Vapourware Story faggotry nuances

[Sweeper]

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.

The only thing I'm reading is numbers and feat descriptions, the writers and designers can do whatever the fuck they want, cause I'll skip whatever they come up with.

 

[samuraigaiden]

The story of the game should always be the story of your gameplay choices, the lucky or crappy results you got from RNG, the dumb mistakes you made and had to live with, the warrior that died in the first trip to the dungeon and the other one that survived all the way to the end, etc. Good C&C is "do I cast my last spell now or do I save it for later?".

 

[octavius]

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.

I see Fredric Brown's short-short has been revised for a modern audience. Or was it from memory?

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I don't get the "gameplay only" contingent here. I mean I love good gameplay, but good/decent writing adds to that an entire separate element to enjoy, but also, in addition to that, as I already mentioned, it provides the context and meaning for the rest of gameplay. To the people in this thread who say "oh, I just want to kill the next enemy, etc", don't you get bored by that after a while, without any kind of point to it? I always start feeling bored in games like Diablo or ToEE or even Dark Souls (though I like the latter) after a while, just because the ratio of story/writing to combat/gameplay is so low.

 

[Citizen]

Focusing on cutscenes, narration and long expository dialogues in videogames is the same as focusing on narration and expository dialogues in cinema: don't fucking do it, it's not a book

Just how the "show, don't tell" rule applies to movies, "let me fucking play, don't show another cutscene/dialogue" should apply to videogames

 

[Verylittlefishes]

imagine not being able to recognize how important the writing is in 2021

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

Imagine thinking enormous, overly verbose dumps of exposition can be excused in any medium in 2021.

 

[Sweeper]

To the people in this thread who say "oh, I just want to kill the next enemy, etc", don't you get bored by that after a while, without any kind of point to it?

I've played Diablo clones enough to know that the answer to that is a resounding no.
And it's not just about killing the enemy, it's about theorycrafting and seeing how much you can break the game.

 

[mondblut]

Storyfaggotry comes with railroading, and railroading should get the fuck out of my games.

 

[Butter]

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.

They added more story in Bannerlord and it's dumb.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

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

So maybe?



Don't care to play? KROAH has the answers.

Spoiler

Colecovision not supported...
GOD DAMNIT!!!

 

[Dick Flattener Pro]

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.

I see Fredric Brown's short-short has been revised for a modern audience. Or was it from memory?

It was from memory, don't tell me I screwed it up unless you want me to live up to the username.

 

[octavius]

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.

I see Fredric Brown's short-short has been revised for a modern audience. Or was it from memory?

It was from memory, don't tell me I screwed it up unless you want me to live up to the username.

Not screwed it up, but in the original it was the last man.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Narrative writing in CRPGs was a mistake.

Spoiler

This Yamara comic strip originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #160 (August 1990).

 

[deadmeme]

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?

Stories in RPG's are terrible and cannot compare to a decent book. To much chosen one and power fantasy bullshit to take it seriously for me. So I like the ones that are about party compositions. Fallout 2 has a chosen one story, Morrowind, Planescape Torment, BG 1, 2 etc. I am not playing RPG's for stories. But there are games in which I really like stories and exposition. In Age of Decadence, you come into this alien ancient world, where you learn that the age of magic is long past. You arrive in main city, there you see in an area remnants of magic use. In the endgame you use that this magic/tech was use by some aliens/demons than you meet them. And you are weak compared to them. I like story in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines also. You are a vampire, so it might be considered power fantasy, but you are bottom of the barrel, just trying to survive. You have progressively harder tasks that prepare you for the endgame. It would be better if you didn't met Caine in the end, because why is he wasting his time on you?

 

[Thac0]

Play wargames

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

That is not even wargaming casual, that is a normal boardgame.
THIS is how a wargame has to look.

Spoiler

It is still pretty autistic but a load of fun.
If you have a big table and a bunch of units at home you can even play it in private with friends, which cuts down on the autism a lot.
It is expensive tho, most publishers take a lot for those minitiatures and rulebooks.

 

[Thac0]

Imagine thinking enormous, overly verbose dumps of exposition can be excused in any medium in 2021.

You lot need to learn to skim read.
It is never good, but it is not a dealbreaker either if you have a halfway decent reading speed.

 

[Ol' Willy]

That is not even wargaming casual, that is a normal boardgame.
It is still pretty autistic but a load of fun.
If you have a big table and a bunch of units at home you can even play it in private with friends, which cuts down on the autism a lot.
It is expensive tho, most publishers take a lot for those minitiatures and rulebooks.

All of this is cool, but I was obviously talking about PC wargames. Like such:

The only genre yet not touched by decline. Also way harder than any RPG, man.

 

[deadmeme]

That is not even wargaming casual, that is a normal boardgame.
It is still pretty autistic but a load of fun.
If you have a big table and a bunch of units at home you can even play it in private with friends, which cuts down on the autism a lot.
It is expensive tho, most publishers take a lot for those minitiatures and rulebooks.

All of this is cool, but I was obviously talking about PC wargames. Like such:

The only genre yet not touched by decline. Also way harder than any RPG, man.

Not hard. There are RPG-s like Realms of Arkania that are hard.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Stories in RPG's are terrible and cannot compare to a decent book. To much chosen one and power fantasy bullshit to take it seriously for me.

There are actually quite a few RPGs that are not about the chosen one (though it is a curse upon the genre). Here's a few good ones off the top of my head:

Gothic games (1-3) - you play some nameless guy who starts out as a convict
Disco Elysium - alcoholic, depressed detective
Witcher games (1-3) - a jaded monster hunter shunned by society
Anachronox - down on his luck private eye
Arx Fatalis - another convict
Albion - space pilot
Expeditions: Vikings - Danish jarl

 

[Serious_Business]

"Story faggotry" ain't a intelligible concept you idiotic fucking piece of shit, clean up your stupid language before I make you with utmost vulgarity

 

[deadmeme]

Stories in RPG's are terrible and cannot compare to a decent book. To much chosen one and power fantasy bullshit to take it seriously for me.

There are actually quite a few RPGs that are not about the chosen one (though it is a curse upon the genre). Here's a few good ones off the top of my head:

Gothic games (1-3) - you play some nameless guy who starts out as a convict
Disco Elysium - alcoholic, depressed detective
Witcher games (1-3) - a jaded monster hunter shunned by society
Anachronox - down on his luck private eye
Arx Fatalis - another convict
Albion - space pilot
Expeditions: Vikings - Danish jarl

Arx Fatalis is a dungeon crawler, not story based RPG (but I agree it is a solid story), Witcher is power fantasy.

 

[Goldschmidt]

The nuance is to always kill the fag in the story.

 

[Harry Easter]

It would be better if you didn't met Caine in the end, because why is he wasting his time on you?

I always assumed for shits and giggles. The Vampires in this world, especially the very old farts, are like that.


I think the problem with a lot of writing is that story and gameplay are basically two separate things. For example in Final Fantasy XIII you have little Hope, who is a ten-ish years old boy and afraid of everything in the cutscenes, but during he kills everybody with his little boomerang during combat like it is nothing.

On the other hand writing isn't just dialogue, it's also trying to find a way to make exhaustive powers legitimate in the world. That's why I kind of like the way they solved it in D:OS2. You're the Chosen One, yes, but mostly everything you can do in game, is also supported by the plot. I mean, they even found a cheeky story-explanation why so many people look alike in-game :D.

Most writing is still just there to deliver expositions and get you into the gameplay-loop. We may moan about Numeneras walls of text (and for good reason), but most of the time the actual writing still isn't important enough, even in so called storydriven games.

I see this with Dungeon Siege 2. The game has an interesting premise at the beginning: you work for the bad guy, but only in the tutorial. And it isn't even important besides to give you an barebones motivation to wander around and killing everybody. Which is a shame, because the parts of the story I have played so far are descent enough, that I want to find more out about the world and its lore. Because a good story is in the end as rewarding as new Levels or new locations or new weapons.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The problem with exposition is that devs are so afraid of the player not knowing what is happening that they dumb all information to the player before the player is interested in knowing all of that. Competent writers treat exposition as the mystery and feed it to the player only when the player really wants to know the answers. Explanations should be more of a reward than an entry fee.