What's the story? - October
4, 2000 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot. In the middle of his life, he left his wife, and ran off
to be bad, boy it was sad...
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Can't think of anything much to say, except that we're gonna be
trying something a bit different at the end of the column and I've
been skipping too much school work lately to play games... but when
hasn't that been true?
Onward.
| The Steve expands |
|
I thought I'd reply since this is based off of my last letter, and it allows
me to expand upon it...
What is a good story? I like depth. For example, both FFVII and Xenogears
go back thousands of years for the beginning of the story. FFVIII reaches to
about 25 years ago at most, unless you count time compression which isn't a
good thing at all. I like to feel that the planet I'm on has a true history.
Any world where the party forms and accomplishes the first real excitement
on the planet is lame, I like a world that has evolved.
For characters, I like to have a normal cast of about 6-9 people that each
gets a different history and has different motivations. FFIX looks to do
this, Vivi, Zidane, Garnet, and Quina all look different to me, not people
with random backgrounds that all mysteriously coincide. I think supporting
characters are important as well. Xenogears has the best supporting cast.
Mason, Sigurd, Captain of the Thames, the members of the Chu-Chu orgy. Each
had more developement than about 25-30 of the playable characters in Chrono
Cross.
The plot structure has to move in a way so that when you find out a secret
you have to pause the game and just try to gather your thoughts. I think
someone wrote a really good letter a weak ago about this, during the CC
discussion. Xeno had those moments in spades, those moments in FFVIII were
more confusing and less satisfying, because you often got an answer to a
question you weren't even asking.
I like an ending to be complete, but still leave room for thought. I love
the endings to Xenogears, FFVII, and Metal Gear Solid. CC is way too
ambiguous for my tastes, there isn't even much to debate, as oppposed to the
FFVII "Did Humanity Survive?" question. I don't like the game to be over by
the end battle either, I want to see stuff happen during the ending
cinematics. Oh, and I love Xenogears but I really want to start a "No Naked
Men in Videogame Endings" petition and send it to Square.
Sorry for the longish letter, but the story is the most important part of the
game to me. Screw it all if you're not questioning the game and your own
thoughts while playing. A thought provoking game beats graphics any
day.
--The Steve |
Clearly Xenogears is the model for a lot of what you're looking for
out of a game. For me, though, the problem is that by representing the
end point of many of the trends you mention, Xenogears represents a
lot of what I'd like to see change about RPGs.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not challenging anyone's right to like
Xenogears, but as good as it was, it relied on too many of the same old
tricks. Ancient evil returns to threaten the world? Check. Cast of
unique characters, each with their own little story to tell and their
own separate block of time to tell it in? Check. Plot twists and turns
telegraphed far in advance, even though the resolution to those twists
and turns felt random and arbitrary? Check.
It's this last that I find
particularly egregious, and there's a sentence of yours that nails down
what I'd rather see: "answer(s) to question(s) you weren't even
asking." The way I see it, if I know in advance what questions to ask,
then why bother playing the game at all, since it's clearly a rehash of
what I've seen before. If something can come at me from out of
nowhere, that means the developers have been changing the rules, and
while change for change's sake isn't the end all be all of gaming,
some kind of change is vital to keep games worth playing.
And yet after all that, I come to the same conclusion you do: if
the story's not worthwhile in an RPG, nothing else is either.
| Options |
| You sure picked a helluva topic Mr. Agent guy, and
one that needs a lot of attention in my opinion.
First, my major gripe. I think a good story must be more character driven
than event driven. I don't want stuff to happen, I want people to do stuff,
if that makes any sense. I feel much more satisfied with a story if, lets say,
a charcter chooses a path and follows it, then if they seem like a random person
who gets caught up in things. It is all about action/reaction. Like in FF7,
if you pick Tifa over Aries in certain sections, then Cloud gets a different date,
and you feel less when Areis dies, and more when they spend a night together right
before going to stomp Sephi. I like having a choice in what my characters do,
not being forced. As such a good story should present options to do/not do things
and have outcomes altered. CT did this pretty well, and though I don't think it
is one of the best RPGs of all time, or maybe even one of my top 10, I liked the
way you had a whole lot of control. I dislike it when, as in FF8, the main story
is so linear that you get no plot development from sidequests, just new
item/abilities. What would have happened if Squall had not been such an ass
to Quistis in the garden secret area, which was one of the few times I had a
strong feeling for any character in the game. Or maybe if he lets Rinoa die
cause she is more burden than help, fitting the cold-hearted mercanry character,
which he fails me miserably at after like half of disc 2 if memory serves me.
Don't start me on the other FF8 characters. To summerize, give options that can
affect story, and make the player take more of an active role, rather than so
extremely predetermined. I like being in control and making my characters
into certain reflections of what the "normal" way is. Wouldn't it be cool
if you could choose whether or not your main chaacter fits into the hero
category or into the bad guy/bad ass type category.
Efrate |
For me, this represents the absolute core issue in RPGs - the
meeting between interaction and storytelling. And what makes it such a
fascinating issue is the fact that the two are pretty much
antagonistic, as far as I can tell.
Think about it for a second: what gives stories their power? Lots
of different answers are possible, but I think they all tend to boil
down to roughly this - compelling characters following dramatic
courses of action. The problem with this is that both compelling
characters and dramatic actions as a rule are not something that can be
chosen off of a menu and mixed and matched like pizza toppings,
they're carefully, uniquely constructed by the author. It's not easy to
create really memorable characters or situations, either, which is why good stories
are recognized as Art with a capital A, and why stories created by Joe
Average aren't going to be nearly as interesting.
For example, take a look at Final Fantasy VII. Clearly the defining
moment of the game is Aeris's death. Why? Because she was fragile and
beautiful and good, and now she's gone, and there's nothing that can be
done about it. The scene has meaning because something wonderful has
been irrevocably lost, and that loss adds extra meaning to everything
that follows. But as you point out, preferring Tifa in certain
situations weakens this moment, because if Cloud's actually in love
with Tifa, it's sad that Aeris is gone, sure, but it doesn't effect him
or us in the same way. One of the most important things in the game
has been toned down, and what do we get in return? The ability to read
some slightly different dialog and see a different character sprite in
the date sequence?
For the same reason, giving players even more control is even more
harmful to the story. Let's say players did have the ability to keep
Aeris alive, either by resurrecting her or by avoiding her death
entirely in the first place. Does it give you more control? Sure, but
now the scene is totally meaningless, because she's not really
dead - that particular scene was just a possibility, which can be
skipped if you don't like it, so why worry about it at all? When
everything is possible, nothing is real, and if nothing is real, then
what's the point of playing in the first place?
This isn't to say that there aren't games that can have total
character freedom as a good thing - real ROLE PLAYING games can be
enjoyable and rewarding, no question, but they're a lot closer to
acting than anything else. And personally, if I want to build my own dramas
and worlds, I'll do it pure, on the completely blank canvas of a word
processor screen, rather than color in-between the lines of someone
else's picture.
End of rant.
| And now a word from the
opposition party |
| I like a story as much as anybody. Lately, though,
I've grown impatient with story-driven RPG's. I'm just plain sick of
mashing the button while text window after text window pops up. Story
is great, but it must always be in service to the gameplay. That or
the story has to be really good, and that just hasn't happened yet.
Events and items related to the story should have major gameplay effects.
For instance, the items in Zelda - The Ocarina of Time. You could care less
about the mystical, wonderful medallion of fire. It doesn't do anything. But
the plain old rusty metal hookshot is fun, useful, and it has a major impact
on where you can go and what you can accomplish. Clearly, the hookshot is more
important than the medallion, but the story doesn't reflect this. It's true that
one can simply imagine that the medallion has power, but in a video game this
shouldn't be necessary. The whole point of video games is direct experience of
the fantasy, ideally in an interactive fashion. Why were we moved when Aerith
died? She wasn't all that deep or interesting a character. I think it was because
we fought alongside her, and were rescued again and again by her healing powers.
You don't get that real an experience from a novel.
The story shouldn't interfere with the gameplay, either. Xenogears is the
classic example - basically an illustrated novel that has delusions of playability.
Games don't need to be like novels, and it would be a shame if video games did
nothing more than imitate an established medium. Some plot sensibility must be
sacrificed in order to be in balance with gameplay. The most contrived part of
Chrono Cross is the fact that at every turn, the characters are in armed combat.
The meat of the game is combat, therefore the plot must lead to combat frequently.
This is as it should be. Perhaps the story could be set up so that constant fighting
isn't a contrivance, but it's not that big a deal. I always think of Chrono Trigger's
'Only three people can travel through time at once' rule. It's a totally nonsensical
plot element, but it explains a necessary gameplay restriction.
For the future, I'm optimistic. This medium (storyline-based semi-interactive
role-playing video games?) is in its infancy, or puberty at best. It hasn't
yet produced a masterpiece that lights the way for all to imitate. I think promising
rough drafts are to be found in the Chronos and Zeldas in particular, but there's
still lots of room for improvement. Perhaps the upcoming consoles will have the
power our beloved developers need to achieve the perfect balance.
-Sanagi |
There's not that much to argue with here. I have a few
quibbles - Aeris was deep and interesting by RPG standards at
the time, so her death had novelty value, if nothing else. I agree that
stories thus far haven't been really good by the standards of movies
or books, but they're really good by the standards of games, and that's
enough to keep me playing for now.
But clearly
Sanagi's after something different than I am with regards to games, and
that's completely ok. Heck, that's not even true - I love fun,
interesting, intelligent gameplay as much as anybody else. I grew up
on Zelda, and Mario the same as the rest of you. But we're clearly not
getting Zelda-style gameplay out of games with FF-style plots, and
until we do, we make a choice - story or gameplay. I go one way,
Sanagi goes another, and it's all good in the end.
| Keepin' it real |
| Original stories? Wild ARMS 2 has probably the most original story I've seen
in a long time, and the best non-strategy RPG story since Xenogears.
But how to keep original stories? I think with the ever-expanding abilities
of programmers and all the new next-gen systems... the only way to keep
creating great RPGs is to keep characters human. With the FF8 debate, this
is pretty obvious. I think when we say 'human', people are getting the wrong
impression, though. Everyone thinks about old Uncle Bob sitting on the couch
watching TV all day. But nah. There's tons of people out there who'd have
the guts to do stuff. I personally would love to see more games where we see
the characters' actual thoughts, instead of just "..." --- that's the reason
I liked FF8. I could relate to Squall so well because I've thought the same
things in the same situations. It's the ONLY reason I enjoyed Star Ocean 2
(given, it was slightly different -- being able to play the two characters
gave a different twist to the game).
But yeah.. basically to keep RPGs fresh, we need 'real' characters.. people
we can relate to. 'Heroes' are all good and dandy, but they get old and
cliched way too fast. Oh, and developers need to quit putting all those dumb
little 'cute' animals in game. I'm sick of them... VERY sick of them.
-chris- |
In contrast to what I was saying earlier, I'd like to point out one
way that games have an advantage by combining stories with
interaction - they're able to produce the illusion of "real" at a much
more basic level than any other medium ever. Link in Zelda 1 never said
a word, had only the vaguest of backgrounds or motivations, and never
appeared as anything but a tiny blob on a glass screen, but it didn't
matter. He was real to me because I swung his sword for him, guided
him through dungeons, kept him healthy and saved his world.
Now I'm not saying that this is "real" in the same sense that chris
is looking for, but combining that kind of immediacy with the basic
humanity he describes could lead to some very interesting places. If
at some subconscious level I believe I'm Link when he swings his sword,
then maybe at that same level I can believe I'm Link when he laughs or cries
as the plot demands. And that potential is one of the coolest things
imaginable about video games.
| Er... you mean the
earth doesn't revolve around the sun? |
| Dear Double Agent Man,
According to Square and those who covet their success, the world is flat and
the earth revolves around the sun. In nearly every RPG story, one of the
prime faults to the foundation is the emphasis placed on world-ending plots,
mostly incorporated so the game can actually play, with nifty, spiffy
battles and conflicts. But what is really interesting in a story - beyond a
purely theoretical level - are the people who propel it forward. They are
motorcycles, the world is just the road. But most RPG plots build characters
from a combination of stock personas and mold them around the
world-threatening dire straits, turning the character's into the road to get
the plot done and the world conflict into a horse-drawn buggy that travels
that road.
Without sacrificing fighting gameplay and turning the RPG into Dragon's
Lair, developers can make the story revolve around an interesting character
and build the conflict from there. Link washes ashore on Koholint and wants
to leave, the conflict molds itself around him. Ryo from Shen Mue searches
for his father. Ashley and Sidney compose the main plot of Vagrant Story,
the political intrigue is the backdrop on the psychological drama. You could
make a plot about a merchant who travels the world to find and sell rare
items. Maybe you can make us care about, oh, say, a charmingly greedy and
mercantile, bumbling sort for whom things rarely go right. Maybe said guy
isn't involved in the big conflict, but the conflict causes problems for
him, as any war would. You might strike gold and mine a treasure of new plot
resources.
When the character keeps you riveted to the screen, then the plot will
revolve around a series of wins and losses 'til the final confrontation, and
suspense is the sweetest. But when a planet is on the balance, how one can
relate to something as abstract as a world? By making us care for it
intensely. If you can make the player absolutely recoil from the notion of
what might be lost in the conflict of the plot, and make the world a
protagonist, then it is no longer flat. It is round and full of dimensions.
Developers can use more than just the script to tell a story. By carefully
paying attention to what mood they create with graphics, setting, abilities,
music and challenge level, they can cash in on the pictures that take a
thousand words to express in an ordinary novel. Ka-ching.
I'd like it if the plot revolved more around the characters and the world
itself was as intimately fashioned as to punctuate the story with atmosphere
and thematic depth. Putting a tragic love lost to rest in a coffin is nearly
as creatively dead as what the coffin contains. But dropping an innocent
flower girl into a blue pristine lake, a deeply feeling lady, misused and
abused in a greedy, power-stricken landscape, a lady able to create flowers
and peace in a black, dismal slum . . . this suggests something a bit more
powerful. If you look to the genre's development, this process is slowly
proceeding forward like a creaky wagon. As wonderful as it is now, I wish
they'd outfit new wheels on the old thing.
-Link, never underestimate the power of the Triforce. |
Yeah. What he said. Good stuff.
| Chock full 'o Neocount |
| Chris,
What makes an interesting story? Me. That's right, me. You may
begin awaiting my severely watered down masterpiece. Sadly, I won't be able
to do it justice with the RPG Maker, but I'm going to try. So, when I
finish, and if you play, just pretend it all looks like a modern day Vagrant
Story. And for the love of Square, put in a decent cd, RPG maker's music
isn't even close to good enough. Anyway, it will probably take me a few
weeks of solid work, since my step-brother snatched the cd as soon as I got
home. Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that work has begun. And
it will probably suck, but humor me and play it anyway.
-The Neocount of Merentha, wondering why the hell he wrote this. |
At some level I think we're all a bit charmed by such blatant self
promotion, so I thought this was worth putting in here. And now that
several thousand people are all aware of your intentions, Neocount,
I'm sure you'll have that game posted to our archives Real Soon Now,
right? I mean, you wouldn't want to disappoint us, because that would
be Bad.
| New and improved |
| Hi Chris Jones, how are you?
I think that what we need is NEW stories, things that have not been done
before. The main problem with RPG is that they are repetitive. You have a
hero who is nice, a vilain who is bad, a world to save. There are
exceptions, and those were good stories (Sephiroth was not the typical
vilain, FFT had lots of twists..) The stories I like are those that are
daring and have original character development.I don't enjoy soft stories
too much. Examples : You know that Selphie and the others will not explode
with the base in FF VIII, because you know Final Fantasy is a *nice* game
and would not do something immoral. You know Ultimecia is going to lose
because she is evil.You know that kids won't die, sage people are old,
female main characters are beautiful, etc. Star Ocean is the incarnation of
all these stereotypes. You can't have an evil or neutral character as THE
main character, most of the time you are nice, you enemy is always the bad
guy. These are classical RPG's, they are too much predictable. I prefer
daring stories such as FFT(critics religion, characters can die),
Fallout(critics facism, everyone can die).
Another point is that stories are not too much involved with gameplay :
whatever you do, however your character is, the story stays the same. Tifa
kills dragons with her fists.. Fei can beat gears with his hand.. and they
still get insulted by old men in rocking chairs. They still have to face
little bosses. I'd like stories where what you do as a player affects the
plot, where you have choices and these choices actually have an impact. For
an example,FF VI had begun this idea, where Terra had the choice to not help
the returners, but it has been left at that state. RPG's are closer to books
than games, you actually have no ROLE in it.
That's what I think about stories, I hope it will change, because it's
getting boring, don't you think?
-Cloud, who thinks that even FF VII had a lot of flaws. |
Already went over your second point, but I concur completely with
your first. Recently I was talking with another staffer about Chrono
Cross, and he was asking me why I seemed to be so down on it. "It's
not that I'm all that down on it," I replied, "It's just that I'm tired
of seeing teenagers saving the world." We agreed that as far as
teenagers saving the world stories go, Chrono Cross is pretty much at
the apex, but I still want to see something new. What about a man just
saving his town, or a housewife just saving her family? If done right,
I don't think there'd be any "just" about either of those.
| Vagrant Story mature,
not Duke Nukem mature |
| So what makes a story good? Why do we like certain
stories apart from different ones? I can offer several opinions
here.
1. Stories in RPG's need to contain err... mature situations. I don't mean
sex, foul language and gore but the implication of such things. Look at Pokemon
(Red, Blue, Puce, whatever), the game offered a very simple story that appealed
mainly to children. As a result most older gamers *hate* Pokemon, the story
was insulting to them. Who cares about a happy go-lucky boy and his pet mutations?
We want a story that appeals to our inteligence, not one that imparts valuable morals
(targeted for impressionable youth).
2. Controversey. Xenogears. This great (better than great, perfect) game
had a very 'controversial' story involving the debate of religion (I shan't
get into it here). As a result this game almost never saw the light of day in
the States, which would have been a shame. Again, this is an example of a 'mature
situation' and one that alot of people are familiar with. Ultimately the game
appealed to many gamers who were enticed by the fact that the game drew such controversey.
3. Innovative stories are also highly sought after. Plot twists, new characters,
etc. all work together to make a good story. Players grew tired of the same
rescue the fair maiden, save the world bit. Now we uncover shocking conspiracies
that hit close to home and ulterior motives. I can liken this (quite easily)
to books of the Fantasy Genre. They all have fundamental similarities but
overlying stories that vary quite widely. No one wants to play a game with
the same story as another with different characters.
All told, the story is the most integral part of any RPG. Good Role-Playing
Games have stories that tug at the heart and challenge the mind whereas weak
stories are predictable and bland. Xenogears had a well developed story that
draws the player in and makes them want to discover more and more of the story.
Pokemon had virtually no story and was notoriously pathetic with it's 'after-school movie' morals and situations.
Justin Bohlman a.k.a. Wong Fei Fong |
Couldn't disagree more with you, dude. While I don't want to see
games run from mature themes - if blood or gore or a naked woman or
even a naked man is important to telling the story, then it should be in
there - I don't think games need to center on them either. Playing
through Dewprism, I've come to realize that it's one of my favorite
games so far this year, precisely because it's so cartoony and
basically innocent. I don't have problems with Grandia because of its
early simplicity - actually, I think the game may have peaked with the
opening quest to find a trash can lid, and gone downward as it
introduced more "mature" themes. There's really nothing intrinsically
interesting from a narrative standpoint about sex or violence or
religion, it's
all in how the story gets told.
| And the moral is... |
| CJ,
While I certainly can't speak for everyone, the stories I consider
excellent are the ones that combine two elements: a solid theme and an
interesting insight into the human condition. Most classic novels contain
those two elements, and Shakespeare is probably as famous as he is for his
great work in both.
When I say theme, I don't mean a "moral to the story". I mean that I want
the scenario writer to have some kind of ultimate goal in mind during the
creation of the game. There's nothing I dislike more than a story that seems
like the author was just making things up as he/she went along. The insight
into the human condition is one of the reasons why I liked FF8. While it had
no real theme (not developed anyway), the insight into how we as people
sometimes act very cold without knowing it was priceless.
The problems with most games out today is that while they have a theme, it
is often a childish theme that is narrowed in view. Examples would be "Evil
Empires are Bad", "People are Evil", "People are Selfish", ect. Themes like
that are fine as long as the game or story mixes in the second element,
effectively telling us why we are so. The two elements complement each
other; if one is absent you can still have a good game, but never a great
one. The majority of RPGs out today are missing the second element, maybe
leaving us with fun string of battles but little in way of reasons why we
fought in the first place. While RPGs are certainly not near Shakespeare as
of now, I would hope that they will continue to improve toward that
reachable goal. Hopefully before FFXX or Xenogears 4.
-Red Raven, who expects a little more than fun out of his RPGs |
I agree with you, but at times have to wonder if the second element
you speak of isn't really there, it's just that we're not seeing it in
the translation. Big, obvious themes like "war is bad" are easy to get
across between languages and cultures, but the precise details that
make the message palatable to the target population maybe don't
translate over so well. I know there are numerous times when I've seen
RPG characters having conversations regarding some theme or
moral, and agreed with the basic point, but kept thinking "this would
be so much more effective if the writing was a little better." In other
words, the
fault may not lie within our games, but our translators.
Closing Comments:
Like I said above, we're gonna be trying something a bit different
here today. At least for a few trial weeks, I won't be suggesting a
topic for Thursday's debate - you folks will.
See, I like daily topics because they focus people's writing and make them
dig a little deeper for something interesting to say. But at the same time, I want topics that are interesting to
you guys - it's your column, after all, I just work here. I can guess
what you might or might not find worthwhile, but it's a much more
elegant solution to get it straight from the source.
So here's how this will work. At the end of each Wednesday's
column, I'll post a letter from a reader that proposes a column wide
topic for Thursday. Letter topic submissions can be sent in any time
during the week, but for now I'll only post one a week, and it'd be
helpful if such submissions were sent as separate from regular column
mail. Basically, don't double dip and send a letter replying to a topic
and suggesting a topic at the same time. Other than that, I think this
is pretty self-explanatory, so I'll get out of the way and let the
writer say his piece. See you tomorrow.
-Chris Jones, thinks WAY too
much about this RPG stuff
| Topic for Thursday,
10/5/2000 |
| If you could pick one feature to add to RPGs, what would it be? Now, I
don't mean far-out ideas like VR, holodeck, or that sort of crazy-ness, but
rather, something immediately possible...ie: Save Anywhere, Full Item
interaction (a la MGS2), and so on.
I'd like to see the combat of Front Mission 3 combined with the general
roaming of Final Fantasy, for example (and not in the A-B Tactics
progression).
I just know there has to be some hardcore RPGers out there who often think
"why didn't they just add *this*"...and I'd really like to hear what
everybody has to say.
Richard "KZ" Knight |
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