Originally Posted by Abraxas*
you can't 'show' an action in literature - outside of dialog - without a more or less detailed description;

Perhaps I explained this poorly. This does a much better job

You can try to cheat this rule by having people constantly say exactly what's happening. Like somehow it's not awkward to have characters talking about obvious things things like, "Hello, my 21-year-old sister named Vivian. How are you enjoying being unmarried and beautiful?"

This article actually makes a great point. You use your imagination either way. Showing flips this on its head. Instead of Zixzax always telling you how excited he is and imagining his facial expressions, you would get to see his facial expressions and make your own inference.

"Show, don't tell" is one of the golden rules of writing (though oversold a little). The problem with D:OS is that very little is shown to us at all. In fact, one pet peeve of mine is that no matter how much time I spent talking to Arhu, I never really properly understood that he actually looks like this, even though it's easy to see. Honestly, I just heard his voice, made my own mental picture and this just overruled his actual appearance. There's really no reason for me to be looking at his tiny portrait or his tiny 3D model. These things are only peripheral, and most of the 3D models look very different from their portraits. I want to see him up close when I'm talking to him. I don't even care if his mouth moves.


Originally Posted by Abraxas*
D:OS uses interactions between characters (dialog and animated actions), items, book text and environment to 'show' characteristics, intentions, feelings, actions.

Calling this an interaction is pretty generous. The only contribution made by the player character is, "Tell me X". Then, after asking him to tell you about how he survived a shipwreck, he suddenly segueways so he can interject:
Quote
I do long for a companion of my own kind, and in that regard, there's no one like Maxine!

You seriously can't get any more telling than that. This is the problem with the current storytelling style.

How could you do it differently? Well, you could have him ask the player about Maxine (it doesn't really matter if you've never met her, because that leads to a natural segueway). As it is, he's far more interested in talking about his own backstory than he is in talking about Maxine. And he's far more interested in telling you about his history with Maxine than he is about trying to find a solution. His problem is that he doesn't know what to do next, so the obvious question for him to ask would be, "What should I do?" As it is, he never asks you anything, and he never asks for your help. Your only contribution is to encourage more monologue. This happens too much.

Witcher 3 gets it right again. Of course, it's easier when you can see their faces, but that's not the only issue. (Trying to emote with a cat would also be a fun challenge.)