No Further Explanation Necessary
So, I have been playing through Eador: Masters of the Broken World recently a month or so ago. While sitting through the opening cinematic describing the fight between immortal Masters over control of floating islands, I had a particularly strong negative reaction once it started to specify that these Masters were in reality fighting the forces of Chaos by bringing Order to the blah blah blah.
Why explain the narrative any further? Immortal god-like beings fighting over possession of floating islands is more than enough. That’s pretty cool! The fighting Chaos with Order bit? Not so much.
See this? THIS is good.
I’m a narrative guy – I love stories, lore, and world-building. But between a half-assed story and a no-assed story, it’s much better to go with no-ass every time. Own your wacky premise!
Nobody is sitting around getting excited about stopping the forces of evil for the millionth time just because… evil. Keep your cliche, overarching theme if you must, but just don’t try explain it right away. If I’m not interested in becoming a more powerful god by capturing floating islands in goddamn space, facing the forces of Chaos isn’t going to move the needle either.
Posted on July 28, 2014, in Philosophy and tagged Eador, Forces of Evil, Game Design, Half-Assed, Narrative. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
In An Age 
Still a better ‘story’ than Diablo III’s.
Besides, speak for yourself, Chaotic Neutral. I’m always up for vanquishing some evil.
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Doesn’t it play into whether you want to be good or evil and what other masters you align with, as well as some of the victory conditions. I remember Eador being pretty apathetic about enforcing a hero against the darkness narrative, and you can totally just be chaos and destroy everything if you want.
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People are forever ruining things by not adhering to the conservation of detail. I cringe every time I see someone completely remove any element of humor in an amusing picture or gif by either explaining the joke or pasting some inane prattle over the top.
It’s a terrible affliction brought on by a combination of ignorance of writing best practices and having the personality of a dead frog.
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