[darkmaster]

Hello,

I just want to ask you guys one question : What do you think about the story-line aspect of a campaign ?

Is it important that all the elements of a campaign must be related to each others ? Does it bother you if someone put something in the beginning  of a campaign and then never use it later ?

For example :  First, I let you encounter some raiders in my campaign, but the raiders don't play any role in the plotline. They are there just for fun (for you to kill, exactly) and serve no purpose. (But it doesn't violate any cannon in the B5 universe : it is possible that you encounter some raiders in your journey, right ? )

Honestly I myself don't care much about that, if the raiders appear i'd say " Oh yeah, I'll kill 'em all" and will forget entirely about them when they're all killed.

I was heavily criticized by Vidmaster because of that, and I thought he was right. For now I'm learning how to create a better and more logical story (from Vid  ), but at some point I don't agree with him that there should be no "unrelated elements" in a campaign. Those things let you face various enemies and may serve as a "crossroad" of the current campaign and latter campaigns, and may give others an idea to make their campaign "related" to your campaign.

So, what is your opinion ? Discuss. Tell me whether it makes sense to you.

It doesn't really make sense.

Sorry, Vid. Sometimes the "student" should have some doubts about what the "teacher" said, right ?
 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I've always been more of an is it fun over the plot's good type of person.  I don't really think there is a right way or wrong way.  Also I don't think a campaign necessarily needs to be about any particular person or group.  What strings it together could just be the timeline of events with cutscenes or command briefings keeping it together.  What matters in then end is will people like it? 

[Skullar]

It is not necessary that every single encounter is fully implemented into the core plotline. But at least there should be a logical explanation. This means... the appearance of the enemy forces should not trigger a "what the hell are THEY doing here ???" feeling. Just avoid it doesnt feel right.

If you had a campaign about an EA explorer vessel romaning around somewhere beyond the rim, it would be strange to run into raider zephyrs every 2 missions.... you understand ?
It shouldn't be too obvious the enemies appear only to give the player something to shoot at.

However, it depends on what your campaign is all about.
So far, campaign makers focus on different things.

- The RAIDER WARS featured a consistent storyline, but its main strength was each mission had a highly sophisticated depth and was a complex challenge on its own.
- The EARTH MINBARI WAR DEMO, as IP Andrews mentioned, was a demonstration of what we could do with the old Freespace 2 engine, and was more about visual- and audio atmosphere and dogfighting. If your campaign is more like a collection of fast skirmish missions, the player will be far more forgiving with unexplainable enemy encounters ("whatever, there are so many of them")
- The FORTUNE HUNTERS and other work of Vidmaster aim at creating atmosphere through relationships and storyline. You are personally involved and it is not anonymous. It is more like an interactive episode. More designers do it that way.
- The upcoming "EARTH ALLIANCE CIVIL WAR" has quite a number of missions without any fighting and excessive use of cutscene SEXPS. The more you do it THAT way , the more such unexplainable enemy appearances leave you with this "what the hell ??" feeling.

[darkmaster]

But at least there should be a logical explanation. This means... the appearance of the enemy forces should not trigger a "what the hell are THEY doing here ???" feeling.

Yeah, that 's what I want to discuss. Why shouldn't we trigger this feeling of the players ? Why should we explain  it ?  It can be used in another campaign, but in the current campaign it rests a mystery. The players will keep asking why the hell it happened and there 's no explanation. This is what JMS often use while making the B5 universe, isn't it ?

And there is something that I also want to know. 

Does anyone care if the raiders have some star-furies ? Maybe they managed to get them like the Fortune Hunters, or something else. But do you think it is necessary to explain why they have them if you let your characters encounter them. Imagine I'm driving a space ship, then encounter a raider party, and they have some star-furies. Why the hell must I know why they have the Furies ? I can just fly out and kill them all. Nevertheless, they will never tell me how they got them.

This is just an example. What I want to know is that " Is it important to explain every aspects of the story?"  I think that sometimes let something unexplained is a good idea. Life has a lot of mystery, doesn't it ?       

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I don't see a problem with Raiders having furies as long as it fits into the timeline.  You wouldn't want Raiders having a bunch of furies while the furies were not even in production yet or early in production.  I wouldn't doubt a bunch of deserters who became Raiders flying furies.  Sure there are groups of people who would reverse engineer them and produce their own in the future.  Who know maybe even some kind of hybrid.

Always been one of my dislikes about FS2.  You can put whatever weapons you want on a cap ship but you can't put say Narn primaries on a Fury without doing a mod. 

[Vidmaster]

First things first. I am not teaching you! I offered you my help and advice. That's it.
It's your story    >you can do what you please! I just told you how I do it, okay?

And you got something wrong there, the criticism was not for the appearance of Raiders at the beginning which are not actually related to the plot. The actual problem was that
1.) there were some problems concerning the use of Raiders. You may read this
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Pirates_and_Campaign_Design , even if it's not TBP related. Raiders paying for other Raiders who are held hostage is just wrong . No pirate would ever do that.
2.) it's the fact that you are using three missions in a 8 mission campaign that don't relate to the events later on. They don't have any impact. The player doesn't learn or get anything from the Raiders.

The main problem of the plotline was that the actual story started after a good third AND the events that triggered it made no sense (spoiler free here, you know what I mean).

This is just an example. What I want to know is that " Is it important to explain every aspects of the story?"  I think that sometimes let something unexplained is a good idea. Life has a lot of mystery, doesn't it ?       

video games are not life

[darkmaster]

Yeah, I know the bad things about the "hostage" and the weak point in the triggering event. That's what I learned from you.

2.) it's the fact that you are using three missions in a 8 mission campaign that don't relate to the events later on. They don't have any impact. The player doesn't learn or get anything from the Raiders.

This is the main subject of this topic. The problem is that : why should those raiders have any influence in latter events ? They are just there for fun. At some point I don't understand why we should relate them to the main plot .




 

[Ker.Soth]

Well, I get a feeling this is going to be a loooong post so pick up some pop-corn and your favourite drink and relax.

I can't really start explaining my point of view about mystery and loose ends in campaigns because it would be out of context. And the context is... what is the campaign? What is it's purpose, it's setting?

 I've played fortune hunters and it's obvious vismaster knows his trade. He must have told you that for a reason.

In general, loose ends and mysteries exist to spice up the story, give leads and sometimes even help the players see that they are involved in a world bigger that the one they've seen with their eyes during the story.

 BUT, you must make it clear to the players that this is going to remain a mystery and not let him/her wait for something to tie it up to. And they must be small, unimportant even, or the players are going to feel that they were tricked into waiting for something else than what they found.

So your Raiding party.

 If 6 raiders suddenly appeared and attacked a fully operational and armed Omega and it's complement of Starfuries, it's too out of context. Pay attention now, not for the story but for the raiders. You, as the storyteller have the power to explain away everything except strange behaviour. Strange behaviour=Storyline. Always keep that in mind.

Every race, every faction has to have it's own vibrant and set behaviour in your mind, and never deviate from it except for storytelling purposes. That way, a small word or a single ship can carry the story futher. If the races and factions begin behaving erratically, the players will be at a loss.

Nobody gets into a fight simply because. And nobody gets into a fight for silly reasons. And finally nodody gets into a fight if they don't think they have a chance to win, unless they have no other way out. If you explain these things, you don't need to explain anything else to the players. So the Raiders and your Hero bumped into each other and fought because.....?

01-They are sworn enemies and will attack one another at sight.
02-The Raiders had a death wish.
03-The Hero carries something valuable and the Raiders have a reasonable way on knowing that.
04-The Hero just got out of a major battle and is easy pray.
05-The Hero knocked-up the Raider Leaders' sweet 16 daughter.
06-Both parties managed to jump in a 5 by 5 square foot loft and there was no room for all of them.
07-The Hero's breath is too bad to fathom.
08-The Raiders believed that the Hero was after them, and they had no means of escape.
09-They were hired to do so.
10-Anything else you can think of.

The presense of the Raiders isn't as important as to why they engadged in to battle. They are pirates, they must have something to gain. That is their "faction-behaviour". Fight for Fortune. And they are not stupid, they won't endanger their lives for nothing. As long as you explain that, who cares what they were doing there? Who cares if they have Starfuries? Who cares if they won't be seen again?Probably paying a visit to their mothers in the Elder Raider's Relief Institute.

Hope that wasn't too long, hope it helped.

[General Battuta]

If it's an eight-mission campaign, the three raider missions are totally unnecessary.

Cut them.

[darkmaster]

If it's an eight-mission campaign, the three raider missions are totally unnecessary.

Cut them.

Sure, I've already cut them. But will modify them for another project.

[Ker.Soth]

My god, my previous post is so out of topic, moderators please! For the love of god, delete it.

dark, why don't you just put the raider missions in a mission branch, that way everybody will know that following that story is a spin of of the camaign? Three non main storyline missions in a total of 8 is too much. That's like having a three hour beer contest between Gimli and Legolas in Lord of the Rings. It's fun buuuuut...no.

[darkmaster]

My god, my previous post is so out of topic, moderators please! For the love of god, delete it.

dark, why don't you just put the raider missions in a mission branch, that way everybody will know that following that story is a spin of of the camaign? Three non main storyline missions in a total of 8 is too much. That's like having a three hour beer contest between Gimli and Legolas in Lord of the Rings. It's fun buuuuut...no.

I don't like spin off like this. I will use them as a mini-campaign. Your post is very detailed and funny, why must we delete it ?

And you want to know the reason why my Hero and those raider bastards are mad at each others?
Well, it's just because the face of the raider's leader is ugly and my Hero is very handsome. So, the leader got mad and he amassed the whole fleet with 4 capships of several races and a horde of fighters to attack my Hero's ship. But no matter how many they were, my Hero killed them all. 

[Ker.Soth]

So, the Raiders' Leader is a Drakh, isn't he? They are definatelly the ugliest race out there. 

[IPAndrews]

I thought it was an interesting post. So it stays. Sorry . It touches upon the fact that characters in a story must have motivations for the things they do. This above anything else is what makes a story "make sense". Now it's time for me to have my say on the various issues that have come up here. Which I am really happy to see being discussed by the way. This is a really useful exchange of ideas.

To all the story elements of a campaign need to tie together?

My answer to this is no. Unless you're trying to write like JMS. In which case the answer is yes. JMS loved tying taking plot threads that at first seem entirely separate and in some way tying them together. I tried to incorperate that into Raider Wars as much as possible. I was in a way trying to copy JMS's writing style. Is that the way to write every campaign? Absolutely not. We have room for all kinds of writing styles here. People prefer different things which means it's a good thing that my campaign and Vidmaster's campaigns are so different.

Do all plot threads have to be neatly tied up?

Not in my opinion. I don't have a problem with loose ends, as long as they are interesting ones you can think about and speculate over later. Personally I absolutely loved the ambiguous end to Freespace 2 and the way the Shivans' behaviour went unexplained. But a word of warning. I know that same ending annoyed a lot of people. Perhaps if there had been a Freespace 3 to tie things up neatly they would have stopped being annoyed? I guess we'll never know. The point is there is a risk people won't like what you're doing, but unfortunately that is something that's a possibility with each and every decision you make. Which brings me to the best advice I can give.

Write something you would like to play.

You aren't going to please everyone so don't even try. Chance are a lot of people would like to play the same campaign as you. So write for yourself. Oh and you may find that when you've finished the campaign you didn't enjoy it as much as you thought would, but that's pretty normal I think. I know after playing Raider Wars I will do my next campaign slightly differently. But at the same time I will take the things I did enjoy from that campaign and build on them.

[Ker.Soth]

OK I give up, the post stays

As far as tied up story elements and and subplots go, this is what I think.

It all boils down to the size of the story. The bigger it is, the easier it is to tie up the knots, let subplots hang in mid-air, and generally do whatever you want, cause you have a lot of room to maneuever. If the B5 series was a campaign it would have over 120 missions. Plenty of room to explain everything, hide everything and re-invent everything.

ACTA only has room for one plot, a couple of subplots and definately no loose ends. Apart from the obvious of course.

Small stories need few tightly knit elements that will to make them work. Or they will seem like a waste of time.

Medium stories may have some loose ends, but they may drift if you're not careful.

Big stories. Well, anything goes. In big stories you come to the point were you join things reflexively cause they've taken up so much of your time and braincells.

Can these things be done at will? Most definately.JMS is not a magician. Nor was Tolkien or hundreds of other accomplished writers. All you need is time and experience. My first pen&paper campaign was a catastrophe, my last a thriumph. But they were 10 years apart.

[Vidmaster]

yeah, this discussion is definitly something, great idea darkmaster 

Subplots are nice, I they reward the player with something  Problem is to strike a balance.
If you dont focus on you main plot, the rest will feel like it's just there to artificially lengthen the game's lasting time.
(good examples of a misuse of subplots are generally all movie-based games)

I for once don't like a lot of loose ends. However, the question is what do you mean by loose ends? For example, I really like the ending of the Babylon 5 series despite its many open questions.
However if you pay attention to the show, you will find that most of them are answered (or at least it is hinted at the answer) during the course of the plot.

What I don't like are for example badly executed cliffhangers like my own in FH2260 which I personally altered in the newest version because it was so cheap  or in many recent big budget games.

Also pretty silly are subplots that are started but never end. If you happen to know Prey, a pretty cool FPS, in the first half of the game you encounter strange spirits that attack you. An all knowing character even states that these ghosts never appeared before you arrived. However, after three encounters, you never ever see them again and nobody mentions or explains their nature to you.

We are talking about videogames here, which usually dont have a narrative that equals those of other medias.

[darkmaster]

Hi, thanks for your advice.

Currently after cutting 4 first missions from the campaign I'm planning to make a mini-campaign from these missions.
I have draft a plot line for this mini-campaign and now I need someone to verify if it is good enough before starting modify the files.

If anyone is interested, please send me a PM, I'll send you the plot.
Thanks

 
 

[Skullar]

Explanation :

1. BABYLON 5 series : a wing of zephyrs appear out of no where. It is quite illogical.

You expect it to be the beginning of a marvelous and stunning plot, embedded in the great scheme of things. WOW ! Its great what JMS comes up with !!!


2. TBP : a wing of zephyrs appear out of no where. It is quite illogical.

You think : ah, well... again more things to shoot at. The whole campaign has been this way.


3. other TBP : a wing of zephyrs appear out of no where. It is quite illogical.

You think : So far everything has been consistent, might be the beginning of something great, but there better BE an explanation somewhere in the future !!!!!


conclusio : either it shall be explainable, ot the player should at least have the feeling one will come soon. Otherwise he'll assume its just targets in yet-another pointless skirmish.

[Ker.Soth]

But there hasn't been a pointed skirmish since the invention of firearms!!

I made a funny, hehe..