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

[Tigranes]

Funny you should cite Nietzsche as a 'clear' continental philosopher, because you'll find many who cite him as an example of wafflebabble.

A very common assumption amongst people who stereotype continental stuff as purposefully unclear is that they seem to imply (1) if I read you and I can't make heads or tails of it, you must be needlessly obscure; (2) every kind of knowledge should be communicable through very similar kinds of stylistic and argumentative norms; (3) if this is not the case, they must be choosing to be needlessly obscure to fool the reader or because they are unable to write any other way.

The problem is, if we accepted those premises, we could just as easily complain that theoretical physics 'chooses' to be intimidating when it could just communicate itself to any reader, or that Derek Parfit takes 500+ pages to do his philosophy when he could do it in a 20 second TV short.

Of course, usually, once we delve into the specifics, many critics' frustration actually has to do with the fact that (1) they strongly favour a specific way of thinking - that we could label 'scientific' but I'm sure invites misunderstanding - which means they constantly feel like continental stuff doesn't follow the right steps or present the kinds of reasoning they appreciate; (2) and so they decide the writing style, the argumentative style, the choice of evidence, etc. - all of which are related - have little value, and are unnecessary pretending. In which case, I wouldn't really have any interest in persuading that person - whether Lurker King fits here, I don't know. But it certainly doesn't lead to the conclusion that continental stuff doesn't "aspire to be clear", unless we simply say that continental stuff might as well give up whatever it's trying to do and just copy the analytic or the social sciences or whatnot.

 

[Bohrain]

I feel pretty really stupid reading you, men.

Reading classic literature is honestly something you generally enjoy or you just don't.
Personally I haven't touched the can of worms that is Russian literature ever since I finished reading Crime and Punishment, I hated the melodrama and felt that in relation to it's length it had too few good moments. Forcing through a book is always something that discourages further reading.

 

[Naveen]

And really:

And since that style of writing is generally shit, people educated in that academic ambient will also write, well, shit

Video game writers certainly don't take their writing style from highly theoretical or philosophical texts, nor should they.[...] He [Darth Roxor] didn't say they write badly cause they are copying the postmodernists style of writing.

Eh, I don't mind disagreements, but if you quote me, quote the whole sentence, especially if I underline something because I believe it's really important:

And since that style of writing is generally shit, people educated in that academic ambient will also write, well, shit, even if they don't study those texts directly.

I don't think what I'm saying is that controversial, just that going to college may actually make you a worse writer and that, yes, I think this (among other reasons) can be traced back to a broad intellectual ambient or movement, which started after the WW2, and which has a specific name. And you can read this thread to find many examples. A few more pages and we are not going to understand even our own posts.

 

[Fenix]

Personally, I don't. Like I mentioned, I think it has to do with games as a medium—well-suited for, for the lack of a better word, "wide" experiences: the ones that offer many opportunities and don't force the player to move in a particular direction, that work like LEGO pieces, allowing the player to construct whatever from them. But like I said, there might be exceptions, it's just my personal opinion.

Don't get me wrong, a good writer can make a game that would have a good novel-style story, but I still feel like it wouldn't be using the medium to its full extent.

You know, when I think about it, I try to find the core reason. I don't tell that game format doesn't matter, I'm trying to analyze a particular case to find a reason behind.
And in this case I think the reason is so called video-era effect, when people read less, and watch video more, their attention span becomes smaller, and so on.
Notice that all visual arts and presentations got a boost - musical video, films, visual installations, special effects - while all related to text become a boring swamp, at least modern books, if you look at films you'll find that usually visual part is exellent, while scripts, dialogues... atrocious.

 

[Jazz_]

Reading classic literature is honestly something you generally enjoy or you just don't.
Personally I haven't touched the can of worms that is Russian literature ever since I finished reading Crime and Punishment, I hated the melodrama and felt that in relation to it's length it had too few good moments. Forcing through a book is always something that discourages further reading.

If you hate melodrama try reading Gogol, he's the least russian of the russian writers I have read. He writes about walking noses and riding thru forests on the back of old women.

 

[agris]

Darth Roxor

Well said, if not on the long side. Glad to see Expeditions: Conquistadors and AP acknowledged for the superior games that they are. Consider your karma-debt for introducing me to Lands of Lore paid.

The biggest problem I have with your essay is the discussion of what the 'average creative writing graduate' has experienced, the rigor of their studies, and that they are the root cause of the problem. I understand your arguments, but they seem overly simplistic. You're also painting a group of people with a big, broad brush. I have no dog in this fight FWIW, my academic background is the hard sciences, but your article would be just as compelling (more so imo) without broad-brushing people like that. Of course, if you presented evidence to support your claims, I would feel differently.

Lastly, play this drinking game. Every time something in TToN is described as "X and Y", take a shot. When you awake on the floor the next day, realizing that you haven't made it past the intro map, join me in berating MRY to convince inXile to employ a more competent editor in the future. The state of the text in the beta is shocking, to say the least. And this is not from a lit-degree holder.

 

[Gruncheon]

It's great that you wrote this. Whether it's complete or not, I think Section 2 is striving towards articulating something that needs to be said of our culture more generally, but it's definitely appropriate to game writing. Good writers possess a sceptical habit of mind. In any great writing, there should be a preference for the universal over the contingent. In that sense, most good writers possess a sort of innate conservatism (I say conservative in broadest, most apolitical sense possible). Being steeped in Twitter and liberal tech culture and all of the flaggelation and ecstatic condemnation that those entail winnows away the capacity to have an unprompted, ugly and reckless thought which is the germ of any creative endeavour. The rote phrases, the abandonment of reason, the emptiness of the whole thing destroys the soul. As you said earlier, I don't think you have an issue with postmodernism which, to its credit, was a movement born from sincere intellectual endeavour. It's just that the entire commentariat and influencers of this generation deploy ideas and phrases that look a lot like postmodernism and certainly, at maybe three levels remove in quality, could be said to be tenets of postmodern thought. It's easy to mesh the two together, and there's as yet no language to discriminate between the two in an easy way.

You can't write well if there's a little censorious imp perched on your shoulder, reminding you to investigate your own prejudices after every single sentence. I want to make a sweeping generalisation that the lack of this modern culture in Poland was specifically why there was a real spark of humanity in the Witcher 3, for instance. There's no way a game made in America or Europe would've allowed the Bloody Baron to exist in the form that we get him. It would be unacceptable to portray him as a human being. In an American game, he would be a demon, a creature of no soul or humanity that exists to embody a vice.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Reading classic literature is honestly something you generally enjoy or you just don't.
Personally I haven't touched the can of worms that is Russian literature ever since I finished reading Crime and Punishment, I hated the melodrama and felt that in relation to it's length it had too few good moments. Forcing through a book is always something that discourages further reading.

If you hate melodrama try reading Gogol, he's the least russian of the russian writers I have read. He writes about walking noses and riding thru forests on the back of old women.

Or Chekhov for a different kind of non-melodrama. If I learn that Russians think Chekhov is a hack, I might just cry. Best helmsman ever.

 

[coldcrow]

I think one major factor contributing to the general feel of decline in crpg writing is located on a sensory level. There is the main visual stimulus of the situation and the imaginative one if you read the paragraph. Especially when the games became HD you really didn't need any more attributes describing the appearance - so any lengthy attributive epitaph ether doubles the information or creates a dissonance. Both will quickly lead to the known problem of skipping the fucking textboxes, because nothing of importance is conveyed.
Therein lies a major problem for writers. Most can't deal with it. One aproach is gothic/risen style: npcs talk more or less like actual beings and there is almost no loredump of any kind. In Torment writers took the difficult route, they actually wrote about major philosophical problems at length and substance. This required the will to treat the player like an intelligent human being.
Long story short: bad writing is shit in any case.

PS: For anyone being interested in good fiction, I recommend "fiasco" of stanislav lem. For me this represents the zenit of contemporary sci-fi.

 

[Fenix]

"fiasco"

Haven't read it, I'll try to find it.

 

[Junmarko]

For all my appreciation of Chris Avellone, the thought that Nightdive would consider themselves worthy to “upgrade” LGS’s work is not only near-offensive to me, but also a clear indicator of their arrogance. System Shock’s story is fine as it is. If you want to add some content to it, be my guest, but the moment you decide to “shape and direct” the “existing narrative”, you can stop keeping up the pretence and just say outright that you give no damn about LGS’s legacy.

 

[Bored Games]

Wordiness and heavy exposition is being used as an attempt to compensate for a lack of compelling ideas, but not necessarily a problem in themselves. Both optional and quest focussed lore available to player in Morrowind is close to exhaustive in establishing the history and culture of Vvardenfell, political situation, player role, etc. Game doesn't suffer because it's of a generally good standard.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Reading classic literature is honestly something you generally enjoy or you just don't.
Personally I haven't touched the can of worms that is Russian literature ever since I finished reading Crime and Punishment, I hated the melodrama and felt that in relation to it's length it had too few good moments. Forcing through a book is always something that discourages further reading.

If you hate melodrama try reading Gogol, he's the least russian of the russian writers I have read. He writes about walking noses and riding thru forests on the back of old women.

Or Chekhov for a different kind of non-melodrama. If I learn that Russians think Chekhov is a hack, I might just cry. Best helmsman ever.

Or Lermontov if you're into poetry. "Demon" is honestly enchanting.

 

[Cadmus]

Read the piece. Here's some thoughts.

- I agree with the Conquistador example, I praised the game for its writing already
- generally, Roxor is good when he presents specific examples and talks about specific things but the broader musings on why the writers suck left me completely bored and I think this is because you kinda vomited your thoughts on the paper instead of making sure you know what you think and then presenting it more concisely and well, specifically.
- the parts about the amount of text left me shaking my head - why are you telling us this? We know, it's self-evident.
- I'm glad however that you mention that reading isn't hard, reading shit is hard. I got laughed at by some imbeciles for proclaiming that PoE writing sucks dick and I stopped reading early on in the game. LOL HOW CAN YOU SAY IT SUCKS YOU DIDN'T EVEN READ IT WTF. It sucks shit so that's why I didn't read it. Got better things to do than read bullshit fan fiction about fucking Fampyrs, Jesus Christ.
- also agree with the DEEP LORE problem. Somewhere, at some point, somebody decided that composing a sentence entirely from made-up names and terms about far away lands is a great thing and I wish that somebody would get his asshole probed.

My problem with historical or history inspired games is that nobody of the writers really gives a shit about the history so everything ends up really broad and non-specific and more like inspired by movies inspired by fantasy novels inspired by Tolkien with a paint of Rome. Roxor is completely right in this. I like my flavours really specific, it's one of the best things in Conquistador. I get the fucking shivers when listening to some fucking idiot writer saying that their game TAKES INSPIRATION FROM MEDIEVAL TIMES BUT IS UPGRADED TO SUIT MODERN AUDIENCES BECAUSE THE PERIOD IS ACTUALLY FUCKING BORING. Fuck you. I hate this. And I don't only mean the writing but everything else about the game.

It's one of the reasons I'm eagerly awaiting Kingdom Come because I think Vavra understands this.

Anyway, my conclusion is that the article is unnecessarily long and some parts are not well thought out or at least not well presented. You had it coming (as you well knew anyway and it seems you sometimes overcompensate to make sure your own writing is flawless) by writing about writing.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Reading classic literature is honestly something you generally enjoy or you just don't.
Personally I haven't touched the can of worms that is Russian literature ever since I finished reading Crime and Punishment, I hated the melodrama and felt that in relation to it's length it had too few good moments. Forcing through a book is always something that discourages further reading.

If you hate melodrama try reading Gogol, he's the least russian of the russian writers I have read. He writes about walking noses and riding thru forests on the back of old women.

Or Chekhov for a different kind of non-melodrama. If I learn that Russians think Chekhov is a hack, I might just cry. Best helmsman ever.

Chekhov was a master of short stories, and a true literary classic. Don't worry. It could be that some people think that Chekhov was a hack, but it sure isn't a universal opinion.

Although for some reason in highschool course he sometimes regarded as a light humorous writer, I never understood that. He captured existential horror and hopelessness of being an insignificant, powerless person way too well, after reading some of his short stories I get depressed at least for a week.

 

[vdweller]

What's your (as in, anyone reading this) take on William Gobson's novels, especially the Sprawl and Bridge trilogies?

 

[Elwro]

Open up Locke's 'Essay Concerning Human Understading' for an easy example of an obtuse analytic philosopher. His writing is full of sentences with 15+ commas that go on for a page and a half. I'm sure there are other examples.

I don't think we should be criticising Locke for that. I read Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, many many other less or more known philosophers, and basically anyone apart from Descartes wrote in such sentences. That seems to have been the style back then.

It changed a little bit, but not much. Quine, one of the most 'important' analytic philosophers, was as obtuse as it gets. (I'd say that in his writings style is 90% of what there is.)[got it?]

Contemporary analytic philosophy almost always requires you to read hugely complicated sentences or to have a good background in math.



Aaaaaanyway, I don't see why people criticise DR's piece for being so long while pointing out that game texts areally too long, too. The point was not just that Torment has the word count of a zillion. But as evidenced by the examples a part of that is clearly superfluous. On the other hand, I see nothing superfluous in DR's piece.

 

[Cosmo]

The same actually applies to novels as well

I see your point, i only brushed away novels because of their narrative writing, which IMO should be kept at a minimum : you can tell me of a slight NPC action that couldn't be transcribed into a proper animation, or you can frame the game's events with a quaint tale-like paragraph à la Icewind Dale, but those things should stay at the margins or have a strictly supplemental role.

You make a great point, actually, especially since modern theatre so often invites audience interaction. I also agree with the specific points you're making. However, the crucial difference to me is that a medium-sized CRPG has much, much more content than a medium-sized play—and it does become an issue since all that content has to be structured somehow and theatrical means will not necessarily work for the overall structure.

Yeah the scope in lenght and wordbuilding are the reasons the craft of making novel is similar to that of making RPGs, it's just that those games shouldn't take their cues from novels when it comes purely to using the written word.
RPGs are comparable to novels for these two caracteristics : their breadth of action, and their cosmogonic nature (they create worlds, a thing even the more realistic novels do).
By the way that's why i disagree with Roxor about his absolute distaste of loredumps : when for example you find a book in BG2, that describe lands you'll never visit through the course of the game, not only does it not take away from the active nature of the game (you read it when you want to, and when a game is this long, the moments of lull are a necessary part of it), but it also manifests and illustrates the fact that RPGs are about both telling an interactive story and creating the illusion of a world with its own laws and its own proper existence. Basically CRPGs are both a story AND a world (gameplay in its broad sense makes the two congeal).

I don’t think we have anything to benefit from these comparisons whit other genres

Yes we do because CRPGs are a hodgepodge of a miriad of other gaming and outside genres (in that sense i see their bastardization with other game types as a necessary aspect), that borrows tools and techniques from everywhere.
If only you could provide me with an absolute definition of the genre (then again, if you think you have one, please don't, that's just a rhetorical remark :D), but we both know it doesn't exist. So, because of the composite nature of CRPGs, the best way is still to clarify things with each and every tools at our disposition, according to the nature of the genre.

But who said the bigger purpose should disregard the quality of writing?

If you remember my post, that's precisely the reason why i said i "partially" disagreed rather than totally. I disagreed on the logic directing the use of writing, not the writing itself. Plus, i think the term "quality" is way too vague : anyone and his mother can speak of quality when in fact they mean totally random and subjective things ; the only thing of value here would be objective criteria that themselves could be judged or questioned.

 

[Israfael]

Haven't read the text yet or the comments (mostly agree with MRY though), but i think the problem is much simple than just the quality of the text, mechanics, systems and so on. In my opinion, games started to decline when they stopped being, well, games, but trying to pretend to be something else in a new medium (as someone already said). That's why games like Dark Souls have this huge appeal because it's unashamedly a game and it does not try to ape the reality and follow some book- or movie-like rules.

When I launched it for the first time, I distinctly felt (and it's not just only 90-ies like texture quality and NES/PS1 like interface) like i was back in the 90-ies, when a game was a game and you could experiment and play to your own liking instead of being bound by the creative will (or narrowness of the mind) of the authors.

A distinct counterexample is Tyranny - we are given some (arbitrary chosen) choices in the dialogues and it feels so stifling - for supposedly a high-ranking functionary you are quite limited in your actions because of narrative and stuff. For instance, you can jew it out and save the offspring of the rebel lord while talking with the Ashe's daughter, but you can't find a legal or political solution to Archons' squabbling because it moves the plot forward (some other games managed to do it though, *cough* you know which *cough*).

Even if the narrative is non-existent, it still can be an RPG (and much better one at that). There's literally a small list of successful plot-driven RPGs of the recent times (NV, MotB, maybe DAO+Awakening), everything else is basically an interactive movie (or book), at least from the point of how I see it.

 

[Lurker King]

I agree with you, but I think we have to find a middle ground between Dark Souls and Tyranny. Otherwise, every cRPG will need a sandbox arcade game structure so that you can actually feel free. The problem with Tyranny is not that it restricted your choices, but that the boundaries made no sense at all.

 

[Israfael]

Dark Souls and Tyranny.

Well, it's not truly a sandbox (more like persistent world) - there is some (rudimentary) plot, some evident and some hidden c&c (like the crusader and the nun 'quests'), other stuff that separates it from the typical sandbox where nothing absolutely matters. What I mean is something like Fallout 1/2 or Arcanum, where you are free to do anything you want, break the plot, go straight to Mariposa / Oil Rig - freeform exploration + some flexible plot that accounts your will into itself. You can also add Gothic II to this list (I never played the first game, so i can't say anything about it). Even games like Dishonored have more freedom of thought and action than certain RPGs

 

[Lurker King]

Yes we do because CRPGs are a hodgepodge of a miriad of other gaming and outside genres (in that sense i see their bastardization with other game types as a necessary aspect), that borrows tools and techniques from everywhere. If only you could provide me with an absolute definition of the genre (then again, if you think you have one, please don't, that's just a rhetorical remark), but we both know it doesn't exist. So, because of the composite nature of CRPGs, the best way is still to clarify things with each and every tools at our disposition, according to the nature of the genre.

I don’t know that there is no definition; I know that there is a perception that there isn’t much consensus about it, which is completely different. Your line of reasoning is a mess. If we didn’t have any consensual definition about the nature of cRPGs, we could present a basic characterization and build from that. For instance, it’s obvious to me that any basic attempt to understand cRPGs would need to consider character building, stats, skills, stat/skill checks, challenges, resource management, reactivity, story, quests and dialogues. This should be the bread and butter of these discussions about writing, not preconceptions about the importance of theatre, movies or literature.

If you don’t have a clear understanding of what a cRPG is, trying to look for answers in someplace else, especially if it is other social artifacts that you also don’t know how to define, it will only make things more confusing. I think this is just slop thinking, to be honest. You think that they cRPGs and theatre have in common the fact that they have dynamic narrative, whatever the hell that is, and you think that talking about theatre will make writing in cRPGs better. It won’t. It won’t make a difference.

 

[vdweller]

What's your (as in, anyone reading this) take on William Gobson's novels, especially the Sprawl and Bridge trilogies?

What, you don't know the famous cyberponk writer Wiliam Gobson? Shame!

 

[Lurker King]

Well, it's not truly a sandbox (more like persistent world) - there is some (rudimentary) plot, some evident and some hidden c&c (like the crusader and the nun 'quests'), other stuff that separates it from the typical sandbox where nothing absolutely matters. What I mean is something like Fallout 1/2 or Arcanum, where you are free to do anything you want, break the plot, go straight to Mariposa / Oil Rig - freeform exploration + some flexible plot that accounts your will into itself. You can also add Gothic II to this list (I never played the first game, so i can't say anything about it). Even games like Dishonored have more freedom of thought and action than certain RPGs

I was afraid you would say something along these lines. In these games you are only free to do anything you want because nothing absolutely matters. Your stats don’t matter, your skills don’t matter, the setting doesn’t matter, etc. It’s empty freedom. Just ask yourself: “Does it make any sense that one person could murder an entire city alone?”. No, it doesn’t, but since it’s FO, all our popamole sins are forgiven. What makes these games interesting for me is the settings, the writing and the skill checks. That “let me walk around naked because I want an isometric Skyrim” part sucks and it’s the origin of this disgrace of popamole world we live in.

 

[Lurker King]

I don't think we should be criticising Locke for that. I read Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, many many other less or more known philosophers, and basically anyone apart from Descartes wrote in such sentences. That seems to have been the style back then.

Exactly. I have the impression that until the 40s and 50s long paragraphs with lots of commas were the norm. The preference for short paragraphs is recent.