How involved are you in D&D's "metaplot"?

[Scrivener of Doom]

I've been running Forgotten Realms for 20+ years and I avoid the metaplots, plural, like the plague.

That said, we've basically reset our version of FR a couple of times with the new editions- ignoring metaplot changes along the way - but the 4E version is the last one for us. I've got enough material written up to run another four campaigns. I reckon that will be the end of D&D for us after that, at least for a few years.

 

[delericho]

I'm only invested in the D&D metaplot insofar as to say that D&D itself has no business having a metaplot.

On the other hand, the individual settings can certainly have metaplots. Personally, I haven't seen them done well in any D&D setting - Dragonlance was utterly destroyed by one-too-many cataclysms; Dark Sun was turned on its head by the very first novel; and Forgotten Realms is overdue for another RSE - we haven't had one yet this week. But some people like them, they seem to sell lots of books, so fair enough I guess.

 

[Li Shenron]

So how about you? Do you get involved in the D&D metaplot? Or the metaplot of whatever game or setting it is you play? Do you participate in scheduled events by WotC or Paizo?

No, to all these. I am not following the Sundering, although I'll check out what happened when the 5e FR books start being published. I don't even have any idea about what events are being scheduled. I dislike metaplots even tho my favourite D&D settings are actually Rokugan and FR itself, possibly the two settings most metaplotted.

My favourite model for "campaign setting" would be neither metaplot nor adventure path. It would be "static setting" i.e. a complete description of a fantasy world as it is at a specific point of time, so that it is entirely in the hands of each gaming group to determine how history continues.

 

[Zardnaar]

Used to follow the FR metaplot until they nuked the Realms and something similar with the great wheel. Now I just do not care.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I'm only invested in the D&D metaplot insofar as to say that D&D itself has no business having a metaplot.

On the other hand, the individual settings can certainly have metaplots. Personally, I haven't seen them done well in any D&D setting - Dragonlance was utterly destroyed by one-too-many cataclysms; Dark Sun was turned on its head by the very first novel; and Forgotten Realms is overdue for another RSE - we haven't had one yet this week. But some people like them, they seem to sell lots of books, so fair enough I guess.

Sadly for this FR DM, the FR novels make far more money than the RPG products so RSEs are here to stay. And I don't care what WotC says about the Sundering: once they work out another RSE that they think will sell novels, the Realms will be shaken again.

 

[delericho]

Sadly for this FR DM, the FR novels make far more money than the RPG products so RSEs are here to stay.

Actually, I think the RSEs are more about justifying edition changes than they are with selling novels - the Time of Troubles was about the 1st -> 2nd Ed change, the Spellplague about 3e -> 4e, and now the Sundering about the 4e -> 5e change (and also about reversing the Spellplague).

It would be interesting to see what effect, if any, they have on novel sales. Certainly, they seem to be pretty poisonous from a quality perspective.

(And, incidentally, Dragonlance's Second Cataclysm was likewise largely about justifying the shift from 2nd Ed AD&D to the SAGA system, and then the War of Souls was about bringing it 'home'.)

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Actually, I think the RSEs are more about justifying edition changes than they are with selling novels - the Time of Troubles was about the 1st -> 2nd Ed change, the Spellplague about 3e -> 4e, and now the Sundering about the 4e -> 5e change (and also about reversing the Spellplague). (snip)

That would be correct except for the existence of all the other non-edition change RSEs such as the Destruction of Zhentil Keep, the Silence of Lolth, the Rage of Dragons, the undead-ing of Thay etc..., none of which were related to edition changes.

 

[delericho]

That would be correct except for the existence of all the other non-edition change RSEs such as the Destruction of Zhentil Keep, the Silence of Lolth, the Rage of Dragons, the undead-ing of Thay etc..., none of which were related to edition changes.

Fair point.

 

[Umbran]

So how about you? Do you get involved in the D&D metaplot? Or the metaplot of whatever game or setting it is you play?

I'm running classic Deadlands, and it had/has a metaplot that I tossed out the window. For one thing, one of my players was reasonably versed in the metaplot, so he knew a great deal about how it would play out if I followed it. For another, the given metaplot had a really stupid ending in which the PCs basically cannot win. So, I discarded it, and instituted my own world-plot.

The Star Wars game I play in is set well outside the movie canon (being set some thousands of years before). While there is some canon in the setting for the era, we're explicitly deviating from it, so that the original metaplot is not relevant for us.

Thinking back over time, I've never followed a published metaplot in a game I've run, and games I've played in for long periods have only done passing nods to the established metaplots.

Do you participate in scheduled events by WotC or Paizo?

Nope. But I don't do a lot of gaming at game stores or conventions.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I actually have a hard time seeing the reason for trying to come up with in-world explanations for new editions and rules changes. Any narrative justification for the physics of the entire universe suddenly changing is going to be ridiculous. Presumably virtually every group trying a new edition starts a new campaign anyway.

What's wrong with good old-fashioned alternate realities? 1e Forgotten Realms, 2e, 3e, 4e, 5e... just let them all be 'shards' of the same reality. Don't try to shoe-horn changes between editions into the same timeline.

I guess in the case of FR that might make selling yet another Drizzt book series slightly more complicated. But I mean, just let him stay in his original version of the world. OR re-tell his 'origin story' in the new universe. Superhero comics do it all the time.

But I don't really care about Drizzt and book continuity seems like a dumb reason to bend the metaplot around a new edition.