The best writer in RPGs is...

[Lhynn]

Its really hard to tell whos a good writer, because its really hard to tell who did what. But i guess diablo 1 nailed the writing, so did portal 1. alpha protocol to this day remains one of the best written games in my mind, i mean, the sheer complexity of the conversations and actions and the chain of events all naturally leading up to the same place with widly different paths and choices is p. great, let alone actually staying coherent and interesting all the way through.
The exile trilogy has superb writing, simplistic but did its job wonderfully, geneforge on the other side of the spectrum, actually tackling moral and ethical issues. I guess Vogel could have very well been one of the best writers around before he got sick with oldness.

 

[Old One]

Douglas Adams.

 

[octavius]

Douglas Adams.

Now there's a man who could make a game out such a banal thing as notifying your bank of a change of address.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Elder Scrolls is shit. Just copy and pasted real world cultures from specific time periods that remain static more or less. Then added high fantasy crap.

Writing pastiches of real-world cultures is the time-honored tradition of pulp fantasy from Robert E. Howard's Conan stories to D&D's Known World campaign setting to at least one Codex-celebrated RPG released last year. I prefer a well-conceived sui generis setting (e.g. Morrowind), but, failing that, the pulp fantasy method is the best for creating cultures that are interesting and distinct, and also instantly accessible to readers due to the wealth of real-world associations that will immediately spring to mind.

 

[Lurker King]

The best cRPG writer is hands down Vault Dweller, A.K.A., Vincent Weller, or whatever the hell his real name is. A distant second is Chris Avellone.

 

[eremita]

Best Writers: Chris Avellone - Planescape: Torment, Lonesome Road; George Ziets - Mask of the Betrayer

The best cRPG writer is hands down Vault Dweller, A.K.A., Vincent Weller, or whatever the hell his real name is. A distant second is Chris Avellone.

AoD's writing is good but compared to MoTB for example? Nahh, that's a whole different level.

 

[Ismaul]

AoD's writing is good but compared to MoTB for example? Nahh, that's a whole different level.

I liked MotB and Ziet's writing, also loved MCA's PST, but Vault Dweller's is miles ahead. Great characterisation with no bullshit flowery words.

 

[Popiel]

As much as I love TES lore, MK is far away from being best video game writer out there. He's very inconsistent when comes to quality, way too focused on being arrogant prick, and he is after all a worldbuilder and not writer per se. Because, what's considered his good piece of fiction? Lessons of Vivec? They are great, but... highly unorthodox, hard to classify, really, and still there's that he's just draining Crowley and Blake when comes to style and intended obscurity.

 

[Lurker King]

AoD's writing is good but compared to MoTB for example? Nahh, that's a whole different level.

I liked MotB and Ziet's writing, also loved MCA's PST, but Vault Dweller's is miles ahead. Great characterization with no bullshit flowery words.

MotB has a dark atmosphere, but the setting involves the typical uber phantasy bullshit. You start the game fighting with a fucking god, for fuck’s sake. Also, some of the NPCs are completely idiotic. The description of Gannayev-of-Dreams is teenage bullshit:

Tall and ruggedly handsome, Gann wears a sarcastic half-smile and affects an air of casual indifference. His skin has a faintly blue or violet cast... a legacy of the night hag who was his mother. Unlike other hagspawn - men born of a human father and a hag mother - Gann's face is neither brutish nor ill-favored... but the Rashemi still treat him with a good deal of suspicion."

Now, compare that with VD’s writing, which is not only believable, but mature, immersive, sometimes disturbing or fun. The dialogue below occurs when the player is trying to haggle a ransom with the leader of the bandit camp:

- Several raiders in battered armor acknowledge your presence by getting up and loading their crossbows. A grey-haired man with a military posture emerges from one of the tents and assesses the situation. He barks some orders, swearing at his men and sending them to take positions around the camp. Within moments, some semblance of military order is created. Satisfied, the leader turns his attention to you.

- I'm here to negotiate.

- We found this fine young man walking alone in these very dangerous woods. When he told us that he's a nephew of a local Lord, we decided to keep him company and do our best to ensure his safety. I'm sure that his uncle would appreciate our help and reward us generously. A thousand coins should be enough, I think.

- [trading success] Lord Antidas will certainly appreciate your kindness, but a thousand coins is too much.

- Who can put a price on the life of a kin?

- That depends on a kin, doesn't it? This particular kin is hardly worth more than 200 coins.

- I paid more for my dog. 900 coins, and only as a token of my respect.

- A good dog is hard to find. Useless relatives aren't. 300 coins is a good price for one.

- If he's so useless, why pay anything at all? 800 coins.

- That should be acceptable.

Now, that is writing.

 

[Kem0sabe]

AoD is indeed very well written in terms of dialogue and character interactions, but it could have used a much better world builder and a better story arc.

The game works best when handling individual story vignettes, and fails miserably as it pushes the player forward from one location to the next up to the anticlimactic and rushed finale.

 

[Lurker King]

Kem0sabe, I agree with you that the convergence of paths at the end is forced, but the game already provides many mini-endings for each faction that are rewarding in their own right. The story arc would be better than the actual one without the boss, but not THAT better. The world building is close to perfection, IMO. However, I would change some details involving the way technology is presented and stuff.

 

[laclongquan]

It's because their settings are different: AoD is low fantasy, while MotB is high fantasy.

 

[polo]

If you ever read a decent book, you'll find writing in games is shit. Because its never the main part of it, it may be important like in PS:T but even there game writers have some restrictions regarding story, the representation of it, etc.
Even tho i like reading, i usually find myself skipping a lot of content in games because it turns boring as shit.

 

[Neanderthal]

Neal Halford, BaK were a better read than Feist in my humble.

 

[Carrion]

If you ever read a decent book, you'll find writing in games is shit. Because its never the main part of it, it may be important like in PS:T but even there game writers have some restrictions regarding story, the representation of it, etc.
Even tho i like reading, i usually find myself skipping a lot of content in games because it turns boring as shit.

A good computer game writer acknowledges his medium and makes use of its advantages as well as knowing its limitations. You can't tell a story in a game in the same way that you tell one in a book, and you shouldn't even try. An RPG might have the best-written dialogue ever, but it can still be bad computer game writing if it robs the player of his initiative or tries to convey things that would be better suited described through sound or graphics, for example. On the other hand many of the best-written games have a rather low amount of text to begin with, they just make use of it in a way that supplements the rest of the content (e.g. a short backstory that sets the proper tone before you delve into a dungeon, or a couple of lines of dialogue that give some personality to a main villain that is mainly defined by nontextual information, like his looks, voice, animations, stats etc.).

There are well-written games just as there are well-written books, but a good book doesn't necessarily translate into good game writing, and vice versa. The "why don't you just read a book?" argument was dumb from day one.

 

[Hyperion]

Video game writing is generally pretty shit, but then again so is the writing is a lot of books. Being forced to read The Scarlet Letter in high school still causes nightmares. What a fucking piece of shit.

Having said that, I enjoy when a game finds unique ways to add flavor. NWN2 has been mentioned ad nauseam, but everyone seems to have overlooked the entirely different journal text, and i think some dialogue choices if your PC is dumb as a post (Int sub 9/10?) Unfortunately, the OC sucked so much I couldn't even bring myself to play the expansions, but that's for a different topic. The only other game I think that did this with dialogue was ToEE.

Not to leave the East out of this discussion, and it was mentioned once before, but Lost Odyssey had some fantastic writing that was offset by some serious cringeworthy moments from those fucking children, and the antagonist. Though if I remember correctly, the dreams in LO were written by an acknowledged short story writer, which sort of counts as cheating.

The retranslations of Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre were completely botched and it's hard to tell if there was ever a good script underneath all the bullshit. Whoever decided 'weald' was a better word than woods or forest should be shot.

 

[Raziel]

Man, I love Chris Avellone as much as the next guy, but he's not the sole reason for PS:T's brilliance. The setting carried the game hard. If you read the PnP books it's going to feel just like the game, Planescape manuals won't read like manuals at all--they're written like stories to be enjoyed instead of skimmed through. Contrast this with other DND settings and the difference is clear.

Otherworldly locations, the Middle Ages inspired slang, factions that follow rigorous rules and convinctions--all grounded in RL philosophy, these elements and more are a product of nerds who disliked the way classical fantasy worked. David Cook is to be commended for his work on the setting, it was quite short lived and only ran for around 4 years, yet in such short time it achieved far more than any other publication. It's quite unfortunate that we only have one game to show it off in video-game form.

The standard fantasy tropes that infest most other works are rarely present in PS. I think the closest literary example in the fantasy genre to this is perhaps Malazan Book of the Fallen, and like David Cook, Steven Erikson decided to not follow in Tolkien's footsteps and the result is one of the best fantasy books written. (though to be fair, SE subverts his tropes, compared to PS where most of the time the setting ignores them completely). All the more excitement for the rumors of a Malazan RPG, if anyone can replicate PS:T's success it would be Erikson.

 

[Morality Games]

Man, I love Chris Avellone as much as the next guy, but he's not the sole reason for PS:T's brilliance. The setting carried the game hard.

True, but one of Avellone's talents is quickly identifying untapped or unfulfilled potential in others' writing, the source of his proverbial comment that, "he likes working in established IPs." So he wrote the best Star Wars narrative ever because he realizes the untapped potential of the Star Wars setting in the way only a nerd can -- Star Wars directors (even the good one, ESB guy) just don't care in comparison.

Endears him to nerds because nerds have the same ability, or at least the smart ones do.

Basically that's what Avellone is doing for a living right now, spotting untapped or hidden potential across multiple developers and games.

 

[bylam]

"Writing" is a limited description for what RPGs (most games) include anyway.
Worldbuilding (mythology, setting etc.) is very different to Characters (dialogue, cinematics, romances ) which is different again to Plot/Narrative.
Kirkbride is a good worldbuilder, for sure, but plot and characters? Nah.

Avellone does characters extremely well, but I feel like it is hard to get a grasp on his world building skills considering Planescape and Star Wars are pre-existing settings. And obviously *ahem* plot got a bit rushed in KOTOR 2.

I have to work with Howard's universe and that is a pretty intimidating style to even attempt to imitate. The Secret World was easier to write for than the Conan universe.

My personal favorite is whoever does the writing for the Dark Souls games. It isn't particularly amazing, but it is enviably coherent across those three areas and it does *game* storytelling correctly.

 

[Jazz_]

No love for Warren Spector? Quality writing like this is not something you meet often in videogames:

 

[Carrion]

No love for Warren Spector? Quality writing like this is not something you meet often in videogames:

Sheldon Pacotti was the lead writer for Deus Ex. DX has good writing, but once again, it's not really displayed through individual pieces of dialogue (which often just try to convey the important stuff as effectively as possible while sometimes indulging in a bit of philosophical textbook wankery that happens to work very well in the context) but rather how it all comes together as a whole.

 

[Johannes]

Kem0sabe, I agree with you that the convergence of paths at the end is forced, but the game already provides many mini-endings for each faction that are rewarding in their own right. The story arc would be better than the actual one without the boss, but not THAT better. The world building is close to perfection, IMO. However, I would change some details involving the way technology is presented and stuff.

AoD isn't good at worldbuilding. They tried too hard to be realistic, but they don't know enough of history or human behavior to follow through. It'd been more forgivable if they'd been a bit more tongue in cheek.

 

[A horse of course]

I think the closest literary example in the fantasy genre to this is perhaps Malazan Book of the Fallen, and like David Cook, Steven Erikson decided to not follow in Tolkien's footsteps and the result is one of the best fantasy books written. (though to be fair, SE subverts his tropes, compared to PS where most of the time the setting ignores them completely). All the more excitement for the rumors of a Malazan RPG, if anyone can replicate PS:T's success it would be Erikson.

Brolapsed for recommending Malazan.

 

[Beastro]

Michael Kirkbride.

If you don't know who Kirkbride is, he is responsible for creating a lot of the lore around the Elder Scrolls series. He wrote most of the gods and creation myths, pretty much everything Vivec-related in Morrowind, and also the Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes. Plus lots more.

Now as derpy as the games themselves can be, if you really start digging into the lore, there's a lot of deep world design and interesting storytelling going on behind the scenes. The Bethesda devs fail to effectively utilize most of it but it's there.

Nobody else in games really writes the way Kirkbride does (maybe Avellone is close when he is on his game). Kirkbride's stuff is usually hard to grasp, very esoteric and kind of a mindfuck, but once you start to wrap your head around it then it's really cool. And even though it will never happen, I would love to see a TES game where he is given free reign over the story and narrative design.

Thoughts?

World building =/= writing, imo.

Yes it does take writing, but "writing" in a game is dialogue and things like book fluff, something Kirkbride isn't famous for.

Also, I think we'd find his writing a lot less endearing if it wasn't limited to essentially one game. I for one wouldn't appreciate playing game after game full of his convoluted, esoteric talk, but in Morrowind it was both fitting and refreshing (having more of that in games would also retroactively ruin Morrowind - the only thing really good in it that stands out would fade into the background full of other similar games).

Kem0sabe, I agree with you that the convergence of paths at the end is forced, but the game already provides many mini-endings for each faction that are rewarding in their own right. The story arc would be better than the actual one without the boss, but not THAT better. The world building is close to perfection, IMO. However, I would change some details involving the way technology is presented and stuff.

AoD isn't good at worldbuilding. They tried too hard to be realistic, but they don't know enough of history or human behavior to follow through. It'd been more forgivable if they'd been a bit more tongue in cheek.

The historical aspect isn't the problem, it's the delivery.

The history of Dyrwood is a good example of that, especially when placed in contrast to DA's Ferelden, both newly independent regions previously ruled by an expansionist empire.

Yes DA might have lifted much of their history from real life, but they went to great lengths to add personality to each region and their culture, actively presenting that in game through the characters shown with Ferelden being looked on as full of quirks, as misfit kingdom hat bewilders foreigners and other things that are constantly pointed out.

In contrast all we know of Dyrwood is a dry, fact by fact recount of the origins of their history, their time as a colony and their eventual independence while in game the only people who stand out as cookie cutter NPCs you farm for information are the Engwithans and they mainly only do because of their more primitive culture that stands in contrast to you typical Dyrwood, but even then dialogue wise they are interchangeable.

Also keep in mind that where Durance came from is interesting because he made it interesting, recounting his time as a conventional priest and how different priests of Magran are from the norm, effectively being factory workers and metallurgists working where he lived in a land marked by their industrial activity that are similar to Thief's Hammerites and yet very very different.

 

[duanth123]

whoever wrote the majority of dialogue in Pathologic

Spoiler

if you consider it an rpg