How to present a complex backstory in a cRPG?

I was just stumbling over a recent blog entry about Morrowind on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Now, this is not exactly a new game, so I was a bit suprised about someone discovering the core of this game in 2009. The reason why I post this thread is this:

Alec Meer said:

Now, my plan with this series had been to avoid the core narrative for as long as possible (even though it’s something I never got around to the first time I played Morrowind.) Then a funny thing happened. It became compelling. Based on how unsatisfactory I’d found Oblivion and Fallout 3’s main plotlines to be, this was not something I’d been expecting...

I’ll confess I’ve not cared a jot for the lore of this land before now. It largely seems to be very simple concepts unnaturally stretched over unwieldy speeches and too many pages of the history books that fill the stores and homes of Vvardenfell: far too much information, and so detached from my own existence. The Last Dwarf, though – that really fascinates me. To come face-to-face with something spoken of only in confused myths and whispers is almost a miracle. In general, whenever I meet any hitherto unencountered species, it tries to kill me. This one looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before, but he also talks.

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This means it took an exotic NPC to spill a few beans for the author to finally get interested in the game and the backstory. Most of Morrowind's backstory is hidden in books. If you don't read those, you will probably never get more than a cursory overview of what this all is about.

My own impression was that many of the setting's conflicts were not easily recognizable in the game itself. It was a bit static and also a bit pc to really get deeply into themes like discrimination or conflicts between the different parts of society, which made the stories in the books so interesting. Now, I think that Morrowind's backstory is exceptionally complex compared to other RPG's. I'm not sure I know how to do this better in sandbox game like this and would like to hear some ideas.

In my opinion a complex backstory should be embedded within the world so much that it appears as "natural" to its inhabitants.

Which includes that some inhabitants might know more than others about it.

In movies, they call this exposition and it's always a problem.

My own personal taste in terms of how I want a backstory presented, is simply to let me experience it at my own pace.

I think a short introduction with a bit of ambiguity is great, and then let the backstory slowly emerge through character interaction, books, logs, or whatever. I really enjoy the System Shock approach of having logs scattered around, and the first one handled it best by not having logs DIRECTLY related to the area you've just entered. Make the player work it out for himself - and if he cares, he WILL work it out.

Don't force it down his throat.

That's easy!

(1) Have a big ol' block of text scroll across the screen in the starting credits, like this:



(2) Or, have a lady with a husky voice do about ten minutes of narration, while playing scenes of magnificent battles in days long gone by, like this:




Seriously, though -- I much prefer if the back story isn't rammed down my throat; it should be embedded in the world, and sort of unfold at its own pace. There aren't all that many games that do this well, and IMO Morrowind is one of the better ones. It's not just the books, it's also the architecture, clothes, artifacts, faces, nature... the whole shebang.

I think the morrowind backstory is really good and I even began to look for books............................ but the problem is I am playing a game, if the backstory is in books they might as well sell these books separetly as................. books!

For a game I think they have to do it in a better way, audio logs which play while you are playing is cool IMHO ( like bioshock system shock etc ) but still, they could release it as an audio tape Games is all about sound, music, visuals and interaction togheter! To be truly successful you have to use all of these togheter in my opinion.

I don't think back stories are crucial for non sandbox games , in "The Witcher" you had to deal with reality and background played little role when you had issues like racism or corruption straight into your face , same goes to Bloodlines .
On the other hand background adds immersion when things are nor clear and you have to take a step into a reality that is not yours , meeting people with hidden agendas and having extra time to pull out of quests and explore not only the land but people , society and institutions which is the case of Morrowind.

Book reading added longevity to Morrowind , i am always collecting books and reading them , sometimes entire game sessions were dedicated to book reading.
Some books reveal propaganda (mostly temple books), others historical background (mostly cultist books) and some of them (notably one you can find in a house you visit in order to murder the owner) talk about landmarks you can find into the game.
The fun part are historical books because the more you read the less you are willing to end the main quest .

Tragos said:

and some of them (notably one you can find in a house you visit in order to murder the owner) talk about landmarks you can find into the game.

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Do you remember what guild that quest was for?

JDR13 said:

Do you remember what guild that quest was for?

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No i don't ( it isn't Morag Tong) , it is the nervous guy in Balmora and his house is only accessible from the roof

Tragos said:

Morag Tong

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Thanks, that's what i was guessing when you mentioned "murder". I never could bring myself to join them.

*Edit* Oops, I responded before you edited your post. So it wasn't the Morag Tong after all...

That book is something that I would have really liked, I'll try to remember it when I replay the game.

That'll be House Hlaalu.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

In my opinion a complex backstory should be embedded within the world so much that it appears as "natural" to its inhabitants.

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DArtagnan said:

My own personal taste in terms of how I want a backstory presented, is simply to let me experience it at my own pace.
Don't force it down his throat.

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Prime Junta said:

Seriously, though -- I much prefer if the back story isn't rammed down my throat; it should be embedded in the world, and sort of unfold at its own pace. There aren't all that many games that do this well, and IMO Morrowind is one of the better ones. It's not just the books, it's also the architecture, clothes, artifacts, faces, nature... the whole shebang.

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Tragos said:

On the other hand background adds immersion when things are nor clear and you have to take a step into a reality that is not yours , meeting people with hidden agendas and having extra time to pull out of quests and explore not only the land but people , society and institutions which is the case of Morrowind.

Book reading added longevity to Morrowind , i am always collecting books and reading them , sometimes entire game sessions were dedicated to book reading.

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I see that you all mostly agree on this, and you don't seem to see a problem here as you liked how Morrowind did it. For full disclosure, I also liked this in Morrowind, and I was reading the books because I was curious to find out more of what is behind the surface of the world.

Nevertheless, I don't think Morrowind used the full potential of "show don't tell", which you can do without having to ram it down people's throats. I guess, besides the Telvanni towers, the world looked relatively homogeneous at first glimpse, with all elements happily stirred into each other.

But I think this is due to the sandbox approach, in order to facilitate the player to do everything at whatever time he wants. The second problem is that you are (nearly) the only character moving in that world, which renders existing conflicts somewhat intangible.

@Prime Junta: Heh, those images are awesome, and they look somewhat familiar. I guess I saw them in some pen&paper game discussion before, but it's nice to see them again .

GothicGothicness said:

I think the morrowind backstory is really good and I even began to look for books............................ but the problem is I am playing a game, if the backstory is in books they might as well sell these books separetly as................. books!

For a game I think they have to do it in a better way, audio logs which play while you are playing is cool IMHO ( like bioshock system shock etc ) but still, they could release it as an audio tape Games is all about sound, music, visuals and interaction togheter! To be truly successful you have to use all of these togheter in my opinion.

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But how would you do this in a game like Morrowind? Audio logs or radio are out. You would have to have dream sequences or NPCs talking. The former is only suitable for specific quest situations, though. And you don't want to have a rehabilitation trainer for released criminals follow you all the time, chewing your ears off.

Turjan said:

I see that you all mostly agree on this, and you don't seem to see a problem here as you liked how Morrowind did it.

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As a sidenote, I never played Morrowind.

I was rather referring to Divinity 1.

Plus the NLT.

Prime Junta said:

(2) Or, have a lady with a husky voice do about ten minutes of narration, while playing scenes of magnificent battles in days long gone by (..)

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That actually works fairly well. I also loved the prologue from Lady in the Water. History in itself is pretty boring. But when you can see or experience images and sound along with it, it's a different matter.

All in all, I can see benefits to both the prologue and the "embedded in a world" approach. "Show, don't tell" probably lends itself best to situations in which there is simply too much to tell, like explaining a whole society or universe. I'd still want a classic intro when it's vital information to understanding the reasons for the immediate story that's being told in a game or movie. Unless withholding that information is being used as a plot device on its own, of course.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

As a sidenote, I never played Morrowind.

I was rather referring to Divinity 1.

Plus the NLT.

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Sorry for misinterpreting you. With a game like Divinity 1, the task is of course much easier than with a game like Morrowind. But if I remember correctly, Div1 managed quite well to bring the world alive, at least in the section between that initial dungeon and the linear hack&slash finale.

If you want to read some story from Morrowind that is completely free of spoilers (aside from the skill effect), because it has literally nothing to do with the game itself and is not even based in the Morrowind province, go and read Dance in Fire. What it does is showcasing exciting background material that, in this case, was never used for a game. But there's similar game-relevant stuff available, too.

NLT? It took me a while, but do you perhaps mean Nordland-Trilogie? I never played that one.

Arhu said:

That actually works fairly well. I also loved the prologue from Lady in the Water. History in itself is pretty boring. But when you can see or experience images and sound along with it, it's a different matter.

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That looks like a low budget version that's completely sufficient .

Arhu said:

All in all, I can see benefits to both the prologue and the "embedded in a world" approach. "Show, don't tell" probably lends itself best to situations in which there is simply too much to tell, like explaining a whole society or universe. I'd still want a classic intro when it's vital information to understanding the reasons for the immediate story that's being told in a game or movie. Unless withholding that information is being used as a plot device on its own, of course.

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I don't see this as "either or" issue, but a combination of both approaches is the way most games go. At least in case the whole background of the game doesn't fit in a one minute intro, anyway .

Alrik Fassbauer said:

As a sidenote, I never played Morrowind.

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Seriously Alrik? If you like first-person sandbox style, it doesn't get much better than Morrowind....

Have you played any of the other Elder Scrolls games?

But how would you do this in a game like Morrowind? Audio logs or radio are out. You would have to have dream sequences or NPCs talking. The former is only suitable for specific quest situations, though. And you don't want to have a rehabilitation trainer for released criminals follow you all the time, chewing your ears off.

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TW did it quite well in some parts, with pictures and audio as somebody mentioned. Some Jrpgs let you play things which happend in the past to learn some about history... also an intressing approach. Maybe a magical picture book is a good idea? which has some interaction also ?

I do not like to read books on my computer screen and I do not play games to read books..... Morrowind, wizardry and ultima are the only games where I acctually tried to find and read as many books as possible becasue it had very good books, still my eyes where hurting after I read a long book on screen. I love how interessing things happen when you read books in wiz 7 though............. ( don't want to spoil it )

I tend to like it when the game *involves* the player in the backstory. Arcanum is a pretty good example I think. At the beginning, you have all this lore and backstory stuff, and it kinda feels optional. But as the story goes on, you get more and more involved with it, researching it and eventually basically becoming a part of it.
Because it feels relevant.

On the other hand, you have something like Mass Effect. I know people praised the codex a lot, and that you could read all this back story and/or general lore of the universe and the races etc. But to me, it just doesn't do anything for me because it never feels like it's somehow important to the game or the player. I mean, I couldn't care less about reading of some absurd race that I will never get to encounter or interact with or even see referenced in the game anyways.

I mean, I can still read it of course if I find something that is well-written and fun to read about it. But ultimately for me, in an interactive medium like gaming, all the effort behind the Mass Effect universe (I'm not sure how deep it is so not sure how much effort was put behind it) was just a waste, and that effort could've been put forth to making something interesting for the player to actually interact with or have some meaning.

GothicGothicness said:

TW did it quite well in some parts, with pictures and audio as somebody mentioned. Some Jrpgs let you play things which happend in the past to learn some about history... also an intressing approach. Maybe a magical picture book is a good idea? which has some interaction also ?

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Those are quite good approaches, although they might be a bit more difficult to introduce in a complete sandbox like MW. An interactive picture book in the Census and Excise book would have been nice for me, though .

GothicGothicness said:

I do not like to read books on my computer screen and I do not play games to read books..... Morrowind, wizardry and ultima are the only games where I acctually tried to find and read as many books as possible becasue it had very good books, still my eyes where hurting after I read a long book on screen. I love how interessing things happen when you read books in wiz 7 though............. ( don't want to spoil it )

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Just use spoiler tags. I'm near 100% sure that I will never play Wiz7.

Starwars said:

I tend to like it when the game *involves* the player in the backstory. Arcanum is a pretty good example I think. At the beginning, you have all this lore and backstory stuff, and it kinda feels optional. But as the story goes on, you get more and more involved with it, researching it and eventually basically becoming a part of it.
Because it feels relevant.

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Hmm. I will have to give that game a chance one day, I guess. I'm not quite sure why I never played this one.

Starwars said:

On the other hand, you have something like Mass Effect. I know people praised the codex a lot, and that you could read all this back story and/or general lore of the universe and the races etc. But to me, it just doesn't do anything for me because it never feels like it's somehow important to the game or the player. I mean, I couldn't care less about reading of some absurd race that I will never get to encounter or interact with or even see referenced in the game anyways.

I mean, I can still read it of course if I find something that is well-written and fun to read about it. But ultimately for me, in an interactive medium like gaming, all the effort behind the Mass Effect universe (I'm not sure how deep it is so not sure how much effort was put behind it) was just a waste, and that effort could've been put forth to making something interesting for the player to actually interact with or have some meaning.

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I don't mind to have a glimpse at stuff that is not directly relevant to the game itself and don't feel like this is wasted. But I also had no problems in MW with that, and I'm sure that's not the majority verdict. But I can see where you come from. This is another example where stuff is not really shown in game, just told.

JDR13 said:

Seriously Alrik? If you like first-person sandbox style, it doesn't get much better than Morrowind....

Have you played any of the other Elder Scrolls games?

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Not so far.

I do have Morrowind, though, but the last time I tried and tried it, it refused to run. It froze immediately after the loading screen, when the intro was to be displayed (as I assume).

It *might* run now, since I've cleaned up my system a bit then, and Majesty, which had a similar problem then, was able to run afterwards (the leaning process).

I hesitate to run it now, since I'd like to try out Divinity 2 first - whether it runs on my current system, just to determine how much I'll need to upgrade.

I've also tried Arena a long time ago when it had become Freeware again, but then my system was too fast for it, that was before i discovered DOSBOX for myself.

And since then i had been concentrating myself rather on Drakensang ...

Apart from that, I never played Oblivion either.