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RPG Plots, part 1
Aug. 4th, 2013 02:57 pmAlmost every computer RPG, certainly every one I’ve played, has been criticized for having boring quests. Every quest is the same: go clean out this dungeon, get a plot token, come back. I want to talk about why that is, and then maybe come up with a way to fix it.
First, let’s talk about how the game part of RPGs work. We can do this by talking about Roguelikes: they’re exactly like computer RPGs, only without any attempt at a plot. What makes them, and by extension normal (let’s say “handmade”) RPGs, fun is the experience of your character growing more and more powerful as you play. This is done in three ways:
1. As you play, you the player get better at working with the systems of the game. You learn that bows are more powerful than magic, that armor set bonuses exist, whatever.
2. As your character achieves goals in the game, they earn rewards through loot drops, like better gear or money.
3. As your character spends more time in the game, they also get rewarded through experience points, which can buy better stats and new skills.
So, what you want as a player, you get from cleaning out dungeons. The only verb you have to work with is “clean out a dungeon,” so the plot takes place in between dungeons:
- A quest giver needs an artifact so you go find it for him (at the bottom of a dungeon).
- Someone is terrorizing a town, so you go kill them (in the bottom of their dungeon).
- We can’t mine any more because our mine is infested with orcs (making it a... dungeon).
It imposes a pretty harsh constraint on writing a story, sort of like writing a radio play. Your main character can’t solve any problem that isn’t a dungeon. Some games try to inject variety by having the player ferry things between towns, say, but that’s even more boring.
Not that other genres don’t have this problem, after a fashion: adventure games, you solve a puzzle and watch the plot advance a little bit. Action games, the plot advances through people telling you (or showing you) stuff while you’re fighting things. What makes this so apparent in RPGs is that the thing you do to play the game (dungeons) is totally divorced from the thing you do to advance the plot (conversations with NPCs)
I have an idea for how to fix it, that I’ll post in a few days.
First, let’s talk about how the game part of RPGs work. We can do this by talking about Roguelikes: they’re exactly like computer RPGs, only without any attempt at a plot. What makes them, and by extension normal (let’s say “handmade”) RPGs, fun is the experience of your character growing more and more powerful as you play. This is done in three ways:
1. As you play, you the player get better at working with the systems of the game. You learn that bows are more powerful than magic, that armor set bonuses exist, whatever.
2. As your character achieves goals in the game, they earn rewards through loot drops, like better gear or money.
3. As your character spends more time in the game, they also get rewarded through experience points, which can buy better stats and new skills.
So, what you want as a player, you get from cleaning out dungeons. The only verb you have to work with is “clean out a dungeon,” so the plot takes place in between dungeons:
- A quest giver needs an artifact so you go find it for him (at the bottom of a dungeon).
- Someone is terrorizing a town, so you go kill them (in the bottom of their dungeon).
- We can’t mine any more because our mine is infested with orcs (making it a... dungeon).
It imposes a pretty harsh constraint on writing a story, sort of like writing a radio play. Your main character can’t solve any problem that isn’t a dungeon. Some games try to inject variety by having the player ferry things between towns, say, but that’s even more boring.
Not that other genres don’t have this problem, after a fashion: adventure games, you solve a puzzle and watch the plot advance a little bit. Action games, the plot advances through people telling you (or showing you) stuff while you’re fighting things. What makes this so apparent in RPGs is that the thing you do to play the game (dungeons) is totally divorced from the thing you do to advance the plot (conversations with NPCs)
I have an idea for how to fix it, that I’ll post in a few days.
