What's a Eastern RPG without story?

News & General Discussion
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First things first: No, Sara the Shieldmage isn’t a dead project. I’m still developing for it, and am working on a rather short, interesting (for me at least) demo that I should have in the Weekly WIP thread soon. It may be the crown entry in ‘Shortest Demo Evar’.

Rather, I wanted to talk about what comes after that. Eastern RPGs are known for being mostly story-dependent, having a main questline that comprises most of the game, and pushes the entire experience along.

One small problem, for me: I keep writing stories/scenarios that suck. I’m to the point, where I’m ready to just say, “Screw story completely.” I’ll provide a initial hook for the overall scenario - maybe - and let the player find reasons to keep playing the game. I don’t find writing a game story enjoyable, partially because I don’t know what I’m really doing, and there’s little good information about writing for video games at all. My research went from being, “How do I write a story for a videogame?” to “Where do I find information on how to write a story for a video game?” to “Does information on how to write a story for a video game exist in a useful form?”

Because writing a story for the game has turned into a drudging, soul-sucking chore, I have some questions.

  1. Can I honestly call my game an Eastern RPG if I remove/seriously downplay the narrative?
  2. Given that I’m still using Eastern RPG mechanics and tropes, such as battle scenes/fight whooshes, an overworld, dungeons, towns, etc., what can I provide my players that will make my unorthodox Eastern RPG more palatable?

…and, failing that…

  1. The question I don’t ever want to ask, but I feel that I must - should I just abandon this idea? I don’t want to buy into the Banker’s Fallacy that I’ve invested too much to drop it now. It’s possible, not certain, that I’ve found a bad game idea, due to my personal degree of skill (in this case, lack thereof, in a single area.) That being said, it could be argued the other way - I’ve got the overwhelming majority of mechanics a JRPG needs, including NPC dialogue. The only thing actually restraining me, is knowing how to write a videogame story. If I overcome that, a Eastern RPG is doable.

These questions are equal part, “What do I?”, “How do I?”, and “Should I?” The feedback on an older demo mentioned that my game really captured the old-school RPG feel and that exploring the one continent was a good experience. All those questions put another way, what would I build that captures the strong points of said older demo?

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Admittedly the only real stories I ever worked on for games was back when I was messing around creating text adventures. So keep that in mind as you read this.

Do you think maybe you are focusing too much on the story? Like maybe so much focus on it that you are overwhelmed?

It seems like a story can be built fairly easily if you just focus on the who, what, why, when, where and in some cases (certainly for the player) the how.

Why not just focus on a chunk of the story… the story that is relevant to the area where the player starts the game. Then focus on the actual building of the game for that area and as you do ideas will probably naturally come up and in this way the story can almost write itself. Then when the area is done you will have another I am guessing the player needs to travel to. So build the link at that time of the story leading to that travel and arrival in the new area. Hook in to relevant bits of the story from the last area and then repeat the process developing the new area.

I still am not sure what exactly you mean by “the story”. As in dialogue presented by NPCs, cut scenes or both? Is it the actual story itself in isolation that is the challenge or is it how to present it in the game?

EDIT: As far as the JRPG thing I don’t even know what that is. But I am sure I have played many of them just I never paid any attention to what it was labeled. Anyway, myself and everyone I know just zips through narrative as quickly as games allow. My ideal would be an NPC that says BRING APPLE instead of me needing to skim 4 panels worth of text to identify okay they want an apple. Not sure if that helps or not. Lol

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I may not be your target audience, because I haven’t played a lot of eastern RPGs, though I have played a lot of other adventure games, from Bard’s Tale to Nethack to Oblivion. And thinking back on them with regards to story, my first thought is… what story? As I recall, it was basically “here you are in adventurous place! Kill stuff, level up, and defeat the final boss at the end.”

There probably was more backstory than that, but if so, I’ve quite forgotten it.

So, I don’t think you should worry about it so much. Adventuring is fun, and I know some players really get into the story, but I just don’t think it matters that much. Most of a good story is character arc, and with a leveling RPG you have a decent character arc already.

Indeed, instead of one giant epic backstory, I’d encourage you to make up lots of little stories, and build characters and quests around them. Make some bad guys smart enough to run away when they’re outgunned, and then level them up behind the scenes and bring them back later — they become a nemesis for the player, who will write their own stories about why this guy keeps jumping them and just won’t die.

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Yes. Some of this is because in an Eastern RPG, story is one of the primary ‘drivers’ of gameplay. In some ways, a Eastern RPG can be considered the offspring of the Visual Novel (That’s actually the progenitor of the genre.)

It’s not so much the words, or the theatrical scripting that’s the problem, as how to do so in an engaging way. All of the drafts I’ve thrown out I’ve been able to find a reasonable introductory hook (my current/best one, is Sara is sort of an adventure archaeologist of sorts who is on the verge of making the religious discovery to end them all) but everything after that winds up being idiotic, not ridiculous and entertaining.

My ‘demo’ that will be going up on the WIP thread, is going to be “The First 30 seconds of Sara the Shieldmage”. What I’m going to ask is, “Does the introductory text inspire you to go any further?” I feel if I don’t nail those first few seconds, I’m already barking up the wrong tree, no matter how good my implementation of mechanics, or how awesome my overworld is.

Side-note: Play Final Fantasy IV for a great example of a JRPG/Eastern RPG.

In my mechanics, I’ve actually taken the leveling system out, in favor of hunting down better gear (either, through chests, enemy drops, or quest rewards.) Am I building the wrong thing, in this case? Do I need a levelup system after all?

That’s an interesting suggestion! Maybe after the introductory sequence that establishes the player’s “goal”, setting up randomized events (e.g. town invasions, enemy forces rebuilding the shield generators to their Evil Castle™, etc.?) That seems like a way that allows me to do what I do best - write useful code - while avoiding what I don’t know how to do - write narrative. Is this what you had in mind? (Note: Small amounts of confirmation bias in this paragraph.)

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My thought is to not worry about the story so much. Get everything else working and then apply the story at least partly as a way of showing things off.

Not to be dismissive of storytelling at all, but you’re unlikely to write something that pleases everyone, and most good stories are actually fairly simple: good vs evil, boy gets girl, a progression toward success or tragedy, a problem is solved, etc. What usually makes the difference between a good story and a bad one is how the story is told; in other words, don’t expect to wow people with the art of your story, but if you focus on engaging them with the craft of your storytelling, using suspense to hook the player and showing story rather than narrating extensively, you’ll do well.

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Joe described this much better than I did but this is what I was trying to suggest as well. Focus on an area or encounters or whatever. Stop the birds eye view all encompassing focus and focus on details. These small stories will write the bigger story themselves as an inevitable outcome.

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Yes. Look at it this way: the world probably doesn’t need Yet Another JRPG. Take the opportunity to experiment with the genre and mash things up however suits you. If heavy story-telling doesn’t suit you, then throw it out, because it’s certainly not necessary to make a good game.

Your homework assignment is to go download Nethack (it’s available for both mobile and desktop devices these days) and spend a few evenings playing it. Get at least to the point where you’re no longer seeing the mechanics (and ASCII art), and are seeing the world. You’ll know you’ve reached this point when you have died about half a dozen times in various ways, and you’re certain that this time, you’re going to make it further without dying.

What I predict you will find is that, while Nethack has almost no story at all (mumble mumble amulet of Yendor yadda yadda), interesting stories spontaneously appear as you play. There’s the time you were so starving you took a chance and ate some spoiled meat, but then you got poisoned, and were killed by an ant (an ant!) just before you made it back to town. Or the time you played as an orc, boldly bashing and eating everything in sight, only to accidentally slay yourself while experimenting with a wand you found. Or the time you tried to steal from a shop, and the shopkeeper chased you halfway across the dungeon before you managed to shake him. Etc.

If you create a rich world with lots going on, I think this is the kind of storytelling people will remember. Everyone’s story will be different, and that’s a good thing!

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Writing a story for a video game isn’t much different from writing a novel…minus all the description. I’ve written two novels already, and I’m currently working on a JRPG (with a great story… if I do say so myself).
Here’s a great blog that breaks down various elements of stories and characters and offers advice. Also, go with Pixar’s formula:
Once there was a ________
Everyday they would ______
Until one day ____________
Because of that __________
Because of that __________
Because of that __________
Until finally ______________
Ever since then __________

You’ll also want to decide if you want the story to be linear or slightly more open. By open I mean, of course the story is still linear, but you give the player basic instructions (find these five things) and they’re free to explore and look for clues as to the location of those 5 things.

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Another bit of advice I can offer is to ask yourself, “What do I want to teach the main character (and, by projection, the player)?” Of course you didn’t set out to teach a lesson, but any good story has a solid moral. So pick something.
“It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
“Over abundance has a price.”
“If it’s too good to be true, it is.”
“All things have their time.”
“God loves a workin man…”
Whatever!
Heck, grab a story concept from here and run with it.

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The irony is I’m thinking the opposite. I don’t know if the combat can stand up on its own enough to warrant actually having experience systems and leveling with a lot of encounters.

In my case, the story seems to have mostly gelled, because the story is the setting. You are in a tower that needs to be destroyed. It has long since stopped serving its purpose, and its continued existence is nothing but a blight on the world. Of course this fact is not well understood by the inhabitants of the tower. I’m not entirely sure if I want to have some kind of four year ritual sacrifice for control over the tower which doesn’t actually do anything to change the nature of the tower. I get the feeling the metaphor would be a little too on the nose with that.

I’ll definitely second Joe on the little stories. I’ll go a step further though and recommend making an episode, one solid, self-contained story arc. Don’t worry about the characters and their arcs, or where in the world it’s going to be. Just make a little adventure. Hell, if you don’t even what to make the story, find the slayers anime and pick a random episode to “spoof” (or just grab the one with Lina teaching Amelia the dragon slave, “and thus Sara learned why she should never try her hand at black magic again”).
I’ll second Joe’s recommendation of nethack, too. I’ve been playing it for about six years now and I might have gotten to the eleventh floor before.

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I recently read good things about Contour for video game story writing. It’s a program that’s supposed to take the drudgery out of writing by giving you prompts like a writing coach would.

But, as the others here have written, who says you have to write a traditional Eastern RPG? And you might even end up with that elusive larger story by writing a bunch of smaller, localized stories – sort of a bottom-up approach.

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I work with a lot of JRPGs and I can say this: Story and art are what sells this genre.

Fact of the matter is the combat model of, even modern JRPGs, is poor. It doesn’t have the tactical draw of the many counterparts that exist. I see at least one reference to Nethack (or my favorite, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup) as an example of deceptively complex combat models.

There’s a good Extra Credits video on prototyping a minimum viable product - whatever the hook of your game really is. James specifically calls out JRPGs as awful experiences when pared down to the bare bones of their combat. This is where your effort must be focused. It isn’t to say you can’t make the game you want to make! You should play to the strengths you have. If your strength is not story writing then you must find another focus. This may mean using JRPG tropes (of which there are NO shortages) but not the JRPG combat mechanics.

At the end of the day you can take any number of excellent roguelikes, which have basically no plot (The Orb of Zot is on level 26. Go get it! Thanks Dungeon Crawl!) and see how they can maintain people’s attention for decades. Plenty of other games exhibit pretty weak story lines but excellent growth/combat mechanics/Skinner Boxes (Diablo, I am looking at you). Heck even the critically acclaimed Divinity Original Sin has a frankly ridiculous story (Hey I’m here to investigate a murder … oh yeah and SAVE THE UNIVERSE) but got by on some sharp combat and, for me, the only RPG with excellent live co-op for those of us who no longer see their gamer friends in real life.

The point of this now somewhat rambling post is that you shouldn’t give up on what you’re doing, but take a step back, pare it down to the bare basics, and determine if those bare basic components are enough for entertainment. If not, rework them until they are and begin building up from that.

(As an aside, I have been a part of the launch of… somewhere in the realm of two dozen JRPGs over the last decade, which ranged in sales from several hundred thousand to almost nothing… because you can’t win em all!)

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About ExtraCreditz - don’t take their word as gospel. For one thing, they apparently don’t know that the primary unit of action in a RPG - Eastern or Western - is the quest; they think it’s something else, and that as a result a MVP is nearly impossible for JRPGs because to them, JRPGs are completely content-dependent. You can MVP a JRPG by having the following things:

  1. A map in which to explore
  2. An NPC that gives information
  3. A treasure to find
  4. Some sort of battle encounter
  5. Some means of advancing an internal counter (this is the quest construct). Granted, this is sort of a meta-mechanic; talking to the NPC, opening the chest, defeating the encounter, or even entering a map trigger are all viable ways of advancing this counter.

All of that? Source: Me. I did this in my very earliest demo of the Eastern RPG version of Sara the Shieldmage.

But, since you brought up that horrible, horrible episode of EC, that was just the push I needed Reminding me of that, reminds me that they made one very solid point in that episode - a game hinging exclusively on its content is a symptom of bad design; it means the game is incapable of standing on its mechanics; taken to its logical conclusion, it’s naught but a gilded turd. This means, I’ve fallen into the trap of going with what’s been done, instead of what needs to be done. In short, as @JoeStrout said - the world doesn’t need Yet Another JRPG. I’m positioned to deliver on that; I lost sight because JRPGs are my personal pet genre.

I started with the mechanics; those are solid and well-tested at this point. Therefore, you just ruled out the “Doom” question, in fact pushed me away from it. A mechanically-based Eastern RPG totally needs to be a thing, if only as a proof of why EC is incorrect that JRPGs exclusively lean on content instead of mechanics. I can prove this isn’t the case. The only reason I need content now, is to create situations for players to both learn, and exercise the mechanics.

So, that’s what I’ll focus on. I’ll make a kick-ass introductory level, get it to be a really good experience. I’ll (later) make a kick-ass endgame, and get that to be a really good closing experience. In the meantime, I’ll focus on making random/procedural challenges that get in the way of a set endgame goal (e.g. breaching the Evil Castle™.) I’ll let players discover their stories, not subject them to any sub-par one I could possibly invent (seriously, you should see my trashed drafts. They’re not Lightning Returns levels of awful, but some come pretty close.)

TL;DR - I don’t think EC are as correct as you seem to think they are, but you are right that I got a bit carried away on the story, and not making a fun game. I’ll remedy that right now.

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Its called a western RPG. :slight_smile:

This is the key difference between the two genres. Eastern RPGs focus on telling an engaging story. Western RPGs focus on engaging action.

There are other differences, looking at single characters versus multiple characters. Art styles, and the like. But these flow out of the core differences in engagement methods. If you can’t engage your audience through a great story, then make a western RPG and call it done.

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Haha well I am glad my misguided like of James’ work has produced positive results! I’m here to help in whatever roundabout way I can.

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I don’t think your liking it is misguided; James has made some great, genuinely good works that have influenced me in positive ways. I feel that that particular video, though, was misguided in its treatment of the JRPG genre. They pitched JRPGs as a genre that “can’t be MVPed due to their nature”, and I can understand why - you don’t want a newbie going after one right away, especially when the video is aimed specifically at newcomers to game development. I get that.

That said, they gave the wrong reasons, with a good example of those wrong reasons. Final Fantasy IV has not aged well. On the other hand, there’s a reason why Final Fantasy VII, despite its dated everything, has. It strikes a balance between narrative and play. Much of it is overrated, true, but still. Final Fantasy VII has good lessons.

Games typically blend genres all the time. As a result, I don’t feel bad about dropping what can be considered to not work in general, and what doesn’t work for me, in favor of things I can do; if I don’t ship the game, it doesn’t really matter in the first place, now does it?

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This has been a cool thread. I feel like we have helped @AndrewGrayGames out of his design funk, and aided in some small way with the creation of what I expect will be a very cool game.

I’m in the rare position of not fully agreeing with @Kiwasi ; I don’t think you should necessarily embrace the western RPG design pattern, either. Make something new, combining the best of both and (as @DanglinBob said) playing to your strengths. I bet it will rock.

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You all did help!

Some of it is confirmation bias, true - I was already leaning towards procedural content after having played perhaps way too much StarMade. That said, there’s real reasons it would work for me. The world doesn’t need Yet Another JRPG. Video games empower players; when I force players to read a novel instead of make cool choices, I defeat my own purposes.

Even with @Kiwasi championing WRPGs in general, there’s more and more cases of Eastern games adopting things from Western games (and, vice versa.) Mixing genres isn’t a bad thing - it worked great for the Mario franchise, after all!

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Yeah, my strength is writing great code, that doesn’t always mean I come up with great game design ideas.

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I think you might be missing a rather key point about MVP. It’s about engagement. It’s about getting people to say “I would like more, please.” While you have defined the most basic structure of an RPG (and, let’s face it, the basic structure of every game with adventure made in the last 20/30 years), you haven’t hit what actually hooks people into the genre.

The biggest problem with jRPGs is that they are effectively two games sandwiched together. There is the combat game on one level and the adventure game on top of that. The problem is they usually are fighting each other to get further… They’re coupled together… just let that fester for a moment.

Hell, most jRPGs play like adventure games for the first hour or so, and mechanically that’s as little as you need. Look at how little fighting is done in the beginning of chrono trigger or kingdom hearts (and these are the single most important points in the game to hook people). They start off almost entirely throwing story content at the player.

Even the combat requires a fair amount of work to get viable, and it’s almost entirely due to the simplification of the model. RPG combat is all about maintaining a high volume of resources (hp/mp/items/gold) while acting on any advantage you can to reduce losses. Getting to the point where that actually creates a complex enough dynamic to be interesting is not an overnight project.