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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Watson on June 08, 2011, 05:02:57 PM
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I really like the scenario creation chapter in Your Story. However, it does not give any ideas in regards to creating a meta plot for the whole campaign. It does a good job of helping the GM to create single scenarios, but not a story arc that goes beyond that, which could take multiple scenarios to find and put a stop to.
An example of such a meta plot is an organization that would like to create chaos and put a stop to the White Council. Another could be an ancient organization that would be working towards awaiking an ancient evil being that would threaten the world as we know it.
Do you have any ideas for a good meta plot that you want to share, or have ideas about how to create one?
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We've got a meta-plot in my current game where a Rakshasa crime lord is trying to gain more influence in San Francisco and eventually get signed onto the Unseelie Accords in imitation of
In our first scenario, we found out about his plans to intimidate many of the weaker members of the magical community in the city all on the same day with a show of force. We managed to blunt his offensive, but were interrupted by a bigger threat - a necromantic ritual that was abusing the biggest ley line in the city. At the end of the night, we'd stopped the necromancer, but the Rakshasa had grabbed control over more of the city. Not as much as he would have if we hadn't stood up to him, but it leaves us wondering how much longer we can deal with his machinations before someday having to confront him directly.
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Mmmmmm ... meta plot. My favorite part of GMing. I've always struggled with the small details of adventure creation, but meta plot is where my heart is at.
A good meta plot has a mixture of structure and malleability. Structure and planning are needed give the sense of events moving outside of the players' control, for consistency, and so that details can be foreshadowed and revealed slowly. Malleability is needed because the plot still needs to be able to bend and sway with the players' actions and goals, and build towards an epic, meaningful conclusion without railroading the players into a certain course of action. "An ancient organization is working towards awakening an ancient evil being that would threaten the world as we know it" is a good starting point for a meta plot because it describes what's happening in the world, without dictating the players' actions with regard to the plot.
A good meta plot is overarching but not all-encompassing. It should help tie the scenarios in your campaign together, but shouldn't be so omnipresent that every adventure revolves around the meta plot (at least not in ways that are immediately obvious). Ideally, references to the meta plot should start slowly and then build and intensify as the campaign continues. TV shows do this all the time, and actually, the Dresden Files books are a great example of this type of storytelling technique. The first few novels are small-scale, more noir-ish and self-contained, while later novels get steadily larger in scope, and begin to introduce elements that tie the books together, while still being able to stand alone as novels in themselves.
I could go on forever, but those are the two most important guidelines I try to remember when creating meta plots. If you're looking for some specific ideas I'd be more than happy to help with those as well.
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In my current PbP game:
The players are on a diplomatic mission to secure military aid from Summer.
This is part of an ongoing struggle against an army of demons.
Which is in turn part of the entire world collapsing.
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Do you have any ideas for a good meta plot that you want to share, or have ideas about how to create one?
I generally consider the themes and threats to be metaplots. If you want something 'bigger' than those, you might consider introducing a few world spanning organizations with agendas. Or use the ones from the fiction. :)
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I'd have to agree with Umbralux... isn't that themes and threats are? I thought of them as the drivers behind the campaign premise - at least that's the way I read them (and am using them). I also try to weave it into the undercurrent of the characters' Aspects to tie it all together even tighter.
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To be fair, having a Theme/Threat - and actually plotting out the path they will take - are separate things.
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No, that's true enough... great starting point though. And true too that sometimes you get into play and those themes and threats aren't nearly as compelling (no pun intended) in play as they seemed to be when the group thought them up...
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I'm not sure if I'd put themes and threats in the category of meta-plots. They don't feel quite "big" enough to encompass a World-Shaking Prophecy of DoomTM. I think they're smaller-scale on purpose, because DFRPG seems to encourage more organic, character- and NPC-driven stories. To take some examples from the books, I think Marcone and the Raiths would be examples of threats in Harry's setting of Chicago. They show up fairly often, and feature quite prominently in a few casefiles, but they aren't truly meta-plotty in the way that the is (I'm new to the forums, do I need to spoiler-tag that?)
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To be fair, having a Theme/Threat - and actually plotting out the path they will take - are separate things.
True...but pre-plotting out a path in a narrative based game with significant amounts of player agency seem prone to fail...
I tend to pick a long term goal and then simply ask myself "What are they doing to reach that goal now?" Succeed or fail, I'll ask the same question next time that threat comes up.
I'm not sure if I'd put themes and threats in the category of meta-plots. They don't feel quite "big" enough to encompass a World-Shaking Prophecy of DoomTM. I think they're smaller-scale on purpose, because DFRPG seems to encourage more organic, character- and NPC-driven stories. To take some examples from the books, I think Marcone and the Raiths would be examples of threats in Harry's setting of Chicago. They show up fairly often, and feature quite prominently in a few casefiles, but they aren't truly meta-plotty in the way that the is (I'm new to the forums, do I need to spoiler-tag that?)
The world changes...and so should your threat aspects. While Marcone's organization is almost certainly a "Threat" early in the series, the organization you spoilered is more of a threat later on.
I tend to weave several themes/threats in and out of the story regardless of system. Some local, some regional, a perhaps one or two world-spanning. Or perhaps you simply find evidence later that the world-spanning threat was behind that local group you stamped out...I may tie things together later that I hadn't thought of initially. Often simply by listening to players asking "Do you think..." and then running with it. Use your players' discussion for inspiration! :)
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True...but pre-plotting out a path in a narrative based game with significant amounts of player agency seem prone to fail...
The world changes...and so should your threat aspects. While Marcone's organization is almost certainly a "Threat" early in the series, the organization you spoilered is more of a threat later on.
Of course. And GMing styles are going to vary widely as far as how much prep work will suit a given game. But starting out knowing "what does X want?" and "how will X go about getting it?" is a step which can help determine *how* the antagonists respond to the player's interference. There ideally should be *some* plan for the players to interfere in.
But again, all of this varies with GM style, so someone who is adept at improvising and also at tying loose threads together into a narrative may not need to do this.
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My meta-plots evolve from my basic scenarios, the Themes and Threats, and player actions.
Currently, in one campaign the meta-plot involves an ancient and powerful spirit of disease and corruption, awoken thanks to a battle between a Denarian and Knight, who is trying to build their power by recruiting, well, a lot of people. The spirit can erode/corrupt bonds of fealty, to the point of ending bonds between the Fae and their respective Courts. (And replacing them with his own, natch.)
The PCs are trying to battle this rising tide, while weathering the Vampire War, and avoiding being drawn into the battle between Winter and Summer. Things have been further complicated by the current head of the White Court now being a pawn of the spirit...
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The world changes... the organization you spoilered is more of a threat later on. - UmbraLux
Though I wouldn't call it a threat specific to Chicago, or one that serves to define what Chicago's about in dramatic terms. But that could mean either that world-spanning matters shouldn't be themes or threats or that they should be separate from the ones given for the home city - maybe a game where such a plot is intended needs a "world creation" as well as a city creation, where the meta-plot themes and threats go, and other cities or regions take the place of locations (where the faces can represent contacts or rivals from out of town).
On the other hand, you want your home city to be reflective of the greater struggle - the way Chicago-as-crossroads reflects the way the factions' interrelations are shifting in the novels. So while it's worth still taking the PC's Aspects into account for the greater metaplot, it's also worth treating the city as a character and going on its own Aspects too.
For an idea for one, what if the Denarians are trying to engineer another paid betrayal as atrocious as Judas' to bring more of their kind into the world - the Order of the Blackened Krugerrands, perhaps - or given that payment would be likely to be electronic transfer these days, creating a more nebulous avenue of influence that's impossible to lock away on holy ground. But what could such a betrayal possibly be?
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Thinking about my running style, I tend to take an NPC or organization or idea or whatever that the players like a lot or like to hate and as soon as I identify that, form a metaplot based on that. I guess my reasoning there is that a metaplot has to be interesting enough that the players are willing to hook into it when it pops up and be invested enough in it to keep track of it when it's not on screen. I sometimes do create these sorts of things from scratch but if I can scavenge the idea from something the players are already invested in that's generally preferable. Basing on things the players already like gives them some indirect say in the matter without really tying your hands about how things are constructed and that increases the buy-in. A metaplot without buy-in is just a somewhat lame GM sorting tool.
Edit: This kind of feels like another side to some of the ideas already expressed about meta-plots but I'm not feeling clever enough at the moment to put it all together. Sorry!
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You can also use the theme running through all the novels and the game - power has a price. Whether Harry is protecting friends in Storm Front or the world in Changes he's always paying for his power. Sometimes in personal pain / sacrifice and other times by limited choices. Either way, he pays a personal price for his power.
Using themes consistently can also help create a dynamic meta plot. Take a city with a corruption based theme as an example. That corruption should show up in many encounters and difficulties. Everything from petty corruption such as cops taking bribes to ignore parking tickets on up to large scale corruption of a Queen of Sidhe working for the other side. When you reveal a cause for all the corruption, you've tied disparate pieces together in a meta plot. Do it right and people will kick themselves for not seeing it all along. :)
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Some very good ideas here. I agree that the meta plot should in a way be tied to the player characters, or what the players have shown interest in. But that also means that the meta plot can not really be created beforehand (i.e.before city creation).
One idea, as discussed, is to use the Themes and Threats, either directly or as a foundation for ideas. I do like the idea of City creation, creating campaign elements together, but I would like to keep the meta plot secret to the players.
I also think that having a meta plot is really necessary to tie the scenarios together and act as a sort of frame work to the campaign.
I think that throwing up a bunch of very generic (and rather short) meta plots would be useful.
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Characters sometimes have their own meta plots. Stuff based entirely on things about a character that a player already knows don't necessarily make good meta plots for a campaign.
For generic meta plots, how generic would you like the list to be? Something like "insular group tries to game the system and take over" or would you prefer "less powerful mob boss uses misdirection and infighting to fuel power bid" and "minor power of faerie uses mortal group as cat's paws to upset Winter/Summer balance" both be on the list separately? Because in a lot of ways it's easy to make a meta plot by just throwing a bunch of groups in, adding an issue and mixing until it looks good.
If your group has lots of people who have read the novels (and presumably like them quite a bit like most of us do... we're here, right?) then why not just take existing plots and rearrange who the players are? Pick your favorite book. Do some rot13 style shuffling with the groups in the plot. The position the vampire courts held is now occupied by faeries. The stuff the White Council did is now done by the mob. The action will change and maybe even the core thing being fought over as you get new ideas on how this shifting of groups affects the balance of power around the issue, but it can give you some quick ideas.
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I would think that a sentence or two is enough, if they are kept somewhat generic.
Taking the story from the books and shuffling them around is also a good idea, however, with meta plots, I am looking for something bigger than a single book/scenario, and more about something that would take several books/scenarios to unravel.
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First off, none of y'all are using the word metaplot correctly. Metaplot is the term used to describe a phenomenon in which time moves forward in the published books and stuff happens. This generally involves the use of signature characters. The most common metaplot phenomena I can think of are in WW games in the 90s and L5R.
What y'all are talking about is plotting a campaign. Not the same thing. Only confusion comes from trying to mix the terms together.
Anyway, to attempt to actually answer the question...
I come up with NPCs whose motivations come into conflict with those of the PCs. When I say conflict, I don't mean that they're a head on collision that can only end in death and destruction.
So if one of the PCs is set on using a one-use magical wonder to heal his son, an NPC might want to use it to heal her granddaughter. Neither has it. Neither has anything against the other person. Both would do anything to make sure their loved one gets better.
Now, combine these with Themes and Threats. Your Themes are your moment to moment things that can pop up at any time and are probably easy to change. Your Threat is probably tied to your big bad.
So, you have the NPCs (hopefully interesting and varied ones) that have motivations that conflict with the PCs. This is set in the backdrop of a Theme or two occasionally spitting out problems for everyone. A step behind that, and you've got some lingering evil, waiting to erupt.
In other words, I never create a rigid framework. No rigid framework will survive contact with the players. Instead, it creates a flexible pool of ideas, with moment to moment, story to story, and overarching suggestions for what might happen next.
You could even tie this into the milestone system to help pace yourself. PC-NPC type conflicts occur in a vacuum in an individual session, so they're associated with minor milestones. Then, once a session goes buy, tie in a Theme. Now you have the confusion of dealing with a Theme and one or more NPCs. Once that story resolves, you've reached a significant milestone. Let this happen once, then during the second time it happens, start dropping hints about the Threat, but don't bring it out. During, say, a third story, bring in the Threat instead of a Theme (or in addition to, if you feel like making life complicated). Let that be a good, hard story, and hand out a major milestone.
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So far, for Meta-plots, I have:
In the heart of the Everglades, a city is hidden across the barier in the Nevernever. In this city is the Ponce De Leons fountain. Some of his men still reside there, with their fey servants and some Were-aligator slaves. The space they are in is not contiguious to the main Nevernever, and can only be reached in two locations. The Stone Circle found in Miami, and an old standing stone carved with aztec markings, in the hart of the swamp, 3/4 submerged in water. The time difference is such that any one inside can not safely leave without age effects, but if exiting through the miami circle, the traveler can control it. Now that the circle is discovered, and someone found the spell, the people trapped there can come out.
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First off, none of y'all are using the word metaplot correctly. Metaplot is the term used to describe a phenomenon in which time moves forward in the published books and stuff happens. This generally involves the use of signature characters. The most common metaplot phenomena I can think of are in WW games in the 90s and L5R.
I agree - someone has an overarching plot for a game while metaplot is Jim releasing a new book or Evil Hat releasing more material.
Metaplot is outside the table's control. It's the stuff that happens to the world while the PCs are doing their thing.
Sweeping, big plots can be fun but if you're making them up yourself they aren't metaplot. That said, I can hardly wait to get my hands on the next installment of metaplot - which should be coming out soon.
Richard
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Reading over the thread this time...
I realize my offering was both paltry and misplaced. So, metaplots...
My favorite GM at the moment has an amazing way of "generating" his metaplots. He peppers his descriptive exposition with... factoids? Information about what might be simple npc characters, unless we react and start chasing/interacting with them. Along with the "intended" plot offerings (oh look, there is a treasure map in the chest) and the big bad of the time (he cackles with glee as he is lifted out of the skylight on his helicopters winch hook) these "glints of gold in the gravel" (you rush into the occult book store, running straight into a blue haired man in a kilt. "Acht, whatch whit ye doo, ye frackeriua glundies"... such an encounter could lead us on a wild haggis hunt) With the keen observation he uses running our games, and a strong improvisational ability, he watches to see which of the array of plot bunnies he offers us that we chase. It requires a bit more on the GM's part, having his "set pieces" as well as the basics for plot bunnies, but after we start chasing one, he has the week to build the back drop and add meat to the body of the "idea". If you have such a GM, treasure him, bring him offerings of Mountain Dew and Cheetos, and be sure he gets a chance to PLAY from time to time... for such as he are more precious than gold.
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Two things that I think could help when added to city creation:
1. Which (opposition) group will be so busy with it's own shenanigans that they will not appear in the campaign?
2. At least one group is very unhappy with (city aspect) and they will be working aggressively to change it. Which group? What resources do they have? What's their general strategy?
2a. Note that group unhappy with an aspect of the city may very well be the PCs! In that case, expect a large part of the game to be them trying to change the city aspect.
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Reading over the thread this time...
I realize my offering was both paltry and misplaced. So, metaplots...
My favorite GM at the moment has an amazing way of "generating" his metaplots. He peppers his descriptive exposition with... factoids? Information about what might be simple npc characters, unless we react and start chasing/interacting with them. Along with the "intended" plot offerings (oh look, there is a treasure map in the chest) and the big bad of the time (he cackles with glee as he is lifted out of the skylight on his helicopters winch hook) these "glints of gold in the gravel" (you rush into the occult book store, running straight into a blue haired man in a kilt. "Acht, whatch whit ye doo, ye frackeriua glundies"... such an encounter could lead us on a wild haggis hunt) With the keen observation he uses running our games, and a strong improvisational ability, he watches to see which of the array of plot bunnies he offers us that we chase. It requires a bit more on the GM's part, having his "set pieces" as well as the basics for plot bunnies, but after we start chasing one, he has the week to build the back drop and add meat to the body of the "idea". If you have such a GM, treasure him, bring him offerings of Mountain Dew and Cheetos, and be sure he gets a chance to PLAY from time to time... for such as he are more precious than gold.
I do something similar generally and let them follow what they please. One of the things that is really drawing me to dfrpg is hat it makes it a lot easier to do some of the gap filling n the fly. pretty much it's just a matter of preparing some generic bits and enough gap filling to color in the details for that generic skeleton. If you did it right, the skeleton start is enough to let you ake more before next game. As long as you always have a skeleton or three around, you can just make up anything and everything that strikes your fancy as long as you think you can fill in enough details and/or red herrings dresden had no idea 's problem was related tp the big one he was working on. If it turned out that it was just some of marcone's competition grabbing a new girl, ten maybe it goes nowhere ad you spend the session laying a plan/trap and/or getting her back from that formerly generic well guarded mansion... or maybe the competition is the whole metaplot you had n mind and the girl just happened to be the bait they took to it. If it turns out that you couldn't think of how to tie it to your metaplots then hey... at least you have a pair of already known npc's that you can use later wen the players want to infiltrate te world of high fashion (or whatever).. In fact maybe you think up something involving that world before next session and it looks like you had it all planned out perfect
You lso have to make sure something happens as the result of too many ignored metaplot skeletons or it looks like it doesn't matter what they do. If they ignored F's problem and it was nothing... maybe they are less willing to help the players later or actively work against them in the world of high fashion when the players try to infiltrate it... If they ignore winter's business entirely for ... well... that's bad if it turns out it's unrelated
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However...
Having stated what my REAL answer was (in second post, three up ^^^^)
Another standing metaplot I have yet to enact is, South Florida. It is a giant magnet, drawing the Snow Birds, (people of the ice and snow, northerners, displaced Norwegians, call it what you will) and draws them to live in the Sun and Sand, where bones don't ache and it doesn't snow. I don't know about you, but I hear a summer plot, to weaken Winter by drawing away its longest standing constituents. This is being resisted by the radio show "A Prarie Home Companion" which is a Winter Court plot, to keep people happy in their ice bound Minnesota lives.
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Had a plot I never got to use: Shadowy group bent on the revival of the dragons for the glory of the Dragons. To be fair, it worked best with that particular table, which had a charcter that didnt know his father was actually St. George the Dragonslayer, who had been roaming the earth for centuries to stand vigilent against that very thing. But then his son had to go and accidentally break the seal that was holding some dragon souls in limbo, preventing their return; only the blood of George could draw his sword, Ascalon (from the st george legends), and release them. Some of that energy went into him, making him essentially a Were-Dragon; while the rest when out into the world, upsetting all manner of balances and things
It gives all kinds of story fodder, from souls latching onto other mortals (or non-mortals) and changing them as well, to horde raids, to saints and angels and churches and the secrets behind why they were wiped out and sealed in the first place.