Should Campaign Settings include a metaplot?
- Thread starter Klaus
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A'koss
Explorer
Personally, I don't consider one-off adventures metaplots.Hussar said:Planescape is metaplot free?
What about Orcus/Teneberous and the whole Modron thing? I'm not a big Planescape fan, but, it seems to me that there is an awful lot of metaplot there. Lady of Pain, factions dying, that sort of thing.
Psion
Adventurer
Hussar said:Planescape is metaplot free?
Planescape was one of the two settings I had in mind that suffered at the hands of metaplot. I don't consider dead gods so much a problem... it concerns elements that players might never have dealth with outside the adventure. It's Faction War that is in your face and gets my ire.
TheAuldGrump
First Post
I like metaplots, but by the end of a campaign the PCs should be able to affect the plot in a significant fashion, not be mere witnesses.
So I voted 'Other'.
The Auld Grump
So I voted 'Other'.
The Auld Grump
prosfilaes
Adventurer
I've seen metaplots do such nasty things to settings I liked. I don't know what happened in late-2ed Planescape, but it's seems so bizzare to have the 3rd "Planescape" stuff with the factions arbitrarily screwed with. Dragonlance is worse; it's gone through several changes that completely blew up the world. Traveller was so bad that GURPS Traveller and T20 both go to basically the original setting without any of the later metaplot (GT by alternate history, T20 by going back a little before the changes).
I think the biggest complaint is that authors seem to always want to take the setting and blow it up; empires that have lasted for a thousand years have to disintegrate into civil war, gods that have been around since the dawn of time disappear, a faction system that has been stable for several hundred years has to be destroyed. If it were just the standard rise and fall of kings and petty wars, it'd be a lot easier to deal with.
I think the biggest complaint is that authors seem to always want to take the setting and blow it up; empires that have lasted for a thousand years have to disintegrate into civil war, gods that have been around since the dawn of time disappear, a faction system that has been stable for several hundred years has to be destroyed. If it were just the standard rise and fall of kings and petty wars, it'd be a lot easier to deal with.
I put "Other", because I think worlds without metaplots are perfectly acceptable, but why not? Sometimes the metaplot defines the campaign setting. If you like that particular metaplot, play the campaign setting. I don't think all campaign settings should have or should not have metaplots -- as in many things, one should seek a balance.
Regarding the "never done well" argument -- of course they're not done well: they're done by other people! I've never used published material without tweaking it to fit my Greyhawk campaigns (probably far less imaginatively than other people do, but I do change it). Each of us knows what's best for our groups, so we fit the material to our campaigns.
I'm Cleo!
Regarding the "never done well" argument -- of course they're not done well: they're done by other people! I've never used published material without tweaking it to fit my Greyhawk campaigns (probably far less imaginatively than other people do, but I do change it). Each of us knows what's best for our groups, so we fit the material to our campaigns.
I'm Cleo!
genshou
First Post
Exactly the reason I voted yes when I was thinking only of homebrews. There should be metaplots that are more or less outside of PC control/influence, but only if I make them myself and that way am able to keep them from being a detriment or an impossible wall the PCs will encounter and be unable to climb "because it's the metaplot and that's how they wrote it into the setting book".I'm Cleo said:
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