Why "character-driven" storytelling is a disaster for RTS

The elephant in the room

RTS is not a genre famous for its storytelling. The quality of campaigns’ stories ranges from functional to… uh, “what was the writer smoking when he wrote this?”

If you are familiar with RTS, then you may find this a strange assertion. “What about Blizzard’s campaigns?” you might ask. If you did ask this, then I want you to stop and think for a second. You are probably aware of the iconic RTS characters like Kane, Kerrigan, and Arthas from the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Those three are probably the most famous in the genre. How many other equally iconic RTS characters are there and how many of them date from games released after 2005? 2010? 2015?

You probably cannot name many others besides, off the top of my head, Tim Curry’s Cherdenko and Tychus Findlay. 

You probably have fond memories of RTS campaigns from the 90s and 2000s “golden age of RTS”. You probably noticed that the number of memorable campaigns has dramatically declined since then. You may be wondering why this is. Other genres have become increasingly recognized as art and gotten increasingly budgeted stories, whereas RTS has been left in the dust. What gives?

The answer is that RTS does not receive the same funding it did during the golden age. The world has changed. Other genres like 4X and MOBA have stolen RTS’s thunder because they have greater ROI.

I maintain that there is one other factor, the one I mentioned at the start of this post: RTS has never had great stories to begin with. We thought those stories were good because we were children when we played them. We did not notice the foundational flaws that I created this blog specifically to point out. But now the average RTS player is in their thirties and our standards have risen. 

Age of Darkness: Final Stand released a campaign whose story was favorably compared to WarCraft III. You probably have not played it. If you did, then you probably cannot remember it. If you can remember it, then you probably remember being confused the whole time and cannot name any of the characters. If you remember specific points of criticism, then congratulations: you have a really good memory!

It is widely accepted that the story of StarCraft II is awful. It was so bad that it killed the lore fandom. Postings to fanfiction.net took a nosedive shortly after it released and never recovered. While some people think it is good, they are a minority. I maintain that the writing quality is no worse than it was in past games: it is just more obvious because of the higher production values and because we grew up. RTS players grew up, but the stories did not grow up with us.

What drives stories

In literary criticism, two broad types of story drives are recognized: character-driven and plot-driven. In character-driven stories, the story is driven by the internal thoughts, external actions, and character development of the characters. In plot-driven stories, the story is driven by external events that the characters react to. The actual definitions are a long more complicated and nuanced, but that is a decent short explanation.

All RTS stories that I have encountered are plot-driven in literary terms, not character-driven. Simply having characters does not a make a story character-driven. To call them "character-driven" misunderstands the literary meaning. For RTS, I instead make a distinction between faction-driven storytelling and melodrama-driven storytelling. 

Why are RTS stories so poor? I maintain that it is because writers do not know how to make use of the format. The foundational problem is that they tell melodrama-driven stories instead of faction-driven stories. The best RTS stories, or at least the ones that age the least poorly to my adult eyes, are those that are faction-driven. The worst, or at least the most offensive to my adult intelligence, are always melodrama-driven.

Where faction-driven stories succeed

Most RTS tell faction-driven stories, if they tell what can be called stories at all. In faction-driven stories, the plot is driven by the actions and reactions of the factions, the playable sides of the game. Characters exist to convey this to the player, but they operate as representatives of their faction and its values. In other words, factions are written as characters in themselves.

Westwood RTS, such as Emperor: Battle for Dune and the Command & Conquer series, are typical examples of faction-driven campaigns. 

In Emperor, the leaders of the houses are exemplars of their house’s values. The membership of the houses all adhere to these values, their cultures, explaining why the armies follow their leaders. The Atreides forces value goodness and follow the Duke because of his goodness and the good acts he does, that he allows them to do. The Harkonnen forces value evil and cruelty; they follow the Baron because he gives them opportunities to indulge in their wickedness. The Ordos forces are mercenaries and vat grown duplicates; they follow the Executrix because they are paid or brainwashed.

In Command & Conquer, it may be remarked that Kane is the main character. Nod follows his plans, GDI reacts to his plans. However, this ignores the context around him. Nod and GDI are still composed of people who react like people. They operate with or without Kane being involved, as demonstrated by their activities during the years he was absent. GDI tries to maintain global order. Nod tries to advance their Tiberium-centered religion. They are not mindless zombies who do nothing outside of obeying Kane. Nod has beliefs, factions, and so on. Other characters within Nod react differently depending on their personal beliefs. Some follow Kane, some question him, some betray him. At the end of the day, they are people, not objects.

In Armies of Exigo, the characters always work for the benefit of their nation. Some desire personal power and glory, or revenge, but have to manage that against the desires of those they must ally with. For example, the princess of the dark elves allies with the void aliens to destroy the surface dwellers and because her people will survive the transition unscathed; she does not sacrifice her people for revenge, so it makes sense for them to follow her without questioning her motives.

In literary terms, these faction-driven stories are plot-driven. The factions and their characters rarely undergo any meaningful character development. Their ideology and personality remains static. 

Kane starts out as a mysterious cult leader in Tiberian Dawn and by Tiberian Twilight he remains equally mysterious. His characterization is identical in every game he appears and he does not develop as a person. There are no other recurring characters. At most, GDI expands from a special operations force to a world government and NOD evolves from a global terrorist conspiracy to a full blown theocracy as the spread of tiberium causes the collapse of previous global civilization.

The same is true for the Houses in Emperor: Battle for Dune. The Atreides are noble, the Harkonnens are evil, and the Ordos are insidious. That never changes.

These sorts of stories, while probably not so impressive nowadays, age a lot better than the melodrama-driven stories because of their focus on consistent faction dynamics. The characters may or may not be colorful, or have relationships, but their interpersonal drama does not overshadow their faction.

Where melodrama-driven stories fail

In melodrama-driven stories, the plot is supposedly driven by characters… but not really. These stories are actually plot-driven in terms of literary criticism, but give the illusion of being character-driven by showing the characters talking and acting melodramatically. Melodrama by itself does not make a story character-driven. A true character-driven story focuses on the goals, actions and motivations of the characters to drive the plot, and showcases how the character develop, grow and change over time as a result of their experiences. 

In these campaigns, this is not the case. The characters react to external events, behave according to the needs of the plot, and otherwise do not necessarily follow consistent behavior between missions or scenes despite their supposed personality. They do not grow and change organically, if they change at all; they either remain static or have their supposed personality artificially rewritten by a plot device. They will behave one way in one scene and then flip 180 in the next, as though they had bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. 

Everyone outside the main cast is reduced to mindless zombies who exist to obey the main cast and do nothing else, as otherwise they might interfere with the plot. There is no coherent world building: these stories reduce their settings to shallow theme parks made of cardboard cutouts. Although the story is technically plot-driven, it goes about it in a very forced and clunky way, relying on inconsistent characterization and plot devices to force the plot towards the planned ending. Nothing feels earned.

The most famous examples of melodrama-driven stories come from Blizzard’s campaigns in the late 90s and early 2000s. Although these certainly look and sound pretty, especially to kid me playing them for the first time, the actual scripts have huge plot holes, backwards plotting, bipolar characters, lazy inconsistent plot devices, and other problems. I have gone over various instances in my other posts on this blog, as well as pointing out how other campaigns like StarCraft: Insurrection and Armies of Exigo tried to do better.

Easily the most memorable Blizzard story is the Alliance campaign staring Arthas in WarCraft III, to the point where it overshadows the rest of the entries and characters in the series. The emotional center point of the campaign is Arthas, who resorts to increasingly extreme acts to protect his countrymen from the undead scourge. At the end of his arc, he is tricked into stealing a cursed sword that eats his soul and turns him into a puppet of the scourge. While suitably tragic, this undercuts the emotional weight of his actions later. The subsequent campaigns are not particularly memorable because they do not feature similar build up or sympathetic melodrama. Arthas in the undead campaign is simply an evil puppet and unable to reflect on his past actions. He never chooses to become evil and turn on his country, he has his soul stolen immediately. This is not organic character development, this is a plot device. A much more organic trajectory I have seen suggested is that Arthas is seduced and converted to the Cult of the Damned in the belief that it will save his countrymen from their enemies, but that would require significant rewrites and giving the scourge way more depth than they had in canon. (Not to mention other problems like Medivh acting like a lunatic and ordering everyone to move to Kalimdor for the big fight against Archimonde instead of giving actual intel that could prevent the demonic invasion from ever happening, such as destroying the relevant pages from the Book of Medivh.)

These melodrama-driven stories fail because they simply are not believable. Characters do not behave like fully realized people, the world around them does not behave like a living world, the rules of the universe itself are not consistent... There is no sense of verisimilitude, so it does not maintain the audiences' suspension of disbelief. When these kinds of stories are told today, such as the campaign story for Age of Darkness: Final Stand, they fall flat because we are now thirty or older.

Moving forward

If RTS campaigns want to tell memorable stories in the future, then they need to respect their thirty-something players. You need to write the factions as actual cultures and organizations, not mindless zombies for the characters to order around as they please. You need to write the characters as if they were actual people with consistent personalities and desires, not as shallow caricatures who do whatever you need for the plot to advance toward the conclusion you want. You need to allow the plot to progress organically in response to the actions of the factions based on their motives, rather than deciding everyone will team up against the big bad evil guy and then forcing the plot to move toward that point.

Otherwise, you are just not gonna leave an impression.