The Metaplot
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I have no problem with the concept of a metaplot.
But on a pragmatic level, I think most of the time it is not implemented well, for a variety of reasons unique to each MU*, with a few exceptions (like smaller tightly themed games--run by organized and talented people. By no means does smaller or tightly themed mean that the metaplot doesn't suck. There's a lot of moving parts.)
*Staff turnover with no staff documentation--especially AWOL staff who don't leave any notes for incoming.
*Staff burnout--which leads to the above OR the natural inclination to run primarily for those they enjoy the most/who are the the most doggedly annoying or in their face (to shut them up) while directing their anger to people who "don't do anything" but who in fact have multiple months of +jobs and the like ignored/unanswered or who can't make the very limited time slots.
*Many times the same people who are great at administration (or who are willing to step up into that role) are not necessarily great STs by default, either in scenes or providing non-scene snippets (ic clues, job responses, ect.)
I don't really count player response to metaplot here, because I'm not sure it's that important. You'll always have some people respond, no matter how crappy the storytelling or how great it is. And I don't think, if you're going to roll out a metaplot, it's a great excuse to use--simply because I can think of at least 4-5 MUSHes I've been part of where staff used "players aren't responding to me" to deflect from the real issue--burnout and/or disinterest in STing for people. There were many players waiting on unanswered jobs (or mails), who would try to attend everything they could, ect--but obviously weren't reacting the way they were supposed to to the ST's "obvious" clues (protip--if "nobody" is getting what you want out of the scene the problem may be your clues aren't as "obvious" as you think!).
Metaplot is a bitch to keep track of and keep relevant. You have to have a plan. I've staffed many places and really most of the time there IS no documentation or pragmatic controls to keep track of the plan. It's not fun, it's paperwork, but not having anything leads to a lot of problems once the new shiny has worn off.
The last time I participated and really chased a metaplot on a large multiple-sphere inclusive metaplot where the people involved were not good documentarians led to me being IC penalized and screamed at ooc by a staffer for my "lack of response" over many months--until I started forwarding the many unanswered @mails I'd sent to her (this was in the era prior to +jobs) showing that I had tried weekly at first and then checked in monthly, despite no response, for over a RL year. After that, with the exception of TR's apoc-plot (which I was very judicious through whom I participated and had a lot of fun as a result), I've been extremely EXTREMELY reluctant to get involved in anything if I don't get a response. What happened to me is not at all uncommon. Usually the people who have been trying to do things in the face of staff burnout, who wait patiently and just keep paddling, tend to ultimately be the receivers of staff lashing out because of their frustrations/burnout/overwhelmedness--and usually in the context of public staff complaining of lack of player response to it.
I think if you can't be bothered to set up documentation rules and follow them for metaplot, staffside, and you are not a one-person show, then probably you should think twice about weaving in a metaplot. Sure you can blame the players, but ultimately they have no control if the implementation is half-assed, declines over time, and becomes confused and byzantine because of so much turnover with nobody keeping track of what's been done/what the direction is/what's left to do.
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@mietze Passive people deflecting the blame for a lack of effort on their behalf is the norm in the hobby, whether player or staff. There's just going to be a lot of finger pointing for who let a story die regardless.
some fucking idiot who people only like because he's good at taking credit for the work of everyone under him, just like every other fucking L&L headwiz.
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Although I don't think @surreality came up with it in the first place it hadn't occurred to me before she mentioned it a while ago that episodic TV arcs are a good translation for how metaplot 'should' work on a MU*.
On TV there's an actual formula they had come up at some point to accommodate both new and regular viewers - something like "1 episode in 3 advances the plot and the other two are whatever else". That lets casual viewers tuning in once in a while to not be completely lost if they start watching in mid-season but it also gives more dedicated ones a reason to plant their ass on the couch every Tuesday at 8 and watch the next one once they are hooked; likewise it allows a periodic renewal so you're not exposed to the same damn plot for years by switching old arcs up for new ones before they get too stale.
MU* can absolutely borrow a page from that recipe. For instance you do want to cater to newer players who aren't as integrated into your plot; if I roll on today and existing characters who have been leading the war against the evil vampire chief for months then there may not be a niche for my PC to do anything. There are guys around who have personal relationships with NPCs, who've done the research, fought the bloodsuckers and have tales to tell.. my guy has nothing, and catch-up isn't always fun.
But if this is just an arc, not all there is then I could just bide my time and wait it out; in a month or two the bad guys will be defeated and maybe we'll find out it was demons behind it all along using the other stuff as a distraction for their invasion - ah HAH, there's my chance to shine.
On the other hand if the whole game is about fighting vampires for years it gets repetitive. Worse, after a while all characters start specializing for that one thing, which deprives the game of other fun niches; who needs a demon expert if everyone knows it's vampires all the way down?
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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I'm not hugely interested in games without a solid metaplot happening. The games I've staffed have always had a strong metaplot component. When I staffed on XMM when we were mutant secret agents/spies, the metaplot involved a global organization that served as a long-term enemy. Not all the staff plots were missions centered on this organization, but a fair number of them were. It provided an ongoing, recurring plot thread beyond other staff plots and PRPs that were fun and exciting but existed more as one-off storylines. The sense of continuity was really fun, particularly when we could do plots that called back to our previous conflicts with the enemy org.
I think that, for me, the best form of metaplot is one that everyone can participate in if they choose to do so and put in some legwork. (If your game is small enough, staff might have the time and energy to basically drop pieces into every player's lap, but that's not generally the case for most games, I think.) But my ideal is that there are doors to involvement that can be open across the whole variety of PCs that might exist. Or that there are varied aspects of the metaplot that different types of PCs can be involved in.
People shouldn't be forced into the metaplot or actively penalized for not participating. I think that generally if you're a player who hates metaplot and you're on a game that has a strong metaplot component, what are you doing there?? But otherwise, sometimes people have more interest in some arcs than others, sometimes people get busy, etc. People shouldn't be forced to have the same level of involvement at all times. But there's also that component where you may need to kind of nudge people away from certain things, possibly by way of metaplot, in order to maintain theme cohesion. See: the point in this convo about happy house vs grimdark survival.
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Its a shame social skills are so verboten. Using social skills to affect large amounts of people to act on a metaplot sounds sorta cool.
So combat characters it is!
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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What people? If you mean players, I doubt being massively social imperatived into acting on a plot you weren't really into is going to strike you as cool. If you mean NPC, hahahaha!
Woe to you who tries to get playes to consider NPCs as a factor. Ok, maybe I just mean woe to us.
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@Tempest said in The Metaplot:
I've never seen anything remotely close to that in regards to metaplot on a MUSH. Maybe I've just been lucky.
On a MUD, sure. On Firan, probably.
Metaplot on a MUSH is, in my experience, pretty easy to ignore, if it even exists in the first place.
That staff behavior honestly sounds almost exactly like some run-ins I had with various MUD staffers over the years. Like. Exactly.
MUD staff is definitely prone to "OMG YOU WILL PARTICIPATE IN THIS STORY I WROTE (AND IS ENTIRELY SCRIPTED ALREADY) AND ACKNOWLEDGE IT IS THE BEST THING EVER OR ELSE THERE WILL BE ACTUAL MECHANICAL SETBACKS FOR YOU AND THE ENTIRE GAME". I've never seen anything remotely like that on a MUSH, unless you count Firan (I wouldn't).
Makes me wonder, did this Castle Marrach staff hide behind anonymity? IE no record of who they played and they generally wouldn't even say which staffer was making decisions or doing things in-game that affected players?
Kushiel's Debut had something similar, although not to that level of insanity, a year or two ago. Staff pushed a metaplot where everyone's divine abilities went away. Players were supposed to be alarmed and try to figure out what was going on. But mostly, players just shrugged and said 'meh' and continued cavorting in the bedchambers. Staff didn't up the ante, but just sort of went 'Okay, fine,' and left it in place. No-one really cared. For maybe 1 year and a half? Players that did worry about the loss of their divine blood connections sort of treated it as an SEP (Someone Else's Problem), and expected others that weren't 100% focused on TS and/or politics to go and solve it. The whole thing lead to another massive drop-off in the player base, and Staff eventually had to say 'fark it' and do a reset, IIRC.
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I'm not interested in playing without continuity and overarching story. I find that boring. Shrughands!
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I like metaplot. However, I also agree that a lot of metaplots I've seen on MU*s were not very good. Not, generally, because the people who developed them were evil or anything, but because they fell into a couple of very common GMing errors. I think the metaplots I've seen that were the most successful and satisfying tended to share some common traits:
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They were scripted and presented as opportunities to make things BETTER, not to restore or defend a status quo. Taking something away from PCs as a precursor to a plot, in my experience, makes players stressed out, wary, and defensive from the start. They start trying to figure out what they need to do /not lose anything else/ rather than to regain what they lost. This may, or may not, be coupled with a suspicion that staff is punishing them and a lack of belief that they can meaningfully impact the plot.
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Oriented towards shaping the future, not uncovering/discovering the past. Metaplots about 'uncovering the past' inevitably, in my experience, depress player interest. Because the past is always filled with larger than life characters who did AMAZING AND COOL THINGS...that current PCs are (perceived) to never, ever be able to do. Uncovering the past is reading someone else's story - what tends to get players excited is the chance to write their own story.
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Have clear, varied lines of engagement /and/ significant and timely feedback on engagement. Especially at the beginning, the most successful plots I've seen have broken objectives down into small, clear goals that scream 'resolve this with combat' or 'resolve this with talky skills' with low difficulties and small but significant resolutions. People get choice paralysis and many MU* players are fairly passive, as others have noted - giving them something that is /clearly/ meant for their kind of character, isn't high risk, but does have a small but 'real' contribution to the resolution is a good way to hook them in for further involvement. You want players to become invested, and there's no better way to cultivate investment than in offering the players ownership in a fun way.
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Remember that it is the PCs' story. Plots which primarily revolve around a set of NPCs tend to turn off players - they're around to tell their own story, not tag along with the NPCs. Also, highly powerful NPCs, especially if they have access to things that the PCs are forbidden to have, tend to create anger and resentment among players. The best metaplots I've seen have made every reasonable effort to reach out to players and find a way to make the plot, stakes, and events /personal/ to the PC (for good and ill, not just for ill).
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And, of course, be flexible. Players aren't going to do what you expect. Don't have a metaplot which is so tightly scripted that the PCs clearly see the rails, or they're likely to either disengage, or decide to wreck the train. If something doesn't seem to be working, discard it or change it. The /only/ purpose for an RPG plot is to give the players (including the GM) enjoyment.
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Well, usually the absence of a metaplot signals a sandbox game, and I've yet to see a non-sex MU* where that approach is successful.
But there is room between these two extremes, or there ought to be.
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@Pyrephox said in The Metaplot:
- Oriented towards shaping the future, not uncovering/discovering the past. Metaplots about 'uncovering the past' inevitably, in my experience, depress player interest. Because the past is always filled with larger than life characters who did AMAZING AND COOL THINGS...that current PCs are (perceived) to never, ever be able to do. Uncovering the past is reading someone else's story - what tends to get players excited is the chance to write their own story.
I think you can get a lot of interest in discovering the past if it's directly related to shaping the future and PC stories.
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@saosmash how the hell do you shrug your hands what is wrong with your anatomy DEAR GOD
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The difficulty with metaplot is in investment. It's easy to write something you want every character on grid to care about (the writer is invested), but harder to make others care about it.
IMO metaplot works better in settings where the setting itself is metaplot (Battlestar/PostApocalypse) or metaplot in segments (this affects the vampires only, or the Rebel Alliance and Empire only).
I think it's fair to say that not every player is there to RP outside of their preferred bubble. Some just want to sandbox with one player, or RP with a small group of friends, or only with things central to their character. I don't think these players should discourage others from creating metaplot, but it should be noted that when this happens, these players aren't always playing the same game that everyone else is playing; they're technically using the game's server to play something else.
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@Misadventure said in The Metaplot:
Its a shame social skills are so verboten. Using social skills to affect large amounts of people to act on a metaplot sounds sorta cool.
So combat characters it is!I've been tweaking FS3 to have command skills driving vehicles of NPCs around for napoleonic line battles and it seems to be working when I have time to test.
I think what I want to do with social skills is use them for governing cadres of npc colonists to generate various points for their leader PC. So far it's all kind of on a ganky spreadsheet. I think it might be too cumbersome though, I just have fond memories of mashing +dig on Lost Generation, and thought it would be fun to have desperate colonists mashing +science before the planet ate them.
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@Kanye-Qwest shrughands maybe it's maybelline, maybe it's magic.
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@Arkandel The 'season plot' thing was @tragedyjones. I just shamelessly stole it and planned to run with it a little further.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality Now I want TJ to admit he stole it from me and we just got ourselves a full-on inception.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Apos Eh. When it comes to metaplot though who was the power? Not the players whining about nothing to do. That's just annoying. Staffers neglecting mails, +jobs, or whatever conduits they tell people to get involved in? That's infinitely more harmful/damaging. But I can guarantee you most of the time they'll blame players for being too stupid or passive. It's just not an equitable level of impact.
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@mietze Proactive players who actually run with things immediately get branded as part of the staffers' pets' clique, though, so I mean, it's just kind of the nature of the hobby at this point.
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@saosmash said in The Metaplot:
@mietze Proactive players who actually run with things immediately get branded as part of the staffers' pets' clique, though, so I mean, it's just kind of the nature of the hobby at this point.
That's not what I'm talking about. But sure, if it makes you feel better to lay metaplot "failure" not on disorganization or other flaws but people not as good/on top of things as you, sure. It's just that in my observation things are usually more complicated. And it's almost always dismissed as "well, if you people just cared or did anything you'd be just as involved as me!"
Not so simple. Even for proactive, good, quality players.
