Quote from: Benoist;743936All this sort of game design accomplishes on the long term is the destruction of the shared experience it seeks to establish in the first place. There are better ways to accomplish the same sense of depth in the setting without conflicting with the referee's authority over his own personal setting in motion.

In other words the metaplot is way too detailed. If it's a small plot of two pages you won't have that problem. Which other ways are you referring to btw?

Quote from: The Butcher;743969Depends on the game, of course; for Traveller the standard size is a whole damn stellar sector, but since star systems usually take very little statting up, they may be just as easy or easier to run than a WoD city.

For the WoD, old or new, I have it down to a friggin' science.

The Butcher's WoD Urban Sandbox Set-up Algorithm

Hope that helps.

I was already familiar with this. This is the default WoD type setup with a city, NPC's etc. Good to see this anyway. Thing I didn't use before was player goals. Do you also give your NPC's goals? I like that too, it gives them more direction then just their relationship.

Quote from: estar;743986Pretend you are there, listening to gossip, picking a newletter, etc. What do you see, what do hear? What will happen if you do nothing, what will happen if you did X, Y, or Z?

To me that is the essence of implementing a world in motion for a given setting. Standing at the viewpoint of the character and imagining what they would be seeing.

This is really good. It's a different approach then the Butcher's approach, but it is really vivid. This is the way it worked in the Bloodlines video game. Gossip, newspapers, tv news etc.

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.

For the record I never said metaplot is the same as world in motion. World in motion can be what happens in the background wether the players do something about it or not. Technically you "could" use a metaplot event as something that happens in the background. But it isn't the same.

I have never had a problem with metaplot. I take what I like, ignore what I don't and shunt into the background parts that don't interest my players.

But that said, I am not a big fan of splat books. My preferred method of RPGing is Core Book + My Brain and run from there. The only TSR era settings that I really invested in were Planescape, Ravenloft and Dark Sun and I certainly modified the hell out of whatever materials didn't fit into my vision. My WoD days were spent in Werewolf and Trinity and those metaplots worked for me more often than not. My main Vampire experience is in the LARP world at cons and that's very one shot outside out the official organized play groups.

I am a living god and also a GM. Thus the books must do my bidding.

Quote from: Spinachcat;744244I have never had a problem with metaplot. I take what I like, ignore what I don't and shunt into the background parts that don't interest my players.

But that said, I am not a big fan of splat books. My preferred method of RPGing is Core Book + My Brain and run from there. The only TSR era settings that I really invested in were Planescape, Ravenloft and Dark Sun and I certainly modified the hell out of whatever materials didn't fit into my vision. My WoD days were spent in Werewolf and Trinity and those metaplots worked for me more often than not. My main Vampire experience is in the LARP world at cons and that's very one shot outside out the official organized play groups.

I am a living god and also a GM. Thus the books must do my bidding.

For the record the metaplot is gone in the new world of darkness.

The world in motion consists mostly of city books.
City books have:
1. A city with it's theme's and moods
2. A lay of the land which consists of different districts and neighbourhoods
3. A supernatural court or the current regime
4. A cast of NPC's

It still is very much the same thing as the old WoD city books. The biggest difference is the politics isn't part of your sub-race (clan in vampire), but is part of an opt-in faction (covenant in vampire).

In vampire there are five clans which are only your race and give you specific powers (disciplines). It doesn't mean much else. Your covenant is your alliance to a certain philosophy or religion. In vampire there are five covenants. The Invictus is a feudal organisation much like the Camarilla or the old Ventrue clan. The Carthians are the rebels against the system, they want something modern usually a bit leftist. The Lancea Sanctum is the vampire church with a philosophy like the old Path of Night. The Circle of the Crone are the pagans (with bloody sacrifices on an altar) and the Ordo Dracul want to becomes daywalkers and experiment a lot.

Two or three of those five factions make up the default regime and the others are opposition without being at war with each other. Most vampire NPC's are a member of those splats. Some are unaligned.

That is pretty much a run of the mill vampire city. Usually is the Invictus plus Lancea Sanctum the status quo. Stuff like random encounters or rumours you might come across in a pub are things you won't find in a WoD book. They just set up the powers that be and their relations towards each other. And then the political dance of striving for power begins.

I am rambling a bit, but I thought I just clear things up to show how different it is from a fantasy kitchen sink setting.

You did forget all of the baseline you described can be altered with no bad effect. For example you can set it up that the Circle of the Crone and Ordo Dracul are the inside alliance with the Invictus having no presence and the LS and Carthians in a loose alliance as your French Resistance. No fuss no muss.

Quote from: Marleycat;744295You did forget all of the baseline you described can be altered with no bad effect. For example you can set it up that the Circle of the Crone and Ordo Dracul are the inside alliance with the Invictus having no presence and the LS and Carthians in a loose alliance as your French Resistance. No fuss no muss.

True. I don't see it that often though.

I think this is the biggest draw people have towards these games. I actually couldn't care less, because I don't find it that exciting who is in control and who is in alliance with who. It's all potayto potahto to me. I always want to ignore all that stuff and try to find out why all those people are getting killed and why they all come from the same orphanage.

Edit: Actually these are the relationships. This brings me back to an earlier post about sandboxes. Splats should have goals instead of relationships.

I found an interesting WoD site with some stuff about the spirit world that could be sandboxed. Link.

There's two kinds of metaplot out there: there's the stuff driven from the published material itself, where you're told something HAS to happen or something CAN'T happen because of something to do with the setting material, or novel or tv-show or comic tie-ins, or because of the Author's "Vision" of how it ought to be, or because of future products, or whatever bullshit.

The second is where the GM himself has a grand 'authorial' scheme as a frustrated would-be novelist of how he would like things to go and therefore railroads his way into insisting it turn out how he likes.

Both suck ass.

Quote from: RPGPundit;745154There's two kinds of metaplot out there: there's the stuff driven from the published material itself, where you're told something HAS to happen or something CAN'T happen because of something to do with the setting material, or novel or tv-show or comic tie-ins, or because of the Author's "Vision" of how it ought to be, or because of future products, or whatever bullshit.

The second is where the GM himself has a grand 'authorial' scheme as a frustrated would-be novelist of how he would like things to go and therefore railroads his way into insisting it turn out how he likes.

Both suck ass.

No.
Or, at least, if you'd read any of the posts previous, you'd se many who consider Metaplot to be the large-scale stuff the GM sets into motion (often at different levels) to enhance the World in Motion ideal, for the PCs to interact or not interact with at different levels.

Quote from: LordVreeg;745173No.
Or, at least, if you'd read any of the posts previous, you'd se many who consider Metaplot to be the large-scale stuff the GM sets into motion (often at different levels) to enhance the World in Motion ideal, for the PCs to interact or not interact with at different levels.

If you use the world in motion you could get something of a metaplot. If factions or NPC's would do stuff in a setting without the players being involved you could consider that World in Motion. For example you might be in Skyrim venturing into dungeon and suddenly you find out the Stormcloaks have won against the Imperials without you getting involved (this is very fictional). This would be world in motion, but other people might call it a metaplot event.

I started this topic to find out what would make a world in motion in the new wod. I now know what is missing. It's not the metaplot. It's goals and motivations. The old wod had clear goals. The Technocracy wants to wipe out magic for example. The Traditions don't want that. You could see what will be going on even without players getting involved. New wod doesn't have that. You gotta make it up yourself. An NPC goal could be becoming a Primogen for example. A covenant goal could be getting control of the Harbour district, which is now Invictus territory.

This never came up with me, because the books don't set that example. They only give relationships. What NPC's think of each other, what covenants think of other covenants, what clans think of other clans etc. This could be useful, but it doesn't create a dynamic environment. I think this is because the WW writers don't get the principles behind a sandbox game. They think making a relationship web or political web is enough for a sandbox game. I think they are wrong.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;745191If you use the world in motion you could get something of a metaplot. If factions or NPC's would do stuff in a setting without the players being involved you could consider that World in Motion. For example you might be in Skyrim venturing into dungeon and suddenly you find out the Stormcloaks have won against the Imperials without you getting involved (this is very fictional). This would be world in motion, but other people might call it a metaplot event.

I started this topic to find out what would make a world in motion in the new wod. I now know what is missing. It's not the metaplot. It's goals and motivations. The old wod had clear goals. The Technocracy wants to wipe out magic for example. The Traditions don't want that. You could see what will be going on even without players getting involved. New wod doesn't have that. You gotta make it up yourself. An NPC goal could be becoming a Primogen for example. A covenant goal could be getting control of the Harbour district, which is now Invictus territory.

This never came up with me, because the books don't set that example. They only give relationships. What NPC's think of each other, what covenants think of other covenants, what clans think of other clans etc. This could be useful, but it doesn't create a dynamic environment. I think this is because the WW writers don't get the principles behind a sandbox game. They think making a relationship web or political web is enough for a sandbox game. I think they are wrong.

Very pleased with your outcome of your experiment/thread.

Quote from: LordVreeg;745202Very pleased with your outcome of your experiment/thread.

Yes now it will have the standard nwod territories (mostly districts and neighbourhoods; residential, comercial, industrial etc.) and it will have the standard factions and NPC's. But they will have motivations and goals.

I was thinking about a mortals/hunter setting. It will have several spirits. Most spirits will be serving a bigger spirit lord. Include some hunter organisations, some factions dedicated towards researching the unknown and some splats serving the unknown. So you got hunters, occult researchers, servants and cults all in one city. Add on top of that some NPC's who have nothing to do about that. Police, criminal organisations, neighbourhood watches.

For my vampire setting this is even easier, because it already has several splats. I never really liked them, because they always take the same roles. Invictus does the meritocracy vs carthians who are about change, LS is the conservative church vs CotC who are pagan witches. But giving them concrete goals steers a little bit away from that. I could also add in some extra covenants or bloodlines or even other vampire types and give all of them group goals.

Quote from: LordVreeg;745173No.
Or, at least, if you'd read any of the posts previous, you'd se many who consider Metaplot to be the large-scale stuff the GM sets into motion (often at different levels) to enhance the World in Motion ideal, for the PCs to interact or not interact with at different levels.

I played Shadowrun, Deadlands, World of Darkness, all the major sinners of the Metaplot Decade, and the metaplot never ran over anything the characters did.  Sometimes they crossed with it, sometimes they didn't, sometimes they didn't even know about it, or care if they did.  All an extremely rich metaplot does is give you a great tapestry to hang behind you as you play, and can fill in a lot of work for a GM, or if you're a GM like me, who likes to have stuff I can riff off of, a whole library of idea kickstarters.

Whether to railroad you or let you explore a World in Motion is always the decision of the GM, no matter how retarded the game designers and the players.  WoD players, of course went a little overboard since not really having many adventures, just city sandboxes full of characters and rulebooks and novels full of metaplot, the implication was, tour guiding through the metaplot was how it was done.

To tell you the truth though, the metaplot railroading of WoD is one of those internet myths that is greatly exaggerated.  The LARPers were all into that, but I always played in awesome city sandboxes, and a whole lot of Trenchcoat & Katana.

Quote from: RPGPundit;745154There's two kinds of metaplot out there: there's the stuff driven from the published material itself, where you're told something HAS to happen or something CAN'T happen because of something to do with the setting material, or novel or tv-show or comic tie-ins, or because of the Author's "Vision" of how it ought to be, or because of future products, or whatever bullshit.

The second is where the GM himself has a grand 'authorial' scheme as a frustrated would-be novelist of how he would like things to go and therefore railroads his way into insisting it turn out how he likes.

Both suck ass.

I kind of think that there is a third choice, which is "world in motion".  Imagine playing in the Game of Thrones world -- you could change the course of the stories through character intervention.  A key character could die in a PC encounter or PC diplomats could shift the balance of sides.  The same thing could happen in a "War of Roses" pseudo-historical game.  One of the PCs might play their cards right and supplant Henry Tudor as the ultimate victor.  

But if players don't get involved in the big events it creates background, complications and flavor.  The Battle of St Albans (using war of the roses)could impede travel, involve PCs, be prevented by shrewd PC actions, or give implications to PCs/PC Patrons.  

It only begins to suck when the players are powerless to interact with the big events or forced to listen to exposition.  It should be a case of players who are interested can learn things about what is happening.  Players who are uninterested will simply hear the different name of a monarch from time to time.  They may not care if the Monarch is Richard or Henry or Edward, but rather what is going on in the court of the dark fae.  This can make the sandbox more dynamic and create opportunities for fun gameplay.  

What I did not like about World of Darkness events was that huge changes happened to the world and there really was not a lot of options for this to make things awesome.  

It is also 100% essential that the DM not have a specific outcome in mind -- there was a direction that events would take if nothing was done but if players do something clever they are supposed to be awesome.  A clever plan could eliminate Tywin Lannister at the right moment, and the whole setting could shift as a logical consequence.  

It is a hard balance and I have seen it done well.  But I tend to do static settings because I am not good enough to keep it in the background nor to avoid liking my exposition too much.  If players wanted to read a novel and not play a game, there are far better novelists than I.