Editorial RPG Codex Editorial: Darth Roxor on the State of RPG Writing

[ERYFKRAD]

More on the word count issue. PST's strength isn't the word count per se, it's that the word count is in service of branching/reactivity and exploration, since a lot of text is hidden in optional, sometimes secret branches and sections that some, maybe most players won't ever see. Nor does branching/reactivity always need to be this world-shaking impactful thing, sometimes it can be as little as using the speak to dead ability to talk to an unnamed zombie, and suddenly discovering Tang poetry.

The attempts to pinpoint what made a game great are always reductive and susceptible to counter-examples, because great games are great for many reasons. The same is true about PS:T. You have a bunch of different and lively characters, nice exploration, a narrative concept that rooks you immediately, the unusual setting with unusual items (tattoos, etc.), the connection between this concept, the characters, the exploration, and the setting, the unease felling that you can be making the same mistakes of your past self, or being fooled by a third part, the fact that the game was practically written by one writer with time on his hands, etc. There are millions of reasons that add together to make this into a great game. The problem is that shallow developers will try to imitate this game with a superficial understanding of what made it work. The way they are influenced by the game, will reflect their own limitations, not what made it good. Did PS:T have lots of writing? So lore dumps and verbose writing is good! PS:T protagonist lived many lives? So the theme should be about this. And so on. Cargo cult mentality is synonymous with lack of understanding.

Main thing of note here is how all these aspects reinforce and tie in with each other, and ultimately affect gameplay itself.

 

[Lurker King]

And don’t forget the circumstances of the development, which are like important. Instead of having one writer working on both the writing and the game development, you hire a team of writers with different capacities and backgrounds to “do the writing part”. I’m starting to think that the “checklist design” and delegation of functions characteristic of the main cRPGs funded on kickstarter are fundamentally incompatible with good game design. The concept of these projects are poorly planned, rushed, etc. It all feels like a big “Fuck it! I don’t give a shit. Let’s get it on with it and see what happens". If that’s why it takes to make a cRPG with decent production values, we won’t have any decent cRPG any time soon.

 

[naossano]

Are we such in a shortage of things actually happening ?

 

[Fenix]

The way they are influenced by the game, will reflect their own limitations, not what made it good.

Very interesting thought. Very.

 

[Azarkon]

I went through such a program at a top university so I can speak to what it's about - ie a lot of reading & analysis of the Western Canon.

That's the thing, though. The Western canon has been gradually undermined in higher education over the past decades, first no longer being required generally of all students, then no longer required of "liberal arts" students, and now not even required of english majors. If required, they are nominally supported at best, taught by some random adjunct since there may not be actual faculty available or interested in teaching them, and/or taught mainly focusing on how problematic and racist they are.

You're right, but I want to address the cause. I hear a lot of talk about "leftists" being responsible for the mediocrity of contemporary Western education, but my personal belief is that the expansion of the education system is a much bigger contributor. In the 19th and 20th centuries, education was elitist because it was the privilege of a small group of wealthy, or out right aristocratic, families, whose values shaped the social, cultural, and academic environment of universities. Today, education is the measuring stick of the masses, with an abundance of degree mills. With the bloating of the education system comes the inevitable decline of intellectual quality, as well as cultural change. The practical necessities of public education will always favor quantity over quality, both in terms of rigor, and in terms of transferred social ideals. The average liberal arts student today is not from an elite family, have trouble sympathizing with elitism, and hence the demand for more "common" authors and ideologies.

 

[Ismaul]

Interesting points Azarkon. Not sure exactly about the timeline tough. Seems to me that widespread elementary education is not something that recent. Jules Ferry passed into law mandatory primary education in 1882 in France. Was it only a local thing?

 

[Fenix]

In the 19th and 20th centuries, education was elitist because it was the privilege of a small group of wealthy, or out right aristocratic, families, whose values shaped the social, cultural, and academic environment of universities.

I absolutely agree here with you, I heard that theory before, and even if it sound rude to my peasant roots, I agree it is 100% right.
Period that called like Silver Age in Russian classic literature is exactly a period when aristocracy wrote books, plays and participated in other fields of art.
Hovever, you don't get the point - education suffered when transitition from aristocratic-based education to mass eduacation took its place, sure.
But after that it was on same stable level for decades, and contributed to industrial revolution, and economical prosperity in whole world.
And LATER, only 20-30 years ago (in US) started some murky processes that lead to today's disaster.

nteresting points Azarkon. Not sure exactly about the timeline tough. Seems to me that widespread elementary education is not something that recent. Jules Ferry passed into law mandatory primary education in 1882 in France. Was it only a local thing?

I can safely say that mass education in Russia was stated by bolsheviks and communists, shortly after revolution in 1917.

 

[Israfael]

The idea that education should be universal and compulsory was promoted by the left.

Did not know that the Prussian aristocracy and monarchy were lefties (then they probably suppressed student revolts of 1848 just for fun). Just remember kids - mass education is the result and the function of the modern nation-state - it was created specifically to unite the disjointed people of various origins that happened to live in this or that post-Napoleonic state so that they feel themselves e.g. Germans (Reichsdeutsche) first, and only then Bavarians, Prussians, Pomeranians and so on. This was understood very well by the elites and thinkers of that time - just read basically any treatise written by Hegel on the subject, it's unashamed shilling for the power of the state and the political system that existed at that time.

Mass education brought language and culture unification and created 'united thoughtscape' so that the people who live in a country are using comparable values and thought processes. So it's not a product of the left, it's just the product of the socio-economical evolution of the mankind (although in this case it's hard to determine which one was first - the state or the education). Just check any lecture by Michael Strong or any other libertarian on this subject - while I don't agree with him, his historical context is mostly right. What really happens now is the fact that the globalists undermine this idea of the state primacy in educational process, which's lead to a birth of several generations for whom patriotism and the nation are something akin to nazism. Well, the US either has to soldier through it or change to conform to their ideals if they win.

Hovever, you don't get the point - education suffered when transitition from aristocratic-based education to mass eduacation took its place, sure.

Quality of the education is basically an indicator of the health of the state, with each one reinforcing each other in an infinite loop of positive feedback. That's why sharp decline in ed quality in the 90-ies and now in Ukraine is so worrisome.

 

[laclongquan]

Fuck you all!

Need I remind you that the golden games you so enamored of is also products of person from universal education?

The cause of decline should be something very near, as in, one or two decades old no more. Universal education is not the cause.

I would blame the ease of geting edu loans for uni students, but I dont have enough proof for that.

 

[Lurker King]

Did not know that the Prussian aristocracy and monarchy were lefties (then they probably suppressed student revolts of 1848 just for fun). Just remember kids - mass education is the result and the function of the modern nation-state - it was created specifically to unite the disjointed people of various origins that happened to live in this or that post-Napoleonic state so that they feel themselves e.g. Germans (Reichsdeutsche) first, and only then Bavarians, Prussians, Pomeranians and so on. This was understood very well by the elites and thinkers of that time - just read basically any treatise written by Hegel on the subject, it's unashamed shilling for the power of the state and the political system that existed at that time.

Ok, but the guardians of this idea today are the left. The elites fucked up in the past, but the left just pushed the idea to extremes.

 

[Hell March]

Even if that were the case, is universal education inherently bad? Presuming that the skeleton of education was changed to fit more rigorous and less immaterial standards, wouldn't a more educated humanity be a better humanity? Obviously the modern university is a pretty corrupt representation of that idea, but like Isfael is saying, mass education is just evolution of a growing populace.

 

[Fenix]

What really happens now is the fact that the globalists undermine this idea of the state primacy in educational process, which's lead to a birth of several generations for whom patriotism and the nation are something akin to nazism.

It is undermining, it is privatization, thus turnin mass education from inalienable right to educational service, and if you can't pay you can't be serviced.
I think someone, maybe those we know under the name of globalists, slowly reform global, world education to shape it as education that existed in medival.
In those times most people could not even read and write. Only real elite could.
Illiterate peasants suffered under the heel of feudal.
Then, in times of mass education, education allowed to join in the race for a better life for peasants.
But times changed.
Informational enviroment of modern society has become complicated in content and structure enough that there is no difference if you know how to read and write or if you don't have these skills - you still can't affect and even understand what kind of proccesses happened in your society and in the world, you still can't understand and comprehend your life without high quality education that gives you knowledge and ability to analize and comprehend, that accessible not wron mass education, but from elite schools, closed for outsders.
So with modern education, being messed like this, masses of people are effectively reduced to nothing more that peasant level in terms how level of education allow them to improve and control their life, and education becomes no more than bulshitting checkmark.

Quality of the education is basically an indicator of the health of the state, with each one reinforcing each other in an infinite loop of positive feedback.

I'll correct a little - if it only indicator, it can't reinforce anything, it is indicator and the lever.

The cause of decline should be something very near, as in, one or two decades old no more. Universal education is not the cause.

It is the cause because it was changed in same 20-30 years ago, Ismaul and Telengard wrote enough about it.

 

[Lurker King]

Hell March It’s inherently bad for many reasons. First, it lowers the quality of education, because you don’t have material and human resources to give quality education for everyone. Second, it forces education on people who don’t have any interest in learning, thus promoting immense emotional suffering for both the teachers and students involved. Third, instead of nurturing the most talented, forces them to adjust to the lowest denominator. Fourth, indirectly promotes immense mismanagement of talent and vocation by promoting social incentives exclusively to a certain group of disciplines arbitrarily selected by the state – private institutions tend to repeat the model for the most part. Fifth, creates social hypocrisy of ennobling ideas that helps to perpetuate the inefficiency of the system.

 

[Fenix]

is universal education inherently bad?

Of cource it isn't.
It's just looks like it doesn't need for people with real power anymore.
I heard that in the next 5 years only in China will have 200 million unemployed as a result of the robotization of production.
So why they need masses of educated people now? It is more difficult to control them, their brain are full of bullshit about "democracy, equality and fraternity" which those people with power used for controlling masses in previous historical period, and the masses certainly will not give up these ideas, insisting that they too are important, and they will resist.
And who need this?
It is better to replace them with people, who yesterday and even today lived in tribal, or even community-tribal system.
In those system there is no term as democracy, or equality. There is only chieftain, headman, and strong hierarchy within such community, so all you need is to negotioate with such chieftain, and he will ensure that other will obey.
So, those people with power will be absolutely free to shape world and society how they want, when all high-civilized well, civilizations, usually associated with white people will be gone - european, american, russian...

 

[Lurker King]

Quality of the public education is basically an indicator of the health of the state.

Fixed.

Just check any lecture by Michael Strong or any other libertarian on this subject.

You know that's not true, right? Most, if not all libertarians think we should privatize education and abolish the role of state in it.

 

[Israfael]

You know that's not true, right? Most, if not all libertarians think we should privatize education and abolish the role of state in it.

Please read the next few words until the stop sign (aka ".") and you'll see why I wrote that (and if I mentioned Michael Strong, do you think I've never read what he wrote and heard what he thinks about the public education, and never spoke to him directly?). Specifically, I really think that this move would be bad, but the basis of their understanding of the problem (that the education is a sort of indoctrination tool) is sound. Should I elaborate further ?

Informational enviroment of modern society has become complicated i

This is the main problem, in my opinion, not some malicious intent on the behalf of globalists (although it might be present, who knows?). Our knowledge horizons expanded exponentially in the recent 20-25 years, and the means to comprehend and learn it remained the same. In some fields of sciences paradigms change almost yearly, while teachers have to present students with some 'immutable' knowledge, so it inevitably creates confusion and makes the inadequacy of the current teaching methods apparent. 50-60 years ago it was clear what the students should and can learn, now it's not that clear (and there's malicious detractors too - manual labor workers won't create themselves)

 

[laclongquan]

Education has been and always be a tool for indoctrination. If you think it should be otherwise you are delusional.
Despite that, participant still learn to think for themselves. Or not, as thinking is siriuz bizniz and pretty tiring.
If you dont want your child being indoctrinated by OTHER"s agenda, then do it yourself (and indoctrinate them with YOUR own agenda).

 

[Lurker King]

Education has been and always be a tool for indoctrination.

Maybe in some circumstances after the modern state, but the first teaching methods involved a more individualized relationship between master and disciple, and the first universities were either communities (see Athens schools) or were originated from private lessons paid from the student pockets (I read somewhere that this was associated with the origins of the first medieval universities).

 

[Israfael]

Education has been and always be a tool for indoctrination. If you think it should be otherwise you are delusional.
Despite that, participant still learn to think for themselves. Or not, as thinking is siriuz bizniz and pretty tiring.
If you dont want your child being indoctrinated by OTHER"s agenda, then do it yourself (and indoctrinate them with YOUR own agenda).

Are you arguing with me? Because it's just what I was saying (if you understood this whole diatribe as the fact that I agree with libertarians - on the contrary, I think their efforts are futile and dangerous)

 

[laclongquan]

6th century before Christ, after the death of Buddha, the effort of his disciples and supports from government start the missionaries to spread across the land to teach religion (buddhism). They spread from India to even Vietnam and China, then Japan.
The teacher is missionary, can be Indian, or Khmer, or Chinese.
The language is Indian Sankrit, because the books are Buddhism sutra and sacred teachings. Later on they got translated to Chinese then Vietnamese, but the initial language is sankrit.
That's how Buddhism got hold of Vietnam even now and comparable to Chinese influence. Christianity is johny come lately.

It's estimated that Buddhism got spread to Vietnam in 3rd century Before Christ, by the sea route, not land route through China. One of the most ancient collection of tales tell of a character learn Buddhism. Pagodas spread across the land during the 3 kingdom period when Wu dominate Jiao Zhi, with translated books, local monks, etc...

 

[Fenix]

This is the main problem, in my opinion, not some malicious intent on the behalf of globalists (although it might be present, who knows?).

Of course it present because it is benefitial for them. Why wasting efforts to structurise and clarify info-enviroment, and lose your control while you don't need many efforst to complicate info-enviroment and get more control and power?
Also they are not globalist, it is just what they currently need on this stage. Definition by doing.

Education has been and always be a tool for indoctrination.

Not always.
And what, let's remove education? Back to the trees, hunt banana?
Btw you can't hide today from indoctrination even if you are illitirate.

Are you arguing with me? Because it's just what I was saying (if you understood this whole diatribe as the fact that I agree with libertarians - on the contrary, I think their efforts are futile and dangerous)

Not all education, I think soviet education is very different in this.
It had indoctrination, but aslo empowered with knowledge to overcome such indoctrination, because it was best classical education at that time.
Just a guess.

 

[naossano]

I wouldn't say that the masses are educated today. There is still a lot of progress to be made and we don't seem to be moving into the right direction.

 

[janjetina]

I went through such a program at a top university so I can speak to what it's about - ie a lot of reading & analysis of the Western Canon.

That's the thing, though. The Western canon has been gradually undermined in higher education over the past decades, first no longer being required generally of all students, then no longer required of "liberal arts" students, and now not even required of english majors. If required, they are nominally supported at best, taught by some random adjunct since there may not be actual faculty available or interested in teaching them, and/or taught mainly focusing on how problematic and racist they are.

You're right, but I want to address the cause. I hear a lot of talk about "leftists" being responsible for the mediocrity of contemporary Western education, but my personal belief is that the expansion of the education system is a much bigger contributor. In the 19th and 20th centuries, education was elitist because it was the privilege of a small group of wealthy, or out right aristocratic, families, whose values shaped the social, cultural, and academic environment of universities. Today, education is the measuring stick of the masses, with an abundance of degree mills. With the bloating of the education system comes the inevitable decline of intellectual quality, as well as cultural change. The practical necessities of public education will always favor quantity over quality, both in terms of rigor, and in terms of transferred social ideals. The average liberal arts student today is not from an elite family, have trouble sympathizing with elitism, and hence the demand for more "common" authors and ideologies.

Inflation of degrees, adjusting the curriculum to the lowest common denominator (inadequate stratification) and devaluing the teaching profession are the problems with contemporary education. Take a look at liberal arts students from your generation. They are your former classmates that had bad grades at mathematics and physics, i.e. bad elementary and high school students. In the old times people like those were doing honest manual labor. Modern system of values teaches them that honest manual labor is something to be shunned, so instead of doing useful work those people indulge their delusion of intellect and enroll into programs tailored for them, provided by astute private university enterpreneurs (who saw the demand and made a rational decision to fill it) and the state (which makes an irrational decision by financing those degrees). When you start to recruit the professors from that system you enter a positive feedback loop. Bad students make bad professors, who produce even worse students etc. You end up with a sociology PhD with pink hair and an IQ of a decapitated chicken with a house-size debt or a fat tenure financed by the taxpayer.

 

[Fenix]

I wouldn't say that the masses are educated today.

Because that mass education was consequentially ruuned in Europe, US and Russia.
I'm not talknig about smaller countries who always follow in the wake.

the state (which makes an irrational decision by financing those degrees

It wasn't irrational lol. State don't make such decisions.
It were someone who can influence state on such scale, or state has different interest than those it declares it has.

 

[xantrius]

(Lovely editorial. Hope to see more of this kind of content in the future)


While the mass university is problematic in regards to the dumping down of the academic level in some regards, I think is a necessary evil for the betterment of humanity in the long run, regardless, hopefully we'll be able to mitigate too much damage or re-implement the noble aspects of elitism later on. One reason is that manual labour will be made redundant by technological advances in the near future, that kind of labour will be replaced by robots etc., hence it's prudent to make a large portion of the population better educated and become part of the knowledge or wisdom society in the present day, even if it will have a negative effect for a while. In order that humanity will stop being so excruciatingly boring and that we sooner instead of later can reach a post-scarcity society structure on a global level so we can conquer the stars and make proper RPGs and whatnot - seriously. Though if the corporate whores that are the economic elite of the world today could, and have been able to for a long time, eradicate poverty on a global level why would they then do in the near future? Because their shallow values of power and money for the sake of power and money will become redundant too. It will become less and less practical to treat a human being as a tool. Of course humanity faces a lot of challenges and could instead of reaching a post-scarcity society structure enter a new dark age.