Concentrated Linearity Debate (New Voices Welcome to Participate and Vote)

[Drakefyre]

Linearity and non-linearity are regions in a spectrum.

 

Linear scenarios often have a strong story that they force the player to adhere to, with little to no choice about what direction their character moves. Good examples include An Apology, Emulations, and Chains.

 

Non-linear scenarios generally give the player many choices about what to do, and they focus on providing a world for exploration and means to advance the party's status through a series of missions and fights. Generally, there are many different roads to take and several different endings. Examples of this include the Adventurer's Club series and the Geneforge games.

 

The poll asks anyone who will reply which method they prefer. Generally everyone agrees that a completely interactive scenario with a good plot that allows for almost all possible party actions would be the best scenario, but asking that of designers is expecting a lot.

 

This is a continuation of discussion in many threads. All discussion in the following threads is continued here.

 

Article - bjlhct2 On Scenario Design pt 1: Linearity

In Defense of Pure Linearity: a Case Study

Nature Of The Beast: Why Game-Style Nonlinearity Just Doesn\'t Work In Blades

Linear Scenarios v. Non-Linear Scenarios: The doctrine of time = money

Article -- Non-Linearity: The Doctrine of Causality

 

The first replies are encouraged to heavily quote the previous threads.

 

Thank you.

[-silver-]

Remember when quoting, that I racked up three of what the CoC calls "minor infractions" over the past 24 hours, but quoting them repeatedly is still an infraction itself and someone has racked up more than I did just by repeatedly quoting me.

 

also, calling people moron or stupid is "belittling" them and a _major_ infraction.

[Drakefyre]

People should let the moderators and admins do their job instead of throwing the CoC at things they don't like.

 

Just refrain from personal attacks, and you'll be fine.

[Lilith]

I think this debate has outlived its usefulness. Expressing personal preferences is one thing, but everyone's already had ample opportunity to do that. As for its potential role in guiding designers, people who want designers to change the way they design, despite having released no scenarios of their own, have little credibility in my eyes.

 

The best thing any individual can do for the scenario design community is contribute by designing. Criticism has its place, but I'd rather see one decent scenario than a dozen articles.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by DreamGuy:
And I stand behind my statement that Kelandon's choices on how he developed his scenario were pretentious, ego-driven, and not all that good. This is further shown by the way he responded to criticisms. (Things like refusing to add an option to turn off the cutscenes because he considers them the best part and so forth.)

I did mention that I'd add this feature if a few people responded that they wanted it ( here , if you missed it), but no one did.

Your feedback is not the only response I've gotten about the scenario. Many of the responses from other people do not match your criticisms. That is one limiting factor on how much of your suggestions I'm actually going to implement.

The offer stands open: if more than one or two people want me to add this, I will. Post here or PM me or whatever.

But DreamGuy, why are you insulting me? I'm just making scenarios. How can that possibly be as harmful as you make it sound? Even a bad scenario is a positive contribution to the community.

[Donald Hebb]

An option to get rid of the cutscenes? You've got my signature on that one.

[Fyora Toast With Roamer Butter]

It is not the linearity of the scenario that bothers me so much. It is when you do not get to make small choices that affect the final outcome as you go along in the quest. All scenarios should have some variety of endings even if they are linear. It makes it more interesting.

 

Also small decisions keep you immersed in the scenario. Both Bahssikava and Canopy were linear. I liked both of them. I did not like having my characters stating opinions. It would have been better if leader stated the opinions and the bad guys expressed the opposite.

 

The thing which Bahssikava did was add in a few elements like choosing to learn the ancient slith language or end the scenario early at the gates which made it somewhat more varied.

 

Canopy was better in that it had a few optional side quests. Specifically, the tigers lair which is one of my favorite dungeons ever. I also liked the goblins lair.

 

I find the addition of optional detail can make a scenario much better. Things like petting a dog, curing a mans sickness, or delivering a package. Optional small detail quests are often missing from a linear scenario.

 

If a linear scenario has choices which affect the ending, minor details that add spice, and open ended sidequests it would be just as good as any non-linear scenario in my opinion.

[Dahak]

Is the end or the way to the end more important? Why do ends need to be different. If all paths lead to same destination then no need exists for seperate endings.

 

Personally, I always cared about how I get there then how it ends. It makes things much more interesting.

 

Another point. Why should the party be so influental?

[PoD person]

Dahak, I shall quote you a piece of my article, I addressed that, actually:

 

Quote:

Firstly, despite my characters' importance to the story, and the other characters' preoccupation with them, I didn't feel like they were the center of the world. TM made Canopy seem, to me, like a living, breathing reality, with a dynamic existence beyond that of the party, and he did so by limiting me, not empowering me. My characters couldn't go everywhere or do everything, and their actions weren't the be-all and end-all of causality in the game world. These touches made Canopy more real for me than any amount of choices ever could have made Geneforge-land.

And another:

 

Quote:

Although the end of Canopy was more passive than the first, say, three quarters, this did not bother me because the events in the cutscenes were both a culmination of the drama that the narrative had built up to that point, and evidence that a lot was going on around the party; again, the world of Canopy existed outside of the challenges that my party faced and the actions they took.

It was a case study about Canopy and why I liked it, obviously.

 

Thuryl, a scenario is a service beyond my present capabilities, unfortunately. I felt a need to point out what a designer has done well, and why I liked it, as opposed to calling the community pretentious and egotistical. Hence, my article.

 

Kelandon, the story is the best part of your scenario, and it is developed in the cutscenes. That said, I'd like to be able to turn them off, just for when I have to reload from a save before a cutscene I've already seen.

[Donald Hebb]

(PoD Person, I cannot help but notice that you like Canopy and Bahssikava very much- considering this, why not rate them at the Comprehensive BoA Scenario Rankings forum at the Lyceum:

 

http://p080.ezboard.com/fthelyceumfrm32 )

[Kelandon]

Okay, I'll add the "skip scene" feature. It'll delay the release of the final version of Bahssikava until, er, next weekend at the earliest and the following one at the latest, but I'll do it.

[Ash Lael]

The Adventurer's Club scenarios are not non-linear. While AC1 and AC3 have a lot of incidental, non-essential stuff (to a point where it can be difficult to find the central, linear storyline), the main path doesn't vary to any real extent.

 

Did you ever finish any of the AC scenarios, Drake?

[ef]

Quote:

Originally written by Dahak:
Is the end or the way to the end more important?

You touch that old question: What is more important in life, the goals you set for yourself or how you move towards them. Or both?

Personally I don't believe that there can ever be an easy answer. Not only because of individual preferences, also because the answer is heavily dependant on and changes with circumstances.

If a scenario's author chooses a linear style, then having few options is part of the story he's going to give a life of its own, and it doesn't make sense to me to ask him to please tell a different tale.

Of course the same is true vice versa. Or for a mix of both.

[Ash Lael]

Exactly, it's the designer's perogative (sp?).

 

Personally, I'd like to see experimentation and new ideas come into play rather than a battle between "Linear" and "Non-linear". One of the ideas behind Areni, for example, was to create a kind of macro-linearity (the story progresses in the same way), but still allow a great degree of variance on the detail level. Depending on what recipes you choose to rely on, what ingredients you use up, where you go, etc, the combat experience can be wildly different for different people, but still of a consistently high quality. One of my beta-testers said a certain recipe was only slightly useful, while it was the main staple for another. In other words, I tried to create a situation where the scenario would allow for big changes on a level that mattered to the player, dictated by the player's actions. I think it succeeded, though most people don't appreciate it, since they only play through once. But that's the kind of thing I'd like to see more of, blurring the two concepts in interesting ways. Roots is an example of a scenario that does this purely in storyline terms, though I can't really expand on that without ruining it for someone.

[Drakefyre]

The ACs are, IMO, more about the immersive world than the main storyline, which is why I classify them as non-linear. Just because it has an overarching storyline doesn't mean that it is a 'linear scenario'. They give plenty of options to the party alongside the main plot.

 

Something else I've said before is that in a good linear scenario, the party doesn't want to do anything beyond where the author is pushing them. I never felt like I needed to sell items in An Apology, which is a good thing because there were no stores. I went along with the direction of the scenario because it made perfect sense.

[Namothil]

Gah. Take a break for a few months, and come back to find this. Well, here's my two cents, for whatever they're worth. Please excuse any incoherency in this post - I'm not quite fully awake at the moment.

 

I do not see that there is anything inherently superior in either type of scenario. That said, there are variations in the difficulty of producing a good scenario of either type.

 

In a medium like BoA, linear scenarios will be easier to write well than non-linear scenarios. Quite simply, the non-linear scenario will require significantly greater scripting effort to deal with all paths the designer chooses to implement. (Note: Not all possible paths - that's not going to happen, unless you make a ridiculously small scenario.) Given this, and

assuming a designer equally talented in the production of linear and non-linear scenarios, more scenarios of a given quality can be produced in a given time if those scenarios are linear. Since I strongly prefer to have a greater variety of scenarios, I'd have to say that I prefer designers to produce linear ones.

(Note: The preceding assumption is obviously not true, however, it is my opinion that designers are generally better at making linear scenarios than non-linear ones. If you happen to be an exception, then by all means, make non-linear scenarios. Assuming that they really are good, I'll enjoy them just as much as the linear ones.)

[Fyora Toast With Roamer Butter]

Think of the words "replay value". A scenario without any choices, without details to look for, and without optional sidequests loses a lot of replay value.

 

Having more than one ending creates a situation where the player is more likely to play through more than once. Thus it gets tested more and is more likely to have a better scenario when released.

 

Also the sidequests and options create an atmosphere which asks a few questions What if? Did I miss? What would have happened if I did? I happen to like this.

[Drakefyre]

Why is replay value so important, though? Beta-testers have to play through a scenario many times anyway. If you want two scenarios in one, why not just play two scenarios?

[DreamGuy]

This whole topic is a lost cause, because of the large number of people who apparently just don't get the basics of storytelling or game design.

 

Like the following outrageous statement:

 

Quote:

"It is IMPOSSIBLE to develop ANY solid atmosphere in a strictly nonlinear work"

No, maybe you aren't capable of it or don't want to be bothered, but that's a long, long ways from being impossible. It clearly is not impossible because other designers on other games do it all the time. If the person who posted this passes as a well-respected designer on these boards, it's no wonder the community is in such a sorry shape. You've got the blind leading the blind.

 

Then we got:

 

Quote:

"Why should the party be so influental?"

Because they are the main characters! The main characters in any story are what the story goes around. A book in which the characters aren't influential and some plot device comes from out of nowhere to make things happen is considered to very poor writing. Perhaps you're familiar with complaints about using a Deus ex machina in a story? If not, perhaps you can imagine how frustrated the star player in a sports game must feel if he's benched and forced to watch everyone else play the game he's supposed to be playing?

 

In a RPG game, the main characters have to be even more influential, because they are directly controlled by the player. The player can't just sit back and watch, he has to make an effort to move the PCs around. If they have no influence and just watch while other people do things (and gab about all the great people they met and all the things they did) you are basically turning the player into a bunch of ineffectual nobodies, which spoils the entire point of these games.

 

Which leads directly into Kel's statement:

 

Quote:

"If so, I challenge you on A: how could Bahs have been made non-linear without destroying the story?"

Considering that you ignored everything I suggested by email and ridiculed the entire concept of letting the players have choices, I'm not going to waste my time making a bunch of suggestions you'll just insult and ignore again.

 

But the basic thing here is that you are all worried about *your* story (background to all the sliths, some vague mysterious with Prophet that we are supposed to worry about but not be able to do anything with during the game) that you don't even consider the PC's story, which is what these kind of games are supopsed to be about. All you have is your cut scenes, repetitive details about the backstory and unsympathetic characters who order the players down tedious fight sequences with no way of making any substantive decisions, being at all creative, or heading off in any direction other than the one the great designer god from the sky continuously points his finger toward.

 

And, again, I already gave you tons of suggestions which you summarily and snottily ignored, so to just now "challenge" me on it is really quite hypocritical.

 

But then vast majority of the posts I've seen from people defending linearity have been more about posturing and ego than actually discussing storytelling or game design, so there's little hope that anything being talked about here will help in any way.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

EDIT: Thought better of it.

[Kelandon]

DreamGuy, the only suggestion that had to do with "linearity" that you made in your e-mails was that I add a sidequest or something in the Temple of the Goddess. While I suppose I could do that, the scenario would still, overall, be linear.

 

However, you made a number of suggestions about giving the player more options with regard to individual combats (making it possible to uncharm the charmed character in the drake lord-altar fight in Tunnels, for instance). If that's the sort of linearity that you're talking about, then you might want to make that clear, because I don't think many people think of that as linearity per se.

 

(Those suggestions won't be implemented either, because the majority of comments that I've heard are that tactical combat arises from taking away the most obvious options and making the player think of something new, and that tactical combat is good, so I don't want to ruin it for other people just to satisfy one player.)

 

But anyway, we're very early in the stages of BoA scenario development. Most of the scenarios can't help but be linear, because they're first efforts, and it's harder within the Blades medium to make a non-linear scenario than a linear one. TM and I aren't likely to make non-linear scenarios any time soon, but others may. Shyguy may make a scenario for BoA, and his are in a very different style than mine or TM's. So if you want a non-linear scenario, wait a little while and one will come out.

 

Or, even better, make one yourself.

 

You'll find that the bottom line here is scenarios made. People will perk up and pay attention if you start releasing quality scenarios. Otherwise, you're just another newbie.

 

EDIT: You know, DreamGuy, having thought about it more, I don't see how Jeff's scenarios could be considered any better as far as linearity goes, except for ASR, which the community likes by far the most. VoDT is pretty much linear, and ZKR is, too. Do you consider those to be less linear than anything else released by a third-party designer? If so, how?

[Drakefyre]

The party are not the main characters in the world, however. Why should they be? Why should six (or four) level 10 characters be able to avert the war between giant nations? They are just caught up in small parts of the war, unable to influence main events but still able to do things.

 

Quote:

But then vast majority of the posts I've seen from people defending linearity have been more about posturing and ego than actually discussing storytelling or game design, so there's little hope that anything being talked about here will help in any way.

Posturing and ego? I defend linearity because I believe that linear scenarios are better scenarios. I play Blades for the stories and the challenge. I like tactical combat, and I like puzzles. I like things to be thrown at me in a new way, and I like to be swept up in a story and have the scenario forcefully move me along.

 

It's always nice if people acknowledge things that I've done. But that doesn't necessarily make things linear or nonlinear. It just makes the scenario better or worse.

[Fyora Toast With Roamer Butter]

Replay value is a cure for boredom. It creates greater immersion. I am guessing that some beta testers quit or stop going through a scenario if there aren't things to search for. They simple get bored at too much repetition.

 

Part of this game is exploration. Finding things which are hidden or new is one of the fun points of the game.

 

Also, there is a decent time between releases of new scenarios. It extends the life of a particular scenario if it can be played more than once.

[Dahak]

Quote:

Originally written by DreamGuy:

Quote:

Originally written by Dahak:
"Why should the party be so influental?"

Because they are the main characters! The main characters in any story are what the story goes around. A book in which the characters aren't influential and some plot device comes from out of nowhere to make things happen is considered to very poor writing. Perhaps you're familiar with complaints about using a Deus ex machina in a story? If not, perhaps you can imagine how frustrated the star player in a sports game must feel if he's benched and forced to watch everyone else play the game he's supposed to be playing?

In a RPG game, the main characters have to be even more influential, because they are directly controlled by the player. The player can't just sit back and watch, he has to make an effort to move the PCs around. If they have no influence and just watch while other people do things (and gab about all the great people they met and all the things they did) you are basically turning the player into a bunch of ineffectual nobodies, which spoils the entire point of these games.

Not really true. A lot of stories have the main character pretty influental, and they quite frankly stink. The character has too much influence. Other stories have main characters with less influence, or almost none, and they rock.

Good stories, and by extension good RPG's, make the player seem as if they are involved.

I do not mean for designers to make people ineffectual nobodies. The players can try, and try, and try, but sometimes, you just can't win.

[PoD person]

Why I liked Canopy, actually.

[Student of Trinity]

Not only is linearity a continuum, but sometimes it's even hard to put the relevant issues on a single line. Instead of analyzing whether linearity or nonlinearity enhances quality most, I too easily find myself invoking quality to decide how linear a story is.

 

For example, a really good subplot can enhance a main plot, and even though it can stand very well on its own as a story, it is even better as part of a larger story. (This can be so even if the way the sub- and main plots resonate is not directly a matter of plot -- I'm not talking about a sub-quest whose completion is necessary for a main quest.) A good subplot will thus feel nonlinear at first, but in the end it will seem linear. Ascribing the greatness of such a scenario to either linearity or nonlinearity seems perverse in such a case: it has all the advantages of both.

 

On the other hand a proliferation of meaningless options in a pointless world can also seem nonlinear at first, but linear in retrospect, because in retrospect every choice has the same ultimate consequence, namely nothing you care about. Looking to either linearity or nonlinearity alone, to explain why this scenario is so awful, is again a poor choice of conceptual tools: it's bad because it's both, in bad ways.

 

The unambiguous connection that I do see between quality and linearity is that I think only a nonlinear game can be really great, but only a great game can afford to be very nonlinear. After all, if a game isn't good enough to deserve a lot of replaying, it may as well not bother having significantly different outcomes. If you can't pull off a great nonlinear game, far better to scale back to something more linear, than to put out a nonlinear mess. And that isn't even necessarily a reflection on designer skill; there probably aren't so many basic scenario ideas that really have the legs for nonlinear greatness.

[Lilith]

Quote:

A book in which the characters aren't influential and some plot device comes from out of nowhere to make things happen is considered to very poor writing.

So pretty much every Ancient Greek playwright in history was a very poor writer? After all, that's where we got the term "deus ex machina" from in the first place.

Please learn that not everybody enjoys the same things you do.

EDIT:

Quote:

Like the following outrageous statement:

Quote:

"It is IMPOSSIBLE to develop ANY solid atmosphere in a strictly nonlinear work"

No, maybe you aren't capable of it or don't want to be bothered, but that's a long, long ways from being impossible. It clearly is not impossible because other designers on other games do it all the time. If the person who posted this passes as a well-respected designer on these boards, it's no wonder the community is in such a sorry shape. You've got the blind leading the blind.

1) Alec is far from being a "well-respected designer", and the fact that you think he is gives me an idea of just how much credence I should give your observations and opinions about our community.

2) It's blindingly obvious from the context of Alec's post that he's talking about what can be done with BoA -- the fact that something can be done by "other designers on other games" doesn't imply that it's possible within the framework of BoA.

Mind you, I don't entirely agree with Alec's statement, but DreamGuy's response still shows that he missed the point, whether recklessly or intentionally. As far as I'm concerned, he's a troll until he convinces me otherwise -- preferably by making a scenario of his own that's the kind of scenario he'd like to play.

[SkeleTony]

@Cradial:

 

This will be the last time I repeat this so try and pay attention this time:

 

I NEVER "DEMANDED" that ANY author design ANY scenario in ANY particular way!

 

After I tried to explain this to you the first few times, you came back once again with something along the lines of "But Why should a scenario designer cater to your demands?".

 

@Thuryl:

 

Re: Your last response to me in the now locked threadds.

 

I assure you that what you were assuming was my intent is just that, an assumption.

 

Once again, I respect everyone's opinion up until they drag out the strawman and set it on fire and pin my name tag on the dummy's lapel.

 

Kelandon and TM can correct me if i am wrong here but I don't recall EVER sending them emails or posting in thread "demands" or even SUGGESTIONS on how they should write their scenarios. Nor have i done this for any author of any BoE scenario. I happen to think non-linear makes more sense because RPGs are, unlike books, interactive affairs and linearity limits interactivity(which does not in itself make a scenario "bad").

 

The thing that seperates RPGs from books is that, in a book, it is the suthor's job to create all the characters and plot out every detail, decision, and situation in order to tell the best story he can.

In a RPG, the scenario author/GM/DM/Game creator is supposed to create the world(or an area within a world), a begining point, an end point and some general events in between. It is the player's job to create the characters adn decide how they get from point 'A' to point 'Z'.

 

Now I realize that many BoA scenario authors say that BoA severely restricts how many "points" one can allow for in his design and even the most minimally non-linear scenario is a lot of work.

 

Fine. I don't dispute this at all. I am NOT "demanding" you guys even TRY to do anything differently(nor am I suggesting you haven't tried). I have certainly never "demanded" one of you write a scenario the way I might want it written.

 

Lastly, in one of my earliest replies to the subject, I used the words "Pretentious and egotistical" to describe the general motivations behind someone choosing restrictively linear game design when creating a CRPG.

"Pretentious" does not mean "sucky". It just means that someone is, rightly or wrongly, presuming themselves to be of an appreciable caliber as a storyteller(in the context of this discussion). Like the girl in junior high school who writes (bad)poetry and tells you that if you play your cards right, she will allow you to read some of her work. WHat I had in mind when I said this was more along the lines of those QBasic CRPG authors who churn out concole styled CRPGs and invariably advertise them as having "Great story!" or "Cool characters!".

At the other end of the spectrum(the non-linear end) you have 'roguelike' CRPGs. Games that do not even bother with any story, feature randomized dungeons and are all about combat and character building.

 

IMO, roguelikes are WAY more fun than their linear counterparts. The ideal is probably closer to the center but, IMO still on the side of non-linearity simply because of the interactive nature of CRPGs.

[Lilith]

Calm down, ST. Your preferences are, of course, as valid as those of any other player -- and if you ever find the time, I'd be very interested to see the sort of scenario you'd design. It's quite likely that I'd enjoy it considerably.

 

We're now replying to DreamGuy, who has indeed told us that we're designing the wrong way and ought to change.

[Drakefyre]

If I want a mindless dungeon crawl, I'll play Marathon (yes, I know). If I want to play something fun and challenging, there's linear BoE scenarios.

[drafter]

Quote:

Originally written by SkeleTony:
[QB]@Cradial:

This will be the last time I repeat this so try and pay attention this time:

I NEVER "DEMANDED" that ANY author design ANY scenario in ANY particular way!

After I tried to explain this to you the first few times, you came back once again with something along the lines of "But Why should a scenario designer cater to your demands?".

i won't bother replying to these faulty accusations and thoughts, since it's now all clear to me that you'll just ignore the true meaning of my words and go run them through "hatespeechagainstSkeleTony"-translator. ^^

[Overwhelming]

There will be both type of scenarios, so pick the ones you fancy.

 

I guess, and I might be wrong, that any scenario maker will do a scenario with his own tastes in mind, not others' (although he probably won't ignore some advice and do some things to please a wider audience).

 

But judging other RPG's, the most successful ones were linear or non-linear but with a strong main story/quest.

 

The completely non-linear ones (rare!) were the most criticized ones. Maybe Morrowind is an exception, but sure everyone had higher expectations for that game. I, myself, didn't enjoy it.

 

In my opinion, a good story is the fuel that keeps players going on. And it's much, but MUCH more easier to make a good story with a linear scenario.

 

A mixture of both types would be the ideal, but I wonder how many will be able to do that. Complexity, time and endurance can be negative factors for those creators.

[DreamGuy]

Yes, Greek plays using Deus ex machina devices are pretty much the textbook example of poor plotting. Not all of them used that device, and the ones who did were soundly ridiculed for it, both at the time and later.

 

And trying to clarify that it's impossible to make BoA games nonlinear and still dramatic but maybe it's possible in other games is still wrong, because there are no technical limitations in BoA that affect that sort of thing. If anything, designers are positively floating in options in BoA, with flags that can keep track of tons of different choices, towns that can be hooked together any which way, scripts that allow extensive modificiations and can adjust what happens when based upon the party's level, and so forth.

 

And, heck, the examples of linearity we've been talking about aren't really questions of not having the time to build in options. The designers specifically spent time coding things to remove options from the players. Extensive time and effort was taken to make the whole things extremely linear and exactly the way the programmer wanted, going so far as to turn off spells, make spells that are normally effective in certain situations completely ineffectual there so that a plot point can be shoved in the player's face, and so forth.

 

And, Kel, Jeff's scenarios are like a thousand times less linear than yours. It's all about options. Where you go, in what order, the choices you can make in combat/dialog/shopping, who you help and who you don't (sidequests, factions) and so forth. Your Bahs scenario has next to none of any of that. You make people go from specific encounter to specific encounter following only one strategy in fighting anything (pure mindless hack and slash, with an occasional bless altar thrown in) with no alternate routes or ways of doing anything. Pretty much the whole way through if you choose not to do the obvious thing you are intended to do in front of you and look for something else to do, the whole thing grinds to an immediate halt, because there is nothing else, anywhere at anytime. If you are claiming that Jeff's scenarios are just as linear you either just no have no concept of what the word means or are seriously in some major denial.

 

And, for crying out loud, restricting the combat down to only one option is not "challenging," especially since the option you end up doing is not only blindingly obvious and the expected norm (haste/slash/heal, repeat) but even frequently spelled out to you on screen (go into combat mode now... look for something in the southwest to stop the ghosts, etc.)

 

But then I'm repeating what was already explained in the emails. It's a rather simple concept to grasp, so I don't get why it's such a difficulty, other than sheer stubborn self-interest.

[Kelandon]

What you're talking about is not what most people would call "linearity." That's why there's been some confusion.

 

EDIT: Also, I am curious. You make precious few references to anything that happens in the Guardpost or beyond. Did you actually complete the scenario?

[Khoth]

Amazing! A real, live example of the sort of person Jeff says Blades scenarios should be made for.

[Imban]

Emerald Mountain could have been a lot less restrictive in where you could go, yes. I complained about it to TM during the beta, actually, because I frequently got a "you went off the path!" message when I was trying to go where TM wanted me to.

 

Regarding Morrowind, I found it rather fun, but a bit lacking because there wasn't any real natural progression of things to do, since you could go anywhere and do anything at any time. (yes, including beat the game in under an hour)

 

Quote:

Extensive time and effort was taken to make the whole things extremely linear and exactly the way the programmer wanted, going so far as to turn off spells, make spells that are normally effective in certain situations completely ineffectual there so that a plot point can be shoved in the player's face, and so forth.

In any case, while I don't really care for "You don't want to do that!" messages, especially when I might actually want to do what the designer is telling me I don't, the turning off of spells / making spells ineffective was to force the player to look for a new strategy.

 

Consider this: EVERY party at a high enough level for Bahssikava has Unshackle Mind. If you can just cast that on your charmed character, is his being charmed a threat at all? With that made ineffective, the battle was made much more difficult.

 

(As a lengthy aside, I consider the removal of Cloud of Blades in Canopy permissible, as well, as it defeats a potentially game-breaking tactic. In BoE, it was common practice for your invulnerability to be removed constantly in boss fights, and, in one scenario, for the game to instantly kill you if you left combat mode during a boss fight.

 

While these seem odd, the former is truly game-breaking, as in BoE, there's an easily recastable spell that gives a single character six rounds worth of invulnerability. The latter, while it seems offensively limiting, stops the player from abusing a game-breaking bug which allows him to take full combat actions while restricting the enemy to one action per monster per round. While the party can do these things and, in the former case, has earned the ability to do said things, they break the game when they are used.

 

Therefore, I see no reason that negating something game-breaking in BoA, such as Cloud of Blades and its percent-of-target's-HP-based damage, is not permissible.)

[Drew]

I have to disagree utterly with DreamGuy's assertion that use of non-influential main characters is indicative of poor writing. Read any great fictional works of the last two millenia. There are always greater powers at work in the world of the characters. That the characters are able to cope with, strive against, and sometimes succeed is what makes them interesting, and in turn, the writing good. Example: The Odyssey. Odysseus, neither the strongest nor the most kalos of the Greeks, uses his resourceful mind to contend with the anger of gods and foes much greater than him. Heck, if you want a contemporary example, how about Harry Potter? The main characters in those stories are students, getting by in a world populated by wizards much more powerful and fearsome.

 

If anything, when characters become great movers and shakers, writing becomes abominable. Why? Authors in those cases are incapable of sustaining the level of detail necessary to make their stories realistic because such levels of power/understanding of government/world functions and motivations are beyond the scope of their imagination/comprehension. What results is a story that falls flat. Read Eddings' Belgariad/Mallorean series, for example - certainly entertaining, fluffy fantasy romps, but with few exceptions, the main party of super-world-shakingly powerful characters never face a real or interesting challenge. What results is a ten-book-spanning yawn of a story. Reread Dune, if you haven't read it in a while. Would rulers of *entire planets* behave the way those characters do? Heck, look to the abortion that Robert Jordan's series has become - progress in that story line has ground to a halt due to his geo-political twittering.

 

Good storytelling requires compelling, not necessarily influential, characters. In my opinion, the best storytelling occurs when much of the rest of the background remains concealed (and provided that the background does, in fact, exist) - the tip of the iceberg metaphor. It's what made Tolkein's work great, and was what made the Matrix great, until we found out there was no decent "rest of the iceberg."

 

As for the linearity/non-linearity argument, I think it's strictly a matter of opinion. As for people complaining about the scenarios, why are you wasting your time playing this game? Why don't you write your own scenario and show everyone how it's done?

[VCH]

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As for the linearity/non-linearity argument, I think it's strictly a matter of opinion. As for people complaining about the scenarios, why are you wasting your time playing this game? Why don't you write your own scenario and show everyone how it's done?

Yes exactly make your own.

[Lilith]

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Yes, Greek plays using Deus ex machina devices are pretty much the textbook example of poor plotting. Not all of them used that device, and the ones who did were soundly ridiculed for it, both at the time and later.

Euripides' Medea may not have been immensely popular in its time, but I'd hardly call it poorly-written.

And even if not every example is so obvious, a large proportion of great literature is about the futility of human endeavour in the face of fate. Look at Macbeth, for example -- interpreting it as a cautionary tale about ambition, as many modern critics do, is missing the point entirely.

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Originally written by DreamGuy:
And trying to clarify that it's impossible to make BoA games nonlinear and still dramatic but maybe it's possible in other games is still wrong, because there are no technical limitations in BoA that affect that sort of thing.

As I said, I don't disagree with you on this point -- I was just clarifying the point Alec was trying to make.

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And, heck, the examples of linearity we've been talking about aren't really questions of not having the time to build in options. The designers specifically spent time coding things to remove options from the players.

As has been mentioned in previous posts in this thread, when designers here talk about "linearity" they mean it in terms of plot rather than gameplay.

A non-linear plot has advantages and disadvantages compared to a linear one, but the former almost invariably requires more time and effort to make it really high-quality, and I'd rather see a designer release two linear scenarios than one non-linear one.

Restrictive gameplay, as far as I'm concerned, is a good thing, at least up to a point; if anything is possible, nothing is interesting.

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Extensive time and effort was taken to make the whole things extremely linear and exactly the way the programmer wanted, going so far as to turn off spells, make spells that are normally effective in certain situations completely ineffectual there so that a plot point can be shoved in the player's face, and so forth.

I'm really not sure what to say to you if you hated the Tunnels sequence in Bahssikava. This seems to be a matter of personal preference. Apparently your dislike of it rests on the fact that the behaviour of the party's spells in that situation isn't consistent with the way they'd normally work (i.e. they don't work when they normally would). As far as I'm concerned, it's more important for a system to be interesting than for it to be consistent, and to me, Tunnels was interesting.

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And, for crying out loud, restricting the combat down to only one option is not "challenging," especially since the option you end up doing is not only blindingly obvious and the expected norm (haste/slash/heal, repeat) but even frequently spelled out to you on screen (go into combat mode now... look for something in the southwest to stop the ghosts, etc.)

This may be a somewhat reasonable criticism of Bahssikava (even more so in the earlier beta versions than in the final release). But if so, the problem is in the method, not the aim -- forcing strategies other than the normally optimal ones is a good thing, and if Bahssikava doesn't always do that, that shouldn't be taken as an indictment of restrictive combat as a whole. You can hardly argue that the strategies required for battles in Canopy are "blindingly obvious and the expected norm", for example.

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But then I'm repeating what was already explained in the emails. It's a rather simple concept to grasp, so I don't get why it's such a difficulty, other than sheer stubborn self-interest.

It's a bit rich to accuse designers of "self-interest" when they're contributing scenarios to the community and you're not.

[PoD person]

A Deus Ex Machina is a previously unintroduced character who provides, by virtue of his/her deity, a resolution to the drama in a play. It is rightly regarded as a kind of cheating, because it bespeaks the author's inability to resolve the plot through conventional means.

 

Dei Ex Machinis are not, however, anything outside of the protagonist who advances or complicates the plot. The name for those is antagonists. Sometimes the protagonist's choices are determined by the antagonists' actions. In fact, it should be so a fair amount of the time, because drama is in the protagonist's responses to the antagonists, not in doing what he/she wishes, at his/her leisure.

 

Oh, and DreamGuy, be consistent with your objections. You whine first about how Bahssikava prevented you from doing what you always do (uncharming your character), and then complain that a lot of the combat required you to do what you always do. The latter objection indicates that even you think that combat, if you're left to do what you always do, is boring. So, how does the designer stop you from doing what you always do, unless he restricts you? (He adds special spells. But he still restricts you.)

 

No one here is calling Bahssikava perfect. Read what I had to say about it on CSR. However, its problems had less to do with choices or lack thereof than with the presence of filler and sparse present-tense plot development. Instead of crucifying Kelandon for refusing to implement some sort of sweeping movement to non-linearity in his scenario that would have necessitated the deletion of tons of scripts and the writing of tons more, why not take the bad with the good, say what he did well, and how he can improve his next scenario, in the context of what he already did well?

 

Edit: And if you want to call him lazy, why not actually open the folder and look at the scripts? It is a lot of work, and sweeping changes would have taken a lot of time. I, and others, would rather just have him release the scenario so I can play it already, instead of restructuring the whole thing at one indignant member's behest.

[Lilith]

I'm probably just going to stir up the hornets' nest again by replying, but it strikes me that a lot of the objections to linear or restrictive scenarios are based around the idea that the player ought to have complete control over the party's actions. Although this is one design model that's seen considerable use, a large proportion of the designing community doesn't adhere to it as a philosophy of design. Creator's article, Player vs. Party , gives a fair idea of where the community's coming from.

[Randomizer]

*bump* To preserve material