Should Campaign Settings include a metaplot?

[Psion]

I wasn't even thinking of homebrews or other GM inflicted changes when I speak of metaplot. My objection to them is purely based on published settings.

In your own campaign, you control the horizontal and the vertical.

In published campaigns, the authors have no idea what you are up to in your game. Creating a volatile baseline for your world makes effective GMing difficult when what one of the major motivations for buying into a setting is a stable baseline with minimal work.

 

[Psion]

look at V:tR's VII and Mythologies for the right way to do this: several cool answers to the great questions of the setting - all mutually exclusive, all "official", none of them "The One"!

 

[CarlZog]

Settings should not have a metaplot. They should have several metaplots.

Other. Settings should have numerous campaign seeds for GMs and players to explore through their campaigns and characters.

I agree. I like having a publisher give me several ideas, but don't tell me what's going to happen regardless of what I do.

I also don't think a metaplot is necessary to a good campaign. A "campaign setting" can be just that: a setting, a location fixed in time. It doesn't have to come with its own built-in overarching story. If it's an interesting locale, I, as a DM, will be inspired to write the stories for it.

I've seen several great settings that I thought were ruined by bad metaplots: 7th Sea, Star Drive, FR, Blue Planet. I'd still happily run a game in any one of these locales, but you can bet I'd be ignoring the metaplot.

Carl

 

[el-remmen]

I don't see why one shouldn't.

It can just as easily be ignored.

I think the problem is whan metaplots advance through events that change the actual rules of the game and/or introduce a great many new things supposedly available to the PC (new powers, new spells, new classes, new items, etc. . .)

Ideally, the great events of a campaign setting can be felt throughout the world without necessarily directly affecting the PCs - but give them a sense of the world beyond them- with the option of getting involved (or not).

 

[The_Gneech]

I think some organic metaplot is fine ... the ToEE evolving to RtToEE is cool, for instance. But I don't think that a big "This year in FR, this will happen!" type of plot is a very good idea, because after a while it gets to be like the DC/Marvel universes with their periodic apocalypses. Silly.

The nice thing about smaller-scale, individual-scenario metaplot is also that it's easily ignored. Don't have Temple of Elemental Evil? Fine, who needs it? This is what happens in MY Greyhawk...

-The Gneech

 

[JustaPlayer]

Wow. I wouldn't think it would be skewed to no like that.

For instance FR is probably the most used setting on the d20 market. It enjoys high sales and doesn't seem to be in the decline many other settings are.

The you have Ravenloft which was being done by WW. From what I understand, people lost intrest in it fast because it felt stagnant.

I believe that if there is metaplot going on in a game, it feels more alive.

 

[Simm]

The way I see it a setting should be a stable description of the world from which you build a campaign. If you want to add metaplot that changes the world as the campaign continues that's fine.
So I say a setting should not have metaplot.

 

[Arnwyn]

No, no, no, a million times no. Never in a published setting. The FR novels are among the worst aspects of the game setting, not to mention other foolish metaplot fiascos in previous TSR worlds (eg. Planescape and Dark Sun being notable offenders).

And if you truly want your world to be alive ... then a metaplot is a necessity.

Nonsense. This is a fallacy (when talking about published campaign worlds).

 

[JustaPlayer]

No, no, no, a million times no. Never in a published setting. The FR novels are among the worst aspects of the game setting, not to mention other foolish metaplot fiascos in previous TSR worlds (eg. Planescape and Dark Sun being notable offenders).

There were plenty of reasons I stayed away from those offerings and none of them had to do with the novels. The thing is a really liked both concepts immensely as well.

As far as the FR novels go, the only problem I have with them is that they are trash. I don’t have a problem with them conceptually.

 

[Akrasia]

No, I don't like them at all. Metaplot foolishness ruined the Known World (a.k.a. Mystara). One of the great things about the Wilderlands is that it is metaplot free.