A really good reference for things like this is D&D's Dungeon Master's Guide. It collects a whole lot of advice about different parts of creating a world and story. It doesn't go deep, but it's a great reference.
Think of how much value the DMG brings to doing collab worldbuilding using "A Spark in Fate Core", as the prelude to a Fate Pathfinder game. Or even how much it brings to the Fate Pathfinder game.
When it comes to NPCs and stories, I find the NPC and Fronts guidance for Apocalypse World and Dungeon World to go much, much farther, and be much more generalizable. At least if you like sandbox D&D, versus railroad D&D.
Or the play style section in chapter 1, which is about how different people play for different reasons, and you should get to know whether which of your players are looking for hack and slash, versus immersive storytelling. That's even more important in other kinds of games than it is in D&D!
I haven't actually played D&D in a long time, but it's been very useful for me in other very different kinds of games, and even fiction writing. I'd recommend you take another look.
> Or the play style section in chapter 1, which is about how different people play for different reasons, and you should get to know whether which of your players are looking for hack and slash, versus immersive storytelling. That's even more important in other kinds of games than it is in D&D!
I think other kinds of games these days take for granted, "this is what this game is about - you and your group should be on board for this style of play and, if not, you should definitely play a game that is suited to your tastes." Trying to use one RPG mechanical chassis for wildly disparate gaming styles is definitely part of what I think of as "classic D&D".
One example I'll shill is Erika Chappell's recent Flying Circus, which is about being a mercenary pilot in a postapocalyptic, Ghibli-esque world. It's quite good, and if I remember correctly, an airplane designer helped with a couple bits of the design.
https://opensketch.itch.io/flying-circus https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/310013
[0]: Available under pay-what-you-like here: https://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core-downloads/
http://theunstore.com/index.php/unstore/game/49
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/lets-read-play-unsaf...
Then the game can be so interpretive and improvisational that it actually comes out the other side as less immersive than a crunchier game like D&D. Players spend less time role-playing and more time talmudically studying their character sheets for ways they can apply their aspects to a given situation.
In contrast, I’m a big fan of old(ish) school Call of Cthulhu (from Chaosium, not the d20 version). The mechanics are concrete, straightforward, and get the hell out of the way when you don’t need them. Character sheets embed a lot of info about who a character is without turning into a script for role-playing.
Obviously mileage will vary. Some groups will really grok Fate and love it; mine didn’t. Regardless of whether you even wind up playing the game, it’s a good read for any DM just for its take on things.
Edit to add: I’ve also used Fate’s character creation system to help make characters for short stories, and it worked really well. I’d never do that with something like a D&D character sheet.
With the possible exception of visual novels, no player likes walls of text, efficiency is key. In tabletop RPGs, detailed descriptions are often desireable, and not only that but GMs have to respond to players. For example, a PC may decide to rob the NPC, because why not. And now you have a whole lot of stuff to deal with: how rich the NPC is, how willing to fight, what are his relationships with other NPCs,... Video games simply won't let you do things that are not programmed.
In the article, dialog is limited to 3-4 lines. One of these tells you what your next quest is "I hear there’s a mirror in the Fire Mountains that can block its flames.". And another one mentions a red dragon. It means you only have two lines to establish a character, and if you can do it in one that's better.
It depends, there are players that love learning all the lore details, the good games add additional dialog or letters/books/emails that are optional so players that are in a rush can skip them.
Control, FFXIII, Fallout, Animal Crossing: Fun to read through all the extra text/dialogue!
{Vast majority of visual novels}, Mass Effect, Tales Series, {Vast majority of story-based gacha games}: Not so much!
Not all things that seem bad to you are objectively bad, some people enjoy that, remember how you taste in books/music etc changed in time.
Heh, I'm admittedly in the minority here, but this is part of morrowind's charm to me. No voice acting so they could have huge rich amounts of text. But I was a kid with infinitely more spare time then :-\
I generally agree and I don't like it either, except for Planescape Torment, because it has awesome characters and text.
> With the possible exception of visual novels
I never did understand visual novels. They aren't games, but they aren't good novels either. Plus I don't read Japanese, and judging by the (poor) translations out there, most "visual novels" consist of mostly pressing enter to skip tons of "..." dialogue.
The Danganronpa and Ace Attorney games have some really good detective stories in it - I think the overall story in those 2 series is pretty bad, but in each game, there is at least one individual case that is great; and Zero Escape is one of the only work of fiction where I thought time travel / parallel universes was done right, without loopholes I could think of.
But then again, after that super short text, there is 10 minutes long cut scene followed by another cut scene.