Plot Does Matter

by Jeff Adashek 

Before I get to the meat of my editorial, I would like to take a moment to publicly respond to an e-mail I received from one Peter Zwissler. (Yes, this has a bearing on this editorial, so please bear with me.)

Dear Peter,

First of all, please show me one place where I have ever idenitified myself as a "churchie." Until then, please do not make assumptions about my attitude, my background, or my opinion. Secondly, you are correct in saying that the story writers can write what they want. But by that same token, I have every right to judge their writing and criticize its flaws. Thirdly, to the best of my knowledge I have no first-hand experience at staring at the interior of my *derriere*. Finally, what is wrong is not religion but the plot-- and because the plot is the cornerstone of the electronic RPG, what is wrong with the plot is wrong with the game.

Jeff Adashek

The final sentence of my reply to Peter is in a nutshell the point of this editorial (a reply to Desmond Gaban's editorial "RPG Standards and Subjectivity").

I would like to begin with a simple claim:

Every completable video game, whether fighting, action, shoot-em-up, puzzle-solving, RPG, or any other genre outside of sports, has a concrete plot line.

Plot, for our purposes, is the storyline of the game. It is what keeps the game moving; in genres outside of RPGs it is almost exclusively a sequence of shifting stages and the game's ending, and is not all that important in determining whether playing the game is enjoyable. In RPGs, however, the plot plays a much larger role.

Why the difference? Because of what the gamer expects when s/he plays the different genres. The names are the big tipoff. Fighting game fans primarily expect fighting, action game fans expect fast-paced thumb-blistering action, shoot-em-up fans expect guns and explosions and plenty action (action games and shoot-em-up games are frequently one and the same, though not always), puzzle-game fans expect to solve puzzles, and RPG fans expect to, as the name implies, roleplay.

This is where Gaban, in his editorial, falls off the mark. His assertion that gameplay is of supreme importance is true for most of the above genres. Plot is not essential to a side-scrolling action game (though its inclusion turned an otherwise-average game called Ninja Gaiden into one of the greatest NES games of all time, and has done similar good things for a PC flight simulator called Wing Commander), or a fighting game. Gameplay is essential to these games because the gameplay and the game interface-- the engine which allows the player to control the fighter / commando / ninja / cursor / whatever to fight / run / jump / shoot / swing / solve the puzzle/etc.-- are one and the same.

RPGs, however, are different. Gameplay and game interface are not one and the same here, because unlike the rest of the above categories, the RPG genre was not designed with video games in mind.

The game interface of role-playing games is just that: role-playing. It's creating a character(s) and / or selecting an existing character(s) and, as that character(s), interacting with another world and experiencing interesting things. That is what is essential to an RPG.

Unfortunately, RPGs as they were originally conceived offer almost unlimited freedom, refereed only by a living, immediately present Game Master (GM) who decides what the players can and cannot do. No computer can duplicate that kind of experience, because no designer can forsee every possible player action, and a computer, unlike a human GM, has no creativity and cannot react to unforseen player actions.

That means that an electronic RPG (by this, I mean any game that is electronically run and played by only one player at a time-- console RPGs and computer RPGs both fall into this category) must out of sheer necessity limit the player's options.

But that same limiting means that the initiative and responsibility for creating a story to experience has been removed from the player's hands.

Guess whose hands they fall into?

For an electronic RPG, it's the game designers' job to not only create a game engine which will let the player explore the world, but to also create a sequence of interesting events-- a plotline / story-- for the player to experience. Without a good plotline, what you're left with is repeating few options-- mostly walking around and fighting battles-- which will swiftly degenerate into monotony and boredom. And if the gamer is bored, then the RPG has failed to live up to the gamer's expectations.

Gaban is not completely wrong; good gameplay (e.g. party size, item interface, battle mode, etc.) is essential to a good RPG. However, it is not the standard, but the bare minimum.

It is the plot, which takes the place in an electronic RPG of unfettered player freedom, that is the standard by which RPGs are to be judged.