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RPG Concept Brainstorming: The "Museum", the theme park's highbrow counterpart

Infinitron

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Most people on this forum probably know what "theme park design" is. A theme park is a world full of AWESOME locations with AWESOME quests. These locations and quests don't really fit together into a coherent setting, don't have anything to tell you, and don't really have any connection with each other. Such games are called theme parks because playing them feels like you're travelling from "ride" to mindless ride. Stupid and artificial.

But what if they're not stupid? That's when you get what you might call "museum design". In a museum world, locations and quests do make sense and form a coherent, sensible world. Isn't that just normal, good design, you might ask? No, because it still shares one quality with the theme park - it feels artificial.

How do you a recognize a museum? It's when you play an RPG and all the quests feel like obvious lore "exhibits". "Oh, I get it, this is the quest that shows you the consequences of the War of X." "Ah, here's the quest that introduces faction Y, I was expecting that."

Museum design isn't a terrible thing - it's better than a theme park. Some people might even prefer it. It may just be a theoretical construct - I'm not sure if there's ever been a game that fully felt like one. RPGs are generally pretty good about giving you a few lore-agnostic quests to make things feel more natural. There's lore-heavy quests, but they're interspersed with fetch quests and random heroics.

But as the genre enters a new age, with more titles aimed at a higher-brow, more hardcore audience, this may be something to watch for.
 

Neanderthal

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UU2: Labyrinth of Worlds sometimes had a bit o this feelin for me, but I think avoided it too much wi notion o guardian touchin all these worlds in some manner.
 

Shin

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If a game lacks in the story/lore/immurshion department, it'd better have great combat. Else, fuck that game. Having said that, I still think it's very possible to create a classic RPG while taking the 'exhibit' analogy to the extreme; think of having a (theoretical) game where you travel through multiple periods of European history for instance; could be awesome if done well. And a lot of classic (top ten RPG codex material) RPG's do have a lot of 'exhibit' quests to explore lore, heck, depending on your exact definition I'd say perhaps most quest could be described as such by someone feeling very edgy. At the end of the day I think it's really a non-issue if said quests are presented in such a way that it's not too obvious you're dealing with 'exhibit A: lore about the awesome dragon commander' etc. and they give a sense of coherence.
 

felipepepe

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Is this like a counter-point to my article on how RPGs should use more economy & politics to deliver a cohesive setting instead of relying on lore & theme parks? +M

Anyway, I don't get the point of this - it's just "Theme Park Design done Right"? Seems like a contradiction. "Theme Park design" was never about the quest quality, but its disconnection to the rest of the game. That Haunted House quest in Skyrim was fun, but it had nothing to do with the rest of the game - it's Theme Park design.

The only qualifier I can think is when the game is entirely structured around vising multiple worlds - Ultima Underworld 2, the KOTOR games, Faery - Legends of Avalon... it makes more sense as a whole than something like Dragon Age: Origins, but it's really just the same Theme Park design with a bit of context thrown in.
 

duanth123

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But as the genre enters a new age, with more titles aimed at a higher-brow, more hardcore audience

This is what Infinitron actually believes.




On topic, I predict TTON will fit this museum-park or "mu-park" design as it will eventually become known in the tongue of the high brow.
 

Infinitron

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Is this like a counter-point to my article on how RPGs should use more economy & politics to deliver a cohesive setting instead of relying on lore & theme parks? +M

Nope. It's actually something that came to my mind while thinking about the sidequests in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, of all things.
 

markec

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Most people on this forum probably know what "theme park design" is. A theme park is a world full of AWESOME locations with AWESOME quests. These locations and quests don't really fit together into a coherent setting, don't have anything to tell you, and don't really have any connection with each other. Such games are called theme parks because playing them feels like you're travelling from "ride" to mindless ride. Stupid and artificial.

But what if they're not stupid? That's when you get what you might call "museum design". In a museum world, locations and quests do make sense and form a coherent, sensible world. Isn't that just normal, good design, you might ask? No, because it still shares one quality with the theme park - it feels artificial.

How do you a recognize a museum? It's when you play an RPG and all the quests feel like obvious lore "exhibits". "Oh, I get it, this is the quest that shows you the consequences of the War of X." "Ah, here's the quest that introduces faction Y, I was expecting that."

Museum design isn't a terrible thing - it's better than a theme park. Some people might even prefer it. It may just be a theoretical construct - I'm not sure if there's ever been a game that fully felt like one. RPGs are generally pretty good about giving you a few lore-agnostic quests to make things feel more natural. There's lore-heavy quests, but they're interspersed with fetch quests and random heroics.

But as the genre enters a new age, with more titles aimed at a higher-brow, more hardcore audience, this may be something to watch for.

It feels artificial if done wrong. If you have NPCs that offer you a job and proceed to info dump on you entire past of their faction and their motivations that would be dumb. Its not dumb when you get info about the world and quests from snippets of natural conversations, the world presentation itself and scattered lore bits in form of something like diaries or notes you find. Basically if you spread out lore in such a way that you need to actually find much of it on your own instead of developers shoving it down your throat its not a bad design.
 

WhiteGuts

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PoE felt to me like museum design. Most of the quests were designed just to tell you more about the lore and background, and wouldn't stand on their own feet otherwise. The infodumpy writing didn't help, too.
 

Infinitron

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I think games with "museum design" might be more likely to have loredumps, but not all games with loredumps are museums.

I would not consider PoE a museum. For example, it has quests like "save the cook from bandits" or "help kid buy a knife" that aren't in service to lore. I guess it's closer to being one than BG, though.
 
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