The metaplot (also, metastory[ Because of events like this, many gaming groups choose to ignore the metaplot for a game entirely.
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Metaplot is often developed not just by the writers, but by teams - multiple writers, editors, publishers, graphic designers and even players. The concept is related to more than just role-playing sourcebooks, as much of the metaplot can come from other media, such as novels (for example, The Legend of Drizzt or the Dragonlance novels, representative of numerous Dungeons & Dragons fiction).[ For the Forgotten Realms this was the case only after its inception, while it was part of the design from the start for the Dark Sun setting.]
Metaplot appears in settings of various genres like The Dark Eye,[ Dragonlance,][ Fading Suns,][ and Shadowrun.]
Reception
The metaplot is meant to "give the players a sense of immersion in a large and complex world as well as an aesthetic appreciation of the story they were witnessing" whenever their characters come into contact with it. The narrative tool of metaplot has been criticised for shifting the focus away from the player characters and making them "marginal rather than central figures".[
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Role-playing game designer Jasmin Neitzel commented that metaplot could facilitate constructive interaction of players with a game setting within and beyond individual gaming groups, but could be a hindrance in getting beyond harmful stereotypes used in past products.[
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Olaf Pajączkowski notes that the metaplot constraints reduce the freedom of writers, who have to respect the history and present events in the universe (as many books are set in the present), and they cannot "break the world". Pajączkowski gives an example of Elaine Cunningham's novel Reclamation which was cancelled because the metaplot evolved changing the world (a 100-year jump) making her book 'obsolete', and the publisher decided it's not worth finishing as it was no longer set in the "present" of the evolving Forgotten Realms universe.[
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