13 replies to this topic

[Tabletpillow]

So after working on the ROSEMASTER these past few days. I'm been working really hard on what the story is going to be. but I have a question for you guys, what do you think makes a great story for a quest? And what makes it well executed in a quest?  Keep in mind that the answer to this is all opinionated. I'm not looking for a right answer at all, just your input.

I say this because I've definitely started to see that the current quest I'm working is going to be extremely story focused. Lots of cutscenes, all (or so I hope) serve a purpose in one way or another. Safe to say, it's the most story focused quest you'll see in a long time when it gets released. I'd like to see other people's opinions on story driven quests and what they like about it so that I can maybe implement some of the ideas into my quest.

Regarding the quest, I'm only halfway through it and already have close to 3000 strings. (Although most of the text is through optional NPC dialogue.) 

I'm just working my quest's story and well, while it's nice to have direct feedback, I really don't want to spoil anything either. So I think asking the bolded question here would make for a great compromise. With your answer try to keep it as broad as the question trying to ask you. No need to get into the specifics of my quest. I'm trying to make this topic a tip for all creators who want to make a story focused quest. Not just for me.

 

I think I've come up with an answer for my question too.

When I made my Glory Squad Quest, one of the reviews talks about how the quest's story was rather flawed and how it could be fixed through more developed characters and villains. I really like that review I had, it helped me grow and realize how much better I can make the story. I've come to work hard on making all my characters more 3 dimensional in my ROSEMASTER quest as a result. And hope this would greatly improve the story. This leads to my answer on how a quest makes for a great story. Characters have to serve a purpose. They have to make the player feel something about them. Angry, likable, unlikable. Just something other than a role to fill.

 

Of course any great story won't be enough to save a quest if it isn't well executed. How exactly can you implement a story into a quest? I personally think huge exposition dumps like for example, at the end of every dungeon is bad story telling. If the quest is truly story driven I would suggest having cutscenes and expositions spread out to other unexpected places, like in a middle of a dungeon, or just in a middle of town.

This however leads to another problem. Too much cutscenes can seriously drag the quest to tedious levels, especially if they're unskippable (which most are) or if they're before a hard boss that may require the player to see them again if they lose. I say this with the fact that my recent quests are also guilty of this. I'm sure some people may not mind the cutscenes, especially if they are playing a story driven quest in the first place and should expect stuff like this. But it would be nice to make so that it produces as few tedious moments as possible. There's not much solution I can really find other than spread out the exposition and give the players time to control themselves every now and then.

[Evan20000]

So without a doubt, the priority of a story-driven quest is telling a story, so I'm not gonna touch too much on that because you already hit a lot of the more important points already. However, on the gameplay side, I think it's conscious to give player the agency to do multiple things at non-critical junctures in the story. This doesn't have to be as elaborate as branching paths in the story, and could just be small sidequests or exploration, but the important thing is to make it clear there's a reason you chose video games as a medium to tell your story as opposed to a movie or a book and aren't just stringing your player/protagonist along a plotted line the entire time.

[LinkFan212]

Definitely an interesting idea to think about here. I agree on what you said here:

 

I've come to work hard on making all my characters more 3 dimensional in my ROSEMASTER quest as a result. And hope this would greatly improve the story. This leads to my answer on how a quest makes for a great story. Characters have to serve a purpose. They have to make the player feel something about them. Angry, likable, unlikable. Just something other than a role to fill.

 

I feel like having engaging characters in a story-driven quest is one of, if not the, most important aspect of a quest, or really any story for that matter. As humans we enjoy personalities and engaging with people (even introverts in a sense), and when you present a story where you can't directly interact with them in reality, having them become three-dimensional makes the story become almost reality. Personality, characteristic-development, trials and tribulations brought on to the character, these attributes together creates a great character that allows the reader, or quest-player in our case, to connect to the quest and become engaged.

 

Something I think we may not realize though is we don't necessarily need to tell a story with a bunch of strings and dialogue. While yes we definitely need words on our screen to develop a story in our minds, we have an entire system that has the capabilities to create little pictures and movies to enhance our audience's experience. Doing so can minimize their reading time, and provide an interactive experience that can tell a story as compelling, if not more, than reading strings on a screen. It definitely is something I'm considering when continuing development of my quest; I'm wanting a very interactive experience with cutscenes throughout the quest. 

 

One last thing to note; I am glad you made the remark over having cutscenes spread out across the quest, instead of just at end of dungeons. Adding what Evan stated above adds a whole new level of ideas into my mind. Optional cutscenes and different side-quests to engage the player will be something deep on my mind now.

[Matthew]

Something to keep in mind is the classic Hero's Journey, which can help you frame your story. It's a pretty specific archetype that stories from Harry Potter to Star Wars have employed. In fact, the Hero's Journey is so ubiquitous that many people can subconsciously recognize and appreciate it; this is largely due to how effective it is in making for a compelling plot.

 

It's worth having a look at this Hero's Journey diagram and perhaps taking it into consideration when developing your story further.

 

 

A key takeaway is to have something rather dark and devastating happen to your characters halfway through the plot, which must then be overcome in the final act. If you decide to pursue a Hero's Journey framework, this is key!

 

Aside from that, in general, employing effective subversion can certainly make for a riveting plot. Also, avoid plot armor for characters if at all possible. If killing characters servers a greater purpose than keeping them alive, bring out the guillotine!

 

Looking forward to your quest by the way, thanks for reading my rant

[Hergiswi]

I think for me the biggest problem with a lot of games and/or quests is that the story feels like an afterthought more than anything. Not even talking about simplicity vs. complexity of the story, just whether or not anything is done to advance the story or if it's like "oh crap I forgot to add a plot to the game and I just finished it."

 

For example, one of my favorite games ever is Sonic 3 & Knuckles (duh). It's not a particularly riveting story if you were to just tell it to somebody, as it just boils down to "there's a bad guy who took an important item and he's going to do something bad so you have to stop him." There are nuances and specifics and whatnot, but that's essentially the story. However, it's advanced along throughout the game such as the very brief Angel Island cutscene of the island being set on fire, Knuckles harassing you throughout the game, and music that really sets the mood and builds anticipation. So, even though the story is pretty simple on its own, the game has a lot of personality that caters to advancing the story. In Sonic 1, the plot isn't much different, but I feel like it's much more secondary because the game didn't do as much to acknowledge or advance it.

 

In a game like Toejam & Earl 2, however, the story is a little weirder. Two aliens escaped from earth and accidentally brought earthlings back to their home planet, Funkotron. The earthlings are making a mess of everything and scared the Funkapotamus to another dimension, thus depleting the planet's source of funk, so they have to catch earthlings in jars and ship them back to earth via a rocket. This is a plot that is obviously inspired by drug use more complex than some other Genesis games, but I don't think it necessarily makes it better. Actually, I think it would have hindered the game if they came up with a plot like that and then didn't address it appropriately in the game. Similarly to S3&K, however, it has great NPCs and music to drive it, and the tone of the game matches the weirdness of the story.

 

So, characters have already been mentioned, and I 100% agree with that. I guess the conclusion I've personally reached here is that the most important things for me are 1) that the story is actually integrated, and 2) that it's taken seriously. By seriously I don't mean lacking in character, however. I would argue that T&E2 takes its plot seriously even though it's bizarre, because it uses every aspect of gameplay (character models and movement, music, dialogue) to work towards the story. Even though S3&K has no dialogue, Knuckles shows a lot of personality. It also advances the plot by changing the structure of late-game levels like the very short Hidden Palace Zone, the single act Sky Sanctuary Zone (which displays a breach in security on the island), and the Super Sonic-oriented Doomsday Zone.

 

Don't know why I picked these two games as examples, but I think you could make a lot of similar arguments for other games. Conversely, I think you could find plenty of examples of games that are hindered by their plot because the game doesn't take it seriously and it feels like a pointless, generic experience.

[Avaro]

I love story, I think seriously story-driven quests are rare. What makes a great story? Hard to explain. You just know when you have a great story in front of you. I for one really like character driven stuff, where they overcome some sort of internal struggle maybe. External conflict is important too of course. Not all characters need a struggle. 

 

By the way, if you make your main character silent, you're gonna face some challenges. I don't like silent protagonists that are silent, solely because they are the player. It makes no sense for them to not be their own character. But because zelda games do this, I know this is a whole nother debate.

 

As for how to make a story well-executed in a quest? You can't do anything wrong here, as long as you get to play out your story fully. As for cutscenes before bosses, you should have just made it so that they only play once.

 

Sorry for the non-input. I can't explain what makes a good story. But I think if you have characters I care for, you're on the safe side. Also do some interesting and clever world-building! And plottwists that are thought out in advance.

[Rambly]

[i took out the words here because i don't wanna make my post look too long bla balb alb alb alb albl ahlh]

Oooh hey I like this post. Sometimes the way you tell a story can be just as important as the story itself. Like, if you're gonna tell a story about stoned funk aliens or talking echidnas stealing mystical jewels, you can make audiences really remember it if you do things to draw them in. Don't be afraid to make characters react to things as if they have a stake in things, even if they're silly characters and what's at stake is silly.  Like, Knuckles is eventually shown to be some devoted ascetic who Dr. Robotnik lies to instead of just some random jerk that wants to steal things from you. (spoilers) He's a goofy cartoon echidna, and the twist is actually pretty basic, but it works really well because it's delivered really well.

 

Also, I know "show, don't tell" is a pretty often-repeated mantra, but it's still good advice -- people feel more attached to stories if they can put themselves in a place where they feel like it's actually happening.  You can get a lot of mileage with just little things, like the way sprites move and music and setting and structure.  To use super mega famous examples, Final Fantasy 7 has, uh, admittedly a lot of narrative flaws, and Ocarina of Time has a super simplistic story, but one of the things both those games do well is the way it does little things like using camera angles and cinematography and music and posing of the models to express tiny changes in the emotional states of the characters.

 

And using structure and gameplay is great, too -- the way A Link to the Past introduces you to the Dark World in tiny, weird, alien glimpses, and the way it makes clear that if you didn't have the Magic Mirror, an actual item in your inventory, you'd be stuck there forever.  And when the Dark World finally reveals itself to you, it's not even on your terms -- you're teleported there by force by someone who's trying to bury anyone who gets in his way.  And the way you're introduced to it by standing on top of a giant monolithic pyramid with a weird red sky that you have to slowly descend and eventually run into weird-ass creatures that look like distorted versions of things you've seen before.  It communicates a lot about the scope and scale of the plot, how strange and grandiose the Dark World itself is, and how threatening the task you have to pull off is, just through structural shifts and gameplay mechanics.

 

Anyway doing good plots by focusing on more than just pure writing is a pretty "rooty tooty fresh and fruity" idea if you ask me. Bye

[Titanium Justice]

A couple quests that come to mind for me personally in regards to ambitious story driven quests are Chain of Destiny, Sabotage Dragoon, and Dance of Rememberence. Sadly, however, none of these ever got finished and only ever got released as demos.

I'll admit that the story in my Darkside quest was implemented as something of an afterthought to tie everthing together in a narrative for context's sake. In some ways I feel like I could have done much more in terms of storytelling, but I think a part of what has deterred me from that is because of past attempts which were heavyhanded with cutscenes at the detriment of gameplay functionality. It especially didnt help that back then the stories I tried to tell were like convoluted fanfiction.

In short, the point I'm trying to say is that a quest should be a game first and foremost, though if you are confident that you can pull of an amazing story without harming gameplay elements or dooming the quest to a future of imcompleteness, then by all means give it a shot. Even if a quest doesn't get finished, it can at the very least serve as a springboard of experience that can help you on a latter project.

Edited by Titanium Justice, 11 May 2020 - 01:41 PM.

[NoeL]

Lots of cutscenes

*Shudder*
 

close to 3000 strings.

*Double shudder*

As a gamer that's never been able to make it through an entire JRPG because they always get bogged down by the story, I'd like to reiterate what Evan said:

there's a reason you chose video games as a medium to tell your story as opposed to a movie or a book

 

Using cutscenes and exposition to tell a story in a video game kills the experience for me, more often than not - ESPECIALLY when it's just two characters yacking on about something with nothing else going on. Snoresville. I just want to skip through all the talking and get back to the game. If I wanted to read a story, I'd read a book. If I wanted to watch a story, I'd watch a movie. I play games when I want to play a story. My interactions with the world have to have meaning to the story - I don't want to be a passive player in my own story. The games that do this (Zelda included) get by on the strength of their gameplay, not story - the story exists only to enliven the world and give the player a single over-arching goal. If you're going to make the story the focus though, you can't do this. The player needs agency, or else they'll fall asleep (or at least I will).

 

So if you want to make a story-heavy game, please don't just make a graphic novel with some gameplay to pad out the scenes. Embrace the interactivity of the medium (or don't, and just go ahead and make a graphic novel!). The player's actions have to MEAN something.

 

Take the infamous courtroom scene in Chrono Trigger (I'm not using CT as a good example of a story-driven game, just this one scene in particular). Despite it being artificial, it at it least gives the illusion that the player contributed to the story, and THAT'S why this scene is remembered and considered great.

 

Another good example is Moirai. Upon entering a cave you meet an NPC covered in blood. You question him about it (his answers vary), carry on through the cave, end up covered in blood yourself, and when you go to leave the cave you're met with an NPC that asks you the same questions you asked the earlier NPC and you get to give your own responses. Turns out the "NPC" you met was actually a former player giving you their real answers. Again, you get to contribute to the story - this time in a disguised multiplayer setting.

 

Developers get scared of player agency in narrative because they can only think of implementing it in terms of "branching paths" - which, to them, means having to create a shitload of content, most of which will go unseen. But this a "broad" approach, and is an inefficient and artificial way of implementing agency. Another approach (and this might be a bit tricky in ZC) is to go "deep" instead, and systemetise the world to react to the player (CRPGs often do this). But this also takes a significant investment.

 

Personally, if I were trying to make a story-driven quest in ZC, I'd go the Chrono Trigger route... just amplified a bit. Instead of just a single occurrence, make the world/characters reacting to/commenting on their actions a persistent thing. Again, this is kind of "faking it" in terms of crafting a narrative, and works best if the player is in the supporting cast rather than the main protagonist (so their actions don't influence the plot), but it would at least keep me engaged far better.

 

Alternatively, if the player is also the protagonist of the story, have the character's goals align with the player's. The typical player will want to fight baddies, collect loot, and grow in power - that's their motivation for playing. Saving a princess or whatever might be the character's motivation, but not the player's. So when the character is waffling on about how he needs to save the princess and she must be so scared blah blah blah we just don't give a shit. If, instead, the character just wants to beat up chumps and get sweet new gear, the story doesn't get in the way - it goes exactly where we want it to go.

 

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me.

 

EDIT: Oh, and on the topic of cutscenes before bosses, NEVER do it. You don't want to get the player to peak excitement, all pumped for a boss fight, then kill all that energy with a boring-ass cutscene they're just itching to get through so they can get to the fight. Some anticipation is good - that's why there's often "quiet time" before bosses (like an empty room - somewhere for the player to collect themselves and get ready to go) but forced cutscenes are bleeeeeeegh.

Edited by NoeL, 13 May 2020 - 12:52 AM.

[ShadowTiger]

EDIT: Oh, and on the topic of cutscenes before bosses, NEVER do it. You don't want to get the player to peak excitement, all pumped for a boss fight, then kill all that energy with a boring-ass cutscene they're just itching to get through so they can get to the fight. Some anticipation is good - that's why there's often "quiet time" before bosses (like an empty room - somewhere for the player to collect themselves and get ready to go) but forced cutscenes are bleeeeeeegh.

I get where you're coming from, and it's easy to agree with it when coming from that angle, though there are some things that I'm curious about.  Are there some cutscenes that are okay? 

 

For example, there will be cutscenes where you don't actually know that you're about to face a very important boss.  You think you're meeting with an ally that turns into a dangerous, deadly boss.  Imagine if you thought that you were meeting with Zelda after you rescued her after defeating a baddie that captured her, but it turns out she was just super-tired of living this endless cycle of rebirth and just wanted out at long last, and tries to destroy you, Link, to free herself.  The cutscene is a completely different experience, and the whiplash from the plot-related realization is the food for the player.  ... at least, assuming they're not bored enough to fall asleep during the cutscene.  That's the problem with that one.

[NoeL]

In that situation the player is getting thrown into a fight unprepared, and if they die they have to do the whole cutscene again. And on subsequent playthroughs the twist has no effect, so it's just more of a chore then.

You'd be better off to just have Zelda start attacking - get to the gameplay straight away. She can explain her motivations during/after the fight. You don't need her to sit there waxing poetic about how she's sick of the cycle and how she's going to kill you now, blah blah. I don't care - come fight me.

[Russ]

In that situation the player is getting thrown into a fight unprepared, and if they die they have to do the whole cutscene again.

It's easy enough to set up a cutscene to only play the first time you see it. I get the complaint about having to watch the scene every time you die, but if that's out of the way, it seems stranger to me to NOT have any kind of scene before a major plot-important boss.

[NoeL]

But then you still need to watch it on subsequent playthroughs, or if you don't save afterwards.

I'm sure I'm the exception, but I'm not a fan of cutscenes mid-game. I hate watching my character out of my control - especially when they do or say dumb shit like just stand there while the bad guy runs away (y u no pheonix down Aeris???). You can still have scenes without arresting the player character, and even better if they can influence the scene.

I feel like "cutscene before boss" is just a cultural expectation now. It's done now just because that's how it WAS done, and doing it another way feels weird. Just one of those backwards ass things we're stuck with I guess.

[DarkFlameSheep]

I see many good opinions in this topic. But I guess many of you didn't seem to play Tabletpillow's ROSEMASTER demo before posted. I played it until end and enjoyed really, I think story and original characters are fun and very interesting. But story is very different from Nintendo's official Zelda stories. I guess some players don't match RM's story by some reasons. For instance, NoeL doesn't seem to like JRPG, so I think he won't match RM itself.

Edited by DarkFlame Sheep, 13 May 2020 - 08:08 PM.