Bravo, Nahaj.

Sepherim wrote:

To be honest, one person, or small group of persons, can't change the course of history. History isn't determined by simple events, like momentary battles or such, but by powerful forces that drive those events to such conclusions. Maybe side A in any official setting is supposed to go down in battle B, but due to miracleous player intervention (very miracleous if four people can change the course of a 10.000 plus men battle) they are victorious; it probably only means that they will go down in battle C, a couple months later.

I disagree. It can be a matter of simply being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time with the right (or wrong) implement. Doesn't always happen, I grant you, but it can. One extra (or less) horse-shoe nail at the right time / place could make for a big differance.

Iv wrote:

History has some examples of individual actions changing large scale events even by people who are not faction leaders (Heisenberg who somehow prevented the nazi from having the Bomb, Einstein that convinced the US president to work toward it, the pilot that killed Yamamoto, the intercepters and decipherers of the Zimmerman's telegram and so on...)

Those are individual actions, but inscribed in larger stories without which they couldn't exist. For example, Einstein required a certain president to exist with certain ideas, the availability of economic and scientific ressources, the need for such a weapon, the planning ahead of the war and into the future (which led to the cold war), the ascension of a new superpower taking England's place.... It is not one man (even a genius) that did it, but the embodiment of a whole lot of tendencies. Individuals can affect history when they are at the proper time and place, as someone said, but it doesn't work if there already arent some tendencies working in such a direction. If they are alone pusing in that direction, it goes nowhere.

Quote:

Leaders themselves are almost always the embodiment of history as a personality. The various historical situations give them constraints but enough freedom to have a major influence on the building of history.

But leaders are chosen or accepted basing their positions on the ideals and opinions of their people. Right now, Germany wouldn't choose a Hitler, but it did after a complex process, fear for the ascension of the comunist party, etc. And even once they are chosen they are tied due to national interests, geopolitics, the capabilities of their states, internal opinion and interests, internal division, etc. Even they are not independant from History.

Quote:

But even notwithstanding History, a roleplaying game has all the rights to be epic and the GM to cook those specific moments where a group of individuals can be of a major importance. The Firewall campaign is largely this : during almost each mission, it is the destiny of Transhumanity that is at stake.

I agree, completely. As I said, I like to make them play key roles in history, but that doesn't mean that they are independant from History. It is epic precisely because changing the course of history is something of epic difficulty. It may be professional view, as I'm a sociologist, but if they want to do all those epic things, they need backing, support, time... it is a process, a full campaign, not only a matter of being in the propper place, or being the "chosen ones" or anything like it. Even Firewall's campaign is in this line (even if I won't run a Firewall campaign), as Firewall's duty has been going on for years, and is an ongoing process, with several agents involved, working in influencing things in many different places at the same time, along a certain set of goals or ideals. Even if the players are the ones who are there in the correct moment, they are only the apex of a complex process.

You clearly haven't understood what I said, Nahaj. And are too quick to judge someone. First, I was speaking of History. History with an capitol H, not modules, nor any kind of plot. I was speaking to those that don't want to use the Metaplot in their game, that don't want their players to participate in it, and that are defending the posibility that their own players create actions that change the course of the Metaplot in completely different directions (like someone mentioned, a campaign where Dunkie didn't die, for example). For those that want a Metaplot, I'm with them, so all the previous doesn't apply. They are following the wheels of Time, and as we agree, they can perfectly be the key elements in those turning moments. I hope I am clearer this time.

Problem with that comes when they sit down to write story books, like they did for example with Shadowrun's Year of the Comet. Thos books advance the story with events, not with reasons, but those events need reasons behind it. Though some plot events may work with several different explanations, others may not, and as they appear they will be giving some solid answers to some facts. No?

That is true for sourcebooks, indeed, but not for adventures/campaign stories as they are written. The metaplot advances precisely not only because the sourcebooks add new info, but also because events in the world change things and advance the overall story. So, if you and your players don't want to participate in those events, just say they happen but don't guide the game story through them. For example, if you don't want to tell the Arcology Shutdown story, never get your players a contract by a Johnson wanting them inside, simply tell them that something's happened in Downtown Seattle and that Renraku's Arcology is now sealed. If a game doesn't have an overall metaplot, a timeline of events taking place around the game universe, the game is basically frozen. And, once all factions and groups have been described, there is no reason to buy or write new books, as all has already been explained. On the contrary, a game universe that evolves as the story unfolds is going to open new gaming options, backgrounds and ideas over time, allowing the game master to shift themes and add new ones that keep their games fresh and alive. Downside of this is that the story cannot advance in all directions at once, and as time goes by, the game universe has to set some answers in stone to build on them. Or else, you end up with World of Darkness and their continuos "remember we said X thing was this way, well that was a lie crafted by the Ancients, truth is that it is this other way". Once and once again. Like, for example, happens with the Black Hand, or the Inconnu.

Curious, Standard Gravity, how come they need so much time to move from place to place? Don't they egocast? And sorry if this derrails the question a bit. :)

Sepherim wrote:

If a game doesn't have an overall metaplot, a timeline of events taking place around the game universe, the game is basically frozen. And, once all factions and groups have been described, there is no reason to buy or write new books, as all has already been explained.

Untrue. First, no set of core rules is perfect. Rules revisions or alternative rules for different styles of play can always be released at regular intervals. It's simply easier to release campaign fluff as it requires little-to-no actual play testing. Second, the setting is already huge. Some have, rather astutely, pointed out there's a case to be made about setting bloat. You have in-system shenanigans, extra-solar gates, aliens, Titans on Titan fighting TITANS, etc. etc. etc. There's already enough material to spin off a decade's worth of supplemental fluff that wouldn't require moving the in-game time line ahead by a single year. Just shift the focus to different established points in the universe or create new points. Lots of stuff can happen simultaneously in space. It's a big place.

There's some interesting stuff here, and a lot of well argued to-ing and fro-ing. Personally, I really like EP. I really like what the writers/designers have done so far, and am keen and eager to see where they take it. I'm going to trust them and see what happens. For now. The setting is already so large, that you could cheerfully ignore MOST metaplot developments - they needn't touch your players. Unless the TITANS return en masse, or a bunch of xenomorphs invade or nanoplague breaks out. Or everyone wakes up in the Metashower and realises it was but a dream. But that would be more of a reset than anything else. I think the game will grow relatively slowly anyways - the release schedule so far is promising, but modest. And this is a RPG so it will inevitably slip as products are delayed. I'm more concerned (from previous experiences) that the game will grind to a halt rather than that it will go in directions I don't like. RIP Cyberpunk & SLA Industries - and we still never got to the end of The Enemy Within (WFRP).

(Wow that came out longer than I expected. Brief summary at end of post) I tried to read everyone's posts, but most of the way through the first page it was just too much text. Hopefully the designers have more patience than I. Here are my thoughts: I am of two minds on metaplot -- Part of me loves to soak up loads of knowledge about a setting and know all kinds of esoteric things about it -- I love reading old D&D books and Exalted books just to take in the setting, and I wish I knew that much about battletech but there's just _so much_... Another part of me is concerned about potential pitfalls. Others above have noted the possibility for metaplot to get spread all over the place, and I think this should be avoided. The most important elements of the metaplot should be kept to a single book line (or multiple book lines if there are multiple plots that fill books going on) -- everything you need to know to run Eclipse Phase in the updated setting as well as you could run a 10 AF game with the core book should be in these books. What I don't want to see is a mix, where the metaplot is mixed in with every setting expansion book -- I need the Brinker Habitats I book to know what happened in 11 AF, the Exosystem 1038 book to know what happened in 12 AF, the Venusian Habs book to know what happened in 13-14 AF, the Popular Simulspaces book to know what happened in 15 AF, the Advanced Tech book to know what happened in 16 AF, the Hypercorp Faction book tells me what happened next, etc. Now certainly specific setting books can talk about how the metaplot affects that area, and small meta subplots that only affect that area, but the core plot should be collected somewhere. Conversely, the Jovian Junta book that comes out after the first 10 years of metaplot have happened shouldn't just tell me about what it's like there in 20 AF, it should tell me that _and_ detail what it was like in 10 AF so that if I'm running a 10 AF game I don't have to do a bunch of extra work demetaplotting it (If it details it in such a way that if my game is in say 17 AF and it's clear what the Junta is like then, even better!). I imagine the layout of such a book primarily describing the setting at 10 AF, with notes about changes to each part in the same section as the relevant part of the book (with maybe a summary or timeline elsewhere to give GMs a look at the big changing picture). Possibly with some sections of the book devoted to describing bits of setting that are new or greatly changed after metaplot. Another possible pitfall is what I think of as 'Forgotten Realms syndrome', where all the real movers and shakers of the world are NPCs that are more powerful than the PCs will ever be and _they_ do things to affect the settings while the PCs only have adventures on a smaller scale (I am reminded of a D&D adventure module in which a certain NPC really earned the enmity of the PCs, but they couldn't fight him because that was the job of an upcoming book's protagonist -- ugh). This should also be avoided. We can have memorable canon NPCs, but they shouldn't be the stars of the show. Stars of their own fiction, fine, but they shouldn't be the stars of the _game_, those are the PCs and major NPCs in each GM's campaign (that said, villains work much better than heroes in this regard since GMs can have the PCs go up against them). An interesting twist might be setting it up so that at any part where a firewall team or similar group is driving the metaplot, have adventure modules that can put the PC team in their place so that the PCs can participate in major events. On the other hand, the nature of the game means that they'll probably end up doing it a little differently and any GM that runs such a module will have to keep in mind how that will affect everything else, but this is true for any GM that does something to change the setting anyway. Might be nice to include some notes in the metaplot books about how things would be different if the PCs make a major change (this tragic thing happened because noone was there... But if the PCs _were_ there and prevented it, then) -- Not much of course as accounting for every detail of every possibility would be ridiculous, just a blurb or paragraph or so about what else might change if a metaplot event is changed (if the result isn't obvious), maybe a note about a potential adventure seed that could result ('If the PCs prevent the colony taken over by exsurgent infectees from being dropped on Mars, they may need to clean up the remaining exsurgents before they can try anything else, and the martian hypercorps and their citizens will continue to be strong players in local corp politics, and the venusian freedom fighters won't even try to take mars over'). Once there is an extensive metaplot though, tracking the effects of every change might become too much, though -- Notes about adventure seeds still couldn't hurt, though. tl;dr: 0. Metaplot can be good, we all like stories, but watch out for some pitfalls: 1. Make sure that a GM who wants to keep up with metaplot doesn't have to pick up every obscure book to get all the major events - a 'metaplot line' of books that enable a GM to run an updated eclipse phase as well as he could run a 10 AF game with the core book would be good. 2. Likewise setting books should tell a GM running a 10 AF game what he needs to know about that area, as well as what it's like in the current metaplot. 3. Don't let canon heroes steal the show from the PCs. If you must have canon heroes, or if a 'mysterious firewall team' is a big driver of metaplot, consider adventure modules that allow the PCs to take their place.

The way I see it, EP is a lot like Hunter the Vigil, in the sense that it can be played in tiers -Cell level. The sentinels will face an Async ran crazy and threatening the habitat they live in. Stop a Barsoomian from detonating a bacteriological/nanoswarm bomb in New Shangaï, deliver a package from Deimos to Earth on a ship that is attacked by "pirates",etc -"Covenant" level, or in EP case, the Clique level. you up the echellon some. The players can be sent to collect information in the Jovian Junta and find themselves involved in a local insurrection. they face a cell of another clique of Firewall whose agenda is the opposite to their mission/own agenda, deal with a criminal cartel like Nine Lives to retrieve the stack or free the informorph of a loved one from slavery, etc -"Conspiracy" level. There you play with the big players. Firewall as a whole, Project Ozma, the Hypercorps' boards know the players and want them dead or on their side, facing the ETI/Factors/TITANs Depending on the tier you play in, the metaplot will or won't be relevant. if your players like the first, cell-level tier, the metaplot will fly high above their heads. If they're Covenant/Clique level involved, the metaplot will have impact on them, but she will not be directly involved. But if they're on Conspiracy level, the Metaplot, its use or lack thereof, will have a crucial impact on them, and reciprokely That's where the "sandbox"-style of playing has its importance Ask what your players want. At what level do they wanna play? or can play. If they're powergamers (in french, we call them "grosbills") the Cell-level will be most fun to them. If they like more a mystery/Jason Bourne/Splinter Cell thriller, the second thier is for them. If your players are used to, say see eye to eye with the Prince of the City (Vampire), if their mages are part of the Concilium of a city and one of them could become the Hierarch at some point (Mage) then they'll enjoy the political play of the Conspiracy tier where the metaplot is tentamount an exemple to conclude, based on Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon the book gives exemple on what can be done on each tier and the stakes faces by the PCs Just my two cents