Quote from: Aos;419796I only have the first boxed set. I don't think there is any real metaplot presented therein. Truthfully though, the interior artwork is so bad that i could never bring myself to read through the whole thing. No art would have been better.  
I like the idea of fantasy/ science fantasy space stuff though.

Nah, there's no metaplot in the Spelljammer boxed set. I like the art myself, but you know what they say. Tastes and colors and shit, right?

The deck plans and ship illos are fine. they don't get me going or anything, but he interior character illustrations are crap (pages 52 and 59 of the concordance are typical examples of what I'm talking about). Normally I'm with you on the taste thing, as you know, but the idea that anyone could like that stuff breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Quote from: Aos;419802The deck plans and ship illos are fine. they don't get me going or anything, but he interior character illustrations are crap (pages 52 and 59 of the concordance are typical examples of what I'm talking about). Normally I'm with you on the taste thing, as you know, but the idea that anyone could like that stuff breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Jeez, now THAT is serious.

Quote from: Aos;419802The deck plans and ship illos are fine. they don't get me going or anything, but he interior character illustrations are crap (pages 52 and 59 of the concordance are typical examples of what I'm talking about). Normally I'm with you on the taste thing, as you know, but the idea that anyone could like that stuff breaks my suspension of disbelief.

It's mostly Jim Holloway as I remember? He's widely hated, but I always loved the guy's work.

I like metaplot in the background: mysterious, mythical, prophetic etc.

Some people are great at looking at a blank page and writing down an awesome setting/adventure.

Some people are great at looking at an existing scenario and using it as inspiration to get the creativity flowing.  I'm one of those.  As a result, I actually like game with metaplot even if I never use any of it, because a metaplot game means the designers are going to spend a whole lot of time on things other then rules, which just gives me a big pile of stuff to take and hammer into the shape I want it.

As to whether I think the metaplot should have any bearing on what actually happens at my table, well you know the answer to that already.

With Chianti and fava beans.

Seanchai

Quote from: LordVreeg;419805Jeez, now THAT is serious.

Indeed.

Quote from: Cole;419806It's mostly Jim Holloway as I remember? He's widely hated, but I always loved the guy's work.

Yeah it's, Holloway. I'm actually totally baffled by the fact that anyone can like his stuff. for me, every time I see one of his pieces, it's like someone set off a bordom grenade in my brain. I feel like I'm 8 years old... waiting in a long  line at the bank with my mom.

Quote from: CRKrueger;419810I like metaplot in the background: mysterious, mythical, prophetic etc.

Some people are great at looking at a blank page and writing down an awesome setting/adventure.

Some people are great at looking at an existing scenario and using it as inspiration to get the creativity flowing.  I'm one of those.  As a result, I actually like game with metaplot even if I never use any of it, because a metaplot game means the designers are going to spend a whole lot of time on things other then rules, which just gives me a big pile of stuff to take and hammer into the shape I want it.

As to whether I think the metaplot should have any bearing on what actually happens at my table, well you know the answer to that already.

I need to write my own metaplot.  Seriously.

Becasue I am able to often have trickles and echoes of it reach all the way down, like a deep forshadowing, that the players get a little bit more of, over the years, and suddenly start seeing the pieces start to fit together...

Quote from: Blackhand;419632I'm not really a fan, but in the club we've had to deal with this in oWoD mostly, but coming up we have a lot of stuff planned.  

I stay as far from metaplot as I can when it's present, but some of the GM's I'll be running the game with want to use some of the settings as presented, with metaplot and all.  A lot of them are first time GM's that the club is sponsoring, and I'll simply be there to make sure the game runs smooth without 'rulebook stalls'.

So, what are your favorite / most hated metaplots, for which rpg's and why are they your picks?

What really woke me up to the problem was WhiteWolf's recuring cross-genre villain, Samuel Haight.  This was, of course, in modules but the instruction over and over again was to keep the PCs from dealing successfully with him to keep him alive no matter what, until the final encounter when the instruction was reversed and the Storyteller was instructed that Samuel Haight must die in the encounter.  Raeding ths led me back to every frustrating stupidity I had had as a player of the games and made me wonder how many of those and just been jammed into the game.
I remember in one oWoD Vampire game the PCs were all members of the Prince of New York's council on the eve of the Sabbat takeover of the city.  Called together by the Prince to discuss how to deal with the Sabbat threat it soon became clear that the Prince was either insanely incompetent or had thrown his lot in with the Sabbat (as a player I believed the latter but my character was open to the former having seen better minds crumble during the French Terror).  Dismissed we all left in the same limousine, (something the Storyteller dictated but which seemed as dumb a notion as getting a haircut and shave in an open shaving parlor after your family had declared war on another during Prohibition) in which I discovered the bomb.  Two of the characters tried to disarm it, I tried to kick out the rear windshield, the other three tried to force the doors open.  We all failed and the bomb went off.  The Prince had set the bomb (or rather, had it set) to eliminate us as opposition to the new Sabbat masters of NYC; he had worked with us for decades, if not centuries, and should have had a good idea on how tough we were; we failed utterly to escape or stop the bomb; so the bomb plot worked perfectly from the Prince's point of view; meaning that he set the bomb not to kill us but to piss us off because even though we failed to even mitigate the effect of the bomb, it was utterly incapable of even inconveniencing us for more than a few seconds.  See, story trumped events in both examples and as a player it drove me crazy that my enemy set up a situation to kill me that logically he had to know would fail, just as it drove me crazy as a Storyteller that I had to keep Samuel Haight alive until the "right" moment for him to die.  I don't hate oWoD notion of self-loathing monsters, but when the "story" trumps the mechanics (and especially when it trumps the logical consequences of success and failure) it has to go.

Quote from: Werekoala;419757When I run Star Wars, I specifically tell my players that things they do could very well change the entire established Canon -otherwise, they wouldn't play.

You can do that and it works to a point (we did that in our Star Wars Game) but the major events they are already set in stone.  Your way allows the characters to make small "waves" in the universe, but nothing huge.

Never use Metaplot. Never run published adventures.

Even when I run Amber I get rid of all the elder Amberites (exception being in a con or something where they are a useful touchstone to get the players on the same page).

One of my pet hates is PCs not being able to have a significant influence on events. Therefore I hate casts of uber tough NPCs. I will throw in my own tough NPCs allies and enemies but I ahve to make them my own.

I played 007 for years and the players never met Bond once. In fact it became a running joke.

M: Ah 003 you just missed 007, yes he's off on medical leave that grenade made a real mess of his knee. Which brings me to your new mission....

Quote from: Daedalus;419920You can do that and it works to a point (we did that in our Star Wars Game) but the major events they are already set in stone.  Your way allows the characters to make small "waves" in the universe, but nothing huge.

Well, not really - call it an alternate universe if you like. For example, the most recent one I've run had them as a group of Sith from outside the galaxy (a monestary type thing) that had been sent into the core to depose the Emperor, who was actually one of their Order who had gone rogue. That's a fairly major change in established canon.

I`m undogmatic. There is good m and bad m.

I like the idea of a metaplot driven by input from player groups. I participated such as one could in metaplots for Torg and Metascape. But they didn't really seem to work well. And metaplots designed by the publishers never work. I am against.

I don't like metaplot in published settings. I like to add my own, but I don't want my setting screwed up by the latest sourcebook.

Yes, the latest sourcebook would still be usable, but not as usable if there were no metaplot.