Metaplots - it wasn't just TSR that did them

[wingsandsword]

Yup. Actually, I always assumed TSR decided to do it because their strongest competition (FASA, White Wolf) was doing it.

Yeah, I always thought of Metaplot as a White Wolf thing. TSR did it in the Realms, and then they started to pull it into Planescape with Faction War. Never followed Dark Sun, but I understand it had one too. White Wolf was hip-deep in metaplot that spanned almost every book in every line.

D&D usually at least gave you a playable baseline setting, and if you wanted to ignore metaplot you could use most of most supplements, even if it was annoying. White Wolf's metaplot in the 90's would have huge world-changing events happen in one side suppliment for one game line that would have ramifications in other lines entirely. Didn't play Werewolf and preferred Mage? Too bad, because this book you didn't even look at changed things back in your main game and we're going to reference that in all future books. Like the way the game is now? Too bad, because we're throwing a huge world-changing metaplot event now that changes the tone of every single setting.

When "The Reckoning" occurred, Mages now couldn't easily plane shift (to describe it in D&D terms), and most prior Mage books had put a significant focus on extraplanar adventures in other realities, and now every Mage put his very soul in jeopardy every single time he tries to leave Earth, not to mention the total annihilation of all Wraiths, and things getting even worse for Vampires since an antediluvian actually woke up and took most of Bangladesh out before it could be defeated in an epic combined assault of the most powerful mages (with the Technocracy throwing in orbital strikes and space marines), werewolves and asian vampires on the planet (which was officially covered up as a massive cyclone). Huge event, and I had to piece it together from other books since I never had whatever book actually had these events in it. Had a twisted sense of accomplishment when I'd actually been able to figure out what the heck was going on in the setting.

I think it was a very intentional choice for the new WoD to not have any kind of metaplot, and even for those big secrets in the supplements and metaplot to be intentionally obscure or to change from game to game.

Yeah, other games had them too. DeadLands had one, IIRC. RIFTS had one too (I remember Siege on Tolkeen, but just that it was the Neo-fascist remnants of the US completely destroy the peaceful hippie-like nation of magic). Come to think of it, most RPGs back then had one.

It's like some huge novel written in gaming supplement format. Interesting to read, not so much for playing.

 

[Odhanan]

I don't see how other companies festering their own metaplots somehow excuses the fact that TSR was doing it. But here's my point: I think that TSR is particularly blamed for this because of D&D, and how metaplots clash against the old-school sandbox, the open alternate universe, and the notion that the PCs are the ones that bring up the story organically to the game, not the reverse.

There were many AD&D fans that were disenchanted in the ways things turned into metaplot galore and narrative wankfests with AD&D2.

 

[Dausuul]

It wasn't just TSR that did it. In the 90s, most of the major companies had metaplots (often tied to novels or even TV series!) in their RPG lines. And a lot of non-D&D games still have ongoing metaplots. ...

Anyways. It's just a pet peeve when people point at TSR and mention how awful metaplots were, when there are whole lines that did it... and still exist today.

If you ask me how I feel about Shadowrun's metaplot or Vampire: The Masquerade's metaplot, I'll give you the exact same answer I do when asked about TSR's metaplots: "Can't stand 'em." I haven't seen anyone bring up the metaplot in Shadowrun or V:tM, however, and I didn't play enough of either to have the sort of enduring hate-on that would inspire me to bring it up on my own after 10 years.

I think it's time to change my sig.

 

[Barastrondo]

I think it was a very intentional choice for the new WoD to not have any kind of metaplot, and even for those big secrets in the supplements and metaplot to be intentionally obscure or to change from game to game.

Oh, it was.

It's like some huge novel written in gaming supplement format. Interesting to read, not so much for playing.

Interestingly, some people missed the metaplot when we moved to nWoD. But that's why it got done in the first place: there was this market of people interesting in reading about a living, evolving world. But it crossed lines, which caused trouble for people who didn't follow everything. Arguably even worse, metaplot eventually starts selecting out newcomers: as years and supplements pile up, it becomes increasingly difficult for newcomers to really get a hold on the setting. I know I was personally daunted when I looked at Rokugan around the time they were doing a d20 version, and the last five years had had one world-changing event after another, the result of their CCG tourney-driven metaplot.

Metaplot's a good way to keep a certain type of person reading, but like you say, gets in the way of actually playing in the setting if you haven't collected and read all the books. It becomes an unreasonable demand, hence why we ditched it entire.

 

[Umbran]

Luckily, as a Dragonlance fan, I've never experienced this.

Hold on a second, because Dragonlance is a sort of interesting case.

While I don't have data on this, Dragonlance seems to have a special position in the realm of metaplot-driven settings: I expect most of us got introduced to the setting through the metaplot - the basic metaplot was teh first thing we saw of the world. We read the novels first, and saw the campaign material second. I don't recall there being any expectation that the setting would stay static, and we didn't have a whole lot of issue with that at the time.

That the published adventures were strongly railroaded is, I think, a separate issue.

Star Wars, as a game, has a similar dynamic. It is completely clear that there are several ages within the history of the setting, and nobody seems to mind that. So, now Dragonlance and Star Wars are now games/settings in which you usually explicitly pick the period in which you play a particular campaign.

Thus, I think the issue isn't so much with metaplot, as it is with how the expectations are set when you pick up the setting. Contrast this with oWoD, where you didn't see that there was a metaplot to begin with - it sort of snuck up on you as you bought more materials.

 

[Crothian]

I don't see how other companies festering their own metaplots somehow excuses the fact that TSR was doing it.

Meta plots didn't fester, but it is important to see that all the successful companies at the time did them. I liked the meta plots and so did many other people. Just because people are anti meta plot now doesn't mean we should revise history and declare them all bad.

 

[Dausuul]

Meta plots didn't fester, but it is important to see that all the successful companies at the time did them. I liked the meta plots and so did many other people. Just because people are anti meta plot now doesn't mean we should revise history and declare them all bad.

I'm not revising squat. Metaplot has annoyed me ever since I first encountered it--although now, thanks to years of experience and discussions on boards like this one, I have a clearer handle on exactly what I find annoying and why. But it's not like I'm looking back and rewriting my feelings on, say, the trashing of the Dark Sun setting. I didn't like it then and don't like it now.

 

[Morrus]

They can declare that, for the purposes of new supplements, you're no longer playing in Dark Sun.

And I can declare that they're pink frogs wearing tutus. Neither declaration affects reality in any way.

There's only one possible way my game can become obsolete - by my deciding I no longer want to play it.

 

[TheYeti1775]

Hold on a second, because Dragonlance is a sort of interesting case.

While I don't have data on this, Dragonlance seems to have a special position in the realm of metaplot-driven settings: I expect most of us got introduced to the setting through the metaplot - the basic metaplot was teh first thing we saw of the world. We read the novels first, and saw the campaign material second. I don't recall there being any expectation that the setting would stay static, and we didn't have a whole lot of issue with that at the time.

That the published adventures were strongly railroaded is, I think, a separate issue.

Star Wars, as a game, has a similar dynamic. It is completely clear that there are several ages within the history of the setting, and nobody seems to mind that. So, now Dragonlance and Star Wars are now games/settings in which you usually explicitly pick the period in which you play a particular campaign.

Thus, I think the issue isn't so much with metaplot, as it is with how the expectations are set when you pick up the setting. Contrast this with oWoD, where you didn't see that there was a metaplot to begin with - it sort of snuck up on you as you bought more materials.

Was just going to mention Star Wars as a metaplot.
But again, much like Dragonlance, the books and the movies came first.
You know what you are getting into with it.
The thing on Metaplots of 2E D&D is that they were world changing events that occurred as a result of the novels after the publication of the Campaign Setting.
2E Realms - Avatar Trilogy - Deities change/die/abandon.
2E Darksun - Prism (?I think don't remember name off top of head) - Tyr freed, and all the stuff with the Dragon.
2E Planescape - Blood Wars - tens of thousands of years old, your going to alter that?

But as Morrus said, nothing they did made your world obsolete. Nothing says those events even had to happen in your world.
Many of us totally ignored the Avatar Trilogy and the Dragon changes.

And I can declare that they're pink frogs wearing tutus. Neither declaration affects reality in any way.

There's only one possible way my game can become obsolete - by my deciding I no longer want to play it.

Only if the Giant frogs are guarding a moathouse.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Umbran's point about expectations rings true to me. When I bought Dark Sun, I didn't expect a metaplot--I thus found the massive changes implemented in the first set of novels and supplements jarring and frustrating. Conversely, with Dragonlance, the progression of the War of the Lance is essential to the setting--in many ways, the initial setting and the initial metaplot were one and the same.

From my perspective, one of the key issues is the role played by PCs. In many metaplots, the sourcebooks, etc., create the impression that the metaplot is something independent of the PCs that the PCs can't affect. In other cases (Torg leaps to mind, although some (but not all) of the Mystara metaplot was good about this as well), the metaplot is a baseline that is explicitly intended to create adventures for the PCs that may then derail the written metaplot. But allowing the PCs the ability to meaningfully affect the metaplot creates the likelihood that future metaplot will have no connection to the situation in a given home campaign, so publishers have incentives to try to put the metaplot on rails. If your next supplement is The Ruins of Abeced, then if you allow the PCs to prevent Abeced from being ruined, it becomes harder to sell the supplement to their GM. I think this contributes to the Dragonlance modules "you're the heroes of the setting, but you have to do exactly what we expect" issue.

I prefer campaigns that have the feeling of having a real, living, changing history, where stuff happens. To that end, metaplot can be useful. However, it's essential to me that the PCs are capable of being part of the history of their campaigns. Most published metaplots don't serve that interest very well.