3 ms·

It's something I've been saying for years honestly. Most game writing is bad. This has always been the case. The result is that gamers have very low expectation

It's something I've been saying for years honestly. Most game writing is bad. This has always been the case. The result is that gamers have very low expectations for the writing. And for many people now, their primary exposure to writing is through videogames and blockbuster movies, so they don't have any other baseline for comparing against. I also think that the quality of the execution matters more than the actual story. A lot of games have basically the same stories but one will be praised and the other not, because one executes the story better. Anyways, my main point is that standards for game writing is so low that really mediocre stuff gets a lot of praise by comparison to even worse stuff.

bee_rider 3y ago
D&D players too; your campaign will be a combination of improv and the writing of your friend who is DMing. Everyone is doing it for fun and nobody is a professional, the “writing” expectations are not super high.
- corethree 3y ago
  The lore for D&D is extremely well done. Better than even a novel. The reason is because the game is all about lore, so the focus was on world building. While for a story the lore is their only to serve the story. If there was some sort of writing Pulitzer prize just for world building, D&D would be up there.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    Dungeons and Dragons is a game system, not a setting. When you're taking about the setting that D&D 5e uses, you're taking about a setting called The Forgotten Realms. There are actually dozens of novels set in The Forgotten Realms, going back decades, which is part of why there is so much world building done. And believe me that while many of those novels are fun reads, none of them are winning any prizes for writing.
    - corethree 3y ago
      I'm not talking about the novels. I'm talking about the dungeons and dragons setting which is part of the game. Forgotten realms is just one "region" in the setting. It is one universe in a multiverse of regions. This multiverse is called Planescape. All d&d games that I know about utilize that setting. In Planescape any arch way or opening can be a potential portal to another realm. You just need the right key. The key could be an object, a leaf, or a childhood memory or a song that can take you to another world when you walk through the archway of which there are an infinite amount. The forgotten realms is one of these places. But I'm repeating myself. You played torment so you know this as it takes place in the city of sigil the city that lies at the nexus of the multiverse. I mean there are books dedicated to just describing the d&d setting and if they gave out awards for settings, these books would win. The novels aren't part of this. That's what I'm saying.
      - bee_rider 3y ago
        It is a good setting for running a game in, in the sense that it is an everything-setting where you can justify access to any planes. It produces a framework where you can throw ideas at the wall and they stick pretty well. I don’t think this sort of flexibility indicates great writing in the literary sense. It is like a better thought out version of Marvel’s multiverse stuff: a really functional way of giving somebody working in a setting the latitude to select parts of that setting as needed. It is designed by an organization to achieve a goal for the game system, not to be great art.
        corethree 3y ago
        The goal for the game system is created to facilitate great stories. It's art, and no other piece of fantasy lore matches it in depth, breadth and consistency to my knowledge. The amount of artists and writers who created it makes it art in my eyes. There's no other utility for it other than story telling either. If that's not art, what is it? The snobs at the Pulitzer who haven't even awarded a win to sci Fi novel may think otherwise but to each their own. In terms of the topic at hand, fantasy lore, there's few that can rival d&d. Let's be real too. Baldurs gate and torment weren't made because of the great d&d gameplay system... The creators wanted to utilize the lore.

bee_rider 3y ago

D&D players too; your campaign will be a combination of improv and the writing of your friend who is DMing. Everyone is doing it for fun and nobody is a professional, the “writing” expectations are not super high.

corethree 3y ago
The lore for D&D is extremely well done. Better than even a novel. The reason is because the game is all about lore, so the focus was on world building. While for a story the lore is their only to serve the story. If there was some sort of writing Pulitzer prize just for world building, D&D would be up there.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  Dungeons and Dragons is a game system, not a setting. When you're taking about the setting that D&D 5e uses, you're taking about a setting called The Forgotten Realms. There are actually dozens of novels set in The Forgotten Realms, going back decades, which is part of why there is so much world building done. And believe me that while many of those novels are fun reads, none of them are winning any prizes for writing.
  - corethree 3y ago
    I'm not talking about the novels. I'm talking about the dungeons and dragons setting which is part of the game. Forgotten realms is just one "region" in the setting. It is one universe in a multiverse of regions. This multiverse is called Planescape. All d&d games that I know about utilize that setting. In Planescape any arch way or opening can be a potential portal to another realm. You just need the right key. The key could be an object, a leaf, or a childhood memory or a song that can take you to another world when you walk through the archway of which there are an infinite amount. The forgotten realms is one of these places. But I'm repeating myself. You played torment so you know this as it takes place in the city of sigil the city that lies at the nexus of the multiverse. I mean there are books dedicated to just describing the d&d setting and if they gave out awards for settings, these books would win. The novels aren't part of this. That's what I'm saying.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      It is a good setting for running a game in, in the sense that it is an everything-setting where you can justify access to any planes. It produces a framework where you can throw ideas at the wall and they stick pretty well. I don’t think this sort of flexibility indicates great writing in the literary sense. It is like a better thought out version of Marvel’s multiverse stuff: a really functional way of giving somebody working in a setting the latitude to select parts of that setting as needed. It is designed by an organization to achieve a goal for the game system, not to be great art.
      - corethree 3y ago
        The goal for the game system is created to facilitate great stories. It's art, and no other piece of fantasy lore matches it in depth, breadth and consistency to my knowledge. The amount of artists and writers who created it makes it art in my eyes. There's no other utility for it other than story telling either. If that's not art, what is it? The snobs at the Pulitzer who haven't even awarded a win to sci Fi novel may think otherwise but to each their own. In terms of the topic at hand, fantasy lore, there's few that can rival d&d. Let's be real too. Baldurs gate and torment weren't made because of the great d&d gameplay system... The creators wanted to utilize the lore.