[TML] Canon and the death of everything we hold dear

[Richard Aiken]

On Jan 14, 2008 6:39 PM, Anthony Jackson <ajackson at iii.com> wrote:

> I don't think that backstory makes games worse, as long as it has its
> share of holes. When background is invented for a particular game, it
> has a strong tendency to be presented as mysteries for PCs to solve, and
> that kind of stuff wouldn't appear in 'official' histories anyway.

The backstory ("Chapter 0: Introduction") I'm writing for my next game
does this.  It mentions several things - such as the mysterious
absence of truly alien races in the modern 'Verse - which remain
mysteries to folk in the setting.  If one or more of these make a
particular group curious enough to figure out the "real story," then
we'll *all* get to find out what it is.  :-)

> Now, metaplot, to the degree that it specifies what is happening within
> the scope of the campaign, creates definite problems, because it means
> the PCs can't do anything dramatic without overturning the metaplot. As
> a GM, I figure that any game canon is only advisory, and is likely to be
> entirely irrelevant if it applies to a time period after the start of
> the game, but the basic framework is handy.

Does TTA have a metaplot?  If not, then I have no experience with
running a game that had a metaplot, so I can't speak to that.  Hmmmm.
Wait one.  Does Shadowrun have a metaplot?  I never did figure out
what the "behind the scenes" stuff was in Dunkelzahn's assassination.
That event sorta ticked me off, BTW.  I really *liked* Dunkelzahn.

> The other big problem with the World of Darkness (and Forgotten Realms)
> is the rafts of Uber-NPCs floating about.

I don't mind Uber-NPCs so much.  My only problem (and this was as a
player in WoD - I never tried to run it) was how they seemed to be
under every rock you turned over.  If they're *Uber* you should know
about them (as a PC) to start with.  Letting the PCs think they know
what's going on, only to have them discover yet another
NPC-We-Can't-Possibly-Face is their *real* opponent seems to be a
recipe for ticking off players.  Unless - of course - the group like
to play PCs caught up in a "paranoia/secret war" reality.  Personally,
I don't.  I can *run* them, mind you.  I just don't like to play in
them.

> My rule for NPCs who are
> better than the PCs is that you should never be asking the NPC for help,
> unless the real plot is _getting_ the NPC to help (e.g. convincing the
> Emperor to send a legion of men to stop the marauding bandits).

When I first read this, I was nodding along.  Then I thought: "Wait a
sec, here.  How can you reliably lead players into realizing that this
(talking the Emperor into a specific course of action) is the plot
they're supposed to be following?  I can easily see them thinking
something like, "We've got to stop these bandits!  But what can we do?
 We're outnumbered at least ten to one.  It's completely hopeless!
Why did the GM do this to us?"

<Thinking>  I guess you'd want to set up something in the background
information, perhaps a roleplaying encounter with the old soldier who
owns the inn they stopped at last night: "Back in the days of the old
Emperor, these bandits would have got what they deserve right damn
quick!  But I guest this new pup we've got needs someone to show him
how to wipe his own ass . . ."

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein