Quests and Stories

[Angerak]

Suppose you're playing a game that has quests and/or adventures for you to complete.  The game is primarily text based, so you're not going to get a lot pretty pictures or cinematics.

The question is, are you happy with getting a quest that reads something like:

A raiding part of orcs has captured Destin, Lord Byron's son.  Destroy the orcs, gain some loot and forever have Destin and Lord Byron as an ally.

Or, do you prefer a two page narrative that describes how Destin was captured, how distraught Lord Byron is, what the orc encampment looks like etc.?

For me, I like the stories to be as short as possible because I'm more interested in the loot than I am in the story of a minor quest.

For major quests, something that is a part of an overall story-arc, I would likely enjoy more detail but I still don't want to have to read a novel.

Any thoughts on this?

Hopefully I'll eventually find a topic people will have an opinion on!

[Blackwill]

Assuming there is a ficility in the game for figuring out where the orc encampment is, and other particulars, I prefer the short lead-in. If the story gets deeper as you complete the quests, or more options appear later on, then I prefer a bit more detail.

[ixnay]

This falls right on the great divide among MMO gamers -- "power gamers" vs. "role players".

I understand the tendency to want just the stats. But that leads to a somewhat dry experience. It makes me want to flourish it up myself, with some player-created narrative. Maybe that's a good thing.

In general, it's probably not worth spending a great deal of Moderator creative effort on drafting long narratives that will either be read/skipped over once or be generated repeatedly across multiple turns, undermining their impact. I rather liked the way they do it with Alamaze -- you get the statistics for any given battle, along with a paragraph or so of narrative results describing how the battle went. I'm not sure if the narrative is generated randomly in one piece, or if it actually represents intermediate states arising as a battle is processed. But it's a fine way to feed both types of players.

I think it also depends on the game. For an economic supply-chain-driven game like Cluster Wars, such a narrative would seem out of place (and they don't do it.) For fantasy tribes, some sort of Conan-style narrative seems entirely appropriate.

[Angerak]

It makes me want to flourish it up myself, with some player-created narrative.  Maybe that's a good thing.

Based on the axiom "it takes a village to raise a baby", maybe it could be applied to game worlds where "it takes a village to tell a truly epic tale".

I have in the past tried to solicit storyline concepts from friends, family and other players ... but most people would rather play a game than create one.

[ixnay]

One of the GMs in my role-playing days wouldn't award experience points to players until they had written a journal entry on the session of play they had just finished. It was his way of preserving some sort of storyline.

Personally, I think it's worth the extra effort on the part of players to expand the game's horizon into epic narrative. That's the sort of thing that can take a game from some clever version of chess into a lifelong memory. When I wrote a bit about my Far Horizons space empire detecting a sign of Grimfinger on the aether, I had so much fun that I found myself anticipating his reaction more than the next game turn. Here's the snippet, as clipped from the august halls of this very forum:

"Sir, we've lost contact with Space Pioneers #3."

"Yes, I know that already you impudent fool. Why do you come to me with this again? Please, enlighten me before I assign you to KP duty for the rest of the cycle."

"Sir! Please, anything but that! It's just that, well, there was something else in the data. We ran a gravitics test pattern around the failed jump-target. We found the expected hyper-haloes, but there was something else as well."

"Out with it, dishwasher boy!"

"There was an anomaly in the background radiation. Something we haven't seen before. It was hard to translate, but we think it was an image - meant for us to find and decipher."

"Oh? And what would that be, kitchen help?"

"A finger. A grim finger. At least that's the way I would describe it. Here, take a look."

"Hmm, well, it *is* grim..."

"Our best guess is that this is a message - a warning from a starfaring species we have not yet encountered. They are out there, sir, and they are definitely evil. Or at least ill-tempered."

"Can we send them a reply? A response in the local background radiation?"

"Not yet, sir. Not without risking another Space Pioneer."

"Hmm, pity. I thought we might share with them an image of our famous Consortium 'moon'. Ah well, we'll handle that another day. Now off to the mess hall, boy, and fetch me some coffee!"



and later on, he came out with this bit of epic writing:


Granny Goodness had arrived in sector. She had been dispatched by Darkseid as Ambassador to the Consortium - an ambassador of war!

Long had this galaxy basked in relative peace. This Harmony of the Ages was about to be abruptly ended. How very fitting, then, that the author of its destruction would be Darkseid.

A long chain of events had long since been set into motion, the ripple effect of which would eventually span the length and breadth of the entire galaxy. This was not the result of chance or mere happenstance. Rather, this was a culmination of cold calculation.

Intercepts of transmissions along entire communication spectrums had been occurring for years on end. The entire mass of space in this galaxy had been seeded at Darkseid's direction. It was beyond question that there was method to his madness, but to what end? What grand purpose motivated him escaped even Desaad's cunning mind.

The war forges of the empire were churning out warships with ever-increasing size and regularity. The early scouting efforts had paid off. Entire worlds now fell under Darkseid's sway with systematic precision. The rape and plunder of these worlds fueled an explosion in new Apokoliptian technologies.

Granny Goodness was the vanguard of the invasion force. The peace-loving fools of the Consortium had severely miscalculated. There was a reason that proper implements of war were hideously expensive. It all just depends upon how much that a given species values their survival and their freedom.

Granny Goodness locked her weapons on target. For a moment, time, itself, seemed to pause, and the priesthood of peace stood ready to be sacrificed upon the altar of one who calls himself........DARKSEID!!

(this was after a number of posts hinting at some large new dreadnought he was building. The name alone sent me into hysterics for days...)

[Angerak]

Epic indeed! Those sort of player commentary/stories really do make for a better game atmosphere.

[Davin]

Personally, I think it's worth the extra effort on the part of players to expand the game's horizon into epic narrative.  That's the sort of thing that can take a game from some clever version of chess into a lifelong memory.  When I wrote a bit about my Far Horizons space empire detecting a sign of Grimfinger on the aether, I had so much fun that I found myself anticipating his reaction more than the next game turn.  Here's the snippet, as clipped from the august halls of this very forum:

That's great!  And it looks just like it could have been plastered all over the pages of a Galac-Tac turn, too!