Worldbuilding>Characters>Plot

[Gargaune]

Writing > Combat
Fight me

Then shouldn't you have said... "write me?"

 

[Odoryuk]

Art>Worldbuilding>Characters>Plot

True for most visual media

 

[the mole]

I skip cutscenes in my rpgs

 

[Lemming42]

It depends on the story being told. I'm not sure you can decouple most of these concepts anyway, in Fallout a lot of the worldbuilding is conveyed to you through characters you meet who typically only appear briefly but still form the basis of your memories and knowledge of the world.

Like, to establish that FEV sometimes turns people medically retarded, they have you meet Harry which conveys the physical and mental effects of FEV to you and also gives you yet another memorable character to define your journey. Instead of having you find a holotape that says "I am Doctor Fuckhead and here is my five-paragraph treatise on the effects of FEV that most players will skip because they want to play a videogame and not read a shitty fucking book".

To establish the Deathclaw, you meet Butch who's shit-scared of it, Beth who's an enthusiastic cryptozoologist, Harold who knows a thing or two about it, and that guy outside Harold's who's lost his shit and has actually seen the Deathclaw. Similarly, to establish that the BoS are scumbags, you meet Cabot who's a shifty liar and The Guy Next To Cabot who takes pity on you and cautions that the "initiation test" is lethal, rather than just having some mouseover wiki tooltip where you're outright told the BoS don't like outsiders. It's all done through characters and dialogue, and the world wouldn't be interesting if it weren't conveyed through the people in it.

 

[S.torch]

I have to disagree here. Worldbuilding is the body of a story, but characters are the SOVL. In ultimate instance what makes you return to a game over and over again are sympathetic characters. Planescape and Bloodlines come to mind as examples of this.

And From Software's success is a testament to it. Their games basically don't have characters and plot

>He fell for the Dark Souls has no story meme
Not gonna make it.

 

[Chuck Norris]

>He fell for the Dark Souls has no story meme
Not gonna make it.

I know it has a story, and a very extensive one.

But for someone who's experiencing the game for the first time, it's almost impossible to understand or follow that story by yourself. Initially, everyone started to love Dark Souls and Demon Souls because of the world and the vibe it gave. It was through this love that they discovered the story behind it.

 

[S.torch]

But for someone who's experiencing the game for the first time, it's almost impossible to understand or follow that story by yourself. Initially, everyone started to love Dark Souls and Demon Souls because of the world and the vibe it gave. It was through this love that they discovered the story behind it.

One of the main appeals of Dark Souls are the iconic characters that keep appearing with each new entry. Nothing would be the same without the Firekeeper, Solaire, Artorias, Gwynevere, Gwyndolin, etc. And that's one of the main reasons their imitators fail. Because they think everything is about "le epic dark world where everything is dead."

 

[Chuck Norris]

But for someone who's experiencing the game for the first time, it's almost impossible to understand or follow that story by yourself. Initially, everyone started to love Dark Souls and Demon Souls because of the world and the vibe it gave. It was through this love that they discovered the story behind it.

One of the main appeals of Dark Souls are the iconic characters that keep appearing with each new entry. Nothing would be the same without the Firekeeper, Solaire, Artorias, Gwynevere, Gwyndolin, etc. And that's one of the main reasons their imitators fail. Because they think everything is about "le epic dark world where everything is dead."

Yeah, but they're not really "characters" in the sense that Ashley Williams in Mass Effect or Triss in the Witcher are characters. They're either memes or expressions of the world building themselves.

 

[Iucounu]

the Witcher series with their recurring characters (Diego, Gorn, Xardas, Dandelion, Zoltan, Vesemir, ...).

All of them cringe and annoying.

what makes you return to a game over and over again are sympathetic characters.

Never happened in my 25 years of PC gaming. I will avoid games with too disgusting characters though.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

When was the last time somebody here got genuinely invested in a new game world?
Not disputing OP's point, just curious as to the overall jadedness level

 

[Old Hans]

rpgs should first and foremost be about looting endless crates and barrels, collecting garbage from a random item generator.

 

[SmoothPimp]

Role-playing system > everything else.

 

[Tyranicon]

I have to disagree here. Worldbuilding is the body of a story, but characters are the SOVL. In ultimate instance what makes you return to a game over and over again are sympathetic characters. Planescape and Bloodlines come to mind as examples of this.

I would say characters>worldbuilding in novels, film, etc. Definitely in traditional writing circles there is heavy focus on character-driven stories.

It's the prestigious thing as a writer because creating well-rounded people is very hard. And seeing how your examples are from are from ~20 years ago, it would seem the games industry finds it equally hard.

Current AA/AAA RPGs are very character-focused and it's a disappointment since all their characters are the same. A thoughtpoliced safe character that's a hole for players of any sexual orientation to project weird desires onto.

Also usually ugly to boot.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

The problem with "worldbuilding" is that people think that the only way to make it is to emulate the Lord of the Rings.

 

[Iucounu]

To each their own. I loathe sandboxes; unless there is also a well-developed plot and characters, it's a pass from me.

Do you never feel a desire to keep (free)playing a game after the plot is finished?

 

[NecroLord]

Or, A Simple Primer to RPG Writing.

People often bring up romances and cinematic voiced dialogue as elements of decline, but I think the biggest one in RPGs is a focus on characters or plot over worldbuilding. If I recall RPGs that really stick out in my mind (Fallout, TES, D&D, etc, etc), what I remember are worldbuilding factoids.

Video games are an inherently different medium than books or movies. Older mediums are curated, linear experiences. They focus on characters or plot because it makes sense to them. Applying the same techniques here, in a medium that allows for player agency, is misguided.

That's not to say that characters and plot aren't important. If you're going to have them, they should be written well.

But the ideal RPG would be a fully realized world that you can just run around in as a sandbox.

Arcanum worldbuilding is one of the greatest.
That's why it is so important to have a setting with a rich lore.
Also Daggerfall, Morrowind, etc.

 

[Iucounu]

When was the last time somebody here got genuinely invested in a new game world?
Not disputing OP's point, just curious as to the overall jadedness level

At least four games over the last 5-6 years. But before that it was pretty dull after Stalker.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I don't know that characters trump plot. For example, Pillars of Eternity has some NPCs that are competently written, but I don't care about them in the slightest because I don't care about what any of them are doing. Most of the NPCs interacted with in many older games (1996 and earlier) are simple, basic, and forgettable. That didn't stop us from enjoying the game. Dragon Age is a curious case. The characters were decently written (NPCs, not just companions), the world building was alright too, but the plot was an inferior Lord of the Rings. Even with many of the chapters or major quest lines being decent in their own right, the overall plot was just so painfully boring that it was hard to care.

 

[0sacred]

Pillows lore dumps agree with you.

Pillows lore is pretty disconnected from what the player can experience IIRC. That's bad worldbuilding or maybe none at all.

 

[0sacred]

When was the last time somebody here got genuinely invested in a new game world?

A fully realized, cohesive world like Ultima VII or Fallout, is a great thing. I'm always looking forward to finding something like that in a game but I'm usually disappointed. Nevertheless, I don't stop trying.

My biggest hope is Code of the Savage rn.

 

[0sacred]

BTW OP, when are you going to make a non-degenerate game? You have some based takes and coding skills. Use that power for good.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I think all of those aspects are important and you can’t skimp on one and still expect the others to pull the slack.

That said, it’s very easy for writers to fall into the trap of thinking excessive volume of irrelevant detail is equivalent to good writing. Any information given in a story should be relevant, not fat that can be cut without losing anything of value.

You don’t need to dump exposition onto the reader. All you need to do is convince them to suspend their disbelief. Give them enough information that they can draw their own conclusions. If you over-explain, then you risk making them bored or wishing they were somewhere else in the fictional world.

 

[santino27]

To each their own. I loathe sandboxes; unless there is also a well-developed plot and characters, it's a pass from me.

Do you never feel a desire to keep (free)playing a game after the plot is finished?

Not particularly, no. If a setting is engaging enough, I might want more stories in that setting. But I haven't found what passes for emergent gameplay in present-day sandboxes to be deep enough or compelling enough to stand in for a plot. Which is why so many sandboxes devolve into becoming murderhobo simulations or meme videos imo.

Plot exists because even a fantasy world would be boring for 90+% of the inhabitants, who'd just either be trying to survive or live their lives. I don't want to play the Sims. Give me a hook, a goal, and a reason to play and care.

Again, just my opinion; I know I'm likely in the minority here.

 

[sser]

I think all of those aspects are important and you can’t skimp on one and still expect the others to pull the slack.

That said, it’s very easy for writers to fall into the trap of thinking excessive volume of irrelevant detail is equivalent to good writing. Any information given in a story should be relevant, not fat that can be cut without losing anything of value.

You don’t need to dump exposition onto the reader. All you need to do is convince them to suspend their disbelief. Give them enough information that they can draw their own conclusions. If you over-explain, then you risk making them bored or wishing they were somewhere else in the fictional world.

Basically, bad pacing can completely poison even great worldbuilding, characters, and plot.

If you look at a game like Max Payne, it's very well paced because you have Max monologuing while you're playing, and then you have the cutscenes between missions to give the story breathing room and framework. One feeds into the character, the other into character/plot, and the gameplay itself establishes tone. I think bad pacing was one of the main niggles of Max Payne 3, because the game eschewed the monologues for frequent jumpcuts and little interstitials that blotted out the gameplay itself.

 

[Tyranicon]

BTW OP, when are you going to make a non-degenerate game? You have some based takes and coding skills. Use that power for good.

Depends what you mean by non-degenerate. I like putting sex in my games, and they're clearly skewed towards a vanilla heterosexual male audience, which is probably enough to already get me cancelled. At this point I just make porn to keep game journos away.

My next game is probably one of the more ambitious solodev RPGs going around. I haven't released the new teaser footage on Youtube but I just uploaded it to the Steam page:

Spoiler

I'm a pretty shit coder tho. I'm just good at learning what I need to know.