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Tez

@Roadspike said in Metaplot: What and How:

Players were welcome to run general combat scenes, and if they wanted to try out something particular, we asked that they check in with us first.

How often did you get players running things? If you made it a percent, how much was staff-run vs. player-run? I like the idea of seeding things with player-plots by giving them tidbits to include, but I wouldn’t say I’ve been very successful at it yet.

We closed down before we could get to fruition on that story thread, but we had a dozen or so players chasing it and looking to impact which NPCs had power and influence on the Crown Council. That in turn would have impact on how the war was prosecuted, as well as how efficient the Crown was at prosecuting it.

Respect. It sounds like you had a lot going and I’m curious how it would have played out if you were able to continue. Did you get a feel from players or any feedback as to how the political side worked for them?

@Warma-Sheen said in Metaplot: What and How:

Respectfully, IMHO, that’s because that example doesn’t really sound like a metaplot. That just sounds like a setting.

LBH’s definition of a metaplot may be different, but it clearly works for them. I’m interested in the whys and hows of different approaches. Keys has found a formula that works well for them. I tend to think of metaplot as a season or series arc and individual plots as being episodes, but I’m interested in how others do it.

Clarity of scope / meaning / etc. is obviously important. @L-B-Heuschkel and @Faraday have noted it, among others.

ETA so I don’t double post:

@Roadspike said in Metaplot: What and How:

I think that this is an important point: setting and metaplot are different.

Not everyone agrees on this point. If you look at how Wikipedia defines it, they talk more about what you would call setting. I think metaplot as you are using it more of a TWOP definition. That also tends to be how I think of it.

Tez

@L-B-Heuschkel That’s a great set up for that kind of play. I’ve mentally filed that kind of thing under ‘Stargate games’, and I think it can work VERY well for games set up for it.

I’ve tried similar things on games I’ve run, although less as a literal portal to other universes structure and more as in there is a homebase and people can go out and run missions on other planets. (Because my bias was scifi rather than fantasy. You could call them portal games too!) The idea being that the distance should empower people to freely do what they like. I think Spirit Lake played with the portal thing too.

The problem I’ve run into is that players don’t necessarily feel that it connects back to the metaplot if there aren’t changes to the homebase region or overall story. Is that just out of the scope for your game?

Tez

@Pavel said in Metaplot: What and How:

@Tez said in Metaplot: What and How:

I’m always trying to solve for the issue that there seem to be more people who want to be in stories than people who want to run stories.

Hey, if you solve this, can you post it all over the internet? TTRPG groups the world over have been trying to solve this since the 60s, and the best we have is cool ranch Doritos.

lmfao yeah, I’ll make sure to let the world know when I solve it. I almost made a crack about it being the fermat’s last theorem of RP.

@Roadspike said in Metaplot: What and How:

@Tez said in Metaplot: What and How:

@Roadspike TSS, I get. With Fifth World, can you talk more about your metaplot and how the politics and stuff were in relation to it?

Certainly! I’m (almost) always happy to talk about The Fifth World.

So the overarching metaplot there was a regularly-occurring and long-anticipated invasion from mysterious-ish forces on an outer-system planet with an elliptical orbit around an inner system with several inhabited and connected planets ruled by knights-in-space.

There were invasions in particular areas, and updates on the state of the conflict, but with that as a backdrop and a shaping force, there were also politics between the noble houses for power and influence within and over the war effort. Some houses thought that the war should be handled one way, others thought it should be handled another. Some people just wanted power. There were also Citizen-based (non-noble “commoners” but with many, many, many more rights) Senate elections that had an impact on how the war would be prosecuted. There were efforts to raise morale from the home front. There were alliances that were built and fell apart. There were efforts to advance the science and technology for fighting against the invaders.

Welcome to me intensely digging for more details. Were the invasions handled as GMed scenes? How did you make the politicking real for people? Was it jobs and rolls? Was it all staff run?

Tez

@KarmaBum your examples give me warm-fuzzies. I saw your Pern game and got HARDCORE nostalgic.

@Faraday I think broadly most of us agree about what metaplot is, and largely we all agree that in the ideal world it would be nice if all players can contribute.

But I’m not really curious about the ideal. I want to know where it gets messy, and where it gets real. That’s why I’m mostly curious to know examples about how people are dealing with it. What their metaplot is and how it is enacted.

Maybe I should have just said HOW for the thread.

I’m always trying to solve for the issue that there seem to be more people who want to be in stories than people who want to run stories. Picking over the how of other people helps me refine my thoughts.

Tez

@dvoraen There’s a place to put feedback related to the change. If you actually have feedback on things that are broken, they can go there. If you have any amount of searching to figure out how to fix it, that’s even better. Roz found the solution to the layout issue and posted it in that thread so I could implement it.

I do not get paid to do this. I’m not just an unpaid volunteer, I pay for the privilege of volunteering. I assumed you were joking and responded in that fashion, because the idea that you were being serious was too wild to contemplate. If I was wrong, and you were serious, then yeah, it was in piss poor taste.

Tez

@L-B-Heuschkel YAY NAMES AND EXAMPLES

I’m really wanting concrete examples, tbh. I think a lot of what we’ve talked about so far in this thread is the meta of what you consider a metaplot. That is, talking about it in big picture way. I’m more curious about the actual direct implementation of how people do it.

Like if your metaplot is a never-ending conflict between order and chaos, how does this manifest as something players can engage in? It obviously works well for you guys.

@Raistlin That’s a great example, and how I’ve often run things on games in the past. Totally understand what you are doing there.

@Roadspike TSS, I get. With Fifth World, can you talk more about your metaplot and how the politics and stuff were in relation to it?

Tez

@dvoraen Git gud

Tez

I got sidetracked onto this line of thought when I was talking to people about something else.

The question MOSTLY goes out to game runners, or at least game plotters and storytellers. What do you define as ‘metaplot’? How do you implement it? NAME A GAME. GIVE EXAMPLES. I’m curious about concrete ways it’s taken – or taking – place.

Pyrephox

I don’t know the system, but I’d definitely be interested. Modern Gothic horror/fantasy is quite relevant to my interests!

Tez

@Jumpscare Time to immediately swap to it myself.

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