Campaign Settings: metaplot or frozen?

[Li Shenron]

What do you think is best or your favourite way a Campaign Setting should be handled between editions (or even withing a long edition), and why?

Should a setting be advanced by the designers all the time? Should books move the timeline forward, adding events at least on the large scale? I guess that the main advantage of this approach, is that you can find new ideas, plots and characters ready to play from more and more books.

Or should it be "frozen", so that every edition refers to the same specific point of time? The concept is based on giving a very solid starting basis, but then leave it to the gamers to tell the tale and make history.

 

[Brazeku]

IDEALLY, I would like to see something akin to punctuated equilibrium: the setting would be static, and large-scale advancements would take place at periodic RPGA type gatherings, with player input.

 

[Robert Ranting]

Generally speaking, I would prefer a frozen setting or at least one where the metaplot advances only occassionaly (as with an edition change). I find it difficult to integrate metaplot advancements into games I am currently running, and if I am going to be starting a new campaign I could just as easily switch to a new campaign setting as change the one I had been using.

 

[blargney the second]

I wouldn't object to a small update to the Eberron timeline. I'd be initially leery of anything major, but I'd go check it out at the very least. I love that setting.
-blarg

 

[Beginning of the End]

What do you think is best or your favourite way a Campaign Setting should be handled between editions (or even withing a long edition), and why?

Like my boss-man says, they should be handled like the setting for Heavy Gear.

"All the Heavy Gear books had a date on the back cover that told you exactly where in the fictional timeline of the Heavy Gear universe they were set.

Basically you had the world of Terra Nova described in the year 6132 AD in the core rulebook. Every single major power on the planet was then given a sourcebook, most of them also set in the year 6132 AD.

Additional supplements advanced the timeline (with clearly labeled dates for easy reference) and, eventually, began describing other planets (as the metaplot/future history of the setting extended to cover off-world exploration).

This meant that GMs who wanted to use the evolving future history of the setting could (a) do so and (b) easily figure out where new material should be integrated.

And it also meant that GMs who didn't want to use the evolving future history of the setting could (a) obtain a complete set of supplements for a single era (6132 AD) of the setting; and (b) ignore all the books that dealt with the future history of the setting.

The problem with most metaplots is that they prevent you from every getting an authoritative and complete picture of the setting at any given point in time: Kingdom A is described at time X; then the Demon Princes invade and Kingdoms B, C, and D are described in their sourcebooks at time Y; then the Order of the Silver Moon is assassinated and the sourcebooks for Kingdoms E and F are rolled out at time Z. Meanwhile the sourcebook Magic of the Golden Sickle was written before the Order of the Silver Moon was assassinated and assumes they're still alive, but -- at the same time -- the Rites of the Golden Sickle are an important part of the magi-theocracy ruling over Kingdom F (which has only been described after the Silver Moon assassinations).

The result is a mess that serves neither the GMs who want to use the metaplot nor the GMs who don't.

It should also be understood that metaplots are not tools of the devil: World War II is a metaplot. Metaplot can be most properly understood as the evolving history of the setting in question. Metaplot is just one of many tools that can be used to create a sense of a wider world beyond the PCs. (Unless, of course, you've got a nifty idea which involves having the PCs inside Hitler's bunker on the day he commits suicide, in which case the metaplot is moved onstage.) Like many other tools, it can be horribly misused (usually when a GM puts the metaplot center stage and then insists that its Holy Writ(TM) and Cannot Be Changed(TM)).

But metaplot is also an area where you can have your cake and eat it too. And I wish more publishers would take advantage of that fact."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

No metaplot except at new edition time, when the timeline is jumped forward a bit.

 

[DragonLancer]

For a D&D setting, I prefer a frozen static modal. The future is for my group and I to determine.

 

[Blue]

My personal beef with metaplots and campaign advancement is DMs that don't let PCs have any world-altering actions because it would derail his campaign from future expansion.

Having played in a game like that (several linked campaigns) in the Forgotten Realms since the early '90s (and still going on), I hate that fact. The DM will put in things in undetailed places that we can change, but they we get messed up when that locale is later detailed.

But while characters in novels can change the world, we can't. We've gotten characters up to epic levels, and still we can only change things the DM adds for us to change, not anythign that is set down in the books.

And let me tell you, I like it not at all.

Regards,
=Blue(23)

 

[dmccoy1693]

For a D&D setting, I prefer a frozen static modal. The future is for my group and I to determine.

Exactly my feelings. I don't want someone's timeline advance mucking up my game. Give me metaplot possibilities, give me adventure hooks, give me locations detailed, but then don't advance the timeline and say, "Oh and then this happened." Because I'm like, "But that didn't happen in my game; I don't like that change."

I'm all for signature characters doing stuff in the world, but the PCs should be more important then the signature characters. To ensure that, I thing I use to do back when I ran games was kill off a major signature character right infront of the PCs during the first session (and make sure its done in a way that he can't come back, or if he does he's a lich or something like that). Then the players know all bets are off.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

For Urbis, I do not plan to move from the "default time" even if I somehow manage to write supplements. While I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of campaign and adventure supplements that could drastically alter the campaign setting, any such changes wouldn't be referenced to in future supplements.


However, if Urbis should become a runaway success, I might write up a "follow-up" setting that takes place seventy years later (working title: "Urbis - Age of Flight"). I figure that time period is remote enough that people playing in the "default" campaign won't have to worry about "continuity" much - a lot can happen in such a long time.