Pretentious lore

[Azarkon]

I have no idea whether any of my game writing is consistent with this thought, even my current writing on Fallen Gods, but I'm increasingly wondering whether the problems might be something like this:

(1) A large quantity of info-dumping is information that the player doesn't need in any respect. He doesn't need it from a gameplay standpoint because it has no gameplay relevance whether the Fasfacanga were once called the Aganbta in the age of Magfala, but he also doesn't need it from a story standpoint because it's totally obvious that whether they're called Fasfacanga or Aganbta, they're just elves, and we already know everything there is to know about elves other than marginalia here and there. Thus, the information is valuable only in and of itself -- if the writing is sufficiently lyrical and brilliant to justify the writer jumping in between the player and the game and saying, "Let's take a moment to talk about the age of Magfala!" or if the mystery that is being uncovered is sufficiently fascinating that the player is independently motivated to seek it out.

1. Yes.
2. What many, even most, writers think is lyrical and brilliant is not actually so; this again goes back to the problem of objective self criticism being hard, and the need for quality control, specifically proper copy editing which is severely lacking in the video game industry.

(2) Even where some explanation is necessary, there is almost always too much of it. If you have a Fasfacanga who introduces himself as a member of the Sylalala caste, you probably can get away with just saying, "We protect the forests with spell and blade" and not giving a huge exegesis on how Sylalala culture works. Of course, as I noted before, almost all of this is unnecessary if you don't play hide the salami with your fantasy tropes by renaming your elven bladesingers Fasfacangan Sylalalans. But even when you don't use the established nomenclature, the structure of how a concept is introduced is usually sufficient to convey the meaning. "In these mines, Durin awoke a balrog, to his doom" basically tells you everything you need to know about Balrogs without offering any explanation of why this particular one was in the mine, how it was woken up, what it looks like, etc.

1. It doesn't make any sense for random characters to go on an extended lecture about their culture & history at request. In fact it is doubtful that the average member of a society should even know that much about their own culture & history, much less string it together into a coherent narrative, especially in fantasy settings before the benefit of mass public education.
2. There should always be room left for the player's imagination, since reading is supposed to be a two sided dialogue between the writer & the reader, as opposed to a one sided exchange.
3. Especially for writers who are not at the absolute top of their game, it's better to stay silent and appear a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

(3) Players have become very conditioned to expect an, "Ask more about X" option, even though they don't even necessarily want to know more about X, and the achievement-unlocked mentality compels them to take the option if it's there. Writers feel a need to satisfy that compulsion. It's a bitter circle. But I am almost certain that no meaning would be lost if every "Tell me about X" topic were removed because of point #2. The player would learn the same information through the implications of all the other dialogue on the topic.

1. Why should writers feel the need to satisfy a compulsion that they themselves create? There's no cycle here, and while players cannot be faulted for wanting to go for 100% completion, where such achievements exist, writers CAN be faulted for inserting irrelevant details into a dialogue tree whether because they are obsessed with their own delusions of brilliance, or because they are paid by the line.

 

[MRY]

1. It doesn't make any sense for random characters to go on an extended lecture about their culture & history at request. In fact it is doubtful that the average member of a society should even know that much about their own culture & history, much less string it together into a coherent narrative, especially in fantasy settings before the benefit of mass public education.

Different audiences value different things, but "people shouldn't give lore dumps because it is historically inaccurate" is pretty far down on my list of reasons against lore dumps. Somewhere between 90 and 100% of what's in fantasy RPGs is absurd -- from the way people give you quests to the economy to the population hubs -- so singling out the amount of culture and history they can describe seems silly to me. But I realize others may be more bothered by it.

Why should writers feel the need to satisfy a compulsion that they themselves create? There's no cycle here, and while players cannot be faulted for wanting to go for 100% completion, where such achievements exist, writers CAN be faulted for inserting irrelevant details into a dialogue tree whether because they are obsessed with their own delusions of brilliance, or because they are paid by the line.

Writers are humans, just like players are humans, and as humans they respond to incentives. If they get paid and praised for lore dumps, and get criticized for not having "deep lore," then they will include lore dumps, even if some more sophisticated segment of the population is right that lore dumps are bad. I agree that the world would be a better place if content creators had the force of will and independent wealth to Do the Right Thing without falling prey to evil influences, just as I think the world would be a better place if players could Just Say No as Zombra urges. But generally I think people are flawed and the best all of us can do is try to push each other a little bit in the right direction, and try to listen to the better angels of our Codex conscience as best we're able. That's why I think it's really good that folks here are as critical as they are -- because it helps give that push -- but I think it's a little unreasonable to get mad when the results of all that criticism are very slight. Rome wasn't sacked in a day, after all.

 

[hivemind]

Do you restart your game 9 hours in because you realised you put in 11 CON but 10 CON is 'optimal'?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I salute your public spirit and long-term vision and improving the medium is certainly a good reason to play games and critically explore everything they have to offer. At some point though, one should play games for the experience itself, as an audience member and not a critic. Otherwise, what the hell are we doing? "I caught 10000 fish and was bored the whole time." #informative, but also #sad. Don't be #sad your whole life.

I can assure you I'm not referring to Celerity or Sensuki levels of investment and criticism here, I'm not talking about playing a game solely to criticise it. I'm talking about just playing a game for fun, exactly as you describe, but finding yourself developing criticisms as you play it, in that the game is so bad its making you think how bad it is while playing it. And upon either completion or quitting, communicating your experiences. Positivity is criticism just as much as negativity is. Whether you like it or not, admonishing someone for providing critique on trash dialogue on the basis that it's optional isn't doing anyone any favours. Because:

There's nothing wrong and everything right about giving feedback. But again, as consumers and not paid critics, it is perfectly OK for us to post a glib Steam review that says something like, "There was too much lore, and what little I read was very dry so I skipped the rest. The NPCs were boring so I avoided talking to them whenever I could. There was a quest to murder a kitten but my character didn't want to do that so I bailed and went back to hunting the dragon."

Imagining consumers as separate entities from paid critics is a misnomer, especially as most paid critics aren't even being paid to criticise And the biggest complaint of paid critics is their tendency to ignore the crap and say glib things like "well, it was overall quite fun even though XYZ was crap". I don't play a game with a critical mindset, but when it comes to communicating my thoughts on the game after the experience, then I'll engage the critical brain. You know, like how when you're on holiday you do shit, but when you get back and someone says "how was your holiday", you tell it like it was, in a more critical structure.

 

[Azarkon]

Different audiences value different things, but "people shouldn't give lore dumps because it is historically inaccurate" is pretty far down on my list of reasons against lore dumps. Somewhere between 90 and 100% of what's in fantasy RPGs is absurd -- from the way people give you quests to the economy to the population hubs -- so singling out the amount of culture and history they can describe seems silly to me. But I realize others may be more bothered by it.

"Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable." Even fantasy must be consistent with human experience at some level to support the suspension of disbelief. It is possible to believe in a society of clairvoyants who inherit the memory of their ancestors in perfect detail, and so are able to narrate their culture & history at any time. But when you present to me a high fantasy society modeled after medieval Europe, with all the mechanisms & limitations of such a period, and then tell me that random store keepers can recount the entire history & culture of their people as though they are a professor at the local university, this is improbable and breaks immersion, since it becomes immediately obvious that the character is a lore device.

It's also just an excuse for poor design. Information dumpsters exist because writers are either too lazy or too incompetent to present the information in a more interesting way, or their own tastes differ so drastically from the audience for which they are writing that they can't even sympathize with the idea that players might, just might, not enjoy their lyrical brilliance. Either way, games are better off 99% of the times without such dry, improbable, and ultimately unnecessary actors, and the other 1% is when they are presented as believable lore keepers in a plausible setting - for example, librarians - which the player MAY engage with but can just ignore unless actively pursuing lore details themselves. Even then, I'd say that you should try to subvert the archetype by playing with authorial subjectivity, narrative bias, etc.

Writers are humans, just like players are humans, and as humans they respond to incentives. If they get paid and praised for lore dumps, and get criticized for not having "deep lore," then they will include lore dumps, even if some more sophisticated segment of the population is right that lore dumps are bad. I agree that the world would be a better place if content creators had the force of will and independent wealth to Do the Right Thing without falling prey to evil influences, just as I think the world would be a better place if players could Just Say No as Zombra urges. But generally I think people are flawed and the best all of us can do is try to push each other a little bit in the right direction, and try to listen to the better angels of our Codex conscience as best we're able. That's why I think it's really good that folks here are as critical as they are -- because it helps give that push -- but I think it's a little unreasonable to get mad when the results of all that criticism are very slight. Rome wasn't sacked in a day, after all.

Are they being paid and praised for lore dumps, and in case that is so, by who? That to me is the heart of the problem - institutional failures. You're right, the Codex is a relatively small voice in the industry, so we should not be surprised that Codex criticism is ignored or played down. But that begs the question of whether this is because the Codex represents an actual minority opinion, or because the rest of the industry is so far up its own ass that it cannot self criticize. Evidence indicates the latter, in my opinion, as external criticism, in the form of video game critics & reviewers, increasingly cannot be trusted due to conflicts of interest, while the nature of corporate culture, especially in larger companies, has always been hostile to internal dissent, since it contributes to 'conflict between employees' and 'production delays.' The lack of an influential and independent school of criticism for video games, as exists in film & literature, is one of the most severe contributors to the decline, and is the reason the Codex exists. I think most of us here tend to be more negative than we otherwise would be out of protest for the sad state of 'official' video game criticism elsewhere, which might also explain why user reviews are ever more important in informing buying decisions.

But to what degree do developers respond to user reviews, such as the thousands that are posted on Steam? Do they treat them any differently than they do the average Codex post? When most of the official critics are paid sycophants or check list professionals, it stands to reason that the only choice they have for proper criticism is from the users. Yet user reviewers are hardly thorough or professional. Many of their reviews are just one line comments like "this game sucks" or "not fun, 0 out of 10." Even the best Steam reviews are usually in lack of contextualized criticism and close analysis, and this applies even more so to the writing as most people tend to reserve their detailed criticism for the gameplay, graphics, and so on. Consequently only on sites like the Codex can you actually find, and even then rarely, writing criticism, and the fact that we are such a small voice ultimately means none of this gets fixed at all and writers are content to repeat their mistakes time after time, believing that this is what their customers want, not because it is actually what their customers want, but because there's no one with the influence to tell them otherwise.

THAT is what is incredibly frustrating about it all.

 

[Neanderthal]

Dude lore dumps instead o good design are okay now cos they're hyperlinked.

 

[MRY]

"Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable." Even fantasy must be consistent with human experience at some level to support the suspension of disbelief.

People say stuff like this, but I've seldom seen convincing evidence of it in practice -- people believe improbable things all the time, even in the face of evidence that it's not merely improbable but untrue.

With respect to RPGs, here are some of the things that are not merely "impossible" but "improbable":

(1) The world is essentially static. People stand in the same place all day long. Events both large and small are frozen in progress until the player-character intervenes, and even then they only advance in relation to his actions.
(2) The overwhelming majority of people whom you can talk to at length have things they need you to do and are willing to trust you to do.
(3) The overwhelming majority of people in the world are engaged in something other than agriculture.
(4) You can get hit 100 times with a sword and recover by sleeping for one night. Other than your healing, nothing happens during that night.
(5) You can carry vast quantities of gear with you.
(6) The world's entire economy appears to be based around buying and selling gear that only you use.
(7) Resurrection and magical healing is commonplace but only for you and your companions. Everyone else dies, is scarred, suffers illness, etc.
(8) Despite ludicrous fantastical elements, exactly the same social arrangements and problems arise. For example, in a world where gods strut around and grant magical powers to a billion random people, there are still atheists. In a world where ten thousand people can cast the "charm" spell, politics looks exactly like a Medieval Times restaurant.

I could go on as long as my aged fingers could move. "People dump lore" is so trivial compared to "random dudes sell magic swords for enough gold to buy an entire nation state" that it really has never reached the slightest level of annoyance or disbelief-restoring for me. I'm not saying it doesn't annoy you; obviously it does annoy you. Nor am I saying that a game wouldn't be better if it tried to more accurately capture the way in which knowledge was preserved in olden times. But the idea that this is, objectively speaking, some immersion wrecking ball is less persuasive to me.

That said, I think it's pretty obvious that the average (or even above-average) fantasy RPG would be improved by having you criticizing the design inside the team meetings. Maybe it would be less productive though.

It's also just an excuse for poor design. Information dumpsters exist because writers are either too lazy or too incompetent to present the information in a more interesting way, or their own tastes differ so drastically from the audience for which they are writing that they can't even sympathize with the idea that players might, just might, not enjoy their lyrical brilliance. Either way, games are better off 99% of the times without such dry, improbable, and ultimately unnecessary actors, and the other 1% is when they are presented as believable lore keepers in a plausible setting - for example, librarians - which the player MAY engage with but can just ignore unless actively pursuing lore details themselves. Even then, I'd say that you should try to subvert the archetype by playing with authorial subjectivity, narrative bias, etc.

I'll respond to some of this below, but I guess I would just note the de gustibus rule is a useful thing to bear in mind. There are lots of people who love dumb lore and faux lyrical writing. It's a sad fact of life. I also disagree with the "lazy and incompetent" point. I don't see any upside to assuming we know better than everyone else and they are only doing things we don't like because they are wicked or flawed.

IMO, one way in which modern writing has been harmed is by the "rule" that a good writer must "show, not tell." In old pulp writing there was actually a lot of straight telling -- "He was an ugly man, widely known for his cruelty" or "With a few quick moves, he dispatched the thugs" or whatever rather than a lengthy description of features or efforts to indirectly reveal what would otherwise be directly stated or endless play-by-plays of every action undertaken. Sometimes it is better to just have someone say, "Duke McBad is a cruel lord, and we despise him, and the world would be a better place if he were dead" rather than have random kids singing songs about Duke McBad and random people speaking in allusive whispers about his acts and so on. So in some instances, I think direct lore is better than indirect lore.

Are they being paid and praised for lore dumps, and in case that is so, by who?

Employers, customers, and critics alike. Look at the praise heaped on the "professorial" care given to Tyranny's worldbuilding, or the meticulous deep lore of Dragon Age!

[Professional critics can't be trusted because they're bought and paid for, player reviews can't be trusted because they're dumb, only the Codex can be trusted.]

Look, I really like the Codex's criticism. I like your criticism. And I agree with much of it. But if you're saying, "The market, the professional press, and the most outspoken players shouldn't influence the behavior of creators because they're wrong and I'm right," I guess my response is what I said before: You are talking about angels, not humans. People respond to money, to authority, and to the crowd. They also respond to well-reasoned arguments from thoughtful people, though perhaps not that often when those messages are prefaced with "you are lazy, incompetent, and self-deceptive" (or worse).

The crux of your argument is not merely that you know the art of RPG design better than professional RPG designers (which certainly could be true!) but that you know the market better than for-profit corporations that depend on pandering to the market to exist. I mean, it's possible. Just as it's possible that if the Star Wars movies were made according to my druthers, they'd be more successful. But it's pretty doubtful. Those movies were really successful! And Lucas and Disney know a lot about making money and managing franchises that I certainly don't! Having break dancing Darth Vader seems awfully dumb to me, but might that be because I don't grasp some nuance of the strategy or that I don't share the tastes of the market?

My own view is that people who create culture have an obligation to improve the culture, not just profit from its baser instincts. So my view is that even if it slightly annoys players to make a game that is better, the developer should make the game that is better and lose a little bit of money and acclaim. But I'm also realistic about what is humanly possible, and I think these things are very gradual.

 

[Azarkon]

People say stuff like this, but I've seldom seen convincing evidence of it in practice -- people believe improbable things all the time, even in the face of evidence that it's not merely improbable but untrue.

With respect to RPGs, here are some of the things that are not merely "impossible" but "improbable":

(1) The world is essentially static. People stand in the same place all day long. Events both large and small are frozen in progress until the player-character intervenes, and even then they only advance in relation to his actions.
(2) The overwhelming majority of people whom you can talk to at length have things they need you to do and are willing to trust you to do.
(3) The overwhelming majority of people in the world are engaged in something other than agriculture.
(4) You can get hit 100 times with a sword and recover by sleeping for one night. Other than your healing, nothing happens during that night.
(5) You can carry vast quantities of gear with you.
(6) The world's entire economy appears to be based around buying and selling gear that only you use.
(7) Resurrection and magical healing is commonplace but only for you and your companions. Everyone else dies, is scarred, suffers illness, etc.
(8) Despite ludicrous fantastical elements, exactly the same social arrangements and problems arise. For example, in a world where gods strut around and grant magical powers to a billion random people, there are still atheists. In a world where ten thousand people can cast the "charm" spell, politics looks exactly like a Medieval Times restaurant.

Almost every single one of these features is necessitated by the underlying gameplay, which is not the case with lore dumpsters. Lore dumpsters are a component of the writing & world building, and doesn't serve any critical gameplay purpose. Games necessarily have to sacrifice a degree of consistency for the sake of gameplay. Everyone knows this, accepts this, and gets their immersion broken by it. But what gameplay requirement is served by lore dumpsters?

Just because we are willing to sacrifice a degree of believability for the gain in gameplay, does not that indicate that there is no sacrifice and that CRPG gamers are perfectly okay with all immersion breaking mechanics since they tolerate so many already. In fact, most of the issues you listed are areas to be improved upon, as opposed to traditions to be perpetuated. It's only because the solutions are often so difficult to digest, in terms of gameplay and design costs, that we shy away from them, but perhaps that too should change; and in fact, has changed, since we no longer rely on concepts like resurrection to prevent constant reloads.

In the end, who wouldn't want a game in which the world is more dynamic, in which quests are better motivated, in which most people have shit to do other than standing around, in which characters can be modeled as more than a pool of health, in which inventory management can be done efficiently without allowing the player to simply carry everything, etc.? I'm not saying CRPGs should be actual physical simulations of fantasy worlds, since all fiction is, in some sense, a magic trick, but any feature that sounds like it sucks, probably does. The only question is what you gain by it and what you lose by not having it.

IMO, one way in which modern writing has been harmed is by the "rule" that a good writer must "show, not tell." In old pulp writing there was actually a lot of straight telling -- "He was an ugly man, widely known for his cruelty" or "With a few quick moves, he dispatched the thugs" or whatever rather than a lengthy description of features or efforts to indirectly reveal what would otherwise be directly stated or endless play-by-plays of every action undertaken. Sometimes it is better to just have someone say, "Duke McBad is a cruel lord, and we despise him, and the world would be a better place if he were dead" rather than have random kids singing songs about Duke McBad and random people speaking in allusive whispers about his acts and so on. So in some instances, I think direct lore is better than indirect lore.

Sure, but not because of the 'show, not tell' rule being wrong, but because it simply makes no sense to apply a principle of descriptive writing to dialogue writing. When characters speak to you, the experience should not, generally, be as though you are reading from a novel. This was excusable back when most video game writers were complete amateurs; it is less excusable today with teams of professional writers, and yet for whatever reason, in CRPGs especially the trend has only gotten worse. Instead of faux Shakespeare, we get faux Faulkner, which is to say, a bunch of flowery descriptions AND long-winded dialogue, such that you need to stare at the screen for a minute to fully comprehend a single turn of the conversation.

That's not how you write scripts for a medium in which sound, graphics, and gameplay are just as important or more so.

Look, I really like the Codex's criticism. I like your criticism. And I agree with much of it. But if you're saying, "The market, the professional press, and the most outspoken players shouldn't influence the behavior of creators because they're wrong and I'm right," I guess my response is what I said before: You are talking about angels, not humans. People respond to money, to authority, and to the crowd. They also respond to well-reasoned arguments from thoughtful people, though perhaps not that often when those messages are prefaced with "you are lazy, incompetent, and self-deceptive" (or worse).

The crux of your argument is not merely that you know the art of RPG design better than professional RPG designers (which certainly could be true!) but that you know the market better than for-profit corporations that depend on pandering to the market to exist. I mean, it's possible. Just as it's possible that if the Star Wars movies were made according to my druthers, they'd be more successful. But it's pretty doubtful. Those movies were really successful! And Lucas and Disney know a lot about making money and managing franchises that I certainly don't! Having break dancing Darth Vader seems awfully dumb to me, but might that be because I don't grasp some nuance of the strategy or that I don't share the tastes of the market?

My own view is that people who create culture have an obligation to improve the culture, not just profit from its baser instincts. So my view is that even if it slightly annoys players to make a game that is better, the developer should make the game that is better and lose a little bit of money and acclaim. But I'm also realistic about what is humanly possible, and I think these things are very gradual.

When I post on the Codex, I am not speaking directly to the developers of the games I criticize, so matters of social etiquette can be done without, and I personally believe that much of the appeal of the Codex comes from the fact that it is not coated in diplomatic glitter, so people are free to speak their mind as it occurs to them. Obviously, some people on the Codex still choose to be diplomatic, but really, you can find a hundred different review sites for worshiping the ground developers walk on, and only a few that do not, so Codex speak should be understood and appreciated for what it is - trash talking with a healthy dose of in-depth criticism, when called for. It doesn't mean the Codex hates all you developers or think that you're just stupid hacks. I mean, people might say that, but most of them would also accept the first job offer they get from the industry.

But I think you've missed the gist of my argument, which is not that I am right, you are wrong, but that, with the current state of the industry, we lack even the mechanism for measuring who is right and who is wrong. In arguing that the industry knows what it's doing because it's a for profit industry, you're essentially making an appeal to authority that is based only the existence - not even the success - of the status quo, since CRPGs have certainly not been prospering for the last decade or so, and on top of that saying that market feedback is an effective measure of quality, which is almost certainly not the case when the producers have a monopoly on the official dissemination of criticism and the market can be easily manipulated through factors independent of the game's worth. Further, even were we to accept that developers know what they're doing with respect to making a profit, all that can possibly prove is that they and their main audience share similar - or in Codex terms, equally shit - tastes. It cannot show that what they've made is actually objectively a masterpiece.

Maybe what you're trying to say is that the Codex should be aware of the fact that its tastes are not the same as that of the mainstream. Maybe so. But with respect to games like Pillars of Eternity, I don't think it can even be argued that the target audience is the mainstream, and therefore since Pillars of Eternity is a niche success - over 700,000 copies solid! - the developers must have gotten it right with how they approached the writing, or that they couldn't have done even better, had they taken a different approach. Video game criticism is in such a tragic state, indeed, that you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between a game that succeeded despite its flaws, and a game that succeeded because of its 'flaws'.

 

[MRY]

Azarkon While I'm finding this discussion rewarding, I think there's quite a bit of goalpost movement going on.

For instance, you wrote: "But when you present to me a high fantasy society modeled after medieval Europe, with all the mechanisms & limitations of such a period, and then tell me that random store keepers can recount the entire history & culture of their people as though they are a professor at the local university, this is improbable and breaks immersion, since it becomes immediately obvious that the character is a lore device."

But in fact these settings don't have "all the mechanism & limitations of such a period"; they are almost nothing like that period. The societies are egalitarian, fairly irreligious, and heavily urbanized; while extraordinary things like dragon attacks are commonplace, ordinary things like malnutrition are totally absent. You also concede that you're never actually "immersed" in the game at all because "everyone ... gets their immersion broken by" essentially every aspect of RPGs settings and systems. So basically both premises of your attack on lore exposition -- (1) that it is inconsistent with the otherwise accurate depiction of medieval Europe and (2) that it breaks immersion (i.e., that until that moment the player is immersed) -- are incorrect.

Similarly, you start by saying that "men can never believe the improbable" but then you say that players "know and accept" every other form of improbability in RPGs.

Likewise, when I say, "This is why writers do things, not because they're lazy or bad but because they're susceptible to the same influences as any other human being," you respond by questioning whether any such influence exists. When I list what the influences are, you respond by saying that, actually, what you're saying is that these influences are not objectively right. But my point has never been that they are objectively right, merely that they are objectively influential on the human psyche and that writers, being human, are thus influenced by them.

You now say that I missed "the gist of [your] argument, which is not that I am right, you are wrong, but that, with the current state of the industry, we lack even the mechanism for measuring who is right and who is wrong" but the first post I responded to was one in which you (1) commented about the lack of historical accuracy in lore dumpsters and (2) insisted that writers were not caught in a cycle and that their reasons for having lore dumps was that "they are obsessed with their own delusions of brilliance, or because they are paid by the line." The next post you insisted that lore dumps were uniquely immersion-wrecking and again questioned whether writers were, in fact, subject to pressures other than their own degeneracy that would cause them to include lore exposition.

I think at bottom we basically agree on a lot of stuff: we agree that RPGs could be better; we agree that a lot of RPG writing is bad; we dont' particularly like heavy lore; we agree that the market isn't always right; we agree that critics aren't always right; we agree that the Codex doesn't need to pussyfoot around criticism. But where we disagree is the idea that (1) writers are doing things they know or easily could recognize to be bad because (2) they are lazy, incompetent, and solipsistic. Obviously "incompetent" can in a sense be a de gustibus issue. But I've worked with RPG writers (indeed, I am an RPG writer, albeit a peripheral one), and I've seen no evidence whatsoever of laziness, solipsism, or incompetence. To the contrary, what I have seen are very hardworking, thoughtful people who have spent years on their craft and who pay careful attention to what people say about their writing.

So really, all we're debating is whether lore dumps are bad because they're boring and unnecessary (per MRY) or because they're ahistorical (per Azarkon) and whether writers include them because they are tragically swayed by what they perceive to be market demands (per MRY) or because they are good-for-nothings (per Azarkon). While I recognize that Byzantines wrecked their Empire over the "homoousios" vs. "homoiousios," I don't think we should copy their example. Probably you should go back to providing insightful criticism and I should go back to writing lore dumps in Fallen Gods. :D ("They really like them on NeoGAF, guys!")

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I dunno if you two are trying to be ironic, but your word counts are increasing exponentially while the quality of the points are reducing via padding and tangents.

Spoiler

kinda but not entirely

 

[FreeKaner]

ITT: people reaffirming their superiority by assessing how little dialogue a "True RPG™" must contain and how it shouldn't be beyond basic conversations "Real People™" have.

When the contrarianism goes full circle.

Plus, Pillars is not even a good example, because it has relatively little actual dialogue and text, nearly half of its text is simply descriptions of expressions, gestures and looks because it's an isometric game that tries to convey emotions through descriptions. The actual conversation part is fairly short and most people know fuck all about gods or history, because there largely is none in the game, except few books.

Honestly I can't decide if this is another thread about people being triggered by Pillar's grey text or just HHR's repressed homosexuality.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

ITT: people reaffirming their superiority by assessing how little dialogue a "True RPG™" must contain and how it shouldn't be beyond basic conversations "Real People™" have.

When the contrarianism goes full circle.

When some spastic thinks he can summerise an entire thread and everyone in it with some arbitrary and inaccurate generalisation that provides no use to anyone but their own sense of smug superiority, oblivious the inherent irony that implies.

Honestly I can't decide if this is another thread about people being triggered by Pillar's grey text or just HHR's repressed homosexuality.

I guess words must be a problem for you.

 

[FreeKaner]

ITT: people reaffirming their superiority by assessing how little dialogue a "True RPG™" must contain and how it shouldn't be beyond basic conversations "Real People™" have.

When the contrarianism goes full circle.

When some spastic thinks he can summerise an entire thread and everyone in it with some arbitrary and inaccurate generalisation that provides no use to anyone but their own sense of smug superiority, oblivious the inherent irony that implies.

What's there to argue here? I can't discuss someone's stubborn belief that "show don't tell" or "brevity is soul of wit" are rules to be followed in every medium, or that because someone made a catchy quote it is true and appeals to everyone. That we should not have text in an interactive media mostly about roleplaying or imagining elaborate worlds. Whatever way the conversation goes it will come down to "I disagree AND you are pretentious" from both sides.

However this recent surge of "complaints" in Codex about how games have TOO much text is undoubtedly contrarianism now that games that market to "mainstream auidences" are using more text. It's now superior and more elite to have as little as text possible and tell a story through atmosphere and concise words. Because apparently video games are scientific articles that should establish a sense or point with as little words as possible. Some of us enjoy reading descriptions, it's an entire genre and style of writing you know.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

What's there to argue here? I can't discuss someone's stubborn belief that "show don't tell" or "brevity is soul of wit" are rules to be followed in every medium, or that because someone made a catchy quote it is true and appeals to everyone. That we should not have text in an interactive media mostly about roleplaying or imagining elaborate worlds. Whatever way the conversation goes it will come down to "I disagree AND you are pretentious" from both sides.

However this recent surge of "complaints" in Codex about how games have TOO much text is undoubtedly contrarianism now that games that market to "mainstream auidences" are using more text. It's now superior and more elite to have as little as text possible and tell a story through atmosphere and concise words. Because apparently video games are scientific articles that should establish a sense or point with as little words as possible. Some of us enjoy reading descriptions, it's an entire genre and style of writing you know.

Either your troll levels are off the scale or you have such bad taste you might as well have decliner tattoed on your forehead. Can't wait for your next post where you pine for more trash combat in games because "some people like trash combat, its an entire genre and style of gameplay you know"....

 

[FreeKaner]

What's there to argue here? I can't discuss someone's stubborn belief that "show don't tell" or "brevity is soul of wit" are rules to be followed in every medium, or that because someone made a catchy quote it is true and appeals to everyone. That we should not have text in an interactive media mostly about roleplaying or imagining elaborate worlds. Whatever way the conversation goes it will come down to "I disagree AND you are pretentious" from both sides.

However this recent surge of "complaints" in Codex about how games have TOO much text is undoubtedly contrarianism now that games that market to "mainstream auidences" are using more text. It's now superior and more elite to have as little as text possible and tell a story through atmosphere and concise words. Because apparently video games are scientific articles that should establish a sense or point with as little words as possible. Some of us enjoy reading descriptions, it's an entire genre and style of writing you know.

Either your troll levels are off the scale or you have such bad taste you might as well have decliner tattoed on your forehead. Can't wait for your next post where you pine for more trash combat in games because "some people like trash combat, its an entire genre and style of gameplay you know"....

It's ok my man. My favourite RPG is Dark souls too.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It's ok my man. My favourite RPG is Dark souls too.

Never played it. try again try hard.

 

[hivemind]

nothing wrong with lore exposition if it's interesting and well written(see AoD)

 

[Tramboi]

Except I think PST doesn't have too much text. Because it is enjoyable text.

 

[mixer]

Except I think PST doesn't have too much text. Because it is enjoyable text.

PST text is fine, problem is every writer wants to be the one to write next PST, they aim too high and deliver little. It should be fine to write a game where main bad guy is a bandit leader, corrupt official or mad king, dealing with complex themes takes more skill than most writers have.

 

[Shadenuat]

PST text is fine, problem is every writer wants to be the one to write next PST, they aim too high and deliver little. It should be fine to write a game where main bad guy is a bandit leader, corrupt official or mad king, dealing with complex themes takes more skill than most writers have.

Making mundane and simple appealing is not easier in any way. It still requires above average knowledge of human nature and sleight of hand. Fantasy is popular exactly because it's easy to capture people's attention with improbable and fantastic elements.

 

[Azarkon]

Azarkon While I'm finding this discussion rewarding, I think there's quite a bit of goalpost movement going on.

For instance, you wrote: "But when you present to me a high fantasy society modeled after medieval Europe, with all the mechanisms & limitations of such a period, and then tell me that random store keepers can recount the entire history & culture of their people as though they are a professor at the local university, this is improbable and breaks immersion, since it becomes immediately obvious that the character is a lore device."

But in fact these settings don't have "all the mechanism & limitations of such a period"; they are almost nothing like that period. The societies are egalitarian, fairly irreligious, and heavily urbanized; while extraordinary things like dragon attacks are commonplace, ordinary things like malnutrition are totally absent. You also concede that you're never actually "immersed" in the game at all because "everyone ... gets their immersion broken by" essentially every aspect of RPGs settings and systems. So basically both premises of your attack on lore exposition -- (1) that it is inconsistent with the otherwise accurate depiction of medieval Europe and (2) that it breaks immersion (i.e., that until that moment the player is immersed) -- are incorrect.

Eora is egalitarian, fairly irreligious, and heavily urbanized? I beg to differ. The trappings of agricultural society, medieval civilization, and religious themes are everywhere. Eder was a farmer. The Saint's War was largely fought by peasant militia. The very first quest in the game had you working for Raedric, described as a feudal lord, and specifically a thayn - we can all imagine where that came from. Sawyer has gone out of his way to describe parallels between Eora cultures and actual medieval cultures. Since Pillars of Eternity was my primary example for this sort of lore dumpster exposition, I can't see how you arrived at this conclusion, and really, even without the medieval angle you still can't convince me that the average NPC should be so able, or so willing, to divulge local culture & history like a Wikipedia article.

Similarly, you start by saying that "men can never believe the improbable" but then you say that players "know and accept" every other form of improbability in RPGs.

That was a quote from Oscar Wilde, as I'm sure you are aware, not a statement of absolute fact. I tend to agree with the gist of it, but as I stated, video games being games must, at times, sacrifice believability for the sake of gameplay. Yet this does not suggest, therefore, that we should abandon believability in world building and characterization. It's not an all or nothing problem. You do the best you can, given the limitations imposed by gameplay. Lore dumpsters simply do not strike me as being the 'best you can,' and they negatively affect not only the presentation of the lore, but also, more often than not, NPC characterization, so I consider them a significant flaw in games in which they are present.

Likewise, when I say, "This is why writers do things, not because they're lazy or bad but because they're susceptible to the same influences as any other human being," you respond by questioning whether any such influence exists. When I list what the influences are, you respond by saying that, actually, what you're saying is that these influences are not objectively right. But my point has never been that they are objectively right, merely that they are objectively influential on the human psyche and that writers, being human, are thus influenced by them.

You now say that I missed "the gist of [your] argument, which is not that I am right, you are wrong, but that, with the current state of the industry, we lack even the mechanism for measuring who is right and who is wrong" but the first post I responded to was one in which you (1) commented about the lack of historical accuracy in lore dumpsters and (2) insisted that writers were not caught in a cycle and that their reasons for having lore dumps was that "they are obsessed with their own delusions of brilliance, or because they are paid by the line." The next post you insisted that lore dumps were uniquely immersion-wrecking and again questioned whether writers were, in fact, subject to pressures other than their own degeneracy that would cause them to include lore exposition.

Okay, fair enough, I have not addressed your argument directly, so I will do so now. You state that writers create designs such as lore dumpsters because they are influenced by forces like market success and, presumably, reviewers. But then answer me this: where did the market, or the reviewers, specifically encourage this design element? Perhaps we are both being a little presumptuous here. I can admit that I jumped to the conclusion that writers introduced lore dumpsters because they either have an over-inflated sense of their own creation's worth - and therefore the need to share it - or because they are paid by the line. Maybe there is a more innocuous explanation for why we have so much Fschfan lore, but simply asserting that it's 'the market' is not going to do it for me.

I think at bottom we basically agree on a lot of stuff: we agree that RPGs could be better; we agree that a lot of RPG writing is bad; we dont' particularly like heavy lore; we agree that the market isn't always right; we agree that critics aren't always right; we agree that the Codex doesn't need to pussyfoot around criticism. But where we disagree is the idea that (1) writers are doing things they know or easily could recognize to be bad because (2) they are lazy, incompetent, and solipsistic. Obviously "incompetent" can in a sense be a de gustibus issue. But I've worked with RPG writers (indeed, I am an RPG writer, albeit a peripheral one), and I've seen no evidence whatsoever of laziness, solipsism, or incompetence. To the contrary, what I have seen are very hardworking, thoughtful people who have spent years on their craft and who pay careful attention to what people say about their writing.

So really, all we're debating is whether lore dumps are bad because they're boring and unnecessary (per MRY) or because they're ahistorical (per Azarkon) and whether writers include them because they are tragically swayed by what they perceive to be market demands (per MRY) or because they are good-for-nothings (per Azarkon). While I recognize that Byzantines wrecked their Empire over the "homoousios" vs. "homoiousios," I don't think we should copy their example. Probably you should go back to providing insightful criticism and I should go back to writing lore dumps in Fallen Gods. :D ("They really like them on NeoGAF, guys!")

I can respect that you want to defend the people you work with, professionally, and I'd do the same, but I can't agree that all game writers are 'very hardworking, thoughtful people' who 'pay careful attention to what people say about their writing.' I think this is a wild generalization that is simultaneously at odds with human nature - specifically our tendency to gravitate towards those who compliment us - and with the results thus produced. You can't tell me, for example, that Beamdog's writing team is comprised strictly of people who fall into this category, who had no agenda to push, and who responded properly to criticism. It is certainly the case that the choice of who to listen to makes a large difference, but not everything is subjective. People who cannot realize their flaws of judgment, time and time again, do not deserve our unwavering sympathy. I can respect a writer who understands his or her failings, and is working to improve them; but not a writer who defends such failings to the death, or who makes excuses for them. Of course, we'd have to agree on what is considered a failing, first.

 

[MRY]

Eora is egalitarian, fairly irreligious, and heavily urbanized? I beg to differ. The trappings of agricultural society, medieval civilization, and religious themes are everywhere.

I haven't played PoE, so you have me at a disadvantage. But my understanding is that its setting is Renaissance, not medieval. I realize the two periods overlap, but when you've got pistols and so forth, invoking Dark Age ignorance seems off to me. I'm not sure it's anachronistic for people to be able to describe their culture then.

Basically every fantasy RPG I've played has: (1) rough male/female equality; (2) religious pluralism in which intolerance is exceptional and villainous; (3) fairly fluid social structures where the poor and the rich speak the same language more or less the same way and rich people are generally pretty attuned to what's going on with poor people; (4) cash-based economy; (5) basically wholesome cities and towns consisting of well-built buildings and well-paved streets; (6) fairly rationalistic worldview (esp. given that magic is real). I agree that fantasy RPGs feature Arthurian things like swords and castles and wizards and knights in shining armor, and we associate that kind of setting with the medieval era. But overall, I don't think people in fantasy RPGs behave anything like people in real world history, so the amount of history people are capable of recounting is just a pretty small divergence.

[EDIT: Put otherwise, a key anachronism that seems to suffuse fantasy RPGs is the assumption that what Lawful Good means in 21st century America is what Lawful Good meant at the Medieval Times restaurant. To me, that is perhaps the biggest point of departure.]

That was a quote from Oscar Wilde, as I'm sure you are aware, not a statement of absolute fact. I tend to agree with the gist of it

Yeah, I also like the Aristotle one ("What is convincing though impossible should always be preferred to what is possible but unconvincing").

You state that writers create designs such as lore dumpsters because they are influenced by forces like market success and, presumably, reviewers. But then answer me this: where did the market, or the reviewers, specifically encourage this design element?

It's a good question. I'd have to do more research than I care to in order to figure this out. Overall, though, I think there has been a move toward "deep lore" across media -- TV shows like Lost and Game of Thrones and True Detective; movies like the MCU; games like Bioshock and Dragon Age: Origins. In general, I feel like people (audience and critics) have gotten really excited about this stuff. But you're right that this is very much a vague impression and not a, "Here is this review." That said, I bet a bajillion dollars I could go on Google and find some reviews to back it up, and then you'd rightly say I was cherry picking, and we'd go around in circles forever. :D

I can respect that you want to defend the people you work with, professionally, and I'd do the same, but I can't agree that all game writers are 'very hardworking, thoughtful people' who 'pay careful attention to what people say about their writing.' I think this is a wild generalization that is simultaneously at odds with human nature - specifically our tendency to gravitate towards those who compliment us - and with the results thus produced. You can't tell me, for example, that Beamdog's writing team is comprised strictly of people who fall into this category, who had no agenda to push, and who responded properly to criticism.

I don't know those guys, but I don't see how pushing an agenda is inconsistent with being hard working, thoughtful, or attentive to what people say. It's pretty clear that Beamdog did listen to what people said, and decided that they cared more about their agenda -- and incidentally, I think there is reason to wonder whether that agenda is itself an effort to pursue critical acclaim. You're of course right that they may be listening to people who praise them more than those that criticize them, but that doesn't prove your point, which was that the writers were lazy, incompetent, or detached from people playing the game. The Beamdog people seem to have worked hard at writing their stuff. And Avellone and Gaider both say it was amazing! Who am I, who haven't played the game and have never interacted with them, to assume that they're lazy or incompetent? I certainly think they have different axes to grind than I do, and are interested in lopping off different heads with those axes.

People who cannot realize their flaws of judgment, time and time again, do not deserve our unwavering sympathy. I can respect a writer who understands his or her failings, and is working to improve them; but not a writer who defends such failings to the death, or who makes excuses for them. Of course, we'd have to agree on what is considered a failing, first.

I didn't say they deserved unwavering sympathy, though I think they do. (Unwavering sympathy is a great virtue toward which we should aspire, even if we can't achieve it. Of course, unwavering sympathy should just be padding we wrap around the iron rod of unswerving justice.) I just said that I think, generally, game writers are responding to what they perceive the market to want while trying to write what they understand to be best. I don't think they write lore dumpsters because they're too lazy to put lore into the game in some other way; I think they believe it is the best way to present lore. I don't think the lore is excessive because they are ignoring their player base's overwhelming complaints about too much lore, I think it is excessive because they are listening to the player base's fascination with setting lore in games, movies, books, TV shows, etc.

If anything, the agenda-pushing of Beamdog is probably something that I should tentatively praise in theory because I think it is an instance where the writers did something they believed was the Right Thing To Do, which might elevate their players rather than degrade them through pandering. (Whether in practice in it worth praise is a different matter.) I am tentative, though, because I think it is almost equally probable that they were just trying to catch the wave of rapturous praise that "socially conscious" games have received in the last few years, in which case I can't fault them, but I wouldn't praise them.

 

[Joevonzombie]

OP is up his own ass about game lore being up its own ass....hmmm.

 

[Infinitron]

You state that writers create designs such as lore dumpsters because they are influenced by forces like market success and, presumably, reviewers. But then answer me this: where did the market, or the reviewers, specifically encourage this design element?

It's a good question. I'd have to do more research than I care to in order to figure this out. Overall, though, I think there has been a move toward "deep lore" across media -- TV shows like Lost and Game of Thrones and True Detective; movies like the MCU; games like Bioshock and Dragon Age: Origins. In general, I feel like people (audience and critics) have gotten really excited about this stuff. But you're right that this is very much a vague impression and not a, "Here is this review." That said, I bet a bajillion dollars I could go on Google and find some reviews to back it up, and then you'd rightly say I was cherry picking, and we'd go around in circles forever. :D

No need to go so far, the Codex encouraged developers to add walls of text, right up until it finally got them and suddenly developed a new appreciation for the cinematic voice acting of console RPGs.

Back in 2011, we were all wondering if we'd ever see a game again with a user interface that could physically display a lore dump. It was a beautiful thing to think of.

 

[MRY]

Build the wall, indeed.