RPG Design: Telling The Monster's Story
A month ago I talked about some of the weird monsters in dice & paper and computer RPGs designed specifically to trip players up. Like the mimic, which is perhaps not the most ridiculous monster to ever appear in an RPG (many of the bizarre monsters in the Final Fantasy series could give it a run for its money), but certainly one of the more ubiquitous of the Goofy Monster society.

Shortly thereafter, I learned that Paizo was publishing a book in its Pathfinder Chronicles that specifically dealt with some of these classic "weird" monsters. Including the mimic. Each of the ten monster chapters is written by a different designer, throwing their often considerable expertise and vision into overhauling the concepts behind the monsters to make them ... well, valuable.

Dungeon Denizens Revisited is a collection of articles by different designers on about ten of the most common bizarre creatures in the history of D&D (now "open" via the Open Gaming License). Gelatinous Cubes, Cloakers, the *cough* bulette (aka "land shark", featured on the cover), the Roper (a killer stalagtite with strength-draining tentacles --- which reappeared in the Ultima games as a "Reaper," re-camoflaged as a killer tree stump), cloakers, shambling mounds (killer plant monster! Run!), dreaded rust monsters, and others are given treatment similar to the old Dragon Magazine "Ecology of..." articles.

Each chapter also includes some new items related to these monsters, and rules for several variants of these creatures. But it was the "fluff" articles I was most interested in. I mean, how do you make a creature that disguises itself as a door or a treasure chest sound remotely believable, yet alone cool?

While not knocking every ball out of the park, for the most part I have been pretty impressed. Strangely enough, the (justifiably) maligned mimic has become a far more interesting monster for me, with its twisted faith that - after much studying and consuming its human victims - it will one day evolve into a human, adopting that as its final, permanent form (although the few that try go insane with their horrible, twisted failures). Ditto for the roper, a creature which enjoys philosophical discourse with its paralyzed victims, enjoying their screams, pleadings, and attempts to bargain more than their flesh as it devours them slowly over the course of hours or days.

Granted - there's only so much that can be done about a monster that shreds credulity in a game where players accept ten-ton flying fire-breathing dragons and teleporting wizards. But the big take-away for me is how some halfway decent writing - the suggestion of story - can turn a pretty dumb monster into something really interesting. And while the book has some very interesting ideas on its own, it was more of the concept behind this series of books that made me pause and consider just how much a little bit more fleshing-out of an idea, a little bit more storyline and logic, can make an otherwise throw-away encounter come alive. And the game as a whole seems deeper and more textures.

This is just as true in computer RPGs as the dice-and-paper variety, if not more so. Oftentimes, especially in some kinds of action-RPGs that rely on a pretty constant flow of monster hordes to keep the player active, there's not much rhyme, reason, or rationale behind the appearance of enemies beyond trying to make them sound reasonable in the environment. If it's a volcanic cave with lava, we might find fire monsters. Wow. There's game-logic for you. Can't we do better?

Naturally, games that rely upon combat as a major aspect of gameplay - which includes pretty much every RPG I've ever played - aren't going to be able to devote this kind of attention to every single enemy. This is boss-monster level stuff... but too often even the "boss monsters" are merely an obstacle in the story, too, and don't have much of a story themselves. But maybe they should. Just because their purpose in the main plot and game mechanics is to be the main challenge in aquiring the fourth broken chunk of the Legendary Dutch Oven of Zog the Merciless doesn't mean there can't be more to the story than "They were hired by Zog's Ghost to protect the broken chunk."

As always, it is attention to detail that sets apart an RPG above the herd in my mind. And that detail doesn't just mean incredible polygon counts and awesome shader effects, nor does it mean wading through hours of expository dialog voiced by some D-list actor. I still maintain that the best storytelling in games comes from the stories the players tell themselves while they are playing.

The designer just needs to provide enough dots for the players to connect so that a picture can emerge. I've seen concept art and design documents - there's usually a whole ton of thought that goes into these things that never appears in any form in the game. Why not? It doesn't need to be front-and-center, nor does the player have to be forced to learn it all before cleaning its clock in ten turns or less.

And this isn't limited to monsters. What about that shopkeeper? Yeah, the one you only click on to convert your half-ton of rusty swords and armor into gold. Does he have a story? A dark secret? The rotting corpse of his wife under the floorboards, whom everybody believes left him for a cartwright in another village a year ago? And if you find out, do you turn him in, and lose your easy access to a junk-to-gold converter?

What about those quest-giving NPCs? The ones asking you to get their cats out of a trees for two gold pieces, or to kill a bunch of rats in their basement and bring back the tails? Maybe their sole gameplay purpose is to have you perform some dumb side-quest, but that doesn't mean that this is all there is to know about them.

It just takes a good twist to make 'em intriguing.

Labels: Game Design

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:56 AM (Permalink)