Metaplots a Rebuttal

[Comte]

I started this as a reply to this thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7333

I got half waythough my point when I realized I would most likely get a moderater teling me ,very politly, that he decided to split the threads.  Ah well if I got it wrong they can just merge them.

At any rate.  Lets get started.

I think that a blanket statment concerning Metaplots is not the correct way to aproche them.  I say this because I veiw metaplots as a tool you can use to enhance your game.  I would put a meta plot on the same level as a setting, dice pools, target numbers, charecter classes, point based charecter generation, random generation, expecience levels, point based level gaining, and anything else you would throw in to make your game better.  I'm sure many of you can cite games that were ruined at one point or another by to much or to little of any one of these elements.  Well the same goes for metaplots, to much of a metaplot can definatly ruin a game.  But over the course of the discussion people have named examples where metaplots have worked out.

So instead of a blanket statment either way I think a more productive discussion would come from the question:

Are metaplots worth useing?

After all just because it is a tool dosn't mean we have to use it, or should use it.  Some tools are extreamly dangerouse to use and should only be handled by trained experts.  I think we need to acess on what part of the spectrum the metaplot lies before to much effort would be excerted twords the question how to best use the metaplot.

Since I'm already here and I have homework to do I'll go first.

I think one of the inherent dangers that lie within the metaplot is the danger of probability.  That means that I could right now get my mad phat game published.  It would rule, and people would buy it like hotcakes and I would have a swarm of cult like followers.  So now then I start releasing suppliments that add to the metaplot.  At some point or another I am going to screw up.  I am going to release something that will screw the plot all to hell.  Now unless I catch this problem right away I'll release other books based on the same bad idea and eventualy the game would get so screwed up that the only way to fix it would be to wipe everything out and start again.  I feel that this is one of the biggest and most pressing dangers of the metaplot but I am posative that this is not the only one.  

So if anyone else has anything to say I'm interested.  Because I honestly enjoy games with metaplots.  I like to read game suppliments for pleasure and if I get a little story out of it alls the better.  I think it would be a shame if metaplots were to suddenly vanish from the face of roleplaying.  Still if they are too dangerouse to use effectivly then perhaps an alternative can be found.

[Lxndr]

As I pointed out in the other thread, I perosnally enjoy metaplots as well, as I do enjoy reading non-narrative fiction of the type that metaplots allow (seriously, unless it's an rpg setting, most book publishers won't look at any sort of story you've written unless it has protagonists, and most metaplots are decidedly protagonist-free).  

I just ask for a few simple things:

[*]Don't make the metaplots mandatory in any of your writing,
[*]Make sure to account for PC-interference in said metaplots (or, alternatively, ensure there's enough things for PCs to do that whether or not the metaplot marches on isn't all that important)*, and
[*]Don't bury important rules expansions in metaplot books.
[/list:u]
*As an example, take Star Wars games set during the time of the original three movies.  It's pretty much a given that Luke blows up the death star, in most games.  Technically, that could be considered metaplot.  But there's enough OTHER things to do, that you don't need to worry about it.

I also agree with Kirt's rant insofar as, "If you want to do a metaplot, reconsider," which in practice can work out to, "If you want to do a metaplot, please consider for the first time."  Make sure that it's what you REALLY want to do, and make sure that other things that might improve your game aren't suffering as a result.

[xiombarg]

I also agree with Kirt's rant insofar as, "If you want to do a metaplot, reconsider," which in practice can work out to, "If you want to do a metaplot, please consider for the first time."  Make sure that it's what you REALLY want to do, and make sure that other things that might improve your game aren't suffering as a result.

Yes, Alexander, I believe we are on the same wavelength.

As I said before, I'm not opposed to metaplots per se. But, like any mechanic/setting element, you need to consider why you're including one in your game. And, personally, I think metaplots are difficult to do right.

That said, I will also note a certain Forgite bias, there -- here at the Forge we are very concerned with actual play. A lot of people who say they like metaplots talk about how much they enjoy reading them, but that links into one of my major points -- that ain't playing. If you want to produce "non-narrative fiction" in the only arena that allows it, fine, but then you should follow the guidelines that Alexander and I talk about. Comte, both you and Alexander talk more about reading metaplots than about playing them, and I think that's very telling.

(BTW, as a total off-topic aside, if you're interested in what Alexander calls "non-narrative" fiction, try Jorge Luis Borges. Many of his stories feature an idea rather than a protaganist, per se, and read like really queer encyclopedia entries or essays -- yet they're about fictional things and places. I like this kind of fiction, too -- I guess I've just seen it outside of RPGs so I don't feel the need to see it in RPGs, especially as no RPG author can touch Borges.)

Also, I'll note my rant is just that -- a rant, in the spirit of Mike's Standard Rants. Something I can point to on the subject so I don't have to repeat myself over and over, and not a 100% rational argument. Some of it is from my gut.

[Lxndr]

Part of it, for me, is also just that I've had a history of being able to be around gaming books more than I've been able to be around actual instances of play, especially instances where I was a participant.  In addition to enjoying reading metaplots, I also enjoy reading rules, reading setting information, etc., and I've done all that more than actually play the games.  

Heck, the one thing I don't enjoy are pre-published adventures (I like plot seeds, it's just fully-written adventures I don't like).  Which makes it odd for me to like metaplots, since it seems the best way to help a metaplot along and allow the PCs to interfere is to write an adventure for it.  

So I guess, in part, when I say "I enjoy reading X," it's because most of my rpg experience has, to my dismay, been reading rpgs, instead of being able to play them.  I'm working hard to change that, but it's slow going.

On the other hand, I have used metaplots and setting information in scenario/character creation in certain games, and thus indirectly in play, both as a player and a GM.  The better metaplots help facilitate that, and where metaplots are lacking are where they don't, in some way.  In other words, I agree that whatever metaplots you might have should help to facilitate actual play, rather than being done JUST because they're an interesting read.

[kalyptein]

I've been waiting for something I could make a vaguely informed post about before diving into these forums, and lo, here it is...

I have a long-standing hatred of metaplot, which I admit may border on the irrational.  I've had this since before I had a word for it, thanks to the good folks at FASA.  I did a mixture of playing and GMing for a Mechwarrior game many years ago.  Although there were several GMs, we all worked within a shared set of world events and history, often borrowing significant NPCs from each other.  The Inner Sphere evolved happily for a couple decades, at which point the whole Clan Invasion metaplot was introduced.  The time shift from original MW to the arrival of the clans was almost exactly the same span of time that had been played through in our game, and of course the canon history and our own game's history looked nothing alike.  I even liked the idea of the clans, but I couldn't think about using any of the suplements without it raising my ire.  It was as if the maker's of the game had just told us all our game didn't matter, just pushed all our notes off the table and dropped theirs in their place, saying "here's what really happened".  I suppose you could think of it as deprotagonizing an entire campaign (if I've got the jargon right).

Of course we could always ignore the new stuff, and of course we could pick and choose from what we did like...which we did.  But there was always this feeling that our game was now "fake".  How could we argue when the creators of the game set down "the Truth"?  On top of this, it meant every single new suplement we wanted to play with had to be considered and modified before we could use it.

I've bumped into this feeling again, both in Vampire games, and trying to run an Ars Magica game.  The later wasn't any fault of the game designers, I just let myself get pinned by the ultimate metaplot, actual history.

I think all of this has been said in other posts, but I thought I'd toss it in as my own little case study of the Evils of Metaplot.  I can actually think of ways to use it that might not be so bad, like the parallel metaplots idea mentioned elsewhere.  To apply this to my own experience, you could have had "MW: guerrilla warfare" describing the complete collapse of the great Houses, "MW: Star League" in which the central government is restored and which focuses on political strife, and "MW: Clan Invasion" where the clans show up.  Each of them could have a kind of "soft" introduction, a way to move from whatever history exists in your own particular game into the setting presented.  You could use them in series or just pick the one that interests you.  I have to wonder if this would really be metaplot though.  Exactly how distinct (names, dates, places, etc) does the story have to be before it stops being a suplement of adventure and/or plot ideas (like any ordinary D&D module, which I don't think anyone considers metaplot) and becomes actual metaplot?

[xiombarg]

kalyptein, your feelings that your game was "fake" is a heartbreaking example of what I (perhaps too dismissively) referred to as "fanboy paralysis". A lot of people feel they can't argue with the creators of the game -- even though, in fact, you had a highly functional and fun game going.

You shouldn't have been made to feel that way. No one should. Admittedly, some could say (and I have said) that part of the problem could be in your own attitude... But I think the role-playing culture, and the companies themselves, encouraged this for their own reasons -- after all, isn't "sticking to the text" an important thing in the tournament-style play of D&D that flourished in the 1980s?

Putting blame aside, I think most metaplots are marketing tools, aimed at people like Alexander who get to read RPGs more often than they play RPGs, and with very little usefulness -- in fact, as your example shows, often negative usefulness -- to those actually playing the game.

[kalyptein]

kalyptein, your feelings that your game was "fake" is a heartbreaking example of what I (perhaps too dismissively) referred to as "fanboy paralysis".  A lot of people feel they can't argue with the creators of the game -- even though, in fact, you had a highly functional and fun game going.

It's a good term, and I won't say it didn't apply in this case.  I think its more than just that though.  I seldom feel unable to argue with anyone.  Its kind of one sided when you're some high-school kid grumbling and the other guy speaks with the thundering voice of being In Print, but this isn't the real trouble.  As new people joined the game, they came to it with a knowledge of the official history, not ours.  Even after we brought them up to speed, they tend to think of our history as unusual, an oddity to be tolerated rather than the natural result of play.  No matter how bloody-minded we original players might or might not have been, the game came more and more to resemble the official history, only with slightly different details.  The classic time travel story equivalent would be going back in time, killing Hitler, and finding that someone almost identical arose and did the same things.  Our unique details ended up having little impact on the course of things.

So I'm just an old coot complaining about the good old days.  Well, I did say I was bitter and irrational, right?  You can fight the game designers, but you can't fight your own players.  Thinking about it now, the most important point I may have made, all unknowingly, is that metaplot can be a source of strife between established players and new ones.  There's always some of that as new people join a long running game, but metaplot can create the divide across an entire gaming population.

[Ron Edwards]

What an amazing thread. Kalyptein, welcome to the Forge!

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Kaly, your experience with BT pretty much exactly mirrors my own.  My response when the Clans came out was basically to say "screw you, I'm not playing your damn game anymore".  I suppose the healthier response would have just been to continue playing with what I had and just not worried about it...but hey, they pissed me off.  I too had the sense that we would no longer be playing "real battle tech".

[xiombarg]

Kaly, I feel your pain, man.

As new people joined the game, they came to it with a knowledge of the official history, not ours. Even after we brought them up to speed, they tend to think of our history as unusual, an oddity to be tolerated rather than the natural result of play.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about, in my rant, the difficulties of integrating new players when there is an existing metaplot. This is what makes metaplot supplements uniquely difficult to deal with, compared to, say, a static list of NPCs or something.

[Gordon C. Landis]

So, this thread has got me thinking . . .

Isn't "metaplot" an aspect of the shared, imagined environment of an RPG, governed by some kind of social contract rules just like a particular game session?  At a scale much larger than what you face in your local gaming group, but still - essentially the same issues?

In fact, isn't the whole "published" RPG the whole impetus that got this shared, imagined envionment going in the first place?  And so, from the very instant an RPG book goes out, everything you deal with as an indiviual and as a particular group also exists at an expanded level in the "society" of RPG players as a whole?

All of which just goes to say that just as a group's social contract has to be managed, so does a company's game line with respect to the needs and expectations of its customers.  Basic stuff, really, but looking at it as just an expansion of the "game social contract" problem seems kinda powerful to me for some reason.

Metaplot as a means to add something new to the shared, imagined environment is a perfectly reasonable thought, that runs into a number of problems - like, how do you keep it viable over time, when some groups are going to take the shared, imagined environment off in different directions?

Erratta, supplements, metaplot - it's all part of trying to come to some sort of agreement about the nature of our shared, imagined environment.  We end up torn between trying to get everyone to AGREE, to be in the same place, but to also allow everyone to CONTRIBUTE, to add their piece to the puzzle.

It doesn't help that rules, supplements and metaplot are often not even clear about what they are trying to do - partly (maybe) for GNS reasons, partly for business or practical reasons.  Metaplots, for example, are known to conceal future plot information, in some cases because they think later sales will be helped by this, and in some cases because the developers legitimately (or irresponsibly, whatever) haven't actually figured it out yet.  Without clarity about the nature of the thing itself, its' addition into the shared, imagined environment becomes harder to manage.

To the extent that a game publication - initial, supplmental, metaplot, whatever - is clear about what it is trying to do, communicates that openly, and includes "enough" information to understand the implications to the social contract and the shared, imagined environment, it can be considered a "good" product.  For various reasons, some discussed above, many currently published RPG products are NOT that.  Which kinda sucks.

I'd say the biggest flaw in metaplots is the "hidden information," whether that information is hidden intentionally or by omission.  It takes a lot more than JUST that to get a "good" metaplot, but that may be all it takes to make a "bad" one.  But that's just me - I'm becoming a big fan of the "make the broad outline known and fixed, but let the details be uncertain and variable" approach at a lot of levels in RPGs, and see no reason that it couldn't also be applied to metaplots.

Gordon

[Comte]

I'd say the biggest flaw in metaplots is the "hidden information," whether that information is hidden intentionally or by omission. It takes a lot more than JUST that to get a "good" metaplot, but that may be all it takes to make a "bad" one. But that's just me - I'm becoming a big fan of the "make the broad outline known and fixed, but let the details be uncertain and variable" approach at a lot of levels in RPGs, and see no reason that it couldn't also be applied to metaplots.

It is here we clash!  I like the hidden information assuming its done right.  Mostly because it ties in with my game mastering style.  I have play groups that come and go, with players that come and go.  Usualy the game is the same but the people change or we will take breaks for months at a time.  Now in this paticular game I have an over arching plot that moves independently of the player's actions.  So in game they could run off and do something else while the plot moves around without them, and when we take a break the plot keeps right on going.  They enjoy doing the backtracking, mystery solving, and filling in the holes.  The reason I like meta plots is that when I run a campain like this they are an amazing source of inspiration, I can take any major event or plot break and just just cheerfuly run with it.  When it comes to hidden information I throw it in front of my players.  If I am lucky enough for them to be interested in it, we will have a jolly good time coming up with our own story.  

I actualy use metaplots as gigantic story hooks, I like it when they shake the cannon texts in interesting ways.  I find them to be very inspirational twords my own campain, and future events.  While I may not agree with what is going sometimes I like the end result, so I monkey with things so that the same end result happens but through a diffrent way.  

So I like the hidden information because the players and I will just go and unhide it.  Sometimes we will sit around and speculate about things like that, if the metaplot is interesting but never going to affect the players.  Either way I appreciate more a gental speading out over several books than a blunt in your face...look this is how it is, sort of deal.

[simon_hibbs]

I can see why some of you dislike metaplots, but I think your main problem with it is that you have had contact with metaplots that have been badly handled. Certainly the Battletech incident (I know nothing about battletech) sounds like a particularly egregious case, mainly due to the fact it seems to have been added to the game setting as an afterthought and wasn't part of the orriginal design. The Virus metaplot which trashed the orriginal Traveller Imperium is another example. "Like playing in our game universe? Tough, we just wasted it!"

I do believe it is possible to have game settings with metaplots that are constructive and yet not invasive if you don't want to use them in your campaign. There are several strategies for this.

Alternate Universe: Traveller has survived in pretty much it's orriginal form because SJG liceced the setting as an alternate universe where Virus never happened. If you explicitly make the metaplot optional, people who like it can but the supplements for it, and people who don't can buy the generic supplements that cover the setting, but contain perhaps only minimal metaplot information (just enough to allow easy interfacing).

Campaign Metaplot: Similar to alternate universe, but even more open. You have multiple metaplots, each published as a seperate campaign supplement. Idealy they shouldn't be mutualy exclusive, but you can realy go wild. I like this approach because it allows exploration of the setting on multiple axes, hopefuly opening it up to the players so they realise they can do this in their own games too and realy take ownership of the setting in their own campaigns.

Metaplot Sketch: This is where you provide, up front, an overview of the major metaplot factions, protagonists and events along with a timeline. Right from the start the punters know the major events of the official timeline, so they can run their campaign to either interface with those events, or avoid them. Probably the timeline will become more vague and events less detailed towards the end of the timeline to alow for varying campaign outcomes. If you have this information to begin with, it's much easier to take ownership of the setting as a GM. The Glorantha setting employs this technique. The metaplot is outlined in King of Sartar and many of the key events of the story presented there are being published as campaign supplements, but if you aren't interested in that stuff it's easy to avoid because it's mostly been signposted well in advance.


Simon Hibbs

[xiombarg]

Okay, I'm going to try to respond to everyone at once here.

Simon, if you look at my orignal rant, you'll see I'm not against metaplots per se. I'm just saying: "If you're going to do it, do it right." Your point links directly with mine.

However, my experience has been the majority of metaplots have been "bad" ones -- the Virus example is actually the first one I encountered in my own gaming career. Your point about the alternate universe is one of the things I suggest as a technique for "good" metaplot in the original rant, and, actually, I had the whole SJG Traveller thing in mind when I wrote that.

Compte, on your point about hidden information, I think the key is when you say: "I like the hidden information when it's done right." This is the whole point of my rant. Metaplots are hard to do right, so the point of my rant is to encourage people to reconsider doing them at all, but also, if they insist on doing them, I try to provide tips on doing them right. And, frankly, the "throw bits at the players" and "gain inspiration" techniques you mention can work just as well if information isn't hidden -- I can do the same sorts of things with a supplement that expands on the Duchy of Kool without introducing metaplot.

Also, keep in mind there's a difference between hiding information from the players and hiding infromation from the GM. It's tough for a GM to plan if he doesn't know what's going on. It's easier for players to just "react" to whatever the GM puts out, whether it's something the GM provides himself or whether the GM is just a funnel for the metaplot.

And last, but not least: Gordon, I think you're on to something there. I think part of the reason a metaplot is hard to do right is the social contract between the greater community of people who play a game -- particularly a popular game -- and the company that puts the game out is a fragile and complcated thing, even harder to handle than a single group's social issues, possibly tainted by the issue of money rather than just the desire to have fun.