Are societies represented well in RPG games?

[nikolokolus]

I wish more people knew about King of Dragon Pass. If you really want the gold standard of representation of society in a vidya, there you have it.

 

[RNGsus]

No.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

If Feminism was like Drow matriarchy then I'd definitely be about that life and ain't none of you niggaz swaying me.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Why not? The game is reaching my top game very fast as well. Almost knocking down previous ones (Grim Fandango and Planescape: Torment). Of course time will tell if it is just the "wow" effect of something new FINALLY getting to be that good or really an epic title.

I nearly quit Disco Elysium just after I started the game and was confronted by the atrocious interior monologue, accompanied by a blank screen, that occurs after character creation and prior to gaining control of the character. After two playthroughs, I can certainly point to many well-written segments of the game (with numerous screenshots as proof), but the writing is quite inconsistent and often cringeworthy, e.g. the attempts at forcing an ideological/political stance on the protagonist that are often cited as one of the clumsier aspects of the game. Moreover, Disco Elysium sacrificed gameplay on the altar of flavor text, and it seems likely that any other RPG with developers citing it as inspiration will follow the same path of a CYOA bereft of game mechanics or meaningful consequences.

 

[V_K]

Why not? The game is reaching my top game very fast as well. Almost knocking down previous ones (Grim Fandango and Planescape: Torment). Of course time will tell if it is just the "wow" effect of something new FINALLY getting to be that good or really an epic title.

I can certainly point to many well-written segments of the game (with numerous screenshots as proof)

I can't. Everything I've seen of that game's writing is very wooden, lacking flow and breath.

 

[Alex_Gamechuck]

black-screen + internal-monologue has become a trope that many rpgs do now, in one way or another...
Although imo it was done in D.E. much better than in for example Tides of Numenera where it's definitely not clear what you're doing or where, and it's just a series of infodumps where you have to decide stuff with far too little data...
It felt like you were being given a choice of options and you might as well choose randomly... Whereas in D.E. the black-screen choices are at least very clear...
I liked that same trope best back in Tyranny where you had a map instead of a black screen and actually used the internal monologue to build your recent history - which campaigns you went to and how you fared, etc.
Anyway, I always consider that black intro part as part of character creation (in Numenera I think it even precedes character creation iirc) so it doesn't bother me too much...

 

[V_K]

Numenera is an extremely low bar though. That game is like a manual on how not to write games.

 

[luj1]

Morrowind has:
- native population vs people from other provinces
- foreign Imperial ruling class usually holding positions of wealthy merchants, or serving as soldiers in the Imperial Legion
- native Dunmer politics split into several great houses which all have their own attitudes towards the Empire
- a quite well-developed religion with its own pilgrimage traditions and rites
- dissident priests who disagree with the mainstream temple
- tribal ashlanders living in their own little societies far from the cities
- farmland surrounding the major settlements, so you can see where the food comes from

Also has,

- plenty of examples of rampant corruption in society
- the dynamic of ancestral worship vs. the new faith (Tribunal) vs. Daedra worship
- different POVs to slavery, necromancy and political assassinations
- an autochthonous disease affecting everyday life
- cultural affinity in settlements (for example Orsimer presence in Gnisis)
- architecture reflecting political affinity in settlements
- Paedophiles in positions of power
- Beefs between guilds
- Beefs within guilds
- Drug mules
- Double agents
- etc.

It kind of reminds me of Dune tbh.

 

[occident]

-snip-

I was being uncharitable
games engaging in philosophy in a real way have great potential, and I wish your team the best in their endeavor

How long has it been since you read your Taleb? Three days?

checked his twitter earlier; he has pretty reasonable takes on most things

the story of the past 400 years has been class conflict

We keep improving how the lower classes live and they keep bitching about it, yes.

if you're posting on rpgcodex, it is almost guaranteed that you aren't part of the "we" that governs society
the destruction of communities, families, and religious unity through wage slavery and the illusory idea of the atomic individual in exchange for cheap flatscreen televisions, fast food, and widespread pornography should not be considered an improvement

 

[DalekFlay]

the destruction of communities, families, and religious unity through wage slavery and the illusory idea of the atomic individual in exchange for cheap flatscreen televisions, fast food, and widespread pornography should not be considered an improvement

It was way better when you worked all day, every day, at the behest of lords who treated you like cattle. Going to war over trivial arguments of the ruling class, living at the mercy of the stronger around you. Your meals all boiled shit, your entire adult life devoted to work, sleep and maybe drinking. All in the hopes of one day reaching a magical fairy tale land that doesn't exist. What a horrible alternative it is to live in an air conditioned home with plenty of food and entertainment while I waste away the hours. Oh how I wish it was 400 years ago, when the lower classes were SO much more well off.

You fucking idiot.

 

[Lilura]

No! When a developper says RPG game we can be pretty of the quality of product he will deliver, so it helps us to not waste time.

Note the love for Disco, too.

 

[JarlFrank]

the destruction of communities, families, and religious unity through wage slavery and the illusory idea of the atomic individual in exchange for cheap flatscreen televisions, fast food, and widespread pornography should not be considered an improvement

It was way better when you worked all day, every day, at the behest of lords who treated you like cattle.

Yeah bro, medieval peasants worked every single day and never had any holidays and had to give all of their produce to their oppressive lord

Oh wait

https://allthatsinteresting.com/medieval-peasants-vacation-more

Medieval peasants worked far less as they had church-mandated holidays the secular lords couldn't do anything against, farm work was mostly seasonal so during summer and winter you'd have less work to do, you got up at sunrise while today a lot of workers have to rise before the sun, and neither secular lords nor the church took as much taxes from you as the modern state does (taking 60% of income from the peasants is gonna cause a peasant uprising, while trying to take that from city dwellers is going to cause the city to declare independence).

But yeah, keep repeating the myth that modern life is sooooo much better than at any previous time in history. Wageslaving and paying massive amounts of money for rent and giving half your money to the state as taxes is truly the best way to live!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the destruction of communities, families, and religious unity through wage slavery and the illusory idea of the atomic individual in exchange for cheap flatscreen televisions, fast food, and widespread pornography should not be considered an improvement

It was way better when you worked all day, every day, at the behest of lords who treated you like cattle.

Yeah bro, medieval peasants worked every single day and never had any holidays and had to give all of their produce to their oppressive lord

Oh wait

https://allthatsinteresting.com/medieval-peasants-vacation-more

Medieval peasants worked far less as they had church-mandated holidays the secular lords couldn't do anything against, farm work was mostly seasonal so during summer and winter you'd have less work to do, you got up at sunrise while today a lot of workers have to rise before the sun, and neither secular lords nor the church took as much taxes from you as the modern state does (taking 60% of income from the peasants is gonna cause a peasant uprising, while trying to take that from city dwellers is going to cause the city to declare independence).

But yeah, keep repeating the myth that modern life is sooooo much better than at any previous time in history. Wageslaving and paying massive amounts of money for rent and giving half your money to the state as taxes is truly the best way to live!

Yeah, they worked less if you only count the time they worked on their liege's fields.
That's like saying you could work less if you only worked enough to pay for your rent and absolutely nothing else.

 

[JarlFrank]

Did you even read the article I linked

People today work more, get less holidays, and pay a higher cut of their income to various institutions (rent, taxes, insurance, etc)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Did you even read the article I linked

People today work more, get less holidays, and pay a higher cut of their income to various institutions (rent, taxes, insurance, etc)

But this isn't true.
"Time off" meant they went home and worked their own land. That is, assuming we're referring to churls and not villeins, the latter of which were little more than slaves.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah but

Schor references the writings of James Pilkington, a 16th-century bishop, in which he describes the average working day of the “labouring man” as starting with a “long rest in the morning; a good piece of the day is spent afore he come at his work; then he must have his breakfast…when the clock smitheth, he will cast down his burden in the midway…At noon he must have his sleeping time…and when his hour cometh at night…he casteth down his tools, leaveth his work, in what need or case soever the work standeth.”

Also, farm work was inherently seasonal so you had less work during summer and winter than you did during sowing and harvesting season.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

An important piece of evidence on the working day is that it was very unusual for servile laborers to be required to work a whole day for a lord. One day's work was considered half a day, and if a serf worked an entire day, this was counted as two "days-works."[2] Detailed accounts of artisans' workdays are available. Knoop and jones' figures for the fourteenth century work out to a yearly average of 9 hours (exclusive of meals and breaktimes)[3]. Brown, Colwin and Taylor's figures for masons suggest an average workday of 8.6 hours[4].

The peasant's free time extended beyond officially sanctioned holidays. There is considerable evidence of what economists call the backward-bending supply curve of labor -- the idea that when wages rise, workers supply less labor. During one period of unusually high wages (the late fourteenth century), many laborers refused to work "by the year or the half year or by any of the usual terms but only by the day." And they worked only as many days as were necessary to earn their customary income -- which in this case amounted to about 120 days a year, for a probable total of only 1,440 hours annually (this estimate assumes a 12-hour day because the days worked were probably during spring, summer and fall). A thirteenth-century estime finds that whole peasant families did not put in more than 150 days per year on their land. Manorial records from fourteenth-century England indicate an extremely short working year -- 175 days -- for servile laborers. Later evidence for farmer-miners, a group with control over their worktime, indicates they worked only 180 days a year.

 

[felipepepe]

People already mentioned Morrowind as a complex living world and King of Dragon Pass for its "tribe" representation, but I love how Arcanum utilizes the class AND race/culture conflicts, I think it's the best example of creating a fictional society and then using human history to predict the conflicts this fictional world would have.

You have direct equivalents, such as the rising bourgeoisie destroying monarchies, as well as extremely interesting extrapolations, such as the ethics of "employing" undead workers. Not to mention details like how half-orcs have to dress well and basically beg other NPCs to be treated fairly. It has some dumb stuff too, and it doesn't go as far as it could, but it's still an amazing example of a game that understood its societies and the conflicts that they have.

It's also a very rare example of a world that's changing, not because of ANCIENT EVIL or DAH PROPHECY, but because of an industrial revolution and all that it brings. Most RPG worlds are extremely stale and dull, with tons of ancient lore but nothing ongoing.

 

[JarlFrank]

Arcanum is also woke on the jewish gnomish world conspiracy.

 

[felipepepe]

The gnome conspiracy is one of the best quests in video game history, and can only work in a complex world like Arcanum's.

Try thinking of a conspiracy in Skyrim - it's fucking impossible, because every faction is a 1-dimensional plot device that exists in a vacuum. It's revolting that they wrote shit like a goddamn mage college that's in the poorest region of Skyrim and gets to remain neutral during a civil war. You can't make a good conspiracy when your world doesn't follow any logical principle.

 

[JarlFrank]

My favorite Arcanum quest is the one where you can help with the orcish labor strike by either supporting the half-orc Donn Throgg, or killing him to prevent a labor union from forming.
Also little details like wizards not being allowed to ride trains because their magical aura might interfere with the workings of the machine.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Planescape is not a really good example of a game showing how a society works. We have some glimpse, but it is certainly not as detailled as the already mentionned Arcanum & Morrowind. Or Skyrim, though the society is not really original nor fleshed out, there is still something.

Societies directly inspired from Medieval societies have an easier time creating something that makes sense : Kingdom Comes obviously, Witcher yes but not as well as other. I found Ultima 6 and Ultima 7 impressive in that regard. Darklands, too.

Gothic I has it as well, though of course it shows how a penal colony would organise. Gothic II loses a bit of that if I remember correctly. As we all know, there are sadly no other Gothic game so we will never know what a Gothic III or a Gothic IV would have been.

For more original games, the later Spiderweb games are solid in this regards, Nethergate for instance.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The gnome conspiracy is one of the best quests in video game history, and can only work in a complex world like Arcanum's.

Try thinking of a conspiracy in Skyrim - it's fucking impossible, because every faction is a 1-dimensional plot device that exists in a vacuum. It's revolting that they wrote shit like a goddamn mage college that's in the poorest region of Skyrim and gets to remain neutral during a civil war. You can't make a good conspiracy when your world doesn't follow any logical principle.

Surface-level TES lore exists for people who don't care about stories in games.
Look up things like the Rorikstead conspiracy where it's heavily implied the town is either trapped in a time bubble or are a cult of daedra worshipers. Michael Kirkbride has essentially confirmed this was intended.

 

[felipepepe]

My favorite Arcanum quest is the one where you can help with the orcish labor strike by either supporting the half-orc Donn Throgg, or killing him to prevent a labor union from forming.

You can actually incite him to revolt. If you help him kill the police outside, the orcs take over the city, replace the guards and kill EVERY non-orc NPC in town. it's really amazing.

The gnome conspiracy is one of the best quests in video game history, and can only work in a complex world like Arcanum's.

Try thinking of a conspiracy in Skyrim - it's fucking impossible, because every faction is a 1-dimensional plot device that exists in a vacuum. It's revolting that they wrote shit like a goddamn mage college that's in the poorest region of Skyrim and gets to remain neutral during a civil war. You can't make a good conspiracy when your world doesn't follow any logical principle.

Surface-level TES lore exists for people who don't care about stories in games.
Look up things like the Rorikstead conspiracy where it's heavily implied the town is either trapped in a time bubble or are a cult of daedra worshipers. Michael Kirkbride has essentially confirmed this was intended.

You are clearly completely missing the point. That's just some random magical shit, it has no connection whatsoever to the world's society or economics. In Skyrim nothing matters, you could just as well say the village residents are all secretly Dwemer wearing human skin, the world would be exactly the same.

Meanwhile, the gnome conspiracy not only explains the origin of one of the game's races, it also provides details to how the monarquies were destroyed by a "weaker" race, something that impacts the entire world. That's the difference between real world-building and pointless lore.

 

[octavius]

Yeah bro, medieval peasants worked every single day and never had any holidays and had to give all of their produce to their oppressive lord

Oh wait

https://allthatsinteresting.com/medieval-peasants-vacation-more

Yeah, but just how revolting were they? That's what I wanna know.

 

[JarlFrank]

The only TES game that does lore right (and has it reflected by the actual world you're shown in-game) is Morrowind.

As far as I'm concerned, post-Morrowind TES lore is bad fanfiction that isn't canon.