UA - Whens the next product due out?

[Tim Dedopulos]

In message <blurfl>, Earl writes:
>I haven't had the experience of being "forced" through an RPG arc, 
>but I must say it seems to have a poor track record.  The 
>example of In Nomine was already given.  Traveler is an earlier, 
>simpler example of people reacting negatively to historical 
>development of the setting.

I'm going to digress a moment now, but please bear with me. The
case for the defence rests upon the point this ramble is
supposed to support, so to speak...

We failed an RPG Arc spectacularly with SLA Industries. It wasn't
due to the fact that the story arc was poorly-received, but mainly
because we had such difficulty getting products out of the door 
that no-one ever knew there _was_ a story arc. 

What developed was a situation where rumours of the writer's bible
for the game, which gave the overview of the back story, got out
into some fan areas. The people in the know were aware that there
was a backstory and a bible, and a very few select gods had a copy
- Greg Stolze, for example, if my memory serves - but the bulk
of the players just thought we were being unnecessarily obtuse by
leaving out key info. 

In fact, we left so much out that the real super-villain of SLA
Industries, a guy called Bitterness, is only hinted at in one
paragraph in the book - a bit too obscure, really.

We did a limited release of the writer's bible, but I'm not
sure it helped - it wasn't really polished enough (it _was_
a style guide, after all) - and I think that the folks who had
cared had made up their own answers already, and didn't want
to know that their vision was 'wrong'.

Which, finally, brings me to the point - after all, we're here to
play UA, not talk about Nightfall Games.

If you start a story-arc, people are going to want to play in it.
That means they need to continue it, and they need to take it to
its conclusions in order to do that. If you spend six months 
developing an Arc where Alex Abel has vanished, into a campaign
where he's finally ascended as The Eccentric Billionaire, leaving
Eponymous running the show for _very_ different goals, and TNI is
rapidly becoming a new Magickal Mafia... well, the last thing you
want is to know that you were totally wrong, and Abel killed
Eponymous, took over his shape, is just hiding out from some
nasty enemies, and it's business as usual.

Because, for better or worse, when RPG designers tell us how
something is, we listen. It's their game, so they've got to 
be right, right? Wrong of course - when we play it, it becomes
our game - but it doesn't stop us scrapping things to conform.

So, I'd far rather see a range of different Story Arcs - Seeds
- maybe 8 or 10 different plot developments featuring the
major characters, along with full info on how things kick off,
how the plot will affect a range of different PC types, maybe
an adventure to start things out with, and then ideas of how
to continue the campaign - and a promise never to give an 
official, developed answer.

I mean, the creativity of this list is amazing. Schools,
Archetypes and Creatures flow like water. (Where are all
the funky minor artifacts, eh?!). Just imagine the stories
we could spin about where we thought the "Dirk Allen Does A
Deal With The Demons" arc could lead...

What do you think, folks? Am I totally mad and howling at
the moon? Maybe Seeds would be a good idea? 

Tim.

       Imagine there are two of you. Which one would win?

Tim Dedopulos, Project Editor **** tdedopulos at carltonbooks.co.uk