is to support discrete eras. Once you decide to focus on an era freeze the timeline at the beginning of the era and base all your products around that. Then for the next year (or cycle) jump ahead (or back) and repeat.

For example release Greyhawk for CY 576. Publish a few things. Then jump ahead two decades to the Greyhawk Wars (I think CY 591) Release all your product set in CY 591. Then jump ahead to the post war CY 610 or jump back to CY0. Or whatever.

I attempted a little of this with my first Points of Light where each setting was set in a different time period of the setting. A combination of being jammed for space and a desire for a better presentation of a setting lead me to setup it this way. Rather than writing a history and expecting people to read it. I SHOWED the history by the setting each land in a different time period.

Quote from: Marleycat;743871No, metaplot is made by the writers while it's the GM that sets the world in motion respective and irrespective of player actions and agency.

Yes, but you could use the metaplot running in the background as a world in motion.

Quote from: Marleycat;743870I see, but nothing is stopping you setting up that very same distribution in the NWoD you just have far more flexibility to go other directions with no player push back by canon junkies. For example your NWoD setting could have 10 Paths/7 Orders for mages and so on.

Yeah, I know. I like canon, because it gets my creative juices flowing. I am not a canon lawyer. I just like a starting point.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;744209Yes, but you could use the metaplot running in the background as a world in motion.


Yeah, I know. I like canon, because it gets my creative juices flowing. I am not a canon lawyer. I just like a starting point.

1. I suppose it's possible but for me it's too restrictive.
2. What you should do is get the translation guides that would guide you on how to put as much or little OWoD into the NWoD as you prefer especially if you have OWoD books you could just port it (metaplot) over wholesale after you have the technical things done.