[NOTE: It will help in understanding the article if you've played Skyrim. I hope you still enjoy the article if you haven't, but it'll still certainly help.]
This is scary.
I've been doing a little bit of research in preparation for writing this bit, and it's really intimidating to hear how much everybody likes this game. Every time I hear someone say "Skyrim," it's inevitably followed by something along the lines of "is the BEST GAME."
And let's face it! That's not completely true. It's a pretty good game, especially when compared to other games in its genre, but it's not the end-all and be-all of fantasy games. This is why I'm writing this bit, honestly-- I love videogames, and I want them to get better. Even if they're already awesome.
Since I went to school to learn about stories, I feel like that's a good place to start looking at the games I like. Skyrim, in particular, seems like a narrative ripe for the analyzing: a game that has a mechanic as central as "radiant storytelling" seems like it takes its story pretty seriously.
(The next few paragraphs, where I summarize the story, has spoilers in the form of a summarized story.)
So, here's what I got from the main story of Skyrim:
You play as an unnamed prisoner, captured doing some sort of crime somewhere at some point. The specifics aren't clear. Regardless of your past, you're bundled in with a band of rebels, their leader--a dude with a scarf tied 'round his mouth--and an innocent guy who gets shot as he tries to run away. Assumed to be a rebel, you're lumped in with the rest and scheduled for execution right after you finalize your character design.
Of course, since it'd be cruel to kill your character right after you made it look like you except in orc-form, a special dragon swoops down and freaks everybody out right as they lay your head on the chopping block. Through a series of kind gestures from either a Rebel Stormcloak or a Loyalist Imperial, you end up escaping from the dragon, and making your way to a tiny hamlet to begin your journey.
From the hamlet, you're told to travel to the capital of the province and talk to the leader there and warn him about the dragon getting all up in Skyrim's business. While you're there, you're told to go get a tablet from a crypt (which is a pretty typical mission-- go desecrate a grave and bring back the artifact you've torn from the cold, dead fingers of some interred hero.) Once you get back, a regular dragon happens by and wrecks a guard tower. You then kill it, and find out you have the ability to absorb its soul.
So, let's take a break from summarizing for a second to establish what we have here:
- We have a setting: "Totally-Not-Norway" during a civil war between a colonizing force and the native sons
- We have a villain: the dragon that attacked in the first scene of the game
- We have a protagonist/reason for the protagonist to BE the protagonist: you/your ability to absorb the souls of dragons.
These are pretty good elements to start the game off in an engaging way. I had a few issues with the opening scene, and most of them are because you start in a cart and have to sit there for five minutes while Rebel X says "Gosh, I like being a rebel. This guy, this rebel leader guy, he's the tits. I like the mead here, it's got berries in it. Do you like being a rebel?" and the innocent guy says "JESUS CHRIST I DON'T WANT TO DIE."
Besides that, though, pretty solid opener. We've got two major players with an inset conflict, and a brief setup of the viewpoints of each. The Rebels are patriotic sons of Skyrim, with ties to the communities and the people of the land, whereas the Imperials aren't well-liked, but they represent lawful order in Skyrim on a whole. Regardless of who you follow in the beginning, you see that both parties have native followers. Good setup for the backdrop of the game. (This will become more important in later articles, but for right now it's just a good background.)
We also have the catalyst that pushes the elements of the story into motion: the arrival of a big, nasty looking dragon. Dragons have been dead for a long time, apparently, but now they're not. So we have a mystery, too-- why are dragons happening?
In addition, there is a solution to dragons: you. Very early in the game, we find out that you have the ability to kill dragons once and for all, rather than the not-really-dead that the dragons initially were.
Okay. So, setting, major players, bad guy, you. Pretty standard. After you suck the soul from the bones of the dragon you just killed, an ethereal voice calls you from the mountain top. When you ask the Jarl about all this, you find out that you are "Dovakiin," which is dragon-talk for "Dragon Born." You go to the top of the mountain where the monastic order that called you studies--conveniently enough--dragon-talk. By talking to them, you learn you are destined to be able to absorb dragon souls and use them to learn weaponized dragon-words, because you are DOVAKIIN.
In addition to learning that you can use dragon-speak to kill people, you also get an exposition dump from the leader of the monks. Basically, the low-down here is "Big Boss Dragon is the harbinger of the end-times, but you absorb dragon souls." Then they ask you "Are you REALLY guy that absorbs souls?" and tell you to go fetch a thing to prove that you really are.
This is where I run into my first problems with this game, story-wise. It's sort of the same with a lot of fantasy stories: your character is predestined to do a thing, because of birthright/stars aligning/et cetera, so you go do it. There's no real arc here, except "Here is the thing you will do, so go do it." It's a forgone conclusion that you will, so why bother caring about it?
That might be a harsh way of putting it. But think about it this way: if you were born to be a garbage-collector, and you become a garbage-collector, where's the story? You've just followed the rails set out for you. Here in the land of Skyrim, you're doing the same thing.
Besides the coincidence of a random prisoner not being killed at exactly the right time and being told to go to the one place that he (or she) would learn about his (or her) destiny, the fact that the destiny itself is so specifically binding is a real catching point for me. You're going to save the world, because you're supposed to save the world. All the rest is just filler.
Wouldn't it be better if there was a question whether or not you could save the world?
I hesitate to use a Famicom game to illustrate the finer points of storytelling, but I find it prudent here to paraphrase Bad Dudes (1988), "The president has been kidnapped by Ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"
The key here isn't the president, the dudes, or even the ninjas. The key here, in my opinion, is the question "are you bad enough?" In Skyrim, the answer is totally. You are totally bad enough to save the world. In fact, you are the only one bad enough to save the world, by virtue of random happenstance.
This is totally one way to tell a story, and it's a totally valid way of telling a story. But what I would do--because it's what I prefer--is make it so that you don't actually have any connection to any prophecy whatsoever. It's not really certain whether you'll save the world or not, because you're just some guy/gal who doesn't want the world to end. You've got to go through all of these dungeons and learn to become a badass and hope it's enough to save everyone you love.
So, What I Would Do is this:
The game starts, and you're a prisoner. Most of the same schtick, but less "GO REBELS BOO IMPERIALS AND ALSO I DON'T WANT TO DIE" in the cart. Maybe just start it when you step off the cart, and cut out that whole "Juniper Berries are rad" part. Have the Imperial guy you can eventually follow help you up because you tripped, or apologize to you or give you some reason to follow him instead of the Rebel, because all you see of the imperials at the start is douchebaggery. Dragon happens, chaos ensues, you escape.
When you reach the tiny hamlet, have the choice not to follow the main quest. Like, in the dialog options when the Imperial/Stormcloak instructs you to tell the Jarl about dragons, include something like "I am not a bad enough dude to rescue the president. I'm just glad I'm not dead, and now I want to go hide somewhere."
This does two things. First, it lets the player experience Skyrim as he/she eventually will anyway, but on their terms-- namely, living in a virtual world. This way, however, it's their own choice whether they're going to be a citizen rather than a savior.
Second, it puts that first spark in the player to follow the main quest. Most people--because this is a videogame--are going to choose the "Heck YES I'll participate in this badass quest" option, but this way it's their choice and not their amusement-park ride. Now, instead of going with the flow, the player has stake in the quest because they made the choice to start it.
Each time the main quest is brought up in the beginning of the game, keep giving the player the option to bow out. In addition, have the non-player characters react to it. When the Jarl's magician says he needs the tablet of dragon stories (or whatever macguffin the first quest is) have the Jarl's badass warrior assistant basically say that she doesn't want to do it because it's scary. Then give the player the chance to say "Yeah, it's totally scary," or "I'll do it." Have everybody react to your choice, regardless of what it is. Like, if you say "I'm scared," the Jarl says, "Hey, don't sweat it. This shit's hardcore. Feel free to stay in my city, though." If you say "I'll do it," then have the Jarl and everybody say "... Really? You'll... You'll do it? Geez, okay, I guess."
If you do things like this, you raise the stakes. If you are going to have a quest in an open-world game, make sure they mean something to the characters in that world. The way Skyrim has it set up at the outset basically makes you feel that people raid ancient tombs every day, no big deal. Nobody bats an eye when the Jarl asks you to go deal with ancient nordic zombies. If you have people bat an eye, then suddenly it's out of the ordinary for a Nobody--the player, at this point--to go raid a dangerous tomb.
Make your story a big deal by having everybody act like it's a big deal. Make the player feel like a badass by having the option not to be a badass.
Then, when you have the player kill the first dragon, don't have them absorb the soul. They just kill a dragon. This is a big deal. Don't forget, this dragon just halfway toppled a stone tower and killed ten other guys before you even got there. When you kill a dragon, people take notice.
So when you go back to the Jarl, have him say "Woah, what? You killed a dragon? Jesus, guy! Well done!" just to reinforce the fact that you just killed a dragon. Now, instead of having the Greybeards--the monastic order that calls you from their mountain-top--call you, have the Jarl say "Obviously dragons are a HUGE problem, so I can't spare anybody for this, but there happens to be a monastic order at this mountain-top sanctuary that might know more than we do. If you want to go learn from them, I will give you money to tell me what they say. You're a bad-ass, so I trust you to do this."
This works as a good alternate to the Greybeards calling you because, again, it's your choice whether or not to go. In the game as it is, everybody says "Woah guy, they just yelled at you, you need to go. Nobody doesn't go when they yell at them. What are you, a square?" Instead of making the choice to go of your own volition, you're basically strong-armed down the plot. That's boring, in my opinion. I don't really care about going to the mountain-top because I don't really have any say in the matter.
I really like the idea of these monks who study the language of dragons. I think that it's a super cool idea. When you get to the mountain monastery, I think it is an awesome place.
But instead of the monks saying "You are DOVAKIIN, here is WORDS to kill DRAGON" why can't they say something like "Dude, we heard you killed a dragon. That's impressive. We don't condone violence, but we can't deny the need for someone to take care of this. Why don't you join our order and we can teach you how to use the power of dragons against them?"
It's here, then, that you learn how to absorb the souls of dragons. The whole training montage can go the way it still goes-- it was a little boring, but I really liked the flavor it added to the world. And then the main monk can say "This doesn't happen usually because it hurts, but we really need you to be able to defend yourself." And then he gives you the part of his soul that has learned the Unrelenting Force shout.
This whole deal changes the plot of Skyrim in some subtle but important ways. First, it isn't your destiny to learn the shouts, but it is now something you've earned. You killed a dragon, damnit! That shit should unlock some doors!
Second, having the Greybeards say "Join us, because we believe that you can do this" and then having their leader give you a valuable token of that trust--something that physically pained him to give--locks you into the quest on a personal level rather than a videogame level. You're not just the Dovakiin, you're the guy who was deemed worthy by the leader of an awesome sect of superpowered monks to take this task upon yourself and not fail. That's hardcore! You've been invested in, instead of tolerated! Now, there are people relying on you. You're a concern. The characters in the world want you to succeed.
Again, have the characters in the story act like this stuff is a big deal, and it will become a big deal. Don't rely on destiny, rely on choice to hook the player. Make the choices impressive and important, and the player will choose them.
So that's What I Would Do for the start of Skyrim. This game is based entirely on the concept of a huge, open world for the player to explore, so I would take full advantage of that and make part of the open-ness the ability to become a hero rather than have heroism thrust upon the player. I would also focus on the "world" part of this and have the NPCs actually act like their home matters to them.
Next week: The Civil War! The Thalmor! The Past and the Future of Skyrim! I examine why Alduin is a stupid antagonist, and how Bethesda doesn't really know what to do with the good things they have. Tune in for SKYRIM: Narrative Part Two!
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