Vapourware Story faggotry nuances

[PorkyThePaladin]

So typically story faggotry in RPGs is portrayed as the preference for engaging, well written stories that entertain the player with the quality of their writing, often presumably at the cost of gameplay. But I think this is a bit deceiving because it sets up a sort of false dichotomy between outstanding writing on one hand, and gameplay on the other.

I think in actuality, gameplay and writing are much more closely linked. Writing is what provides both the context and meaning to gameplay. As such, it doesn't have to be outstanding in order to be effective, it just has to pass a certain threshold of being good enough. By that, I mean that it has to take itself seriously on some level (humor is fine, but only if coupled with serious themes on some level), and provide the player with a meaningful goal and background.

Games like Gothic, System Shock 2, or Expeditions: Viking are perfect examples of this. None of them would ever be accused of having great writing, but they contain serious, logical worlds, meaningful goals, and intelligent if not overly impressive dialogue. As such, they provide the player with exactly what they need from the writing side of things, even if they could never match a P:ST.

On the other hand, games like Divinity: Original Sin or Pillars of Eternity or Dragon Age: Origins utterly fail at writing, imho. D:OS just goes all in on bad humor, and fails to take itself seriously at all, while PoE and DA:O go the overly pretentious route, and fill their dialogue with tons of needless exposition and terrible writing. In both cases, the player is faced with either a meaningless world (D:OS), forcing them to question why they are playing the game, regardless of your opinion on the rest of it, or a really boring and dull one (PoE, DA:O), causing burn-out. Another example would be something like Mount & Blade: Warband, which has a lot of good gameplay, but due to an almost complete lack of overarching writing (or equivalent procedural elements), quickly gets bogged down in meaningless gameplay by mid-game, as you are just stuck doing castle sieges over and over, without much in the way of meaning.

Thoughts?

 

[undecaf]

I always interpreted it as insisting heavyhanded storytelling and narrative worldbuilding and valuing it over gameplay; so as to say, that gameplay can be mediocre or even worse just as long as the story is... like a bag of perfume smelling cement on your shoulders.

 

[JarlFrank]

Good game writing = don't dump the player with unavoidable text diarrhea he has to scroll through, and make sure the story doesn't funnel him into a linear path.

It's an interactive medium. Make sure the player can interact with things. Your game can have the best story ever, if it's told exclusively in linear cutscenes, it sucks as a game story.

 

[vazha]

Two points.

First:

I'd like to see more classic literature inspired themes in games - Say, for example, a Macbeth or Coriolanus-esque plot set in a fantasy setting, or a journey a la Rabelais, not to mention that Anabasis is basically an already written plot & setting waiting to be made into a game. I d prefer that both to the tropes that are done to death and to its complete opposite, tryharding just for the sake of being different (Pillars comes to mind and from the looks of it, BG 3 too, although the latter is just pure turd of a writing that only a person who has not read any books whatsoever in his life would find worthwile)

Second:
Re: Mount & Blade - I have to concur with you there. And its original staleness is precisely the reason why the Prophecy of Pendor was such a roaring success and a notable improvement over the base game.

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

That's an interesting way of saying "pls no lore/exposition dumps"
In other words don't do what PoE 1/2 does. Do what G1/2 does. Just like themes/motifs elevate the story, story/writing should elevate the gameplay.

 

[Tyranicon]

Pillars of Eternity went out of their way to explain lore nobody gave a shit about.

Honestly some of the most bland worldbuilding I've ever had the "pleasure" of experiencing.

 

[octavius]

The fewer words you can use to tell the story, the better.
Brevity is the soul of wit.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

Do what G1/2 does.

What is G1/2?

 

[octavius]

Do what G1/2 does.

What is G1/2?

Gothic.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Good storyfaggotry = KOTOR 2

Bad storyfaggotry (although I like the art direction) = Torment: Tides of Numenera

I generally disagree with those who say that the best RPGs keep it short (generally in terms of Main Quest length, overall game length) and to cut down the writing etc, but the rule that you should not have walls of texts for people to read through (and wait through, if voiced) tends to be a reliable one.

Witcher 3 was a long game, but it kept its conversations short, and thus observed the rule.

 

[Takamori]

Its a matter of using several ways to communicate with your player, like you mentioned PoE and DA Origin story bomb you because it doesn't use mechanisms like quests, npc interaction, items, events and so on to tell the story, so they have to rely on the basic communication with NPC, pick option 1, 2 and 3 and here a fucking huge paragraph explaining the situation as your npc never existed in this world, everyone is aware of this fact and don't mind at all to explain to you like you are a retarded manchild.
Story bombs show how insecure is the dev about their own playerbase so they have this weird need of having to pick you by the hand, harming their own game.

 

[JarlFrank]

Pillars of Eternity went out of their way to explain lore nobody gave a shit about.

Honestly some of the most bland worldbuilding I've ever had the "pleasure" of experiencing.

"Ah hello there %Charname, let me dump 10 paragraphs of exposition on you about things you will never actually see in the game."

 

[Daemongar]

For every person - there is a storied approach that works - but my belief is that less is better. In this way, rpgs should mirror life: you can look for answers, or you can just ignore the books in the room and attack the next room full of skeletons on your way to fight the wizard. Alien, Morrowind, Star Wars - all better because they didn't explain everything. Some people somewhere may even argue the best game story of all time was Half-Life 2, and they didn't explain anything - hell, the main character doesn't even talk! But this is an RPG forum, so I'll stick to RPGs. Piranha Bytes, for all their faults, actually let their stories develop instead of jamming everything down your throat in the first 10 minutes. Elex, Risen, the Gothic games - things slowly unfold.

 

[DeepOcean]

To me is simple:

Decline storyfaggotry: "Porn movie where there is no fucking and no one even gets naked."

Incline combat faggotry:"Porn with lots of fucking, but the story is about a plumber with a bored housewife."

Perfect world: " Porn with lots of fucking and good story to make the fucking even more hot and the fucking scenes even more anticipated."

 

[Tyranicon]

Perfect world: " Porn with lots of fucking and great combat + good story to make the fucking even more hot and the fucking scenes even more anticipated."

I feel like I was summoned. Am I the resident codex porn dev? I suspect there's a few others lurking.

Also, fixed your quote to add combat.

 

[Tigranes]

What is the purpose of story in an RPG? Would be the right question to ask.

Storyfag-leaning folks likely have some sympathy to the idea that an RPG can serve as a foil for many different kinds of interesting stories, and that sometimes (not always), you can screw around with the gameplay and other elements to optimise that particular story.

Porky's description essentially rejects this view by defining an RPG story as just part of the gameplay. In this view, RPG stories are nothing to enjoy on their own merits and RPG stories don't bring anything special that other things couldn't - it's just one of the things you do to make the combat/etc flow. In which case it really doesn't matter at all what the story is, you just give people something they're used to so it doesn't grate or slow you down. It's the mountain dew next to the computer, you don't want to think too much about it or have it do something unique, it just keeps you going for the real game.

In terms of specific games, I think the second view is the right one to take most of the time if you aren't doingn something amazing with the story, no need to fuck with it and make it complicated just because. But in terms of the genre as a whole, I think that's a veyr impoverished perspective and we need the minority of games that do try to storyfag in new and interesting ways, like [Obvious Example].

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Porky's description essentially rejects this view by defining an RPG story as just part of the gameplay. In this view, RPG stories are nothing to enjoy on their own merits and RPG stories don't bring anything special that other things couldn't - it's just one of the things you do to make the combat/etc flow. In which case it really doesn't matter at all what the story is, you just give people something they're used to so it doesn't grate or slow you down.

Yes and not exactly. In my opinion, in order for the story to work as part of the game, ie to provide the necessary meaning and context for the other elements, it doesn't have to be as good as the best in the genre, but it can't be nothing special either. It has to meet a certain threshold: be serious enough about itself to matter, be written well enough in terms of dialogue and plotlines not to make the player cringe, etc. Now the higher it goes above that threshold, the better, but just reaching it is enough to make the whole thing work well.

That might not sound like a lot, but looking at all the actual RPGs, apparently reaching that threshold is not quite so easy.

 

[V_K]

For me it's not about quality or even quantity of writing but about how player motivation is managed.
And exploration- and gameplay-driven game strives to pique your curiosity. More often than not it's done through showing rather than telling - giving you a nice view of an ominous ruin, a mysterious magically sealed door, an intricate puzzle etc. - but it can be done through text as well, like hearing a rumor or reading about something in an in-game book. Point is, you don't have to engage with the story elements if you don't want to. Something like Morrowind has massive amounts of decently written text in its dialogs and books, but 95% of it is optional and the main quest can be done with about as much reading as you'd do in a playthrough of Grimrock. But you can also have something like 7 Mages or Lords of Xulima with a minimal amount of pretty bad writing, and the game will still be fun.
A story-driven game, on the other hand, tries to make you care about fictional entities and their fate. In such a game, if you skip 95% of the story, at best you just won't have any idea what you're doing and why (e.g. Dragonfall). At worst, you'll be left with a rote repetitive gameplay that's only there to pad out story bits and that quickly turns into a chore (e.g. DA2). A story-driven game thus simply can't survive having bad writing.

 

[Sweeper]

Game throws an enemy my way, I kill him. Repeat ad nauseam.
That's all the context and meaning I need. Writing has no impact on that.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

I think one of the big problems that modern CRPGs have is that writing is as much about what you don't say as it is about what you do say. That goes double for the mystery and horror genres, both mainstays in RPG questlines. Many times it's better to let players imagine what comes next or even mislead them (to a degree; e.g. give players contrasting accounts, none of which are true) than it is to spell everything out from the outset in exposition. If you tell players everything from the start they have nothing to anticipate, and it also helps skirt around ludonarrative holes, because why should "rando villiger A" know what he's talking about? Hell, why should experts know what's going on, unless they're a spymaster or merchant with their own intelligence network? Make the players work for that information, and it becomes a game within a game.

 

[Dick Flattener Pro]

Game throws an enemy my way, I kill him. Repeat ad nauseam.
That's all the context and meaning I need. Writing has no impact on that.

Yes it does. You venture into a haunted tomb, there is a curse there and if you do the wrong thing you awaken a lich and get a debuff. There you go, story has a huge impact on the enemy and if you can kill it or not.

The fewer words you can use to tell the story, the better.
Brevity is the soul of wit.

The last remaining person on Earth hears a knock on their door.

 

[Sweeper]

Yes it does. You venture into a haunted tomb, there is a curse there and if you do the wrong thing you awaken a lich and get a debuff. There you go, story has a huge impact on the enemy and if you can kill it or not.

No, the haunted tomb is inconsequential, the curse is inconsequential, the quest giver is inconsequential, if there is one. The only thing that matters is the combat and the underlying mechanics of the combat.
The story is just an excuse, for those than need one. I'm perfectly happy to just go around killing shit, getting loot, gaining exp and putting my builds in action.
In fact it's what I'm doing in NV right now. My PC is lvl 33 with 1 quest completed.

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure I'm unironically retarded

 

[Ol' Willy]

Game throws an enemy my way, I kill him. Repeat ad nauseam.
That's all the context and meaning I need. Writing has no impact on that.

Play wargames, bro, they have no story bullshit to distract you.

RPGs are forever plagued by "writing", "dialogues", "NPCs" and such.

 

[Sweeper]

Play wargames

I can smell the autism.
Unfortunately I'm not THAT autistic.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

No, the haunted tomb is inconsequential, the curse is inconsequential, the quest giver is inconsequential, if there is one. The only thing that matters is the combat and the underlying mechanics of the combat.
The story is just an excuse, for those than need one. I'm perfectly happy to just go around killing shit, getting loot, gaining exp and putting my builds in action.
In fact it's what I'm doing in NV right now. My PC is lvl 33 with 1 quest completed.

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure I'm unironically retarded

Maybe we should be telling writers and designers to make the first iteration of games tell a story solely through level and encounter design before letting them write any dialogue or lore.