[Mandrake]

Well, here I want to talk about plot and character in really damn good RPG's, and discuss what makes them so damn good. The first I think will not be argued by anyone- one of the most immersive and brilliant games (both in plot and character design) is Chrono Trigger. So, let's throw out some things we like about it (plot and character wise, nothing else mind you) and try and see if we can learn something from it.
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"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
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[Ninkazu]

How you learn of the characters in Chrono-logical order:
1) At the beginning, you get the impression that Chrono is a pretty lazy guy, when he doesn't get up in the morning. He's still living with his mom and cat, and gets his allowance to go to the Ludia fair.
2) At the fair, Chrono bumps into a chick who doesn't say, "Watch it, punk!" but rather, "Are you all right?" She loses her pendant and becomes very concerned, and when you return it to her, she goes back to the ditz she is, and asks if she can follow you around.
3) You hear about another of Lucca's craaazy inventions, so you have to go check it out. Chrono steps up as a volunteer, like some little kid at a magic show, and Marle basically says, "My try! my try!" After that, the machine fucks up and she get's hurled into a time portal. Lucca tries to keep people from asking questions as she panics.
4) Once you've gone back in time and all that good stuff, you're wondering around and go to a church and kill some crazy nuns. But then there's a sequence in which you meet some froggy-looking character, who speaks in horrible Shakespearian prose. He joins up with you, but you learn nothing about him until later.
5) Argh, the chancellor is a big bug, but not really, he's just tied up and in a trash can somewhere.
6) You save Marle and go back to 1000 CE, where the chancellor is a dickhole and gives you an unfair trial based on random character witnesses. You're sentenced to death, but you kill a metal dragon with wheels, so it's all good.
7) You leave the castle with Marle and Lucca, and go into a time portal to escape Sir Assface.
8) Now you're back in 600 CE, and you have to get beef jerky to give to dying soldiers, so they don't get the shit beaten out of them (for some reason), and you get a helmet for doing so. Here's were you meet [forgot his name... Magus' lacky], and learn that he's a coward.
9) You find the frog and tell him the king's sick, but he's a crying pussy so you have to get the hero medal from some little punk kid. You get the medal, but the frog still cries his eyes out, so you go on a big quest for the masamune.
10) Ya, Ayla's a stupid cave bitch. What can I say.
11) The masamune's completed, and the frog finally stops the waterworks to kick Magus' ass, since Magus killed his buddy and turned him into a frog. I'd be pissed too.
12) Bleh, big battle, it's all a dream. Woopee.
13) You get Dactyls and fly to the dragon's (or is it dinosaur's?) lair to fight the stupid dinosaur bitch who summoned that asshole lavos.
14) You win, and the dragon bitch is all "waah, I lost, so I'm gonna look pitiful" and you might feel something for her, but you shouldn't, cuz she's a cunt.
15) Lavos comes and makes a time portal. You go to 12000 BCE. It's all snowy and there are towns in the sky. Mammon machine, pendant, young brat Magus (Janus), and a cockface with golems. Ya.

I'll stop there. I have to walk my dog.

[Mandrake]

Dude, that says nothing. ALl you gave was a walk through. I'll show you what I mean later, when I have more time to post.
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"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
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[Ninkazu]

No, I know what you were asking, but I was just saying there wasn't much character building. You learn that frog's a crying pussy, Chrono's a typical hero character that doesn't talk, Marle's a normal woman who falls in love with a dumb brute (Chrono), Lucca's a smart know-it-all that witnessed her mom's death, that Robo has "learned compassion", and that Magus is really just seeking revenge.

It's a typical story, but I love how it plays out. Really every game is like this, but I don't care.

[Mandrake]

wow, you really missed out on a lot. If you think that was it- you missed quite a bit.
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"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
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[Ninkazu]

I understand the depths of the characters, and if fact, Chrono Trigger is my second favorite RPG of all time. I guess you can't take this kind of humor... I mean, I really like Final Fantasy, and I still laugh at all the flash videos and comics made that make fun of it.

*sigh* pity.

[Mandrake]

Not really. Sorry I was trying to actually start an intellectual discussion that might help us make better RPG's.

I'll post an example of what I meant later.

EDITED because I was being too much of an asshole.
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"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
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[Ninkazu]

I realize I'm not that funny, but a part of me just spits stuff out. I don't mean to be an ass or to tell bad jokes, but sometimes I can't help myself.

[Mandrake]

S'aright, that's why I edited the post. Was being too much of an ass.

Anyway, what I was trying to talk abot before (and to steer this thread back on track) is that a video game differs from a movie or a novel or a play because the main character needs to be an avatar for the player. The player needs to feel that his actions and his avatar's actions are one, it creates a more fluid game and it helps create an immersive world. By having Chrono be a blank slate for the player to speak through (ie he is mute. he also performs no actions on his own. Actions happen to him, but no cutscene has him do anything that a player would object too. This is important), and to experience the game through.

What really is fascinating is that it makes up for the blank slate main character by focusing on the world, it's history and the main character's backdrop.

I'll write more a little later.
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[Hajo]

Did you play Arcanum? I liked the evolution of the story very much. It's great to see hwo the pieces start fitting together during the course of the game. Some of the dialogs are brillant, most are good at least.

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/

I never played Chrono trigger so I can't compare. Maybe someone who played both games can help?

[Aptyp]

Arcanum's "Ogre Island" quests. Best. Subplot. Ever.

[white_door]

I tried out Arcanum and I must confess I wasn't overally impressed. The initial plot was reasonably interesting, but I quickly lost focus in a blaze of mundane quests early in the game. Although it more than possible I didn't play long enough to really get into it.

Crono Trigger was extremely linear compared to most PC rpgs, however it did have several optional quests along the way. Also having 12 different ending with several varitions shows dedication on the part of the designers. However the linear vs non-linear debate aside, what really drew me to that game was the fact that each time zone was designed really well. Both in terms of charming cartoon artwork and well thought musical themes. Also unlike many other console RPGs you fought enemies that made sense, they had a reason to be there and many monsters had a reason (other than being monsters) to attack you. Some console RPGs can (at times) throw an almost random selection of enemies at you while this doesn't ruin the game... it does destract from the immersiveness. Where as Crono Trigger did not its break consistancy at any point.

My personal favorite RPG is Planescape: Torment. Which is possibly an example of the finest PC rpg ever made. I think the most amazing aspect of the game is the shear range of interesting choices and options I had. Even the required plot bottle-necks had many choices the could drastically affect the results of an encounter. In the words of my flatmate it had "Too much talking." However the conversation system was one of the more endearly aspects of the game for me. Like most PC rpgs the player could pick from a list of things to say, however what set it apart was the fact that there was often the option of saying the same thing but either meaning it or lieing. The detail put into the world was quite intense and this was reflected in the conversations and in the nature of the puzzles would be run across.

Another of my favorite RPGs is Jedi Knights of the Old Republic. I liked it for many of the same reasons as Planescape, the only major difference being... that Knight of the Old wasn't anyway as dark or as deep in terms of plot or philosophical questions. However in place of the darkness, it really shined. By bringing beautifully designed worlds to life, it really drew me into the star wars universe in a way that has never really been done before in any other starwars game.

To sum it up my favorite RPGs have always been games where I felt like I was apart of the story, and that I felt drawn into the world that the designer was portraying. However it still has to be interesting enough to want to play in terms of the other gameplay issues.

[Nephilim]

The thing about dialogue in RPG's is that the designer typically has to make a choice about who dictates attitude, emotion, and the flow of conversation - is it the player or the character?

In other words, how do you develop a memorable character with strong personality traits that tie closely with the plot and tone of the story if the player has control over his every utterance? How do you, as the RPG author, build drama if you cannot precisely control those tense, dramatic moments?

I see this as a subset of the larger problem of linearity - you can craft a compelling, powerful story, or you can give the player great freedom - not both. Every real option you give to the player to control where the story goes, you bisect the amount of effort you can spend on each story. This continues to be true until you make the leap to generated, rather than an authored, story. Dialogue suffers a similar problem - the wider the possibilities, the less crafting you can do.

You end up with a spectrum of solutions for dialogue. At one extreme, you have dialogue completely dictated by story and character - the player has no choices as to what to say and can only listen as the character speaks. This gives the author the greatest freedom to direct and define the story, but it robs the player completely of having a hand in discussions. This extreme really lends itself to RPG's that are really just an excuse to tell a good story, but it drops replay value to essentially zero.

On the other extreme, you have randomly generated dialogue that is created on-the-fly from a set of grammar rules based on variables within the game world, as was discussed in another thread. In this context, there is no direct authorship because there is no author - only a meta-author. The down side to this style is that it can sometimes produce nonsensical dialogue, and even when it is sensical, there is no guarantee that there is a thread of emotion to it. This extreme really lends itself to RPG's that are very large and randomly-generated for high replay value.

Of course, most RPG's fall somewhere between the two extremes. For example, most console-style RPG's tightly control dialogue, but give the player some small choice in dialogue, allowing them to choose between a handful of options at opportune times. Typically, these are non-choices, though, as the end result of any given conversation is approximately the same in terms of the direction of the overall storyline.

Other RPG's that use generated dialogue include exceptions and triggers that insert precrafted dialogue in the sea of purely generated dialogue to add interest or to hit important plot points.

For us indie developers, dialogue choice directly affects the quality of the game, because the wider freedom you give the player, the more content you must generate to support that freedom (or the more complex and intelligent your generated environments must be)... and we don't have the development resources of the big guys. The character volume threshold where we would be forced to move over to generated dialogue is much lower.

When I was writing 'Sacraments,' I decided to go with straight character-controlled dialogue, and not give the players a choice of what to say in every conversation. This was partly because I had very specific ideas about character and plot, but also it was simple economy - if I had taken the time to allow branching conversations, I would have to define all that dialogue, which I felt would end up being mostly extraneous. This, in turn, would have robbed me of time to spend making other aspects of the game better or the story longer. In the end, I think it served the game well, because the story appears to be the part of the game that players liked best, which was my goal.

But you can bet if I were to write a roguelike game, I'd be heading towards the other end of the spectrum.

[Rainer Deyke]

The way the Quest for Glory series handled this is interesting. The series doesn't contain a single line of dialogue for the hero. Instead, dialogue is mentioned in abstract terms ("You thank the innkeeper", "Ask about inn" as a menu option). 99% of the time the player is in control of what the hero says, but only one of the options, if any, advances the plot. This gives the game a feeling of freedom and openness without the actual work of scripting different paths of the game. The overall effect is that you feel like you are actually in the story - there is no difference between the hero and the player.

[js71]