Disco Elysium and Tabletop RPGs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 พ.ย. 2024
- A video essay about improvised storytelling, interactive fiction, dice probabilities, and Disco Elysium’s bad ending. This is your spoiler warning.
sources:
D. Vincent Baker & Meguey Baker - Apocalypse World apocalypse-worl...
Simon Brind - “Narrative Design,” in Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences trepo.tuni.fi/...
Brendan Conway - Masks: A New Generation magpiegames.co...
John Harper - Blades in the Dark bladesinthedar...
That recount of the tragedy of Kim not trusting you.. god what a gut-wrench
Holy fuck a video analysis that actually does video analysis and doesn’t repeat the plot of the game. 10/10
The beauty of Disco Elysium is that its mechanics are explicitly designed around the video game medium. Using skills essentially as different narrators and having skill checks influence how the narration goes is an ingenious way to tie the mechanics to what you're actually doing in the game most of the time - going through conversation branches and reading exposition. So yes, while it might narratively feel similar to a TRPG, the way in which it achieves this is very different.
>having skill checks influence how the narration goes
tabletops can do this
@@Tharnatosi think its more of hoe the skills color how u see the world and thus influences the narrative through the corresponding skill checks. If u pass or fail, youve either made the skill-narrator happy youre going down the path they want you to or upset that youre not living up to your prescribed potential
kind of unrelated but I love the world of Elysium as a setting for a game. The Pale, Shivers, and other spiritualism elements are so cool in the dystopia.
DE teaches us, ttrpg players, that sometimes narrative has to be imposed in order for emotional scenes to happen. There has to be a mix of trust and curiosity between players and master, the same kind as there is between players and a video game
You make a really good point about dice rolls being used to heighten narrative tension. I feel that approaching dice rolls in ttrpgs with that in mind (from the GMs point of view) can benefit the game a lot. It helps to avoid the excessive, not-really-meaningful dice-rolling that bogs down things and makes sessions drag on.
I also found funny how I felt almost the same as you after the shootout, despite having a completely different gameplay experience. My Harry had a gun and Kim didn't get shot, but I was SO SURE I messed up somewhere and that was why I couldn't solve things without violence.
(Major spoiler warning.)
Beautiful video. You remind me very much of a passage that really struck me with the dice-maker living in the doomed commercial area.
"Or maybe it's the entire world that's cursed? It's such a precarious place. Nothing ever works out the way you wanted. That's why people like role-playing games. You can be whoever you want to be. You can try again. Still, there's something inherently violent even about dice rolls. It's like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world..."
I actually find conversational, save-scummable dice-rolls with concrete gains/losses to be inane in most CRPGs, but so much of DE's story is about the cruel arrow of time that reality follows. Sure, you can save-scum to stop Harry from embarrassing himself, you can transpose into a reality where you protected Kim against all odds. But you cannot reload to be by Dora's side again. You cannot re-roll reality over and over until you find one where the revolution succeeded, or into a world that isn't being consumed by the pale.
A magic I have always found penetrating in TTRPGs is how, for all the silly accents and random gallivanting around a made-up world, there always come moments where you're asked to roll and you recognize that this is going to cement something permanent in that made-up reality, and every other expectation you had is going to be sacrificed for it, no matter how heartbreaking. Nevertheless, the session continues. Rarely do we ever seem to agree to rewind until things play out exactly as we had hoped for them to. In that messy randomness that tells a TTRPG's story we find it in ourselves to "turn from the ruin. Turn and go *forward.*"
I didn't even no it was possible to proceed without getting Cuno as a partner, or to fail the tribunal at the end. In some ways, that actually feels like a stronger indictment of some of the behavior you can get away with.
Really fantastic video! I'm often frustrated by how video games criticism tends to toss off half-baked observations like "indebted to tabletop RPGs" without elaborating, or sticks to surface level descriptions of game mechanics without really digging into what makes them distinctive. I LOVED that you took the Disco/TTRPG comparison seriously and tried to unpack the *specific* ways they were comparable vs how they differed. I've watched a lot of video essays about DE's game system trying to help me articulate what I find so compelling and unique about it. This is so far the only one that's made me feel like I've come away with a new perspective on the game.
thrown into an inescapable pit of violent nostalgia at the glimpse of google sheets character tracker
this essay was very well written och put together! i'm glad i got this in my recommendations, and i hope your channel will grow so that more people can get to experience your stuff!
I love your essays. It's obvious that you are well informed and have thought deeply about the subjects you present. I particularly liked your discussion about storytelling through the mechanics of games, whether fiction-first or mechanics-first. The inclusion of live-action role-play was fascinating as well and has inspired me to research it further. I have experience with LARP in the military (they call them "exercises") but I had not considered the "plot-narrative-story" structure and it really resonated with me.
Keep up the good work! I keep waiting for this channel to explode and, after your Nimona essay, can't imagine why it hasn't.
I subscribed after watching your Nimona video because I suspected you'd continue with the high quality videos: I'm not disappointed. If you keep this up you will surely be a massive video essayist one day. Brilliant work.
subbed after the who 96 vid. this vid got me to hit the bell. excellent and concise to boot. one of the few video essays about roleplaying that does not make me wanna tear my hair out lol
Thank you for this essay
This is something I feel the hobby really needs - thoughtful discussion on the relationship between narrative, design, and role-playing in places where different RPG mediums meet and overlap.
Nice to see a video talking about what makes tabletop roleplay a unique medium. :)
my favorite part of DE is the way that skills talk to you
this is really really good. please please keep making these
Excellent video. I can't believe you got the worst ending on your first playthrough, that's brutal
On the game saying the Kim doesn't trust you immediately after telling you he does -- there are two hidden pluses you can get for that check. One is that the lieutenant trusts you, as a police officer of the RCM. The other is that *Kim* truly trusts you, implying not just as a police officer but also as a human being.
I had completed many runs when I convinced myself of playing with the intention to get the worst ending. And still it brought me to tears.
SPOILERS
I love how the Kim situation is described in the video. I was so devastated. I had to convince myself to keep playing.
When Harry woke up Kuno told him most of the Hardy boys were dead and Kim too. I lost it. Then he said he was joking. How could he joke about that!
I was so mad that I left the run unfinished. Looking back I think I made the right call, if I a had continued the run I would've probably seen the worst ending and I was not prepared for it.
Plot vs story vs narrative is such a useful distinction in an RPG
I’m a simple woman. I see an essay about tabletop rpgs and I subscribe
I’m a simple man, I see an essay about disco Elysium and I subscribe
Based😊
Just a quick kudos on an extremely well put together essay. I'm happy the algorithmic winds decided to lead me to your channel.
Absolutely great video. Youre doing great job.
"Disco Elysium is just like D&D and that's why it's good!" is such a smoothbrain way to think, and it's honestly a very popular opinion to have. Feels like most people miss the point of the game.
This was awesome ty
very interesting video essay! i don’t feel like i have the full context to appreciate all of it as i havent played disco elysium yet. but i’m a sucker for some nuanced discussion on ttrpgs.
Good luck for me that immediately after i subscribe a new video is uploaded
Very cool, thank you for these insights.
Considering your view of the various systems and their points, I really want to know what your thoughts are on FATE. I always found the Aspect system it provides quite intriguing.
Thank you for this
great video about a great game
YES! I LOVE YOUR STUFF
I didn't even know it's possible for Kim not to trust you, I've always had like +billion on that check
im too tired to say anything meaningful but i think comments are still good for algorithms and this channel should be bigger i think
I'm a simple man. I see a video essay and I subscribe
Comparing my favorite game with my favorite ttrpg for 16 minutes??? I think I'm legally obligated to subscribe.
I’m a simple man. I see an essay about disco Elysium and I subscribe
I was thinking about mechanics in this sense (specifically dialogue trees) the other day reading some essays on embodied narratology (the way reading affects and involves people's bodies) and it kept bringing me back to Disco Elysium in a way I think sort of rhymed with this.
Basically, people often talk about interactivity as a tool that makes audiences/readers/viewers less predictable and increases their freedom to dictate the story. But I don't think that's always correct. In a way interactivity gives the text (not the audience) power, because when a work is interactive, the game gets the ability to demand an action by the player, or a particular approach from them. So normally the text exists, and the audience sits separate from it and could be doing anything, but for a moment when the reader/player/watcher chooses, the text knows what they are doing/thinking/feeling (because the choice lets it demand actions or segment the audience up into clear types) which allows it to actually respond or criticise or attack not the vague idea of an audience, but this audience member right here, right now for a thing it knows they have just actually done.
I think this is one of the places where Disco Elysium can mimic an actual interactive GM, in its interface where it (not the player) has power over how you have to read and what choices mean.
Also there are a couple of 3% rolls in my playthrough that were literally the most ecstatic experience I've had with a video game and have kind of made it impossible to watch lets plays or replay the game for me, which if that's not the sign of a powerfully done piece I don't know what is.
Amazing video
Keep it up that was interesting to listen too :)
Hope you're having a good day.
great video
I liked this.
this is such a great video dude hoo-ah
I'm drunk rn and this means a kir to mee
Sorry, but it is somewhat wierd to say that in 2d system the bonuses are less effective on the edge of the curve. If u are rolling for 12, a +1 bonus will triple your chances so 1 in 12 rolls would be sucesfull insted 1 in 36. On the other hand if u are rolling for 4, a +1 will incrase your chances in the same way but since you were like to pass anyway, it is not that significanf.
: D
From my perspective there is no individual difference between the way that you play Disco Elysium and the way that someone would play a tabletop game aside from the fact that the people that crafted Disco Elysium were absolute geniuses and few people have had the opportunity to experience that level of genius in a tabletop environment. It is entirely possible to use passive skill checks to flavor the theme of the encounter it would just be extremely difficult for those that lack the creativity necessary.
It's possible to use similar techniques, but it's not the same, for many reasons. For one thing, a video game is written in advance, allowing for more intricate planning, and making it inherently more restricted (as mentioned in the video) which allows for more complete coverage in designing the experience.
It's practically impossible to improvise such a complex system which relies on emotional cues to guide the players' interaction with the mechanics (instead of just creatively expressing them, which is the other way around). Such a game requires meticulous tailoring and coordination of the details to result in this kind of gameplay.
And as a side note, this masterpiece is not just prose, but a symphony of various art forms all working together to achieve this level of impact (music, voice acting, poetry, painting, all thoughtfully executed to support and amplify each other).
You were doing pretty great in your video until you compared the Disco Elisium political system with Dungeons and Dragons Alignment. As if Dungeons and Dragons was the ONLY TTRPG in all existence, like most D&D players like to believe.
You'd be surprise to Know that not all TTRPGs have an aligment system created by a Moralist Conservative Jehova's Witness like D&D or Pathfinder. Most of them don´t use such rule at all.
As for the way "verbs" are used for rolls instead of skills: for god's sake have you evar heard of PbTA or FATE?
If your only experience with TTRPG is Dungeons and Dragons, you understanding of TTRPG is pretty bland.
But, they did compare aspects of Disco Elysium to both Blades in the Dark and Apocalypse World (the TTRPG through which the PbTA framework was developed, as you probably already know). I think your suggestions here are incorrect or at least inaccurate. I'm aware alignment is an archaic system- but given that they talk about *multiple other game systems* I am sure the essayist is aware that the alignment system is not a mainstay across all TTRPG's. It sounded to me like they had a good understanding of what they were talking about.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but it just seems like you may have jumped to conclusions here without fully taking in what the essayist was saying.