Paradox Interactive (the Crusader Kings people, not the Conan/Mutant Chronicles ones) buy the White Wolf properties [Merged x10]

[Diggs]

I don't follow. Bloodlines was a Masquerade game.

[Fat Larry]

All this talk about new metaplot for c/nWoD, reminded me of a discussion I had with other IT-Software Engineering major students at my college. Those guys would buy anything related to x-y-z line, simply because they had played the video game and felt that they could get more out of the story world by investing in comics and novels.

After all, I got into nWoD because of Bloodlines so, yeah, I don't mind if new tabletop products are not exactly what I would like them to be, as long as the fanbase expands. There's no question that, if OPP is involved, the level of quality of these products will be very high, so I'll be buying.

I thought I was alone. After playing Bloodlines, I began picking up NWOD, rather than CWOD to find out more about this wonderful new "world" I've stepped into.

Granted, I've purchased just as much CWOD since then.

[Dawngreeter]

I can understand people having a problem with metaplot. It was only when nWoD came out and I started a game of Requiem that I realized how imprisoned I felt in the Masquerade. As an ST and a rabid consumer of every VtM book I could get my hands on, I was extremely careful all the time to keep my games in sync with the metaplot. That created a LOT of boundaries to what the players in my games could accomplish, and a metric shitload of NPCs would appear all over the place for no better reason than because I knew they existed in a certain place or are connected to a certain situation. Fortunately for me, a lot of my players were also rabid fans so it wasn't as troubling as it could be, but still... I can honestly say that for a while there, I ran something that was basically Metaplot: The Game. In general, it's probably a good thing to avoid that.

So, while I have no objection to some metaplot being introduced, it's probably a good idea to back away from oWoD-style metaplot which basically had an overarching, detailed story which moved along with every supplement published. I still remember the main thing that I got from Clanbook: Tzimisce Revised was the fact that Sabbat regent was actually dead all of a sudden, and a junior Tzimisce was impersonating her. Let's not have that anymore.

EDIT: Now thinking about it, I'm not so sure if it was Clanbook: Tzimisce... damnit, I'll have to dig through my pile of books tonight.

[mcallima]

Personally, I like metaplot. I don't get to play every game I want to play, so metaplot makes the books intrinsically worthwhile to read. I've never understood why it got so much hate. If you don't like metaplot, don't use it. I've never run a game that fit the metaplot exactly, and no plot-lawyers busted through my door to stop me. If you have a jerk at the table who complains, straighten them out on the fact that your story will be somewhat/entirely different. If they persist, which only a totally unreasonable person is wont to do, boot them.

[stylanski]

All this talk about new metaplot for c/nWoD, reminded me of a discussion I had with other IT-Software Engineering major students at my college. Those guys would buy anything related to x-y-z line, simply because they had played the video game and felt that they could get more out of the story world by investing in comics and novels.

After all, I got into nWoD because of Bloodlines so, yeah, I don't mind if new tabletop products are not exactly what I would like them to be, as long as the fanbase expands. There's no question that, if OPP is involved, the level of quality of these products will be very high, so I'll be buying.

[PMárk]

A setting is fine, it's metaplot that I don't like.

Metaplot, for me, is answers. Answers that I didn't necessarily need. A good setting is full of questions without answers. So for me, it's a balancing act between how many questions to ask and how many to answer. You want enough answered that people know the score, but enough unanswered that there's a reason to explore the setting.

While I can stand behind your words, but Also think that the two don't necesarily cancel out each other. Metaplot for me is the story (and history) of the setting. It gives characters, events and other hooks which in turn gave questions. And, for me, it is good if the setting is not eaxactly the same as twenty years ago, because it gaves it a living feel. Now, I agree that if the metaplot gaves ALL the answers and NPCs are solving all the riddles and problems it can easily became boring and restrictive, but I imagine that the guys out there are learned from previous mistakes and better at balancing these things than 20years ago.

As a sidenote, I think the WoTC model of the recent campaigns are rather good, I like the concept that there is a major event and different medias are exploring different facets of that event. I wasn't participate in the Year of the... lines, just red some of the novels, but seems like the idea is not alien to WoD at all, so for me I can imagine a similar way in the future with no problems. And if they will bring the lines of cWoD to a common ground with more crossover-friendliness, I would be absolutely happy.

[BigDamnHero]

A setting is fine, it's metaplot that I don't like.

Metaplot, for me, is answers. Answers that I didn't necessarily need. A good setting is full of questions without answers. So for me, it's a balancing act between how many questions to ask and how many to answer. You want enough answered that people know the score, but enough unanswered that there's a reason to explore the setting.

[nofather]

So are you guys more of the mind of, 'If it exists, I won't use it,' or 'If it exists, it's wrong for existing?'

Cause while I may not use something like it, again providing this is what's being proposed by White Wolf at all, I can appreciate there's a lot who might. The game has been out of major circulation for a long time and a sponsored event at local gaming stores would help bring people to the hobby. A common thing I find here and on other forums is, 'Okay I get the rules, but what do you actually do?' when it comes to most World of Darkness games. Not everyone has been at it for years and a lot of newcomers arrive from more cut and dry 'kill the bad guy' games. Having a rulebook without a setting or an example of what stories are like can really be a block for some people.

[Leliel]

Or you're a newbie, and don't have any experience with rpgs nor have DM and group. Or just want to try something new outside your home campaign. Or want to meet new people. Whatever, it's not a bad thing and it clearly works. In fact i would be happy to see WoD organized games. There will be a D&D 5e day at the end of november here and it was oversubscribed two weeks ago.

About metaplot: I know it is a totaly superfluous argument, if sometone don't like it, then it is. But I did never understand, why someone hating it with so much enthusiasm. Yes they have good and bad stories in any setting, it's inevitable, but for me one of the CWoD's strong points are the metaplot. Things do happen, characters do things, it's making the world breathing and alive, create history and gave a storyteller a mine of hooks and ideas. If it is not for my taste, I won't use it. If I want change things, I can. Besides it makes novels, which is a good thing. It only will be restraining, if I let it be and it's always better, IMO, to have opportunities and devices and don't use them if I don't want than don't have them.

Honestly, it's not the metaplot itself, it's the characters its about.

As in, it really forces a railroad a lot of the time. You have to strike a balance between player agency and non-player agency.

Shadowrun pre-5E was actually really good at the juggling act; Harlequin's Back comes to mind (basically, the titular Immortal Elf is actually the quest hub NPC and ultimately a minor character; he sends you on your quest to seal off the alien Horrors from escaping to Earth, then he doesn't show up again except to help outwit a dead end in the adventure nobody else knows how to fix, leaving you to implement the solution yourselves again, as well as helping with a tough end boss).

[PMárk]

I agree, at least concerning my own tastes. However, both Wizards and Paizo seem fairly dedicated to it. I guess it serves the purpose for those who don't have a regular gaming group for whatever reason, but still want to play some D&D.

It's sort of like Group/Raid Finder in World of Warcraft - it's a lot more fun to play with actual friends, or at least guildmates, but at least it's *something.*

Or you're a newbie, and don't have any experience with rpgs nor have DM and group. Or just want to try something new outside your home campaign. Or want to meet new people. Whatever, it's not a bad thing and it clearly works. In fact i would be happy to see WoD organized games. There will be a D&D 5e day at the end of november here and it was oversubscribed two weeks ago.

About metaplot: I know it is a totaly superfluous argument, if sometone don't like it, then it is. But I did never understand, why someone hating it with so much enthusiasm. Yes they have good and bad stories in any setting, it's inevitable, but for me one of the CWoD's strong points are the metaplot. Things do happen, characters do things, it's making the world breathing and alive, create history and gave a storyteller a mine of hooks and ideas. If it is not for my taste, I won't use it. If I want change things, I can. Besides it makes novels, which is a good thing. It only will be restraining, if I let it be and it's always better, IMO, to have opportunities and devices and don't use them if I don't want than don't have them.

[Staffan]

Organized play makes much, much more sense for LARP than it does for table top.

I agree, at least concerning my own tastes. However, both Wizards and Paizo seem fairly dedicated to it. I guess it serves the purpose for those who don't have a regular gaming group for whatever reason, but still want to play some D&D.

It's sort of like Group/Raid Finder in World of Warcraft - it's a lot more fun to play with actual friends, or at least guildmates, but at least it's *something.*

[Charlaquin]

Organized play makes much, much more sense for LARP than it does for table top. A huge part of the appeal of WoD LARP is that it can take on an almost ARG-ish quality. There's something really cool about being able to play in a LARP where the setting is literally "right here, in this very spot where you're standing." Organized play then allows that to be the case everywhere. If you go visit another city for a convention or whatever, you can look up the local chapter of the organized play group and hop into a game, with the same character you play in your home game, in the exact same continuity.

Given that the new White Wolf's lead Storyteller has a heavy LARP background, I assume this is the kind of thing they're going to want to get more actively involved in going forward. I never got involved in the management part of the Camarilla (in fact, I avoided it like the plague), but I think their plots were all fan-written and non-canon. It would be pretty cool if the new White Wolf started creating official plots for organized play and made the events that occur in sanctioned games canon in the new metaplot.

[Jacob]

Ugh. No. I do not like events (or metaplot for that matter). I'm perfectly capable of coming up with my own chronicles.

[Dawngreeter]

Thanks, everyone who jumped in to explain D&D event stuff to me. I know stuff now!

Anyway, organized play thing aside because that's a really, really weird thing to do with RPGs (not that D&D tournaments are a new thing, it just never stopped being weird), the whole thing doesn't sound like something exceptionally new. D&D's transmedia reach might be a bit bigger than it used to be, but I honestly don't see a significant difference between that and "Year of..." supplements. So, yeah, sure. Assuming Paradox wants to do that, why the heck not. That's basically what Orpheus was, in a way, and Orpheus was easily the most awesome stunt to be pulled in cWoD.

Maybe new game lines that tend to be a bit more experimental, like Beast and Deviant and even Promethean and Geist, could be reframed as an event of sorts?

[etherial]

Interestingly I think Changeling: The Lost is the more popular then Changeling: Changeling the Dreaming.

AFAIK it's the only WoD gameline to sell out a supplement in under a month.