Game Design: Pulp Fiction - And Games, Part 1
A few weeks ago, I came across an old article by Lester Dent (aka "Kenneth Robeson"), creator of the pulp action hero Doc Savage. His article was about how to write a 6000 word pulp story that will sell. Or would sell, if the era of the pulp magazine wasn't a half-century dead-and-buried.

Dent made no bones about calling his method a formula. Maybe we can simply call it "highly structured." But within this tight structure, there is not only plenty of room for creativity and craftsmanship... it is absolutely required. If anything, Dent's formula was simply a pattern to present novelty in a gripping but standardized manner.

As I was mulling over some of my favorite RPGs and adventure games, and distinguishing what made them become my favorites while others never quite pulled me in, I realized that they often shared a few traits in common with Dent's formulaic yarns. I doubt any game designer ever used Dent's formula and tried to adapt it to their games, but I think they had a similar handle on what makes a gripping story, and how to present it to the player quickly so that they are sucked into the game world quickly and feel compelled to see it through to the conclusion.

I wonder how one might apply something like Dent's pulp story formula to stories in computer games. Specifically RPGs and adventure games, as those are kinda house specialties here at Tales of the Rampant Coyote. Not that I'm advocating any kind of assembly-line approach to story-making for games. But - frankly - a lot of games (including many, many indie games) are weak in the story department. Or, rather, they may have good stories, but their presentation is weak. Speaking for myself here - I know I can use any crutch or cheat-sheet that I can find, so I'm really just thinking aloud here.

There's no good way to map a linear storytelling methodology to what should be a non-linear medium, but maybe some cool ideas could be borrowed here and applied to make a better game. Or at least a better game story. I'm going to break this out into a multi-part series simply because there's a lot to chew on.

On Making an Interesting Premise

I think that one of the cardinal sins of an RPG is to be generic. Once upon a time, the scarcity of similar games let them get away with it. But so many games - including indie games - serve up a big ol' rambling dish of backstory without anything to really set them apart. You are introduced as generic hero (or heroes) to play - perhaps of your own making - and then face some simple, generic quests to start out your experience and familiarize yourself with the game.

And all this time I, as a player, wonder why I should care. Why is this? Why can't games kick us in the pants right off the bat? It's not like it hasn't been done several times before in RPGs.

First of all - a good story needs an interesting foundation. The basic plot and setting on which everything else hangs.

Dent suggests four unique elements to form the foundation of the story. I doubt he intended these to be the only four, but they were what he worked with. Dent suggests 1) A unique murder method for the villain, 2) A unique item the villain is seeking, 3) A unique locale, and 4) Some kind of menace to hang over the hero like a cloud. Dent says having one of these elements is nice, two is better, and having three would be "swell."

Okay - so it's gimmicky. So what?

A Different Locale

In fantasy games and space opera, coming up with something truly 'different' can be challenging. Different is sort of the standard in this genre. And so we end up with a lot of games in meaningless variants of some fantasy world, with some war going on in the background between good and evil. Ho-hum.

But there are some good examples out there. In Knights of the Old Republic,you wake up in a space ship in the middle of a battle, set in the Star Wars universe in an era long before the movies! And how about Planescape: Torment? You don't get much more unique than that. Sure, it was a licensed setting (like Star Wars), but it wasn't something the average computer RPG player had experienced before. And in a genre where high fantasy and incredible magic is the rule, going more down-to-earth and realistic may actually be unique. I actually really enjoyed the medieval towns of Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption because of their verisimilitude. I've never studied what medieval Prague was like, but the heavy Catholic influence and realistic, historical touches made the fantastic elements really pop.

And I guess it should be mentioned that with RPGs in particular (Adventure Games typically don't seem to have this problem), simply breaking from a Tolkienesque fantasy world can be pretty unique in its own right. A game set in Tsarist Russia or steampunk Victorian England or some other alternate-historical location might not need much more to make it feel unique. Making it marketable is another question.

A Different Murder Method or Different Villain Objective

How about the murder thing, or the villain's sought-after item? This is surprisingly more challenging in a fantasy or SF world where anything is possible with little explanation. A wizard did it. Wizards can do anything! Well, a wizard, or an engineer remodulating the phase-coupling on the sensor dish array and routing it through the phaser banks. But if a game story writer resists the urge to hand-wave it away, it's still possible.

Take Ultima VII - The Black Gate. You start out with a strange, ritualistic killing to solve. The murder isn't really the focus of the story, but it (and murders like it) help drive the hunt for the killers, and the larger plot surrounding them. Adventure games, again, tend to do better here, as the solving of mysteries (in the form of puzzles) forms a stronger basis for the genre. And they aren't afraid to get a little more silly.

In fantastic or high-SF environments, the theft or pursuit of something moderately mundane can be exceptional. The gold, jewels, and magical Sword of Universal Annihilation get left behind, but poor Simple Simon was turned into a duck and his apple pie was stolen. The first of a rash of pie-thefts. That's interesting! Weird, but interesting.

A Menace Which is to Hang Over the Hero Like a Cloud

Dent doesn't elaborate on this, but I take this to mean some kind of looming, direct and personal threat to the hero. Not just a generic threat to the kingdom or world at large, but a personal danger to the hero himself or those with whom he (or she) is closest. Something that compels action.

There are plenty of decent examples of this. The Vault needs a replacement water chip in 150 days or it will fail. Sephiroth slays Aeris. Bastila is kidnapped and tortured to serve the Sith. Gabriel Knight suspects the recent apparently voodoo-related murders are linked to the nightmares that have plagued him all his life. The Avatar is used by the Guardian to find (and destroy) a threat to his evil plan. The Dark Savant personally begins hunting down the party. LeChuck is going to marry Elaine unless Guybrush does something!

This is so much more satisfying to me than a story with a threat that might as well be addressed, "to whom it may concern." If my custom party of adventurers don't make it to the end, anybody else could come in behind me and finish the job.

So there are some concrete examples of how a game's story might be made to help it stand out among the competition. And believe me, with so many indie RPGs coming out these days, there's plenty of competition. Next time I will talk a little more about Dent's story structure, and how more pieces of his "formula" might be applied by designers and story writers.

Labels: Adventure Games, Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:07 AM (Permalink)