Emotion And RPGs? Indies of the Round Table #3
Once a month (well, ideally) we bring together several of the top indie RPG developers to tackle questions about indie game development, RPGs, and game design. They range from experienced vets with years of experience doing what they do, to new developers making a splash with their freshman projects; hardcore to casual; freeware to commercial; single-player to massively multiplayer game makers; and hardcore to casual.

Previously, we've discussed "Why Indie RPGs?" and "What Does the Future Hold for Indies?"

This month, we get emotional.

QUESTION:
As one of the more powerful genres for storytelling and character, computer and console RPGs have demonstrated some potential to bring out emotional responses in players - from shock over Sephiroth's notorious murder of Aeris, to the overwhelming desire to smack the smirk off of Jon Irenicus's face, to the very disturbing decision of the war between "sister" vampires Jeanette and Therese, to some marvelous unscripted moments of panic or vengeance. RPGs may not have proven that they can pack an emotional wallop, but they have flirted with the territory.

So my question(s) to indie RPG developers this month is this: Is emotional impact something you try to achieve in your games? If so, what do you do to involve the player emotionally in your game, and what sort of emotions do you try to bring out in the player? If not, is this something you'd consider worth doing in an indie RPG? Why or why not?

And here are the responses:

Thomas Riegsecker, Basilisk Games ("Eschalon: Book 1"):
I don't know if emotion is a big factor in RPGs or not. Certainly here are some console RPGs (Final Fantasy comes to mind) that provide an emotionally charged storyline in lieu of a deep role-playing experience. Short of that, I'm not sure that an RPG is the most effective format for delivering an emotionally loaded story. To get a meaningful emotional response from a player requires a carefully delivered storyline, which is hard to accomplish with an RPG where the story is erratically paced and rarely linear.

Regardless, I do think it is important to give the player a sense of personal involvement in the story. In Eschalon: Book I the player has a meeting with his brother, which for as short of an encounter that it is, generated a surprising number of responses from players who were moved by it. So yes, I think emotion can work well in individual scripted situations where feelings of empathy, anger or fear can be an immediate factor to drive the player forward to his or her next goal.

Mike Hommel, Hamumu Games ("Loonyland 2: Winter Woods"):
You know, I haven't seen these purported emotional responses from RPGs. Whenever I see an RPG try for something like that, it just makes me laugh at how trite and self-important it seems. Honestly, to go from one second having my little chibi pixel man swing his gun-sword at air to make big numbers float up from an eyeball monster across the room to the next second proclaiming undying love for the poisoned princess... I'm not exactly choked up.

I think text adventures (and adventures in general) have a significant edge in this matter over RPGs. They control things much more and don't have you spending hours dealing with numbers and statistics. They are closer to movies and books, and both do elicit emotional reaction of all kinds. I suppose that's a slap in the face to the people who make such a big deal out of the interactivity of games, but there's no question to me that the very interactivity is what prevents you from making an emotional connection. At least the interactivity we can currently offer. I guess it also has to do with empathy - if I see a real person emoting, I automatically feel some measure of that. A cartoon emoting is just silly, unless it's extremely well done. And right now, games are cartoons.

Except Sega CD games - now those are an emotional thrill ride! And again, the interactivity stunts it. Even if there's a dramatic cry over the fallen princess, I'm not engaged because to get to that I was fighting an army of orcs. My mind is in number-crunching, orc-crushing mode, and I see the cry as the very technical outcome of that interaction, not as a real event, like I would perceive a movie scene (even if it's literally done as a filmed movie scene in the game). I just hit Retry and go again to see if I can save her. Not because I care about her, I just want to win the game.

But no, it's not something I even desire to try. The only emotions I am after are laughter, a sense of triumph, and as little frustration as I can manage. But that's just the style of what I want to do. I would be impressed with a non-ridiculous RPG story that felt emotional. But I sure won't be providing it!

Steven Peeler, Soldak Entertainment ("Depths of Peril"):
Of course we try to bring out emotional responses from our players with our storytelling. What’s the point of a story (in any medium) that doesn’t evoke some kind of emotional response from the player? Not much in my opinion.

However, games have a huge advantage compared to other mediums: games are interactive. Instead of just telling or showing the reader/viewer something scary, we set off a trap, make a group of monsters attack your town, or have another covenant raid your house. Since it is happening to you, it is much more emotional. I mean which is more emotional, the guy on the screen finds the item he has been searching for or you finally find that unique two-handed sword you have been searching for for the last 3 days? I would bet you finding the sword is much more emotional. There are tons of ways we try to evoke emotions from the player like this (and so do other games whether they realize it or not): spawning unique items, placing rare chests, town attacks, intense boss fights, leveling up, deadly traps, and many other things.

Georgina Bensley, Hanako Games ("Cute Knight Deluxe"):
I like big emotional scenes. I like them lots. I'm hesitant about using them in RPGs, though. Far too often, supposedly emotional interactions in RPGs fall prey to Stupid Cutscene disease - in which stuff happens that would absolutely not happen if you had control of the character during the cutscene like you do in the rest of the game. Sometimes that's bad writing or bad world design (you really can't have cheap bring-people-back-from-dead items without wreaking havoc on dramatic storylines) but often it's just a painful contrast between complete control and complete lack of control.

So currently, I prefer to keep emotional content fairly low-key in the RPG, and leave the Major Angst to the visual novel. For all the RPG projects I have secretly bubbling at the moment, the emotions I most want to inspire in the player are happiness and a sense of achievement. I want them to smile.

This certainly isn't a hard rule for me, it's just affected by the style and the scope of the projects I have going at the moment.

Vince D. Weller, Iron Tower Studio ("Age of Decadence"):
I think it goes without saying that emotions are very important in RPGs. These emotions should range from "Oh my god! Will you look at the graphics! They are breathtakingly amazing!" or "AHHH! I'm blind! Turn the fucking bloom off!"

How to achieve it, how to bring the player to this emotional state is the real question. There are different methods and professional techniques. While I hope you understand that I can't share professional secrets with you, here is a tip: get rid of most designers - they are a useless scum anyway - and replace them with graphics artists. Your game can become a huge success with one or less designers, but it simply won't do well if you have less 100 artists.

Jason Compton, Planewalker Games ("The Broken Hourglass"):
Yes, we're certainly looking to evoke emotional responses. There are a number of reasons to play a game through to completion (and then come back and play it again), including dogged determination, curiosity about "what's behind the next corner?", new rules exploits to try, and so forth... but one of the most enduring reasons are characters that players enjoy interacting with and responding to.

We're using a number of devices to that end. We put the PC in a situation where they have to make a crucial decision early on which should provoke an emotional response. We give joinable NPCs a range of motivations and priorities, ways to explore their own stories and in some cases romantic entanglements.

I'm not sure there's any particular emotion we're actively *avoiding*. The real trick is to avoid harping too much on emotional themes of despair and loss. Finding a way to pace humor, friendship, and romance in the midst of death and destruction is hard enough in linear media, considerably moreso when the pace and the sequence of the story are to some extent controlled by the player's whim. So we'll see how well it all works out.

Conclusion:
There is no conclusion. It seems like the panel is divided on this one. While emotional impact is a natural aspect of storytelling, and most RPGs aspire to tell some kind of story (even the very open-ended ones), the indie developers apparently favor a light touch here. None feel compelled to create an overwrought melodrama of Final Fantasy proportions, but instead prefer to focus on simpler fare.

Two creators emphasized other story-heavy genres - text adventures and "visual novels" - as more ripe territory for deeper storylines and emotional content. And Vince offered to share some of the emotions that come from developing games.

So... What say you? Do you prefer a game with lots of emotion-evoking situations, or do you prefer it to get out of your way and let you play?

I want to thank all of the participants in this month's Indies of the Round Table. If you have suggestions, or simply want to let us know how much you enjoyed it (or didn't), feel free to post in the comments section or over at the forum. Or just email me (jayb) here at rampantgames.com. And if you did enjoyed this article, be sure and support the participants by clicking on the links by their names and giving their games a try.)

Labels: Indie Evangelism, Roleplaying Games

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