Torment I just finished Planescape: Torment and...

[Cael]

The writing in Planescape is great because it's pulp. Games have a better chance of achieving greatness and significance by emulating Robert E Howard or Edgar Rice Burroughs than they do by aspiring to, I dunno, Fitzgerald or Joyce.

Really tho, the solution is less writing. RPGs would be better off copying the word count in something like Ultima V than obsessing over complex dialogue trees and "deep resonant themes." Dialogue isn't the end all be all. It should be balanced and work in concert with all the other parts of a game. A game is never gonna be great literature. Cause it's a game, not a book.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”

RPGs should maybe aim for simpler and better.

This is extremely true. In Ultima, you don't talk through your actions. You just did it and the world reacts accordingly (generally via karma meter or instantly spawning guards). In modern RPGs, you get to choose Good/Evil options in a dialogue and gain alignment points that way. What the hell?

That is something that the modern RPG lost, and I don't think people even realise it. They talk about decline and crap like that (with referrence to story, not game UI or the like), but have they really defined it? I don't think so, because I think they don't even know what is missing. They just know something isn't there.

Honestly, just take a look at the word count of Ultima 6, Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld and Worlds of Ultima. Compare that with TTON, PoE, etc. Ultima works. The rest doesn't. Why?

 

[Darth Roxor]

neither of which I published because (1) I love DR too much to argue with him

no homo

 

[ScrotumBroth]

ScrotumBroth "mention The Witcher" -- It's the only game on the list I haven't actually played through; I included it based on second-hand reports of its excellence, though I meant the series, not the particular title. "the new, young, game industry inexperienced writer who wrote the Bloody Baron quest line" A quick Google brings up this Kotaku article. That one of the writers drew on his personal experiences is obviously a plus (the same as in PS:T). That the two writers had this level of freedom is probably in part because this was a side quest(?) in an expansion, made by a fabulously wealthy company in a country with relatively low costs of labor (and thus the ability to make RPG writing an economically proposition).

It's actually the first main node of the main storyline, in the vanilla game. Are you saying that Numanuma writers did not have the freedom to add personal touches to their writing, and thus make it more real and organic? Or is it simply tied to a lack of time (which again is hard to fathom considering the time game had)? In either case, CDPR had the money in a country with low wages, but is that then the magic recipe for the quest design and writing team's major success, considering they also had the same hurdle of inexperience and lack of guidelines?

P.S. Incidentally, Witcher 3 expansions are considered vastly superior to vanilla in terms of storytelling, but I don't know if we can simply deduct that's because of money power. NWN and New Vegas also had highly recognized expansions and consensus seems to be it's because all the tools and world setting are already there, you can just focus on the story.

 

[Fairfax]

Disagree 100%. In P&P, you don't need to structure dialogues (in fact, you seldom have "dialogues" proper) or even quests; you just need some high-level general concepts. I'd say it helps for area design a lot, but not for writing. That said, DMing may serve as a decent proxy for "willing to work on cRPGs," "verbally talented," and "creative." But I don't think it makes you a better writer or dialogue-structurer. That's what I mean when I'm talking about writing, though it's not the only part of RPG storytelling (and maybe not the most important part).

In some ways, the best thing from P&P might be learning how to efficiently set a scene because players won't put up with long-windedness.

You don't have to structure dialogues and quests as in a CRPG, but you have to prepare for the general directions the party might want to pursue. In other words, a (good) DM prepares for X invisible nodes, but must be open to new ones. Players will often come up with unexpected solutions, and then the DM will try to adapt things accordingly, which is also a valuable exercise. The sensibility acquired through this experience shaped the narrative and quest design in most of the classics you mentioned (haven't played all of them), with Fallout and PS:T being the most explicit examples.

 

[Zer0wing]

Not about it being overrated (that's completely subjective), but about the game being even better if the combat was on the same level as the writing. The combat in PS:T is boring as fuck.

The combat encounters are boring, often filled with trash mobs. The system as far as AD&D itself goes is alright.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Actually, Sigourn hit the nail on the head.

Not about it being overrated (that's completely subjective), but about the game being even better if the combat was on the same level as the writing. The combat in PS:T is boring as fuck.

Planescape: Torment was encumbered by running on Bioware's execrable Infinity Engine, due to which it inescapably had lousy combat and lousy exploration. Fortunately, it was saved by a young, aspiring writer pouring his heart and soul into the project, and having an unprecedented level of control over the game design so that it complemented the writing, resulting in a game that is justifiably lauded for its artistic accomplishments even though it failed in its ludic elements. Unfortunately, many of those who are understandably impressed by PS:T as a work of literature have interpreted this as an indication that all CRPGs should aim for a literary style. CRPGs shouldn't seek to imitate literature any more than film, television, radio, opera, or any other media; doing so only detracts from the strengths of CRPGs, which deserve writing that serves their gameplay.

 

[Cael]

Disagree 100%. In P&P, you don't need to structure dialogues (in fact, you seldom have "dialogues" proper) or even quests; you just need some high-level general concepts. I'd say it helps for area design a lot, but not for writing. That said, DMing may serve as a decent proxy for "willing to work on cRPGs," "verbally talented," and "creative." But I don't think it makes you a better writer or dialogue-structurer. That's what I mean when I'm talking about writing, though it's not the only part of RPG storytelling (and maybe not the most important part).

In some ways, the best thing from P&P might be learning how to efficiently set a scene because players won't put up with long-windedness.

You don't have to structure dialogues and quests as in a CRPG, but you have to prepare for the general directions the party might want to pursue. In other words, a (good) DM prepares for X invisible nodes, but must be open to new ones. Players will often come up with unexpected solutions, and then the DM will try to adapt things accordingly, which is also a valuable exercise. The sensibility acquired through this experience shaped the narrative and quest design in most of the classics you mentioned (haven't played all of them), with Fallout and PS:T being the most explicit examples.

A good DM will have on hand a few spare dungeons of several types that he can use as a fast filler if the players go in unexpected directions.

A great DM will have the dungeons he wants the players to visit and insert them into the narrative as the players go in unexpected directions.

 

[Martyr]

You just sat on that for a couple of years and now you’re burying it on the online equivalent of The Glow? I’m having a real tears in the rain moment here.

since there are no buttons and I can't rate it I just have to express my admiration for this rather poetic post (2 references that actually make sense in 2 sentences) in a post myself.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Disagree 100%. In P&P, you don't need to structure dialogues (in fact, you seldom have "dialogues" proper) or even quests; you just need some high-level general concepts. I'd say it helps for area design a lot, but not for writing. That said, DMing may serve as a decent proxy for "willing to work on cRPGs," "verbally talented," and "creative." But I don't think it makes you a better writer or dialogue-structurer. That's what I mean when I'm talking about writing, though it's not the only part of RPG storytelling (and maybe not the most important part).

In some ways, the best thing from P&P might be learning how to efficiently set a scene because players won't put up with long-windedness.

Yeah, this was the bit that really threw me: “In legal writing or in fiction writing or even in adventure game writing, most of my initial drafting happens while I'm in a kind of manic fugue state, and then I come down to do revisions and polishing. With Torment, the nature of structuring the dialogue meant that the writing was chunked into nodes and each node required a deliberative act. The fugue state was impossible. Every labored step was a conscious and conscientious act of discomfort.”

So the process of writing branching dialogue/merecaster CYOAs extinguishes the very manic inspiration that makes it easy/enjoyable to write anything? This explains a lot. I never really thought about how extreme the difference must be between writing a dozen different versions of the same conversation and an equal number of words in a linear narrative, but it makes sense that it would dramatically increase the drudgery quotient. Just reading your description was painful.

This actually reminds me of (non-long form) journalism even more than the inability to make revisions. As soon as you get in the groove, it’s onto the next piece, your flow is interrupted and you’re agonizingly back to square one.

 

[JDR13]

Actually, Sigourn hit the nail on the head.

Not about it being overrated (that's completely subjective), but about the game being even better if the combat was on the same level as the writing. The combat in PS:T is boring as fuck.

Planescape: Torment was encumbered by running on Bioware's execrable Infinity Engine, due to which it inescapably had lousy combat and lousy exploration. Fortunately, it was saved by a young, aspiring writer pouring his heart and soul into the project, and having an unprecedented level of control over the game design so that it complemented the writing, resulting in a game that is justifiably lauded for its artistic accomplishments even though it failed in its ludic elements. Unfortunately, many of those who are understandably impressed by PS:T as a work of literature have interpreted this as an indication that all CRPGs should aim for a literary style. CRPGs shouldn't seek to imitate literature any more than film, television, radio, opera, or any other media; doing so only detracts from the strengths of CRPGs, which deserve writing that serves their gameplay.

 

[Sigourn]

The combat encounters are boring, often filled with trash mobs. The system as far as AD&D itself goes is alright.

But how? Unlike Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, nothing stops the player from spamming healing items in the inventory. We also have to add how goddamn awful the interface is when conveying battle information to the player (who the hell thought flying pop-ups that vanished was a good idea?). Between those two things I have seriously turned off from the game's combat. BeamDog must have thought the same regarding the latter because the Enhanced Edition adds a proper combat log.

To be honest, I don't mean to say the game's writing is overrated. It manages to be both wordy yet interesting, something no cRPG after it has managed (that I know of). But I don't think writing alone can elevate PS:T to "greatest of all time" status as the Codex voted it. That place belongs to Fallout, jack of all trades and master of many, exceptions being the combat which at least is far more fun to me than PS:T's broken, uninspired mess, as well as its companions (which were an afterthought). Everything else I thought was really well done in Fallout.

 

[Roguey]

The main thing all the classics have in common is that they have a good answer to that question more often than not.

I didn't care at all about finding out about TNO's past and only went through it because the content was there.

Planescape: Torment was encumbered by running on Bioware's execrable Infinity Engine, due to which it inescapably had lousy combat and lousy exploration.

Name a better engine from the same time period. Chris is pretty adamant that Torment would have never happened without the IE (considering Black Isle's numerous failed attempts to make and work with other engines).

 

[Cael]

The main thing all the classics have in common is that they have a good answer to that question more often than not.

I didn't care at all about finding out about TNO's past and only went through it because the content was there.

Planescape: Torment was encumbered by running on Bioware's execrable Infinity Engine, due to which it inescapably had lousy combat and lousy exploration.

Name a better engine from the same time period. Chris is pretty adamant that Torment would have never happened without the IE (considering Black Isle's numerous failed attempts to make and work with other engines).

Maybe the Ultima 7 one? It has a clunky memory management, but was otherwise not too bad.

 

[Roguey]

Maybe the Ultima 7 one? It has a clunky memory management, but was otherwise not too bad.

A DOS-only engine from 1992 would have been considered outdated by 1999. Origin stopped bothering with it after 1993.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Ultima 7? You mean that game with one of the worst inventory management systems ever put into an RPG? Combined with one of the worst combat systems ever put into an RPG?

 

[Maculo]

I am not sure what you standards of 'literature' are since you are just making declarative statements a la 'I think X is much better than Y!' (which is fine in this kind of discussion, I don't expect an actual comparative analysis) but if you simply go by reputation as in 'taken seriously by the literary establishement' then Tolkien and LeGuin are up there, Dick and Gibson are up there, and the others you mentioned aren't. (And MCA isn't up there with them, nor should he be, sorry.)

I'm too old for tl;dr essays, so I'll just go with a quick, shitty subjective.

Good low-brow genre fiction is good, clean, entertaining fun. There's nothing much to it beyond excitement, adventure, maybe a bit of titillation. Classic fantasy example: Conan the Barbarian. (I fucking love Conan the Barbarian, I don't know how many times I've read my Omnibus.)

Good literature goes beyond its ostensible subject matter, and artfully evokes something that is universally human, in a way that has the capacity to awake new thoughts, move, or even change the reader as a human being. Classic example: Crime and Punishment.

So my opinion on whether a book falls under the low-brow genre fiction or actual literature side of the fence is contingent on my opinion on its capability to speak of something outside the bounds of its genre. This is necessarily fuzzy and subjective, since no work of fiction is /completely/ devoid of universal human concerns, otherwise nobody would bother reading it.

Off the top of my head, some sci-fi/fantasy works (books, films, games etc) that by this criterion, in my view fall squarely on the "literature" side of the fence:
- Wolfe, Gene: Book of the New Sun
- Le Guin, Ursula K: Earthsea trilogy
- Avellone, MC: Planescape: Torment
- Scott, Ridley: Blade Runner
- Sturgeon, Theodore: More than Human
- Duncan, Hal: Vellum
- Kubrick, S: A Clockwork Orange

Some sci-fi/fantasy works that straddle the fence:
- Tolkien, J.R.R.: Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion
- Scott Card, Orson: Ender's Game
- Heinlein, Robert: Citizen of the Galaxy
- Kubrick, S: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Some sci-fi/fantasy works that are good low-brow genre fiction:
- Howard, Robert E: Conan the Barbarian stories
- Leiber, Fritz: the Swords cycle
- Moorcock, Michael: the Eternal Champion cycle
- Lovecraft, H.P.: At the Mountains of Madness, The Colour Out Of Space and a bunch of others
- Reynolds, Alastair: pretty much everything
- Miéville, China: pretty much everything
- Banks, Iain M: pretty much everything
- Lucas, Robert: Star Wars (IV-VI)
- Erikson, Steven: The Malazan series
- Corey, James S.A.: The Expanse series
- Asimov, Isaac: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation

Some famous and highly-regarded sci-fi/fantasy authors that are garbage even work as escapist fiction, mostly going to show how low the standards of the genre are:
- Vance, Jack (everything, he just can't write for shit and his ideas are dumb as well)
- Asimov, Isaac (everything other than the original Foundation trilogy)
- Clarke, Arthur C (everything except 2001: A Space Odyssey where he had a good collaborator)
- Leckie, Ann (everything)
- (jesus this would be a long list, most sci-fi/fantasy is utter rubbish)

---> I think Raymond Chandler pointed out that the average detective story isn't actually any worse than the average novel, the difference being that the average novel never gets published. This is true for all genre fiction.

Your list put into perspective just how little I have read.

Have you heard/read the Wheel of Time? I have started the grind, but once I finish it (or get sick of it), Earthsea is next.

 

[hivemind]

Your list put into perspective just how little I have read.

Have you heard/read the Wheel of Time? I have started the grind, but once I finish it (or get sick of it), Earthsea is next.

please, don't do that to yourself

read the Quran, the Bible, or State and Revolution instead

 

[Maculo]

I must rate, but I have no buttons.

 

[Astral Rag]

How did you finish it with 88 hours of playtime...? I finished it in 25 including the uninstall.exe part that followed.

Dunno, I took my time but also recorded it i.e. reading everything aloud.

 

[Prime Junta]

Have you heard/read the Wheel of Time?

I have heard of it, yes.

 

[Lyric Suite]

MRY

We could probably go on forever with this argument, but allow me to make two simple observations here.

To me, there's two dimensions to art. One, the objective quality of the content, which gives a sort of "practical" purpose to art, in that art then becomes a mean for personal and intellectual growth.

And then, there's the raw "experience" of art, the aesthetic quality, where art is enjoyed for its own sake, regardless of the content, so to speak.

Now, for me, the issue is that the pleasure and joy we derive from art is tied to the intensity of our experience of it. I'm taking this argument to a different direction here but i think this is related to the issue because our experiences are at their greatest from the time we seemed to know the least, namely, when we were children.

This is something that has been bothering me for a long time, ever since i became an adult in fact. The things we love most are the things we experienced when we were young. Not to say to say we were completely oblivious to questions of quality even when we were kid, but this problem seems to introduce an element of relativity in art, since the reason we love something is due to what seems to be nothing more than a mere accident.

So what is quality then? My adult brain tells me that Baldur's Gate wasn't as great as i remember it. The writing was sort of pedestrian, the gameplay wasn't all that and all in all we are talking about a glorified toy, since this is what video games are if one wants to be honest. Yet, i can't help being inundated by waves of nostalgia when i see the game. Just the sound effects alone give me a type of pleasure that shouldn't be there. There's something wrong in this, some illegitimate, because it brings into question the validity of art, and the seriousness we attach to it, for if what is great is what gives us the greatest pleasure, and if what gives us the greatest pleasure is only what we were fortuitous enough to experience as children, what's the point then?

It is to escape this dilemma that i am repudiating any notion of art being enjoyed for its own sake and i'm focusing only on whatever it is in art that transcends our experiences and which is objective, universal and eternal, and that something can only be found in the classics. There's a "timelessness" in certain works of art that cannot be found in artistic productions that are tied entirely and purely to a particular "experience" which in itself is tied to a specific time and place. By the time we are dead, the memory of something like Torment will be lost forever.

And don't misunderstand me here, because i am somewhat reluctant to abandon those personal experiences, which, despite being subjective are among the few treasures some of us possess, but the ephemeral nature of those experiences is a problem, and the lack of objective content makes me wonder whether the normal thing to do would be to "put away childish things", except replace them with what? Maybe that's the issue with modern culture, the real reason people are so attached to infantile things. Because the things that could give us meaning in our adult life have been removed from us, so that our adult life becomes a kind of battle where we strive to extend our childhood in the midst of the dry existence our adult duties impose on us.

 

[Prime Junta]

The things we love most are the things we experienced when we were young.

Speak for yourself. I've outgrown a lot of stuff.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Shut up, you are ruining my beautiful argument.

Truth is, so have i, but i've outgrown them in the sense i went for art that is great owning to its objective quality and not because of anything pertaining to a subjective experience of any kind. This is why i have become such a snob.

 

[Elex]

Hold onto your hats folks... I'm going to recommend Hordes of the Underdark.

Now just wait a moment. I'm not recommending it for scope of choices, though it does have a few. I'm not recommending it for sparkling companions, though it, again, has a few. What I'm recommending is a game which goes that little bit further with regards to the nature of life and providing a vast array of unusual and inventive characters throughout your journey. There are many aspects of the game which resemble PS:T in spirit, though obviously through a NWN combat lens.

The problem with me putting forward to strong a case for the similarities is that by doing so I would be spoilering too much content & I really could talk about an awful lot scenes in HotU. And the parts which draw the most similarities to PS:T increase in quantity the further you go into the game, with the opening dungeon being the most generic, so you have to be able to get to it.

I'll give you one good similarity for starters. In PS:T one of the 'novel and eyebrow raising' moments was realising that there's no death. Death itself had been transformed into a game mechanic. Likewise, in HotU, probably taking inspiration from PS:T, you also do not die. Instead, when you die you are transported to Death's residence, a portal between planes and you buy your resurrection with Rogue Stones (so death is technically limited, but experiencing death is also part of the experience of the game).

As others have said, no game will be another PS:T for pure PS:Tness, but HotU is one of the games out there that can give you some nice tasters of that line of inspiration. Some parts are very nice tasters indeed.

you basically mean "they are D&D playing with a powerfull character done right".
we can put mask also in.

generally low levels are the best experience in rpg, but certain gems manage to show how great can be a proper "epic power level" experience in a fantasy world.

 

[ArchAngel]

Hold onto your hats folks... I'm going to recommend Hordes of the Underdark.

Now just wait a moment. I'm not recommending it for scope of choices, though it does have a few. I'm not recommending it for sparkling companions, though it, again, has a few. What I'm recommending is a game which goes that little bit further with regards to the nature of life and providing a vast array of unusual and inventive characters throughout your journey. There are many aspects of the game which resemble PS:T in spirit, though obviously through a NWN combat lens.

The problem with me putting forward to strong a case for the similarities is that by doing so I would be spoilering too much content & I really could talk about an awful lot scenes in HotU. And the parts which draw the most similarities to PS:T increase in quantity the further you go into the game, with the opening dungeon being the most generic, so you have to be able to get to it.

I'll give you one good similarity for starters. In PS:T one of the 'novel and eyebrow raising' moments was realising that there's no death. Death itself had been transformed into a game mechanic. Likewise, in HotU, probably taking inspiration from PS:T, you also do not die. Instead, when you die you are transported to Death's residence, a portal between planes and you buy your resurrection with Rogue Stones (so death is technically limited, but experiencing death is also part of the experience of the game).

As others have said, no game will be another PS:T for pure PS:Tness, but HotU is one of the games out there that can give you some nice tasters of that line of inspiration. Some parts are very nice tasters indeed.

you basically mean "they are D&D playing with a powerfull character done right".
we can put mask also in.

generally low levels are the best experience in rpg, but certain gems manage to show how great can be a proper "epic power level" experience in a fantasy world.

Yes! BG2 ToB, playing a sorcerer with Robe of Vecna