Sir JK wrote...
Regarding the blank spaces that many rpgs used to have (or in some cases, still do). To my understanding they were frequently a result of lacking technology rather than a deliberate design element, so they were very seldom actually intentional. I've also also read that they're quite cost inefficient, being rather closely behind non-blank spaces in terms of development and that's it's cheaper to fill them rather than work around them. Though I'm not sure of the accurancy of that last sentence.
Regardless, they do offer more control yes. But the control you gain by them, while valuable for certain playstyles, is exclusive. That is to say that whatever you fill them with does not matter as far as the rest of the narrative is concerned. Sort of like a book that leaves a page free for you to write or draw anything you like but then moves on as if that never happened.
This is not saying that such blanks are not valuable in a roleplaying game, after all it is a fundamental aspect of it that the player has a hand in creating the narrative. But it will never be inclusive (at least until computers are as smart as we are), the ingame narrative will never react to or remark whatever it was you filled it with.
So while the advantage is unparalleled control over the character, the downside is that these aspects of the character cannot be included, challenged and expanded upon within the narrative itself (unless it does provide opportunities to express the same things elsewhere). These views, traits and quirks are detached from the world. They may exist at the player's discretion, but cannot be interacted with. If I imagine my character to have wings but the story takes place in cramped underground tunnels, then it doesn't really matter that I do have wings.
What filling these spaces allow is to provide the means to include the optional aspects into the narrative itself. They most certainly will limit your options (just like a dialogue system will be a limit compared to completely imagining what your character says) but provide the means for the narrative to include it. A character who expresses a view in one of these blanks cannot have that view confronted and tested, but if the blank has been filled they could (assuming of course that the option for that view exist).
There is of course a fine line to walk. DA2 did not handle this particularly elegantly I'm readily willing to admit. Set up too rigid narrative and then the choices we have are too few and too small, set it up too losely and expression goes toward the limited.
And as we've seen countless times already, preferences matters a lot for the individuals entertainment. If you're one of those that favour creation over expression, then the blanks will seem more valuable than to someone (such as myself) that values the ability to express the character highly.
Ideally, there is a way to develop a game that accomodates both preferences. Given the popularity of TW2 and hailing it as a very succesful rpg, this seems indeed to be the case (it is after all, very cinematical and very expressive). There's also lessons to be learned from Skyrim too, I feel. The beginning, right after character creation, is very cinematic in approach but also lends the player character a lot of control over his/her character. While there are many things that cannot easily be transfered from one game to the other, that sequence is one I feel one could look into and take a few lessons from.
That said, I think it is important that player agency is priority number one when designing the cinematics of a scene. Full control is perhaps not quite a realistic aspiration, but keeping it in mind and letting the player tell a large part of the story is very important I feel. I am convinced that cinematics can be designed to accomodate and technology allows this, to an extent at least. It is probably more difficult, but I think it is a worthwhile endeavour.
First, whether the blank spaces were intentional is irrelevant. They were there, and they supported a popular playstyle. That BioWare didn't know they were supporting that playstyle doesn't change the fact that they were.
Second, your argument sounds stronger than it is because you're using the world narrative imprecisely. You say that the player needs to have a hand in crafting the narrative (and I agree), but then you say that the player's creations that fill the blank spaces aren't included or expanded upon within the narrative. If the word narrative means the same thing in both of those statements, then you've just contradicted yourself. But they don't refer to the same thing.
When you're talking about the narrative the player crafts, you're talking about the
emergent narrative. When you're talking about the pre-written narrative that doesn't respond to the player's inventions, you're talking about the
authored narrative. By failing to differentiate between the two, you've created the illusion that the blank spaces are self-defeating, because the narrative they help the player create is them unresponsive to he player.
But that's not true. Those are two different narratives.
The question is, which narrative is more important? Which narrative should take precedence in a roleplaying game? And I think you've answered that question. As you say, " it is a fundamental aspect of [a roleplaying game] that the player has a hand in creating the narrative ." If this emergent narrative is a "fundamental aspect" of a roleplaying game, then it is the emergent narrative that should take precedence.
What BioWare has begun doing is granting explicit precedence to the authored narrative, at the expense of the emergent narrative. That's where they are going wrong. That's where they're limiting roleplaying.
Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 20 juillet 2012 - 05:08 .
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