How do you like your published settings? Static or evolving? And through what medium?

[aramis erak]

My preference is static in presentation, but clearly not going to remain such. A stable snapshot, with suggestions for how it might go — multiple suggestions in different directions — so that it can easily be adjusted for player influences and GM preferences.

So, really, neither truly static, nor actually evolving in supplements.

 

[reelo]

Back in my late teens (around the time Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale were released) when I first started to seriously get into D&D, I loved the Realms. Maybe its rich history, diversity and detail appealed to me. But something always seemed off to me. Was it the meta-plot or the high-level NPCs, I don't know?
Now that I'm older (and *possibly* wiser) I've come to realize that I despise meta-plots and kitchen-sink settings.
Give me a nice map, sparsely detailed, a few nuggets of lore (a bullet-points list will do) and leave the rest to my creativity.

 

[pemerton]

I also don't want players, and others I'm talking with online for example, to make assumptions that I'm using the "latest meta-plot events" and then start trying to point out why X would never happen or that I did Y wrong or that Z would have completely messed up the "official meta-plot".

IME, people who slavishly follow a published campaign world (ex: Forgotten Realms) that 'advances the timeline' as novels, adventures, supplements, etc get published are more likely to poo-poo anyone who has a FR campaign that doesn't follow that meta-story.

Are you having to deal with these people often? Are they your players? Or just, say, other members of your RPG club who would do it differently if they were running a game?

I'm trying to work out why this really matters. Eg if other people assume that your FR game is using metaplot, can't you just tell them that you're not? I've never really had trouble talking to people on these boards about my GH or OA games, even though none of them uses all "official" material and all of them involve combining bits and pieces of stuff from various "official" and non-official sources (including my own made-up stuff).

*WARNING! Old-Grognard Rambling Below!!!*

Back in ye olden days of yore (pre-90's...well, maybe pre-mid-90's), DM's each had their own "Campaigns". This was a game setting and bunch of rules (house or otherwise) that gave each and every DM's game a different feel.

<snip>

Yeah yeah, I'm old. I get that. I like what I like and am not likely to change anytime soon. I'm cool with that. But one of the things I'm not cool with, and haven't been cool with, is having me and my groups campaign "looked down on" because we do our own thing and have our own timeline. This sort of "othering" has only become a noticeable thing (since about the mid 2k's).

I think you're exaggerating your "grognard"-ness, and also the realities of gameplay c 1990. I knew of club games back then that took published FR timelines pretty seriously, and played through the official modules etc.

And different campaigns were distinguished more by their "feel" and approach, I think, than by minutiae of setting and house rules.

I don't want my games events to have to over-ride what is in official books any more than I have to.

I don't see why this matters either. If WotC wants to publish stuff, that's their prerogative! If you don't like it, just ignore it.

TSR decided that a "living campaign" (re: advancing story line) was a GREAT idea! Publish novels and have things in those novels affect the RPG line. Publish video games and have stuff in there affect the RPG line. It's BRILLIANT! Can't fail! People who want the "whole FR experience" will buy the RPG stuff, the novels, and anything else...because it's all tied together and ever-advancing! We'll be millionaires!

Well, that's what happens when you hire kids out of college who have nothing but business or marketing degrees under their belt and no actual experience with role-playing games. LOL! (OK, that's probably not what actually happened...but it sure as heckfire felt​ like it to me).

So that was my point. That an ever progressing "meta plot" in a movie, novel series, video game series, and stuff like that work wonders! Trying to add that into an RPG setting...asking for pain, suffering and tears. When watching a TV series, say, Game of Thrones or The Expanse...people enjoy it because they can see the story unfolding. They can see the sub-plots forming and resolving. And they can see how all the characters change and develop throughout these trials and tribulations. Business/Marketing folk don't understand that in an RPG, it's the PLAYERS that do all that...not the company. I don't think business/marketing folk like this. I'd bet they get the cold sweats at night just thinking about the fact that they don't have control over the actual direction or popularity of a game/setting. That, effectively, their careers are in the hands of geeky adults who like to sit around a table and play make believe with other adults.

It seems like you're missing the point of the publishing strategy. RPG companies make their money by selling books (and various online facsimilies thereof) to RPG players. But to play a RPG actually doesn't require buying very many books. So those companies sell fiction - but packaged not in the form of novels, but in the form of stories/modules/adventure paths for RPGers to "play through".

This isn't the business/marketing folk making a mistake. It's them identifying a viable commercial strategy for their companies!

And again, if you don't want to buy this stuff there's an easy solution - don't!

Looking at Star Wars, for example, fans have to accept the movies. All of them. They don't have to like them, and arguments of epic proportions can be found all around the net and elsewhere. But nobody can really say "Well, in MY Star Wars movie..."...because that's not how movies work.

Speak for yourself. Star Wars fans don't have to watch Star Wars movies they don't like or aren't interested in. (I haven't seen Rogue One or the recent Han Solo one.) And Star Wars fans don't have to "accept" the plot of movies - eg I can enjoy Star Wars (the original film) without thinking of the character of Darth Vader by reference to the prequels, and without thinking of Han Solo as the guy who ends up getting stabbed by his son with a light sabre.

What I imgaine, and how I can engage with a fictional work, is mostly up to me. Commercial publishers don't control it.

 

[smbakeresq]

Greyhawk for me, with its politics and everything and changing world.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It always surprises me how many people seem to have a problem with meta-plot and setting progression. I can see how it may lead to different expectations for different participants from time to time...but I’d think most of the time, these can be easily addressed by saying something like “Oh you’re familiar with the Dark Sun novels? Okay, well this game takes place before any of that occurs.”

 

[dragoner]

For the longest time I followed the developing timeline of the Third Imperium in Traveller, then when it transferred to MegaTraveller, it suddenly jumped ten years and invalidated all current games. Needless to say, we ignored it and Traveller New Era, which was another huge jump, like 170 years; kept on playing the Classic timeline until the game naturally faded. Though even there were wars and such on the classic timeline, the setting was static for the most part; things like the Fifth Frontier War created one of the best modules in the Spinward Marches Campaign.

 

[jasper]

Static. That way if I have Mr. Spock playing a high Elf in the Yawning portal; I don't have Umbran bouncing off the walls telling me in TSR NOVEL # 666 "Murder in Waterdeep" by Edward Greenhorn than high elf was name Matt Mearls and the body was doppleganger name Mary Sue. And I am doing wrong.

 

[Shasarak]

Hiya!

Entirely possible. But, IME, people who slavishly follow a published campaign world (ex: Forgotten Realms) that 'advances the timeline' as novels, adventures, supplements, etc get published are more likely to poo-poo anyone who has a FR campaign that doesn't follow that meta-story. This is true for many hobbies, so it's more of a human thing than specific to fantasy settings for D&D, which is why I touched on the whole "divided community" thing. Looking at Star Wars, for example, fans have to accept the movies. All of them. They don't have to like them, and arguments of epic proportions can be found all around the net and elsewhere. But nobody can really say "Well, in MY Star Wars movie..."...because that's not how movies work. With a RPG setting/world/campaign, however, that is not true. When a company tries to market/make their "FRPG Campaign Setting" follow the same business model as a book/movie franchise...well...just look at the hot mess that FR was in for YEARS. Just about ever major upheaval in FR has been met with savage clashes of raving nerd-armies. To this very day we STILL see heated battles about this, that, or the other thing in regards to "which FR age is best/worst". Why? Again, IMNSHO, this is because TSR decided that a "living campaign" (re: advancing story line) was a GREAT idea! Publish novels and have things in those novels affect the RPG line. Publish video games and have stuff in there affect the RPG line. It's BRILLIANT! Can't fail! People who want the "whole FR experience" will buy the RPG stuff, the novels, and anything else...because it's all tied together and ever-advancing! We'll be millionaires!

Well, that's what happens when you hire kids out of college who have nothing but business or marketing degrees under their belt and no actual experience with role-playing games. LOL! (OK, that's probably not what actually happened...but it sure as heckfire felt​ like it to me).

So that was my point. That an ever progressing "meta plot" in a movie, novel series, video game series, and stuff like that work wonders! Trying to add that into an RPG setting...asking for pain, suffering and tears. When watching a TV series, say, Game of Thrones or The Expanse...people enjoy it because they can see the story unfolding. They can see the sub-plots forming and resolving. And they can see how all the characters change and develop throughout these trials and tribulations. Business/Marketing folk don't understand that in an RPG, it's the PLAYERS that do all that...not the company. I don't think business/marketing folk like this. I'd bet they get the cold sweats at night just thinking about the fact that they don't have control over the actual direction or popularity of a game/setting. That, effectively, their careers are in the hands of geeky adults who like to sit around a table and play make believe with other adults.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I dont understand why an ever progressing "meta plot" is supposed to work in movies and not in an RPG. Take your Star Wars example, I am sure that in pure numbers there are many more people agonising and fighting over the various movies then will ever hear about Forgotten Realms. If anything the latest Star Wars movies prove that even millions of dollars can not guarantee you make a decent story.

And since Star Wars has a meta plot, does that mean that we can never run a RPG in the Star Wars Universe? Of course not, it allows us to choose which part of the time line we like best to run a game in.

Realistically not every company is able to pull off an over arching meta plot successfully. Companies like Paizo and TSR can do it, maybe the old FASA and White Wolf as well. I was listening to James Lowder (of TSR) talking about their learning curve during the Time of Troubles switch up in the Realms. And that was when Ed Greenwood had to send a physical manuscript from Canada to TSR.

Personally I have no problem with people talking (or arguing even!) about which version or time of the Forgotten Realms they like best. I played in several successful games based in Krynn without any worries at all what the official Dragonlance timeline said was supposed to happen.

And as for stupid games well I played a Warforged PC in a Greyhawk game so I guess that would rank pretty high on some Greyhawk fans stupidity meter and on the otherhand worked well for us. From my perspective the version of Greyhawk my DM was using was not affected at all by the existence of From the Ashes.

 

[LordEntrails]

Non-Static.

Settings should have various eras that a campaign should be set in. Personally making the ruleset edition correspond to the era is... a poor tool used to incorporate novels and increase sales.

A campaign should be set in a given era, meta plot advancement during that time should only be due to the campaign, not due to published events.

Battletech has done this well. i.e. you pick a year to set your campaign in and then the houses have different powers, various technology is available, certain wars are ongoing.

Forgotten Realms has done this horribly. Ret-con and all the other crap.

 

[pemerton]

It always surprises me how many people seem to have a problem with meta-plot and setting progression.

Well, there are two ways into this.

If TSR/WotC think they can make money from selling fiction (in the form of setting metaplot), good luck to them!

But from the point of view of quality RPGing - as opposed to commercial success for a publisher - I think metaplot is the pits:

Metaplot . . . whether generated by a GM or a game publisher . . . [a]lmost inevitably . . . creates a series of game products that pretend to be supplements for play but are really a series of short stories and novels starring the authors' beloved and central NPCs. The role of the individual play group in those stories is much like that of karaoke singers, rather than creative musicians.​

(Ron Edwards)

I'm not against setting, but for good RPGing I want it to be player decisions that resolve whatever it is that the setting has put at stake. (Eg in 4e, which is the last game I GMed with a heavy setting emphasis, it has to be the players who decide what it means for order and chaos to be confronting one another with a looming Dusk War.)