I've been touching up several areas of the script, and I finished a new area. I've taken my character through the paces of a few scenes to ensure everything feels satisfying. For example, with regards to the dialog, I'm cautiously avoiding info dumping the reader with too much history -- a mistake I feel the Age of Decadence PC game commits. I want my world to feel alive, but not at the expense of it reading like a history book. I initially introduced historical details to the player slowly across the main script, until I discovered something I laughably overlooked as I was modding my scenes -- random NPC villager dialog! I overlooked this because my direct inspiration was from Japanese visual novels, which don't have the luxury of utilizing random NPC conversations, but with NWN I can include my history as optional content, told through the lives of NPC's. I can also create in-game books for readers who want to further embrace my world's subtleties. I feel the difference between my mod and Age of Decadence is Age of Decadence sometimes force feeds this history to the player. My approach is more subtle and optional. For example, one NPC mentions he's paranoid by the Rooks standing around the city, like statues, staring ominously at everyone. From here, you can engage him for more details and offer your own opinion, or just ignore him. These conversations will provide insight into the world, while providing clues to the tension surrounding the city's inhabitants.
My world isn't Faerun or borrowed from anyone else's. I made it myself, and while I don't have the time to put as much detail into it as the Forgotten Realms would, I needed it to be my own world due to certain advanced technologies and bastardized Christian religious views to make my story work. I wasn't about to selfishly force these plot points into an existing world, and again, I didn't want to get caught up in world history. My focus is on the characters. I understand a certain amount of history must be told to make my world feel believable, but once I feel I've fulfilled that quota, it's on to the action. This train of thought is something I borrowed from Black Lilith adult visual novels, where the character's universe is loosely introduced to frame the content, but for the most part the focus is on the characters and what they do to one another.I'll try to showcase more of the conversations in my next blog post, and expand on the character section in this blog. I don't want to reveal all the characters, but I have a few more locked down that I've discovered are too major to ignore that I'd like to discuss.
Presenting the setting is always a major struggle when creating any fantasy story, I think. The more I write, the more I become convinced that it should always be as much about showing as possible, rather than telling.
ReplyDeleteExposition dumps are not fun to read, and they do not really contribute in a tangible way to making the world feel alive, though it's fair enough to do it in books in some games, and I think this would be one of those cases.
Whenever there's something about the world that I want to share, which couldn't be properly explored through the main story, I often create small side story for my characters to go through for that. Pretty basic of course, but quite functional - I often find ways to tie these side stories to the main story quite well as I work on them like this.
I suppose the RPG equivalent would be creating a side quest, though that's obviously always going to be significantly more trouble than just dumping you notes in a book in some corner of the world. Creating optional conversations for the exposition seems like a good compromise between the two, presenting the information in a more lifelike way, without expending as much effort as an entire side quest would.
Good to hear you're not dead. Looking forward to the game
ReplyDeleteUpdate?
ReplyDeleteWorking on some CKII mods atm, so nothing substantial, no. Sorry, I still have it on my mind and take story notes though, if it's any consolation, lol.
ReplyDeleteHoping you update soon, NWN module scene for this genre is feeling pretty dead these days since Demonheart switched platforms and Gladiatrix finished up.
ReplyDeleteI've been so busy modding for Crusader Kings II atm that I haven't gotten back to this. The Reaper's Due expansion pack also forced me to update all my mods. I definitely want to keep working on NWN though.
ReplyDeleteMy job is starting to slow down quite a bit, as most of the Christmas printing is done. I should have a lot more time to work into this mod as that's happening.