Nightowl
Champion
Jo, jag har själv använt uttrycket. Men när är något en metaplot?
Här är ett försök till definition från www.rpg.net :
OK
Erik
Här är ett försök till definition från www.rpg.net :
Han hänvisar ju bara till engelsk-språkiga spel av förklarliga skäl, men jag hoppas folk fattar ändå...NOTES TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF METAPLOT
Long ago, on another thread, I proposed the following definition of metaplot:
An event that changes a game-world in such a way that all future writing (supplements, adventures, etc.) about the game-world have to take that event into account.
I find this useful to distinguish metaplots from mere adventures or campaign setting information.
A typical adventure is rarely a metaplot event. When TSR published S3 EXPEDITION TO THE BARRIER PEAKS, it didn't affect all future modules and Greyhawk products. Players and DMs could play it, conquer it, ignore it, whatever - nothing that happened in that module fed back into the game-world of Greyhawk or the publishing plans of TSR.
Sometimes adventures have to take previous adventures into account. Again, this is not metaplot - module I5 follows on I4 and I3 and more-or-less requires you to have them and understand them for I5 to make sense - but the events and consequences of the module don't feed back into the game-world. Not a metaplot - just an adventure spread out over 3 modules. You could publish reams of perfectly-legitimate AD&D modules without ever referencing or even knowing about I3/I4/I5 (altough it would be your loss - I3/I4/I5 were pretty good modules IIRC).
MASKS OF NYARLATHOTEP does not constitute a metaplot event, even though the events described in the module were potentially epic and worldshaking (or worldending), because those events were specific to the campaign being run. None of the events in MoN fed back into the CALL OF CTHULHU line and there were no repercussions that affected subsequent CoC modules and scenarios.
The appearance of the Space Gods and Tharkold in TORG was a metaplot event. Every module and sourcebook afterwards had to account for the fact that there were 2 new "realities" that had established themselves on Earth. Every new gizmo or power or bit of equipment published after SPACE GODS and THARKOLD had to describe how they interracted with the two new realities.
The destruction of the Trememe Antitribu in VAMPIRE REVISED is an example of a metaplot event. All future publications in the VAMPIRE line have to account for the fact that the Tremere Antitribu are no more.
The Virus destroying the Imperium of MEGATRAVELLER and ushering in TRAVELLER: THE NEW ERA was a metaplot event. So was the revelation of the Secret of the Ancients back in classic TRAVELLER.
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Erik