RPG Writers Spill Their Secrets

GameSpot reports on a panel hosted at PAX Prime in which Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s John Gonzales, Obsidian Entertainment’s Travis Stout, and DoubleBear Productions Annie and Brian Mitsoda “spill their secrets” on the techniques used when writing role-playing games. Here’s a sampling:

Change can become a serious issue once voice actors are added to the mix. “How many of you have heard this before: ‘I’ll mark this location on the map?'” Annie asked. There’s a good reason for that level of ambiguity. The voice actor should never say anything too specific unless it’s definitely going into the game. “Don’t ever have a character say, ‘I’ll give you 500 gold pieces for killing this dragon,'” Stout said, “because design will up and change it on you.” The dragon fight may be moved until later, or the reward altered.

Writers have to master the art of vague specifics, said Stout. There’s an art to making it clear to the player what they need to do without actually telling them what they need to do.

While instructions may be vague, characterization needs to be clean and concise. When writing a new hero, or villain, Annie said the author has to look at what that character will be doing through the game, build around that, and visualize that character’s personal arc. No one wants a character whose message and actions don’t line up.

While this may be easy if a game has a small, clearly defined cast, typical RPGs have so many characters it would be impractical to try and have one person keep track of them all. Therefore, the task is typically assigned to a writing team. “At Obsidian we have a head writer who makes sure everything is cohesive,” said Stout. “He writes all the plot-critical NPCs and keeps the game’s themes in check. Then there is a team of writers who support him and fill out the other characters.”

Curiously enough, all of the panelists have worked at Obsidian Entertainment during a part of their career.