Metaplots

[Colin]

On the subject of metaplots, which came up on another thread, I don't think metaplots are bad in and of themselves. Look at Babyon 5. A large part of its appeal was the metaplot, and how actions had repercussions. This isn't a bad thing for an RPG. However, metaplots have to be well-thought out, plotted like a book or novel. Then the actions of the PCs can be plugged in along the way. For a game, a good way to handle metaplots, if they are desired at all, is to give the ref several options, with tips on how to plan it out.

In 2300, the Kafer War was an example of a metaplot. Player's action took place against that backdrop, but had little chance of changing the course of the war. Other metaplots could include ProVolutions terrorist activities, or the way the political axis on Earth was realigning itself in the face of war, with precendence leaving the French and transferring to the British, Germans and Americans.

Metaplots are backdrops to a game, things happening in the background that can have a profound affect opf the game, but which the players are not likely to be able to change, unless the game is a high-powered one.

 

[TKalbfus]

How powerful should PCs be allowed to become? Should they be allowed to rule a planet and build large space fleets?

 

[Solo]

How powerful should PCs be allowed to become? Should they be allowed to rule a planet and build large space fleets?
--------------------
Tom Kalbfus

That's just a matter of what you, as the Referee, like to run. A political game with the PC's as higher ups, rulers of worlds, commmanders of fleets, etc, could be a lot of fun. But also a lot of work. I regard power-level as a setting thing. If you've been running a game so long that lower "level" characters are starting to become powerful, change the setting or change the characters.

As far as Meta-Plots go. I think they're fine so long as they can easily be placed in the background or ignored and the Referee has a good idea of where the stories going. Invasion was an excellent example of that. It showed where the plot started and climaxed. You could alter whatever you wanted pretty easily and there where many ways to integrate characters into the plot. Metaplots that require, or legitamize the release of a new set of the same game rules every couple of years, blow. My 2.

-S

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Solo:
(SNIPPAGE)

As far as Meta-Plots go. I think they're fine so long as they can easily be placed in the background or ignored and the Referee has a good idea of where the stories going. Invasion was an excellent example of that. It showed where the plot started and climaxed. You could alter whatever you wanted pretty easily and there where many ways to integrate characters into the plot. Metaplots that require, or legitamize the release of a new set of the same game rules every couple of years, blow. My 2.

-S

My point exactly - I have no objection to well written large scale backdrops, but when the background becomes foreground; when what the game designers write becomes (or they treat it as) more important than what the players and referees do, in their own games all across the world, then what's the point of role-playing? Why not read a book if the plot is going to be dictated by someone else? And (crucially from the point of view of smaller games companies like QLI), why should the punters pay hard cash for extracts from someone elses campaign that requires either extensive modifcation to fit individual campaigns or that those campaigns adapt to fit some 'official' storyline? Classic supplements like the Traveller Adventure or Griffin Mountain, and more modern offerings such as Stangers in Prax or even MJD's Linkworlds Cluster work because they provide a framwork, lots of hooks and ideas and even suggested plot lines that don't tie a campaign to a particular plot line, rules interpretation or line of 'official' continuity.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

 

[kafka47]

Metaplots do provide continuity in terms of story telling, something I think more and more seasoned RPGers are getting into. But, I think if metaplots are written with characters able to change the fate of history without going to extremes, metaplots provide great linkage from one game supplement to the next.

I like what HDI has done with a story at the beginning of each rulebook in Fading Suns for instance, it provides the reader with a story in which many of the concepts that the supplement will explain get addressed without hemming players or referees into any course of action. IN CONTRAST, to the GDW product Hard Times which essentially railroaded players into accepting the fragmentation of the social order with their actions becoming meaningless against the advance of the night....**

**Do not think that I am a critic of Hard Times, for me it was best supplement of MegaTraveller since the Rebellion Sourcebook, as it generated the right mood. It is the adventure that runs through it that got me kinda depressed. So, Megaplots = good and Railroading = Bad. Simple enough?

 

[aramis]

Metaplots have been overused in somme settings, to create branch points where one either has come to the (oft inevitable) conclusion or not, and must either retcon or restart, or go off the metaplot.

A few games have done it well, either by making the metaplots detatchable from the modules included in the overal metaplot (CT, MT), by not making the metaplot part of the published adventures (Justifiers), by going on the basis of submitted player reports for further progress (TORG, Living ___), or by not advancing a set of metaplots presented in the core rules, so that GM's may use them as they see fit.

In any case, it may come to pass in any campaign with a reasonable GM that the metaplots have been resolved by the players, or otherwise made moot. This, too, is good.

Where it becomes bad is when the metaplots are the whole of the interesting bits of the seting, or the setting is advanced in "Big Honkin' Chunks" by major rules revisions, or the resolutions revoke/change/make moot the prior canon of a setting. (TNE) Even worse are where a new edition nearly requires the prior edition for baseline background information.

Personally, if the meta-plots are not too intrusive, and add interest (Like the Kafer War), and are not likely to totally disolve the setting, great. If I can run the setting without having to remove half the history, even better.