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#91

General Discussion / Re: A New Novel is Born

Last post by Tybae - August 19, 2011, 02:58:37 AM

Awesome.  Might just get me to buy a Kindle. 

#92

General Discussion / A New Novel is Born

Last post by Andarian - August 19, 2011, 01:07:54 AM

A fellow CRPG modder (and two-time GDA winner) pioneers the path of adapting his epic game saga as a novel, e-published as a Kindle book. This is an intriguing approach that I may follow with Sanctum of the Archmage, although in my case work on the novels actually predated the game adaptations.

Nature Abhors a Vacuum -- The Aielund Saga, Book One by Stephen L. Nowland (aka Savant)



Book One of The Aielund Saga from the Aielund Saga Website

#93

General Discussion / Re: pondering on the "flow" of...

Last post by TimG - August 18, 2011, 02:48:01 AM

One thing is sure on the open-ended modules is that the storytelling is much tougher to handle.  I don't really think it is possible to have the same level of story while maintaining the "free-form" feel.  Having said that I think there is a place for a well built "free-range" module that has a number of generally unrelated quests that maybe tie together only lightly if at all.  In the end though there needs to be some resolution to give the player an "I'm finished with this moment".

I did really like the way Darkness at Daggerford handled the quests where people would come to the player's castle and ask for help from the "local hero".  I feel like that was well conceived and delivered.

#94

General Discussion / Re: pondering on the "flow" of...

Last post by PJ156 - August 17, 2011, 08:47:05 PM

For me the choice of linearity vs non linearity became a pragmatic one. Chasing several plot paths over any great distance in a mod is a lot of work especialy if you are dealing with a large number of npc's. I tried it in my first mod and soon realised that, for me, a single good quality plot was better and far more achievable than running several paths through the mod.

While I like linearity I also like to have choice, or at least the illusion of choice. I think Andarian mentioned above that several meaningless responses on a pc node added nothing to the play experience and i agree but three or four better thought out responses do i think. They keep you in touch with your pc and, provided there is variety in the responses, can help you to develop them in your mind. I think this is particularly the case if they call on skills (bluff, perform etc).

I like the goblin boy idea by the way and in the starting posts you mentioned class choice. I think any of the instunctive classes would work though you mention access to books? so realy you could justify a learned class. I would have thought sorcerer or favoured soul would work, fighter is okay and perhaps cleric since thier gift is a divine one. Wizard and rogue need training and practice though, picking locks requires a range of locks to practice on.

Just some thoughts ...

PJ

#95

General Discussion / Re: pondering on the "flow" of...

Last post by Henesua - August 17, 2011, 07:07:54 PM

Due to the scale of the story I have, I don't think I will see the problems you are discussing. I've defined a very small plot, and then tried to make it bigger through intricacy (which is what is eating up my time). Its kinda like a one act play ... except that I've split the act in three depending on which of the strands the player follows from a critical juncture. And then I've also allowed the player to see what might be available in each strand at the conclusion, and enabled the possibility to jump between choices if they have managed to keep their options open.

I've only got three big choices. And they are very different. However... once the choice is made, the rest is denouement. I don't keep going. You could argue that there is only one plot with three resolutions. But from a game design standpoint I have had to create environments and experiences that are not involved in every play through. Early on, for example the player has a choice between three paths and each of those paths involve different "areas", "cutscenes" etc....

This type of thing is not common in RPGs it is however exceptionally common amongst interactive fiction projects. Emily Short has produced several short interactive stories each with many endings. This was one of my inspirations. I've seen her pull off character focused stories very well, and so I am trying the same in an RPG format. I know it can be done well, specifically that the storytelling can be very strong.

What I agree with you on however is that you can't keep going very long in the same vein. Its just too time consuming.

And lastly I want to add - this is starting to sound all high falutant etc... The truth is that I don't know what I am doing. I am figuring it out as I go. I have a vision that I want to achieve and I am working toward it. But all the rest is theory. The real proof will be whether I finish this, and if it is any fun to play. I don't know if any of that will be the case yet.

#96

General Discussion / Re: pondering on the "flow" of...

Last post by Andarian - August 17, 2011, 05:38:05 PM

To follow up briefly on Henesua's follow-up: the basic reason for my lack of enthusiasm for too much non-linearity in mods is that I think it almost always makes for inferior storytelling, compared to what is possible with a more linear plot. That's because of what I see as the requirements of a good story. The explosion in plot-lines is more what happens when you try to address that problem than the problem itself. It's an untenable solution, unless you're a plot-construction genius and have far more time to spend on it than even professional developers who do it for a living can generally manage.

I don't want to denigrate the utility of techniques like the "plot accumulator" or "relationship counter," which are widely employed approaches (especially for romance plots) that I use in my modules as well. But what I think you'll find is that they're not nearly the panacea you might be hoping for, for several reasons. One is that good, dramatic storytelling (at least as I see it) isn't generally composed of small, accumulating, interchangeable choices.

Another more basic reason, though, is that  what you're describing is in fact a pretty good example of  what I was talking about: an essentially linear storyline with variations. Think about the choices you've offered, and how you're going to resolve those critical junctures. Is it fair to say that they all essentially fall under one of your three named themes? Aren't you then, really, offering just three choices over and over again in small doses? This becomes apparent pretty quickly in romance mods, for example, where players will often figure out which figure out which are the "pursue relationship" responses and then consistently stick them.

How many new choices will be added or cut out  at those junctures, and how fundamentally will they affect the following plot development? If it's essentially the same plot with variations, then is it really non-linear in a fundamental sense? If the threads go off in fundamentally different directions, then how much work will you have to do to keep them integrated in terms of plot, theme, and characterization? And how many times will you be able to handle doing that until it becomes unworkable?

#97

General Discussion / Re: pondering on the "flow" of...

Last post by Henesua - August 17, 2011, 02:21:05 PM

Quillmaster,
I decided that I did not want to use a premade character. Its important that the player be able to choose skills, feats, and ability scores. It was a tough decision because I had to decide between my original concept, and maintaining those choices. Ultimately I decided that those choices were more important than my original plan. As was the opportunity to check out the character creation options available to the setting which includes custom races and lots of lore in the alternate text I provided. All of that gets skipped by a premade character.

I may add a premade character option later as an alternate choice - a sort of director's cut way to play the adventure - but that will be added last after I finish everything else.


Andarian,
the strongest reason I am hearing from you for avoiding non-linear story based mods is the exponential expansion of plot lines. I think I've found a way to maintain meaningful choices while avoiding the necessity to go beyond the three possible branches. The mechanic I use is to make many small choices available that may seem to have similar results at first but subtlely change the relationships between the PC and various NPCs.

Basically I am using reputation in a story based way like the wanderer did. So far the most important NPCs are the goblin, your mother, and your father. Many conversation options can increase or decrease your reputation with each of these NPCs. And while there are subtle text differences along the way to reflect this. Its when you reach critical junctures in the story that it will be most important.

This is however just a theory until I get to those critical junctures. I'm at my first one now, and still haven't resolved it. I have a basic idea about what I want... but its important to me that the responses feel like a natural and logical outgrowth of player choices so I don't like to force anything if it feels wrong.

So anyway - think of it as the Sims. All those small options affect the relationship between a particular NPC and the PC. When a critical juncture is reached all of those small choices add up and stimulate how an NPC responds to the crisis which will open a choice for the PC while closing others.

I think that is one way that you can provide meaningful small choices that affect flavor in the short run, but result in real plot differences in the long run.

And lastly, I chose a very small story to try this out with, that will not last very long, but can be replayed a number of times to discover alternate endings. So there are really only three big choices. And once the final decision is made as to which of the three will be the ending... the story ends. Its more complicated than this because I want everything to feel natural. So I have a lot of work to do. But the amount of ground I have to cover isn't exploding into infinity because the story really focuses on a choice between one of three branches. The trick for the player is to recognize which of the three they are pursuing. In the first play through I doubt it will be obvious what the three big choices are while you are focused on all the small choices.

#98

General Discussion / Re: pondering on the "flow" of...

Last post by Andarian - August 17, 2011, 12:42:39 PM

It's ironic that such an interesting discussion should arise right when I have so little spare time to write about it at length. (For our newcomers, I just accepted a job transfer to a new state and am going to me moving over the next few months.) I'd like to try to offer a few thoughts at least for now, since this is a subject (particularly, the design of linear vs. nonlinear games) that I've actually given a lot of thought to.

I'm fairly well known around the modding community as one of its staunchest advocates of linear game design. That's not to say that I don't appreciate a good non-linear design when I see one, but I rarely do -- especially for story-based work, which is my main focus in gaming and modding. Henesua has outlined some of the issues that come up in trying to develop a non-linear design, and I think there are several basic reasons for them.

I'm close, but I got bored because the other thing that I don't like is the linear adventure. I don't know if that adventure had any choices but I had a hard time finding them if they were there. Every conversation node had one response. While this worked for getting the story across, it makes me feel like I am just marching along a predetermined path...

I think my proclivities as a player help explain my painfully slow progress in my own module. I probably have too many options, too many details. So I am wondering if other folks here dislike tons of options.

Emphatically, yes.

The question: does a lack of spelled out choices lead you to stop playing?

Quite the opposite. Speaking both as a modder and as a player, I'm mainly interested (aside from a sprinkling of RP options for flavor) in meaningful choices. Nothing will turn me off as a player faster than a plethora of unstructured options (in dialogue or exploration) that I don't see as going anywhere, or having a meaningful reason for being there in the first place. And I build the same way I like to play. I know from experience that making more than a handful of choices actually be meaningful -- in terms not only of game consequences, but even plot and story integration -- is essentially impossible, for reasons I'll elaborate a bit on below. So I prefer story-based games to be honest with me about it from the start, and to present what is essentially a streamlined play experience with focused options. I know that the author is telling a story and regard it as my job as player to adapt to the needs of telling that story, rather than his job to adapt it to my desire for unstructured choice as player. The latter, in my view, mainly serves to dilute the impact of the story into a "least common denominator" or "one-size-fits-all" model.

The basic problem I see is that there is a fundamental opposition between the needs of good storytelling on the one hand, and plot-level player agency on the other. Truly compelling stories involve the development of a strong plot, in which the theme, characterizations, and story events are integrated into an organic whole. All of these elements have to be created and chosen to work consistently together, to convey a story experience that affects the reader or player as an integrated whole.

In a good novel, the major choices that the characters face and make all need to express the work's theme. The plot events not only need to make sense in relation to each other, but they also need to add up to something more than the events themselves, when taken individually. Things don't just "happen" to happen in a particular way, and the specific way that the author chose to have them happen -- when taken together -- says something. That's what gives the reader or player the sense that these elements all add up to a meaningful and emotionally impactful story, rather than being a series of disconnected episodes.

This isn't something that can be accomplished by simply stringing together a set of disparate "quests" (as is common in RP gaming and modding today), and giving the player a series of unintegrated choices about how to resolve them. The high degree of integration required by good fiction becomes much more difficult to achieve when you try to introduce the idea of needing to accommodate plot-level player choice. Every time you introduce such a choice you're immediately faced with the problem of coming up with not one, but two separate plot threads, each of which works in the context of the overall story, and each of which adds up to a meaningful whole in that context. The explosion in the number of plot-threads that have to be integrated is exponential in the number of plot-choices that you introduce.

That's why story-based gaming in practice has tended to become increasingly linear over time, and settled on making use of a set of techniques that provide more of an illusion of choice. RP choices tend to add "local flavor" sprinkled throughout the game's dialogues, so that you can act in accordance with one of several personality archetypes chosen by the author. But the choices offered tend to affect only the part of the story immediately surrounding where they happen, for example taking the player through different paths in a conversation tree or perhaps providing a choice of delimited side-quests. These choices mainly tend to be of a "branch and re-merge" variety, meaning that they all lead back into the trunk of a main plot which typically has little or no functional memory of them once they've been played.

This is the way that many games and mods avoid the problem of exploding plot integration -- by offering only a few choices that are actually fundamentally plot-relevant, and mostly choices that provide what are essentially cosmetic variations on a main theme. One consequence of this, however, is that these variations often lack impact because they're necessarily unintegrated with the main story. If they weren't, they couldn't be options; they would either have to happen in a particular way to maintain cohesion, or the mainline plot would have to have a branch to adapt to the different ways they can be played. That's why I would argue that most or all workable story-based games and mods are in fact essentially linear, with non-linear window-dressing. And when the window-dressing becomes too elaborate, it starts to distract from the focused experience of the main story, and thus turns more into a structured VR fantasy than a story experience.

#99

General Discussion / Re: pondering on the "flow" of...

Last post by Quillmaster - August 17, 2011, 08:28:57 AM

Enough rambling.....

Sounds really interesting Henesua.  I presume you'll be supplying a premade character?  While such an option does deter some of the player base, it does have the advantage of making the building process easier since you don't have to cover so many options.  It's an approach I decided to risk with my own work, particularly as I was basing it on my novel work so the story was pre defined and hence linear, but that gave me the added headache of trying to allow the player to still have choices within conversations so it felt like they had some input into character behaviour.  I think I managed to pull it off in a way that still had alternate responses feel in character.

TimG hit the nail on the head when he said it's the little things that count. Stories can be further enhanced by the items that you find.  While books offer an obvious way of doing this,  other items can add flair, even if mundane, and you can always have a script update a journal entry on the acquisition of such an item.

#100

General Discussion / Re: pondering on the "flow" of...

Last post by Henesua - August 17, 2011, 04:51:41 AM

I appreciate this discussion, especially since I am working on a module right now, and it is the first computer roleplaying game I have made.

In the module that I am working on, I'm trying to interweave many small choices that eventually lead to three strands each which leads to its own ending. The endings each suggest a different trajectory the character's life would take in early adulthood. The only failure state for the player is if they are unable to follow a strand instead hitting a dead end from which they need to start over. I'm trying not to make many of these if any. But Its too early to know for sure. Of course with the ability to save and restart, that shouldn't be an issue.

Thats the abstract.

Here's the lede:
In essence the story is about Goblinboy, a human, born to wealthy parents eager to establish their family as an important one in Arnheim. Arnheim is a rustic barony of the Orsennan empire. It is undergoing change from its old traditions to the new religion of the Orsennan Empire. Obviously a family with social ambitions in a changing world would have high hopes for their son. Unfortunately the son of this family is a Goblin-touched, a human who has suffered a disfiguring curse during infancy. If others of the upper crust discovered this, the family's social standing could be ruined. Goblin-boy is thus locked in the basement to hide the horns growing from his head, and his monstrous, goblinoid face. Goblin-boy languishes in the basement for years with little contact except his mother who visits every day. His father is distant, little more than a picture hanging on his wall. Almost everything he knows about the world is gathered from books, and yet he's on the cusp of early adulthood.

Then one evening, a goblin arrives in Goblin-boy's room, calling him by name.


And the story goes from there. Before the end of this short tale, the player will have guided goblin-boy towards a new path in his life. You can deal with your family, run away from it. Figure out what the goblin has to offer you etc.... Its a bit of a fairy tale - with the main character on the cusp of adulthood but suppressed - and then magical events enabling a flowering into new life. Thats the idea.

I just can't believe how much work it is to do something like this. All I have so far is the initial setup in two scenes, and then one of the first branches of possible adventure. And then I've also been slowed down by some technical problems with my custom base classes (aristocrat, commoner etc...) that were intended to precede the normal base classes (fighter, wizard, etc..) that Goblin-boy would grow in to. Essentially my plan there doesn't work, so i've had to scrap it and rethink the mechanics of character development and which of the standard base classes would be available to a teenage shut in living in his parent's basement. (I've settled on rogue and sorcerer). I'm presently trying to figure out how the story changes if goblin-boy can possess a familiar which could slip out the window and explore the city, and how I enable this in the first scene. Or even if I want to have to create the whole city just for some pointless exploring that doesn't advance the plot.... anyway.

But anyway all that to let you know how hard it is, and the depth to which I try to enable all of the options that should be available to the character.

I really hope I have this finished this year. I suspect I need to scale back some of the options I'm trying to provide and just make the story.... more linear. At least not deviate from the three main choices.

Enough rambling.....