Why Do Pwads Almost Never Have a Story

[Xaser]

The answer that comes to mind is a practical one: mappers often want to just focus on making maps -- they don't necessarily have any interest in crafting a narrative, 'cause that takes time and skill just like everything else.

 

Relatedly, I'd rather skip doing a thing than do it poorly, and story notes often get the axe for that reason. I'm a mapper, not a writer. :P

[waerr2252f35325f235f235f25]

Not gonna lie I wish more wads had stories.

[roadworx]

9 hours ago, Marisa Kirisame said:

Story writing is a skill not everyone has, it can take a lot of effort to come up with something beyond simple oneliners like "you go to <location> and it's infested by demons you have to kill".

 

In addition a story is more than just text, as some others have mentioned in the thread, maps themselves CAN tell their own stories, even if it's small things like the last moments of those who came before you, or some hidden purpose behind the construction of the place (even so, there are more abstract types of map design where nothing makes logical sense). Anyway, the point I'm trying to getting at here is that you don't need NPCs and cutscenes and walls of text interrupting the gameplay to have storytelling, it doesn't have to be an "annoyance" that gets in the way.

i'm gonna add onto this and say that while actually creating a decent story in of itself is already a bit of a task, actually writing it out and not having it sound like a shitty high-school creative writing project is something else entirely. even if you have an engaging story, it can still come out looking like shit if you don't know how to write well. and that's on top of the fact that it honestly takes a special kind of person, one with more talent and knowledge of game design than even the most famous doom mappers, to be able to blend text-based story with the fast-paced action of doom and not have the contrast of those two elements be jarring as hell and without sacrificing either of those two

[JadingTsunami]

It's very difficult to get a story-driven Doom map/set to "work," in the sense that the player is (1) aware there is a storyline, (2) becomes invested in it enough to care and (3) is willing to participate in the narrative while playing.

 

But when it does, and you watch reviewers "get" the story and are engaged in it, it's one of the most satisfying things about mapping.

[purist]

If John Carmack didn't care about the story why should I?

 

Seriously, some talented authors have done a good job of weaving a story through a mapset but vanilla doom is just not a convenient medium for storytelling. So, unless you have talent or a eureka moment, you might as well just blow it off.

[Mayomancer]

Most wads do have some storyline going for the sake of level design, consistency etc. It's usually minimal because, most of the time, it just serves to justify the loose set of visual elements you use to make the mapset, although some wads have more prominent storytelling than others. Ancient Aliens is really great at telling you a story visually, with just the intermission texts. I think that expressing your ideas in map design is goes a lot better in doom than trying to add character dialogue and zdoom scripts with text...

[P41R47]

most people tend to forget the masterpiece at storytelling, both environmental and interactive that Cold as Hell is.

Not only incredible piece of fiction, but also an amazingly fun and entertaining gameplay, albeit straying far away from doom formula.

Strife was and is an excellent game made on the doom engine.

Now that mention it, @Edward850, what map format Strife use? Hexen with high ACS scripting?

[Edward850]

45 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

Now that mention it, @Edward850, what map format Strife use? Hexen with high ACS scripting?

Strife uses the Doom format (much like Heretic) and makes use of the remaining unused flag bits for things, no scripting of any sort. The level/progression behaviour is handled by built-for-purposes line/sector actions and dialogue sequences.

[P41R47]

14 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

Strife uses the Doom format (much like Heretic) and makes use of the remaining unused flag bits for things, no scripting of any sort. The level/progression behaviour is handled by built-for-purposes line/sector actions and dialogue sequences.

Seriously, i wouldn't never imagined it was completelly done on the good old doom format.

Rogue Entertainment really squeezed the engine to the limit!

[Kokoro Hane]

I feel like a lot of pwads have some form of story, even if it's very simple. Even the original DOOM has pretty light on story - the story is literally just to set things up, as a reason behind a demon invasion needs to exist. And I assume most pwads follow that basic formula.

 

To answer your other question.... a pwad with a more focused story I personally would enjoy playing, if the story is engaging enough. The wad me and my bro were working on (and plan to eventually finish) has some story focus, even with some planned voice acting to help tell it to make the story elements more engaging. I think if you have a good plot, it can work in a DOOM wad. But that could be kinda tricky, since DOOM is typically meant to be light on story, heavy in action. So you'd need to find just the right balance, or have one heck of a good story. 

[Martin Howe]

Carmack's remark about stories in Porn, regrettable or not, is essentially true; the default story for ALL maps is:
 

Once upon a time, there was a video gamer who wanted to have mindless fun slaughtering demons in a video game. The End.

 

:)

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

On 3/31/2021 at 5:11 AM, Major Arlene said:

story should not get in the way of gameplay (looking at you, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus).

This. I love everything from run-n-gun shit to massive RPG series like The Witcher, but the new Wolfenstein games have BY FAR the worst pacing I have ever experienced in a FPS due to the constant, random, and massively overrated story cutscenes. Heavy-handed, ham-fisted, ridiculous, pseudo-intellectual BULLSHIT.

[thelazyqdude]

Why would they? It's doom. 

[Tycitron]

I actually think the Doom 1 manual story is fucking awesome, a moon of mars suddenly vanishing? Secret Experiments? weird creatures from out of nowhere? Dormant Gates of hell lying in wait on Phobos/Deimos? BADASS. I do like it when PWADS have a similar setup with a backstory as to why the Pwad is even happening at all. 

 

(Side note: i really am starting to hate the "story in games is like story in a porn movie" quote, it feels like a huge cop-out and really outdated)

[BunnyWithBeans]

1 hour ago, Tycitron said:

I actually think the Doom 1 manual story is fucking awesome, a moon of mars suddenly vanishing? Secret Experiments? weird creatures from out of nowhere? Dormant Gates of hell lying in wait on Phobos/Deimos? BADASS. I do like it when PWADS have a similar setup with a backstory as to why the Pwad is even happening at all. 

 

(Side note: i really am starting to hate the "story in games is like story in a porn movie" quote, it feels like a huge cop-out and really outdated)

 

I think what Carmack was meaning to say was that story in a game doesn't have to be at the forefront for the player to enjoy the game. We're all a bunch of dummies on a forum for a game from 1994 because we still enjoy the game itself.

 

Unfortunately the quote's been twisted over the years through the game of internet telephone to say "Story in a game never needs to exist" which is just dumb. If there's no end goal, then the player's motivation can burn out pretty fast. Even Doom, the game famous for focusing more on gameplay than story, has a fairly fleshed-out story.

 

To actually answer OP's question: As many have said, Doom just isn't designed for story-rich stuff beyond what you get in intermissions. and even those are hardcoded to only appear at certain intervals throughout the game. We've recently been blessed with UMAPINFO (PRBoom+ only, though) for vanilla-ish storytelling, and there aren't many friendly NPCs or dialogue systems in Doom either.

[ketmar]

10 minutes ago, BunnyWithBeans said:

I think what Carmack was meaning to say was that story in a game doesn't have to be at the forefront for the player to enjoy the game.

this. many times this.

[Doomkid]

On 4/1/2021 at 1:29 AM, Xaser said:

The answer that comes to mind is a practical one: mappers often want to just focus on making maps -- they don't necessarily have any interest in crafting a narrative, 'cause that takes time and skill just like everything else.

 

Relatedly, I'd rather skip doing a thing than do it poorly, and story notes often get the axe for that reason. I'm a mapper, not a writer. :P

Being bad at writing is a 200% guarantee your story will be even more entertaining! I always give my wads this vibe of just being “90’s action cheesiness” that isn’t taking itself too seriously, which basically gives me carte blanche to write whatever the hell I want for the story. I don’t think it’s crucial by any means - a bad wad isn’t going to magically become good due to story and vice-versa, so I can see that as yet another reason many authors do away with it, but for me personally, it’s just one more way to have some fun with the wadding process.

 

I would never try to implement it beyond text files and intermission story crawls, though - anything beyond that better be Shakespearean to warrant such a drastic change to Doom’s formula..

 

1 hour ago, Tycitron said:

(Side note: i really am starting to hate the "story in games is like story in a porn movie" quote, it feels like a huge cop-out and really outdated)

It is a cop-out and the quote itself is outdated - Carmack himself regretted saying that, not to mention he said it nearly 20 years ago now. I prefer when people are just bluntly honest and say “I’m not good at writing” or “I couldn’t be bothered and it’s not crucial anyway”, there’s no need to dig out this old quote to justify it, and even in the context of Doom it doesn’t make sense, as Doom 1 alone has like 10 paragraphs of story between the manual and the intermission text crawls.

 

Without that context, Doom wouldn’t be less “raw fun”, but the lack of a motivator would make the experience feel a little more hollow for me. I do like knowing why the player is doing what they’re doing, and Doom paints the protagonist as a rebel who is willing to punch an officer who commands him to kill civilians, and it paints the UAC as the avatar of big, greedy corporations who don’t care about safety as long as they’re making money. We know the Doom dude is capable of sadness when he finds Daisy dead, we know he’s a human because he explicitly says rebuilding Earth will be more enjoyable than destroying it was at the end of Doom 2.

 

Most people won’t see these little motivators and explanations as crucial, but for me it all adds up to this feeling of edge, grit, rebellion and humanity - if the story didn’t exist, or worse, if the protagonist was some mindless asshole, I have to admit my connection to the game wouldn’t be quite as deep as it is.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

"Story in a game, is like a story in a porn movie, it's expected to be there, but it's not that important "

[BunnyWithBeans]

1 hour ago, Lol 6 said:

"Story in a game, is like a story in a porn movie, it's expected to be there, but it's not that important "

 

Which, as Carmack said, is a quote he regrets making and has also lost its meaning as explained above.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

1 hour ago, BunnyWithBeans said:

 

Which, as Carmack said, is a quote he regrets making and has also lost its meaning as explained above.

I that case, I have no idea why lmao.

 

As far as I know, there's just a short story to give you some context, unless the wad creator wants a super duper in depth story 

[spineapple tea]

I don't think most need one. Doom I and II's story was nothing more than a few text boxes every few maps. Doom focuses more on gameplay, not story.

Edited April 28, 2021 by N1ck

[out_of_service]

I’m here to frag devils with shotguns and chainsaws. I’m not expecting Shakespeare.

[Maes]

Now I remembered about CLEIMOS, that one had a somewhat WestWorld/ Star Trek-esque backstory (holograms in an amusement park of sorts becoming too real), and also had some pseudo/proto-hub-based gameplay: each level started you back at the HQ of the company that operated the hologram-based experiences, and you walked through a different gate each time, each one leading to a different "world", while others were sealed/inaccessible.

 

Was it essential or did it enhance the gameplay of the levels themselves? Probably not, but it did help me remember the WAD itself. Then again, without reading the backstory first, I never figured out why there were all those sealed doors in an otherwise deserted place...

Edited April 27, 2021 by Maes

[floatRand]

In constraints of what Doom offers to convey in storytelling, it is bit difficult. Especially on vanilla/boom compats.

Contextualizing always is gonna involve demons to some extend, unless the pwad is a total conversion/half-conversion. Storytelling through the text screens too is quite limiting, but there are pwads that set up stuff pretty well and create story arcs within the pwad. Ancient Aliens, Swift Death...

Environmental storytelling is probably best way to convey the story in a game like Doom, to create story through locales stormed. However, in compilation projects coordination of themes and map concepts would be challenging, and usually isn't practiced much to not restrict freedom of authors I figure. 

 

On more advanced format more can be done, but that introduces issues about quality of writing and pacing. 

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

7 minutes ago, floatRand said:

In constraints of what Doom offers to convey in storytelling, it is bit difficult. Especially on vanilla/boom compats.

Contextualizing always is gonna involve demons to some extend, unless the pwad is a total conversion/half-conversion. Storytelling through the text screens too is quite limiting, but there are pwads that set up stuff pretty well and create story arcs within the pwad. Ancient Aliens, Swift Death...

Environmental storytelling is probably best way to convey the story in a game like Doom, to create story through locales stormed. However, in compilation projects coordination of themes and map concepts would be challenging, and usually isn't practiced much to not restrict freedom of authors I figure. 

 

On more advanced format more can be done, but that introduces issues about quality of writing and pacing. 

Don´t forget the excelent Three is a Crowd by @Scypek2, it offered new creative ways of storytelling in the already limited vanila format.

[yakfak]

I just wanna say that there is an audience for plot in doom, no matter how clunkily performed. ask me to read a text file between levels, I don't mind! it's all about indulging the author.

[Gez]

On vendredi 2 avril 2021 at 9:28 AM, Martin Howe said:

Once upon a time, there was a video gamer who wanted to have mindless fun slaughtering demons in a video game. The End.

Mindless?

 

How many times has Doom combat been compared to chess, or been described as a puzzle?

 

Sure, you can still play it mindlessly. Put on godmode, infinite ammo, fast weapons, and run through the level spamming thousands of BFG balls everywhere. But part of Doom's appeal is having to think tactically in normal gameplay conditions.

[Pixel Fiend]

I often can't stand boring cutscenes in action games. When I want to enjoy a story I play graphic adventures like Broken Sword or The Walking Dead. That being said, a little page to read after a chapter in Doom is a nice reward for winning a couple of levels. Can be consumed quickly, or quickly skipped if you want to jump back to action. 

 

Edited May 1, 2021 by game : Sunlust gets it

[lokbustam257]

On 3/31/2021 at 4:26 AM, Salahmander2 said:

Did anyone actually pay $500 for Hell Revealed's story though? :P

I unironically want to do that