The writing (is it good?)

[RedEntropy]

So I hear a lot of people complain that the quests and writing in FO4 isn't very good. What quests in Fallout (any of them) or in the The Elder Scrolls IP do you feel has the best writing or is has better gameplay and why? I'm curious because I've been researching how Bethesda approaches quest design in preperation for mod I want to create so this could help me create a more engaging player experience. Thanks!

[HoroSaga]

Writing is something that most people are going to find subjective. Something that one person finds to be good writing is something that someone else may find to be terrible writing.

Personally, I liked a lot of aspects of Fallout 4, but I found the writing to be one of the worst parts of the game. I don't feel that it presents a consistently coherent and believable world, with the "rule of cool" - or even just "game logic" - often taking precedent over presenting a consistently believable world (within the confines of the science-fantasy setting). The infamous "Kid in a Fridge" quest is a good example of this kind of sloppy quest design, though it's far from the only example.

But even ignoring that, the writers in Fallout 4 simply take too many narrative shortcuts when interacting with the player. Characters magically know things about the player on a regular basis, simply for the sake of moving the plot along. In some cases this is harmless, such as a character just happening to know that you're a vault dweller even though you never wore a vault suit in front of them. In other cases, it can be very jarring, such as Nick suddenly declaring that you should use your pet dog that you've never mentioned before, so you can track a killer.

EDIT - But, like I said, it's all subjective. There are plenty of folks who just aren't going to care about those kinds of details, and will find the rest of the game good enough to make up for any shortcomings in the writing department.

[RedEntropy]

Interesting, thanks for the input. Those are the things that also jumped out at me while playing as being issues. FO4 tends to distill choices into some NPC character telling you what to do instead of the player being given a choice with different outcomes.

It would be a interesting excercise to take the quests in FO4 and their eventual objective and figure out ways to make them more interesting or choice driven. For example in that quest where you have to track down the killer actually having a few different methods dependent upon what companions you have. Dogmeat obviously acting as a blood hound as per how the quest is actually written but you could also have a option to actually make Nick do real detective work or something else that your Mr Handy robot could do. Would also be fun if the player actually had to think instead of being hand held the entire time.

[mfree]

You have to remember that writing for a game like this is tricky because of the interconnections between stories and having multiple paths. You aren't writing one story, you're writing however many those multiple choices can branch into.

[HoroSaga]

Originally posted by mfree:

You have to remember that writing for a game like this is tricky because of the interconnections between stories and having multiple paths. You aren't writing one story, you're writing however many those multiple choices can branch into.

I'm not so sure that justification works, because it would only selectively apply to the certain elements of the main story - for the most part, the main story is very linear until you progress it past the first several stages (up to the point where you track and kill Kellar). But before that, the player's path is largely predetermined, with little in the way of choice or variation. The player needs to recruit Dogmeat, then he needs to go to Diamond City, then he needs to go rescue Nick, then he needs to use Dogmeat to track Kellar, then he needs to kill Kellar.

It's only after that point that the player gets any significant degree of choice, as new factions are introduced into the narrative. A lot of the sloppy storytelling and narrative shortcuts take place while the story is still largely "on rails", such as the Dogmeat example from above. These are all poor examples of storytelling, especially for a game that's supposed to be "open world" or a game where "choice matters". Nick and Dogmeat are forced into the story simply because no other choices were given to allow the player to track Kellar on their own. Even worse, once Nick and Dogmeat have served that purpose (tracking Kellar), they literally have no direct involvement in the story anymore short of being just another generic companion you can pal around with.

It also does nothing to excuse the stand-alone sidequests, such as the infamous "Kid in a Fridge" quest. Those quests aren't tied to any other quests in the game, and thus there are no significant interconnections or multiple paths to take into consideration when they are being written and implemented. The vast majority of these quests are rather simple, really, generally involving something along the lines of "go there, collect or kill target, return for your reward". The only element of choice in those cases is whether or not you want to haggle over the reward, and occasionally a "Bad Guy" response (such as the hilariously out-of-place option to sell the Kid in a Fridge to a slave trader).

[LeftClickHero]

well the writitng does have its moments of being both good and bad, some of the best writing in the game is the notes and tapes found around that reveolve around the main theme in the game, family.

example, their is a settlement that is filled with super mutants, clearing it out you discover a terminal belonging to a house owner in the bunker basemnt, you learn how he managed to get his kids home before they were led into the school vault, and learn how they wait for months for their mother to get home from hospital.

you also learn the origins of the settlments and why its now under super mutant occupation, the final words from the orignal settlers are a little kid begging their mother, is she returns from the hospital, to go look for them and bring his teddy jangles with her.

the best of the story for me is you can actually go to the hosiptal where the mother is and find her final words too.


another example, is the toymaker workaholic ghoul. before the war he was a workaholic spending most of his days at work being stressed at creatring a new line of robot pony. in his office you find a tape of his daughter all excited at getting the chance to stay with, and how much she misses him.

again the best part, you can find this ghoul dad, where he will tell you to go to a toy factory at the bottom of the map, but you can give him his daughters voice, a voice which he wouldnt of heard in over 200 years. this is not a marked quest either is just something that you can do.


there are a bunch of good stories hidden about in the world of the common wealth, and for me a big part of fallout was finding them and putting the pieaces together

[Trehek]

As someone who writes fiction, I know that it is surprisingly difficult for many people to grasp situations if they break their suspension of disbelief. No matter how fantastic a situation is, the reader needs to be able to relate to it to consider it good writing. While a scifi or fantasy world usually breaks the rules of real life, it should have its own rules and follow them. If it doesn't have rules or seems to break its own rules, situations feel like they make no sense and feel like bad writing.

In a well written game story the NPCs must behave believably, or they must break belief in a deliberate fashion for a specific reason (such as comedy or world style). The player should also have believable choices, so they are able to act according to how they believe they'd need to act in the given situation. An exception to this is conversations where no real choice is intended, and options are only meant as tools for roleplaying the protagonist. Telltale story games have many examples of this, where very different conversation choices all have the same outcome.

The world of Fallout has very strong fictive elements. An alternate history, a very violent mankind, alien creatures and deliberate realism-breaking humour. The world isn't intended to be serious, and certain world-breaking is expected. Many of the in-game terminal entries are an example of this. The uncaring attitude with complete disregard of others is a good example of breaking realism in favor of humour in a way which fits what's expected of the world perfectly.

However, Fallout 4 has many kinds of breaks which can be considered mistakes and/or bad writing. Many of these relate to established lore of the world. Becoming a ghoul isn't supposed to be easy, yet almost every NPC who receives a lethal dose of radiation seems to become one. Becoming a super mutant is also supposed to be somewhat specific, yet they are plentiful.

A huge break in the main plot is the appearance of Father. In an earlier quest, when the player digs into Kellogg's memories, the last scene offers several pieces of information. Shaun is 10 years old. Kellogg's appearance is the same as when the player fought him. The courser, X6-88 is present. On the radio, Piper is mentioned to be in trouble for digging into things. This all suggests that the scene is recent. This is supported with Valentine's earlier remark of Kellogg being in town with a kid and Ellie confirming it - again suggesting that this is a recent event and giving hope of finding Shaun.

Yet, when you enter the Institute, the child Shaun is shown to be a synth and Father claims to be a 60-year-old Shaun. In light of the information, Father is lying, but the options given to the player suggest that he is not. A huge inconsistency in writing. If the player was given the option to refuse to believe, there would be no problem.

This is another good thing to consider. Characters who lie are interesting. A good example is Saadia's quest in Skyrim. She claims that her enemies work for the Thalmor, and her enemies claim that she is. The quest does not provide an in-game truth on the matter, which is interesting in its own way. A truth hidden somewhere would be interesting in a different way. Another good example of lying is Telltale's game Tales from the Borderlands. It has many characters who lie, which creates interesting situations. Another example of interesting lying is the anime series Naruto, where one of the bad guys lays out his plans in a villainous fashion several times, but is again and again proven to have been lying when he did so.

[QaaQer]

Some quality posts in this thread. :-)

I really hated being railroaded into having to kill characters that I had come to know in order to finish the story. It left a really bad taste in my mouth, worse than the taste of Trevor.

[MaximumEffort]

Writing? Bethesda? They do write, but they don't really focus on it.
They do best what they like most - huge games with huge opportunities for exploration and roleplaying. Story is not something they will do on the expense of development time and cost increase and its understandable. They are focusing on what makes it a Bethesda game, not what makes it 'one of the RPGs'. Thats why people love their games.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by HoroSaga:

I'm not so sure that justification works, because it would only selectively apply to the certain elements of the main story - for the most part, the main story is very linear until you progress it past the first several stages (up to the point where you track and kill Kellar). But before that, the player's path is largely predetermined, with little in the way of choice or variation. The player needs to recruit Dogmeat, then he needs to go to Diamond City, then he needs to go rescue Nick, then he needs to use Dogmeat to track Kellar, then he needs to kill Kellar.

Try doing some of those things out of order, you might be suprised :)

[HoroSaga]

Originally posted by sjrekis:

Writing? Bethesda? They do write, but they don't really focus on it.

But the problem with that is that in this case, with Fallout 4, they actually did try to make it a primary focus of the game. During the interviews before FO4 launched, Todd Howard went on the record stating that a large reason for some of the changes, such as the voiced protagonist, were made to deliberately draw more focus to the main character's story. They wanted to have a stronger, more emotional narrative than they achieved in Fallout 3.

That's not a bad idea in theory, but they failed to back up the concept with a solid story. Instead of enhancing the main story, the gameplay was altered in a way that it instead forced the player to pay more attention to one of the weakest points of the game (the writing). Bethesda wanted to offer both a stronger emotion-driven narrative and an "open world game where you can do whatever you want", but the resulting hybrid kind of failed on both counts.

Originally posted by PlatinumClient:

well the writitng does have its moments of being both good and bad, some of the best writing in the game is the notes and tapes found around that reveolve around the main theme in the game, family.

I would agree with that sentiment. Some of the best instances of writing I've found in the game were in various journals, or optional side quests (though some of those also have awful writing - it's a mixed bag). I think the reason for this is because a lot of those "side" locations were handled by other members of the team, while the elements of the "main" story and the "main" locations were handled by the primary writing team (lead by Emil Pagliarulo, I imagine).

In my opinion, Pagliarulo is the weakest link when it comes to writing in the last few Bethesda games. Far Harbor had some fantastic writing, and I'm sure that has some relation to the fact that Pagliarulo doesn't seem to have done any of the writing for it.

[HoroSaga]

Originally posted by Lysimarkos:

Originally posted by HoroSaga:

The player needs to recruit Dogmeat, then he needs to go to Diamond City, then he needs to go rescue Nick, then he needs to use Dogmeat to track Kellar, then he needs to kill Kellar.

Try doing some of those things out of order, you might be suprised :)

They still need to be done. The order can be shuffled a very small amount, but each of those events is still enforced by the largely linear story structure.

If the player avoids going to Diamond City, he'll still have to go there anyway after he's rescued Nick, because it's integral to the story that he investigates Kellog's old house and uses Dogmeat to track Kellogg to Fort Hagen.

If the player completely avoids Dogmeat before meeting Nick, Nick will just summon Dogmeat anyway using a dog whistle. Then the player is forced to recruit dogmeat anyway, and use him to track Kellogg.

If the player attempts to just skip all of those steps and heads right for Fort Hagen to confront Kellogg, then they'll instead find that the elevator is inaccessible, making it impossible to reach the area where Kellogg can otherwise be found.

About the only real element of choice in that whole sequence is in how you decide to unlock Kellogg's old house (lockpicking, bribing the mayor's assistant, stealing the key, or even getting a psychic vision from Mama Murphy) - but that's a very minor part of the sequence. It's one of the very rare cases during that portion of the main story where the player is given any degree of flexibility when it comes to advancing the story.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by HoroSaga:

They still need to be done. The order can be shuffled a very small amount, but each of those events is still enforced by the largely linear story structure.

Fair enough.

[RedEntropy]

Really good responses, thanks everyone. I think it should be noted that what we are talking about here in some ways are two different things. Writing in general and story structure as it relates to quest design/structure. I agree that much of the journals or non-quest related writing is quite good (or at least entertaining.) A completly linear story can still be good writing of course but then why make a game if you are not going to let the player interact with it? Game storytelling and written storytelling (as in novels) are two very different things. So it seems like what many people are disapointed in is the lack of player agency. Instead of feeling like the player is in control of the story they are just a bystander until they have to kill something/someone, and then their choices are usually boiled down to what weapon to use etc. Which is a lot less meaningfull then actually being able to influence events.

[nomadpad]

Originally posted by Jeff:

Really good responses, thanks everyone. I think it should be noted that what we are talking about here in some ways are two different things. Writing in general and story structure as it relates to quest design/structure. I agree that much of the journals or non-quest related writing is quite good (or at least entertaining.) A completly linear story can still be good writing of course but then why make a game if you are not going to let the player interact with it? Game storytelling and written storytelling are two very different things. So it seems like what many people are disapointed in is the lack of player agency. Instead of feeling like the player is in control of the story they are just a bystander until they have to kill something/someone, and then their choices are usually boiled down to what weapon to use etc. Which is a lot less meaningfull then actually being able to influence events.

im proud, there was no outburst in this thread, and lot of good feedback. 0 bashing in a thread :,)

[Trehek]

Last night I kept thinking about how Bethesda handles some story elements, and I have to say they generally deal with lying quite badly. Situations are often black and white and people who lie are often obvious about it. The Covenant settlement is a good attempt because it's interesting to find out what the actual lie is, but it would be even more interesting if the lie wasn't so obvious. DiMA also makes a bit of a twist since he doesn't know he's lying. In his case it's also a bit of a shame that the presence of his secrets is laid out so clearly with Kasumi's dialogue. It could be better if all of it was left unwritten and for the player to find.

Situations can also be very subjective. The problem with Father I laid out earlier might not become a problem if the player fails to pay attention to the earlier evidence. All the stuff with Father (and the main plot in general, as others have said) shows quite well how it can be important to keep track of what the player knows, what the protagonist knows (if different) and what the NPCs know at any given point in the story.

Manipulating what the player knows can be a very powerful tool. Knowledge can often have a point of view, and instead of providing a single narrative truth providing very opinionated views, several conflicting views or suspicious views (or outright lies) is very useful. Oh, and on the matter of suspicious views, it can be very refreshing (and all too rare) to find out that a suspicious person was in fact NOT a liar or bad guy. DiMA borders on this. To me, he just falls onto the bad guy side of the fence, but it's grey enough to be an interesting roleplaying choice. What does the protagonist think as opposed to the player? He's done bad things but is it enough that he's trying to be a good guy? And how does being a synth factor into it?

That brings me to something in Fallout: New Vegas which I've always found absolutely disgusting: the Brotherhood of Steel. The world lore wants to treat them as the good guys, and the game obeys that by granting good karma from actions that support them, and bad karma from opposing/killing them. So, we meet them by stumbling into their bunker where they meet us, armed, strip us nude and strap a bomb collar on us to make sure we're not a threat. And they treat us badly and condescendingly in general, like they do most outsiders. Asking random people about them, they appear pretty much as bandits who steal tech and oppose both the NCR and Mr. House. How does this story and the game mechanics fit together? How? How are they good guys? It feels like such bad writing to me, simply riding on the lore of old games.

A similar experience for me was meeting Marcus in FO:NV. You'd think that a meeting with the old character would be an interesting experience. "Oh, it's Marcus!" ...but it's not. Marcus barely has anything to say! In FO2 he had long stories to tell about how he befriended a BoS knight and how he came to be where he is. He was a colourful character. But in NV, when he actually built a settlement named after the BoS guy, you can't even ask him about it. He won't repeat his history, so if you didn't play FO2, he's just a nobody for you. And can you ask him about what he did in/after FO2? Yes you can! And what does he say he did? "Stuff." Literally, that's what he says. All he says. Horrible, horrible writing! EDIT: To clarify, I consider this riding on old lore similarly to the BoS example. It makes bad assumptions on what the player knows. A story must be able to stand on its own legs.