Li Shenron said:
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."