Story Twists, How far should you go? Options

[Jonnie19]

Story Twists

Stories are one of the most important aspects of an RPG, in my opinion, but I also find that a linear story is about as useful as a defected script. So story twists are something I find a necessity in a good RPG. Story Twists in this context is meaning something that shocks or surprises the player.

Some Examples

All your characters are suspecting that they are being followed, it turns out that they are not being followed, that it is purely an innocent animal or something mundane

The protagonist of the game is actually the antagonist, but neither the player nor the character realizes this is the case.

The very common and slightly overused, belief that a boss/character/person is dead however they end up being alive another day aka Seymour from FF-X.

However, should there be a limit to how many twists are used in a story, and does a story have to be ridiculously over-complicated to be a well written story?

Discuss...

[superkudit]

well i'm not type that think out of box, so i can't make complicated or cool twist

Agreed for the over-complicated. In my opinion, to make a twist, we must think out of box because twist is the ''surprise'' element in RPG, and it wouldn't be a ''surprise'' if its cliche.

For example,
hero meet his father that missing in 15 years, and than after traveling together he realize that his father is a legendary hero, or the end he realize his father is final boss or demon's knight.

It's little bit surprising but cliche enough.

What if, he actually not hero's real father, he is the final boss that stalking and spying with hero's father form.
(damn still a cliche!)
Well its same but different. LoL

[amerk]

An over-complicated story can almost be as bad as a mundane one. If you wind up frustrating and confusing the player more than helping the player to understand the plot, you could wind up losing them as an audience.

Also, in recent months, I've relaxed my view that story is the most important. Game play and balance are just as important, if not more so, but it depends on the type of rpg you are making. A dungeon crawler, fetch quest, or open-ended sort of rpg will probably have more input on game play, and very little on story.

That said, j-rpg's do well to find a decent balance between story and game play, and should try to hold back on revealing too much right away. Even a linear, predictable plot can have some fun surprises. Think Wild Arms for the Playstation. The plot was pretty straightforward, but there were a few subtle twists late in the game that caught the player off guard.

And perhaps that's the important thing. If you create a game with subtle hints and twists (just a few), you may get a better impact in surprising the player at just the right moment than if you were to try and create the next episode of 24 or X-Files, where plot twist after plot twist winds up becoming an overused cliche that no longer has the shock value.

[Jonnie19]

Also, in recent months, I've relaxed my view that story is the most important. Game play and balance are just as important, if not more so, but it depends on the type of rpg you are making. A dungeon crawler, fetch quest, or open-ended sort of rpg will probably have more input on game play, and very little on story.

That said, j-rpg's do well to find a decent balance between story and game play, and should try to hold back on revealing too much right away. Even a linear, predictable plot can have some fun surprises. Think Wild Arms for the Playstation. The plot was pretty straightforward, but there were a few subtle twists late in the game that caught the player off guard.

And perhaps that's the important thing. If you create a game with subtle hints and twists (just a few), you may get a better impact in surprising the player at just the right moment than if you were to try and create the next episode of 24 or X-Files, where plot twist after plot twist winds up becoming an overused cliche that no longer has the shock value.

I think with my current game, it's just gone to complicated I didn't want a linear story-line so went abit mental with the plot twists...so have now made it too over-complicated. It's a risk I suppose when you are trying to make an original story-line, which people take seriously

I will say though, that after so long thinking it was actually storyline that is the most important, it is really the whole entire thing working together to create a great game, it's not one thing it's all of it....

[Kaust]

I think with my current game, it's just gone to complicated I didn't want a linear story-line so went abit mental with the plot twists...so have now made it too over-complicated. It's a risk I suppose when you are trying to make an original story-line, which people take seriously

I will say though, that after so long thinking it was actually storyline that is the most important, it is really the whole entire thing working together to create a great game, it's not one thing it's all of it....

Perhaps the best way to include many plot twists that aren't damaging to an overall story is to make them character-related. Looking into someone's past or one of them leaves the main party and returns at a later point, here's what happened in the period.
These sort of twists prevent a story becoming convoluted because they are almost separate stories if you like. They also function well as a 'breather' from the main story.

[Sparrowsmith]

I have an irk with story twists, a little overlooked fact the majority of writers do not seem to get.
Some of the best twists, my favorite twists even, are cards that are played face up. That is to say, the writer is displaying ALL of the facts, right on the table, and through showmanship can stop you from seeing them.
I'd say the best way to do this is tell multiple parts of the story simultaneously. Make certain facts seem obvious, like they are assumptions, but never state that they are true.

I tried to explain what I meant just then, and ended up writing about three paragraphs of a story, only to realise it's a story I might as well keep for myself I feel that hiding information from the audience is a bad way to do twists though, unless done tastefully. A good story plays like a game of chess: You already know the rules, and you see all the moves as they're happening, but that doesn't make it predictable, in fact, the entertainment is in watching either side (or both) make moves you didn't see coming (twists) by setting them up, right there, where everyone can see them.

Fight Club, for example, does this perfectly.

[Show/Hide] spoilers ahead

Tyler is shown multiple times doing things that he shouldn't be able to, appears within frames multiple times, and it is hinted at for a long time that the narrator is an insomniac who describes insomnia by saying "nothing's real". When Tyler is first shown, the line is, "Could you wake up as someone else". You would have to be blind not to pick it all up... On your second viewing. The first time, you don't even consider it.

That's what makes a good twist. The evidence is all there, it all fits, but you still can't see the picture on the jigsaw until someone points it out to you.

And no. If you do a story twist right, then you can't have too many of them.