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Decline Is there such a thing as narrative bloat?

Kruyurk

Kruyurk

Learned
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
486
When I was a kid reading comics, I avoided reading the bubbles and only looked at the drawings. But I could still understand the story that way. Some villain looking guys pursuing Tintin, I get it, no need for Tintin to tell me that "Oh my poor Milou we are in trouble". Of course I could not get the more subtle elements of the story, like the motivation of the villains, is Tintin really gay and so on, but who cares. Comics taught me to avoid the bloat.

It is the same with RPGs. If you skip the monologue of the village elder telling you how dire these times are, you will still know what to do when you meet the evil looking people. Of course you will not get to know about their personnal spychology and traumas that led them to this path, but they are just the fantasy version of the Tintin baddies anyway, scum all of them.

Tintin RPG when?
 
Not.AI

Not.AI

Learned
Joined
Dec 21, 2019
Messages
318
Actually comics do a pretty good job of visual storytelling, something paradoxically most games still do poorly.

1. You see a pizza. When you walk towards the pizza. A guy comes in and in a 5 minute cinematic tells you: (a) his name is Stan (b) the life story of his parents and grandparents, (c) fact: this is a pizza. Then he eats the pizza. He then duly tells you that he just ate something and it was a pizza and specifically this pizza. Then the cinematic ends. You get a popup in your journal. Popup tells you you saw a pizza. It further tells you Stan ate the pizza. Also that you are sure he ate it because you saw him eat it. It goes on to describes Stan, his grandfather David, his grandmother Muriel, Lady Sarah (his aunt), Chichi (mother), Carl (father), Barry (brother). Quest log updates. It explains that somebody named Patrick ordered a pizza yesterday but had to leave urgently because he dropped his phone and had to buy a new one urgently and left the pizza. Then you came and then Stan showed up and ate the pizza.

2. You never meet Stan again nor do you meet any of the other people mentioned. The quest that updated was not even about pizza at all.

Comics don't do that at least.

Some comics anyway. In other comics, The Joker is now pregnant apparently.
 
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