RPG Writing Hall of Infamy

[Egosphere]

It becomes bad much earlier than that. One of the alien spec-op soldiers kills the other and get seen by some random worker. When the worker's testimony is brought to the council, they just hand-wave it away like it's nothing, even though the bad guy is implicated by name. Apparently these elite agents are household names across the galaxy.

TBH this is most realistic and real part of the game.

It's not their refusal to hear the testimony that irked me. It's that they didn't seem to recognize that he had no way of knowing that info. Even if they didn't believe him, they'd have to take him in for questioning to know how he knew the soldier's name, race etc.

 

[PsychoFox]

I get the feeling that PoE belongs somewhere around here. I mean the writing is technically competent, but the it seems like it's saying so little in so many words, and not much of it is all that interesting.

 

[Harry Easter]

I get the feeling that PoE belongs somewhere around here. I mean the writing is technically competent, but the it seems like it's saying so little in so many words, and not much of it is all that interesting.

Felt that way about Age of Decadence. After a while I skipped most of it.

 

[MajorMace]

Not the worst but my biggest disappointment : Shadowrun Hong Kong.

Back then, I hadn't played Dragonfall (and still haven't, maybe it's the same) but I had very good memories of Dead Man Switch. It was short and linear, but it was very well handled and narrated.
Hong Kong in comparison made me feel like the writing team had a wordcount to reach. It was full of completely unnecessary and irrelevant lore and characters talking about their background in the most random and chaotic way.

Felt that way about Age of Decadence. After a while, I skipped most of it.

I like how you emphasize the title for extra shock value.
Not that I disagree mind you.

 

[PsychoFox]

I get the feeling that PoE belongs somewhere around here. I mean the writing is technically competent, but the it seems like it's saying so little in so many words, and not much of it is all that interesting.

Felt that way about Age of Decadence. After a while, I skipped most of it.

Haven't played that one much. The setting didn't interest me at all.

 

[Contagium]

You're not missing much. A lot of Codexer's get autistic over that game...but it just sucks

I get the feeling that PoE belongs somewhere around here. I mean the writing is technically competent, but the it seems like it's saying so little in so many words, and not much of it is all that interesting.

Felt that way about Age of Decadence. After a while, I skipped most of it.

Haven't played that one much. The setting didn't interest me at all.

 

[JarlFrank]

made in RPG MAKER. It does everything wrong

This applies to the majority of RPG Maker games.

 

[octavius]

Although Bioware did create that great Minsc line: "Less talk, more fight!"

So Bioware's most iconic character is an anti-storyfag.

That's why I always include Minsc in my party.

 

[Robert Erick]

Not the worst but my biggest disappointment : Shadowrun Hong Kong.

Back then, I hadn't played Dragonfall (and still haven't, maybe it's the same) but I had very good memories of Dead Man Switch. It was short and linear, but it was very well handled and narrated.
Hong Kong in comparison made me feel like the writing team had a wordcount to reach. It was full of completely unnecessary and irrelevant lore and characters talking about their background in the most random and chaotic way.

Felt that way about Age of Decadence. After a while, I skipped most of it.

I like how you emphasize the title for extra shock value.
Not that I disagree mind you.

Dragonfall was better than DMS or Hung Dong, at least when it comes to writing. HK's writing wasn't terrible or anything, but there was too much of it and it got melodramatic sometimes. It did, however, get bad in the Shadows of Hong Kong bonus campaign. Embarrassingly bad.

 

[PsychoFox]

I personally liked the writing in HK and i'm quick to criticize this sort of thing. I found the companions specially interesting.

 

[Robert Erick]

I personally liked the writing in HK and i'm quick to criticize this sort of thing. I found the companions specially interesting.

The companions were pretty good, bar Iszerobel. The plot was pretty good, as well. But there was too much TL;DR from NPCs that you couldn't get out of once you initiated. I remember when I came back from the final mission, I just wanted to go talk to my father and brother and the reporter at the entrance just wouldn't shut the fuck up and let me get on with it.

 

[Harry Easter]

This applies to the majority of RPG Maker games.

But we also had some Pearls like Reise ins All and Unterwegs in Düsterburg. Düsterburg especially showed how it could be done, even as early as 2003. Played it recently and it's baffeling how much the writing still holds up, because it takes its characters serious and it sprinkles some humour in, if it needs to.

I like how you emphasize the title for extra shock value.
Not that I disagree mind you.

The emphasizing is just a personal tick of mine^^. As for Decadence: the thing is, it started good, but then it made the mistake to tell me everyones backstory. I remember this long summation of the backstory of an assassin, I would only see for one quest in my playthrough. Nobody needs that, there are better ways to tell this stuff and I think the devs knew that too. But AoD was a passion project and as a writer myself, I can understand how much you want to tell people how cool your stuff is. Oh well, growing pains.

 

[JarlFrank]

Not the worst but my biggest disappointment : Shadowrun Hong Kong.

Back then, I hadn't played Dragonfall (and still haven't, maybe it's the same) but I had very good memories of Dead Man Switch. It was short and linear, but it was very well handled and narrated.
Hong Kong in comparison made me feel like the writing team had a wordcount to reach. It was full of completely unnecessary and irrelevant lore and characters talking about their background in the most random and chaotic way.

Felt that way about Age of Decadence. After a while, I skipped most of it.

I like how you emphasize the title for extra shock value.
Not that I disagree mind you.

Dragonfall was better than DMS or Hung Dong, at least when it comes to writing. HK's writing wasn't terrible or anything, but there was too much of it and it got melodramatic sometimes. It did, however, get bad in the Shadows of Hong Kong bonus campaign. Embarrassingly bad.

I think the problem of HK is that they tried to copy what made Dragonfall good and went a bit overboard in their attempt.

 

[Harry Easter]

I think the problem of HK is that they tried to copy what made Dragonfall good and went a bit overboard in their attempt.

That's it in a nutshell. The questdesign is still good, the new matrix fun and the plan of one of the big bads fascinatingly mundane...but it is all hidden under so much WORDS. And the same guy, who wrote for Dragonfall, worked on this one too! But just shows, that it happens sometime. Sometime, you just do too much and it isn't better.

 

[fantadomat]

Sooo bad writing....

Dragon age 2,it was all about muh mages are evul demons no matter what you chose.
Mass Effect 3,that garbage of a human,Casey Hudson decided to scrap all the main story out of jealousy and delivered that diarrhea of three coloured endings.
MEA,written by sjw abortion survivals.
PoE1&2,when you let an accountant to come up with a fantasy world. The writing in the second one is so mediocre that maybe it makes it one of the worst worst.
Tranny,a half game with a lot of gated contend because muh replayability is fashionable word on steam. Also kill in shit.
NumaNuma,too much dry boring and lifeless writing. Walls of pointless text,far too over verbose.
DOS games,the writing is pretty bad,a lot of progressive faggotry,but in the end even it is too mediocre for the player to remember it a week after.

 

[Black Angel]

The emphasizing is just a personal tick of mine^^. As for Decadence: the thing is, it started good, but then it made the mistake to tell me everyones backstory. I remember this long summation of the backstory of an assassin, I would only see for one quest in my playthrough. Nobody needs that, there are better ways to tell this stuff and I think the devs knew that too. But AoD was a passion project and as a writer myself, I can understand how much you want to tell people how cool your stuff is. Oh well, growing pains.

Do you mean when you first meet an NPC? Because that's not background, not exactly. Only a summary of who the NPC you're speaking to is and what they've been doing their whole life that gets them to this point in just few short sentences. If you want their *real* background, you ought to pass a [Charisma] check, and sometimes [Perception], [Intelligence], and [reputation] checks.

 

[Harry Easter]

Do you mean when you first meet an NPC? Because that's not background, not exactly. Only a summary of who the NPC you're speaking to is and what they've been doing their whole life that gets them to this point in just few short sentences. If you want their *real* background, you ought to pass a [Charisma] check, and sometimes [Perception], [Intelligence], and [reputation] checks.

Good question. Would have to play it again, but I seem to remember lot of descriptions of a characters personality and what you *should* feel around this person (not a fan of that kind of writing).

 

[Black Angel]

but I seem to remember lot of descriptions of a characters personality and what you *should* feel around this person (not a fan of that kind of writing).

The first time you encounter an NPC, there's only a vague and brief mention of the character's personality, and no, they don't tell you what you 'should' feel about them. For example, this is what you get upon encountering Feng for the first time:

Feng came to Teron with a caravan two decades ago. Nobody knew where he came from or why, but he had the bitterness of a man soured by the memory of the life he lost. He was well versed in languages and the antiquities, but the town already had a loremaster. Fortunately for Feng, the loremaster fell sick and passed away, despite the best efforts of the local alchemist who was quite puzzled by the symptoms. Feng became the new loremaster and even earned the favor of Lord Antidas after discovering several Daratan relics.

However, to actually know where he came from and why, you had to pass a [Charisma] check.

 

[StaticSpine]

I'll add some examples.

Cyberpunk 2077. The protagonist says this line right before the shootout starts instead of grabbing the gun and starting shooting. Besides the goon most likely even doesn't get an insult that complex. It doesn't sound like a phrase thrown before a real gunfight, it sounds like a phrase the writer thought was brilliant.

Pillars of Eternity 2. Not only the writing is too wordy, but it also describes what I can see through text.

 

[Zer0wing]

Cyberpunk 2077. The protagonist says this line right before the shootout starts instead of grabbing the gun and starting shooting. Besides the goon most likely even doesn't get an insult that complex. It doesn't sound like a phrase thrown before a real gunfight, it sounds like a phrase the writer thought was brilliant.

Insulting the goon the short way would be deemed WAYCIST!!!1 No overwriting would be as effective as a simple "Nigger". From top to bottom, from russian entrance pisser Barak Obama to florida amazon warehouse "worker", african americans are sensitive bitches. If I were the goon, I'd just laugh at V's attempts at being witty right in her face.

 

[Mexi]

Anything full of faux chaucerian thee's and thou's.

OMFG, so much this. Anyone play that Dynaheir mod for BG: 1? FML, I had to remove it. Full of that shit, IIRC! 'Tis, thou, thee, and shit like that.

 

[Narushima]

["Your little skull sponge can't possibly get its grey cells around it"]

It's like the writer intially wrote "You can't wrap your brain around it" and then used a thesaurus on that sentence like a caveman wielding a club.

 

[luj1]

I get the feeling that PoE belongs somewhere around here. I mean the writing is technically competent

It's not. Editing is like an alien concept to them.

 

[Bastardchops]

I get the feeling that PoE belongs somewhere around here. I mean the writing is technically competent, but the it seems like it's saying so little in so many words, and not much of it is all that interesting.

It's cringe when they try to be verbose and profound.

 

[curds]

Baldur’s Gate, where stupid accents are a substitute for personality.