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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Keldryn" data-source="post: 2930309" data-attributes="member: 11999">I completely agreee with Klaus.  I voted "other" in the poll.  I think that the a published campaign setting should include several metaplots either ready-to-go or already in progress.  It can add a lot to a campaign, and gives time-pressed DMs some long-term campaign ideas.I don't even mind if a select few adventure modules are released for the setting which are eventually included as "canon" in a future release of the core campaign setting.  But only if they are done well (which is obviously difficult if not impossible to quantify) -- preferably without world-shattering events (ie The Time of Troubles).  Keep the effects a little more localized, and don't have more than 2 or 3 such influences on the setting between "editions."What I really object to are "canonized" changes to the setting imposed by the events that occur in the licensed novels.  First of all, it undermines the PCs' role in the campaign.  On top of that, the majority of the novels (as with basically all licensed novels, in my opinion) are poorly-written and often elevate that author's pet characters to ridiculous levels of importance.  Authors start to one-up each other, introducing more powerful heroes and villains, and it just starts to escalate.  What, the Death Star can blow up an entire planet?  Well, now we have the SUN CRUSHER, which can make a star go supernova and destroy an entire solar system!  Try to top that one!  Oh, what's the matter little Jedi, does my lizard's Force-resistant bubble make your abilities entirely worthless?  How about an entire race of monsters that exist outside the Force and also have convenient lightsaber-proof weapons!  Oh yeah, well the heroes of my novels -- a skinny sorceress, a warrior who also happens to be a werebeast, and the snivelly thief-who-surprisingly-turns-out-to-be-a-bad-guy all become GODS at the end!!  I can absorb all of the magic you cast at me and then blow you up with it!  Hey, aren't you the reknowned Sage of Shadowdale who is also the most powerful wizard/cleric/fighter/archmage in the world who also happened to be a woman for a short period of time?  Well, let's kill off a beloved sidekick by having him crushed by... a huge boulder... no... a crashing spaceship... no, I've got it!  A MOON!  We'll drop a MOON on him!!!!Seriously, it's only a matter of time before we see a series of novels about the half-dragon, half-drow ranger who can fight with FOUR scimitars in a whirling dance of death (two with his hands, and two with his feet, all at the same time!).  And how many cataclysms can Krynn have in a relatively short period of time before it gets even more implausible?  300ish years after the first Cataclysm, when the gods turned their backs upon the world, they were rediscovered.  Then Raistlin tries to become a god himself.  Within 30 years, we have a Chaos War and the gods all leave again.  Within roughly the same timespan again, the gods come back again, in another game of cosmic peek-a-boo.  For crying out loud, enough already.  Quit screwing with the cosmology of a setting every few years.  I'm looking at you too, Forgotten Realms.I like the way Eberron is set up right now.  There are some pretty obvious metaplots set up in the CS, and WoTC has said that the events in the novels will not impact the game setting.  I hope they stick to this.  It's easy to ignore the enforced metaplot at first if you're sticking to the World of Greyhawk boxed set, the "grey box" Forgotten Realms set, the Dragonlance Adventures hardcover, or the Gazetteer series.  But as the years go by, it gets to be more and more work to ignore the "assumed canon" in future releases.  Yes, an individual DM can take the 3e FRCS and eliminate any references to the Time of Troubles, restore the dead gods to the pantheon, remove the new cosmology and bring back the "Great Wheel," and gloss over any other pieces of "history" that don't fit with the campaign, but at a certain point it just becomes far too much work to be worthwhile -- I might as well spend that time developing a homebrew setting.  (And if I ever run a Star Wars RPG again, it will use my own version of events after ROTJ, without planets full of rancor-riding Force Witches, Sun Crushers, Galaxy Guns, Force-resistant-bubble-generating lizards, Force-immune biotech aliens, dead Chewbaccas, unkillable Boba Fetts and masses of poorly-written super-jedi that routinely make Luke look like a wuss.)</blockquote>

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