From: Alex Leibowitz <firezdog@concentric.net>
To: "Jeff Vogel" <spidweb@spidweb.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0

Dear Jeff,

You forgot to warn people about one huge mistake when making a scenario.
Here it is:

For some reason, people have this crazy notion that huge, unstructured
RPG games are better than small, tight plotted games. Makers of new
scenarios may think this; thus it is very important to tell them the
truth.  No one enjoys playing the sample game idea below:

Player starts in a huge castle with 800 people to talk to, each who dole
out 5 quests, only 1 of which remotely has a hint of any kind of
importance to the plot.  Along the way out, they must solve an intricate
puzzle that my masochist friend made up with only 1 clue which is
actually irrelevant to the plot at all.  Once they leave the castle, the
end up in a small town, where they get another 300 quests, only 1 of
which is relevant to the main plot.  Of course, this is 1 of 800 small
towns, and this one is actually the only important one.  The town that
actually is important to the plot is hidden in another town, and no one
could ever get to it because it is guarded by my custom monster
"jackelina" which automatically kills any player that it touches and
cannot be harmed.  Of course, the player should be familiar with it when
they reach this town (which is across the galaxy from their starting
point) because its a wandering monster.  Although there is a weapon to
defeat the Jackelina, the player can never get it because it must be
bought for 10000000 gold, and even if the player does defeat a Jackelina,
it simply leaves 1 food.

Okay, so that's a bit of an exageration, but some players do think that
an extremely hard, long game with lots and lots of quests is good to
make.  That is not true.  Not only would it be a nightmare to create (I'm
still making my first town in my game "Elexir of Life" oh, by the way,
I'm charging you a copy of BOE for this advice :-)) but it would be
incredibly boring.

Now here's my advice, that may seem shocking and amazing (to people who
are relatively insane):

A good game can be created in one town with 1 section of the world to
explore.  Heres the example you knew was coming:

Your village has been cursed by a demon who lives in a castle north of
your town.  You can either go and defeat the demon is his doubleplex (a
large dungeon with treasure, interesting plot revelations, and intrigue,
including one level that is actually a town) or you can visit the various
areas of the enchanting countryside trying to get the items you need to
lift the three parts of the curse, where a long story of a struggle
between light and darkness is revealed with, treasure, monsters, exotic
castles, and the fact that your town changes based on the actions you
commit.

There you go, now that is much better than the other, don't you think (of
course you do. Say it, darn it!!  Hey, I'm not crazy...)

So in conclusion (one backed up with a lot of explanation) small games
can and usually are better than large ones (real world proof: Fallout
rocks, Fallout II sedates).

Alex

Comments from Jeff Vogel:

In general, you're exactly right. A short, detailed, intricate, interesting
scenario is much, much better than a larger, longer one.

However, there's a lot of personal taste involved with this. A lot of
people LIKE a scenario with lots of plot threads at the beginning. I,
personally, think Fallout 2 is a much stronger game than Fallout.

Just goes to show ... you can't please everybody. :-)

- Jeff Vogel
Spiderweb Software, Inc.
http://www.spidweb.com