Fallout 3: A Reflection on the Writing

[Ausdoerrt]

^ That's not the point. "A game that has stats" is not by default RPG, it's a game with RPG elements.

A RPG needs some kind of stat system to be RPG. Visual novels or some adventure games have choice/consequence system, but that alone does not make them RPG games either.

 

[Oeolycus]

A RPG needs some kind of stat system to be RPG. Visual novels or some adventure games have choice/consequence system, but that alone does not make them RPG games either.

I would then argue that almost no single-player CRPG upholds the base definition of what an RPG is. Before Fallout, before CRPGs, before DnD, RPGs were collaborative and social. Even on my top ten RPGs I find no game in which I collaborate to bring about a story.

All CRPGs are already written when you start playing. The story is finished. You have no say in how it ends. You can play choose-your-own-adventure and see how each ending plays out, but you're not a collaborator. The exception are MUDs where role-playing is of central importance.

So back to my original thesis:

There are computer games. Some are bad, some are good. Some mimic old PnP systems well, some don't.

Without specific criteria, labeling something RPG or not is either an attempt to categorize something quickly with a broad label (read: this isn't modern! it's impressionistic!), or a way of denigrating stuff we don't like in comparison to stuff we do (read: now Wasteland was an RPG! Fallout 3 is Morrowind 2 with guns and stats don't matter).

Whether or not FO3 is an RPG in any sense is a moot point.

Whether it is a good game, a good Fallout sequel, immersive, progressive, etc.--those are valuable questions. And that was the OP's topic: is FO3 well written? No, it's not.

 

[Idiotfool]

I was pondering this topic just the other day. I was intensely disappointed with Fallout 3, even though I went in thinking it was going to be utter shit. I thought to myself, "I wish that video game companies didn't suck anymore and that they could make successful, intelligent RPGs again." Immediately after this thought, I questioned the definition of RPG. An adequate definition seems illusory.

Combat systems of games labeled as RPG are varied in the extreme. The presentation of stats are also largely diverse. How, then, could I expect to label games as RPG or not?

The only thing that I could come up with, that differentiated an RPG from other styles of games, is how much the character(s) I'm playing are influenced by my abilities or their's. If wholly different characters (which may actually be the same character, just differentiated) interact with the world in wholly different ways, then I would call the game an RPG. Better RPGs relegate these differences beyond combat.

The Zelda games, for instance, would not really be an RPG by this definition. Sadly, FO3, however shallow, still falls in this line. Although I'm still able to beat enemies senseless with 1 strength, gameplay is still somewhat different based on my character.

Upon the realization that I still classify FO3 as an RPG, I decided that I no longer cared about genres. I want my game to have a compelling story with a moderate degree of replayability. We all know FO3's writing sucks ass, but I'm still replaying it... so I guess I'm sort of okay.

 

[Eyenixon]

Fallout 3 was my first Fallout experience. However, I've talked to at least a dozen people who've played the first two games and I've read some of the lush conversation trees from Fallout 2. I also YouTube'd some of the cinematic possibilities to flesh out my understanding of the series a bit more.

Anyway, I started a series of essays on Video Game theory and I wrote a reflection on the writing of Fallout 3. I'm probably not voicing anything you haven't read or said on these boards regarding the problems in Fallout 3, but I may have approached the game from a fresh stance, having not really experienced the first two on my own. Anyway, a friend of mine read it and recommended that I post the link here. Also, it does contain spoilers... not that I imagine that it would matter at this point.

Fallout 3: A Reflection on the Writing

I very much enjoyed your writing, you have some decent talent when it comes to technical writing.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

I don't know anymore. I find it hard to believe that you guys want to reduce the concept of an RPG to any game which has stats.

What I or you want is irrelevant, what the term means is. It's like the term JRPG which refers to a genre of games but doesn't require the games in the genre to actually be Japanese. The differentiating term is more of insight into the history of the genre than it is a descriptor of it and thus has become something of a misnomer. Do I think that RPG should be as broad as it is, probably not but what's happened has happened. If you were going to be super strict and accurate then the only RPGs would be MUDDs and NWN online play. As was just stated, the most RPG like single player RPGs are choose your own adventure games with most JRPGs and ARPGs being all but completely linear. When all is said and done, the term preforms it's role of labeling and genre (no matter how general) and it has sub-genres which do the job of narrowing it down to something more useful.

 

[Yoshee]

I think most quest-writing is bogged down because it has to emerge from something or someone explicit. Remove that crutch and it becomes easier in my mind to write more unique and better "quests."

Oeolycus you stop reading my brain! The mod I would like to make, this has been one of my basic design principles.

Characters and locations in the world have their own stories, motivations, and activities... start there, and then build the game by constructing those stories and introducing some interaction elements. Granted you can't be perfect, at some point you can only put so many different reactions and setups into the game world before you run out of time or ability, but at least starting from stories independent of gameplay you'll be more likely to provide a richer set of options.

So an example would be, if I make a town you can infiltrate, I don't design it from the standpoint of: 'well what barriers am I going to put in the way of the player so they can get into the town', I start from a story of what the town is, who is in it, and how they would defend the town.

Then I create weaknesses, again based on the story, such as a guard who likes to sleep through his shift, a backdoor with a key, some other character in the world who wants to help you get in, etc. The end result is a harder game, since the town is not going to hit you in the face with how to get into it, but once you do get in there you feel like you have accomplished something because you managed to find some strategy to get through.

However it is hard to say whether that sort of design sells. Its clear that you can make lots of money with good scenery and fundamental mob grinding play... so like many things the simplest incentive dominates.

 

[Bukozki]

Well, quest writing is part of the problem. Here are three of the biggest problems with video game writing:

One, quests are designed and then written. So developers create a structure, or scaffolding on which they then hang the writing. At the core of the story... there is no story, only an activity disguised by writing.

Two, there is very little variation from the retrieval and delivery style quest formats. Go kill ten people, go retrieve the GECK, go press the button, go subject yourself to radiation. These objectives are linear in nature and extremely goal oriented. Games that intend to tell a story (regardless of quality) will never get away from goal oriented play structures. That's how stories are told in other mediums and that is one of the conventions that hold over. Take Lord of the Rings for example, LoTR is a canonical example of the quest paradigm ostensibly structured around Frodo's journey with the ring from the Shire to Mount Mordor. That's it, point A to point B, but that journey is broken into smaller journeys between other key locations and the reader (or viewer) is distracted by the mundane nature of the core events by more abstract ideas and its intersection with other events. Most video game quest writing either does not do this, or it is done poorly.

Three, generally, writing in the video game industry is performed by those writers who can also level design or those level designers who can also write. What this means is that the people writing the story are not necessarily the best suited for the job, simply the most convenient to hire. That, of course, brings us back to the idea of financial exigencies in the game design industry and its impact on the art. Game companies will continue to hire one person to do two jobs until such a point as they are forced by audience or industry demands to hire two separate workers. Right now the bar in video game writing is still fairly low, so mediocre writers who also level design are able to handle the burden of expectation. However, I suspect that as the bar slowly raises, you'll find more and more people employed by the game industry to work exclusively as writers.

 

[failout]

A roleplaying game has already been defined quite clearly:

A game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.

A computer roleplaying game is a computer representation of the above, or at least tries to be.

 

[Crni Vuk]

to say that. It doesnt count for me really what the defintion of RPGs really are though. I probably do not know what a "true" RPG is, but I know what is not a good RPG. And both Fallout 3 and even more so Oblivion fall short in this. For various reasons. What ever the definitions now are or not.


By the way. Excelent post garlic, can only agree!

 

[Ausdoerrt]

A roleplaying game has already been defined quite clearly:

A game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.

A computer roleplaying game is a computer representation of the above, or at least tries to be.

Highlited is what I was talking about in terms of need for some kind of formal RPG system.

 

[TyloniusFunk]

A roleplaying game has already been defined quite clearly:

A game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.

A computer roleplaying game is a computer representation of the above, or at least tries to be.

This definition is overly broad, it applies to all computer games with a character.

Further, by now we can conclude that the term "RPG" is not a useful distinction for anything.

 

[Oeolycus]

failout wrote:

A roleplaying game has already been defined quite clearly:

A game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.

A computer roleplaying game is a computer representation of the above, or at least tries to be.

This quotation is from the wikipedia entry and refers to this website, in which the author makes two arguments:

Games interacting with a computer in general do not involve roleplaying.

and secondly,

Most computer video or adventure games have a token character which the player is controlling. However, a game is sometimes termed "role-playing" if the character can gain experience, items, and other improvements over multiple sessions. I think it is called this because historically the experience and item gaining are inspired by tabletop RPGs.

By token he means, a character like Ms. Scarlet from the board game Clue. I think the author's original words are a much better explanation than the distilled drivel on wikipedia.


RE: Ausdoerrt

according to a formal system of rules and guidelines

This is the most obvious and inconsequential part of an RPG. Of course there's going to be a system with rules. Highlighted below is the key to an RPG, imo.

players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.

That's what any choose-your-own-adventure in RPG clothes is missing.

RE:Bukozki

Right now the bar in video game writing is still fairly low...

The narrative behind tasks hasn't improved since I started playing games (QFG), but I think the writing WAS better back then. Or maybe I'm remembering the nerd humor of those and other games. Or maybe I'm nostalgic, cf. "You've been a thorn in my side for too long, Avatar." Ultima's writers were distinctly post-modern in naming their avatar, Avatar--or they really didn't have many good ideas either.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

A game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.

That's still ambiguous to the point of including most video games. Most games (with the general exception of strategy games) have participants assume the role of fictional characters and control their actions to some extent (it's uncommon to have control over story dependent actions but outside of that it's mostly full control) with those actions failing or succeeding according to the system of rules the game uses (the mechanics) [all games are a system of rules]. Again, back to the broadest group of games with the next statement, all games allow players to improvise within the constraints of the rules if there is room to improvise, though not all games have that room. Choices always shape the direction and outcome of the game, though again, it's uncommon for games to allow you to modify the story or path as many games are linear. By your definition, Half-Life 2 is a RPG.

 

[failout]

This quotation is from the wikipedia entry and refers to this website, in which the author makes two arguments:

Games interacting with a computer in general do not involve roleplaying.

He is simply saying that most video games aren't roleplaying games, which is true (but I don't know why he bothers to point out such an obvious fact).

and secondly,

Most computer video or adventure games have a token character which the player is controlling. However, a game is sometimes termed "role-playing" if the character can gain experience, items, and other improvements over multiple sessions. I think it is called this because historically the experience and item gaining are inspired by tabletop RPGs.

By token he means, a character like Ms. Scarlet from the board game Clue. I think the author's original words are a much better explanation than the distilled drivel on wikipedia.

But he writes elsewhere:

In my opinion, the difference between a token and a role-played character is this: Hypothetically, a person watching the game looks over your shoulder and suggests a move, and your reply is "No, my character wouldn't do that." If this happens, or is capable of happening, then at some level you are playing a role-playing game. This simple distinction puts a world of difference between RPGs and other games.

The narrative behind tasks hasn't improved since I started playing games (QFG), but I think the writing WAS better back then. Or maybe I'm remembering the nerd humor of those and other games. Or maybe I'm nostalgic, cf. "You've been a thorn in my side for too long, Avatar." Ultima's writers were distinctly post-modern in naming their avatar, Avatar--or they really didn't have many good ideas either.

Writing was indeed better in the past. Its quality has steadily deteriorated ever since games started being primarily geared towards casual players whose gaming philosophy boils down to "LOL NEXT GEN HD."

 

[TyloniusFunk]

"No, my character wouldn't do that."

vs.

"No, then I'll lose Karma."

Discuss.

 

[failout]

That's still ambiguous to the point of including most video games. Most games (with the general exception of strategy games) have participants assume the role of fictional characters and control their actions to some extent (it's uncommon to have control over story dependent actions but outside of that it's mostly full control) with those actions failing or succeeding according to the system of rules the game uses (the mechanics) [all games are a system of rules]. Again, back to the broadest group of games with the next statement, all games allow players to improvise within the constraints of the rules if there is room to improvise, though not all games have that room. Choices always shape the direction and outcome of the game, though again, it's uncommon for games to allow you to modify the story or path as many games are linear. By your definition, Half-Life 2 is a RPG.

You're not really assuming Gordon's role, but merely controlling him. You don't determine his actions based on his characterization ("what would Gordon do?"), and even if you tried to you couldn't because the game mechanics don't support it. You cannot improvise, nor can you affect the outcome of the game.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

RE: Ausdoerrt

according to a formal system of rules and guidelines

This is the most obvious and inconsequential part of an RPG. Of course there's going to be a system with rules. Highlighted below is the key to an RPG, imo.

There was a guy here arguing that an RPG game does not need a system of rules. That's why I wrote that. While most obvious, it's also an integral part of any RPG. I wasn't trying to say it defines the genre.

 

[TyloniusFunk]

That's still ambiguous to the point of including most video games. Most games (with the general exception of strategy games) have participants assume the role of fictional characters and control their actions to some extent (it's uncommon to have control over story dependent actions but outside of that it's mostly full control) with those actions failing or succeeding according to the system of rules the game uses (the mechanics) [all games are a system of rules]. Again, back to the broadest group of games with the next statement, all games allow players to improvise within the constraints of the rules if there is room to improvise, though not all games have that room. Choices always shape the direction and outcome of the game, though again, it's uncommon for games to allow you to modify the story or path as many games are linear. By your definition, Half-Life 2 is a RPG.

You're not really assuming Gordon's role, but merely controlling him.

Arbitrary distinction.

You don't determine his actions based on his characterization ("what would Gordon do?"), and even if you tried to you couldn't because the game mechanics don't support it.

Arguably, everything you do in Half-Life is what Gordon would do. You can do things Gordon wouldn't do, like jump off a cliff, but you can do things in role playing games your character wouldn't do as well.

You cannot improvise, nor can you affect the outcome of the game.

You can shoot barrels to explode enemies instead of shooting the enemies themselves. That's just one example of the many opportunities to improvise within the rules. You can't create a new ending, but you can't do that in RPGs either (though they may have multiple endings, your stuck with that set from the start.)

 

[failout]

Arbitrary distinction.

I don't see how.

Arguably, everything you do in Half-Life is what Gordon would do. You can do things Gordon wouldn't do, like jump off a cliff, but you can do things in role playing games your character wouldn't do as well.

In Fallout I specifically choose to do, and am allowed to do, something because that's what my character would do. I don't have such a choice in Half-Life 2. Gordon, despite lacking a clear personality, does things in a certain pre-determined way. Pretending that HL2 is a CRPG because you can jump off a cliff ("my character is suicidal!") is much like pretending that HL2 is a racing game because you get to drive a car.

You can shoot barrels to explode enemies instead of shooting the enemies themselves. That's just one example of the many opportunities to improvise within the rules.

That's not what we're talking about.

You can't create a new ending, but you can't do that in RPGs either (though they may have multiple endings, your stuck with that set from the start.)

In a true RPG you really can conjure an ending out of thin air. For CRPGs this is impossible, so they can only approximate by providing multiple endings.


I've noticed that many people have a strange need to stretch the definition of roleplaying so far that every game, or some game in particular, meets the criteria for being a CRPG. It's as if a game is magically elevated to some new level of excellence because you slap the label of "CRPG" on it. I've seen people do this with JRPGs, sometimes in a very hysterical way.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

^^ TF, I give your post an A+

=)

Arbitrary distinction.

I don't see how.

In Planescape: Torment, you are not assuming the role of the Nameless One, you're simply controlling him =)

There is a small distinction but it is indeed arbitrary.

You can't create a new ending, but you can't do that in RPGs either (though they may have multiple endings, your stuck with that set from the start.)

In a true RPG you really can conjure an ending out of thin air. For CRPGs this is impossible, so they can only approximate by providing multiple endings.

a) We are largely discussing cRPG here;
b) In a P&P RPG the possible endings are limited by DM's imagination and by the setting. "You failed your quest because you were kidnapped by aliens" is merely an example of a bad PnP RPG gaming.

PS: Naturally, I neither think that HL2 is an RPG or that a cRPG means any more than what the name implies. I'm just f'ing around with the definition.