Intra-Party Conflict and Drama in CRPGs

Jay over at Tales of the Rampant Coyote has focused some attention on intra-party disputes and romances as they’ve been presented in CRPGs since the early 1980s. Such a discussion wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Baldur’s Gate and its sequel:

Baldur’s Gate took the idea even further in Western CRPGs, going so far as to include intra-party romances in the sequel. Party members would get annoyed at you and leave for various reasons, including romantic rivalries in BG2. BG1 also introduced party members who came in pairs. This added an entirely new dimension to intra-party conflict — players could deliberately try and get one particular party member killed to free up a slot without losing the paired NPC. This brought new meaning to the term “party management.” Plus, it could get even seedier (and more like a soap-opera) if you arrange for Khalid’s death in the first game (mainly because he was an annoying, cowardly whiner), and then became romantically involved with his widow, Jahiera, in the sequel. (Although canonically, Khalid is slain by Jon Irenicus at the beginning of the Baldur’s Gate 2, which is a great way to cover up your murderous past… )

Based on anecdotal evidence, players generally LOVE this kind of stuff. Scripted party soap-opera-ness is certainly plenty awesome, but truly dynamic intra-party stories really adds what many players consider “role-playing.” But this leads to some serious problems – key is the never-ending give-and-take between interactivity and storytelling. The needs of the one are too often directly opposite the needs of the other.