What do you play most?
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Varied, if I stay some place for any length of time, its usually some place I can do my own stories. Most meta happens in the evenings or, more lately these days, is 'mu*' shattering. Something effects the whole game. It sucks that its not during my usual play times, and worse if I have to react to it. I guess tend towards sandboxing on my place, but prefer the ones that encourage sandboxing.
I know folks want the big meta, but I think more players silently take the sidelines and avoid the spotlight competition of overarching metaplot.
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
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I thought the goal of meta plots was to spin off many different ways that things are affected, and let players run with that on their own time? Major steps in the metaplot would aggregate player effort and maybe big scenes as per usual I suppose, but overall i want things the players can do in their own neighborhood to reflect the themes and such.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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@Misadventure When I attempted to do that on Reno1, the typical cluster of loud voices simply screamed there was no plot.
Clearly, I needed to put THIS IS PART OF A SPHERE METAPLOT, GUYS! in highlighted red ANSI in all of the events for it that those very same people never bothered signing up for.
Did they still whine and bitch that there wasn't anything? Of course they did. In fairness, Reno1 at the time was not designed to have one, but there was an idea for one anyway to give people things to do.
Probably would have been fun if anybody actually ever showed up to do it other than @Scorn and one or two other folks whose MSB ID's I don't know off hand.
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I'm talking about teaching people to fish.
If people will neither fish, nor eat the fish you cook for them, I don't know what to do.
Except slap them with a fish when they complain.
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Do players want the big meta, tho? Those games I've seen the most activity on are either no meta or the meta covers everything but is not one thing. Smaller changes pile up without any one big thing.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
I think there are varied types of metaplot. Some are more intense or high stakes than others.
The progress of Prohibition could be the meta for a gangsters game. It informs what is going on, even makes some big changes, but nothing is going to end the world.
Then there are things where the setting or the world or the cosmos are threatened.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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I like to compare metaplot to what TV series do.
There's an overall seasonal arc, and then there are episodic mini-arcs. So the Flash might be preparing for his final showdown with Zoom, that's the big thing, but in the mean time he deals with breaches from different Earths, the occasional villain of the week, etc.
Then at the end of the season... a new season begins with a new overall arc.
I think it's a good model for MU*. There shouldn't be just one Big Thing everyone's working on forever or newbies will be eventually rendered irrelevant as they come in too late, and older players feel like they've been doing this same old and dance forever because they have been.
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L&L because I like fantasy and WoD requires me to read a rulebook if I ever wanna get into it.
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@Thenomain said in What do you play most?:
Do players want the big meta, tho? Those games I've seen the most activity on are either no meta or the meta covers everything but is not one thing. Smaller changes pile up without any one big thing.
Some suggest they do, some don't do anything unless staff run something.
Inversely I agree the most active places have no meta or its more open and not world shattering. Yet those highly active places seen to crop up in hog pit for reasons (too many staff alts, too little staff, staff doesn't do what I want ... More grief and gripe). I play on some and don't join in the slinging. Preception versus reality, just when I've pondered similar thoughts, what folks like in a mu*, answers always point to meta, staff keeping it active (including everyone), etc.
I'm saying I prefer less meta and my own stories. And maybe wrong perception on my part.
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
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@Lotherio said in What do you play most?:
Some suggest they do, some don't do anything unless staff run something.
Inversely I agree the most active places have no meta or its more open and not world shattering. Yet those highly active places seen to crop up in hog pit for reasons (too many staff alts, too little staff, staff doesn't do what I want ... More grief and gripe). I play on some and don't join in the slinging. Preception versus reality, just when I've pondered similar thoughts, what folks like in a mu*, answers always point to meta, staff keeping it active (including everyone), etc.
I'm saying I prefer less meta and my own stories. And maybe wrong perception on my part.
Many games put their metaplot on a wiki and promptly forget it exists. That's one of the reasons most sandbox games come to a grinding halt a couple of weeks after they open and once the early excitement which comes with that new character smell wears off, and everyone realizes there really isn't much to do around these parts after all. Sure, the opening page claims there's an invasion by the Pure or whatever but nothing's actually happening, so after the 6th time you end up in a bar scene bitching about those damn theoretical Pure taking your jobs and stealing your women ... well, it gets a bit repetitive.
Good metaplot is a roleplay-generating engine. The vast majority of MU* don't have good metaplot, they have a wiki with someone's fanfic scribbled hastily in a couple of its pages.
