@Tez said in Metaplot: What and How:

How often did you get players running things?

I don’t remember off-hand, but I’d say it was probably somewhere around 75-25 Staff-run and player-run for straight up combat scenes. But this could also be because I had just fallen in love with the FS3 combat system and was running a ton of scenes.

Seeding plot points to PrPs has to be done carefully, and if I’m being blunt, only with trusted plot-runners. On The Savage Skies we had a few player-run-plots that went off the rails and had to be reined back in via minor retcons. I would only provide metaplot seeds to plot-runners who have demonstrated a good handle on the basic setting, and only then after having an explicit back-and-forth conversation so that they knew what they were introducing and at least some of why they were introducing it.

@Tez said in Metaplot: What and How:

Did you get a feel from players or any feedback as to how the political side worked for them?

There were certainly players who were chasing that side of things pretty hard. Interestingly, it was particularly the players who were on the side gaining power who were chasing after it, because they knew they weren’t doing anything, and yet their side was still gaining power and influence and they wanted to know who was doing it and why. Knowing players in general, I expect that they would have found the person who was gathering the power and done their best to shut them down – and I think they would have succeeded, but it would have caused a power vacuum in the Crown Council that would have caused short-term chaos in the war effort (but probably would have come out ahead in the long term).

@Tez said in Metaplot: What and How:

TWOP definition

I had only tangentially heard of this source (Television Without Pity?). I think that my definitions came from working in gaming companies (tabletop and video) where there are some things that are immutable or relatively immutable (setting) and some things that can change with the story being told (metaplot). Looking at the wikipedia definition of metaplot, I don’t think that I disagree with the first two sentences at all:

The metaplot (also, metastory) is the overarching storyline that binds together events in the official continuity of a published role-playing game campaign setting, also defined as an “evolving history of a given fictional universe”. Major official story events that change the world, or simply move important non-player characters from one place to another, are part of the metaplot for a game.

I definitely think that that’s talking about metaplot – the events taking place in the setting that connect all the various storylines going on at once – rather than setting – the details of the world where the action is taking place – by my definitions.

@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.

I think that this is an important point: setting and metaplot are different. I can’t comment on the difference on Keys because I was only there for a hot minute, but for myself, I would say that the difference is thus:

Setting is a backdrop, it’s where the game is happening and what is going on around them. On The Savage Skies, the release of The Hobbit was part of the setting (and even showed up in a setting update post), but it wasn’t part of the metaplot; likewise, the combat between Japanese and Soviets was part of the setting, but it wasn’t part of the metaplot, because it didn’t have impact on the PCs besides giving them something to talk about, and it wasn’t (directly) part of the rise of the Drachenordnung and the PCs’ fight against them.

Metaplot is the things that are actually happening to PCs and people who matter to them, and it’s something to tie plotlines to. On The Savage Skies, when the Drachenordnung gave people ID cards that listed their magical potential and restricted the actions of those with low magical potential, that was part of the metaplot because it caused problems for the PCs operating in D.O. territory and gave them a new group of people to help escape from the D.O. – it drove storylines and was part of a larger storyline itself.

@Tez said in Metaplot: What and How:

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?

The broad strokes of the invasion was handled by Staff, based on scenes we ran and our reading of scenes that player GMs ran as well. 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. When they did, we sometimes gave them additional details that they could drop into their scenes to feed into the players’ understanding of what was going on. We determined what happened with the course of the war through how things went in the various scenes (Staff-run and player-run alike), some jobs/rolls, and some narrative license.

The “narrative license” might be called railroading by some, but the idea was that we wanted to see the Good Guys on the back foot for a while before they turned things around, so while the actions of the PCs could win local victories, or lessen the cost of local losses, they weren’t going to turn back the tide yet. The events of GMed scenes (Staff- and player-run alike) changed where the Good Guys would be pushed back or hold back the tide, but not that the Good Guys were going to be pushed back.

The politicking came in two real waves: first a choice of which child would succeed the faltering King, and then who would make up the Crown Council around the new ruler. To be perfectly honest, we didn’t leave things open to too much player input on the first wave, as I recall. For both waves, the questions were presented in GMed public scenes, and then there were House meetings for most of the Great Houses, where PCs associated with that House were able to weigh in on their preferences and make plans to support them while the House Head was NPCed by a Staffer.

The Crown Council politicking we put into play through posts and public scenes, as a couple of the members of the new King’s Council were unexpected, and seemed to tilt things pretty distinctly in one direction of the philosophical differences between Great Houses. After seeding the idea of the imbalance, we held more House meetings to answer some questions, and then people went off on their own to RP about the situation, put in requests, get more information, and make attempts to figure out what was going on. 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.

@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.

But all of these were caused by and had effects on the invasion. That’s how I divide between metaplot and ways to access and effect the metaplot.

@Pavel said in Metaplot: What and How:

Start with themes rather than story beats. It’ll feel a little mad-libby at first, but write out something like Tez’s Super Awesome Game is about <genre> with <mood> and <tone>. For myself I’d say “Pavel’s Super Awesome Victorian Vampire Game is about personal horror with dread-filled tension and sardonic nihilism in the face of bleak futility.”

Yes! I’m always a fan of starting every game with a Mission Statement. This tells you and your fellow staff what the game is going to be about, and is something to refer back to throughout the process of building the game (“Should we add flying motorcycles to the bad guys?” “I don’t know, does it support or take away from the Mission Statement?”). And then when you’ve refined the Mission Statement and readied your game and you open the game to players, it’s their first introduction to the game, what helps them decide if they want to play there.

I agree with @Raistlin’s definition of metaplot as an overarching story that impacts every character on the game.

My example from The Savage Skies would be “The Global Fight Against Fascism.” So metaplot involved trying to protect an area of northern Spain during the Spanish Civil War, softening the landing of Czechoslovakia into the Drachenordenung orbit, collecting magic spheres to raise Atlantis, and preventing the Hollow Earth from becoming a fascist garden were all chapters in the metaplot.

On the other side, exploring ruins for magical artifacts, meeting with dragons, random skirmishes with fascists, and the like weren’t necessarily part of the metaplot, but sat within it, defined by it.

On The Fifth World, the metaplot was “The War Against the Hostiles.” All the noble political maneuvering and concert series and Senate elections and the like were smaller plots that were placed in context by the metaplot.

At the simplest level, I would say that Metaplot is the stuff that NEEDS to have a post on the game boards, simply so that everyone knows what’s going on with it.

To @Pavel’s point, I agree that the problem is perception, but I also think that perception is important. I also know that my own experiences of legitimately having my character in the spotlight and having players call me on it have colored my perceptions.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that staff PCs should never be out in front of a story – I don’t think of myself as a Sith, so less with the absolutes. I wonder if a better description of my position is that staff should be incredibly careful about the dangers of spotlighting or appearing to spotlight. Because as noted, players will notice if you or another staff member runs plots that are well suited to your characters.

If players want to, that’s fantastic, but to @Faraday’s post, that tends to be rare (very special and appreciated, but rare). I think that it’s absolutely reasonable to run a scene to develop your character’s story, as long as you’re up front about it. I also think that it’s entirely reasonable to be one of the Big Darn Heroes, but I don’t ever intend to be THE Big Darn Hero on a game where I’m staffing.

I agree with @Pavel and others that staff should play on their game. I also agree that staff’s alts should be disclosed for transparency purposes – if someone is telling me something wild about the theme (ICly or OOCly), I’d like to know if I’m dealing with a random player or a staffer.

I also think that a staffer’s PC should never be “out in front” of a story. They can be right alongside the PCs of multiple non-staffers, but shouldn’t be out in front unless they’re serving as a glorified plot-giver – and even then the balance is very tight, and should always tip in the direction of non-staff PCs.

The game design behind their wargame is shockingly bad. Depending on 1-3 large dice is going to be shockingly random. There’s nothing in place for excellent tactics, it’s all just throwing a couple of big dice and hoping you roll better than your opponent.

I agree with @Roz that you’ll never get a consensus, and that preferences for some (myself included) will vary by game.

I actually like the idea of roster-only (or all-FCs-are-rosters-but-OCs-are-allowed) for a comic book game. I think this is a good way to ensure that every sheet/BG fits staff’s interpretation of the character (which I think is more important than fitting every player’s interpretation).

I wouldn’t have a problem with a Lords & Ladies game where all the house heads and heirs were roster characters, but everyone else was an OC. I think that would be a good way of ensuring that the most emblematic characters for each house fit what staff wanted from them and reinforced thematic connections between houses.

But in general, I agree with the concern of “echelons” of characters where some get more staff attention. I don’t know, maybe a better way to say what you’re looking for is that some characters would have larger levers to effect game events? Because that’s certainly true of house heads and heirs in most L&L games, even if they don’t actually get any more of staff’s attention.

@dvoraen Housecat life is the best life. That is all.

I did a pretty extensive workup for the Wheel of Time for standard FS3 on Ares a while back for a game that never made it to open. It’s never going to be perfect, because FS3 isn’t designed for magic systems, and channelers were -definitely- more powerful than non-channelers (as it should be in canon), but it was absolutely workable with players willing to accept a few compromises and pretty fun in my testing. I would be happy to share it with interested parties for tweaking to their satisfaction.

@Coin I wasn’t going to go that far, but since you went there, I will say that I think if the game is designed around it and everyone is onboard, and it’s specifically designed to avoid “I roll to get in your pants,” then I think social skills have a great place in a MU* (I would have a hell of a fun time with an FS3 Regency MU* with a social combat system instead of a physical combat system, for instance).

But if the game isn’t designed with all that in mind, I think it’s best to keep it to rolling vs NPCs only.

If there’s a system with actual merits/benefits/stats for physical appearance, I think that it is totally legitimate to include it in an RP Hook, description, and even short-desc, as well as to pose it in scenes. Because otherwise, it feels like folks rarely acknowledge the points put into those merits/benefits/stats (because so many played-bys are so very pretty to start with).

But in a system without points being spent on physical attractiveness, I agree with the side-eye directed at those who use it as an RP Hook. If you’re not spending points on it, then it’s just like folks on games without social systems always being perfect liars or the Biggest or the Smallest – don’t make a big deal about it, because it’s basically just a player fantasy.

@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

And anybody can look up a geographical location associated with an IP but I might be creeped out if a gamerunner or forum admin or whatever was to tell me where I live.

The fact that someone could find this information wouldn’t be the upsetting part of this to me, it would be the fact that someone put the effort in (even if it’s minimal) to find this information out.

Most long-time MU*ers know that we have the illusion of privacy, but that doesn’t make it any more polite when someone rips down the veil of that illusion. Someone taking the time and (even minimal) effort to connect someone’s IP to where they live and then tell them is definitely unnecessary and creep-adjacent at least (maybe unless it’s part of an ongoing investigation into their online identity and past actions? maybe?).

I started doing Historical European Martial Arts two weeks ago (finally), with a local group that just formed. I’ve been doing it most days since then, and I ache, but it’s a really good ache. I have more energy than I have in years, and I feel great. Plus I get to swing a sword around.

@mietze said in MU Peeves Thread:

It’s good to touch base to make sure its something that works for both which can be hard for randos so you may have to ask would you prefer the vampire alt or the werelobster?

When I’m of this mind, I like to go, “Want to go line-dancing or something with my vampire alt or get into a brawl with werecrabs with my werelobster alt? Or any ideas you might have for either.”

Because then I’m not setting off the instinctive “Ugh, they don’t know what they want besides me to entertain them” reaction that I totally get and often have, but I’m also offering some flexibility.

@somasatori Now you’ve got me thinking about how to do Dune with FS3…

@sao This isn’t a direct reply to you, but you were the last one on the thread talking about this subject. For me, it’s the difference between “I don’t distrust you” and “I don’t trust you.” I’ll play on a game with Staff that I don’t distrust. I may not fully trust them, but I’m willing to offer them the chance to earn that trust. I will not play on a game where I don’t trust Staff. That is for the people who have already burned me or someone who I do trust.

And I agree that life is too short for the stress of “do I trust this person I’ve put in a position of power over my fun or not,” and this has only gotten more true as my life has gotten more full.

@MisterBoring Whether or not that’s better, I don’t know if it’s practicable. And there are folks that really like that down time between episodes (I like some, just I would prefer that it be a couple of weeks compared to a month or three, again, I know people who prefer the downtime to the episodes, so YMMV).

I think that the only way you could possible get anywhere near even just a couple of weeks between episodes is to have two Storyteller Staffs, because there’s going to be some cooldown time and some administrative ramp-up time on either end of an episode. Even then, I think it would entirely depend on the setting/theme of the game whether the shortest possible downtime is the best option, a medium length, or a long downtime. I think that if you have intense episodes without much time for the players or characters to catch their breath, you’re going to want a medium-long amount of downtime; if you have episodes that meander and have time to catch your breath in the midst, then I think you would want shorter amounts of downtime.

I could see, say, a WWII game that has people at the front (or on alert at the airbase or whatever), needing a month or so between campaigns, to let the characters (and players) breathe and find their new status quo. But I could see a murder mystery game needing much less time between cases (because you’re probably going to get a little bit of investigation time and some breathing room in there, and it isn’t likely to be as life or death all the time as a combat game.

@bear_necessities This is an issue for me too – after the first 2 or so Hiatuses, I wasn’t much interested in most of the “cruise ship” RP in between Seasons on the Network. I know that others really loved those times, even more than the Seasons. Miniseries helped quite a lot during Hiatuses in order to get in even more short stories.

It could be interesting to have a second Storyteller team (or just one more Storyteller) whose duty was to run story during the downtimes. On a game like The Network or HorrorMU*, this could be someone who runs the conspiracy that’s behind the program (so that there actually could be a mystery for players to unravel). On another game it could be someone or a group of someones who runs a shortened Season – or just have two Storyteller teams (led by a couple of Administrators) who alternate seasons and then you don’t need downtime at all.

I agree with @Roz that a game probably does need some downtime if you’re having episodic stories, since they tend to be a little more intense and go-go-go than your “standard” storydriven game.