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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 6221951" data-attributes="member: 11697">For settings that I enjoy I do appreciate a well done metaplot/evolution of the setting through events in modules, the passage of time in subsequent sourcebooks, and material in novels. However it's something that's really easy to completely screw up if you don't have a continuity editor on staff and/or seriously make sure that designers and novel writers do sufficient research before writing on a topic. Errors happen obviously and it's more likely to miss something minor the more and more material that grows around a setting over time, but you can minimize it. Plus all that means little if at some point a current design team regime decides to blow a setting up for reasons known only to them.I'm mostly a fan of various D&D settings by way of the 1e/2e/3e connection of them all (except Eberron) through the Great Wheel cosmology.Metaplot made things interesting, but it also can kill interest in a setting when it goes off the rails. FR was my second favorite setting, except now after 4e FR jumped a 100 years forward, retconned large amounts of material to conform to 4e core, and had the Spellplague as the in-game reasoning... I honestly don't recognize it as a same setting. It pretty much killed my interest in FR, and I'd been buying most every sourcebook and novel. As for the Sundering with 5e, since (and please correct me if I'm wrong) the Sundering isn't going to actually be retconning the 4e material and the changes it forced, at least for me it's sort of a non-starter for getting my interest back. It looks to be trying to retain as much of the 4e material as it can and just bring back some 1e/2e/3e elements that were removed in 4e, but it's still a century in-setting removed from the setting I enjoyed, and most every character and plot element is still long dead or no longer relevant. They're trying to backpeddle a bit and regain support for the setting since I suspect that 4e FR lost quite a lot of the fanbase and likely hurt RPG and novel sales as a result (no sales numbers obviously but it seemed that there were less novels published, some novels cancelled, some novels e-book only with no print edition, and I don't recall many or perhaps any hitting the NYT bestseller list but I could be wrong on that).Of course one person's setting trampling arrogant and malicious metaplot is another person's awesome on toast: I enjoyed Planescape's Faction War. *ducks to avoid thrown objects* It just depends on how the majority of the fanbase feels about any sweeping metaplot-caused setting changes so handle such things with care, and probably best to treat it with kid gloves when discussing things you removed, because what you deride might be someone's favorite special snowflake, and now there's the internet.Novels that take place on small scales without causing major world changes, or novels that aren't assumed to be canon within the setting by default are probably the way to go. Having an editor in charge of ensuring that an RPG line and novel line don't trample on one another is key. In this respect I'm really pleased with how Paizo has been handling their novels for Pathfinder.</blockquote>

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