Fidelity to License
July 2, 2009 It's no secret. I'm not a huge fan of licensed games.
My preference doesn't have much to do with the marketing aspect of them. By all means, developers, tap into an established audience. The license won't make or break your game, and if your game is a stinker, the license won't help you. The game will still sink or swim based on its own merits.
No, my distaste for licensed games is twofold.
- They very rarely provide the same sort of experience that the license does.
- The part I play in the game isn't going to be as cool as the story told in the original license.
If you reach level 80, you can be the guy who brings Superman a towel.To break that down, I don't want to play in a game world where I feel like I play second fiddle to some other story. I can accept, especially in an MMO environment or an organized play tabletop environment, that other players are more accomplished than me. I don't have to interact with them, however. I'm focused on my story. Of course, if I choose to associate myself with these advanced players, more power to me. Their epic achievements become mine, too.
No, my issue is that, if this is, say, a literary or movie license, that story of that property has already been told. Frodo already brought the ring to Mount Doom, and no matter how many swamp midges I kill, my story in Middle Earth is going to pale in comparison. Luke, Han, and company already destroyed the Death Star (twice!), so me force-choking nameless mooks on some third-rate planet isn't even a footnote in the universe's lore. The Batman clone I make for the game... well, he's going to have ersatz Batman stories told about him.
Will and I exchanged a few sassy tweets about this a few days ago. His article on LOTRO's creatures -- a fine article, and suited undeniably to the game for which it's written -- prompted some snark from me in response. Here's the exchange:
To the credit of Will's article, it covers material in the game that's useful in that context. My problem is that playing LOTRO doesn't at all feel like participating in the events of the Lord of the Rings. Since the game experience is so unlike the parent material, why bother with the license at all? Nobody in the Lord of the Rings ran around collecting pies for people. Nobody told Boromir, "Kill ten bears and you can have these green pants that increase your dodge chance by half a percent. Which you'll need to help kill eight tougher bears...."
Star Wars Galaxies -- so I'm a wookiee, right? Remember how tough and fearsome Chewbacca was in the movies? "Let the wookiee win," because if you don't he'll pull your arms off and club you with them. Except... no. My SWG wookiee fought giant mosquitoes in a swamp. Which might be the most un-wookiee-like activity I can conceive. Take that, you guys who brought down the Death Star (twice!). I killed a bug.
In the Conan stories, Conan whips buckets of ass constantly. In Age of Conan, I played a kind of ashy gray guy who wore a brownish-gray burlap sack and brownish-gray burlap shoes who fought alligators. Not giant alligators, mind you, that maybe survived from a more barbarous age into the Hyborian era, but smaller-than-a-man alligators who were mostly minding their business on their little sandy shores.
Granted, these are all examples that suit my case, but that's why I feel the way I do about licenses. If you've already decided you want a level-grind game, why pair it with a property that doesn't even remotely support the idea of level grind? Why do you bother with a license when your gameplay doesn't have anything to do with that license? Who is fooled into thinking that their game experience is going to create a story on par with the one that has already been told and resonates with pop culture at large?
My wife would play this game. I wouldn't.That's not to say it can't be done. A few sterling examples exist among the crop of disappointments. I've sung the praises of Nihilistic's Conan before and I'll do it again. You start out as a fully kick-ass Conan, and you continue to become more kick-ass throughout the story. You singlehandedly sink a ship in the first chapter. You best a dragon in chapter two. It feels powerful -- like the licensed character should -- and you participate in adventures that are akin to the source material.
The Fellowship of the Ring for the first-generation Xbox succeeded. Your fellowship traveled almost in parallel with that of the book series. In some cases, you helped them in their quest. In others, you actually made it to the scene before the characters from the books. It didn't supersede or rewrite the books, but you played right along side the events and were part of their epic stature. It became a bit repetitive, sure, but welcome to classes and levels.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay likewise felt like you were playing Riddick. The game experience was true to the character, and the stories in the game were certainly things Riddick would get up to. Riddick isn't the most powerful franchise in the world, which made this game all the more surprising in its fidelity to license and integration of gameplay with the parent property.
Around the tabletop, Eden Studios had a lot of critical success and grassroots support with their Buffy and Angel RPGs. I never played them because I didn't have a lot of interest in the license, but the elegant simplicity of their system pairs well with the high-school action-drama of the series. White Wolf's long-gone Street Fighter did a perfect -- perfect, inasmuch as I can say that without appearing biased -- job of simulating the complete lunacy of the Street Fighter universe and pairing it with a quick-playing mechanic that was likewise true to the parent property.
Obviously, I can't dismiss licenses out of hand completely. From my perspective, though, it seems that the best licenses for game treatments are the ones in which the world is more important than the individual stories it tells. With a vibrant world that's bigger than the people in it, I never have to worry about my experiences failing to live up to the previously written material.
The World of Darkness, for example. Of course I'd be insane not to suggest it, but think about it. The fact that there are vampires is more important than any of the tales we've told with those individual vampires over the course of the game's life. Seriously, even if you read the fiction, did any of the signature characters ever rise above the impression painted by the world itself? Of course not. The WORLD of Darkness is the real draw, and the player having carte blanche to participate in it and tell his own stories that have their own import is what makes it satisfying.
I think China Mieville's Bas-Lag/ New Crobuzon would be another world in which it would be a lot of fun to run around in. Each of the novels in that world tells its own story, but none of them eclipses the presence of the world itself, which is by design bigger than the lives of the people it contains.
Jack Vance's Dying Earth and Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique are larger than the people in the stories. Conan's Hyborean world is dazzling and vast, but so dominated by Conan himself that, even though it has more popular name recognition than those contemporary worlds, can't support another character of the same status, so we'll always be following in his shadow at best.
What do you think? What licensed worlds represent a place where a PC could make a suitable mark?
in play, inspiration, licensing in Design, Gaming, MMOs, RPGs, Video Games
Reader Comments (10)
I have rarely found a Licensed game I like. (Why hasn't anyone done Practical Magic as a game? Oh... Because I can do it with a million other systems.)
I guess that had a lot to do with it. Most of the movies or books or what that I like can be reflected beautifully with existing systems and the shadows of the movies/books heroes can be kind of forgotten since the game book isn't written with those heroes in mind.
Now, I'm not saying I like the system, I don't, but I don't mind playing Star Wars, for instance. That might be because I don't actually like the movies. (Crazy, right?) I do like the additional material. The books and video games are often pretty neat. In that case, like say, Conan, the setting has become bigger then one story or one set of characters.
On the one hand, I think you're on to something, because for me, the appeal of Star Wars, Star Trek, or Lord of the Rings IS the setting — I like the aesthetic and the archetypal adventures offered there. Still, I am just as likely to play in a knockoff of one of those settings than with their actual licensed games (because the knockoff is somehow less likely to be mocked by people like... you). LOTRO's appeal to me — and I still dig it after more than a year of play and two dozen articles or something — is getting to spend time in its charming world. (There's an upcoming article about that, too.) I can accept that the medium imposes certain choices onto the material, like slaying boars or delivering pies.
(LOTRO is sort of brilliant in how it winks at the lore — all those delivery quests are allusions to the fact that Frodo's basically just on a delivery quest for two and a half books.)
Middle-earth, especially, is a setting full of half-told tales and forgotten spaces potentially full of adventure. Star Trek is likewise wide open, because TV-scale licenses often work better for RPG-style play, anyway.
On the other hand, your slippery definition of "cool" makes point #2 sort of useless for me. What does cool mean? My experience is that it means "big" wrt to licensed adventure things. No, you probably won't blow up a Death Star or spit in Sauron's eye, but scale isn't everything. Make the stories personal.
I can't recall your position on the Rings movies, but they did plenty of things that the books didn't for the sake of their medium. Elrond, for example, appears to participate in shitty 1980s-style music videos, which got in the way of my enjoyment for a moment, but so what? The medium adds at the same time it changes, if done well. None of it's a replacement and if it were a perfect replication it would just be the same thing over again.
Don't get me wrong, though. I find "WTB [The One Ring] 4g PST" *hilarious,* but I can separate that from the brief bursts of immersion or escapism I get from popping into Bag End or discovering Rivendell for the first time. I'd rather have both than neither.
Harry Potter would be fun for others, though not me so much. Harry Potter has an exceptional backstory but he's a member of a type - immersed in a world and a social context than can be picked up by any original character.
The X-Men, but as a concept - not where you play Wolverine. I always thought that supers games were too broad - why not just stick to one corner? The X-Men has, again, a wider context and world to inhabit, and is not wholly dependent on one exceptional scenario.
Star Trek also has a great setup and the advantage that people reflexively know what the world looks like.
I suppose the common element is that in all cases, the world lends the characters a role immediately and a rationale for socializing. This is one of the things that made Vampire great. It creates the social network you need to get started online. In MMOs, guilds often end up being a stapled on afterthought laid over the world, but once you have intimate social structures to join that are relevant in the world.
First, I think a difference needs to be drawn between single-player games, and MMOs when you ask that question. In a single-player game, you can still be the star of the world. In an MMO (as they are today, anyway), no one gets to be a unique snowflake that stands out amongst the rest.
For a tabletop RPG, it is good to aspire to create a world that is in itself compelling, yet its stories that can be surpassed by the players. The same is true in an MMO, but there is a catch 22. Everyone can't be the star, the best, the name-that-everyone-recognizes. If everyone's special, then no one is special. So it requires a different tact to be compelling. I think back to fiction. Sure, there are plenty of books where the main character is doing something world-shattering. But there are even more where the main character is just having their own story. Altered Carbon is a good example of this, I think.
To answer the question, Battlestar Galactica comes to mind. The way you explained The Fellowship of the Ring, I could see a BSG game designed with that philosophy doing very well. You can't be an Adama, but maybe you can be a Starbuck, or a Baltar.
Various comic book worlds come to mind as well -- perhaps Watchmen. I think there's more flexibility for MMOs in this regard, too. You're in a world where superheroes and supervillains are common. You start out as just another vigilante, but eventually you hone your skills and work your way up to the point where you're doing stuff that really matters. But really, even something simple like saving a girl from getting raped in an alleyway has a lot of potential to make you feel like you did something meaningful.
Star Wars could be done, if the right time period were chosen. I think that's what they're trying to do with the new MMO -- set it in a timeframe other than the movies, so that the story hasn't already been told.
To your real point though, I can't think of many licensed worlds that focus significantly on the world itself, in comparison to the characters. The current incarnation of the World of Darkness does an even better job of this than the previous, I think -- less huge metaplot events going on. Star Trek comes to mind as well though. Even though there are the movers and shakers, the Kirks and Picards, there is a lot of room for other stories to be made, and a lot of care was given to flesh out the setting -- the different races and their politics, for example. Deep Space 9 was one of my favorite series, and the most interesting episodes of it for me had nothing to do with universe-shaking events going on.
...I think I will stop my ramblings before they become an essay. :)
I liked the tabletop Aliens game.
There are several others that would work as well, but yes they would take some digging.
L&O or The Wire would be a interesting licenses to get, too–except, economically, there's not much reason to. No one has the copyright on murders and political infighting.
The perennial example of wide-open licenses, Star Trek, started out with the impression of a world bigger than the characters–they swapped all but one of the crew in the first episodes. Sure, the self-licensing means it's been getting shittier and shittier in the last decade, but it doesn't *have* to be. The 25th Anniversary game back in 91 proved that you *could* do it right. But again, what's the thing you're trying to replicate? The familiar bits? Uniforms on a spaceship and a token alien or robot covers that. The unfamiliar bits? Well, that's the space the license has to expand into anyway. It has to be different anyway.
Lots of good answers here as to what makes for a good place where players can make their mark. Star Trek, in particular, as Malcolm and Huth mentioned, actually feels to me a little like an old-school D&D campaign, in that the "DM" had a vague map/ idea of what was "out there," and the "PC" main characters were on a mission of exploration.
@Will, I don't know that "big" necessarily translates to cool in the context of what I'm looking for. I want more emotional resonance than size, but video games still haven't found their perfect storytelling niche. Which leads me to...
@Mike, yes, the differences between single-player environments and the massively multiplayer space make them two radically different beasts. I want the emotional resonance of Ico but a giant player base with whom to share it, and that just hasn't happened yet.
@Filamena, I enjoy the Kull stories and Bran Mak Morn stories just as much as I do the Conan stories of REH, and they create the same sort of corrupt civilization versus barbarism themes -- though from a game marketer's perspective, you ain't going to sell no copies of a game branded with Kull or Bran Mak Morn, and even if you tried, putting their names on them would put the player base in competition with those same iconic characters when the world should really be the draw.
Good feedback, all; thanks!
Great points, Mr. Todd. It's definitely true that traditional RPGs and MMOs handle licenses very differently — they offer distinctly separate approaches to player agency and intentionality, stemming mostly from the players' relationship to the authorial voice of the GM/designer.
If not size, Justin, then I don't see how the existence of previous tales in the setting should get in the way of you playing in something like Middle-earth or the Star Wars universe. Frodo's and Aragorn's stories didn't have to be that big to be profound to them. Luke's story amounts to a dynastic drama with very prominent families. If the scale isn't at issue, then why should Aragorn's story overshadow your tale of Bree-land brothers and their Hobbit friend resisting their friends' descent into brigandry and Shadow? Why should Luke get in the way of your tale of Jedi princes torn between their royal inheritance and their servitude to the Order?
Use a licensed setting's established tales for contrast, rather than comparison.
It's interesting to me that you're willing to draw on real-world history as you do but not fictional history, due to nebulous coolness.
We're talking about this at GPW now, too: http://gameplaywright.net/?p=699
This is exactly what got me loving nWoD over the old WoD.
All the fluff in the old books seemed trapped in their set metaplot, where the Vampire core cast were doing a load of big, special, awesome stuff, God45 in Hunter was doing all kinds of manic work with a nuke, all the great stuff was being done in the continuity, in the fluff of the books.
While I loved fluff, I had to purposefully distance my games away from the world of the fiction, or the players would feel like they were second fiddle, much like with Drizzt and Elminster in Forgotten Realms.
The New World of Darkness, in theory, any of that fiction, any of the setting fluff, works perfectly with my setting as it's all plug & play. There's no massive apocalypse being prevented/experienced, there's no other set of characters doing all the cool stuff first.
With the DC Mumorperger, I can see it being the same. Why be the equivalent of G'nort when the computer itself gets to be a Green Lantern?
As far as the less dynamic stories, it's not just tied to the license. I think that the MMORPG side of things dilutes the level of a dramatic or meaningful story, from what I've experienced, at least. Thus:
Eden's Buffy RPG - A licensed game, but setting it in my hometown, with no direct ties to the television series, the dramatic beats, plot twists, love triangles (which ended brilliantly badly) and season finale all made for a great experience, one where my players really grew as people.
World of Warcraft - There are dungeons and bosses and the like, but you still don't go through a LotR experience, as much as the LotR game doesn't have one. Is it any better just because it doesn't claim to be Lord of the Rings? To some I guess, probably, but the games which have the most effect on people, are the ones which have a stunning story (Bioshock, Silent Hill, et al).