Metaplots: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

[dragoner]

What I find most annoying about metaplots, is that often they jump the timeline forward, so it is difficult to match to the campaign timeline. Also when players want to include the metaplot in their background, which then makes one have to curate the metaplot, or at least know it, and think of implications.

 

[Guest 6948803]

Metaplots are good for publishers, who can sell more stuff, and for people who don't really run their campaigns, but like to collect & read stuff (I remember there were many in V:tM fandom). Sort of people who religiously watch Critical Role but never or almost never play themselves. Of course its totally viable (though bit limited) way of participating in the hobby, but as a side-effect, people who actually run their games have to either ignore metaplot (and the lore it brings) or hotfix it into their own creations.
That said, in some games metaplots are joy to ignore (Deadlands! I was pretty surprised that there is metaplot resolution at all) or set up for edition changes, like already mentioned FR (thats my absolutely biggest gripe with FR - I run post-Time of Troubles campaign pretending its current year, because that causes least headache). Personally I kinda like metaplot in aforementioned Pendragon. You know how it will unfold from the very beginning and you can make informed decision to change it or weave your campaign into it.

 

[Mark Sabalauskas]

If a game is based on a licence from living fiction in another medium, forward plot momentum will happen regardless--the only question is if the designers and/or the players will deal with it or how.

Constraints not dissimilar to metaplots (at least in terms of tables needing to account for or ignore the constraints) exist with RPGs in historical settings, or in adaptations like the Great Pendragon Campaign.

The existence of bad metaplots would appear to give designers something to consider when advancing their craft--why is early Traveller's metaplot better than the later stuff--and how can we make more things that are like the good stuff? Why has Glorantha been successful at advancing a plot? Is part of the reason that it moves slowly--having advanced about a decade in game since the 70s?

Are metaplots out of fashion because of a reaction to bad games in the 90s that exploited metaplots for business rather than artistic reasons? Because indie designers operate at too small a scale to incorporate them? Because the hobby currently fetishizes game mechanics over setting, and metaplot mostly exists in the realm of setting?

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Metaplot interesting in serialized fiction to an extent. See: Marvel and DC Comic Universes, MCU, Star Wars.

Annoying in RPGs, where the plot should be background for what the Protagonists, the PCs, are doing.



One thing interesting about fictional metaplots in real world settings is the advance of technology. Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone novels started in the 80's. She decided to leave it there. So it advanced from a modern contemporary setting to a historical one.

Other mystery series I have read just roll with advances in technology. So even though only a few seasons have passed in book time, we move from the internet showing up, to cell phones (flip phones) to smart phones.

 

[Azuresun]

The existence of bad metaplots would appear to give designers something to consider when advancing their craft--why is early Traveller's metaplot better than the later stuff--and how can we make more things that are like the good stuff? Why has Glorantha been successful at advancing a plot? Is part of the reason that it moves slowly--having advanced about a decade in game since the 70s?

Are metaplots out of fashion because of a reaction to bad games in the 90s that exploited metaplots for business rather than artistic reasons? Because indie designers operate at too small a scale to incorporate them? Because the hobby currently fetishizes game mechanics over setting, and metaplot mostly exists in the realm of setting?

Doing a good metaplot? I'd make it a "what if"--optional and non-binding to future writers. Such as Exalted's two big metaplot "events", Return of the Scarlet Empress and Locust Crusade. They were big events that fundamentally changed the world if they happened--but critically, future books were not written with the assumptions that those things had happened! Of course......the actual execution of both was a big steaming pot of awful, but the intention was good, with the assumption that you could just plug them in when you were ready for an epic finale to a campaign, or ignore them if your campaign wasn't going that way.

Metaplot interesting in serialized fiction to an extent. See: Marvel and DC Comic Universes, MCU, Star Wars.

Annoying in RPGs, where the plot should be background for what the Protagonists, the PCs, are doing.

Agreed. Writing a compelling fictional universe is one set of skills, but it's harder to write one where you don't know anything about who the heroes will be! And what a lot of metaplot writers do is go "I'm creating the world, so I'm creating the protagonists as well", and create a cast of NPC's that are so distinctive, dynamic and pro-active that they don't need the PC's to be there--and that's the very worst thing you can do in an RPG! Villains are meant to be ultimately defeated by the PC's, heroes are meant to perhaps help the PC's but ultimately get out of the way and let them be cool.

Forget that and you get people like Elminister (at his worst), Divis Mal, Sam Haight, Harlequin, Alexia Ciannor, Darius Hellestromme or Stone, and adventures where the PC's are essentially just there to be cheerleaders to untouchable NPC's, or watch villains undone by their own hubris.

 

[macd21]

Doing a good metaplot? I'd make it a "what if"--optional and non-binding to future writers. Such as Exalted's two big metaplot "events", Return of the Scarlet Empress and Locust Crusade. They were big events that fundamentally changed the world if they happened--but critically, future books were not written with the assumptions that those things had happened!

I don’t think that’s what’s generally considered metaplot - they’re just plots. Metaplot is when future books are written with the assumption that events in past books happened, creating a changing narrative with each new release.

 

[John Dallman]

If a game is based on a licence from living fiction in another medium ...

Is that a good idea in any case? I'd argue against it, simply because RPGs need different story structures from most other media. The group of characters who are approximate equals doesn't fit most other kinds of storytelling.

 

[wingsandsword]

Is that a good idea in any case? I'd argue against it, simply because RPGs need different story structures from most other media. The group of characters who are approximate equals doesn't fit most other kinds of storytelling.

Given how licensed RPG's have been some of the most successful, I'd say yes.

For a good chunk of the 2000's, WotC's Star Wars RPG was the 2nd best selling RPG out there, after D&D. For much of the 1990's, West End Games's Star Wars RPG was one of the top sellers. TSR's Marvel RPG was one of the biggest RPG's of the 80's after D&D. There have been 4 different Star Trek RPG's over the last 40 years or so.

Licensed RPG's have been around for decades, and have been very popular and successful. If they weren't, people would have stopped buying them (and stopped making them) a very long time ago.

As to how that fits with metaplots, at least in those settings, there are generally different eras or series or points that a game supports.

Like in Star Wars, you might play a game set during the Old Republic, the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War, the Yuuzhan Vong War, or the Sith-Imperial War. . .but a new era with new plotlines emerging doesn't mean that old eras aren't supported anymore. A new Star Trek series coming out doesn't mean that no products will be released to support games set during previous series.

When WotC released Spellplague-era Forgotten Realms for 4e (or when TSR released 5th age era Dragonlance), they stopped producing materials set in the prior eras, that new era became the presumed standard that all games would be run in and new books and articles that were released only covered that new era. When White Wolf had their "Reckoning" plotline, there weren't any wraiths anymore and it became extremely difficult for mages to travel to other planes after that point. . .so they didn't make any books for Wraith and mage books stopped covering horizon realms or the umbra because mages really couldn't even leave Earth anymore. . .which meant that metaplot introduced big, sweeping changes to a setting that reflected in all official depictions of the setting going forward.