Why Storytelling in Fantasy Role-Playing Games Sucks

PC World’s Matt Peckham attempts to tell us why storytelling in fantasy role-playing games “sucks” before going on to promote an upcoming Dragon Age: Origins interview in his conclusion.

The good guys tend to be “good” because their avatar’s glow or their armor glitters. The bad guys are often “bad” because they snarl and drool or have black-slits for pupils. Even the occasional “humanized” enemy deploys multitudes of Dionysian creatures (horns, tails, feral snarls) before showing up for the obligatory “boss battle.” Grandstanding ensues, then “save-die-reload” ad nauseam.

Some call that operatic. Sturm und drang. Extravagant theater, sentiment, or melodrama.

I call it dead. As dead as cable news. Or games journalism. Or quips about Elvis.

…

It’s just that I’ve been wanting more from fantasy gaming for decades. Since I first played The Hobbit on a Commodore 64 in the 1980s and it let me change up interactions by fiddling adverbs. Since I tripped over inSCAPE’s The Dark Eye in 1995, with its haunting experimental narration (thank you William S. Burroughs). Since I caught a glimpse of things to come in Bethesda’s Fallout 3, 2K Games’ BioShock, and Lionhead’s Fable 2. Since I realized I’m in this hobby to have my lid flipped, not just master rocket leaps and climb leader-boards or crack level eighty-something.

Is he really suggesting that the storyline in Fallout 3 is better than anything fantasy RPGs have produced since 1995?