Metaplots - it wasn't just TSR that did them

[GrimGent]

It doesn't need to be that extreme. If the Strix do anything in books along a timeline contemporaneous with the default time of play, it's metaplot.

These days WW is far more likely to present the Strix (or similar adversaries from the other lines) and what they might be up to as completely optional story hooks, possibly expanding on their history but refraining from dictating any future course of events. Even the present cosmology isn't fixed to the same degree as it was in the oWoD: there will explicitly never be an official answer to how the Supernal Realm of Fate and Time which mages call Arcadia relates to "the nightmare from which there is no waking" that changelings know as Arcadia, for example.

 

[wingsandsword]

Judging by what's been discussed on other forums, that's just part of their whole digital publishing initiative. White Wolf will be gradually abandoning printed products entirely, except through On Demand arrangements. They still have supplements scheduled for the next year, but those are all PDF-only.

So they are completely giving up on the FLGS and bookstore sales routes and going to only online sales?

Brave move, don't know if it's good though (for the company or the industry).

 

[eyebeams]

I'm talking about things people involved with the company have said in my presence: that development of products beyond a certain point has been halted, and that they aren't reprinting the base Mage rules, and are looking to empty out current inventory. That sounds like cancellation to me.

Perhaps they misunderstood, I misunderstood, or I'm otherwise wrong. I cannot look up the schedule of releases, and White Wolf's website is currently tossing errors at me.

It's not what I heard from Eddy Webb after asking him point blank if Mage was cancelled and the game has upcoming electronic product. In the new model virtually everything is released that way first then moved to PoD so no game has conventional inventory beyond core books - and Vampire, Mage, Werewolf and Changeling are scheduled for reprint.

As for what that says about metaplots, keep in mind that the World of Darkness hasn't been managed for the exclusive sake of hobby gaming for nearly a decade, including before the new WoD. I could easily see any game line being cancelled for reasons that have nothing to do with sales.

 

[Votan]

As for what that says about metaplots, keep in mind that the World of Darkness hasn't been managed for the exclusive sake of hobby gaming for nearly a decade, including before the new WoD. I could easily see any game line being cancelled for reasons that have nothing to do with sales.

What is the alternative business approach that they are focusing on?

 

[GrimGent]

Brave move, don't know if it's good though (for the company or the industry).

They're also working on that WoD MMORPG project, although there's no way of knowing yet how it'll turn out in the end. Some speculate that more information about it will become available during the Grand Masquerade. At least one of the panel discussions will deal with what people would expect to see in a game like that, in any case.

 

[the Jester]

It is worth noting on the other hand that the most successful RPGs have metaplots except for D&D -- and D&D's most successful settings have metaplots.

Warhammer doesn't AFAIK, and the worst part of D&D's most successful settings- the part that has been backlashed pretty much out of existence- is metaplot.

 

[Dausuul]

It is worth noting on the other hand that the most successful RPGs have metaplots except for D&D -- and D&D's most successful settings have metaplots.

Eberron has metaplot? I thought Eberron specifically didn't have metaplot.

And all of D&D's other settings are from 1E/2E, and they have metaplot because Dragonlance taught TSR there were huge profits to be made in novel sales. I've seen at least one quote to the effect that TSR brought in far more money from its fiction department than it did from D&D. So, any setting that was even slightly successful--and quite a few that weren't--got a novel line, and back then it went without saying that novels meant metaplot.

 

[MortonStromgal]

and finally the new WoD (for which, they destroyed the world - that's big metaplot motion!)

nWOD and oWOD are not in the same world, its more like a parallel dimension than a progression.

 

[the Jester]

nWOD and oWOD are not in the same world, its more like a parallel dimension than a progression.

Except that there would never have been a nWOD if the old one hadn't been destroyed.

 

[Barastrondo]

Except that there would never have been a nWOD if the old one hadn't been destroyed.

Not specifically true. We could have just said "Welp, we're done here" and moved on to creating the nWoD when the changeover was necessitated. However, we had all these glorious apocalyptic events that had been teased from the beginning. Seemed a shame not to use them.