A problem with RPGs: RPG developers are not well-read in myth and fantasy/sci-fi literature

[NJClaw]

I've been baited. I've been tricked. And I've been quite frankly bamboozled.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Exactly. Rather than being familiar with the basics like mythology, folklore, fairy tales, pulp fiction, etc. these writers learn from increasingly diluted and self-iterating sources like other rpgs. If you want to write well, then you need to be familiar with the tropes of the genre. I have learned a huge amount not just from stories but from reviews and critiques. Taking academic classes can help, but it's not mandatory. Just buy and read relevant books: anthologies of classic literature, analyses of genres, etc.

Another problem is that writers nowadays don't actually practice, learn and improve. In order to improve your craft, you need to learn from failure. You need criticism. But modern rpgs are these huge affairs that don't really allow for that. In my experience, the best way to hone your craft is by starting small. Write short stories, short games, etc. Accept that it won't automatically be good. Get criticism and learn from it. But modern rpgs bombard you with so much stimulus that the fine details get lost.

I feel like things aren't really going to improve until the industry crashes, tho.

 

[Tyranicon]

I feel like things aren't really going to improve until the industry crashes, tho.

Ain't gonna happen anytime soon, unfortunately(?) unless AI does some funky shit to the industry.

While corporate gaming studios aren't great at making good games, they are great at milking your typical consoomer. Yeah, obvious garbage will fail, but the industry as a whole will keep on churning.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a fortnite boot stamping on the human face - until the next super-popular drivel comes along.

 

[Casual Hero]

I take back what I said earlier in this thread; literacy is clearly super important to the development of cRPGs.

I was reminded of this while reading the Roe Adams III thread. https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/roe-r-adams-iii.140199/
Without him, Ultima would just be a continuation of the messy Ultima 1-3; Garriot's power-fantasy.

Looking at the things he injected into cRPGs of the time, I am realizing just how important he was, and how many of his ideas are built on the foundations of important literature. The Eight Virtues are so great because of the depth behind them; it would be easy to try to imitate this system, but it would be vapid without the knowledge-fueled intention that went into it originally.

 

[Frozen]

A lot of RPGs don't have interesting world-building or characters, despite there's clearly an attempt to make it that way. Why? Because the people behind them are not well-read in fantasy, sci-fi, horror and mythological fiction. They have not fed their imagination the food it needed and so now, it's lacking. Their main influence are other RPGs, which in turn, are made by people with malnourished imagination. So there's a vicious cycle going on.

So many RPGs (especially the fantasy kind) are just trend-followers and copy whatever is popular atm (like Final Fantasy 16 being a GoT clone), because their makers are philistines and have not tasted what is eternal/classic. Just think of your average RPG: the most literary influence it has is probably D&D literature, which was made for tabletop role-playing. So it has a very artificial/formulaic structure to it.

What I want from my RPG developer is to be well-versed in speculative literature. And I don't mean the popular stuff, like LoTR and A Song of Ice and Fire, but the obscure stuff too. Like the Hugo awards winners, the cult-classics from 60s and 70s. I'm tired of RPG developers putting so much effort into world-building and then delivering something mid.

TL:DR: RPG needs heavy literary influences to flourish in terms of writing/world building. Only well-read people should be allowed to design RPG worlds. If you have not read at least 100 books from the canon of fantasy/sci-fi literature, you have no business even attempting to write RPGs or design their world.

Story is not that important in games and I'm saying this as a storyfag. Good games of old never had great stories but they had competent people making competent games with fun gameplay= immersive atmosphere.

Problem today is that people working at games are bad programmers and are led by incompetent managers, so it takes forever to make small content shit games with lame art design, boring gameplay and a top of it a shitty story.

It baffles me that every AAA studio now has dozens of people, a bunch of teams, they all use same shitty engine (Unreal or Frostbite) and it still takes them forever to make a small in content shitty buggy game that does not look better at all then a game from 5y ago only hardware requirements go up and its now 100+ Gb..like wtf. it's on you and shitty people you hire.

 

[v1c70r14]

I have a lot of thoughts about this, which can be summarized as:

1. You assume that all writers have the ambition to produce great literature, when modern gamedevs can barely write themselves out of a wet paper bag.
2. There is nothing wrong with producing entertainment for its own merits.
3. On the other hand, art should be meaningful. Perhaps specifically, it should have intent.
4. Perhaps the intent in making art out of video game narrative is to explore the impact of choice.
5. Will this always degrade the quality of the narrative? Do we need a super-genius writer to be able to make it work? I don't think so.

I don't view it as a fool's errand, because that implies that even the attempt itself is meaningless. I would rather consider it a great challenge.

I think I will just repeat myself responding to this but I will attempt to crystalize my position anyway. To sum it up I'd say that games and writing as well as storytelling just isn't a marriage meant to be. Chess does not need a writer, it wouldn't be improved by one and the writer would be constricted in such a way as to produce low quality writing judged by universal standards. To get my point across I'll take you through a tour of games and narratives.

Early video games as far as the average consumer was concerned emerged from arcade halls where coin slot operated machines were competing for the public to engage with them. Traditionally games entailed a couple of rules and a goal, which you either met or didn't, you either won or lost. Writers weren't needed back then, the only ties to storytelling were through imagery and setting for the game, which more than anything else were seen in the art of the machine. These setups for games were derived from fantasies people might have had, like piloting a spaceship, or things so outlandish that you'd be tempted to try them out.

This is the essence of a video game and you need a writer for this as much as you need a writer for a pinball machine, which is not at all. In this context it's absurd to see people bring up Dostoyevsky or Gene Wolfe in this thread.

RPGs descend from wargaming which needed historical or fictional context for the battles being fought, but this too is not something you can produce great stories or writing with, it's a game. If you pick up a French deck of cards the imagery draws from the monarchical system but this is not storytelling. There are many novelty decks with modern or more ancient motifs, but it doesn't matter that much.

After technology had gotten to a point where more narrative elements were possible in games we find ourselves with four categories of storytelling in video games, none of them would benefit from, or could evoke mythology, literature, or high culture.

• Arcade games where the story is an excuse or a setup for abstract gameplay.
• Linear narratives, typically these take on a lot from films except they're not ever as well written as films.
• CYOA games, often these are poor as video games.
• Sandbox systems that can be played with as you'd play with dolls or Lego, they call this emergent "storytelling".

You can't get what made Tolkien important in this medium, you can't benefit much from your readings of Vedic texts or Babylonian mythology. At the end of the day a video game is about using the pinball flippers to push a silver ball into bumpers to score points, or avoiding bullets while hitting with your own, or solving a puzzle, or memorizing combos and being smart and fast about executing them, or making a good character build and rolling the dice.

I don't assume video game writers have high literary ambitions or want to create art, I think people who ask for video games to emulate literature or myth are misguided since you can't get from gaming what you could from prose or poetry or song. Forget Dostoyevsky and Sumerian mythology, you couldn't even get the equivalent of a pulp writer in the medium of video games. Would it even be desirable if possible? Do you think players want their Skinner box loops interrupted by a writer? Or worse yet, designed by one?

Addressing the supposed promise of CYOAs without going on a tirade about it I can simply ask you the question why those FMV games didn't take off. Why didn't all movies become interactive when the technology was there? Peter Molyneux said something about that in an interview, all the way back in 1996, and although the mainstream has gone from film to digitized actors the results have been the same.

Everyone used to talk about how great Interactive Movies would be - you could walk on to the set of Baywatch and dictate the action, decide what happens to the plot - but of course the reality is that it's an impossible thing to do. And yet all the development community started working on Interactive Movies and most of them were crap.

 

[gurugeorge]

That's how their dialogue reads. It's either stiff or overly quippy. There seems to be nothing in between.
Think of the first two episodes of Rings of Power. You can roughly sort most characters into those two categories.
Or think of Forespoken.

Remember, those are Triple-A production values. That is the "best" that corporate money can buy so to speak.
In the case of RoP I would even call it Quadruple-A production values.
And what's the result? Quotes like this:

"Do you know why a ship floats and a stone cannot? Because the stone sees only downward."

I believe that we are witnessing the emergence of a new, highly formalized, way of expression through art -- One that lends itself entirely to a combination of commercialization and the expression of a correct set of values, aka wokeness.

Something akin to what that hideous corporate memphis represents to the visual medium. Just imagine these freaks talking to one another, and there's your modern AAA character and dialogue.

Perfectly onomatopoeic, absolutely spot on. Empty, meaningless images, empty meaningless stories, empty meaningless dialogue, empty meaningless gameplay, etc., all with an "epic" piano or cheerful banjo plonking away in the background.

 

[Chuck Norris]

I have a lot of thoughts about this, which can be summarized as:

1. You assume that all writers have the ambition to produce great literature, when modern gamedevs can barely write themselves out of a wet paper bag.
2. There is nothing wrong with producing entertainment for its own merits.
3. On the other hand, art should be meaningful. Perhaps specifically, it should have intent.
4. Perhaps the intent in making art out of video game narrative is to explore the impact of choice.
5. Will this always degrade the quality of the narrative? Do we need a super-genius writer to be able to make it work? I don't think so.

I don't view it as a fool's errand, because that implies that even the attempt itself is meaningless. I would rather consider it a great challenge.

I think I will just repeat myself responding to this but I will attempt to crystalize my position anyway. To sum it up I'd say that games and writing as well as storytelling just isn't a marriage meant to be. Chess does not need a writer, it wouldn't be improved by one and the writer would be constricted in such a way as to produce low quality writing judged by universal standards. To get my point across I'll take you through a tour of games and narratives.

Early video games as far as the average consumer was concerned emerged from arcade halls where coin slot operated machines were competing for the public to engage with them. Traditionally games entailed a couple of rules and a goal, which you either met or didn't, you either won or lost. Writers weren't needed back then, the only ties to storytelling were through imagery and setting for the game, which more than anything else were seen in the art of the machine. These setups for games were derived from fantasies people might have had, like piloting a spaceship, or things so outlandish that you'd be tempted to try them out.

This is the essence of a video game and you need a writer for this as much as you need a writer for a pinball machine, which is not at all. In this context it's absurd to see people bring up Dostoyevsky or Gene Wolfe in this thread.

RPGs descend from wargaming which needed historical or fictional context for the battles being fought, but this too is not something you can produce great stories or writing with, it's a game. If you pick up a French deck of cards the imagery draws from the monarchical system but this is not storytelling. There are many novelty decks with modern or more ancient motifs, but it doesn't matter that much.

After technology had gotten to a point where more narrative elements were possible in games we find ourselves with four categories of storytelling in video games, none of them would benefit from, or could evoke mythology, literature, or high culture.

• Arcade games where the story is an excuse or a setup for abstract gameplay.
• Linear narratives, typically these take on a lot from films except they're not ever as well written as films.
• CYOA games, often these are poor as video games.
• Sandbox systems that can be played with as you'd play with dolls or Lego, they call this emergent "storytelling".

You can't get what made Tolkien important in this medium, you can't benefit much from your readings of Vedic texts or Babylonian mythology. At the end of the day a video game is about using the pinball flippers to push a silver ball into bumpers to score points, or avoiding bullets while hitting with your own, or solving a puzzle, or memorizing combos and being smart and fast about executing them, or making a good character build and rolling the dice.

I don't assume video game writers have high literary ambitions or want to create art, I think people who ask for video games to emulate literature or myth are misguided since you can't get from gaming what you could from prose or poetry or song. Forget Dostoyevsky and Sumerian mythology, you couldn't even get the equivalent of a pulp writer in the medium of video games. Would it even be desirable if possible? Do you think players want their Skinner box loops interrupted by a writer? Or worse yet, designed by one?

Addressing the supposed promise of CYOAs without going on a tirade about it I can simply ask you the question why those FMV games didn't take off. Why didn't all movies become interactive when the technology was there? Peter Molyneux said something about that in an interview, all the way back in 1996, and although the mainstream has gone from film to digitized actors the results have been the same.

Everyone used to talk about how great Interactive Movies would be - you could walk on to the set of Baywatch and dictate the action, decide what happens to the plot - but of course the reality is that it's an impossible thing to do. And yet all the development community started working on Interactive Movies and most of them were crap.

This is such an oddly reductionist approach. Just because video games had roots in arcades and wargaming, it means they can't move beyond that? Or provide something more?

There are video games that have already achieved what you say they can't achieve. I would argue that truly visionary RPGs like Planescape Torment, Arcanum and From Software Games are the equivalent of Tolkien and REH and Lovecraft for this age. Do you have any idea how many writers and artists working today use them as a source of inspiration for their stuff?

Also the reason I talked specifically about RPGs (and not video games in general) is that I think most genres can get away with bland story/world building if the game-play is good. But this cannot be said for RPGs, because they are heavily story-reliant. How am I expected to spend tens or hundreds of hours of my time in a virtual world and progressing in it if it doesn't excite my imagination?

 

[Iucounu]

You can't get what made Tolkien important in this medium, you can't benefit much from your readings of Vedic texts or Babylonian mythology. At the end of the day a video game is about using the pinball flippers to push a silver ball into bumpers to score points, or avoiding bullets while hitting with your own, or solving a puzzle, or memorizing combos and being smart and fast about executing them, or making a good character build and rolling the dice.

Don't many games intersperse plot sections with gameplay challenges, similar to how musicals or operas do with their music and dialogue sections? Quite often the player is literally locked inside an arena for a fighting section, and the plot only continues after winning. That way the game can give players some freedom in how to fight enemies, but that freedom has little or no effect on the main plot. With such a game you can make the plot as complex as any movie, except that by doing so the game becomes boring due to the endless cutscenes or quest dialogs.

I think the main difference in writing is that games (unlike books or movies) may let you talk to optional NPCs. Since such dialogs are optional in games they are more suitable for delivering lore detail or gameplay progress (as opposed to plot progress), such as improving gear or character stats. For example, you may optionally visit a trader that both sells you a better sword and tells you about the gameworld's lore. A good writer can of course make such a dialog just as good as in a novel, but has to make sure the game is playable even if the player doesn't visit said trader.

So in principle I see no problem with adapting lore from Tolkien or anyone other modern writer, but some of his main plots might become too long. It's much better to create great gameplay first, add as much optional lore as makes sense, and finally only use a minimal main plot that doesn't interfere with the gameplay.

Older texts (like mythology) becomes more tricky to use, since much of the context is no longer known even to historians, and translations may not do the texts justice either. Then the only things that remain for game developers to steal are basic plot elements, names and locations, while the dialogs are next to useless.

 

[Bad Sector]

Also the reason I talked specifically about RPGs (and not video games in general) is that I think most genres can get away with bland story/world building if the game-play is good. But this cannot be said for RPGs, because they are heavily story-reliant.

I completely disagree with that notion, there are a lot of great RPGs - including some subgenres like almost all of dungeon crawlers / DRPGs - that are not reliant on some story (even if they have one, it can be easily ignored). Ultima Fucking Underworld (which i'm playing again these days) has some generic "save the princess" story and a premise where some dude decided to create an underground settlement (which itself is a very questionable idea) with men and monsters to live in harmony except it turned out they'd rather eat each others' faces off than live in harmony, all presented in some American's silly take of faux old english. And yet it is one of the best and most influential RPGs because even if the goals are like "kill that monster" or "find the stairs" the gameplay (i.e. not the writing, story, or anything like that) allows the player to have different approaches for it, taking into account what the character can do. Same with Arx Fatalis, inspired by UU (i don't think there is a single person on Earth who was played more than one game that can claim the story is anything but an excuse for the game's environment - and really this can be applied to pretty much all of Arkane's games).

And as i wrote, some dungeon crawlers / DRPGs do not even bother with a story, just a simple premise of some king/lord/whatever asking a bunch of mercenaries/adventurers/"heroes"/whatever from who knows where to go die explore a dungeon made by who knows at whenever ancient times, because some evil wizard/demon/murderhobo/whatever stole/kidnapped/sneezed at/whatver some powerful trinket/princess/plan/whatever.

Of course you can claim none of the above are RPGs, which is fair but also wrong.

The only genre where story is important and the game is actually reliant on it is visual novels. Even adventure games, the traditionally most "story heavy" of game genres, can still have a meh story as long as the puzzles (i.e. the actual gameplay) are good.

 

[Chuck Norris]

Also the reason I talked specifically about RPGs (and not video games in general) is that I think most genres can get away with bland story/world building if the game-play is good. But this cannot be said for RPGs, because they are heavily story-reliant.

I completely disagree with that notion, there are a lot of great RPGs - including some subgenres like almost all of dungeon crawlers / DRPGs - that are not reliant on some story (even if they have one, it can be easily ignored). Ultima Fucking Underworld (which i'm playing again these days) has some generic "save the princess" story and a premise where some dude decided to create an underground settlement (which itself is a very questionable idea) with men and monsters to live in harmony except it turned out they'd rather eat each others' faces off than live in harmony, all presented in some American's silly take of faux old english. And yet it is one of the best and most influential RPGs because even if the goals are like "kill that monster" or "find the stairs" the gameplay (i.e. not the writing, story, or anything like that) allows the player to have different approaches for it, taking into account what the character can do. Same with Arx Fatalis, inspired by UU (i don't think there is a single person on Earth who was played more than one game that can claim the story is anything but an excuse for the game's environment - and really this can be applied to pretty much all of Arkane's games).

And as i wrote, some dungeon crawlers / DRPGs do not even bother with a story, just a simple premise of some king/lord/whatever asking a bunch of mercenaries/adventurers/"heroes"/whatever from who knows where to go die explore a dungeon made by who knows at whenever ancient times, because some evil wizard/demon/murderhobo/whatever stole/kidnapped/sneezed at/whatver some powerful trinket/princess/plan/whatever.

Of course you can claim none of the above are RPGs, which is fair but also wrong.

The only genre where story is important and the game is actually reliant on it is visual novels. Even adventure games, the traditionally most "story heavy" of game genres, can still have a meh story as long as the puzzles (i.e. the actual gameplay) are good.

When I was writing that, I wasn't thinkin of Dungeon Crawlers I was thinking of some of these East Asian RPGs (like Lost Ark), which look and sound fantastic and something right up my alley game-play wise, but the obvious lack of imagination is just off-putting to me, to a degree that even might be a deal-breaker.

With what you said about dungeon crawlers, I agree. I guess they don't really need a huge story. But still, I would argue that having a good story/atmosphere/visual identity lifts them up a lot. For example I have played rogue-likes and rogue-lites (which as a genre doesn't really need a story) like The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon and Hades, but among them, Hades engaged me the most, because it had a good story written by someone who obviously had done their homework about Greek myth.

So my point is: yeah, apart from classic isometric CRPG and Bioware-style adventure RPGs, there are a lot of sub-genres that don't really need a story to function. But even for those games, having a good story can make them so much better.

 

[Bad Sector]

With what you said about dungeon crawlers, I agree. I guess they don't really need a huge story. But still, I would argue that having a good story/atmosphere/visual identity lifts them up a lot. For example I have played rogue-likes and rogue-lites (which as a genre doesn't really need a story) like The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon and Hades, but among them, Hades engaged me the most, because it had a good story written by someone who obviously had done their homework about Greek myth.

So my point is: yeah, apart from classic isometric CRPG and Bioware-style adventure RPGs, there are a lot of sub-genres that don't really need a story to function. But even for those games, having a good story can make them so much better.

Well, i replied because of the "But this cannot be said for RPGs, because they are heavily story-reliant" part, which is what i disagreed with. Actually, i'll disagree to some extent with the CRPG/Bioware part here as what i wrote applies to all RPGs (and most game genres) - i only brought dungeon crawlers as an example since they are very obvious about it - and also i was playing them recently.

Note that i do not disagree with what you write that having a good story can make a game better - if anything i've played games myself for the story despite not finding the gameplay as interesting, but i can't really think many (or any, right now) games where i played for the story when i disliked the gameplay. And certainly, all things equal, a good game with a good story is preferable to a good game with a meh story.

Also FWIW i tend to separate some things when it comes to how i see what many put under "writing" or "story" (i use these quotes here because i'm going to explain how i see things using these same terms to mean something specific - and yes i used "story" above like that too, not as i describe below), using the following as more or less individual aspects:

• Setting is about the overall characteristics (common example: sci-fi setting, fantasy setting, etc)
• Worldbuilding describes the specifics of the world, its lore, inhabitants, factions, etc (common example: how TES does its worldbuilding)
• Storyis self-descriptive, a story set in the world described above, games can have multiple of them but often there is one main overarching story (main quest, etc) - the distinction here is that a bland story can be set in an interesting world and vice versa
  • One may also add characters but i see those more as parts of the story (and sometimes also part of the worldbuilding) than a main aspect
• Writing is how the above are represented to the user/reader, how the writer handles the prose (for text) or what the characters say (for dialogs), etc (an example to make the distinction from "story", imagine a fan translated book, the fan translation can be full of errors and translation mistakes but the story and the worldbuilding it describes can be good)

(BTW the above are just terms i came to use myself after thinking about these concepts over time, it is very likely the people who do that stuff professionally use different terms :-P)

The reason i put the above in this order, aside from each relying on the one above it to "function", is that i find (at least personally) that is also the order of importance in RPGs (and most games in general):

• The setting is the most important as that affects from the presentation to the overall "feel" of the game. Even when a story is something as simple as "slay the dragon and save the princess", there is (usually) a medieval fantasy setting (implied or not).
• Worldbuilding is also important, especially for RPGs, as this affects not only any potential story that can be made but also gives context to the environments, locations, etc the game takes place, is the main influence on the game's representation, etc. Note that this doesn't imply some sort of detailed world put in text (i doubt most games -or even books- even bother), but even some ideas about the world to keep things consistent.
• Story is needed in games to put what you actually do in some context (as opposed to worldbuilding where the context is about the world the story is in), but i don't consider it as important as the above - i like it when it is good but i don't mind a bad story unless the gameplay (which i'm not describing at all right now) is is also bad.
• Writing for me in games needs to be functional - i.e. do a good job of representing the above.

As an example of the above i'd use Spiders' games: they tend to have very interesting settings and good enough (but never detailed) worlds, but i never found the stories anything more than "stuff that happens" and yet i like their games because their gameplay is good enough and their worlds interesting and imaginative enough so i can ignore the flaws.

And again, to be clear, i do not dismiss any of of above: as another example Mass Effect 1 has very interesting worldbuilding but the story and writing is what actually made me like it despite the gameplay not being anything special (not that i disliked it, i just don't consider it the highlight of the game).

But at the same time they are not what they make a game. This might trigger some, but Fallout 1 has a good setting and worldbuilding and a nice story (for the main quest) but IMO the setting, worldbuilding and overall story would also work in a (trigger warning) first person shooter - what makes Fallout 1 the game it is *as a game* is its gameplay and mechanics (which in Fallout 1's case they also affect how the story is presented to you and how you influence it, but make no mistake: this is part of the gameplay).

 

[luj1]

Also the reason I talked specifically about RPGs (and not video games in general) is that I think most genres can get away with bland story/world building if the game-play is good. But this cannot be said for RPGs, because they are heavily story-reliant.

I completely disagree with that notion, there are a lot of great RPGs - including some subgenres like almost all of dungeon crawlers / DRPGs - that are not reliant on some story (even if they have one, it can be easily ignored). Ultima Fucking Underworld (which i'm playing again these days) has some generic "save the princess" story and a premise where some dude decided to create an underground settlement (which itself is a very questionable idea) with men and monsters to live in harmony except it turned out they'd rather eat each others' faces off than live in harmony, all presented in some American's silly take of faux old english. And yet it is one of the best and most influential RPGs because even if the goals are like "kill that monster" or "find the stairs" the gameplay (i.e. not the writing, story, or anything like that) allows the player to have different approaches for it, taking into account what the character can do. Same with Arx Fatalis, inspired by UU (i don't think there is a single person on Earth who was played more than one game that can claim the story is anything but an excuse for the game's environment - and really this can be applied to pretty much all of Arkane's games).

And as i wrote, some dungeon crawlers / DRPGs do not even bother with a story, just a simple premise of some king/lord/whatever asking a bunch of mercenaries/adventurers/"heroes"/whatever from who knows where to go die explore a dungeon made by who knows at whenever ancient times, because some evil wizard/demon/murderhobo/whatever stole/kidnapped/sneezed at/whatver some powerful trinket/princess/plan/whatever.

Of course you can claim none of the above are RPGs, which is fair but also wrong.

The only genre where story is important and the game is actually reliant on it is visual novels. Even adventure games, the traditionally most "story heavy" of game genres, can still have a meh story as long as the puzzles (i.e. the actual gameplay) are good.

simple story =/= bad story

Wizardry 6 which is one of the greatest RPGs of all time has this story: escape the castle

RPGs don't have to have a complex story, it can be simple. But that doesn't mean a simple story is the same as meh or bad. Simple stories are some of the best.

 

[Bad Sector]

simple story =/= bad story

Wizardry 6 which is one of the greatest RPGs of all time has this story: escape the castle

RPGs don't have to have a complex story, it can be simple. But that doesn't mean a simple story is the same as meh or bad. Simple stories are some of the best.

I never claimed that a simple story is the same as meh or bad, i'd write "meh story" or "bad story" if i thought that.

 

[v1c70r14]

This is such an oddly reductionist approach. Just because video games had roots in arcades and wargaming, it means they can't move beyond that? Or provide something more?

I used early examples to better illustrate the relationship between game and story/writing, this relationship will not change but it can be obscured. Movie games that are very popular combine fragments of very poorly made games with long sections of in-game cinematics that aim to replicate the medium of film within video games. Any attempt to transcend the medium to create fine art or something in that direction directly undermines the game.

It's depressing that what used to be something video game journalists were relentlessly mocked for is now seemingly the general stance of posters in this thread. It's equally tiresome that the responses I've gotten seem to be talking past me. Video games don't need great writers, they have no use for great literacy, what you're asking for is poshlost.

There are video games that have already achieved what you say they can't achieve. I would argue that truly visionary RPGs like Planescape Torment, Arcanum and From Software Games are the equivalent of Tolkien and REH and Lovecraft for this age. Do you have any idea how many writers and artists working today use them as a source of inspiration for their stuff?

This is laughable, are you seriously comparing those three games to The Lord of the Rings? I don't want to be a party pooper, I don't want to be a downer and I don't want to be mean, but no, these are not equivalents. Why do you wish them to be so? They're different mediums.

FromSoftware's great innovation wasn't in writing or storytelling, it was reeling it back and putting the game first. There are some mood setting flavor texts and dialogue, badly translated and purposefully kept vague to make it seem more impressive than it really is, but in terms of actual writing even nerd favorites like REH and Lovecraft tower over the game.

In fact, there is barely any game that better illustrate my point about the disconnect between games and story than FromSoftware's games. Just like a pinball machine they have made the same game many times now, now and then given it a new fresh branding, a couple of voiced lines, some art following a slightly different aesthetic, but the gameplay has more or less been precisely the same.

It doesn't matter if it is set in a fantasy post-apocalypse, Victorian London, Sengoku Japan, or generic post-Tolkien trash fantasy. This is because the writing is utilitarian and there to give the player a context for the gameplay beyond pure abstraction. They're not telling much of a story, there's barely any plot, nor are there any literary flourishes. FromSoftware instead relegated the writing to the only position it could hope to have in a video game, into the background.

How am I expected to spend tens or hundreds of hours of my time in a virtual world and progressing in it if it doesn't excite my imagination?

You shouldn't and it can't. Unless you're a child, their imaginations are excited by anything.

Don't many games intersperse plot sections with gameplay challenges, similar to how musicals or operas do with their music and dialogue sections? Quite often the player is literally locked inside an arena for a fighting section, and the plot only continues after winning. That way the game can give players some freedom in how to fight enemies, but that freedom has little or no effect on the main plot. With such a game you can make the plot as complex as any movie, except that by doing so the game becomes boring due to the endless cutscenes or quest dialogs.

Video games are both multimedia and many are sliced up with story sections that compete with the gameplay, this is true. Theoretically you could have a film that is now and then interrupted with interactive parts, but in practice neither the cinematics nor the game tend to be very good, nor are they better for it than each part would be alone done properly. If you have a truly great story to tell you'd not be making video games. If you had a truly brilliant game idea you'd have little need for a narrative crutch that supplants the game part.

I think the main difference in writing is that games (unlike books or movies) may let you talk to optional NPCs.

No, the main difference is that one is a story, either written or told in images and sound, the other is a game, with rules, fail states and win conditions as well as game mechanics that the player interacts with. You also shouldn't bundle books and films together, they're incredible different mediums too and one can't provide what the other does.

 

[cretin]

ITT the age old conflict between storyfags and gameplayfags

 

[Chuck Norris]

With what you said about dungeon crawlers, I agree. I guess they don't really need a huge story. But still, I would argue that having a good story/atmosphere/visual identity lifts them up a lot. For example I have played rogue-likes and rogue-lites (which as a genre doesn't really need a story) like The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon and Hades, but among them, Hades engaged me the most, because it had a good story written by someone who obviously had done their homework about Greek myth.

So my point is: yeah, apart from classic isometric CRPG and Bioware-style adventure RPGs, there are a lot of sub-genres that don't really need a story to function. But even for those games, having a good story can make them so much better.

Well, i replied because of the "But this cannot be said for RPGs, because they are heavily story-reliant" part, which is what i disagreed with. Actually, i'll disagree to some extent with the CRPG/Bioware part here as what i wrote applies to all RPGs (and most game genres) - i only brought dungeon crawlers as an example since they are very obvious about it - and also i was playing them recently.

Note that i do not disagree with what you write that having a good story can make a game better - if anything i've played games myself for the story despite not finding the gameplay as interesting, but i can't really think many (or any, right now) games where i played for the story when i disliked the gameplay. And certainly, all things equal, a good game with a good story is preferable to a good game with a meh story.

Also FWIW i tend to separate some things when it comes to how i see what many put under "writing" or "story" (i use these quotes here because i'm going to explain how i see things using these same terms to mean something specific - and yes i used "story" above like that too, not as i describe below), using the following as more or less individual aspects:

• Setting is about the overall characteristics (common example: sci-fi setting, fantasy setting, etc)
• Worldbuilding describes the specifics of the world, its lore, inhabitants, factions, etc (common example: how TES does its worldbuilding)
• Storyis self-descriptive, a story set in the world described above, games can have multiple of them but often there is one main overarching story (main quest, etc) - the distinction here is that a bland story can be set in an interesting world and vice versa
  • One may also add characters but i see those more as parts of the story (and sometimes also part of the worldbuilding) than a main aspect
• Writing is how the above are represented to the user/reader, how the writer handles the prose (for text) or what the characters say (for dialogs), etc (an example to make the distinction from "story", imagine a fan translated book, the fan translation can be full of errors and translation mistakes but the story and the worldbuilding it describes can be good)

(BTW the above are just terms i came to use myself after thinking about these concepts over time, it is very likely the people who do that stuff professionally use different terms :-P)

The reason i put the above in this order, aside from each relying on the one above it to "function", is that i find (at least personally) that is also the order of importance in RPGs (and most games in general):

• The setting is the most important as that affects from the presentation to the overall "feel" of the game. Even when a story is something as simple as "slay the dragon and save the princess", there is (usually) a medieval fantasy setting (implied or not).
• Worldbuilding is also important, especially for RPGs, as this affects not only any potential story that can be made but also gives context to the environments, locations, etc the game takes place, is the main influence on the game's representation, etc. Note that this doesn't imply some sort of detailed world put in text (i doubt most games -or even books- even bother), but even some ideas about the world to keep things consistent.
• Story is needed in games to put what you actually do in some context (as opposed to worldbuilding where the context is about the world the story is in), but i don't consider it as important as the above - i like it when it is good but i don't mind a bad story unless the gameplay (which i'm not describing at all right now) is is also bad.
• Writing for me in games needs to be functional - i.e. do a good job of representing the above.

As an example of the above i'd use Spiders' games: they tend to have very interesting settings and good enough (but never detailed) worlds, but i never found the stories anything more than "stuff that happens" and yet i like their games because their gameplay is good enough and their worlds interesting and imaginative enough so i can ignore the flaws.

And again, to be clear, i do not dismiss any of of above: as another example Mass Effect 1 has very interesting worldbuilding but the story and writing is what actually made me like it despite the gameplay not being anything special (not that i disliked it, i just don't consider it the highlight of the game).

But at the same time they are not what they make a game. This might trigger some, but Fallout 1 has a good setting and worldbuilding and a nice story (for the main quest) but IMO the setting, worldbuilding and overall story would also work in a (trigger warning) first person shooter - what makes Fallout 1 the game it is *as a game* is its gameplay and mechanics (which in Fallout 1's case they also affect how the story is presented to you and how you influence it, but make no mistake: this is part of the gameplay).

I agree with that classification and I would say that having an imaginative setting/presentation, but a simple story can sometimes be enough to intrigue you. Although greatness happens when all four aspects are top-tier.

For example, Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption is a game that has etched itself into my mind because it had all four qualities, even though the game-play was so wrong in many aspects. In other words, the game is not objectively great, but in my memory, it has come close to greatness because of its great imaginative/writing qualities.

This is laughable, are you seriously comparing those three games to The Lord of the Rings? I don't want to be a party pooper, I don't want to be a downer and I don't want to be mean, but no, these are not equivalents. Why do you wish them to be so? They're different mediums.

You need to stop thinking in terms of "medium" and think in terms of "speculative fiction" as a whole. My concern is what work or author is currently 1. being the most imaginative 2. having the most impact and I can't help but to think about some video games. If someone asks me what was the most imaginative and interesting fantasy story in the 90s, the answer that comes to my mind is not The Wheel of Time (which was trying to be the 90s LoTR), but Planescape Torment. If someone asks me what fantasy story is the most relevant right now, what comes to mind is not a novel or a movie or a TV show, but Baldur's Gate 3 (for better or worse).

Some relevant fantasy writers (like Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie and most notably George RR Martin) either talk about playing video games for inspiration or attach themselves to video games (like Torment: Tides of Numenera and Elden Ring) in order to satisfy their creativity or solidify their reputation.

Times have changed.

Also From Software Games might have transferred the actual story in the background, but that story is intertwined with every element inside the game, from boss deign to level design. The game doesn't bore you with overwritten dialogue, yes, but you can't say the presence of the story/world building is not felt.

 

[Iucounu]

Don't many games intersperse plot sections with gameplay challenges, similar to how musicals or operas do with their music and dialogue sections? Quite often the player is literally locked inside an arena for a fighting section, and the plot only continues after winning. That way the game can give players some freedom in how to fight enemies, but that freedom has little or no effect on the main plot. With such a game you can make the plot as complex as any movie, except that by doing so the game becomes boring due to the endless cutscenes or quest dialogs.

Video games are both multimedia and many are sliced up with story sections that compete with the gameplay, this is true. Theoretically you could have a film that is now and then interrupted with interactive parts, but in practice neither the cinematics nor the game tend to be very good, nor are they better for it than each part would be alone done properly. If you have a truly great story to tell you'd not be making video games. If you had a truly brilliant game idea you'd have little need for a narrative crutch that supplants the game part.

I must admit that musicals and opera are not my favorite genres. I also agree that gameplay comes first in games, and main story should never be allowed to interfere with the gameplay in a negative way. But I see much less conflict when adding world building or (non-excessive) dialogs to a good game, so that's where I think good writing (and historical knowledge, obviously) may have a place.

I think the main difference in writing is that games (unlike books or movies) may let you talk to optional NPCs.

No, the main difference is that one is a story, either written or told in images and sound, the other is a game, with rules, fail states and win conditions as well as game mechanics that the player interacts with. You also shouldn't bundle books and films together, they're incredible different mediums too and one can't provide what the other does.

I meant the different writing in books, movies and games. In the first two all the content is presented in a linear way, but in games the player can often choose if, when and in what order he talks to NPCs. This player agency is often also part of the gameplay, which puts restraints on the content of NPC dialogs. So a writer should create convincing dialogs, but must accept that he only has limited control over the order the player sees them (if he ever sees them).

 

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

Exactly. Rather than being familiar with the basics like mythology, folklore, fairy tales, pulp fiction, etc. these writers learn from increasingly diluted and self-iterating sources like other rpgs. If you want to write well, then you need to be familiar with the tropes of the genre. I have learned a huge amount not just from stories but from reviews and critiques. Taking academic classes can help, but it's not mandatory. Just buy and read relevant books: anthologies of classic literature, analyses of genres, etc.

Have to agree with this. Most RPG designers seem to be actively allergic to basic fantasy tropes and fall over themselves trying to be "unique" and have "their own take on fantasy". The most egregious example of this is probably Pillars of Eternity, god it tries so hard to be unique that it becomes cringe, "It's not high fantasy it's DIFFERENT!!". Dude, we know the "Vessels" are undead, Aumaua are half-Orcs, and Orlans are halflings, what's the point? I would respect a designer 100x if they just embraced the Tolkienesque high fantasy setting to create something that feels familiar and nostalgic to the target audience. I feel like they don't respect the roots of the genre.

 

[gurugeorge]

Exactly. Rather than being familiar with the basics like mythology, folklore, fairy tales, pulp fiction, etc. these writers learn from increasingly diluted and self-iterating sources like other rpgs. If you want to write well, then you need to be familiar with the tropes of the genre. I have learned a huge amount not just from stories but from reviews and critiques. Taking academic classes can help, but it's not mandatory. Just buy and read relevant books: anthologies of classic literature, analyses of genres, etc.

Have to agree with this. Most RPG designers seem to be actively allergic to basic fantasy tropes and fall over themselves trying to be "unique" and have "their own take on fantasy". The most egregious example of this is probably Pillars of Eternity, god it tries so hard to be unique that it becomes cringe, "It's not high fantasy it's DIFFERENT!!". Dude, we know the "Vessels" are undead, Aumaua are half-Orcs, and Orlans are halflings, what's the point? I would respect a designer 100x if they just embraced the Tolkienesque high fantasy setting to create something that feels familiar and nostalgic to the target audience. I feel like they don't respect the roots of the genre.

Just straight up copying the tropes and changing names is lame, but what I want to see is actual - well, fantasy. Isn't the whole point that it's supposed to be imaginative? One wants to see new, imaginative things, but imagined by people who are aware of, and respect, their predecessors.

 

[luj1]

simple story =/= bad story

Wizardry 6 which is one of the greatest RPGs of all time has this story: escape the castle

RPGs don't have to have a complex story, it can be simple. But that doesn't mean a simple story is the same as meh or bad. Simple stories are some of the best.

I never claimed that a simple story is the same as meh or bad, i'd write "meh story" or "bad story" if i thought that.

But you said RPGs can have a bad story which I disagree with

Plenty of them have simple stories but Idk which Codex top RPG has a bad story

 

[Anthedon]

I think Greek, Norse and even more exotic mythology is an even better foundation. And all the chivalric romance stuff; anything from King Arthur to Don Quixote.
But OTOH in today's political and cultural climate, these things would probably be things to be deconstructed and shat upon instead of being inspired by...

I expect every self-respecting RPG developer to have (at least) read:

• Homer - Ilias
• Hesiod - Theogeny
• Rhodius - Argonautica
• Herodot - Histories
• Thucydides - The History of the Peloponessian War
• Xenophon - Anabasis & Hellenika
• Fragments of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Heraklit
• some cursory knowledge of Plato and Aristotle can't hurt either
• Caesar's commentaries on the wars in Gaul and the Republic
• Plutarchs Lives (all of them)

You can barely describe as human someone who has not read the like. Wait, what was this thread about?

 

[Reinhardt]

I think Greek, Norse and even more exotic mythology is an even better foundation. And all the chivalric romance stuff; anything from King Arthur to Don Quixote.
But OTOH in today's political and cultural climate, these things would probably be things to be deconstructed and shat upon instead of being inspired by...

I expect every self-respecting RPG developer to have (at least) read:

• Homer - Ilias
• Hesiod - Theogeny
• Rhodius - Argonautica
• Herodot - Histories
• Thucydides - The History of the Peloponessian War
• Xenophon - Anabasis & Hellenika
• Fragments of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Heraklit
• some cursory knowledge of Plato and Aristotle can't hurt either
• Caesar's commentaries on the wars in Gaul and the Republic
• Plutarchs Lives (all of them)

You can barely describe as human someone who has not read the like. Wait, what was this thread about?

gilgamesh, mahabharata and so on. there is LOTS of really gud ancient books.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Video games are both multimedia and many are sliced up with story sections that compete with the gameplay, this is true. Theoretically you could have a film that is now and then interrupted with interactive parts, but in practice neither the cinematics nor the game tend to be very good, nor are they better for it than each part would be alone done properly. If you have a truly great story to tell you'd not be making video games. If you had a truly brilliant game idea you'd have little need for a narrative crutch that supplants the game part.

Just as surely as there are differences between what kind of stories you can tell in a novel and in a film/show, there are differences between that and a video game. Interactivity is something games can do with their narrative, not other forms of media. Take Ultima Underworld as mentioned above, the story isn't that great on itself, but you need to pay attention to the narrative to win the game, as some important items center around reading into the story. Games like Vampire: Bloodlines take advantage of the interactivity of the genre for it's political intrigue, something that no other form of media could do. And there are games where the story itself can change quite drastically based on your actions, which has gotten games that do it successfully praise despite the fact that most of these games gameplay is average.
Granted, so many people just seem to be failed movie writers who are ignorant of the strengths of video games stories, but it's also true that film writers are/were failed novel/play writers and vice versa.

 

[gurugeorge]

Video games are both multimedia and many are sliced up with story sections that compete with the gameplay, this is true. Theoretically you could have a film that is now and then interrupted with interactive parts, but in practice neither the cinematics nor the game tend to be very good, nor are they better for it than each part would be alone done properly. If you have a truly great story to tell you'd not be making video games. If you had a truly brilliant game idea you'd have little need for a narrative crutch that supplants the game part.

Just as surely as there are differences between what kind of stories you can tell in a novel and in a film/show, there are differences between that and a video game. Interactivity is something games can do with their narrative, not other forms of media. Take Ultima Underworld as mentioned above, the story isn't that great on itself, but you need to pay attention to the narrative to win the game, as some important items center around reading into the story. Games like Vampire: Bloodlines take advantage of the interactivity of the genre for it's political intrigue, something that no other form of media could do. And there are games where the story itself can change quite drastically based on your actions, which has gotten games that do it successfully praise despite the fact that most of these games gameplay is average.
Granted, so many people just seem to be failed movie writers who are ignorant of the strengths of video games stories, but it's also true that film writers are/were failed novel/play writers and vice versa.

Somebody once quipped that comic book writers were failed Great American Novelists