RPG Roundtable #3, Part Two

RPGVault has dished up the second installment to their third RPG Roundtable feature, this time talking with five developers about storytelling. Here’s an excerpt from what BioWare’s James Ohlen (lead designer of Star Wars: KotOR) had to say:

Many players gain their greatest enjoyment in a CRPG from tactical combat, upgrading their character with cool loot and personalizing their character during level up. To these players, story is not one of the most important aspects of a game. At BioWare, we strive to make players take more notice of our stories, and not just click through NPC dialogues as rapidly as possible. To do this, we try to follow three rules when writing dialogue; write succinctly, make it natural and make it cinematic. We have found that the more we follow these rules, the more players take notice of our stories.