An Andrew McIntosh's Writing Appreciation Thread

[ThatGuyMontag]

Those of us who followed the development know that poor Andrew McIntosh, HBS's Lead Writer for Battletech, had the unenviable problem of needing to get his storyline to fit the narrative demands of this game, where the expectation was for the story to take a back seat to the demands of the mission. The result was a story which has to hint at its depths rather than really explore them: I for one would love to learn more about Otto Karosas and what he went through under Directorate imprisonment, or what he was thinking as he betrayed Kamea and I'm on the record as saying Victoria Espinosa is my favourite HBS character, just for the development in that last battle.

I'm currently on mobile procrastinating in a pub, so I can't really go into detail on my own thoughts more broadly than this, but this is a thread to invite all of you fans of HBS's storylines discuss what I think are some very clear themes that have come out of Andrew's writing for HBS. I think referencing previous games is probably going to be important for really getting the best out of this discussion, so please feel free to talk Shadowrun while you're here as well.

 

[Stuckenschmidt]

As @ThatGuyMontag said, the campaign story we got was the result of some development restrictions, but even considering that I have to admit, that I was slightly underwhelmed.

It was a bit too much good versus evil for my taste. In my book it would have been enough to simply join and fight for the restoration. But the Icebox and Perdition were introduced to add some extra evilness to the Directorate to make sure that "yes, these guys are horrid and deserve what is coming for them". And that Ostergaard sideplot was a bit awkward either. But at least the Commodore was not evil, just a bit crazy.

I am not saying, that Mercenaries should be indifferent when it comes to morals, but in the next campaign I`d like to have less space nazis.

 

[Shake Appeal]

I will say I was disappointed with Battletech's story on balance (just because it's so conventional and has so few interesting twists and turns; and because helping an aristocrat retake her throne isn't particularly interesting to me), but only because the bar had been raised so high by Dragonfall/Hong Kong. Very different genres and approaches, though, and I'd prefer Battletech was more focused on procedural story.

 

[Unruly Marmite]

Personally I was- and am- quite happy with the story. It's certainly better than a lot of other video game stories, and I actually think a lot of that is because it's relatively black and white. It's nice and simple and therefore it leaves less loose ends and doesn't feel particularly rushed. Sure, the Battletech universe might be grey and greyer morality all over the shop but this was more than good enough as an introduction and I thought it was written quite well

As an example of what I mean: Fallout 4. It's so busy making every faction morally grey that, for me, it forgets to make any of them likeable. And if that doesn't float your boat since Fallout 4 can be controversial, to put it lightly, Fallout New Vegas did the same thing except worse. Every faction was unlikeable, and that sort of thing doesn't draw me in and make me think it's real. It annoys me and makes me stop playing. Battletech doesn't have that problem at all, and even the bad guys are at least somewhat understandable to me.

Of course, your mileage may vary in this sort of thing.

 

[Fallenkezef]

Lets just say the campaighn storyline is the reason I love the new career mode so much......

 

[Shake Appeal]

Gotta acknowledge that melding a linear narrative with a game as potentially freeform and open-ended as Battletech must be difficult, especially for repeat play. XCOM/2 and other procedural TBT games run into the same problems. Banner Saga handles it best, but at the cost of much stricter, scripted combat encounters.

I'm excited to see how Flashpoint tackles a "short story" model. That—and the tagging of Mechwarriors with traits or backgrounds—feels like it's jammed with possibility. The next step with tagging, I would guess, is allowing mechwarriors to gain or lose them based on what happens to them across the game—e.g., a character might become "Brave" by seeing a mission through to completion with one health. Then build in evolving character relationships/bonds that can affect squad morale and synergy (for good and for bad), stuff like that. Ways to remix snippets of procedural story into the experience without railroading players' freewheeling mercenary fantasies.

The other approach would be remixing the story missions so they're never quite predictable on repeat plays; the user can't "learn" how to game Smithon because different things spawn in different places.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

This is all interesting, but I'm wondering some stuff. So let's focus just on Glory from Dragonfall, someone I think has some significant overlap to the current game:

Spoiler: Dragonfall Story Details

As we remember, Glory's story is that she's an Awakened character who runs away from home and ends up joining a commune in the woods. Because this is Shadowrun, what starts out as happy times in the hippy commune goes properly Texas Chainsaw when it turns out that it's a Satanist commune with the caveat that this is Shadowrun and existential evil is a very real thing.

Once she realises what she's got into Glory does the only thing she knows how to do: she shreds her humanity with the most brutal cyberware imaginable to try and kill the awakened part of her in order to escape.

When protagonist first starts talking to her she's basically a disassociated shell and almost affectless.

That story there, of the terrible choices people make to cope with terrible situations in ways that by now feel like textbook McIntosh: I can't be sure who wrote what, but I immediately think of the Dragonfall main story (Vauclair and the death of Green Winters for instance). It gets even clearer with Hong Kong and Is0bel's story, or Gobbet's story (especially in the context of what happens at The Sinking Ship). Hell, even Raymond's relationship with Prosperity has echoes in some of Victoria's choices and Hong Kong's story has plenty of echoes between Santiago Espinosa and Josephine Tsang.

The point is:

1) the similarities between these stories can't be accidents: there's an obvious causal link
2) these are *interesting* personal dilemmas.

Point 2) in particular resonates with me in part because there are elements of my academic discipline (philosophy), which focus on precisely these sorts of questions, of what happens when certain commitments get taken to extremes, but also on a personal level as someone whose favourite class in DnD is cleric precisely because playing up powerful commitments of one kind or another is something I find interesting to work out.

When this kind of thinking ties into character drama, well I for one have to sit up and start paying attention and the thing is, everything I've read now of Andrew's work has so far scratched that itch, I'm just wondering now how many other people have seen this.

 

[Kereminde]

I'll throw in an appreciation for Glory's story in Dragonfall Director's Cut, but I have some criticisms in this game which I won't air here.

I will say there are some interesting parts through the story, sort of a fan of Director Espinosa's bearing; he remains as he began, no evolution and no backslide into mad dictator. I could respect his goals, but not his methods. I was intrigued by Commander Ostengaard but thought there was a lot of rushed forcing developing him and then a push rapidly into the role as nemesis. The voice actor saved him for me, I'll note, because he managed to throw so much anger (sometimes naked, sometimes restrained) into his lines it made me get over the whole "look, if your son was in a warzone..."

The mainstay NPCs, Sumire was a ray of really good work as exposition when she needed to be. Also, we need to get her a pet corvid of some kind. She needs more motivation to Leopard DFA people.

Darius' unfortunate script-related issues with warning about reinforcements notwithstanding . . . I was okay with him. Kinda wished he sounded like he did in the Super Pre-Alpha build, but then having Agent Broyles as XO would have been too awesome.

I also really . . . really . . . liked Yang's lines. I'd swear I need to kidnap him and have him tag-team with Louis for Priam Company, but the poor man has enough problems without having a Capellan helping out. Maybe we'll just take Dr. Farad - we may have a need for her talents.

 

[Kereminde]

@ThatGuyMontag - I don't find Victoria that similar to Glory, but that's because they're polar opposites as far as emotional behavior goes. Glory suppresses it all due to her low essence, barely being a person. Victoria revels in it, unleashing emotion and bravado - seemingly to unsettle her opponents and break down their confidence. In the end, this is why Victoria has to die - but Glory gets to live.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

I also really . . . really . . . liked Yang's lines. I'd swear I need to kidnap him and have him tag-team with Louis for Priam Company, but the poor man has enough problems without having a Capellan helping out. Maybe we'll just take Dr. Farad - we may have a need for her talents.

Hah, I was shipping Dr Farad with my CO on my first campaign run, like *sooo* hard, just because I could really see them hitting it off in my head-cannon. I used to "accidentally" end up in engineering after every mission, you know, just to check in on things.

...I have some criticisms in this game which I won't air here.

I don't really think discussing issues you have with the story is too off-topic so I for one am interested in your thoughts. My hope for the thread was just to have a story discussion and to maybe pick out some of the themes I've seen running in his work at HBS. I guess I should have gone for a different title then, but maybe your comments can spur on a broader discussion that'll be just as interesting.

 

[Nakkivene]

Personally I was- and am- quite happy with the story. It's certainly better than a lot of other video game stories, and I actually think a lot of that is because it's relatively black and white. It's nice and simple and therefore it leaves less loose ends and doesn't feel particularly rushed. Sure, the Battletech universe might be grey and greyer morality all over the shop but this was more than good enough as an introduction and I thought it was written quite well

As an example of what I mean: Fallout 4. It's so busy making every faction morally grey that, for me, it forgets to make any of them likeable. And if that doesn't float your boat since Fallout 4 can be controversial, to put it lightly, Fallout New Vegas did the same thing except worse. Every faction was unlikeable, and that sort of thing doesn't draw me in and make me think it's real. It annoys me and makes me stop playing. Battletech doesn't have that problem at all, and even the bad guys are at least somewhat understandable to me.

Of course, your mileage may vary in this sort of thing.

My take on Battletech has always been that it's a bunch of jerkass nobles messing things up. Some may be better than others, some may even be great and just leaders, but it's just such an inherently flawed system that it's no wonder there's always random wars in the Inner Sphere. So the story in this game makes sense to me. Arano doesn't listen to her more pragmatic uncle, uncle takes over, turns out too heavily on the ends justify the means side and even the ends are a bit weird to me when you look at the map, but he's also just some noble. Both seem way out of touch with the world, as you'd expect.

Nothing about the story really bothers me or took me out of it, but I have some criticisms. First of all, it's not a story about the player character. He doesn't make the choices and while he's important, he's a minion. Also the story isn't very integrated in the gameplay. As a backdrop for some action it's fine, but it's execution gameplaywise leaves something to be desired.

If you want to compare it to Fallout 4, well, that's a game where your kid is kidnapped and you go "Sure, I can solve your problems in importing carpets, no problem, I got the time!". It makes absolutely no sense and immediately took me out of the game. A better comparison would be something like Jagged Alliance 2, I wish elements of that game would be used far, far more often in games just like Battletech.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

@ThatGuyMontag - I don't find Victoria that similar to Glory, but that's because they're polar opposites as far as emotional behavior goes. Glory suppresses it all due to her low essence, barely being a person. Victoria revels in it, unleashing emotion and bravado - seemingly to unsettle her opponents and break down their confidence. In the end, this is why Victoria has to die - but Glory gets to live.

The thing that gets me is that final scene with Victoria. She's not acting with bravado, she's acting out of desperation because she knows exactly what she's done to get where she is. At that moment she's shredding her humanity in exactly the same way Glory did in order to avoid having to deal with the terrible things she's done: her evil is weirdly more abstract than Glory's but her "I am a warrior" scream is just as constructed as Glory's cyberware and used for exactly the same ends.

I also like that her relationship to what happens is so much more stark than her father's and it's clear that the reason is that because she was the one who had to get her hands dirty. He gets to be the noble who can play the games of a noble while remaining aloof and above it all, while his daughter is the one who has to find ways to cope with her actions psychologically because she's the person who literally had to get her hands dirty.

 

[Kereminde]

#1: Hah, I was shipping Dr Farad with my CO on my first campaign run, like *sooo* hard, just because I could really see them hitting it off in my head-cannon. I used to "accidentally" end up in engineering after every mission, you know, just to check in on things.

#2: I don't really think discussing issues you have with the story is too off-topic so I for one am interested in your thoughts. My hope for the thread was just to have a story discussion and to maybe pick out some of the themes I've seen running in his work at HBS. I guess I should have gone for a different title then, but maybe your comments can spur on a broader discussion that'll be just as interesting.

Re #1: I only ship 'Mechs and ammunition to where they need to go, usually from my 'Mechs into targets until they stop moving. Sometimes even after, just to make sure that Missile Carrier is DEAD. I have small vignettes cooking in the back of my mind (work is dull as heck sometimes, but getting paid time and a half to let my back-brain chew on fanfic is fine with me) about what goes on aboard the Argo and Hysteria. (Fun fact, Dekker is still the whipping boy but between him and Glitch they dominate any battlefield they land on.)

Re #2: You're gonna get a separate post in this topic. I'll need some time to digest and put forth exactly what bugs me.

The thing that gets me is that final scene with Victoria. She's not acting with bravado, she's acting out of desperation because she knows exactly what she's done to get where she is. At that moment she's shredding her humanity in exactly the same way Glory did in order to avoid having to deal with the terrible things she's done: her evil is weirdly more abstract than Glory's but her "I am a warrior" scream is just as constructed as Glory's cyberware and used for exactly the same ends.

I also like that her relationship to what happens is so much more stark than her father's and it's clear that the reason is that because she was the one who had to get her hands dirty. He gets to be the noble who can play the games of a noble while remaining aloof and above it all, while his daughter is the one who has to find ways to cope with her actions psychologically because she's the person who literally had to get her hands dirty.

First, she's a 'MechWarrior and loves to shove that around so getting her hands dirty is the business. She has as many illusions as Kamea does about the whole thing, and unlike Kamea never squares with it and owns up to her delusions of being the white knight. She relishes in the combat, and to quote/paraphrase a piece I can't recall: "only on the battlefield can she really . . . truly . . . exist as she was meant to be".

Secondly, she was caught between duty to her liege and duty to her family and ground between them like wheat under a millstone. Then caught between "what is right" and duty in the same fashion. I almost pity her for what she went through, if she wouldn't use the opportunity to take one of the eyes gazing at her that way. It's no wonder she draws herself to this image of acting cartoonishly dark, just to cope with the pressure.

And lastly, I do disagree. The final Lance on Lance duel was all about facing her end on her own terms. She knew, deep down, she was dead. The Directorate was finished, no matter what happened - if she won she would have died anyway. The Restoration army had come too far to just stop. I think the Director understood that too.

 

[Deaghaidh]

I'm of two minds. I think the writing is good, but major mistakes were made with the story. A decision was made to go with very broad characters, moustache-twirling baddies, big speeches from the heroes, etc. I think that was a bad call, but having made it the writing was actually quite good.

I would have liked to see other sides of Kamea and Alexander, and most of all I'd have liked to see the player character have more agency in the story.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

...I do disagree. The final Lance on Lance duel was all about facing her end on her own terms. She knew, deep down, she was dead. The Directorate was finished, no matter what happened - if she won she would have died anyway. The Restoration army had come too far to just stop. I think the Director understood that too.

You see it pretty clearly in the last Argo cutscene where

Spoiler

Santiago surrenders and Victoria admits to committing the chemical weapon attack on Perdition

. She's almost manic about her commitment to the Directorate and it's impossible to read it as "I'm committed to the cause regardless of its cost because I'm EEEEvil". She's committed because if she doesn't fully commit to the Directorate's cause she has to accept that she wilfully murdered 11,000 people for nothing.

I can fully see why it would be far better to build a story about your justness than own up to being a mass murderer.

 

[Unruly Marmite]

My take on Battletech has always been that it's a bunch of jerkass nobles messing things up. Some may be better than others, some may even be great and just leaders, but it's just such an inherently flawed system that it's no wonder there's always random wars in the Inner Sphere. So the story in this game makes sense to me. Arano doesn't listen to her more pragmatic uncle, uncle takes over, turns out too heavily on the ends justify the means side and even the ends are a bit weird to me when you look at the map, but he's also just some noble. Both seem way out of touch with the world, as you'd expect.

Nothing about the story really bothers me or took me out of it, but I have some criticisms. First of all, it's not a story about the player character. He doesn't make the choices and while he's important, he's a minion. Also the story isn't very integrated in the gameplay. As a backdrop for some action it's fine, but it's execution gameplaywise leaves something to be desired.

If you want to compare it to Fallout 4, well, that's a game where your kid is kidnapped and you go "Sure, I can solve your problems in importing carpets, no problem, I got the time!". It makes absolutely no sense and immediately took me out of the game. A better comparison would be something like Jagged Alliance 2, I wish elements of that game would be used far, far more often in games just like Battletech.

That's probably a pretty accurate assessment of the Battletech universe, to be honest. And I think that, all things considered, had Espinosa not tried to kill us and generally gone right to the the extremist end of the Well Intentioned Extremist trope we might well have ended up working for him, rather than Kamea. I went for Fallout 4 mainly, to be honest, because it was the first thing to come to mind when I thought of recent games that I thought were too obsessed with telling a morally ambiguous story to tell a good story, if that makes sense. Though I feel that I make that complaint a lot so it might just be me.

I think you're right on the story, though: I like it as a piece of storytelling, but really it's Kamea's story. We just happen to be the hypercompetent muscle that basically acts as an amazingly competent spec ops team and has a convenient grudge against Espinosa. It isn't about us, and I can see how that's not ideal for something like this.

Regarding Victoria: she really annoys me. She talks big, she's ruthless, she's persistent. She was the one I considered an enemy, and I made a point of stripping her mech piece by piece in the final duel because of it. I'd actually argue that that's a sign of being a very well executed villain, especially one where I can understand where she's coming from yet not feel any sympathy for her. But that's a whole other debate about reasons vs excuses that would probably derail this thread far too much.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

I'm of two minds. I think the writing is good, but major mistakes were made with the story. A decision was made to go with very broad characters, moustache-twirling baddies, big speeches from the heroes, etc. I think that was a bad call, but having made it the writing was actually quite good.

I would have liked to see other sides of Kamea and Alexander, and most of all I'd have liked to see the player character have more agency in the story.

I don't really see that. Again, looking at that final scene on the Argo: Santiago isn't psychotic, he's aristocratic in all the ugliest senses of that word. He doesn't see how what he's done is wrong because the whole thing is just part of what he was due as a scion of the Reach. He doesn't even realise that he has to own all the people who died: "who cares: they served my ends."

...But that's a whole other debate about reasons vs excuses that would probably derail this thread far too much

Gotta pull you up on that one mate: that's precisely *why* the thread exists. As long as you tie it back to some part of the storytelling it's doing what I intended when I posted.

Link it to past HBS storytelling though and you'll make my week.

 

[Kereminde]

You see it pretty clearly in the last Argo cutscene where ...

I finished the campaign, I got to see that scene, and that's where the pin gets pulled on the grenade and Victoria's fate is sealed. That's where she just . . . breaks . . . and that's why it's important to have that last battle. It's not because you owe it to her to have an honorable duel. It's not because the outcome matters. It's because she needs to be put down, and out of her own misery.

 

[Kereminde]

Okay, first off let me start by saying I don't know who wrote what parts. I do know many hands were involved here, so let's just take my biggest problems with the Campaign one piece at a time. And before rebuttals, I understand the reasons some of these things are the way they are. The time and complexity issues undoubtedly were in mind when this was being done, and it was decided focused and simple would win out over complex - I have always said "BattleTech" is a very good foundation to build better experiences from. Better gameplay, better stories, and a better experience overall.

But the story is almost the weakest part.

First of all, and the problem for me above all the others, is there's no branching. There's not even meaningless branches which shift and flow back into the main storyline. This makes the story very linear, and can kill some of the replay value of the Campaign itself. The game? Oh no, Career Mode will have me back and forth a few times. Campaign? I'm not even talking about things like "oh I'd want to work for the Directorate instead" or "I just bug out and go ignore the Restoration entirely". There's no points where a decision must be made, and it affects something. Even so much as "should we drop at night when they won't expect us?" or something similar would have given a branch which may be interesting. But here's another option - what if the story had your heritage actually be the power who backs Kamea into the Restoration movement? Your family is from the Federated Suns? House Davion sends Justin Allard to stir a pot. Deep Periphery? Jaime Wolf has something he wants looked into about supposedly a lost prototype DropShip . . .

And this moves into my second issue. The background just doesn't seem to matter overmuch outside a few event tags and some conversation options. Options which sometimes aren't exactly as interesting to pick as existing ones. So Valia Delune is from Canopian territory, and was exiled from her family, being a Merchant Guard? What does this mean, really? The story doesn't have any hooks to draw on these details, except through the dialogue options. We could have had some breather missions pop up to manage the pacing between Priority Missions, like if you lost your family in an accident you find a hint they may be alive somewhere after a misjump. Or you struck out on your own, and your family reaches out to you because there's a problem they need a Merc Outfit to solve. You're from the Suns, so you're used to seeing Taurians do crazy stuff like Ostengaard does and just write it off as "one of those Taurian things". You're Lyran, so you really want to advise Kamea to keep in mind rebuilding trade even as she's pushing her reclamation army through. You're from the Free Worlds League so you're totally okay with civil war, it's old hat like when Anton lost his mind. Some of these things can be small details peppered through here and there, just to spice it up.

Lastly, there's issues with characters being just barely presented at the face of what they are and it's only through paying closer attention a second time you start to see more facets glitter. (Mostly. I mean, Grim Sybil is not by any means complex. Entertaining, though.) There's various hints of things, but they're just not shown anywhere to give them a human feeling. Santiago Espinosa is the villain, but he's also Kamea's uncle; there's no point I found where Kamea reflects she is going to war against someone who likely saw her in diapers. There could be a moment where she wistfully remembers one time she and Victoria were lifted to watch a parade with her father at the head, and he'd been laughing as he stumbled under holding them up. There's not much from the crew about remembering the former CO outside of Darius, and once you ply their stories from them there's no impact on anything. Their stories don't come into play in events, even; there's no event where Sumire is livid about someone putting a stuffed bird toy in her bunk, and you can sympathize if you went through her dialogue.

The whole of the game story issues I have can be summed up this way: it feels like you're not really there. Nothing feels like it's both had history and is still happening around you; one or the other, never both. Sure, this is a tall order for HBS' writers to do on a time budget. Focus equals quality. Feature creep. But this is why I say it's a great foundation to start from, and Flashpoints look to be potentially solving some aspects of what I was talking about.

Some people complain about cliches, or stereotypes, or predictable tropes. I just usually shrug and go "this sounds like BattleTech fiction's perennial problems to me, folks". So what if there's cliches/tropes in action? Tropes are not bad. But at the same time . . . I find the campaign story works, and in some places the VAs are what save it by having the means to deliver the lines and make them sound like there's conviction. (Sir Raju's lines in the tutorial/prologue are pretty good, even the small ones on a kill.)

Do I think I could do better? Maybe. Maybe not. I could do it differently, at least. (Am doing it differently.)

I should get some sleep before midnight arrives and I need to wake for work.

 

[Deaghaidh]

While Victoria and Ostergaard had good moments, the problem was the Directorate being completely undeveloped. It's just instant atrocities and war crimes motivated by... Kamea and her father not becoming brutal militaristic dictators out of nowhere. Civil War storylines only work when someone could actually believe in both sides. Since the only thing the Directorate ever did was have it's armed forces kill their comrades, massacre civilians, and establish concentration camps, you can see the problem. Somehow we're supposed to buy Victoria's fanatical devotion to this Strong Vision.

Mainly it's that the characters each only have one note. Victoria is fanatical. Ostergaard is angry. Kamea heroically suffers for her people. Alexander is loyal. This feels deliberate, and is what I mean about bad decisions made about the direction of the story. Just because it's a sci-fi video game it doesn't mean the audience can't handle it.