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gtrmp posted:Return of the Scarlet Empress is probably a bad example, given that it was nearly the final book in the Exalted line when it was published. There wasn't a whole lot of 2e after that for it to affect, even after Onyx Path picked up the license a couple years later.
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Aug 13, 2021 13:15
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I swear there was a thing with 2e where the very first paragraph of the book, about reality cracking at the seams and the world being consumed by un-existence was the canonical fate of the setting and your job was to derail the train.
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Aug 13, 2021 13:44
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Cessna posted:Not my game, but I think Exalted did this as well. Joe Slowboat posted:This is the official Exalted position and has been since Ex1, but unfortunately both 1e and 2e didn't really follow through: They released modules/adventure paths with wide-ranging metaplot-like events. Thankfully they didn't follow the 'multiple books continuously developing the same story' approach, but Return of the Scarlet Empress did real damage in 2e. I feel like Exalted had a different but related problem, that sounds kind of similar to the "Actually all this magic is from hell" thing, where they kept revealing setting history or facts that dramatically changed how the setting seemed if you were deeply invested in the game, like "the universe is made of charms" and "the sun is a giant space battlestation with its own train".
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Aug 13, 2021 23:30
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spectralent posted:I feel like Exalted had a different but related problem, that sounds kind of similar to the "Actually all this magic is from hell" thing, where they kept revealing setting history or facts that dramatically changed how the setting seemed if you were deeply invested in the game, like "the universe is made of charms" and "the sun is a giant space battlestation with its own train". Eh, 'the Yozis are made of charms' didn't really mean much outside 'it means Infernals can do this one thing.' The Daystar being a giant battlestation I suppose could change things but really, nearly no game would actually be changed by that revelation at all. It was in fact more of a problem that it wasn't really usable information than anything else. E: Return of the Empress, however, gave a definite answer to a specific setting mystery that had been in theory something players could base games on for years; it also produced a bunch of assumptions like 'yeah all the Sidereals are going to be slaughtered in a single event when the Infernals make a move' in the fanbase, which wasn't metaplot, but was irritating.
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Aug 14, 2021 04:33
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Steve Perrin (Runequest/BRP) has died: https://www.chaosium.com/blogvale-and-farewell-steve-perrin-1946-2021/
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Aug 14, 2021 09:04
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Snorb posted:(Using German alchemy to make super-resilient armor that can stand up to bullets? Not exactly high up on my list of "helps unleash the insect spirits" list tho.) Super-resilient armor that weighs as much as cork, and floats! Dracheneisen is neat.
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Aug 16, 2021 07:05
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just don't do metaplot, it isn't hard, write and play good games instead, sheesh
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Aug 16, 2021 09:12
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:just don't do metaplot, it isn't hard, write and play good games instead, sheesh
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Aug 16, 2021 09:43
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:just don't do metaplot, it isn't hard, write and play good games instead, sheesh but if we dont complain about this non-problem, _______ ____ ____ ________ ________ ____ ________!!!!!!!!!!
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Aug 16, 2021 10:49
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The annoyance at metaplots comes from all of us being olds and remembering otherwise interesting looking sourcebooks that ended up just being metaplot lore or poorly handled metaplots sinking a line by being all they published. All of this in an age before widely available previews or reviews. So why get mad at people for remembering old grievances?
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Aug 16, 2021 10:58
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:just don't do metaplot, it isn't hard, write and play good games instead, sheesh TheDiceMustRoll posted:but if we dont complain about this non-problem, _______ ____ ____ ________ ________ ____ ________!!!!!!!!!! Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 13:08
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Handling metaplot is probably a good skill to have when doing historical games.
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Aug 16, 2021 15:01
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Over the weekend, I watched some conversations on a few RPG servers dedicated to design and testing of a few medium-crunch RPGs, and I started wondering about the last two years. How much is current RPG game design being informed by digital versus analogue play, and how much does that matter? The "feel" of digital RPG versus analogue (e.g., in-person) play has been discussed ad nauseum, and I don't know or have a feel for how much it matters. Except it seems to matter to a lot of people to "some" extent. And in the last 18 months (I assume) in-person playtesting has ground to a halt. Which means that every RPG that's been playtested (either internally by a designer or as a "beta" release) has been playtested by people playing on VTT. Which means that feedback on "feel" is skewing in one direction. Is that interesting? Is that concerning? I don't know, but I haven't seen it discussed/acknowledged anywhere.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:14
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So much of RPG sales are driven by buying games that never actually get played it seems like it wouldn't have too much of an impact. Personally, now that I am playing tons of online games I definitely think it has a different vibe than playing in person but it hasn't really altered my personal buying habits.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:15
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To an extent there's a different feel between online and in-person, but I don't know that it really affects gameplay per se. The main difference IME is that playing out spoken character interaction is a little bit more awkward online because it's harder to get the full acting experience, but then I tend to be really heavy into the acting side so that might not apply across the board. (And assumes a live voice feed instead of a text chat, which would work entirely differently.) I can't really think of much that would be, like, irreparably or even notably hurt by only testing online or in person. It seems to me the main issues you find in testing are pacing and balance, which would be more or less the same in either mode.
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Aug 16, 2021 19:25
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This is going back a few pages to the 7th Sea chat, but is Honor + Intrigue good?
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Aug 16, 2021 20:22
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Puppy Time posted:To an extent there's a different feel between online and in-person, but I don't know that it really affects gameplay per se. The main difference IME is that playing out spoken character interaction is a little bit more awkward online because it's harder to get the full acting experience, but then I tend to be really heavy into the acting side so that might not apply across the board. (And assumes a live voice feed instead of a text chat, which would work entirely differently.) Gameplay, whether online or in person, still feels the same for me, whether it's our ongoing D&D campaign or our rotating-DM-and-game Sunday night slot. (In fairness, the Sunday night game's perpetually going to be on Discord because one player lives on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from the rest of us.) I think we still have the same dynamics as far as acting goes; none of us have webcams so we just do what we can with our voices. The only real example of something that we had to convey verbally was last night in our The Happiest Apocalypse on Earth game, when our Host finally announced that all hell was breaking loose in our park. I said "Max's [my character] eyes get real big, like an anime girl's, as soon as he sees this thing" but his verbal reaction of "Oh, dear sweet Jesus, what the gently caress is THAT!? Oh, God! Oh, JESUS CHRIST!" was about the same as I can convey face-to-face. Vulpes Vulpes posted:This is going back a few pages to the 7th Sea chat, but is Honor + Intrigue good? If you're a fan of Barbarians of Lemuria and how that plays, I think you'll like Honor + Intrigue.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:08
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Unfortunately, I'm about as familiar with BoL as I am with H+I.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:44
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I was more poking at ppl who are trying to come up with some hidden secret key to doing a "good metaplot" and it's like no! there isn't one! let your pcs do things! also calling what people are saying about metaplots "nostalgia" is like calling thinking about all the times you got beat up on the playground "nostalgia" lmao
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Aug 16, 2021 21:51
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I came into possession of a huge stack of Vampire Dark Ages books a while ago and while they're great for reading and enjoying on their own, if I were trying to run a game in the setting I think I'd implode. There's so MUCH of it and so much of it is metaplot and way-too-detailed setting material, with not enough 'how to use this' advice. It had the character sheets of the people who'd owned it before tucked into one of the books. I love finding things like that.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:52
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As someone waiting for the Tales of Xadia (Dragon Prince) RPG, which is explicitly set at the end of the third season, I am curious how the RPG will handle events in later seasons. "Oh yeah, we said X, but the big reveal of Season 5 was NOT X!!" Likewise, reading the disclaimer in the Anvilmar supplement in Age of Sigmar Soulbound, with the addendum "By the way, while this city is really cool, it's gone now and it's a different city because it was overtaken by murder elves. If you want to run a game in Anvilmar, set it in the past!" I feel like RPG metaplot is still around, it's just not being written by the RPG writers.
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Aug 16, 2021 22:09
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CitizenKeen posted:As someone waiting for the Tales of Xadia (Dragon Prince) RPG, which is explicitly set at the end of the third season, I am curious how the RPG will handle events in later seasons. "Oh yeah, we said X, but the big reveal of Season 5 was NOT X!!" And it's significantly hampering RPG production - the Infinity RPG Kickstarter has stretched for years because they keep needing to run each supplement through Corvus Belli for metaplot approval and welp turns out they're accidentally tripping a bunch of hidden poo poo with every book, at least from what I understand.
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Aug 16, 2021 22:10
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Arivia posted:And it's significantly hampering RPG production - the Infinity RPG Kickstarter has stretched for years because they keep needing to run each supplement through Corvus Belli for metaplot approval and welp turns out they're accidentally tripping a bunch of hidden poo poo with every book, at least from what I understand. Also from what I understand there's like one guy in charge of Infinity's metaplot so it all has to go through him and his limited time.
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Aug 16, 2021 22:18
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Splicer posted:90s style metaplot is a rare combination of having caused no meaningful real-world harm but also being something so bad that it effectively doesn't exist anymore. Getting mad about people posting tg industry anti-nostalgia in the tg industry thread is a weird thing to do with your morning. Also, revisiting the bad poo poo of yesteryear is a pretty good way to, yknow, critically examine things in future design. Metaplot was hilariously bad, okay, why was it bad? Well it was bad for these reasons, now how can you sidestep those issues if you're making or even just running a game of your own? A lot of things that followed from that era of RPG design/writing came about in part as a direct response to metaplots of the era. Exalted got brought up, and that was from within White Wolf, the same company that gave us "a vampire elder god gets nuked with a giant space laser and bombs blow up the spirit realm and now everyone is mad at Mage Revised forever" so it seems like they might have learned a valuable lesson in there somewhere.
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Aug 16, 2021 22:25
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Arivia posted:And it's significantly hampering RPG production - the Infinity RPG Kickstarter has stretched for years because they keep needing to run each supplement through Corvus Belli for metaplot approval and welp turns out they're accidentally tripping a bunch of hidden poo poo with every book, at least from what I understand. I can imagine that this informs why both the Masters of the Universe and Marvel RPGs are both kind of "multiverse" focused (in addition to Marvel's whole shtick) - you don't need to worry about canon if canon's already hosed.
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Aug 16, 2021 22:30
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zerofiend posted:Also from what I understand there's like one guy in charge of Infinity's metaplot so it all has to go through him and his limited time. Yep, all Infinity lore is hoarded by one dude at Corvus Belli, so the RPG is actually suffering from lack of metaplot: the RPG is one whole edition and like half a dozen major events behind the wargame.
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Aug 16, 2021 22:36
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:I was more poking at ppl who are trying to come up with some hidden secret key to doing a "good metaplot" and it's like no! there isn't one! let your pcs do things!
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Aug 16, 2021 22:49
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I always felt like Shadowrun did an okay job with metaplot. Like yes, some massive events are out of reach of the PCs but there are so many plot hooks lying around that you could have an impact despite the major NPCs.
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Aug 16, 2021 23:06
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I'm reading the preprint version of the new The One Ring game and that does, pretty much by design, have metaplot because the purpose is to let you play in Middle Earth between the Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Can't say how they handle it yet.
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Aug 16, 2021 23:26
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mellonbread posted:The secret to good metaplot is cleaning out setting details between editions, to ensure the amount of accumulated lore doesn't squeeze the life out of the game. Like the new Delta Green and Unknown Armies, both of which pared back the pileup of conspiracies and superpowered beings that the settings had built up over a decade of splatbooks. And, crucially, the house-cleaning occurred in optional tie-in novels, rather than in modules that expected the players to sit patiently while the named NPCs duked it out. I feel like UA handled this better than DG because just about all of the conspiracy groups from 2e (TNI, the Sleepers, Max Attax, the Sect of the Naked Goddess) still exist in the 3e universe, just as less omnipresent entities. The Fate, the Karotechia, the Cult of Transcendence, they’re all just Not A Thing anymore in modern Delta Green.
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Aug 17, 2021 00:01
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Lumbermouth posted:I feel like UA handled this better than DG because just about all of the conspiracy groups from 2e (TNI, the Sleepers, Max Attax, the Sect of the Naked Goddess) still exist in the 3e universe, just as less omnipresent entities. The Fate, the Karotechia, the Cult of Transcendence, they’re all just Not A Thing anymore in modern Delta Green.
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Aug 17, 2021 00:17
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I'm reading the preprint version of the new The One Ring game and that does, pretty much by design, have metaplot because the purpose is to let you play in Middle Earth between the Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Can't say how they handle it yet. In the previous edition, they set it in the Wilderness that basically don't have any relationship to the War of the Ring, but I'm looking forward to hearing more about the current edition.
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Aug 17, 2021 00:21
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Lumbermouth posted:The Karotechia, the Cult of Transcendence, they’re all just Not A Thing anymore in modern Delta Green. Two hours ago, Karotechia just reappeared out of nowhere on [social media platform] being interviewed by a fawning far-right social media influencer. The fossil, the cannibal and the popsicle each get airtime in what appears to be the exact same compound that was demolished down to the foundation approximately twenty years ago - except it doesn't appear to be in South America anymore. Cue every senior DG official doing a spit-take.
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Aug 17, 2021 01:26
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:also calling what people are saying about metaplots "nostalgia" is like calling thinking about all the times you got beat up on the playground "nostalgia" lmao I mean that's essentially "In my day, we had to walk to school! In the snow! Uphill both ways!" As you get old you start getting a level of pleasure from reminiscing about how lovely things were, particularly in light of "Kids these days don't know how good they got it!" Kinda half "Holy poo poo things really have changed a lot!" and half "You little shits better respect me for the difficulties I had to deal with!"* * They will never respect you. You are terminally lame for trying to get them to respect you.
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Aug 17, 2021 01:28
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Is it still metaplot if it's not a moving target? I would call what The One Ring has "setting", it's just not quite the setting you might expect it to be.
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Aug 17, 2021 01:31
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Yeah, what exactly would y'all define as "metaplot"?
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Aug 17, 2021 01:34
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I think it's metaplot when it has a pre-written, significant future outside of your characters` control.
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Aug 17, 2021 01:39
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The problem with metaplot wasn't that there was a prewritten future (or at least, it wasn't the main problem), it's that this future was drip-fed in supplements that often meant that if you wanted to use the supplement, you had to force that future into your game, and if you didn't then that supplement was useless to you without heavy modification.
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Aug 17, 2021 01:43
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I think it's metaplot when it has a pre-written, significant future outside of your characters` control. Metaplot is when there's a plot actually happening from supplement to supplement, in parallel to whatever the players are doing and with them having no real input because it's being authored by someone. Metaplot is not just something being set between two known events. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Aug 17, 2021 |
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Aug 17, 2021 01:45
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Lemon-Lime posted:Metaplot is when there's a plot actually happening from supplement to supplement, that the players generally have no say in because it's being written by the authors; not when something is set between two known events. If I understand correctly, the prior game Free League came out with (and Cubicle 7 later adapted to 5E) dealt with a time prior to the Hobbit. The current game is set between the prewritten Hobbit, which might be considered canon start, to The Lord of the Rings, which might be considered canon end. If their next publication will have you play after The Lord of the Rings, it seems like it's supporting metaplot, even if it's not in itself writing that plot, because it's using existing fiction for it. I've just started reading the alpha test book, so we'll have to see how much of this bears out.
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Aug 17, 2021 01:52
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