Editorial Obsidian Blogs

[Zed]

Tags: Chris Avellone; J.E. Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment

Obsidian designers Chris 'MCA' Avellone and Josh E. Sawyer have both written blogs recently. First up is Avellone, who writes:

It’s been a while – aside from Obsidian work, I’ve been doing quite a bit of talks here at Dragon*Con and across the sea in Spain at Gamelab on a variety of subjects, from advice to getting into the industry, to Kickstarter, and even our approach to designing characters for video games. Even better, I’ll be doing the same coming up here in October at Austin GDC’s narrative track concerning Obsidian’s narrative approach - and going through our design process at the end of the month overseas concerning design as well (more on this as it happens).

Still, it’s nice to be home and back into the thick of things here. Speaking of which, for those of you who’ve come to visit the page, you may have noticed our countdown. Our countdown to what? It should become clear in 4 days or so – stay vigilant.​

J. E. Sawyer has a more recent entry, called building better worlds. It's a little longer, so I won't cite the entire thing. Here's something about characters:

To feel for characters at all, we need to make a connection with them. To make a connection with them, we need to believe that if we were put in their shoes, maybe we'd follow the same path they're on. When we talk about mature themes, we're not describing arterial spray. We're talking about character motivations that we sympathize with in the setting. When we get to our nemeses after hunting them down for 50 hours and they say, "Man, do you see what I have to deal with?" we nod and say, "Yeah, I guess I do..." even as we're reluctantly beating their faces in with a morningstar.​

Here are the links to the blog entries:
Chris Avellone (published 09-10)
Josh Sawyer (published 09-12)

 

[waywardOne]

story > character

The other way is what's fucked "rpgs" lately.

 

[EG]

To feel for characters at all, we need to make a connection with them. To make a connection with them, we need to believe that if we were put in their shoes, maybe we'd follow the same path they're on

. . . Why? More often than not, I play characters that will prove an entertaining experience, advance the plot, and expose in-game lore, rather than for my own emotional enlightenment. Am I doing it wrong?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Wasn't PST as equally character-driven as it was story-driven though? I think those are valid enough points.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Sawyer is a gigantic storyfag. I thought it was common knowledge. Among his blogs, tweets, facebooks and whatever the fuck (I'm sure Roguey can dig it up in 3,2,1), he used to say that Wizardry and the likes (basically old RPGs/crawlers) are not RPGs anymore because now RPGs are about the story. So he's not only a story fag, he's also a revisionist.

But anyway, I wouldn't expect something from Obsidian to be anything else but storyfagness, which I'm fine with, except I didn't like any of their stories so far.

 

[Baron]

Wizardry : Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord was the first game I received when my parents went all monocle and bought me an Apple IIc for educational purposes, unlike my friend who got a C64 and a happy childhood. I became enlightened on quality RPGs (Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Ultima IV), a serious child, I wore spats and carried a cane to school which I used to thrash those that got in my way, while my friend ate breakfast spreads from the jar and played Barbarian, IK+, Spy vs Spy, and Bruce Lee*. But I digress...

I don't care if Josh Sawyer (PBUH) revises history, this is what the Prophets do. He is a holy man and is permitted many wives.

Wizardry was fantastic, no denying, I hunted down Werdna, I sniggered at his graffiti, I fought both Frost giants and Poison giants, grinding them for their XP, even before I knew it was grinding. I made careful maps on grid paper, cursed rotating squares, and teleported into rock. But the game still would have been improved by having a plot more advanced than "Go kill the evil wizard."

I'm still absurdly fond of Wizardry, because it was first, because it changed everything, because I cast Tiltowait, because I had a Ninja, because I was fascinated by Creeping Crud. But it was Ultima IV that changed everything again. Evolution, or, the theory that Shit Should Improve. Yes, it's only a theory....

I don't understand why players dismiss storyline. RPGs are based on Pen and Paper sessions, which would be pretty boring if your Dungeon Master began every campaing in a gladiator arena and threw monsters at you until you died. I understand that Diablo (the McDonalds of RPGs) streamlined RPGs... it removed storyline, interactions and puzzles in favour of clicking on things and accumulating wealth. I understand that this satisfies some gamers. Those that become irritable when their studious concentration is broken, or when they are forced to read. It does not satisfy me.

I love Josh. I offer him my Brofists. I would follow him into any hell that he level designs. Mostly because he seems to understand the Pen and Paper adventure, the balance of vivid game world, antagonists with motive not just a name, a story to discover and participate in.

Everything else is just Space Invaders with different sprites.


* And I went around to his place to play Barbarian, Spy vs Spy and Bruce Lee.

 

[J_C]

react with jeers, whooping, or the RPG equivalent of a sustained Citizen Kane clap

I wonder what is he referring to...

 

[Gruia]

well they finally get it.. to some extent. But I was sure Chris was the one to do it

3D games' biggest immersion breaking problem is this, people don't empathize with any character. Why?

1) graphics are too clean
2) animations are too stiff and repetitive
3) face mimics suck
4) voices aren't that great

SO, the most luck a game had came from a character with no face, so the user imagines the emotions for himself using the voice (soul reaver) but then comes Bloodlines (who really touched a maximum until now without cutting corners)

So first of all get this down right, tweak it and polish it, and then start working on plots and twists.

You know how people are don't you? first 15 seconds when meeting some1 are the most important, why?
because all you need is to see his face, hear his tone of voice, see his movement and posture, and you'll know where he's coming from.

Hear my cry!

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

story > character

The other way is what's fucked "rpgs" lately.

Disagree, without good characters there cannot be a good story and vice versa.

What fucked "rpgs" of late is that both character and story are shit.

 

[Falkner]

What fucked RPGs is that developers FOCUS on secondary stuff like story and characters but fail at them. It wouldn't be as bad if at least the gameplay was any good.

 

[waywardOne]

The only character that needs focus is the player. Every other character in the game world should serve the plot, not be an independent focus on its own. Romances and loyalty quests are nothing more than outlets for amateur fan-fiction authors to draw a paycheck in the name of "emotional engagement". Shit writing is shit writing, so yes you need "good" characters, but this is in the same class of basic game functionality as a well-designed GUI.

 

[Haba]

Gameplay > Story > Characters
or
Gameplay > Story <= Characters


First and foremost, you need to have good gameplay. Fuck, even if it is a visual novel, the "game" must be smooth.

Then you have the story. If you are a good writer with unique ideas, go for it. Write one.

If you are uncertain, tell less. Let the player fill in the gaps. Chances are, even the most clichéd storyline feels better when supplemented by the player's imagination.

Then the characters. What kind of a story you have again? Are your characters tightly tied with the story, or are they nameless and faceless spectators?

Then your gameplay again. How does the progressing storyline and changing characters work with the gameplay?

 

[skuphundaku]

What's with this dichotomy between story and characters? You can't have a truly good story with shit characters and if you have good characters, they will make the story good, the worst that you could get being a good, even if a bit cliche, story. The balance that must be struck is between gameplay (ruleset, ruleset implementation, encounter design etc.) and story (overarching story, side stories, characters etc.). The problem is that, in most RPGs, they're either too gameplay-focused, which makes the game degenerate into dungeon-crawlers for combatfags (Wizardry, ToEE) or too story-focused, which makes the game degenerate into bioturds for Bioware-grade storyfags. There is very rarely a balance between these two aspects. FO1, FO2 and Arcanum struck it, although Arcanum's combat was shit. PS:T struck it too, although its gameplay was more that of an adventure game than that of a RPG.

 

[Haba]

You can have an excellent story with absolutely no "characters" at all. For example: you passively observe the events as the unfold, unable to communicate or understand the adversaries you have.

Impossible?

(Character as a story element v.s. character as an implementation of gameplay mechanics)

The important thing here is the realize where you start from. No matter how good your story is, the gameplay must come first. If the meat of the game doesn't feel good the game itself isn't good. It might still have a good story, but why'd you actually play the game instead of watching a LP on Youtube instead?

Naturally we're talking about ideals here, which very rarely realize. Sometimes even a compromise can end up in an enjoyable result. Not great, but good.

 

[mondblut]

Connection with a character, that's what bioware does with their homo sex cutscenes, amirite?

RPGs were all about the story before diablo ruined them

Are you fucking kidding me?

All diablow did is throwing in the clickfest (just like dungeon master, mkay) and cutting down the number of stats for teh dum (just like ultima, mkay). Make diablo turn-based, throw in a party, multiply the number of stats by 5, and you have an RPG par excellence. No fucking story included.

 

[skuphundaku]

You can have an excellent story with absolutely no "characters" at all. For example: you passively observe the events as the unfold, unable to communicate or understand the adversaries you have.

Impossible?

(Character as a story element v.s. character as an implementation of gameplay mechanics)

I was talking about characters as a story element. I see no need to look at characters as an implementation of gameplay mechanics separately from the rest of the gameplay mechanics.

The important thing here is the realize where you start from. No matter how good your story is, the gameplay must come first. If the meat of the game doesn't feel good the game itself isn't good. It might still have a good story, but why'd you actually play the game instead of watching a LP on Youtube instead?

As I was saying, there has to be balance between story and gameplay. If one of these aspects is taking too much precedence over the other you get either tedious dungeon-crawlers or "emotionally engaging" bioturds. Let's take an extreme example that, nevertheless, gets the balance right (or, at least, almost right): Age of Decadence. The gameplay part of it (combat and cyoa/dialog) is brutal, but the whole setting (lore, story, characters that populate the world etc.) makes up for the brutality of the gameplay. The combat-fags have the brutal combat as motivation to plow on, while the story-fags have the interesting setting to discover as a motivation to succeed in combat/make the right choices in cyoa in order to discover another piece of the puzzle.

 

[Roguey]

Sawyer is a gigantic storyfag. I thought it was common knowledge. Among his blogs, tweets, facebooks and whatever the fuck (I'm sure Roguey can dig it up in 3,2,1), he used to say that Wizardry and the likes (basically old RPGs/crawlers) are not RPGs anymore because now RPGs are about the story. So he's not only a story fag, he's also a revisionist.

But anyway, I wouldn't expect something from Obsidian to be anything else but storyfagness, which I'm fine with, except I didn't like any of their stories so far.

While that's partially true ("I would consider them RPGs by the definitions of their time. If someone were to make Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord today, I would not consider it to be an RPG."), Sawyer's a "gameplay uber alles" person which is why I like him.
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/229487270162338509

"Storyfag" isn't the word I'd use to describe someone who thinks games should be first and foremost fun to play. His definition of a RPG just happens to exclude wargames, this stems from his being a P&P player.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Well, I'm not sure what he considers gameplay. As far as I know gameplay for him could be LARPing.
Also, Wizardry is a wargame? WTF?

 

[Roguey]

Well, I'm not sure what he considers gameplay. As far as I know gameplay for him could be LARPing.

Core gameplay. LARPing involves using your imagination, there's no core to that.

Also, Wizardry is a wargame? WTF?

"The origins of the RPG genre are in tabletop gaming, and the allure of the tabletop RPG environment isn't in spec-ing out characters (though that is fun). If that's all you want to do, play Warhammer 40k, Confrontation, or any other war game you like. People play RPGs so they can make a unique character and play that character as they see fit. That is why I always use that specific capability as my criterion for classifying contemporary games as RPGs."

 

[almondblight]

If you are uncertain, tell less.

This. For instance, bringing up Thomas Aquinas was supposed to make Deus Ex seem deep, but confusing him with John Winthrop (which they seemed to do) made it seem like they said, "Hey, let's through in a random quote from a Christian philosopher to sound deep." It backfires. Likewise, I found Planescape Torment to be dragged down by certain ham-fisted attempts to be deep - the conversation with Ravel, the sensate stone of that girl you went out with, most of what Annah said, Morte's confession and redemption. None of those felt natural, they always felt like the writers were saying "here's a dramatic moment!". The other parts of the game, wandering around and getting hints at the different personalities, were much more compelling.

You can have an excellent story with absolutely no "characters" at all. For example: you passively observe the events as the unfold, unable to communicate or understand the adversaries you have.

Impossible?

That's still one of the best and emotionally engaging stories for me. The silence and the alien feel of the planet does a lot to make the character feel like they are completely alone, and you start to feel a connection with your friend as the two of you struggle to survive. Your connection is simple and it makes sense. Your character or the alien giving a monologue explaining how they feel alone here and how the other one is the only one they can trust etc. etc. would only take away from that connection.

Part of the problem is that modern games have dedicated writers. Writers often feel they need to express things through words instead of through images or gameplay (if any of you read comics, look at the first Hellboy collection, written by a writer, and the subsequent ones, written by Mignola - an artist). Writing is like narration - not bad on its own, but it can too often be used as a cheap way of explaining something. Instead of showing fear, the characters say "Im so afraid." Instead of showing isolation and companionship, the main characters say "I feel so alone on this alien world, like there's no one to trust. Or I did. Until I found you. It's strange no? You're an alien, but I feel more connection to you than I ever did to any human." The fact that most writers aren't great only compounds this problem.

 

[Murk]

I guess it's been so long since we had a "what is an RPG" thread that people are starting to revert to Biowarian story loving, yeah?

 

[EG]

I guess it's been so long since we had a "what is an RPG" thread that people are starting to revert to Biowarian story loving, yeah?

How about we avoid the "What is an RPG" portion and focus on "What is a good character" segment.

Still say you people talking about sympathizing and emoting are fucking insane, though.

 

[Tigranes]

Avellone and Sawyer have very consistently spoken of the primacy of gameplay, and how that feeds into the way they design games and do the writing; how you begin with what is fun, or what the player could do/experience, then start writing to make that happne.

One example was in the Iron Tower Roundtable:

Chris Avellone: I usually begin with ‘what do I want the player to do that’s the coolest thing ever?’ ... [this] is then followed by ‘okay, what sort of framework could I build around the world to build up to that cool moment(s)?

Also, when I interviewed him earlier this year (not yet publicly available):

For characters, especially Elijah and Ravel, they are mostly there to serve a role in the story or to ask questions or raise issues that I think would be interesting for the player to consider, regardless of which way the player decides. As an example, Elijah is a mouthpiece for some quest and interface mechanics that I think hurt players, Kreia raised numerous questions on the nature of the Force that I have, and Ravel herself is there to challenge a player to ask why they role-play and how they hope to grow as a character.

Of course, with stuff like that, you can always raise the criticism that it's gimmicky - it's hard to draw the line and say what is a small but appropriate use of writing for gameplay purposes (and vice versa) or a gimmicky way of tying them together. My opinion is that Obsidian generally do well at taking individual features and integrating them to the writing and gameplay (Torment's amnesia, immortality & bound followers, the Spirit Meter, etc), but they tend to do this to individual features in the context of a tried and true CRPG framework. So there's less risk that it breaks everything, but it can seem insufficient.

Obviously, AOD is where the entire game, from the core mechanics to the fluff, is built (or not built) to reflect the setting and design philosophy. Which is one of the reasons I think the demo was a great experience, even if individual design decisions didn't work for me at times.

 

[Murk]

How about we avoid the "What is an RPG" portion and focus on "What is a good character" segment.

Still say you people talking about sympathizing and emoting are fucking insane, though.

I can agree with both, and definitely agree with the latter.

 

[tuluse]

This. For instance, bringing up Thomas Aquinas was supposed to make Deus Ex seem deep, but confusing him with John Winthrop (which they seemed to do) made it seem like they said, "Hey, let's through in a random quote from a Christian philosopher to sound deep." It backfires.

You could interpret this to be more about Bob Page's character. Demonstrating that he was meddling with things he didn't understand, and wasn't nearly as smart as he thought he was.