31 réponses à ce sujet

[AkiKishi]

Wulfram wrote...

I don't think you necessarily need to catch up to the framed narrative. Plenty of stories don't

But the way DA2's was written did create the expectation that you would. That Cassandra would find Hawke and they'd get the chance to try to put the world back together. If not in this game then in sequel/expansion.

Can you name some ? I'm drawing a blank aside from those games which have a book format. But those don't give anything away. They just start up like "once upon a time".

[Dakota Strider]

The whole of DA2 was definitely a framed narrative. But they gave the player the illusion of being in control, by only breaking to the narrator a couple times. But the player "lived" Hawke's story, as Varric told it to Cassandra. And I would say proof of this is, that there were rarely any choices the player made, that really made a difference in how the story turned out. The storyline was pretty much the basic railroad plot theme.

The few times we actually saw evidence of the Narrator, was when Varric apparently went over the line a bit in his story, to make Cassandra call "BS". But how many other times in the story that we played, do you think Varric got away with stretching or totally inventing "the truth"? I would bet a great amount of the story.

The beauty of this is, that if there were parts of DA2 that were nearly universally hated, the DA dev team can just claim that it never happened, that was just Varric telling a tall tale. If most people thought the combat looked far too much like kids' cartoon.... DA team can explain it away as being Varric's description. People do not like how certain companions acted, or decisions they make. Blame it on Varric.

Varric did this for a few reasons. One, to protect Hawke, for whoever she/he was, Hawke was Varric's friend. Two, perhaps to protect more of Varric's involvement in Kirkwall than we know. Three, if you were in his position in front of the Seekers, wouldn't you say whatever you needed to, to satisfy them? Perhaps the events at Kirkwall were not near as fantastic as we "experienced" in the game play. But that is what Cassandra was looking for. Varric knew his audience, and gave her what she wanted.

[Pedrak]

I agree with the OP.

The framed narrative, a potentially interesting idea, was used so little and resulted in such an unfocused plot that it actually became a detriment to the game.

Pity, because I can definitely see the basic idea working.

[AkiKishi]

The usual suspect ending that someone suggested not long after the game was released would have been the best. At least it would have been worth a laugh at the end.

[bEVEsthda]

LolaLei wrote...

wsandista wrote...

I like the tale to be in real time myself. Past narratives typically only wok if they actually catch up to the current time.

This.

For me personally it takes away that sense of urgency when you know that the story has already happened, although I appreciate what the DA team were attempting, it made for an interesting change and obviously Varric is total bro!

This.

Framed narrative has two big problems for a RPG game, from my perspective.
One is this, everything has already happened. This manages to ruin it for me, from my role play view. It works perfectly for me when reading a novel or watching a movie, but I do not relate to a RPG the same way as watching a movie, and I never intend to relate to RPGs that way in the future either.

The other problem is the unreliable narrator. Again, this works well in watching a movie, like Usual Suspects, Fight Club, whatver. But I'm damned if I appreciate role playing something which is supposed to be just a lie. Actually, I'd be fuming with rage. 

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 29 mai 2012 - 08:55 .

[Massakkolia]

I agree that the framed narrative doesn't really suit role-playing or at the very least it's challenging. It might work if the player could actually build the frame through her decisions but this didn't really happen in DA2. Sure, the things Varric tells Cassandra do change a bit depending what you decide but the way Varric feels about Hawke or the relationship between Varric and Cassandra remains constant.

It could have actually been interesting, if the result of the interrogation would have changed depending on Varric's loyalty towards Hawke and what sort of decisions are made during the game. Now the interrogation is pretty pointless and it doesn't really go anywhere. Since the frame is so fixed, it feels that my story is fixed as well.

Bioware tried to be ambitious with DA2. The framed narrative and the lengthy timeline were both potentially interesting ways to approach the story. Unfortunately, they would have required a lot more effort in order to work for a role-playing game.

Modifié par Ria, 29 mai 2012 - 09:23 .