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Story stuff in an RPG
Author
I didn''t know where to put this...in what thread that was already around so I decided to make a new one..
"when in doubt, make something new."
Ok, I was reading somewhere about non-linearity in stories, and I was thinking (the main reason I didn''t post this in that thread was cuz it wasnt the same topic as it was at the top I thought) about my story in the game I''m working on, Tale of Deception.
My goal as a storyteller is to move the reader...to make them feel and care for the characters. My second goal as a storyteller is to create realistic characters as well as realistic environments for them to mesh with seamlessly.
Now take that a step further and make it into a game. This adds more complexity to it, therefore making it harder to do. But I decided to change my way of thinking in games.
My goal as a game storyteller is much different than a regular novelist storyteller''s goals. In my game I want a sense of a world that is revolving but without conincidence of the player''s being there. That means I have to conform the story to make use of all these dynamic things happening. If you do this, this happens if not you miss it. That is the basis of my game. You are free to do certain actions depending on how you decide your character should act. If you develop him to be a nice guy with concern for all, then that is what you do; you save the princess from the burgulars. If you don''t want to then you let them have their way with her and you meet up with her later on. You must remember she is a crucial member of the game, but it doesn''t matter in this case.
I''m not going to go to the ends of the earth to make this story a different kind of experience but I do want things to happen without the player''s control. I want a town to get destroyed because the player wasn''t there in time, I want people to die because in a real world people die without acknowledgement. I want things to be happening, and if the player happens to get in the way he/she can do something about it at their whim.
Boy this is getting long...I''ll stop here, but make sure that you all understand that I don''t want too many new ideas just that this is the way I want it and see it. I want things to happen you being there or not.
My view on programming, what It means to me, what it meant to me. ~Squall012
Yeah, that''s the kind of stuff I would like to see in games. The amount of immersion could potentially be very great when the world changes on it''s own and from the player''s intervention. Then, on top of that, the world and stories could change differently each time you play because the player can make different decisions.
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake
"The road of excess also just ends up making me tired because I'm too lazy" --Nazrix
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake
"The road of excess also just ends up making me tired because I'm too lazy" --Nazrix
MMORPGs (sorry, I had to use it for the example...) I think can work this in, if main game story work is held on server, rather than requiring a 30 min download for players to get in on the next part of the story.
Besides that, here goes...let''s hope I don''t get too long winded again.
Having things happen without the player''s control is a good idea--it will help players feel like they are in a more realistic world. However, make sure that if they are scripted in, the player can still change it, or at least feel like they have a part in it. For instance, in FF7, Mideel is pretty much destroyed when the Lifestream bubbles up. You''re there, and even though you defeat Ultimate Weapon, there''s really nothing you can do to save Mideel. Falling in the lifestream helps to advance the story, but the destruction has nothing else to do with it. I didn''t much care for the fact that I had no say in the matter, but that can''t really be helped in a PSX game. On a PC game, I think you have more flexibility with things like this.
Another FF7 example with a town being destroyed is when you have to get the Huge Materia from Corel Reactor. If you let the train crash into the village, you lose your free Ultima materia, but if you save it, you get the materia (otherwise something like 50K gil) and a free night in the Inn.
Maybe if there are newspapers or something in your world, at least for the Extra!s (like in SC2000), so players can know what happened. I wouldn''t much care for going to my character''s hometown only to find it disappeared without a trace.
I think, if you added a chance for a Sims-style "fall in love with NPCs" and such, this could get players even more involved. What if their love interest is killed--this would have to be dynamic, not scripted like Aeris''s death in FF7, to get a good effect--they could be drawn further into the world and actually have desires of revenge against whoever did it.
This could also be extended using downloadable updates, like cavedog did for TA. Additional scripting, including the birth and death of towns, characters, storylines, etc. could be added in a small file, if the main game is designed modularly enough to support it. Then, at the end of the year (or quarter, or month, or however often) a CD could be released with all of the downloadable addons, plus maybe one or two extras, for something like 14.99--after all, if they''ve payed $40-50 for a game, they won''t want to pay that price out again for addons. These scripted addons would also have to be timed relative to installation, and spaced out enough--if a town is going to be born at, say, (1320,3403), and you script in the death of the town and birth of another, you would have to make sure to allow for the difference in them, so one wouldn''t be spawned on another.
That gets a little bit into programming issues rather than just design, but if you''re heading up a design team, you may want to pass that along to them.
Hope this was useful...
--
All hail the Technoweenie!
Besides that, here goes...let''s hope I don''t get too long winded again.
Having things happen without the player''s control is a good idea--it will help players feel like they are in a more realistic world. However, make sure that if they are scripted in, the player can still change it, or at least feel like they have a part in it. For instance, in FF7, Mideel is pretty much destroyed when the Lifestream bubbles up. You''re there, and even though you defeat Ultimate Weapon, there''s really nothing you can do to save Mideel. Falling in the lifestream helps to advance the story, but the destruction has nothing else to do with it. I didn''t much care for the fact that I had no say in the matter, but that can''t really be helped in a PSX game. On a PC game, I think you have more flexibility with things like this.
Another FF7 example with a town being destroyed is when you have to get the Huge Materia from Corel Reactor. If you let the train crash into the village, you lose your free Ultima materia, but if you save it, you get the materia (otherwise something like 50K gil) and a free night in the Inn.
Maybe if there are newspapers or something in your world, at least for the Extra!s (like in SC2000), so players can know what happened. I wouldn''t much care for going to my character''s hometown only to find it disappeared without a trace.
I think, if you added a chance for a Sims-style "fall in love with NPCs" and such, this could get players even more involved. What if their love interest is killed--this would have to be dynamic, not scripted like Aeris''s death in FF7, to get a good effect--they could be drawn further into the world and actually have desires of revenge against whoever did it.
This could also be extended using downloadable updates, like cavedog did for TA. Additional scripting, including the birth and death of towns, characters, storylines, etc. could be added in a small file, if the main game is designed modularly enough to support it. Then, at the end of the year (or quarter, or month, or however often) a CD could be released with all of the downloadable addons, plus maybe one or two extras, for something like 14.99--after all, if they''ve payed $40-50 for a game, they won''t want to pay that price out again for addons. These scripted addons would also have to be timed relative to installation, and spaced out enough--if a town is going to be born at, say, (1320,3403), and you script in the death of the town and birth of another, you would have to make sure to allow for the difference in them, so one wouldn''t be spawned on another.
That gets a little bit into programming issues rather than just design, but if you''re heading up a design team, you may want to pass that along to them.
Hope this was useful...
--
All hail the Technoweenie!
Ferinorius:
Great idea! I''ve personally considered something like this in a design I had for a game, but the way I implemented it was like this:
For every "event" that occurs in your game, there are two values that relate to the timeline in your game. One would indicate the time that the character is notified of the event that is about to occur, and the other would indicate when the event is to actually occur. These times can be absolute (relative to the playing time since the player started the game) or relative (to a previous event that occured). Rather than every event depending on something the player had previously done, there can be events that are bound to occur at a certain time (but may be affected by previous actions/inactions of the player).
By having a notifying time attached to an event, the player doesn''t have to worry about walking into an old town to find that it had been completely destroyed (that would leave the player feeling kinda helpless!). The notifying time can be carried out in any one of several ways... maybe he/she is found by a friendly character and told that something dreadful is about to happen, or maybe a sworn enemy threatens the player ("if you don''t come do such and such, don''t expect to see your friend so and so ever again"), or maybe the player witnesses something that will become a devastating event in a certain amount of time (train about to derail, friend sick and dying in need of a cure, army marching towards home town/allied town) and you are needed to perform some action(s) before something detrimental happens. You get the idea.
Of course, you don''t have to assume that something bad will automatically happen if you don''t act in time (if you were too far away, or didn''t get to the right people/place in time). An ally or mysterious other might do these things for you, (you may even end up vying with this person to be the one who succeeds in thwarting the opposition in the event). But because it wasn''t you who saved the day (or the minute), you don''t get skill points or admiration from others or the item you wanted, etc. (For those who know enough economics, you can even incorporate "opportunity costs": have two events occuring in seperate places but the player has to choose which one would bring the better result, and all within the time it would take to carry out the necessary actions).
There are many more things that I incorporate along with the notification of events, and the player''s ability to choose the side to take on these events. Things like player attitude (I have an entire article I could write about how I implement this), motives (and whether the player conforms to an expected/consistent motive -- which affects how other characters react to you later), admiration/respect from other characters (which i touched on slightly before), closeness to certain characters (not just physical location, but frequency of interaction), and the continued existence of certain characters.
I already have the framework of a scripting language that would make this kind of interaction in a game possible. Moreover, I have a good amount of storyline written already. I hope that something along these lines, or something similar to what you stated earlier will help to bring about more of an illusion of nonlinearity and true player interaction, without sacrificing the depth of a good story that adheres to its theme.
I could write pages and pages more on this topic (and I really want to) but I''m going to try to keep this succinct so that this thread doesn''t become too long...
Kevin Damm
kbdamm@hotmail.com
Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life.
Great idea! I''ve personally considered something like this in a design I had for a game, but the way I implemented it was like this:
For every "event" that occurs in your game, there are two values that relate to the timeline in your game. One would indicate the time that the character is notified of the event that is about to occur, and the other would indicate when the event is to actually occur. These times can be absolute (relative to the playing time since the player started the game) or relative (to a previous event that occured). Rather than every event depending on something the player had previously done, there can be events that are bound to occur at a certain time (but may be affected by previous actions/inactions of the player).
By having a notifying time attached to an event, the player doesn''t have to worry about walking into an old town to find that it had been completely destroyed (that would leave the player feeling kinda helpless!). The notifying time can be carried out in any one of several ways... maybe he/she is found by a friendly character and told that something dreadful is about to happen, or maybe a sworn enemy threatens the player ("if you don''t come do such and such, don''t expect to see your friend so and so ever again"), or maybe the player witnesses something that will become a devastating event in a certain amount of time (train about to derail, friend sick and dying in need of a cure, army marching towards home town/allied town) and you are needed to perform some action(s) before something detrimental happens. You get the idea.
Of course, you don''t have to assume that something bad will automatically happen if you don''t act in time (if you were too far away, or didn''t get to the right people/place in time). An ally or mysterious other might do these things for you, (you may even end up vying with this person to be the one who succeeds in thwarting the opposition in the event). But because it wasn''t you who saved the day (or the minute), you don''t get skill points or admiration from others or the item you wanted, etc. (For those who know enough economics, you can even incorporate "opportunity costs": have two events occuring in seperate places but the player has to choose which one would bring the better result, and all within the time it would take to carry out the necessary actions).
There are many more things that I incorporate along with the notification of events, and the player''s ability to choose the side to take on these events. Things like player attitude (I have an entire article I could write about how I implement this), motives (and whether the player conforms to an expected/consistent motive -- which affects how other characters react to you later), admiration/respect from other characters (which i touched on slightly before), closeness to certain characters (not just physical location, but frequency of interaction), and the continued existence of certain characters.
I already have the framework of a scripting language that would make this kind of interaction in a game possible. Moreover, I have a good amount of storyline written already. I hope that something along these lines, or something similar to what you stated earlier will help to bring about more of an illusion of nonlinearity and true player interaction, without sacrificing the depth of a good story that adheres to its theme.
I could write pages and pages more on this topic (and I really want to) but I''m going to try to keep this succinct so that this thread doesn''t become too long...
Kevin Damm
kbdamm@hotmail.com
Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life.
quote: Original post by draqza
I wouldn''t much care for going to my character''s hometown only to find it disappeared without a trace.
Actually, I think this and the subsequent investigation might make for a really interesting course of events. If you''re going to got the complete interactivity route, you have to realize that now it''s up to the player to make a good story out of it. You can only supply the pieces.
What other twists do you think would make for intriging(sp?) gameplay? I would like to have non-linear story with many plot twists (maybe only one on each path) that would keep it interesting if you decided to change your mind at some later playing stage.
Or even insinuate that there was a story for the entire game, keep feeding the player all this information on something but keep it just out of their grasp, maybe have the story where the PC is trying to find some Evil guy, and the guy just seems to be one step ahead of him, and everywhere he goes people tell him of this person spreading evil everywhere, and have the twist at the end where he eventually finds out that HE is the evil guy, doing all the nasty stuff. I don''t have any more details, as I only just thought this up
.
Disclaimer: When I say He I mean he/she but as a male, I find it easier to drop the ''s''
-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)
Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)
Or even insinuate that there was a story for the entire game, keep feeding the player all this information on something but keep it just out of their grasp, maybe have the story where the PC is trying to find some Evil guy, and the guy just seems to be one step ahead of him, and everywhere he goes people tell him of this person spreading evil everywhere, and have the twist at the end where he eventually finds out that HE is the evil guy, doing all the nasty stuff. I don''t have any more details, as I only just thought this up
.Disclaimer: When I say He I mean he/she
but as a male, I find it easier to drop the ''s''-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)
Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)
Hmmm. I have an easier time defaulting to the female context, prolly because I like picturing females in my examples over makes 
Anyway... I''d be careful about defining "evil" within any game. It''s just not a terribly good idea. instead, think of everything in context of the player... protaganist/antagonist kinda stuff. You end up with far more believable characters that way.
Believable NPCs, DS? Can such a thing truly exist?
======
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates
"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt
Anyway... I''d be careful about defining "evil" within any game. It''s just not a terribly good idea. instead, think of everything in context of the player... protaganist/antagonist kinda stuff. You end up with far more believable characters that way.
Believable NPCs, DS? Can such a thing truly exist?
======
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates
"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt
Well, we are trying our hardest for believable NPC''s LF. 
. I hope you have a say in our discussion at NPCAI.
Defining evil, isn''t really evil, what I want is to make the PC BELIEVE that it is evil, and then when they find out that they are the thing that they dispise most, some unpredictability can come into play.
And for the male/female context, I always imagine my character (who is male) interacting (and do I mean *INTER* Acting) with female NPC''s . hehe. So my hero is male (because I am that hero, which is why people play RPG''s right? Hero role?)
-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)
Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)
. I hope you have a say in our discussion at NPCAI.Defining evil, isn''t really evil, what I want is to make the PC BELIEVE that it is evil, and then when they find out that they are the thing that they dispise most, some unpredictability can come into play
.And for the male/female context, I always imagine my character (who is male) interacting (and do I mean *INTER* Acting
) with female NPC''s . hehe. So my hero is male (because I am that hero, which is why people play RPG''s right? Hero role?)-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)
Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)
There''s nothing at all worse than exaggerated good/evil in a story. I believe the literary term is melodramatic, right?
Landfish, I always thought that it was kind of cool how you used she in examples. It reminded me of the movie Dogma how they always referred to God as she.
You should check out our discussion in the AI forum about NPCs, LF. I think we''re sort of on to something. Well, they are. I''m just sorta stealing their ideas
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake
"The road of excess also just ends up making me tired because I'm too lazy" --Nazrix
Landfish, I always thought that it was kind of cool how you used she in examples. It reminded me of the movie Dogma how they always referred to God as she.
You should check out our discussion in the AI forum about NPCs, LF. I think we''re sort of on to something. Well, they are. I''m just sorta stealing their ideas
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake
"The road of excess also just ends up making me tired because I'm too lazy" --Nazrix
Lol. Maybe we are onto Nothing and letting you steal that. . I certainly don''t think I have been talking any sense for sometime over there . I hope that the other people over there are not falling under Diablo, Mephisto, or Baal''s sway such as I
-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)
Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)
. I certainly don''t think I have been talking any sense for sometime over there . I hope that the other people over there are not falling under Diablo, Mephisto, or Baal''s sway such as I -Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)
Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)
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