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...sacrificing non-linearity. In fact, the game could be ENTIRELY non-linear for this to work. See, you'd be dumped in this sand-box world with nothing more than an excuse plot to give context to what you're doing. Now, before you say anything, hear me out: Instead of the story being related to the events of the game, you'd get a chapter of a book every time you beat a sidequest. It wouldn't matter which order you beat them in, you'd always get the chapters in sequential order. I know it would be story-and-gameplay-segregation in its most severe form, but on the other hand, you could have a free-roaming, sand-box JRPG AND an epic, sweeping story. Plus, you could do it in any genre you want, from romantic comedy to political satire. The best part, is that it wouldn't have to be just ONE novel; theoretically, you could have as many novels as you do sidequests. Plus, there'd still be sidequests that didn't give chapters and had more traditional rewards like gear and alchemy ingredients. The two quests would be distinguishable before you took them, because the description would end with "N" for novel quests, and a "E/I" for equipment and item quests. I know it isn't a perfect solution, but I just wanted to get your opinion on it.

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"When we think there's no hope left, we keep looking until we find some!" - Claire Farron

This does remind me of those silly ecchi- and hentai-games where you uncover the pieces to a puzzle, which when put together show some sketchy picture of an anime chick's youknowwhat.

But nevertheless, what you state is an interesting idea. However, it doesn't seem to be a more traditional game. Seems like this would eventually evolve into one side being some sort of excuse for the other--for example, gameplay that, even if well-designed, is an excuse to move along the narrative of an unrelated story. (Which reminds me of visual novels.)

One thing you could do instead of this, however, is if you had a bunch of quests which would reveal a story, and then actually involve the story in the game's main story by having said "inside" story contain details to unlock a final capstone quest (such as a final dungeon).

With this last idea, you could perhaps have a bunch of apparently unrelated quests, that each give hints as to some mystery that, when you get all (or even some, if you prefer) of the hints, you can try to solve it.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 1st November 2010 01:02

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I think that the concept is interesting, but I think it would probably be difficult to pull off. I mean, the developer behind the game would have to adapt each chapter of the story to each quest event in the game in order to make the story relevent to whatever the player was doing. I think that half of the power of a plot comes from its relevancy: how strongly the player is connected to it. In this system, the plot seems more like a side effect.

Now I tend to be a fan of linearity in a game, so I'm slightly biassed. I think that, in order to tell a truly immersing story, there needs to be a fair amount of linearity. I have games like FFX and FFIX in mind.

I think the closest thing you could get to a combination would be by taking a game like oblivion and jacking up the main quest. I think an open sandbox world with an optional main quest surrounded by tons of other quests would be the best route, so long as 1) the game still involved a 'party'- that is, a group of characters traveling together instead of just one person and 2) the game implemented a much more cinematic take. These two points are, I believe, inherent elements of a JRPG, and would need to be present in order to fully realize the story.

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

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I mean, the developer behind the game would have to adapt each chapter of the story to each quest event in the game in order to make the story relevent to whatever the player was doing.

I think he was saying that they could be totally unrelated. Hence every time you complete a quest you get your next bit of story sequentially, no matter what quest you complete.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 1st November 2010 20:51

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

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Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 1st November 2010 20:51)

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I mean, the developer behind the game would have to adapt each chapter of the story to each quest event in the game in order to make the story relevent to whatever the player was doing.

I think he was saying that they could be totally unrelated. Hence every time you complete a quest you get your next bit of story sequentially, no matter what quest you complete.

I understand what he's saying, GMH. Read the second half of the paragraph you quoted and you'll understand the context of my response. To rephrase, I think that having random plot points given to the player that are completely unrelated from what the player is actually doing wouldn't really serve as much of a plot.

Oh hey, I beat a mushroom gathering sidequest! ..."You've pursued Sephiroth to the northern crater where he has taken control of Cloud and obtained the black materia"? Obviously that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I think that a plot revealed like this, with no relation to what the player is actually doing, would end up being shallow and insignificant.

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear enough.


I meant like getting CHAPTER sized chunks of prose for beating novel quests. Sorry for the confusion!

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"When we think there's no hope left, we keep looking until we find some!" - Claire Farron

I'm now reminded of the mother series.

So much weirdness going on, and yet the stories are well written and have some real ter jerker moments.

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The meaning of life is life itself.

We were put on this earth to follow our dreams unabated.

Better idea: As you go questing in the world, you gradually uncover parts of a manuscript that talk about some ancient treasure to be found, or an ancient evil to be defeated, and you get to piece these parts together to form your clue to the metaquest.

And some NPCs along the way also provide hints.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I didn't see this thread before. Good idea SG. I voted neutral because as good as any idea about non-linearity is I still don't buy this latest norm that non-linear games sacrifice story, and therefore trying to fix non-linear games by putting more simplistic storytelling isn't necessary. To me, although of course I could be wrong, linear stories are easier to make effective than non-linear ones. A non-linear story can be just as powerful if not more so taking into account the extra exposition that comes with aimless exploring.

Coming back to your idea, I think it could work but you'll need to make these side-quests good enough to stand on their own. I wouldn't allow for the 'Kill 10 Kangaroos' type of questing. I thought Fallout 3 had a knack for making good sub-quests. There would probably also need to be a convincing reason for why you're picking up pages from a novel or whatever. Also, what exactly do you mean that the story is in the pages? Do you mean you'll read about something your character has done previously? Or do you mean it's a journal (for example) from an important character that tells you about the world?

A similar idea I would like to see would be instead of finding the novel the character actually writes the novel. If it's a sandbox you could end up with a pretty unique book at the end of the game when you retire your character. You could save the novels and share them. For example, if you act like a immoral murderer the book reflects this in all the actions you've done. Not only would it make for a non-linear story (as far as games allow) but it would be great to unlock lots of extra passages by doing sub-quests. I suppose this isn't exactly the same as what you wanted, but I think I would prefer it to finding books and purely reading a story.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Well, actually, sweetdude, I hadn't thought of those. They could work really well, but what I was getting at, was this these books wouldn't have anything to do with the game, or gameworld. For example, maybe you kill a superboss, and get a romance novel, or get a mini-game high score, and get a chunk of an espionage thriller. Does this make any more sense?

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"When we think there's no hope left, we keep looking until we find some!" - Claire Farron

To be honest, it doesn't really feel like a good idea. Book storytelling isn't the same as cinematic or interactive storytelling. If I want to read the book chapters, I'd be irritated at having to do some unrelated gaming rubbish to get to them (this is already the problem with Final Fantasy to me - too much poor quality supposed "gameplay" getting in the way of the only thing Square do remotely well, which is tell a story.) If I wanted to play the game, I'd be aggrieved that my rewards were unrelated reading. The two have to be connected - otherwise it's like taping an address book to a laptop and calling it an electronic organiser.

That said, elements similar to this idea have been used already. The Elder Scrolls series features a ton of books you can find, but they tend to fill in historical and cultural background of the game world rather than advance the plot in itself. Some of the history is directly relevant to the main quest, and enriches your understanding of it, but is by no means necessary.

I'm with Sweetdude here that the premise of non-linear games necessarily sacrificing story is just wrong. It's true to say that making a story excessively linear does make storytelling easier, and a lot of sandbox-style games do sacrifice storyline for gameplay. But frankly, just play any Bioware game since they came into existence and you'll get a better solution than the book idea. As a bonus, you'll find that the story isn't always based on angst-ridden teens or adults.

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The Elder Scrolls series features a ton of books you can find, but they tend to fill in historical and cultural background of the game world rather than advance the plot in itself. Some of the history is directly relevant to the main quest, and enriches your understanding of it, but is by no means necessary.

So, basically stuff like the Metroid Prime logbook?

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

To preface my response, I should first explain the way I conceived of the idea from the original post.

In this game I would be a character, with some vague background (perhaps left vague intentionally), dumped into some sort of open world. I have no clear prerogatives, but the environment is such that the character can be whatever I want, theoretically- i.e like in Morrowind, where I could become a property owner; something of that nature, maybe on a broader, less limited scale. Say, things like farms or a townhouse, or a store... a bit like Fable. As I go through this game, accomplishing my seemingly self-serving aims, discovering my purpose in the world, etc, I keep coming in contact with large chunks of some book. The content of the book could be a number of things: the characters hidden backstory because they got the amnesia, it contains all of the knowledge inherent in the universe, or my personal favorite imagining: a prophecy told in allegory.

The last option allows for the book itself to be different in final structure based on how you play the game. Kinda like in Spore where your choices in earlier phase effect your final product. In a way, it is kinda like a logbook at that point, but, hey, it's still kind of cool. The real key would be good story telling- making sure the piece you get for the way and order you do things is unique and interesting. Drawback and difficulty, in a game with 100 quests (not counting SQ's) would then need a unique final product for every combination of ways in which you can do the quests- math people, help me out here- I seem to have forgotten 11th grade calculations.

So, having filled in the framework I was given as such (which is to say, the only way I can conceive of the idea as being good), I have to overall say I'm "other" due to the inconceivable mechanics of the way in which I might be able to view it as a good idea.

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way