RPG General News - Jeff Vogel about Game Stories that work

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Learn more about storytelling in games:

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Tips For Writing a Video Game Story That WORKS

(Where "works" means "makes more money.")

Bonus story tip: If your players travels with other characters, they can chat during the game stuff. It helps the player remember the story during all the stabbing.
"Every minute a player spends not interacting with your story dilutes the power of the story." - Vogel's Third Law of Video Game Storytelling

Suppose you want to write a single-player video game with a good story.

Assume you're writing a game to make money. There are lots of ways to skin that particular cat. You could make a freemium, open-ended app. A gacha game. Some competitive thing that people play for a thousand hours. You could have done that, but you, like a madman, decided to rock things old-school.

It's single-player, and you want the story to be good.

How Do You Tell When Your Game's Story Is "Good"?

When it makes your game earn more money.

Does the story so amuse people they tell their friends? Quote your funny lines at nerd parties? Meme your characters? Cosplay as your characters? Write fan-fiction about your game?

In other words: Is your story so good that people give you free advertising? (And word-of-mouth is the best advertising.)

Then it's good.

So how do you do that?

I can't say, obviously. That's where the art is. A million words have been written about storytelling. My #1 piece of advice is always: Be a genius.

However, I have been selling game stories for a long time, and I've observed that some things work better and some work worse. I've done things well and made some gruesome errors. I can offer some opinions and observations, if you want people to care about the words.

(By the way, our Kickstarter for our next story-heavy RPG, Avernum 4: Greed and Glory, is almost done and has done great. Take a look!)

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