Episode 96: A Story To Tell!

On 3rd May, it will be six years (May 2019) since I started concentrating fully on building the second module. As I report in that opening post, a lot of the content had already been done, but little did I realise then just how much more content was still to come. Thankfully, today, I can announce that the second stage (of three) of the second module has now moved to its first alpha testing. I still have a couple of sections of this second stage to finish off, but the vast majority is now being tested for the first time. Alongside this news, I wanted to take a look at what we all try to do in our modules: to tell a story!

Stage Two Alpha!

To put this into perspective, my wife, who is currently doing this latest stage two alpha testing, started the stage one alpha testing back in December 2023, which was around four and a half years since the beginning of these episodic posts. So, this second stage has only taken around one and a half years to reach. As for the third and final stage of module two, this has had a lot of work already done too, and so I am hoping that that will not take much longer to complete... and is something I hope to start after finishing the final couple of areas required to bring stage two to be fully completed. Realistically, I suppose I am talking around six months to a year to complete this second module. My goal is to aim for the end of the year, but I am not denying the possibility of it taking to the end of next year. Personally, I want this module done and dusted by the end of the year, but these things often take on a life of their own, and demand time and resources that changes any deadline I try to stick to.

Predestinated Days

In the last month I completed (for stage two) all the outstanding conversations that required finishing, including one that I had not originally been expecting, which was required to fill a potential logical flow issue. I also finished placing all essential plot items, random finds and the encounters. These were the final steps that required completing before I was able to pass it over to be tested. As it currently stands, I am reasonably confident the exploration to encounters is about right. However, until the alpha testing stage is completed, I won't know for sure, or even if something like an extra puzzle is required. Once the pace of the module has been tested, that will determine any changes to what is currently in place.

Now that alpha testing of the second stage is underway, I am keen to finish the final few sections that need to be added to complete the segue between the second and final third stage. Arguably, these are a kind of stage 2.5, which allow for a scenario or two that sit between stages two and three. They should be fun to include, but I need to work on them some more before passing this section to alpha testing.

As an aside, I need to point out that unlocking the second stage requires testers to replay from the beginning of the first stage of module two, because of the way modules work, and some variables that require setting as played. I have asked my wife to take the quickest way she knows to be able to reach the required testing areas, and I hope to bring some feedback for you in the next blog.

Let The Story Begin

My article this month is to discuss the art of story telling. After all, for RPGs (pen and paper or computer), the main driving factor for playing such a style of game is often about the story. Personally, I believe this is what distinguishes an action RPG (ARPG) from a story driven one. Don't misunderstand me, I have played some ARPGs that do have a story of a kind, but even by definition, it is fair to say that the ARPG concentrates more on the "action" than the "story" element of the game.

In my own personal experience, when playing Pen and Paper (PnP)  Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), it was the story that kept us coming back for more. Yes, there was combat "action", intriguing puzzles, map exploration and NPC conversations... even player banter, but all of these elements were held together within the framework of the story being played out. The reason I wrote this article is because I wanted to encourage builders of a similar interest to focus on their story writing, and to keep it in mind as they build their game. Not to the exclusion of the other elements I mention above, but because I believe a well written story is what provides the most memorable gameplay, and certainly has been the case in my experience... and we all want to provide a good gaming experience.

I have touched on this before, but when I recall my PnP days of playing D&D, every player in the group had a good grasp of events from the previous weeks. Occasionally, players may have had to refer to some hand-outs or notes they had kept for some background details, but the main theme (or story) and what they were trying to achieve was always remembered... even if their current objective in such should change due to their gameplay choices. The lure of the game was to find out more about the world in which they explored and how they could affect the story that was unfolding before them.

We can all recognise that freestyle play is more limited on a computer, but a well written story can still allow a player (or group of players) to consider their choice of play in a way that unfolds the same story, but in a way they like to play. In other words, someone who enjoys combat should still be catered for with combat situations, but a good story hopes to instil some kind of purpose or reason for the combat beyond "they simply turned up and got in the way". Yes, random encounters do, and should happen, but if they appear every few feet without any good reason for such, or appear to be a duplication of the last encounter you just had, then the whole combat starts to lose its appeal... and an unnecessary distraction from the main story or current scenario. It's no easy task getting the balance right, and I suffer from this as much as the next builder. I just recognise the error in this and aim to try to do better.

Many Quests, But Only One Story! 

I touched on this last month, but I would like to expand on the various scenarios a player plays in a game in the light of an over-arcing campaign story. Again, I like to compare to PnP D&D, because that is the style of RPG I am trying to encourage here. Too often, in a cRPG, I have seen quests that appear in one area, encouraging the player/PC to do one thing, and then simply return with item "X" for the quest to be completed. Furthermore, these "quests", (let me refer to them as "sub-quests"), often have little to no bearing on the story at all. They are not much more than distractions or space-fillers, which, I believe, can damage the pace of the current scenario or main campaign story.

Note, I am not averse to "task-like" distractions now and then... sometimes we just want a change of pace... except the type of distractions I am talking about here are often totally out of character for the setting or go against the flow of the story as a whole. Instead, I would encourage to add a sub-quest that fits within the current scenario or story itself, which the player may or may not prioritise (conscious that it may just be a side-quest). If accepted, make it more than just the collection of an unrelated item for an obscure character, which will never be seen again, or lack interaction with thereafter. 

Even a side-quest should require more than a simple one step reward, and involve a "mini-adventure" that helps emphasise the "quest" in "sub-quest". As a guide to the kind of thing I mean, ask yourself if the quest you are considering for your cRPG would work in a PnP adventure? For myself, the simple one-step "quest" of which I mention above would not have held the attention of my players and so I never included such. If a character I designed had no depth or purpose to move the current scenario (or main story) forward in some way, then the NPC would not have been created or used in the first place.

Something I like to do nowadays, is to check the Journal Entries in my campaign as I write the story, making sure that any entries I add require a degree of gameplay before signing them off as a valid completed "quest". Furthermore, I like to have as many of these quests share a relationship with one another in some way, if possible, unless they can act as a stand-alone sub-quest with its own plot and substance. The point being, I hope that a player can recall a "story" with each entry they have completed... and I mean more than a simple one time task.

In conclusion, a good story is often comprised of other stories within the main. Think of "Lord of The Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien. The "main story" is often stated as the destruction of the one ring... but we remember so much more than that from it. Among other aspects, we remember the characters, the places, the combats and the puzzles, all in a full context of the over-arcing story, which different people may well interpret in different ways. Even some of the more "minor" characters we can recall, because they were part of that story and often had an impact or part to play in some way. So, when we have a story to tell, we must try to tell it in a way that people will remember. Don't add any unnecessary distractions or "quests" with little to no substance and add nothing to the story. Yes, allow some basic tasks, but try to consider them in a way that plays alongside the scenario the players currently find themselves embroiled with anyway.

Final Thoughts

Computers have been a fantastic tool to bring our creations and stories to "life". However, because they enable us to be able to "easily" add material to fill the blank spaces in our worlds, they also, unfortunately, mean we can make such additions without paying care and attention to the kind of impact they may have on our story. To have a huge "quantity" of quests appears to have dominated the medium rather than to concentrate on the "quality" of the quests that the well-written story should legitimately have. Any story, good or bad, can be stretched too thinly making it lack pace or any direction it may have had.

Over the years, the size of the RPG worlds have grown considerably, with every hour of gameplay of them demanding new quests for the ever-thirsty adventurous players. But, I am starting to question (or perhaps realise) that what players really lack (or want) is (maybe) just one good story to play through rather than more of the same type of sub-quests we may be currently playing. Note, this does not mean we have to compromise on the scale of the adventure, but I would suggest we would do better by remaining focused on the story it is trying to tell, filling the gaps with only materials that do not go too far off the beaten track... unless, of course, that is your story, and that it leads to somewhere of interest.

Latest Campaign 

The latest upload (done today) is v1.31. I also took this opportunity to re-upload the "Others" zipped folder, which contains all the other files and folders needed to play the campaign. Note, however, that the latest version now also includes another hak in preparation for the second module when it becomes available. It does mean that this download has almost doubled in size, but as it is rarely updated, then people will only have to download it the once and have all they need for both module one and for the later modules when they become available. The only reason I will ever need to update the "Others" file again is if the third module requires any new files, or if I find a fault in the latest upload.

The update was mostly cosmetic fixes only, but if you want the very latest, then do grab them to use. I think that this may now be very close to the final update I will need to upload for a while. If, however, I do have anything to update, it will appear in a future update.

Finally, just a couple of screenshots of something I worked on last month...

A Sign of Activity!

 

A Lit Passage!