Chris Avellone interview @ RPGDot

[Azarkon]

Gromnir loves to criticize Tolkien's works in his efforts to make a point about game writing (come now, Gromnir, aren't you just a tad guilty of the same fanatic beef with Tolkien you accuse Hades of having with Bio?). For the sake of not derailing the thread, I will do the same. But let me first dispute his contention:

 

Character is not the essence of all literature (or even all "good" literature), but the focus of a particular type - one potentially alien to the genres games have traditionally chosen to undertake. The Novel, which is one form of literature and the most popular of our time, revolves around character. But it is not the Novel that fantasy and science fiction originally attempted to imitate (or reinvent), but the Myth, in the case of fantasy, and the Essay, in the case of sci-fi. Thus Tolkien did not look to Dickens or Austen for his inspiration, but to Beowulf and Celtic mythology. Thus Clarke and Heinlein did not see characters as the pivots of science fiction, but ideas and politics. All of them produced the equivalent of novels, but their sensibilities were vastly different from that of their contemporary novelists: that of a Woolf or a Joyce, or even that of a classical characterist - Shakespeare.

 

Consequently, Myth and Essay are not devoid of literary value. They, too, are forms of literature - thus Beowulf is studied in universities alongside Swift, and the canon is filled with works of philosophy and poetry that had little to do with creating believable, or even identifiable, characters. That which makes Tolkien literary is his sense of scope in intersecting culture, history, and the imagination: his world building, long taken as a staple of imaginative literature, was in line or in excess of the greats that have since then been done. We might recall that Milton's gift was similar - for though he created a fascinating Satan, the rest of his characters were rather forgettable if not for his poetry of heaven and earth. By the same token, the ideas of science fiction forwarded by people like Heinlein, Clarke, Verne, and Wells constituted their literary and cultural worth, and the testament to that is how society has come to match their prophetic writings. If we do not call them literary, it is only because we have too narrowly defined what constitutes as literature - a rather recent phenomenon.

 

Yet, just because Tolkien and Clarke represent worthwhile literature does not make them the best inspirations for RPGs. Unlike Gromnir, who appears to liken the failings of RPG characterization with the "crappiness" of Tolkien's writing, I tend to think of the former as a generational conflict. The fantasy (and sci-fi) RPG is the child of theatre on the one hand and sci-fi/fantasy literature on the other. These two parents did not traditionally agree, as they might have in the case of a strategy games or MMORPGs (for which Tolkien's style of mythology would be excellent).

 

More specifically, roleplaying games are, by their very name, character studies. Both Western and JRPGs approach it as such, but developed differently (until, arguably, recently). Western RPGs tended to focus on the attributes of the character, ascribing to a role class, race, skills, and statistics. JRPGs take the same basis, but focus on personality, to the extreme where characters have to be predefined - because the player cannot be trusted to develop their own personalities. At its apex, JRPGs challenged the very notion that "character" can be developed through any means wherein the player's input is not periphery - and did so to great success. Born out of societies obsessed with individualism, Western RPGs, starting with games like Fallout, accepted the challenge.

 

But putting aside the differences between the two geocultural-based genres for a moment, we see that they both undertook the same *literary* genre: that is, fantasy (and later, science fiction). Both were spawns, in some sense, of D&D, which is classic Western fantasy directly influenced by Tolkien. But Tolkien did not care for character studies. We do not think of RPGs as arising from the visceral personality studies of 20th century novelists concerned with exploring the psyche, but from the visions of fantasy world builders who didn't give a damn about whether Aragorn suffered the equivalent of existentialist angst. Despite the proximity of roleplaying to the thematic aspects of Shakespeare or Woolf, RPGS did not begin by playing on the drama of MacBeth or Mrs. Dalloway (and in the latter case, they still don't). Surprised? Not at all. After all, games are escapist entertainment in a way that novels no longer were after the rise of academic literary criticism. You studied Woolf and Joyce; you played in the world of Tolkien.

 

But what is play? Before postmodernism overtook the mainstream, play was defined as something easy, something of no intrinsic value. Tolkien took his work quite seriously - he did not think of it (excepting perhaps the Hobbit) as mere play. By way of influence, his work also had tremendous value (though to some this "value" is actually a detriment). In these aspects he mirrored the literary greats, and with the growing popularity of his work, the academics could not ignore him forever.

 

Fantasy and science fiction, as genres, grew in parallel to their respective "literary" counterparts. For the longest time, their non-novelsque (and by implication escapist) sensibility was taken as a sign of literary inferiority, and promptly led to the ostracizing of sci-fi and fantasy writers from the literary canon. However, the definition of literature, posed by Gromnir as centrifugal in the study of character, changed as New Criticism dominated American academia and then slowly eroded under the advent of literary theory. We no longer live in an age that assumes literary quality on the basis of set rules, not even on the basis of something seemingly as fundamental as good characterization. While many (like Harold Bloom) continue to believe in the permanency of literary value, nowadays academics increasingly look to the sidelined genres - such as minority literature and genre literature - for their own respective voices. In the same fashion, writers that traditionally avoided genre writing for its equivalent of a career deadend now turn to fantasy and science fiction to rebel against the classical notions of worth. Their voices can be heard all across the globe, and especially in popular entertainment.

 

But science fiction and fantasy under these writers are not the same - character study has taken its place alongside the traditions of world building and idea formation, and with it comes all the visceral qualities of literary fiction. This addition did not come at the detriment of Myth or Essay, after all - for the modern writer, fantasy/sci-fi is capable simultaneously of deep characters, brilliant ideas, and marvelous worlds. If so, then the question must be posed: how is that RPGs, which grew out of the same tradition, did not adapt to changing trends? Why are we still mostly mimicking Tolkien, when the likes of Mieville, Wolfe, Martin, and Ryman (who issued the Mundane Science-Fiction Manifesto) have come to dominate the imaginative genres? This, I think, has more to do with the industry and society at large than with any indication of "nefarious" influences from Tolkien or other early sci-fi/fantasy writers.

 

In particular, it seems to me that games are among the last bastions of a traditional outlook in terms of writing and theme. This claim appears perplexing, given how new the genre is, but consider this: when was the last time a good film or book took cliches at face value? Even better: when was the last time a good game demonstrated the postmodernist crisis of identity and simulacra with any sense of depth (that is, beyond the level of violence for violence's sake)? Even the best of games paint a world view decades, at times centuries, older than the same view put forth by the best films and books. In games we still hold fast to notions of straight forward sexual identity, clear racial distinctions, and Manichean conflicts between good and evil; in games alone we still glorify war and militarism. It's no surprise that games have become popular in this age backtracking towards fundamentalist roots: they represent, even moreso than those 70's action films and 50's Christian allegories, escapist idealism in the most accurate sense of the word.

 

In the junction of time we find ourselves, the genres which inspired the first RPGs have ceased to be Myth and Essay - they have become Novels. The traditional distinction between high literature and popular entertainment has similarly eroded, and academics are more than ever ready to embrace new notions of value. The time, then, is right for a revolution of the interactive media; but the forces arrayed against that revolution are also significant, because in some sense society *needs* the kind of simple, black-and-white worldviews offered by games (and which is no longer offered by critically acclaimed films/books), and will play - and pay - to see it continue. Thus EA can continue churning out mindless military and sports games. Thus the World of Warcraft and its Manichean conflict takes precedence over the likes of more complicated worlds. Since games require much more resources to create than books, since game companies are run by marketers, and because there is as of yet no independent game movement as there has been for films, games will be the stage for the next great battle between tradition and innovation. In some sense, that battle has already begun, and in some sense we have already chosen sides simply by being on this forum and posting in this thread.

Edited December 23, 2005 by Azarkon

[Dhruin]

So money gotten from sales after two first quarters goes where?

 

I just don

Edited December 23, 2005 by Dhruin

[Cantousent]

BG1 > Splinter Cell > MGS.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

hahaha

 

I actually prefered BG2 to BG1, but I liked them both. Mostly, I liked the huge size of BG2, but I liked taking a character through BG1 and then taking him through BG2. That's the most importa--- wait, aren't we talking dialogue and backstory here? What the Hell? No, I thought we were talking about Avellone's interview. Talk about bifurcation.

 

One thing that I would point out is that the only reason dialogue has such a prominent place in our discussion is simply because the characters are forced to read it. Flavor text, which provides me with much enjoyment, is not vital to advancing the story. For that reason, I appreciate the design team putting some thought into the flavor text of items. For example, City of Heroes/Villains is an MMORPG. The design team obviously didn't want to burden the player with anything unnecessary to read. So, while you can read the whole speil attached to a mission, the basic information is conveyed with a single line of a text, maybe a few words, at the bottom of the dialogue box.

 

It's something like this:

 

I've been in this city for a long time, and I've never been able to discover BADMAN'S secret hiding place. Maybe you could give me a hand. Go out on the street and defeat some his followers. Knock a few heads together and see what sort of information you can dig up. I'm sure we can tie up all the loose ends and save the citizens of Paragon a lot of grief if we could just do away with BADMAN once and for all.

-----

I hear there's a troll convention in the sewers. You never know what those bone-head trolls are going to do next. Word is, they've got someone down there, some big name in the troll "organization" who's holding an auction for something they recently unearthed. I need you to go down there and search the sewers. Take down the troll leader and find whatever it is they were going to auction. I hear it's going to start any time now, so you only have a short time to finish the mission.

****

Take down 20 BADMAN'S minions

or

Defeat troll leader and find artifact (90 minutes)

or

Not now

 

 

I like that setup because it's least intrusive. However, I doubt it would work nearly so well for a full blown CRPG. Most of us want to have significantly more interaction with the NPCs than my example provides. Still, outside of dialogue, the designer can provide a lot of fun text for the ambitious player to enjoy. One of my favorite passages in IWD2 was the Dykast blade. Funny stuff. That and the war bears.

 

As far as Tolkien goes, I'm a huge fan. I've even volunteered and helped host Tolkien lectures at the Henderson District Public Libraries. I plan on visiting some of his historical landmarks in England next year. I have the hardback editions to, I believe, all of his works.

 

...But it's just not worth fighting over his works. Especially in this discussion. First of all, I'm all fought out on other issues, so I'm not inclined to turn this into a 20 page argument about Tolkien. Second of all, it's not really vital to the discussion of writing in games. Finally, I can see why folks would find works like Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion tedious.

 

I hold Tolkien in great esteem, but I'll have to die on that hill another day. Right now, I'm far more interested in what the NWN 2 design team has in store for the single player campaign than I am in discerning what influence Tolkien has on one of the writers.

[Authority]

Would you like me to create a new thread for discussing writing games and for arguing the economics of the industry?

[Gabrielle]

You are all ****ing insane.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's what I say to but only because this damned thread exploded since I last saw it yesterday. Too much reading.

[Diamond]

So any profit after first two quarters doesn

[kirottu]

Thanks Dhruin and Diamond. At the end it was actually quite simple to understand. :">

[Nexus]

Gromnir loves to criticize Tolkien's works in his efforts to make a point about game writing (come now, Gromnir, aren't you just a tad guilty of the same fanatic beef with Tolkien you accuse Hades of having with Bio?).  For the sake of not derailing the thread, I will do the same.  But let me first dispute his contention:

 

I'm coming into this conversation quite a few weeks late (since I don't check this board much, except when friends recommend a link). I think Gromnir has a point, but faults Tolkien a little much. Tolkien's style may not have much to offer, but his world, its events, and its mythic resonance do. Academians and scientists typically have poor, abstract, or wordy writing. It's rampant in 19th and 20th century works by British academians-turned-authors as well as a few holdovers (like China Mieville).

 

Character is not the essence of all literature (or even all "good" literature), but the focus of a particular type - one potentially alien to the genres games have traditionally chosen to undertake.  The Novel, which is one form of literature and the most popular of our time, revolves around character.  But it is not the Novel that fantasy and science fiction originally attempted to imitate (or reinvent), but the Myth, in the case of fantasy, and the Essay, in the case of sci-fi.  Thus Tolkien did not look to Dickens or Austen for his inspiration, but to Beowulf and Celtic mythology.  Thus Clarke and Heinlein did not see characters as the pivots of science fiction, but ideas and politics.  All of them produced the equivalent of novels, but their sensibilities were vastly different from that of their contemporary novelists: that of a Woolf or a Joyce, or even that of a classical characterist - Shakespeare. 

 

While I agree that character is not the essence of good literature, I think it comes down more to a matter of artistic intentions or purpose (as you discuss) and what can be worked within, or prompted, by the limitations of the genre (for example, noticeable differences in types of dialogue between novels, plays, short stories, etc., limitations that often dictate how certain elements must adapt).

 

But putting aside the differences between the two geocultural-based genres for a moment, we see that they both undertook the same *literary* genre: that is, fantasy (and later, science fiction).  Both were spawns, in some sense, of D&D, which is classic Western fantasy directly influenced by Tolkien.  But Tolkien did not care for character studies.  We do not think of RPGs as arising from the visceral personality studies of 20th century novelists concerned with exploring the psyche, but from the visions of fantasy world builders who didn't give a damn about whether Aragorn suffered the equivalent of existentialist angst.  Despite the proximity of roleplaying to the thematic aspects of Shakespeare or Woolf, RPGS did not begin by playing on the drama of MacBeth or Mrs. Dalloway (and in the latter case, they still don't).  Surprised? Not at all.  After all, games are escapist entertainment in a way that novels no longer were after the rise of academic literary criticism.  You studied Woolf and Joyce; you played in the world of Tolkien.

 

I see it more as Tolkien's world, Middle Earth, is the main character of his novels. The characters serve not so much as personages as devices to explore the history, geography, struggles, and lore of Middle Earth. In some ways, Tolkien's books remind me of dry, but lovely, travel guides to Middle Earth. Less important are the travelers than the land well traveled. There are the echoes of Middle Earth, those impressions in memory, which linger once the journey is done.

 

But science fiction and fantasy under these writers are not the same - character study has taken its place alongside the traditions of world building and idea formation, and with it comes all the visceral qualities of literary fiction.  This addition did not come at the detriment of Myth or Essay, after all - for the modern writer, fantasy/sci-fi is capable simultaneously of deep characters, brilliant ideas, and marvelous worlds.  If so, then the question must be posed: how is that RPGs, which grew out of the same tradition, did not adapt to changing trends? Why are we still mostly mimicking Tolkien, when the likes of Mieville, Wolfe, Martin, and Ryman (who issued the Mundane Science-Fiction Manifesto) have come to dominate the imaginative genres? This, I think, has more to do with the industry and society at large than with any indication of "nefarious" influences from Tolkien or other early sci-fi/fantasy writers. 

 

While I am an avid fan of Wolfe, I don't believe that any of these authors, excepting Martin, "dominate the imaginative genres." More fantasy readers are familiar with Tolkien, Goodkind, Brooks, Eddings, or Jordan. (And I dislike Mieville. He has no concept of plot or character, leaving sub-plots and characters a-dangling. His prose is questionable as well.)

 

In the junction of time we find ourselves, the genres which inspired the first RPGs have ceased to be Myth and Essay - they have become Novels.  The traditional distinction between high literature and popular entertainment has similarly eroded, and academics are more than ever ready to embrace new notions of value.  The time, then, is right for a revolution of the interactive media; but the forces arrayed against that revolution are also significant, because in some sense society *needs* the kind of simple, black-and-white worldviews offered by games (and which is no longer offered by critically acclaimed films/books), and will play - and pay - to see it continue.

 

The "traditional distinction," or traditional dichotomy, between high-brow and low-brow (popular) entertainment is not so traditional as you might think. The Iliad and Odyssey, long regarded as examples of "high literature," are themselves the products of popular entertainment. Regarded well by both the mighty and masses in their day. It seems to me a false dichotomy. A better approach might be general social group preference, which can be demonstrated for a wide variety of genres and forms. (In particular, I am thinking of Japanese theatre: noh, kabuki, bunraku, etc., which all had different audiences in different social groups. There are many other examples from other cultures.)

 

and because there is as of yet no independent game movement as there has been for films, games will be the stage for the next great battle between tradition and innovation.  In some sense, that battle has already begun, and in some sense we have already chosen sides simply by being on this forum and posting in this thread.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

There are significant movements in an independent game scene. Please read Gamasutra, RPGDOT, or any of a number of game sites or talk to game developers to get a sense of it. It is still small, but events like the Independent Game Festival are good vital signs of something more.

Edited January 7, 2006 by Nexus