Top Hat
Scholar
- Joined
- May 24, 2006
- Messages
- 476
There are a lot of role-playing games which have rather weak/boring/predictable/crap storyline beginnings. And the sad thing is, it wouldn't have taken much to improve them. I'm not talking about changes which are too big (like scrapping the entire story), but making some small changes. Getting the tone right for the opening generally puts me in a better mood for the rest of the story.
For instance, in Neverwinter Nights a plague breaks out in Chapter One. As far as I'm aware, your character doesn't get infected by it, or is affected by it in any way at all. Neither are any of the major characters.
I think it would have been much better had their been some way for various important characters to get infected - in particular, the player's character. This would have quickened the pace of the story. You'd have to judge the wisdom of trawling for phat lewt and doing side quests with the potential for seriously fucking up the storyline with main characters dying. And having your own character affected by the disease meant that you'd have to haul ass before you became too weak to do anything.
Another obvious candidate is Oblivion. Instead of having the emperor get killed in front of you, why not have him escape and go to that hidden outpost at Bruma. He tells you to go look for his heir, and then you go to Kvatch blah blah blah. Except the person you find there isn't actually Martin, it's some magic hoo-haw trick. You lead him back to the emperor, and zomg EMPEROR GOES DOWN. Now you've got to figure out what happened to the real Martin.
What other/different small changes would make RPGs better?
For instance, in Neverwinter Nights a plague breaks out in Chapter One. As far as I'm aware, your character doesn't get infected by it, or is affected by it in any way at all. Neither are any of the major characters.
I think it would have been much better had their been some way for various important characters to get infected - in particular, the player's character. This would have quickened the pace of the story. You'd have to judge the wisdom of trawling for phat lewt and doing side quests with the potential for seriously fucking up the storyline with main characters dying. And having your own character affected by the disease meant that you'd have to haul ass before you became too weak to do anything.
Another obvious candidate is Oblivion. Instead of having the emperor get killed in front of you, why not have him escape and go to that hidden outpost at Bruma. He tells you to go look for his heir, and then you go to Kvatch blah blah blah. Except the person you find there isn't actually Martin, it's some magic hoo-haw trick. You lead him back to the emperor, and zomg EMPEROR GOES DOWN. Now you've got to figure out what happened to the real Martin.
What other/different small changes would make RPGs better?