Random Musings: RPG Edition

It's becoming harder and harder to get excited about stories in RPG's. It seems like every western RPG is about wizards and knights fighting some evil force and every JRPG is about an amnesiac orphan boy with serious hairstyle issues who must discover that friends=good and that all empires are evil.

Games like Mass Effect and Fallout 3 are great examples of what new RPG's can be, but for every one of these there are five that share similar story elements. RPG's have this reputation for being more story focused, but their stories are becoming a bit stale. The same "you are the only one who can save us" hero style stories or the "evil empire must be stopped" and their small variations are way too commonplace.

But there are simple ways to shake things up:

1. Don't sSet it in a Fantasy Realm.

I know it seems unnatural since RPG is usually synonymous with magic, but it's also why the stories seem to be the same. We got knights and wizards and angst ridden teens saving the world, now lets go somewhere else. Try new times and places. The Wild West, ancient Egypt, etc.

2. Try Different Modes of Fighting.

Swords and magic are seriously overdone. Guns are starting to make a bump, but nothing is quite as cliche as swords and magic and it carries over to the story. Not having swords and magic allows the story to take place not in fake medieval times or in made up fantasy world x. It also means that combat can be done completely different.

3. Do the Real World.

Setting an RPG in the reality helps expedite our understanding of the game world. We don't need to read an encyclopedia's worth of backstory to know what the deal is with the new cultures. Also very few (I can't think of any) RPG's are set anywhere near reality, meaning that there is huge room for originality.

4. Think Smaller, Think Smarter

Like I said, EPIC is overdone. Stop having the hero save the world, or the kingdom, or the empire. Smaller victories can be just as satisfying and they allow for more varied plots elements. Also stop saying "you are the only one" or having "chosen ones." Or if you do, actually explain why that is the case in a more convincing way than "we are the only ones who know" or because you are the fabled one.

5. Read a Book, Don't Watch Movies

Relationships in RPG's are very similar to those Hollywood movie. Most of the time there is a well-to-do hero and a female lead who everyone knows will eventually get involved with said hero. There are also stock characters that are used, you know the ones. This needs to change. Stories need to have more complex and original characters with other motives than righteousness, revenge, or self-defense (against some evil force/empire).

Overall my point would be, don't be afraid to leave the RPG comfort zone. Things that have always worked means that they have been done quite a bit. An RPG does not entail a particular type of story, but it seems most developers think it does.

wow

Well there is not much to say about this, other than their wrong beyond salvation. This is not to say that Metroid is not a great game, but it's nowhere near the elevated status that Michael Thomsen, or the reporters in general, gave it in the video.

For starters in video games the story of a space/normal marine trapped alone in a dangerous planet/place is about as standard as a shooter having guns. From Halo to Dead Space to Lost Planet, It's space soldiers all around.

The larger focus on exploration over shooting, a statement I find suspect, is also found in these titles and Metroid was hardly the first. And if exploration over action is the name of the game then Shadow of the Colossus would be a much bigger contender than Metroid.

The idea of looking at past societies is also well established in most games that even in the remotest way contain exploration and some do it much better than Metroid. Bioshock comes to mind. In fact, two of Bioshock's main themes are nostalgia and the death of society and it carries them quite well.

Looking at the big picture, the search for a video game equivalent of Citizen Kain might be a futile effort. Mostly because video games are not film, they are their own medium. Sometimes this gets overlooked, but you wouldn't try to find the Citizen Kain equivalent in say music or theater. However, I'll leave the unfair comparison of video games to film as a topic for another time.