Example: Fall of the Hegemonic Ministry

In Mage: The Awakening’s Seers of the Throne sourcebook I foreshadowed the fall of the Hegemonic Ministry, one of the big Seer factions. It’s rotting from the inside, relies too heavily on state control of the economy and is ripe for replacement. If Mage had a metaplot you might actually get to see the Hegemonic collapse in a source book. How should we do it while sticking to the principles in my last article? I’ll to try to stick to as few steps as possible but don’t look at this as some strict methodical road map.

(Don’t look at this as an actual development document, either. In the real thing, I’d be more specific about content and wouldn’t have to describe a lot of the process, and I’d divide content by chapter and section, not steps in a creative process.)

1) Come up with a cool name.

Really! This lets us do more right-brain work on the topic by exploring it through lose tricks and wordplay — and it helps with marketing, too. How about Shattercrown?

2) Brainstorm the plot.

All I know right now is that I’m kicking the Hegemonics to the curb in a story called Shattercrown. The name makes me think of aristocrats. Seers of the Throne tells me that the money-focused Ministry of Mammon is the Hegemonic’s heir apparent. Aristocrats and money make me think of Monaco. James Bond. Movie Stars. High Fashion. Yeah, this is going to be about occult shenanigans, spy-fi and Terrible Old Men with Money.

I think the Hegemonics are running out of money and Mammon is to blame. Seers get off on wealth, so losing it is a terrible blow. The Unity’s servants look shabby compared to their rivals now. Seers are ambitious bastards — Hegemonics must be running to better paying factions. The top levels start to get desperate and sloppy. There’s a Master with a gambling problem. When he loses big thanks to some surreptitious Mammon countermagic it sets off a flashpoint. Spells fly, mages die and the rogue Master escapes. Oh, it’s on. Each side gets ready to duke it out.

Pentacle communities notice the Seer civil war. It’s their big chance to hit the Throne hard. The Silver Ladder will call an emergency Convocation, perhaps the first Grand Convocation in over a hundred years. The other orders modify any plan to suit their own agendas. That renegade Seer Master is wiling to help them and has sent underlings to let Pentacle representatives know, but it’s hard to track him down. Both sides in the civil war want a word, you see.

Okay, cool.

3) Provide procedural advice to get players into the story.

A metaplot isn’t useful unless we can get play groups involved. A typical White Wolf book would do this implicitly (“Faction X buys more pancakes!”) and we’ll still use that method, but it’s time to give the Storyteller (GM, whatever) direct advice on how to add this to a running chronicle/campaign. Back in the last book for Mage: The Ascension (called, er, Ascension) I wrote a sidebar about setting up trigger events in your game to start a metaplot’s engine. I want to do that here, too. I’ll  suggest several ways character actions can set up a chain of events that lead directly to the event in Monaco. I’ll also address Reign of the Exarchs, since with the right framing it can act as a prequel to the Shattercrown event.

4) Design global events.

So, stuff happens that moves the story forward. It’s time to set it down (along with the question of who buys pancakes or in this case, sides with or against the Hegemonic Ministry). I see this creating a fluid time in Awakened politics, where Seers try to entice Pentacle mages into temporary alliances, promising special consideration if their side wins. It’s a time for traitors and double agents. The Silver Ladder and Free Council won’t stand for this sort of thing, of course — they won’t compromising with the Throne for favours. The Mysterium would sure like to get its hands on the Seers’ stuff, however. This is half of the event book style stuff (like Requiem for a God).

When it comes to whys and hows, we’re going to follow the Mekton Empire model for some items. I’ll provide complete information for the main thread of the story, but I’ll also ask a bunch of questions about hidden facts and motives without answering them — but I won’t leave lame adventure hooks as a consolation prize. I’ll set down a list of 3 to 5 possible options so that harried Storytellers can make simple multiple choice selections, along with a reminder that pure DIY is encouraged.

Incidentally, part of making a metaplot work involves reaching back as well as moving forward. I’ll invent new bits of history here and in the adventure.

5) Make cool toys.

It’s not a metaplot unless there are some neat systems and more entrenched setting elements to support the main set of stories that might take place. I’ll design a system for espionage, trust and faction loyalty and a bunch of new spells mages might use whipping down the Autobahn after rogue aristocrat sorcerers. Setting-wise, I’ll design a few new factions to support the most obvious player and antagonist stances, along with one or two that don’t fit in one box or the other so easily. This is the other spot where event book techniques work well.

(Keep in mind that in a full treatment I’d probably have  more metaphysical, secretive story happening in tandem with obvious stuff. It might all be fallout from an Imperial spell, for example. Odder factions and systems can easily take root here. I’ not going to go into detail because that’d be too much work for a blog piece.)

6) Create lots of characters to fill PC and NPC roles

I’m taking some influence from Scion here, as it gives you ready to play characters at each tier of power. These guys are really handy because even if you don’t play the Son of Thor you can always bring him in as an antagonist, ally or Fifth Business dude in some godly meeting. Lots of the characters are useful; I want maybe 150% of the number I need to just get the plot on its feet. I’ll describe their intended uses in a straightforward fashion: as a supplement to more atmospheric descriptions, not a replacement. And yeah, I might add a few really powerful guys because they’re useful, but I’ll follow up with advice on how to use them.

I’ll design one or two relationship maps so that we can find out how the most important characters get along at a glance. Vampire: The Masquerade’s Chicago by Night is a great example of this technique in action.

7) Design an important adventure

The attached adventure shouldn’t just be a side story, but something the travels through the heart of the metaplot and has a chance to alter its outcome (though not necessarily completely — part of a rich setting comes from there being things players can’t change, but as this causes the money wailing of a thousand nerds you should never say so in the book). The adventure is the machine that shoved the metaplot to its ultimate resolution, even if it doesn’t do so in a way that necessarily meets player or character objectives.

8 ) See if breaking any metaplot rules would make it better. Mix things up. Smooth the bumps out. Question structure.

I lied — I totally want to deprotagonize you beneath my cool Mary Sue NPCs! Well, not really, but if we get to far into a method we’re likely to end up with some boring-ass thing that feels like the gaming equivalent of painting by numbers. People say they want structure and ways to make reconfigure chunks of stuff within set rules, but the finished product usually ends up seeming a bit soulless. At some point we need to smooth things over, build seamless links between the chunks and make it feel like an organic whole with its own mood, motifs and message. It needs some soul or else nobody’s going to care.

What What?

These reactions are nigh-incoherent yet feel genuine, mirroring the good and bad in metaplots. The bad things about metaplots — that they make the setting less accessible and harder to work with — might be unavoidable in some respects but I think they also stem from some bad design habits in RPGs:

1. The idea that RPGs can be improved like a technology.
2. The notion that one tool, insight or design movement can take care of #1.

Developers use (or used) metaplots to drive fan loyalty, reboot game systems, tweak settings and justify adventures. I don’t think any development tool can do it all. Metaplot’s no exception. The more you expand a tool to do more, the less you focus on its best qualities. If it does everything, it doesn’t mean anything. When metaplots lose sight of a core mission in favour of lots of discrete, ad hoc tasks it gets difficult to provide practical advice about how to use them. If one book adds a development to introduce a new bad guy and another justifies a shift in the magic system, what can I say to gamers to help them own the whole thing from start to finish? It just looks like a bunch of crappy patches — and sometimes, that’s all it is.

It’s Okay, Everything Sucks

What can I do to fix it? One answer is “Nothing!” Then you throw your hands up and make a great show of contrition that you ever sought to oppress gamers or something.

I don’t think that’s the best answer. It’s a big mistake to give up on metaplot. It’s not a tool for everything but it is an effective tool. It remains one of the best ways to create a convincingly detailed setting, build a community and develop enduring parts of your IP. Metaplot even seems to be better at inspiring details about the back story of the “Year Zero” setting than the alternatives. When you reach back and add something to justify a new development the game’s history expands organically. Vampire: The Masquerade looks like it got all kinds of nifty things (and a few duds) out of the process.

One alternative is to make a toolkit out of your setting. These are often great resources, but might damage the community’s ability to develop common interests in the game, or the developer’s ability to build expand the setting in interesting ways.

I’m skeptical of toolkits. Like metaplots, they’ve bloated what they’re good at — but if you disagree with me fear not, because most people do! I remember when we got down to Seers of the Throne and I told Ethan and the other freelancers that I thought the toolkit, make your own bad guy approach was a bad idea. I used Vampire: The Requiem‘s VII book as an example. VII is a great book, full of compelling, well-executed ideas. You get to pick from multiple versions of VII. That can only be a good thing, right?

Think again. Any VII you want means:

• No future material about VII without breaking the implied promise of the VII book.
• No basis of unity for fans to develop VII on their own, because there’s an immediate division based on the version you want to use. It seems counterintuitive for more choice to hinder gamer creativity, but think of it this way: If you have 10 people split among three versions of VII (3/3/4) the chance of each sub-project dying from lack of interest goes up, since so many of these things have over 50% attrition, leaving 1/1/2 people who think nobody cares.

It may sound like I’m harshing on the book. I’m not! I own it and used parts of it in my Vampire/Mage game. This book didn’t fail but its tools have a price. Metaplot adds its own difficulties, but it’s not alone.

(At this point, people who love structure may accuse me of conflating metaplot and setting — and that’s true. Fact is, the boundary between the two is pretty vague in practice.)

Whatever we do, there’s a trade off — RPG Design Culture Tendency #1 blinds us to it, but it’s there. If metaplot is a particular pain in the ass it’s probably because it did more than should have (Cultural Problem #2) and we were so busy applying it that it was hard to get to the intellectual space where we can look at it from afar, appreciate it as a general thing and see how we can give it a proper place.

Metaplot 2.0

Let’s get it right.

First, we’ll ban ourselves from using metaplot as a game design multitool. That means:

1. We won’t use metaplot to justify rules changes. We won’t kill every assassin in the Forgotten Realms to support an edition change. We might add and change systems to support an event, but it’s for the sake of the event (and it had better be a good one).
2. We won’t use metaplot to invalidate any fundamental character or setting structure (choice of character types, factions, etc.) unless we’re going to a new edition or some equally momentous release. We won’t kick your splat out of the Splat Social Club in a supplement.
3. We’ll never make book B require book A unless book A is a core book to limit declining accessibility. This is the tough one.

These are the rules. We’ll only break them in a dire emergency or to support a eucatastrophically awesome idea.

Next, we’ll set some objectives:

1. We want to build a community around the setting, where gamers can talk about basically the same people, places and things.
2. Related to #1, we want to build loyalty to the game setting. We want good fans, and we want to reward them for being fans — without alienating newcomers.
3. We want to open up lots of new possibilities for stories.
4. We want a sense of verisimilitude and living history.

Frankenplot Lives!

You can find bits of Metaplot 2.0 strewn across dozens of game books. If I wanted to elevator pitch it I’d go with, Scion + Requiem for a God + Mekton Empire. You might come up with different examples, but let me explain myself here:

• Scion features playable signature characters and a default campaign structure that has a powerful effect on the setting.
• Requiem for a God is a complex resource for a single event that doesn’t lay out a firm source of events beyond Odin kicking the bucket (or whatever).
• Mekton Empire features one of the best implementations of setting secrets, bar none, where there are multiple choice answers and space for GMs to add their own (a toolkit idea! I’m a hypocrite! But let me explain . . .)

Damn, this article’s running long, so it’ll be a two parter. See you!