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I have not finished every scenario, but I have played a bit of or looked at most of the ones out there. Recently, I realized one thing that almost every scenario has in common: each other. More specifically, every scenario is basically a string of dungeons, each more fiendishly designed than the next, filled with monsters each tougher than the last, and massive strings of special nodes that create mind-bending puzzles to challenge even the most experienced BoE’r. Some scenarios obviously do this better than others, but most are simply quest, quest, quest, quest, side quest (!), quest, kill the evil bad guy/creature/being/race that is threatening the Empire/town/valley (on an unrelated note ... valleys seem to be awfully dangerous places to live in the world of Blades. You’d think people would figure that out). Now, before you say “Drizzt! A string of dungeons is the definition of a Blades Of Exile scenario! What else is there?”, let me explain further. I believe that in order for the Blades community to continue to be an active, scenario-producing entity, we need to be innovative and examine the role that individual dungeons play in our scenarios. I can only go through so many dungeons where I have a rune/teleporter/monster with special spells puzzle to solve before it gets tiring. As more scenarios are slowly released, the motivation for fighting through a difficult dungeon should shift, or else there will be no one interested enough to play the scenarios we design. My example for this is Redemption; a creepy, brilliant, well-designed and innovative scenario. Redemption is different from every other scenario, because the dungeons in it play a secondary role to the plot. They exist not to be cool in of themselves, not as a lair of terrible creatures, not as a showcase for special nodes, but to advance a well-thought out and intriguing story. When I first played through some of the dungeons, I thought “These are kind of wide open and empty. Not many creatures or special encounters. A lot of just wandering around.” There aren’t any real quests in the traditional sense, just stuff to do to figure out what is going on, and everything flows from one town to the next. Gradually, I realized why this is such a good thing, and why more designers should adopt this style. First, as any designer has noticed, a scenario takes tons of time to create, and a bunch more to make it any good. Towns like these can be completed relatively quicker than the standard “dense” town that uses most of the special nodes. I don’t think it is any coincidence that Alcritas has created more good scenarios than anyone else and in a relatively short period of time (about a year, I think). My scenario The Forsaken falls into the same trap as every other scenario, towns filled to capacity with fun little effects, special nodes everywhere, but at the cost of an exhausting design time. It took me over 14 months to finish 25 towns and a 2x3 outdoors, and I still followed the basic pattern of quest, quest, quest, quest, kill the bad guy. I haven’t seen many other scenarios that have towns whose only purpose is to provide a discovery and advance the plot like “the bloody massacre” in Redemption. Part of the fault, I think, is that most of us have played at least some of the Exile series, and we all start with the template of “kill the slimes, kill the roaches, kill the troglos/giants, etc ...” in our heads. Again, the Exile series and the existing solid scenarios are very good and well designed, but I think that as the BoE community ages, our scenarios need to evolve into something new, too. A simple town/dungeon that tells or fits into part of a story is much more interesting than a complex town/dungeon that stands on its own. |
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