[Ganakagok] "Metaplot" Issues

[Bill_White]

I was very pleased to get an honorable mention for Ganakagok, my Iron Game Chef game.  A pdf of the entry is here:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/w/j/wjw11/Ganakagok.pdf

One of the development issues that Mike Holmes suggested had to do with the "metaplot," which was the term I used for the decisions made by the GM about "what's really going on" or "the True Nature of Ganakagok."  I should mention that I'm reserving those decisions to the GM because I think that preserving the uncertainty of the People's predicament for players is an important design goal.

Mike noted that "metaplot" seemed to refer to little more than a timeline of events, but I want to make clear in the rules revision that it is really the GM's paradigm for Ganakagok in addition to a timeline that drives events that players need to respond to (which Mike also noted needs to be fleshed out further).

I'm looking for comments and feedback about how to develop these elements (the nature of the world, and the timeline of events).

Here's what I've got so far:

METAPLOT -- What the GM Needs to Decide On:

o  The nature of the Stars, the Sun, and their conflict.  Who's the real bad guy?  What do they want from the People?
o  Can the Dawn be fought, slowed, stopped, or reversed?  This has implications for the cosmology of Ganakagok.o  Who are the Ancient Ones?  What is their current status and what is their relation to Ganakagok?  Did they build it?  Are they the ancestors of the People?  Are they even human?  
o  What can the People do to survive?  Move deeper inside Ganakagok, evacuate to a new land, fight the dawn?

METAPLOT -- Timeline of Events

o  Changing Weather Conditions
o  Animal Migrations
o  Refugees and Invaders
o  Ghoul Attacks!
o  Ice Collapses and Quakes
o  Dreams and Visitations by Spirits

Also, it's probably worth it to show how decisions re: metaplot affect  game mechanics like how Mana works.

Any comments?[/url]

[Valamir]

I'm doing this exact thing in Robots & Rapiers.  It reaches throughout the setting, NPC, backstory, etc.

The presentation I'm using is to offer each element as a sort of menu of options.

For instance, I have an iconic NPC character Del Trevaine who embodies everything that a swashbuckling robotic hero in Auvernais is expected to be.  I then have an entire section on "The Many Faces of Del Trevaine".  "Del the Rogue" explains how Del really likes the way things are, is happy with who he is and is actively seeking to maintain the status quot.  "Del the Revolutionary" explains how Del pretends to be the swashbuckling hero he's always been while secretly plotting the downfall of the status quo.  "Evil Del" explains how Del feels betrayed by the status quo and while continueing to play his part openly, is secretly a seriel killer/terrorist taking his revenge on society.  "Profiteer Del" explains how Del doesn't give two figs for the status quo or for the revolution, but is more than happy to play both sides against the middle for personal gain and power.  

Each of these options is largely mutally exclusive and I'm leaving it up to the GMs to decide what Del is really like in their campaign.  The different possibilities outlined, also serve as examples of different behavioral archetypes to be dropped into any NPC.


As another example there is the city of La Roche which is the "enemy city" that robots were programmed to make war with periodically.  It had been nearly completely destroyed but now has been rebuilt, its ships have been spotted at sea, and its armies are on the move.  The Cardinal is concerned because he has no idea who could be responsible for having rebuilt the city and that worries him.  I offer several different possible explainations of who is behind La Roche.  Perhaps the robots of La Roche simply finally managed to repair themselves and bring the city back on line.  Perhaps bandits are using it as a hideout.  Perhaps a foreign power has restored it to use as a base of operations.  Perhaps the Queen has founded a utopian free robot society there.  Perhaps the Cardinal is just pretending he doesn't know because he rebuilt it himself to act as a secret headquarters for his own nefarious plans.  Its entirely up to the GM to choose one.

There's maybe a dozen key elements in the game setting that are left open like this.  My intention (and I'm about half done with them) is to write up any where from a paragraph to a page on a number of plausible variations for each, noting any ripple effects each might cause.  And then direct the GM can mix and match as desired.

[Mike Holmes]

Right, Ralph, exactly the same thing. But metaplot can have some negative connotations. Could you explain to Bill why your method, and his avoids those negative problems? I mean, call it metaplot if you like, but it's better than metaplot as we currently use the term to critique it.

Mike

[Valamir]

Ack...good point.  I totally neglected to actually answer the question after I got down pouring out my examples.

I'm not calling it meta plot.  In fact, I specifically say that the game will not have an ongoing metaplot revealed through supplement releases and that much of what is considered "canonical" information is actually customizable by the GM per campaign.


The current (unedited and barely proofread draft) form of that text in R&R is as follows

Metaplot

Metaplot has become known in RPG circles as a campaign whose key events are partially or completely scripted by the game designers and published in various supplements to be used in your campaigns.  Usually the meta plots will involve several canonical characters.  Because these characters will be important to future events of the metaplot there are usually warnings against harming or killing them.  Often the designers will not even provide complete game stats for them to discourage GMs from using them in the campaign as anything other than background color.

Future supplements are written to expand and continue the story line, and the assumption in these supplements is that certain events in your campaign will have occurred, and certain other events will not yet have occurred in order for the story described in the supplement to happen.

The Good:
At their best metaplots provide an overarching structure to a campaign that keeps the game from becoming just a rambling series of meandering episodes with no real point.  Most good stories have a build up, a climax, and a denouement and metaplot done well can help provide those elements to a campaign.

They can also help take some of the pressure off of the GM.  Preparing for a roleplaying session can take a lot of time and effort, and metaplots can provide a direction and framework for the GM to build on that is easier and quicker than inventing everything from scratch.  

Additionally, metaplots and the sourcebooks they're found in typically deliver a great volume of color and flavor that helps give depth to the setting.  The kind of events, adventures, and scenarios found in metaplot books helps set the mood and feel of play for play groups to model their own play on.


The Bad:
At their worst metaplots are a straight jacket that constrain a GM to following published scenarios very closely or risk being unable to use future supplement material.  Poorly done metaplots are little more than bad novels written in serial installments over the course of many overpriced supplements by game designers who fancy themselves authors.  Players in these games get to watch their characters play second (or third) fiddle to the designer's pet canonical characters who perform all of the really important tasks and accomplish all of the really important goals while the player's characters are reduced to couriers, gophers, and mere witnesses to the greatness of the published NPCs.

GMs in these campaigns are often faced with two equally poor choices.  Either ramrod their players through a very narrowly defined set of scenarios being careful not to let them do anything that might disrupt the overall story line; or let the player characters have a bigger role and risk rendering future supplements nearly or completely useless because your campaign has become too different from the "official" campaign for the supplements to apply.


Robots & Rapiers:
Robots & Rapiers attempts to deliver the advantages of a metaplot while avoiding the pitfalls.  First and foremost, there is absolutely no metaplot and no canonical characters who are off limits.  Future supplements which contain information on other areas on Athalon will be structured so that "first contact" with them occurs at the moment you buy the supplement and introduce it into your campaign.  That way there is absolutely nothing "going on" there that you missed or that interfers or contradicts what you have done.  There are no characters who are indispensible to play.  The King, Queen, and Cardinal can all be killed off if desired and Chapter XXX of the Intersession has made allowances for those possibilities.

Your campaign is your own.  No future supplement will provide any timeline or events that must be completed in some particular order.  Even canonical characters are your own.  The section entitled "The Many Faces of Del Trevaine" on page XX takes one of Auvernais most well known NPCs and provides several different ways for you the GM to incorporate him into your campaign.  Different personalities, different goals and objectives, whatever feels right to you.  There is nothing off limits.

What we have attempted to do is capture some of the advantages of the metaplot in a different way.  The theme of transformation is an important one and built into every major part of the game.  The Struggle for the Tapestry provides a way to generate key events in Auvernais and map out stage by stage how that struggle evolves in your campaign.  Ideally, these will provide your campaign with a desireable level of structure to give focus to your play.  

Additionally, the random scenario generator is designed specifically to whip up the bones of a genre appropriate scenario with a minimum amount of preparation time.  The ability of the players to invent characters on their own by creating and using Contacts will also help populate the world.  The actions the players take during the Intersession should provide numerous ongoing hooks for plot development generated by the system but unique to your campaign.

Very rough, and can probably use some of the edges filed down, but that's the angle I'm taking.

[Lxndr]

So basically, Ralph isn't offering "metaplot" as much as he's offering... setting splats?  A more-or-less finite set of choices in different categories that can overlap, similar to the choices of Tribe, Breed, Austpice in Werewolf, only for world-creation instead of character-creation (and with 12 separate categories instead of only 3).

These "setting splats" (boy a better word is needed) also seem to be what Ganakagok is looking for; what Bill was referring to in his initial post, I believe (definitely what Ralph was talking about).  Much like character classes, different setting splats could very well offer various mechanical differences (such as how the "metaplot" decisions in Gankagok are going to affect things like how Mana works, according to Bill's initial post).

[Bill_White]

Hey --

What I thought Mike was getting at in his judging was that what I was calling a metaplot was just a timeline, which he said needed to be further developed.  The second part is absolutely true -- it does need further development -- but the first is not.  It's not "just a timeline," it's also the GM's choices about the ground-truths underlying the setting.  For example, it may not be the case that Ganakagok is drifting into lower latitudes (as Mike surmises), and that's why the sun is rising.  Maybe the rising of the Sun is really a new spirit a-borning, or the return of the Ancient Ones, or the End of the World.

So Ralph's comment is helpful:  Think of it as a menu of choices, with ripples spreading outward.  I'll add that the ripples spreading out from the GM's choices should act as signals to canny players about what's going on, and what's going to happen.  This will let them make meaningful choices about how to handle the problem of your entire world changing beneath your feet.

Preserving the mystery of Ganakagok so that players can uncover it during play was an important consideration for me in designing the game (perhaps this is a Sim imperative).  That's one of the reasons I was as opaque as I was in terms of possibilities (the other reason was of course time pressure):  I didn't want to put too many limits on the possibilities.  Of course, by not providing options, I was enabling the easiest read of the situation:  it's an iceberg, it's drifting, the sun is going to "rise" regardless of what we do because that's how celestial mechanics work.  (But I find the notion of quasi-Inuit hunters travelling to the spirit-world in their dreams to battle the Sun and keep it from rising oddly compelling).

I get that the term "metaplot" is fraught with negative connotations relating to its potentially deprotagonizing or at least imagination-stifling effect, but it's too nifty a word to let it be relegated to the dust-bin of Devil-terms.  I used it to mean exactly what I think it denotes (sans negative connotation):  "what's happening in the game-world regardless of what player-characters do." In reclaiming this term, I was trying to put these sorts of background dynamics or on-going setting changes explicitly in the hands of the GM, rather than in the hands of the designer (me).

Bill

[Valamir]

I think its a great idea Bill, I must admit to not having read Ganakagok yet so I can't comment directly on what you've done yet; but I think you'll really want to actually write out a number of the maybe's along with any mechanical or contextual implications and domino effects.  You'll want to give the GM all of the information he needs to successfully incorporate any of the possibilities into the campaign.  But you'll want enough choices to maintain the mystery to the players.  Even if they read the book cover to cover they won't know for sure what choices the GM selected.  

You'll want the evidence to be fairly congruent among the various choices so that it isn't immediately obvious which choice the GM made by the player's slyly asking leading questions.  I think you'll also want to provide some pro/con designer commentary on whether you advise the GM to actively switch and swap the choices during play to keep one step ahead of the players, or whether its best to make a firm decision and keep to it.

[Mike Holmes]

Bill,

Get over what I wrote in the comments about the contest. I wrote "timeline," first because it was shorthand - I was doing a lot of writing and couldn't be as specific as I would have liked to be. Second, I chose the term timeline, because it's often used as a counter-term herabouts to metaplot. As in "It doesn't have the problems of a metaplot - it's more of a timeline."

Basically, if I'd had the time, I would have written something like Ralph has above about the term metaplot, but that wouldn't have pertained to your game all that much, would it have?

The point is that I was paying your game a compliment - metaplot around here is almost insulting to a game associated with it. I was saying that it had some of the elements of a metaplot, and other neat elements, without the downsides that we normally associate with one in this locality. And, as I've said, I have no problem with you continuing to call it a metaplot (though I kind like Alex's "Setting-splat"). I just wanted to clarify what I meant in my comment.

Anyhow, the work you have up above shows definite advancement towards making this a really neat mechanic - and overall a really good game.

Mike

[Bill_White]

Mike --

Okay, it's no big deal.  Your IGC review comments were to the point, pegging exactly what needs developing in the Ganakagok rules.  I read you as saying (a) clarify the "setting-splat" choices a GM needs to make, (b) flesh out the kinds & pacing of events that could occur as the Dawn approaches, (c) add details about "spirit-journeys," (d) give more on mana use, and (e) make the rules for trading more concrete.

I picked (a) and to a lesser extent (b) to work on first because they drive options for all the rest, as Ralph intimated.

As you say, whether the decisions in (a) and (b) are called "metaplot," "setting-splat," or "ludicial substructure" is tangential.

I think I've got enough to move forward with, at least for purposes of editing it lightly for the IGC publication.  Thanks, guys.

-- Bill