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

[Sunri]

This time the evil mage will be a woman, I'm sure no one did it before...

 

[almondblight]

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.

The political intrigue "interaction" in Bloodlines is being forced to do every single thing the Prince orders you to, then making one decision in the cab at the end of the game about which faction will win.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

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.

The political intrigue "interaction" in Bloodlines is being forced to do every single thing the Prince orders you to, then making one decision in the cab at the end of the game about which faction will win.

It’s rudimentary to be sure, given it’s a 2004 CRPG, but has anyone surpassed it other than BG3?

 

[TheDarkUrge]

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.

The political intrigue "interaction" in Bloodlines is being forced to do every single thing the Prince orders you to, then making one decision in the cab at the end of the game about which faction will win.

It’s rudimentary to be sure, given it’s a 2004 CRPG, but has anyone surpassed it other than BG3?

Age of Decadence had some really good political stuff. It's been a while but I think the Merchant Guild path was entirely political manipulation.

 

[Skinwalker]

RPG developers aren't well-read in anything other than critical race theory and queer studies, these days. The only major company with a creative vision is FromSoftware, and their settings/lore are usually just a mish-mash of concepts from occultism and classical mythology that are just vague enough to fool midwits into thinking they make sense.

 

[Bad Sector]

But that's beside the point because the character description specifically stated that women are the "main" hunters. That is what I do not find believable. Sending the childbearing population out to hunt big game.

Well, the part i found counterintuitive was the reasoning that it was because they were the "childbearing population" that they wouldn't be sent (which is why i wrote the program to confirm my hypothesis that it wouldn't actually matter), however what would make sense from a practical perspective when taking the entire population / society / tribe into account and what would actually happen based on societal norms of said population / society / tribe do not have to match. A good example is in the case about the Chinese population you linked: from the perspective of the entire society, having a highly imbalanced ratio of men and women is bad (as shown by it actually happening) and yet since their society puts a higher value to having sons than having daughters, the moment they had some control over that outcome, they ended up screwing up that balance.

Having a society with norms that work against its members' best interest is, if anything, something very believable.

Anyway, to get back to writing, I just don't find it very believable, unless a good reason is provided. The first and foremost question people will ask about world-building is "Why?" There are matters where you can get away with more vague answers, but I don't think societal organization is (generally speaking) one of those matters.

I agree about the "why", though i also think that when working with non-existent / fantasy societies, having them not be as our own societies is far more interesting than having them be "medieval england but with fairies", "vikings but with dragons" or whatever like that. Of course it should also be internally consistent, a mountain tribe that excels at seafaring would feel unbelievable unless there was a reason for that.

That said i don't like much the idea of everything having to be explained to the players in case they can't engage their imagination to fill the blanks by themselves, i'd rather have the in-world facts just be facts that the world itself accepts instead of explicitly going "oh, by the way, we are good at seafaring despite living on a mountain because <insert hopefully believable reason here>" in your face. The world being internally consistent is more important than handholding the players' imaginations as that feels patronizing, like the game going "i bet you didn't even imagine that happening, huh?".

 

[Reinhardt]

This time the evil mage will be a woman, I'm sure no one did it before...

make it black too

 

[RaggleFraggle]

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.

The political intrigue "interaction" in Bloodlines is being forced to do every single thing the Prince orders you to, then making one decision in the cab at the end of the game about which faction will win.

It’s rudimentary to be sure, given it’s a 2004 CRPG, but has anyone surpassed it other than BG3?

Age of Decadence had some really good political stuff. It's been a while but I think the Merchant Guild path was entirely political manipulation.

Never heard of it. Sounds completely uninteresting. Also, that’s it? No mention of Dragon Commander or anything else? If you guys are gonna criticize Bloodlines for being so rudimentary, then I’d expect you to be able to list (and describe) multiple examples of more refined implementation. You’re not exactly convincing me that Bloodlines shouldn’t be the baseline standard that it’s currently used for.

Rather than trying to name better implementations that either don’t exist or are not widely played, why not just describe the kind of experience you’re looking forward? That’s way more helpful imo.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

First post, long time lurker though.

I don't think it is simply the fact they are not well read in traditional fantasy and sci-fi, but that they actively despise it.

Look at The Rings of Power for example, the response to the fan backlash to race swapped elves and strong Galadriel was that Tolkien's work no longer suitable in the modern day, even to the point where LotR was described as being racist. Another example is the proposed Conan TV series where Amazon were supposed to produce a show closely based on Howard's novels. Before it could be developed they hired a female studio head who canned it as soon as she took office, due to the 'toxic masculinity' present in the scripts (closely based on the books). They than replaced it with their disgraceful adaptation of Wheel of Time.

The two examples were of TV, but the exact same type of activists have infested gaming at exec and developer level.

AGREED 1000%. Current mainstream entertainment makers are literally making Enemy propaganda. BUT! There is also beautiful, big but in this WHOLE shituation. Current situation is fertile ground for one or many 21st century BASED new Walt Disneys to blossom, become modern StoryTellers and on ashes of Old build New Empires

And tell Our Story

and who will pay for this?

Desire that's burning and growing will pay for it. Desire in people to have break-away civilization from WOKE Empire of Madness

Nothing, techically, engineering wise, in terms of programming possibilities, nothing stops modern based Devs to make modern Fallouts, Arcanums and Morrowinds. That even build on top of those ideas, and make even more alive and fun RPG worlds. COMPLETELY new. Fuck D&D. Create something NEW and as good as D&D was when it was best.

What stops this from happening?
Lack of: Decision+Vision+Organisation

Trust me, money is the least important factor, AMONG IMPORTANT FACTORS

It makes me wonder genuinely why more based games haven't emerged since 2015. By now, we should be seeing them. The audience numbers are there, like you say. Apetite exists for an escape from the omnipresent propaganda. There are no doubt plenty of devs inclined toward the counter-culture too. I can only speculate that the hostility of the culture they have to contend with, has sunk various projects we didn't even know about; bans, removal of financing, bank account cancellations, media hit pieces, etc.

 

[Iucounu]

It makes me wonder genuinely why more based games haven't emerged since 2015. By now, we should be seeing them. The audience numbers are there, like you say. Apetite exists for an escape from the omnipresent propaganda. There are no doubt plenty of devs inclined toward the counter-culture too. I can only speculate that the hostility of the culture they have to contend with, has sunk various projects we didn't even know about; bans, removal of financing, bank account cancellations, media hit pieces, etc.

One hurdle might be that based developers usually have leftist, woke or NPC collegues to deal with. Even if management is not woke, it may still make the mistake of hiring leftist staff (because these leftists are actually talented) or even woke ones (no excuses). So a based game requires a based manager, that is also able to find developers that are both talented and non-woke. At the same time they may also need to watch out for real nazi supporters to slip in (under the guise of being "anti-woke"), since these can become just as troublesome as the wokeists.

Woke companies don't have that recruitment problem; they can easily mix based and woke staff, since the former will feel they're in the minority and keep quiet about their opinions. This BTW has long been a social problem that needs to change: leftists, feminists and more recently wokeists have always been very outspoken about their political opinions, to the extent that less politically motivated individuals feel intimidated and silenced (instead of telling the extremists to STFU, like they deserve) --and it's usually not due to any real power those activists wield, just that their incessant babbling wear others down mentally, like in an abusive relationship.

 

[Reinhardt]

It makes me wonder genuinely why more based games haven't emerged since 2015. By now, we should be seeing them. The audience numbers are there, like you say. Apetite exists for an escape from the omnipresent propaganda. There are no doubt plenty of devs inclined toward the counter-culture too. I can only speculate that the hostility of the culture they have to contend with, has sunk various projects we didn't even know about; bans, removal of financing, bank account cancellations, media hit pieces, etc.

One hurdle might be that based developers usually have leftist, woke or NPC collegues to deal with. Even if management is not woke, it may still make the mistake of hiring leftist staff (because these leftists are actually talented) or even woke ones (no excuses). So a based game requires a based manager, that is also able to find developers that are both talented and non-woke. At the same time they may also need to watch out for real nazi supporters to slip in (under the guise of being "anti-woke"), since these can become just as troublesome as the wokeists.

Woke companies don't have that recruitment problem; they can easily mix based and woke staff, since the former will feel they're in the minority and keep quiet about their opinions. This BTW has long been a social problem that needs to change: leftists, feminists and more recently wokeists have always been very outspoken about their political opinions, to the extent that less politically motivated individuals feel intimidated and silenced (instead of telling the extremists to STFU, like they deserve) --and it's usually not due to any real power those activists wield, just that their incessant babbling wear others down mentally, like in an abusive relationship.

must be nice, living in 2012...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Video games suck because everyone is getting too civilized.

 

[negator2vc]

One hurdle might be that based developers usually have leftist, woke or NPC collegues to deal with. Even if management is not woke, it may still make the mistake of hiring leftist staff (because these leftists are actually talented) or even woke ones (no excuses). So a based game requires a based manager, that is also able to find developers that are both talented and non-woke. At the same time they may also need to watch out for real nazi supporters to slip in (under the guise of being "anti-woke"), since these can become just as troublesome as the wokeists.

There are ways around this like for ex. a very small core teams with amble use of freelancers for stuff the core team cannot do (like art and music for ex.).
If the core team suspect a freelance to be a modern idiot cut him lose immediately.
You can even give a freelancer something that you know it will trigger a modern idiot so you can easily test the freelancer.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I’m surprised there aren’t more indie games. I’ve tried to find some but they’re usually just chasing fads and have no motive outside that. Like, itch.io holds “game jams” where devs who otherwise have zero output suddenly decide to make something before going back to being unproductive. By contrast, I see single authors constantly self-publishing short stories and novelets on Amazon.

I understand programming is hard, but do these creators really have no desire to create anything on the cheap unless it’s for a contest or a zombified IP being whored out by an insanely desperate corpo? If I really put my mind to it, then I could probably crap out a bunch of shorts using Twine just to gauge interest in concepts. But I don’t because I’m lazy and misanthropic and already have a lot of things on my bucket list as it is. What’s your excuse?

 

[Morgoth]

All big games are production driven. Writing or passion for literature is an afterthought.

 

[Nikanuur]

When was the last time someone praised Planescape: Torment for being a great game? People are always recommending it thanks to the non-conventional context, in which rats are a high level enemy and succubi are chaste, the ultimate enemy being your own mortality, being somewhat novel in the fantasy RPG genre. They do so with the caveat that the game part of this ordeal isn't very good.

I don't know in which social bubble you live, but people who don't recommend Planescape: Torment for being a great game are either people who genuinely like different genres (and even those should respect the deed), people who don't care for too much writing but at least tried to overcome themselves, or complete wankers.
There is everything a great RPG should have, and only on top of that sits the most prized element of PS:T: a beyond-imaginative world and a plethora of witty writing.
Not mentioning things like an original depth to built-in respecing to different classes; normalized, working BGesque combat with tanks, rangeds, glass-cannons, sneak-nukes, and all of that stuff; weird places and races with gender choices that would ashame even today's USA decadent standards; and an exploration in which you can miss or discover items, quests, bits of lore—all depending on how you yourself think or pay attention.

Say something like that once more, I dare you, and I will immediately call to Alpha Centauri's headquarters of the Ninja Sorcerers's Flying Squirell Support Squad to come hit you repeatedly in the head with your own Red herrink during your sleep!

 

[Iucounu]

I’m surprised there aren’t more indie games. I’ve tried to find some but they’re usually just chasing fads and have no motive outside that. Like, itch.io holds “game jams” where devs who otherwise have zero output suddenly decide to make something before going back to being unproductive. By contrast, I see single authors constantly self-publishing short stories and novelets on Amazon.

I understand programming is hard, but do these creators really have no desire to create anything on the cheap unless it’s for a contest or a zombified IP being whored out by an insanely desperate corpo? If I really put my mind to it, then I could probably crap out a bunch of shorts using Twine just to gauge interest in concepts. But I don’t because I’m lazy and misanthropic and already have a lot of things on my bucket list as it is. What’s your excuse?

Nowadays many are attracted to game development for the wrong reasons --such as fame and money-- and not because they actually like making games. As soon as something else becomes popular they'll move to that instead, like a horde of locusts.

 

[Reinhardt]

Nowadays many are attracted to game development for the wrong reasons --such as fame and money

if you want money it's better to work literally anywhere else

 

[Iucounu]

Nowadays many are attracted to game development for the wrong reasons --such as fame and money

if you want money it's better to work literally anywhere else

Of course, but these people hope to hit the jackpot. Young musicians often have the same delusions.

 

[Reinhardt]

hit the jackpot

then fucking try something new! people rarely hit jackpot making 12325342563635th pixel art deck building survival roguelite. usually only first one do.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Creating just for selfish monetary gain? That’s so stupid and soul crushing, but it explains pretty much all of the stupid I’ve seen.

 

[Tyranicon]

Nowadays many are attracted to game development for the wrong reasons --such as fame and money

People who go into gamedev for fame and money are the lowest tier of retard. You'd be better off starting a youtube channel.

There are only three types of people who get rich and famous in this industry, and this is an iron-clad rule.

1. You are an AAA exec and everybody hates your guts.
2. You straight up scammed people and ran off with the money.
3. You are some kind of genius dev with various mental issues, developing your dream game over the course of 5-10 years, releasing it to popular acclaim and then fucking disappearing afterwards.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I agree about the "why", though i also think that when working with non-existent / fantasy societies, having them not be as our own societies is far more interesting than having them be "medieval england but with fairies", "vikings but with dragons" or whatever like that. Of course it should also be internally consistent, a mountain tribe that excels at seafaring would feel unbelievable unless there was a reason for that.

I don't mind "medieval england but with fairies" or "vikings but with dragons", but I do mind characters speaking/acting like modern day people, placed into a fantasy theme park, that is based on some infantile imagination of medieval times and vikings. I think that makes many fantasy settings feel so similar and bland.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I agree about the "why", though i also think that when working with non-existent / fantasy societies, having them not be as our own societies is far more interesting than having them be "medieval england but with fairies", "vikings but with dragons" or whatever like that. Of course it should also be internally consistent, a mountain tribe that excels at seafaring would feel unbelievable unless there was a reason for that.

I don't mind "medieval england but with fairies" or "vikings but with dragons", but I do mind characters speaking/acting like modern day people, placed into a fantasy theme park, that is based on some infantile imagination of medieval times and vikings. I think that makes many fantasy settings feel so similar and bland.

It’s almost like devs only use fantasy because it’s trendy rather than because they actually like fantasy, know anything about fantasy, have any interest in history, have any concept of immersion, or have critical thoughts in those empty zombie skulls.

Which is why I prefer modern and futuristic settings. It’s less jarring when people talk in todayspeak or whatever historical dialect this is.

 

[Iucounu]

Creating just for selfish monetary gain? That’s so stupid and soul crushing, but it explains pretty much all of the stupid I’ve seen.

Not just for selfish monetary gain, though people like that do exist. Those might be the ones that may actually have a chance at succeeding, say by coming up with manipulative loot boxes or addictive mobile games.

But in many cases I think it's more like the rockstar dream, where money is only part of the reward. For some, just being able to call themselves "game developer" might be more important than actually creating something.