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Please describe your experience (players) or management (GMs) of a perfectly executed metaplot...
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<blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 7599226" data-attributes="member: 12377"><p>I've never run a game that lasted 4 years, but my last D&D campaign lasted one year and had two different plot threads:</p><p></p><p><strong>1.</strong> Under the city was a piece of Tharzdu'un's prison, and his cultists were planning to kill everyone and harvest their souls in order to open the prison. Over the course of the adventure, the cult gradually became more active, and the PCs discovered that one of the city's leaders had built a machine for harvesting souls (a soul-monger -- stolen from ToA) and turned out to be secretly part of the cult. The PCs were inadvertently helping the cult by eliminating the other city leaders (they were all evil, except one). The players didn't put it all together until they reached the lair of the final boss and made a few successful Arcana/Religion checks. This new knowledge, combined with the impending battle in the city above (which would provide plenty of fresh souls), created a nice sense of urgency in the final battle. Of course, divine intervention turned a really difficult battle into something totally doable.</p><p></p><p>For this plot, I knew from the beginning of the campaign about the piece of the prison and the cult, but I didn't know what their exact plan was, or even how active they'd be. For example, the idea of the city leader, the soul-monger, and the battle providing souls, was all stuff that kind of made sense in retrospect so I added that to the plot.</p><p></p><p><strong>2.</strong> A powerful cambion warlord had been trying to destabilize the city to take over, and his followers had helped the PCs to kill the evil city leaders. This tied in to the above plot, as he led the army that was battling above the city. When the PCs couldn't destroy the soul-monger, he stole it, and planned to use the souls to ascend to godhood. Of course, the party ganked him first.</p><p></p><p>This plot came from a PC's backstory -- the cambion was his warlock patron! The character was a bloodhunter (a kind of half-caster warlock) who hated demons and wanted to slay demons, <em>especially</em> his cambion patron. The cambion hat sent him to the city for reasons unknown. This was fantastic plot fertilizer, from which grew several NPCs, including an enemy tiefling warlock who the bloodhunter hated. But during a holiday in which no violence was allowed, they slept together -- and during the final encounter, the cambion had as a hostage the tiefling and her unborn child! The bloodhunter slew the cambion in single combat, and it was epic.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm also running a Mutant: Year Zero game, straight outta the book, and that game comes with a really strong metaplot. The backstory of the mutants is a mystery, and it's uncovered gradually via artifacts that serve as clues. Eventually the PCs can locate a surviving civilization and escape their post-apocalyptic world -- but by that point, the PCs have done a lot of work to build up their community to be less post-apocalyptic. So that gives them an interesting dilemma.</p><p></p><p></p><p>My advice for plots is generally this:</p><p></p><p>Create the <em>conditions</em> for a plot to arise; don't create a plot itself. This means accepting the fact that the PCs might go off in a totally different direction than you expected and "ruin" your plot; it's kind of the opposite of railroading.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, don't just do a pure sandbox; instead, create a lot of plot elements and events that MIGHT come together to form a story later. In screenwriting there is a concept called "laying pipe" which means having a scene or part of a scene early in a movie or show, which seems meaningless, but turns out to be significant later. Chekhov's gun is a famous example. I got this idea from Robin Laws who has a lot more examples on his blog. The thing about RPGs is, you can introduce all sorts of happenings and then later decide which of those was meaningful.</p><p></p><p>Here are some of the best ways I know to lay pipe:</p><p></p><p><strong>1.</strong> Secretive factions. As the DM, you should know the faction's methodologies and its immediate goals -- but you can decide their long-term goals later. It's very common for factions to hold their cards close to their chest so the players will probably expect some secrecy. And many factions try to gain power. But you don't have to decide right away <em>why</em> they want the power, or how far they are willing to go in order to get it.</p><p></p><p><strong>2.</strong> Recurring NPCs that the party can't or <em>won't</em> kill because they don't want to. Ambiguously evil/helpful NPCs are great for this. So are bosses who have underlings you can kill, and so are characters with diplomatic immunity (maybe an evil NPC is under the protection of a good one). Also some players will respond to the threat of consequences -- "you can't kill this guy without cause or you'll get thrown in jail" -- but some aren't.</p><p></p><p><strong>3.</strong> Unique resources that the factions and NPCs can fight over. Magical doodads are good for this, but political positions or territory can be good too.</p><p></p><p><strong>4.</strong> Clues that point towards the unknown. The best example is the classic treasure map; another good one is when the party finds a key but doesn't know what door it opens. I had fun in one campaign by allowing the PCs to intercept messages from "N" to his henchpeople (usually the PCs would take these off of henchperson corpses); they spent a lot of time trying to thwart "N" without knowing who he/she was or what exactly they were thwarting.</p><p></p><p><strong>5.</strong> Big red buttons, the kind that say "do not push" but every player who sees it just really really wants to push it. Treasure maps etc. can count for this, but so can tempting targets, like if an enemy faction has a cool magic item that might be stolen, or an enemy NPC is briefly vulnerable. A setting with strictures is good for this too -- "Never enter the doors beneath the temple" or "Don't try to cheat the boat-people out of their payment" -- what happens when somebody violates those?</p><p></p><p></p><p>A phrase I like which encapsulates this approach is "Do a lot of preparation, but zero planning." In other words, have a strong idea of what may happen, but don't actually count on anything happening. Those possibilities that become real, become your plot.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="77IM, post: 7599226, member: 12377"] I've never run a game that lasted 4 years, but my last D&D campaign lasted one year and had two different plot threads: [B]1.[/B] Under the city was a piece of Tharzdu'un's prison, and his cultists were planning to kill everyone and harvest their souls in order to open the prison. Over the course of the adventure, the cult gradually became more active, and the PCs discovered that one of the city's leaders had built a machine for harvesting souls (a soul-monger -- stolen from ToA) and turned out to be secretly part of the cult. The PCs were inadvertently helping the cult by eliminating the other city leaders (they were all evil, except one). The players didn't put it all together until they reached the lair of the final boss and made a few successful Arcana/Religion checks. This new knowledge, combined with the impending battle in the city above (which would provide plenty of fresh souls), created a nice sense of urgency in the final battle. Of course, divine intervention turned a really difficult battle into something totally doable. For this plot, I knew from the beginning of the campaign about the piece of the prison and the cult, but I didn't know what their exact plan was, or even how active they'd be. For example, the idea of the city leader, the soul-monger, and the battle providing souls, was all stuff that kind of made sense in retrospect so I added that to the plot. [B]2.[/B] A powerful cambion warlord had been trying to destabilize the city to take over, and his followers had helped the PCs to kill the evil city leaders. This tied in to the above plot, as he led the army that was battling above the city. When the PCs couldn't destroy the soul-monger, he stole it, and planned to use the souls to ascend to godhood. Of course, the party ganked him first. This plot came from a PC's backstory -- the cambion was his warlock patron! The character was a bloodhunter (a kind of half-caster warlock) who hated demons and wanted to slay demons, [I]especially[/I] his cambion patron. The cambion hat sent him to the city for reasons unknown. This was fantastic plot fertilizer, from which grew several NPCs, including an enemy tiefling warlock who the bloodhunter hated. But during a holiday in which no violence was allowed, they slept together -- and during the final encounter, the cambion had as a hostage the tiefling and her unborn child! The bloodhunter slew the cambion in single combat, and it was epic. I'm also running a Mutant: Year Zero game, straight outta the book, and that game comes with a really strong metaplot. The backstory of the mutants is a mystery, and it's uncovered gradually via artifacts that serve as clues. Eventually the PCs can locate a surviving civilization and escape their post-apocalyptic world -- but by that point, the PCs have done a lot of work to build up their community to be less post-apocalyptic. So that gives them an interesting dilemma. My advice for plots is generally this: Create the [I]conditions[/I] for a plot to arise; don't create a plot itself. This means accepting the fact that the PCs might go off in a totally different direction than you expected and "ruin" your plot; it's kind of the opposite of railroading. On the other hand, don't just do a pure sandbox; instead, create a lot of plot elements and events that MIGHT come together to form a story later. In screenwriting there is a concept called "laying pipe" which means having a scene or part of a scene early in a movie or show, which seems meaningless, but turns out to be significant later. Chekhov's gun is a famous example. I got this idea from Robin Laws who has a lot more examples on his blog. The thing about RPGs is, you can introduce all sorts of happenings and then later decide which of those was meaningful. Here are some of the best ways I know to lay pipe: [B]1.[/B] Secretive factions. As the DM, you should know the faction's methodologies and its immediate goals -- but you can decide their long-term goals later. It's very common for factions to hold their cards close to their chest so the players will probably expect some secrecy. And many factions try to gain power. But you don't have to decide right away [I]why[/I] they want the power, or how far they are willing to go in order to get it. [B]2.[/B] Recurring NPCs that the party can't or [I]won't[/I] kill because they don't want to. Ambiguously evil/helpful NPCs are great for this. So are bosses who have underlings you can kill, and so are characters with diplomatic immunity (maybe an evil NPC is under the protection of a good one). Also some players will respond to the threat of consequences -- "you can't kill this guy without cause or you'll get thrown in jail" -- but some aren't. [B]3.[/B] Unique resources that the factions and NPCs can fight over. Magical doodads are good for this, but political positions or territory can be good too. [B]4.[/B] Clues that point towards the unknown. The best example is the classic treasure map; another good one is when the party finds a key but doesn't know what door it opens. I had fun in one campaign by allowing the PCs to intercept messages from "N" to his henchpeople (usually the PCs would take these off of henchperson corpses); they spent a lot of time trying to thwart "N" without knowing who he/she was or what exactly they were thwarting. [B]5.[/B] Big red buttons, the kind that say "do not push" but every player who sees it just really really wants to push it. Treasure maps etc. can count for this, but so can tempting targets, like if an enemy faction has a cool magic item that might be stolen, or an enemy NPC is briefly vulnerable. A setting with strictures is good for this too -- "Never enter the doors beneath the temple" or "Don't try to cheat the boat-people out of their payment" -- what happens when somebody violates those? A phrase I like which encapsulates this approach is "Do a lot of preparation, but zero planning." In other words, have a strong idea of what may happen, but don't actually count on anything happening. Those possibilities that become real, become your plot. [/QUOTE]
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