RPG Roundtable #3, Part Three

RPGVault has posted the third installment of their third RPG Roundtable feature, in which they once again talk to six developers about the subject of storytelling. Here’s a snippet from Chris Avellone, who offers comments about Fallout 2 (which he worked on at Black Isle Studios):

I’ll play devil’s advocate with Andrew Popov’s comments about Fallout 2 (since I worked on it), and critique it using the points from Stage 1. Here are the flaws with the game’s story. This was our fault, and I’ve been guilty of all the sins mentioned below, so I’m not criticizing anyone:

– Player Doesn’t Give a Shit: The initial character motivation (which goes almost until 75%-90% of the way through the game) fails the “Why Should the Player Give a Shit?” test. Fallout 2 assumes you care about Arroyo enough to find the GECK. The “hunt for the McGuffin” aspect of it aside, the initial motivation is flawed, depending on how the player wants to play, which is pretty contrary to the Fallout genre. Granted, you can say “screw the GECK,” but there is no evil end-game reward for doing so (our fault.)

Not until the appearance (and the revelation of the motivation) of the Enclave very, very late in the game are you placed in danger, which is where the player’s motivation starts to get on the right track. Why does the player give a shit about the Enclave? Because they want to kill the player. Granted, it sucks that they don’t want to kill you in particular (which fails the player-centric test) – you’re just one of a bunch of other people they want to kill. Still, it’s clear why the player should care about stomping them into the ground.