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https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/

Quote from: Larsdangly;959382https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/

I can at least answer the subheadline: because too many game designers fancy themselves authors rather than game designers. So they inflict their stories on us.

Quote from: Dumarest;959383I can at least answer the subheadline: because too many game designers fancy themselves authors rather than game designers. So they inflict their stories on us.

Can this be added as a warning label to every 'adventure path' style module published for every game system for the last 30 years?

What a bunch of tripe

I don't necessarily see anything wrong with a strongly plotted adventure.   Worst case scenario, I can just run it without the plot, and ignore any stuff like "the Bad Guy MUST get away, the players cannot catch him here" stuff.  What I have no use for is a strongly plotted story arc, that expects me to follow the story outline and fill in all the NPCS, Maps, etc...  Sorry dude, your plot-pointed outline isn't THAT spectacular that you can away with not giving me other shit I can use.

I've never had a plotted adventure run exactly the way it was supposed to, either.

Pretentious wankery.

" If the ultimate bar for meaning in games is set at teen fare"

The ultimate bar for meaning in games is the game.  What is the "meaning" of chess?  Of poker? Of Go?

Games are not stories.

Fuckin' pseudoartsy poser with a deadline.

You are missing the point. Yes, the essay is filled with sophomoric wankery, but the central point is that computer roleplaying games can't deliver as games when you trying to use them as a story telling vehicle, because the player of the game ends up being a passive audience rather than a player. This is exactly the point made by nearly everyone who argues for the style of table-top roleplaying games that are most associated with the OSR genre.

Quote from: Larsdangly;959419You are missing the point. Yes, the essay is filled with sophomoric wankery, but the central point is that computer roleplaying games can't deliver as games when you trying to use them as a story telling vehicle, because the player of the game ends up being a passive audience rather than a player. This is exactly the point made by nearly everyone who argues for the style of table-top roleplaying games that are most associated with the OSR genre.

True, that, but that's not the whole story.
Let's look at the beginning:).

QuoteA longstanding dream: Video games will evolve into interactive stories, like the ones that play out fictionally on the Star Trek Holodeck. In this hypothetical future, players could interact with computerized characters as round as those in novels or films, making choices that would influence an ever-evolving plot. It would be like living in a novel, where the player's actions would have as much of an influence on the story as they might in the real world.

It's an almost impossible bar to reach, for cultural reasons as much as technical ones.

However, that part is accessible to us already.
You just need a good Referee, and maybe dice;).
It is kinda possible with a videogame, too.
The common objection is, it wouldn't be a good story (as if all good books are good stories:D).

The player of a computer RPG is already a passive audience to some degree simply because they can't do anything that the programmers hadn't planned on in advance, whereas the true strength of TTRPG is that the players CAN.

So, as clumsy as it was, we get someone outside of our hobby hitting on a new (not really, but new to the medium) idea to improve his craft and the first thing we do is shit on it.

Stay classy, people.

Eh, no doubt prose have distinct advantages in the pursuit of storytelling, but my wife is a gamer because of Dragon Age -- specifically because of the story aspect of the game she loves so much. Being able to make choices within a virtual story -- even chosen from sets of limited predefined options which cannot fundamentally change the overall story trajectory -- is tremendously engaging for some people.

So different strokes, and all that.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959428The player of a computer RPG is already a passive audience to some degree simply because they can't do anything that the programmers hadn't planned on in advance, whereas the true strength of TTRPG is that the players CAN.

And that is why I have zero interest in video games and enjoy paper 'n' pencil RPGs.

Computer games not being good vehicles for interactive storytelling is hardly a new idea.  The reaction against narrative in video games has been argued in game design circles for years.  Yet, money doesn't lie, even if it doesn't always tell the whole truth. People didn't make Bioware a household name because they don't like narratives in video games, even if they are basically a more complicated Choose Your Own Adventure instead of actual storytelling.  But, they must fire the imagination in some way, they certainly have a large enough audience.

I forgot, why do we care again what they do with video games? I mean, this forum is about RPGs of the original type. This is kind of like someone watching ESPN and complaining there aren't enough soap operas.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;959434Eh, no doubt prose have distinct advantages in the pursuit of storytelling, but my wife is a gamer because of Dragon Age -- specifically because of the story aspect of the game she loves so much. Being able to make choices within a virtual story -- even chosen from sets of limited predefined options which cannot fundamentally change the overall story trajectory -- is tremendously engaging for some people.

So different strokes, and all that.

I looooved the original Dragon Age, one of my favourite games of all time. Also Wasteland original. Deus Ex 2 (I never got to play 1, but that was very open from what I've read). And so on. Of course computer games arent as open as a tabletop sandbox, but they have other advantages: graphics, sound, you can play by yourself, at any time, etc.

I personally think tabletop has only two advantages vs computer games (i) you play with real friends beside you/social interaction and (ii) you can try anything with a sufficiently flexible/prepared GM. This is also why I think GM material should focus on tools to adapt to player choices/sandbox aids, as opposed to Adventure Paths, which imo computer games are better at (and will only get increasingly better at over time).

Quote from: Dumarest;959444I forgot, why do we care again what they do with video games? I mean, this forum is about RPGs of the original type. This is kind of like someone watching ESPN and complaining there aren't enough soap operas.

This is where you're wrong.  For example, one thing one could learn about video games is how to make big monster fights interesting.  For example, let's pick on everyone's favourite game to hate:  World of Warcraft. We could take some of their boss mechanics and apply certain parts of it.

One of the Dragon Bosses (Onyxia for those in the know) typically has three phases.  Each triggers at a specific point in the fight, typically every third of damage.  Now, without going into the mechanics of that fight, we could take elements of that and apply it to RPGs, have a 'trigger' that has the Boss switch tactics, maybe get to try something different in the fight.  Because in some games, those massive numbers can get to be a slog to go through.

What can video games gain from table top?  How to mask the illusion of choice.  How to make a linear progression interesting, how to keep one's attention on the task at hand.  Level (assuming the game has it) progression.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;959464This is where you're wrong.  For example, one thing one could learn about video games is how to make big monster fights interesting.  For example, let's pick on everyone's favourite game to hate:  World of Warcraft. We could take some of their boss mechanics and apply certain parts of it.

One of the Dragon Bosses (Onyxia for those in the know) typically has three phases.  Each triggers at a specific point in the fight, typically every third of damage.  Now, without going into the mechanics of that fight, we could take elements of that and apply it to RPGs, have a 'trigger' that has the Boss switch tactics, maybe get to try something different in the fight.  Because in some games, those massive numbers can get to be a slog to go through.

What can video games gain from table top?  How to mask the illusion of choice.  How to make a linear progression interesting, how to keep one's attention on the task at hand.  Level (assuming the game has it) progression.

That kind of HP remaining activated abilities does appear in some tabletop games, particualrly when bloodied/staggered for example in 13th Age and others. I am a fan of such triggers. Often makes a fight more interesting/dangerous.

Mhmm even more interesting than Space Invaders, where the aliens move faster the fewer there are.

(Or you could just have a game system where combat situations are interesting.)

Quote from: Psikerlord;959489That kind of HP remaining activated abilities does appear in some tabletop games, particualrly when bloodied/staggered for example in 13th Age and others.

Or a referee who is not too stupid to shit unassisted, and actually thinks about optimal tactics depending on the situation.

Quote from: Skarg;959491Mhmm even more interesting than Space Invaders, where the aliens move faster the fewer there are.

(Or you could just have a game system where combat situations are interesting.)

How do triggered abilities make the game less interesting? They add to it, not detract.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959492Or a referee who is not too stupid to shit unassisted, and actually thinks about optimal tactics depending on the situation.

Triggered abilities are not inconsistent with a tactical game.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959492Or a referee who is not too stupid to shit unassisted, and actually thinks about optimal tactics depending on the situation.

"BROAR!  Lookit me!  I'm swingin' mah e-peen around!  I'm so outta touch with current gamer culture I have to slag off everyone who doesn't play like me, by veiling my accusations of doing it wrong as so-called 'wisdom'!  BROAR!"  That's all I'm hearing now, whenever you open your mouth, Gronan.

Quote from: Psikerlord;959496Triggered abilities are not inconsistent with a tactical game.

Convenient that he forgets that sort of stuff, despite D&D working out of a wargame, where triggered actions occur.  Like say, free attacks when enemies try to escape the mini's sphere of influence.  Ormaybe if the enemy minis are too far away, the dragon mini will do a ranged attack, but if they're too close it makes a melee strike.

Triggers are everywhere in wargames, and D&D's roots are in Wargames.  But let's gloss over that, right Gronan?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;959503"BROAR!  Lookit me!  I'm swingin' mah e-peen around!  I'm so outta touch with current gamer culture I have to slag off everyone who doesn't play like me, by veiling my accusations of doing it wrong as so-called 'wisdom'!  BROAR!"  That's all I'm hearing now, whenever you open your mouth, Gronan.



Convenient that he forgets that sort of stuff, despite D&D working out of a wargame, where triggered actions occur.  Like say, free attacks when enemies try to escape the mini's sphere of influence.  Ormaybe if the enemy minis are too far away, the dragon mini will do a ranged attack, but if they're too close it makes a melee strike.

Triggers are everywhere in wargames, and D&D's roots are in Wargames.  But let's gloss over that, right Gronan?

1) I am not sure you truly know your wargames or mean the same thing as I when you say it. Wargames are basically never single-figure affairs. That my friend, was the birth of the rpg hobby, when individual figures got their own stats and special moves.

2) I do mirror Gronan's basic sentiment: "Don't need to make 'thing' out of "triggered actions", when the infinity of tactics is already available".

BUT

3) If some 13 year old would sit down and think "And then, when the players think Ganon is dead, he EXPLODES and TRANSFORMS into SHADOWBITER GANON!!", I am all for it! RPGs are a means to express yourselves.

4) But if some 30something thinks hard about how he can make RPGs more de jour and looks into "what the kids play" and appropriates some of that...I think that is utterly apprehensible. And bollocks, too.

So, I ask you: Instead of re-thinking what Mike Mearls thought when making 4e (snap!)... please write up a monster that does what you personally think is awesome in this one WoW-battle you are talking about. Put it here, and I'll see it is printed in our Fanzine. More power to you, if you express yourselves.

I dunno man.  There are some video games whose stories (Regardless of how paper thin they are) are pretty much the framework for a given game's fun.  Half Life is basically a re-working of DOOM right down to a lower-tier-enemy spawning bad guy, in a big room, who you have to shoot in his exposed brain to win.  But dammit it's one of my favorite games, period, fullstop.  I play Half Life start to finish, every now and again (along with Decay, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Day One, HL2, E1, E2...) because of the story.  Sure, put me on rails, drag me down a corridor, that's what I'm there for: experiencing the Gordon Freeman story.

It just depends on the game, I guess.

You have different mediums and interaction models. Humans like narratives. A movie isn't the same thing as a game, even if they both have some common elements. Saying that watching a movie is a better movie experience than playing a game doesn't mean a game is less of a game.

Bogost is a good writer when he doesn't get too dense with postmodern jargon but his interest is almost completely regarding video games, rpgs seem to have never attracted his attention. He's so interested in systems and forms it is no surprise he has little interest in narrative.

I'm not sure about the games/narrative split being as unbridgeable as so many claim, very early on in computer games we had Infocom whose games I still find enjoyable. People always dismiss these games as CYOA but what is so wrong with CYOA? Kim Newman even tried to write a literary CYOA with Life's Lottery.

I made it halfway through the article before the SJW buzzword bingo triggered my gag reflex.

Whatever. There is plenty of room in the marketplace for both Candy Crush and Story Exploration games.

Where is the OSR shoutout? What does the pretentious wanker have to say?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959428The player of a computer RPG is already a passive audience to some degree simply because they can't do anything that the programmers hadn't planned on in advance, whereas the true strength of TTRPG is that the players CAN.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;959434Eh, no doubt prose have distinct advantages in the pursuit of storytelling, but my wife is a gamer because of Dragon Age -- specifically because of the story aspect of the game she loves so much. Being able to make choices within a virtual story -- even chosen from sets of limited predefined options which cannot fundamentally change the overall story trajectory -- is tremendously engaging for some people.

So different strokes, and all that.

Quote from: CRKrueger;959441Computer games not being good vehicles for interactive storytelling is hardly a new idea.  The reaction against narrative in video games has been argued in game design circles for years.  Yet, money doesn't lie, even if it doesn't always tell the whole truth. People didn't make Bioware a household name because they don't like narratives in video games, even if they are basically a more complicated Choose Your Own Adventure instead of actual storytelling.  But, they must fire the imagination in some way, they certainly have a large enough audience.

Amusingly, all three of you have it right:).

Quote from: Psikerlord;959461I looooved the original Dragon Age, one of my favourite games of all time. Also Wasteland original. Deus Ex 2 (I never got to play 1, but that was very open from what I've read). And so on. Of course computer games arent as open as a tabletop sandbox, but they have other advantages: graphics, sound, you can play by yourself, at any time, etc.

I personally think tabletop has only two advantages vs computer games (i) you play with real friends beside you/social interaction and (ii) you can try anything with a sufficiently flexible/prepared GM. This is also why I think GM material should focus on tools to adapt to player choices/sandbox aids, as opposed to Adventure Paths, which imo computer games are better at (and will only get increasingly better at over time).

There's also a third - if the players do visualize what is happening,no computer game has my budget on special effects:D!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959492Or a referee who is not too stupid to shit unassisted, and actually thinks about optimal tactics depending on the situation.

But I see nothing wrong with reminding all Referees to adapt their tactics;).

I saw no reference to OSR or tabletop RPGs anywhere. And there's nothing new here that Bogost hasn't been saying about video games for years, he hardly 'discovered' this idea from the OSR. Must be a leap of logic by the OP.

I'm not convinced the difficulties of storytelling in video games applies in any clear way to tabletop rpgs either. Tabletop RPGs are a much more 'mixed' or 'impure' medium, if they even are a medium per se, compared to other tabletop and video games.

Quote from: AsenRG;959520There's also a third - if the players do visualize what is happening,no computer game has my budget on special effects:D!

You're absolutely right!

That was an oddly spiteful article. I'm not even sure who the author is spiting, only that I could feel a great big chip wobbling on their shoulder.

Okay, my two cents? No, video game stories are usually not as good, from a pure storytelling perspective, as novels or movies. And they don't have to be. The experience of walking around in a story, of actively exploring it, of making choices within it even if they are only minor ones - that's something that's valuable but that you usually have to sacrifice some quality for. You get a worse story, more vividly experienced.

So no, video games aren't ZOMG THE STORYTELLING TOOL OF THE FUTURE!!!!eleventy!!! Nor are roleplaying games, for that matter. Overheated enthusiasts who say otherwise need to sit down down and take a few deep breaths and admit to themselves that just because something excites them it doesn't mean it's going to sweep the world and change everything. In that, I suppose I agree with the author of the article.

On the other hand, that is also absolutely no reason to not appreciate stories in games for what they are. I really can't understand this constant wailing about how "the evil cultural elite is trying to make games into something they were never meant to be!" Feh. Games are meant to be whatever anyone feels like making them. Things that work to some extent gets built on, things that don't gets abandoned. Trying to turn games into High Literature? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's never going to work. But having games have actual plots and characterisation and themes? Final Fantasy has fifteen-odd sequels by now. It's working just fine. You really can make games where there's more going on than shooting at stuff. The only question is how much more.

Same with roleplaying games. Yes, you know what, I agree that store-bought storypaths are stupid. They're stupid because they can't take into account what sort of players you have, what sort of characters those players feel like playing at the moment, or what sort of interests and talents you have as a GM. But a GM crafting his own story, starting with a rough outline and then adjusting it on the fly to what the players seem to be making of it? That, also, works just fine. I've been doing that for going on two decades now, and I come highly recommended. :cool:

Quote from: Psikerlord;959461I looooved the original Dragon Age, one of my favourite games of all time. Also Wasteland original. Deus Ex 2 (I never got to play 1, but that was very open from what I've read). And so on. Of course computer games arent as open as a tabletop sandbox, but they have other advantages: graphics, sound, you can play by yourself, at any time, etc.

I personally think tabletop has only two advantages vs computer games (i) you play with real friends beside you/social interaction and (ii) you can try anything with a sufficiently flexible/prepared GM. This is also why I think GM material should focus on tools to adapt to player choices/sandbox aids, as opposed to Adventure Paths, which imo computer games are better at (and will only get increasingly better at over time).

Quote from: AsenRG;959520There's also a third - if the players do visualize what is happening,no computer game has my budget on special effects:D!

Agreed!

I'm currently making my way thru DA Origins, and while I find a couple aspects of the game mechanics less than intuitive, the story aspect and the options presented are pretty damn engaging. Picking options from dialogue and exploration trees doesn't feel much like roleplaying, but I have yet to think "Wait, why isn't obvious question/response/action X an option?" After the first few hours of play, the game becomes very non-linear, and different choices in travel, dialogue and actions do affect the details of how the story plays out, if not the overall plot. I can absolutely see why Bioware has such a dedicated fandom.

Not being a video-game guy, I can't really give any kind of answer from personal experience as to whether video games are better or worse with huge sections of passive story-telling.

But being a bigly RPG guy, I can certainly say that RPGs that do that are utter shit.

Video games can't ever replicate the spontaneous, human. social quality of tabletop games for the same reason movies can't replicate the ability of a book to tell you what a character is feeling and thinking. The medium matters.

In my previous 4e campaign, the players discovered some magic rings to deactivate a stasis field, and the staff used to create it. They were meant to be a one-time throwaway object.

You know why they existed at all? They were in a 5000-year-old temple from the age of Demons, and someone pointed out the zombies would have rotted away long before then. So on the spot, I decided that in the next room, the zombies would be in a stasis field that disabled as soon as they crossed the threshold.

I added stasis clouds to the dungeon to be swept away by magic rings, and an NPC from the Age of Demons who was trapped in stasis.  The staff was a prop, as were the rings. But they liked them and ran with them...so I ended up reshaping the campaign to have these mysterious artifacts at the center of the story. The original story about tracking down the Lords of Dust to stop Bel Shalor got completely thrown out, and they ended up on a campaign to stop the Order of the Emerald Claw from building an undead army in a forgotten fortress in Karrnath and restarting the Great War.  I didn't even conceive of that at the beginning.

This sort of radical revision  is pretty common for D&D campaigns. You can't do that in a video game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;960291Not being a video-game guy, I can't really give any kind of answer from personal experience as to whether video games are better or worse with huge sections of passive story-telling.

But being a bigly RPG guy, I can certainly say that RPGs that do that are utter shit.

Yeah, um, you think magic is real.  
So.. there's that...

Quote from: Sommerjon;960356Yeah, um, you think magic is real.  
So.. there's that...

Which is completely fucking irrelevant to anything to do with this thread. Stop derailing threads with your personal issues.

Quote from: RPGPundit;960778Which is completely fucking irrelevant to anything to do with this thread. Stop derailing threads with your personal issues.

But then he'd never post again!



....damn, you're GOOD!

Quote from: RPGPundit;960778Which is completely fucking irrelevant to anything to do with this thread. Stop derailing threads with your personal issues.

Of course it is 100% relevant to this thread.
Whenever you think your opinion matters.  All anyone needs to know is... Yeah, um, you think magic is real.  then we smirkily headshake and ignore you.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;960779But then he'd never post again!



....damn, you're GOOD!

He likes you OGgy you don't need to keep sucking his dick.  Just a little ball cupping will do.

Quote from: Sommerjon;960806Of course it is 100% relevant to this thread.
Whenever you think your opinion matters.  All anyone needs to know is... Yeah, um, you think magic is real.  then we smirkily headshake and ignore you.

Don't post in this thread again. Don't derail any further threads along these lines. This is your final warning.