[Twilight Time] "I Never Metaplot I Didn't Like"

Tue Apr 15 08:58:12 EDT 2003

April 15, 2003 - "I Never Metaplot I Didn't Like"
Volume 4, Issue 5

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Good morning!

I'm sorry this article is a day late; we had some connection problems 
yesterday. I think it'll be worth the wait, though, as today's article 
is a special guest issue from former "Wraith: the Oblivion" developer 
Richard Dansky! Without further ado, I'll let Richard's work speak for 
itself.

Have a great day,
Heather

Richard Dansky has written, designed or otherwise meddled with a long 
list of roleplaying game products, mostly for White Wolf. He's written 
four novels, including the Trilogy of the Second Age, and a random 
assortment of fiction, non-fiction, reviews, and vaguely humorous 
essays. Currently gainfully employed as the Manager of Design for Red 
Storm Games, Richard also works as the Central Clancy Writer for 
UbiSoft. He resides in Durham, North Carolina with the charming and 
talented Melinda Thielbar, as well as their charming and slightly less 
talented cats.

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I Never Metaplot I Didn?t Like
or
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Shadowlands
by Richard E. Dansky

When I was confronted with the challenge of developing "Wraith" (in 
those dim and distant days we called "The Nineties" ? yes this stuff 
is old. Bear with me), the biggest problem I was faced with (besides a 
logo that bore an uncanny resemblance to Daffy Duck?s beak immediately 
after one of those classic ?Duck Season!? ?Wabbit Season!? exchanges) 
was that nobody knew What Was Going On. Mind you, the "Wraith" 
background was a stunning playground: three levels of reality, 
psychological landscapes to romp in, moaning coins, ancient souls who 
would make Chris DeBurgh scratch his chin and go ?hmmm? and all sorts 
of fun stuff that made me itch to run a campaign in the Shadowlands. 
What I didn?t know, and what I assumed no one else knew either, was 
what was going on behind the scenes. Which Deathlords were doing the 
others dirty? Were the Guilds still kicking around? If so, why, and 
what were they up to? What were the Renegades up to, and was there in 
fact some sort of master plan for the overthrow of Stygia? What was 
going on in the other Dark Kingdoms? The answers to these and many 
other thrilling questions were?nowhere to be found.

[Note: None of this is a negative comment on the work of Jennifer 
Hartshorn, my predecessor on "Wraith". She created an amazing canvas, 
and I?m just the sort of guy who worries about doodling in the corners.]

Now, I?m a big believer in creating as big a sandbox as possible for 
Storytellers (or, heaven forfend, GMs) as possible. I don?t want to 
know where Caine or the Antediluvians are, if Souleaters are real, or 
where Rasputin is going pop his ugly head up next. I prefer to make up 
my own answer to that sort of specific question, and as a developer I 
preferred to let individual Storytellers do most of the work. That way 
they come up with what works best for them, and don?t get shackled to 
what my sleep-deprived brain conjured in the 3 AM fogs.

But, there has to be a story going on somewhere. Something has to be 
moving in the background, otherwise the game world as a whole just 
sort of sits there, static.

Look at it this way: If there isn?t a story going on in the 
background, then everything that?s going on in the game world can be 
found in the ?Background? section of the game?s main rulebook, which, 
it can be assumed, everyone playing has read. This means that the 
players, no matter how hard they try not to metagame, *know what?s 
going on*, and it?s damned difficult not to impart at least some of 
that knowledge to your characters. After that, it?s too easy for 
roleplaying to slip into problem solving and picking up the pieces.

Without surprises, the whole exercise gets a lot less fun. Now, 
players do surprise Storytellers every session (usually starting at 
character creation with ?You want to play a *what?!*? and spiraling 
downward from there), but the equation has to go the other way as 
well. Storytellers have to keep on surprising players, which means 
that they have to have surprises to spring. They have to know things 
the players don?t, and that means that they have to know What?s Really 
Going On. And that means (cue the ominous music) a metaplot.

Now, figuring out your metaplot usually starts with figuring out what 
the goal of your campaign world is. Is it To Liberate Humanity From 
the Oppressive Vampire Yoke? Is it To Bring Down the Evil Hierarchical 
Structure That?s Oppressing Everyone? Mind you, these are all big 
ideas. Big stories, and not terribly well defined ones. That?s all 
right ? your metaplot is the reason behind your individual plots ? if 
your metaplot concerns a rogue Progenitor Mage who?s decided that he 
wants to go on a Dr. Moreau kick and breed the perfect human, your 
individual plots can deal with things like beating up beast-critters, 
running afoul of people trying to stop the mad splicer, stumbling 
across failed experiments and the like. All of those are plots, but 
they?re derived from your metaplot, the grand story of what?s going on 
behind the scenes.

The next step, once you?ve decided where the world is going, is to 
decide who wants to get there, who?s going the other way, and most 
importantly, why. Arranging your Storyteller character cast along the 
lines of how they?re reacting to the metaplot?s goal allows you to 
also set up which characters are potential allies or enemies of one 
another, which ones are likely to be regarded as villains by the 
characters, and so on. However, it?s not enough simply to lay down 
good guys and bad guys. Your NPCs need to have reasons for supporting 
or opposing the progress of your game world. This gives those 
characters a chance to develop with the story. Perhaps some of them 
could change sides down the road, or characters who are ?villains? by 
dint of affiliation, not personality could turn out to be sympathetic 
and make the player characters reconsider their positions.

(Plus, if there?s a reason for your NPCs to do that voodoo that they 
do so well, it saves you embarrassment when a PC asks dramatically, 
?Why are you doing this?? Let?s face it, it?s always humiliating to 
have your major villain reply, ?Why? Because the plot demands it! I 
never wanted to do this in the first place.? A nemesis who'd prefer to 
be a lumberjack is bound to disappoint.)

Hopefully, at this point you know where the world is going, who?s 
pushing and who?s pulling. That?s a good start, but you?re still 
static. You need a dramatic event to kickstart things, to get the 
metaplot in motion. This doesn?t even have to be something the player 
characters see, as it should instead serve to motivate your NPCs into 
acting. Remember, the PCs aren?t going to be in on the metaplot from 
the beginning, but when they uncover the pieces later on, they?re 
going to want to see the genesis of the crisis. Don?t ever 
underestimate the _nachas_ they?ll get from learning all of your 
secrets (or so they think).

Finally, you need to figure out where the characters fit with the 
metaplot. It?s not a good idea to decide which side they should be on. 
If you?ve done a good job of motivating your characters (and haven?t 
stacked the deck with a hideous metaplot), you?ll be able to follow 
the metaplot and run a good story no matter where the players come 
down. Trust them to make an interesting decision ? once you get them 
interested.

You will need a way to suck them in to the workings of the metaplot. 
Let?s face it, secret societies and mystic brotherhoods could be 
meeting in the apartment down the hall from where you?re reading this, 
but you?re not involved because you have no idea of what?s going on. 
If, on the other hand, a mysterious idol was accidentally delivered to 
your doorstep in front of your neighbor?s, and hundreds of graduates 
of Innsmouth High suddenly started trying to repossess it, you?d 
acquire a sudden interest on what was going on, wouldn?t you?

(Okay, if you had any brains you?d give the damned statue back, pack 
up, move to New Guinea, and try to forget it ever happened, but PCs 
generally aren?t that well attuned to that whole self-preservation 
kick us real people have in our genes. The one time I ever played in a 
game where the characters acted sensibly, we ended up ignoring 
earth-shattering events and instead role-playing contract 
negotiations, office coffee orders, and making french toast. A 
thrill-packed ride through the pulsing heart of action, it was not.)

In other words, you need a teaser, something that convinces the 
players that it?s in their characters? best interest to figure out 
what?s going on. Assassinations or seemingly unmotivated attacks work 
well, but the actual plot device is unimportant. All that matters is 
that something active happens that has a connection to the player 
characters. Obviously, you?re not going to want this initial event to 
be too big ? it?s a teaser, that?s all. Having the UberVillain show up 
and announce his evil plan short circuits the layers of revelation 
that make metaplotting so much fun.

A final idea involves seeding future plots with foreshadows. You don?t 
even have to know what you?re foreshadowing, mind you. Just stick the 
shadowy figure in the corner and worry about who he?s really working 
for later. Even if he doesn?t make sense now, he will down the road.

So that?s how you do it, or at least how I did it. Winding back to the 
putative topic of the article, let?s run through the step-by-step 
process of how I concocted the "Wraith" metaplot without the 
assistance of any chemicals stronger than caffeine.

The basic question came first: What is on everyone?s mind? The best 
answer I could come up with was the mysterious disappearance of 
Charon, formerly big kahuna of the dead. Not much seemed to have 
happened since Charon did his scrubbing bubble impression and went 
down the drain in 1945, and I knew that the centuries-old schemers in 
Stygia weren?t going to sit around and wait for Charon for 50 years. 
Still, everything revolved around (or reacted to) Charon.

So what about Charon? Well, it would seem that people who?d gained 
since his departure (i.e. the Deathlords and the Renegade groups) 
wouldn?t want to bring him back. The question being, who would? Who 
would stand to gain? The answer was the Guilds. The fact that they?d 
had a little falling out with Charon 500 years ago was simply an added 
twist.

This decision did a few things. It let me place the Guilds in the 
context of the Shadowlands, when otherwise they?d been rather 
vestigial. It gave them a purpose and a reason to continue. Without 
that, they were deadweight, and the series of Guildbooks would have 
been rather pointless. It also established another political dynamic 
in the Shadowlands. Since Guild membership crossed faction lines, all 
of a sudden the whole Hierarchy-Renegades-Heretics triangle rumble had 
gotten a whole lot more interesting.

Why? Because I was wondering why certain wraiths would do certain 
things. I was establishing motivations, and from those motivations 
plotlines started flowing. Was I working with specifics yet? Nope. 
They were unimportant at this stage. I did start creating a few 
specific characters ? Lord Ember, Miklos the supercilious Chanteur, a 
mysterious Pardoner, a hysterical Oracle ? and figuring out what they 
wanted. Their reactions (and they had to be natural reactions, drawn 
from established character behavior trends) in the upcoming books 
would go a long way towards directing the metaplot towards its 
ultimate end.

So the parts had been cast, the motivations established, and the stage 
set. All that remained was to kick it off. As "Wraith" isn?t a game 
where body counts are important, I didn?t think something violent 
would be the way to go. Instead, I went with revelation. The meeting 
in the basement of Ember?s palace and the announcement that Charon had 
been set up ? this would startle the NPCs into motion. Other NPCs 
would react. Rumblings at the top would turn into earthquakes at the 
bottom ? where the players would be. Suddenly, something would be 
happening in the Shadowlands, and everyone would be a part of it, 
somehow.

Mind you, the "Wraith" metaplot took years to develop, and even then I 
didn't get to pull all the rabbits out of my hat before the final 
curtain came down. Instead of players, I had readers who are players 
and Storytellers, and many of my reveals need to be tailored 
specifically for this dual audience. But the basic paradigm remains 
the same, and the blueprint I outlined above is the one I?m following. 
Why? Because it works.

After all, once upon a time it was my world. Just remember, each and 
everyone one of you has yours.

What's Your Opinion?:

Comments on this issue's topic? Suggestions? Tips? Special topic 
requests? Drop me a line at (heather at burningvoid.com). If I pass any 
of your suggestions on (either through the newsletter or the RPG 
resources page), I'll attribute them to you. Be sure to tell me if you 
don't want me to use your name and/or comments!

The next issue is coming in just a few weeks--early to mid May.

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SITE UPDATE:

Burning Void Roleplaying Resources:
http://www.burningvoid.com/users/heather/roleplaying/resources.html

http://www.burningvoid.com/users/heather/roleplaying/Essays/condition1.html
Expectations, Conditioning and Your Game, Part I: Examples
We sometimes don't realize that we're "training" our players to do the 
exact opposite of what we'd like them to do. Here's the start of a 
short series on taking conscious charge of the unconscious "lessons" 
you impart through your game.

Burning Void Writers' Resources:
http://www.burningvoid.com/users/heather/writing/resources.html

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ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Reviewing RPGs for Epinions?

I'm currently working on trying to convince more people to review RPGs 
at Epinions.com. The original announcement I made at RPGNet is much 
too long to reproduce here, but you can, at least at the moment, view 
it here:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43812

Eden Studios, Bizarro Games Announce Odyssey Prime RPG:

Eden Studios and Bizzaro Games are proud to announce their 
collaboration on Bizzaro Games' Odyssey Prime d20 RPG setting.

Odyssey Prime is a roleplaying game of interdimensional adventures 
using the upcoming d20 Modern game system by Wizards of the Coast (it 
will also contain conversion rules for Unisystem). The premise can 
perhaps be best summed up as "Stargate meets Armageddon," combining 
the classic sci-fi staple of alien-world explorations with a touch of 
modern thriller. Player characters are recruited, sometimes 
involuntarily, by Project Odyssey to enter the portal and scout the 
unknown on the other side.

Look for Odyssey Prime in Summer 2003. Check out the Odyssey Prime 
website for more information: http://edenstudios.net/odysseyprime/

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