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This one is less of a rant and more of a straight-out question than my previous topics. It concerns, as you have likely gleaned from the title, the nature of true endings, especially in visual novels.

As we all know, most sorts of interactive fiction have multiple endings. VNs do this, as do most games with branching storylines. Let's ignore how you get to those endings for the moment, and just assume that they exist, and there are more than one of them. Maybe some are bad. Maybe there is a single good ending and the rest are bad. But what if there were multiple good endings... and one of them was better than the rest?

[insert conspiracy keanu meme here]

That's the idea behind a true end: there's other "good" ends to the story, but there is a single end that is either more rewarding (in the sense of a happier ending or something similar) and/or canonical to the timeline. And to be clear, the dichotomy of good and bad endings isn't a necessity; the important part is that either the author acknowledges that the story has a true ending, or writes the story in a way so that one end is superior to the rest.

The question, then, is this: What do true endings add and subtract from an otherwise homogeneous set of endings, and does that result in a net positive or a net negative effect? Or in more relatable terms, are true endings good or bad, and why?

In my personal opinion, I find they limit the freedom of the story, because the other good endings are somewhat diminished by the fact that there's a "best" end. Other arcs may be less involved as a result, and even if the player has made choices that they are completely satisfied with and has pursued an ending they find most appealing, the author has essentially dismissed it as a mere what-if scenario, and the player may not receive full validation. And part of the power of stories with multiple "good" endings is that they allow for player agency - choices that really are choices, not choices that are actually problems with optimal solutions.

But at the same time, I can't seem to find anything inherently wrong with true ends; other arcs being diminished isn't necessarily a bad thing if the author owns it, and not every VN has to fully demonstrate player agency and consequence. There's also part of me, maybe the more gameplay-oriented part, that likes the idea of a true end being a reward for playing a game to its completion, since it serves as a story-based incentive to explore alternate paths, rather than just a completionist one, although that really depends on the story being compelling enough to drive it.

So on the whole, there's aspects of it I don't like, but I've never begrudged a game for having one, and I might even use one myself if it ever felt right. What about all of you? Do you hate them? Like them? I'm expecting this one to be more varied than the previous, but perhaps you'll all surprise me.

I like it when the games treat their routes and characters equally and I start raging when I sense any "injustice". So, if every route is equal I don't really care if one of them is the True Ending.

But usually it's not the case, and then I want to yell "Just make a linear story, goddammit!"

I don't care for games having a true ending, or a true pairing when applicable. I think it takes away from being able to choose your own path when one is considered "right." But I won't avoid playing a game or anything like that over true endings.

However, there are times when it's hard to avoid a true ending, such as epilogues and sequels.

YonYonYon wrote:I like it when the games treat their routes and characters equally and I start raging when I sense any "injustice". So, if every route is equal I don't really care if one of them is the True Ending.

But usually it's not the case, and then I want to yell "Just make a linear story, goddammit!"

I agree with the idea that if a creator really wants to have this one ending be the real ending, just make a linear story. Let's just stop pretending.

I don't like True Endings. I don't like Bad Endings, I don't like Good Endings. I just like endings that are the choices of consequences.

One of the standard defenses of the True Ending is that if you are going to have sequels, then you *must* have a True Ending!

My feeling is that if you are going to have sequels, then structure your story differently. Use interactivity in different ways. If for your sequel to work, the MC has to end the game as the ruler of the Kargairan empire, then don't make it possible that they don't end up as the ruler of the Kargairan empire...let your interactivity determine other elements. Maybe who the MC co-regent is. Or if their friends are alive. Or if they are a kind ruler or a cruel ruler. Or the health of the empire...whatever. Stories can be made interactive with player agency and lots of replayability with a fixed end plot point if that is needed.

I think authors need to be more honest about if they want to tell a linear story or not. I think authors have to spend more time thinking about interactivity and how to do it in interesting and novel ways.

I think a True Ending can work, but it just depends on the story.

You should also take into consideration whether of not your player will agree with you or not on which ending should be labeled the "True" one. If they like another ending more, will they feel unhappily judged if another ending is their favourite, and they realise that it's not the same as the writer's "favourite"? It may feel like the player likes one timeline/alternate universe/ending, and the writer is going, "No. This is the ending I consider canon".

I think that true endings can be utilised well in certain, more plot-focused games, where there's an obvious 'best outcome' or an outcome which is more interesting and needs more development. Much as we can complain about a game putting more into an ending we would not receive from our organic choices/we dislike, sometimes there are just scenarios which need more time and resources to close than others, which then come off as true ends for the audience.

I mostly came to this conclusion from experience... I wrote all the ends to my current project trying to make them equally valid outcomes, but when the plot goal was 'do X successfully' and only one end involved doing X successfully, almost all my beta readers complained that they weren't rewarded with a longer resolution when they reached it. If I had several ends where X could be done, I would have balanced them all, but I gave a narrative win condition and people expect payoff for that. Similar situations to mine, I think creating a true end -- even if it's not ideal for some people -- is important to making your game work as a game with branching. Otherwise, why try to find the best outcome?

Buuut if you haven't set a specific goal for your protagonist with only one good solution (which, if fulfilled, would constitute a 'best end') or if you've got a whole bunch of potential goals, I think it's better to balance them all out. Especially in romance games. There's nothing more grating than a game with an obvious creator favourite character who you aren't interested in, it gives the sense that however long/fulfilling your favourite character's content is, it could have been better, and that's not a cool feeling. Likewise, if there are half a dozen equally valid ways to 'succeed at X' in a plot-focused game, they should all be given equal attention.

As a total aside though, I think it's interesting seeing how sequels and series sometimes play with expectation in relation to best endings. My favourite game series, Shadow Hearts, has two endings in the first game (do sidequests and save a major character from dying/don't do sidequests and let them die) -- the added effort for the 'better' end made it seem like that was the one that would be canonised for a sequel. But then a sequel came along... and confirmed that the character had died, so SH2 got to be a compelling story about depression, grief, and... nationalism? Then you've got stuff like Drakengard, which had five endings, two of which received a sequel -- Drakengard 2 following the best ending, and Nier following the worst. Just because a 'best end' exists doesn't mean it'll be the true end... and works which allow for that split can be compelling, since the knowledge things could have been better can be a powerful tool in making a tragedy/redemptive story/whatever more satisfying.

When you have a game where the is a narrative goal and there is one way to get that end (the Best/True end) and all other ends are failures, that doesn't feel like a real branching VN to me. That feels like a KN or a game where the author punishes the player for not guessing correctly what was in the author's mind. If it is presented humorously and/or like a strategy game rather than as a VN--like Long Live the Queen and I realize from the get go than I'm getting into some sort of adversarial relationship with the author where the goal is to try an figure out what the author wants me to say...that's okay, I guess...but...if I go into a VN expecting to have a branching story where I get to make choices and won't be punished for not picking the author's favorite one and I haven't been told that I'm going to have that sort of relationship with the author...then I'm not going to be happy.

Bad endings are just stretched out "Game Over" signs. Clearly there was a right way to finish this game, but I don't find out until several hours later; we all know I'm going to reload and try again, so why wait so long to tell me I need a restart?

Every game I know of that has player-choice endings to it are all superficial. It's the Success/Failure endings. Heroic/Evil endings. And the "choose faction 1 or faction 2" endings. That last one, not so much, but you're never given a choice to choose neither side. Like Dragon Age 2, for example. Spoiler Alert: there's a huge war breaking out that I want no part of, but the developers force me to pick a side when I can reasonably just walk away.

All the time and money spent writing the bad endings, could have been used to enhance the one true ending.

The concept of true endings severely limits the ability to write a realistic story. Whenever players make choices, it's social manipulation; they're trying to get the perfect ending, because the game has given them that Success/Failure mindset. It's not their fault, because a perfect ending means you technically beat the game. But those labels also prevent proper immersion into the story.

When you show me how many points my morality meter gains, or tell me this particular choice has consequences, that breaks the fourth wall. And consequently, I start thinking more like a gamer trying to win, instead of a character just expressing himself in a story.

Let's take Mass Effect's dialogue wheel, very ingenious tool. It's only problem was it gave moral labels to your dialogue choices. Instead of reading what your options actually said, people were just automatically selecting the polite or rude responses, regardless of what the specific words were. That was in their longterm goal of getting the good or bad ending, by trying to make everyone like/hate them.

We don't have these labels in real life. If we want true immersion, we can't have them in games either.

HiddenCreature wrote:Every game I know of that has player-choice endings to it are all superficial. It's the Success/Failure endings. Heroic/Evil endings. And the "choose faction 1 or faction 2" endings. That last one, not so much, but you're never given a choice to choose neither side. Like Dragon Age 2, for example. Spoiler Alert: there's a huge war breaking out that I want no part of, but the developers force me to pick a side when I can reasonably just walk away.

This has been my experience with AAA titles, RPGs and such, but rarely with visual novels. I don't really blame games outside of the visual novel/primarily story genre for it, though, as there's a lot more work to adding story branches with those games. I doubt many big developers see it as worth it to invest so much time and money into making a third, fourth, or fifth ending when some players don't even finish both of the first two.

HiddenCreature wrote:Let's take Mass Effect's dialogue wheel, very ingenious tool. It's only problem was it gave moral labels to your dialogue choices. Instead of reading what your options actually said, people were just automatically selecting the polite or rude responses, regardless of what the specific words were. That was in their longterm goal of getting the good or bad ending, by trying to make everyone like/hate them.

We don't have these labels in real life. If we want true immersion, we can't have them in games either.

While I agree that choice labels shouldn't be there, I don't think it's a big deal. You would know whether an answer is rude or polite, good or evil, etc, on your own without the game telling you.

Jate wrote: While I agree that choice labels shouldn't be there, I don't think it's a big deal. You would know whether an answer is rude or polite, good or evil, etc, on your own without the game telling you.

I'm actually okay with the choices giving you extra information/motivation/tone, like polite/rude...because these are things that you would know as your character that might not be clear from the text. For example:

NPC: What do you think of my hair?
PC: (Sarcastic) It looks great/(Sincere) It looks great/(Rude) It looks awful

Or I was playing a game that offered something like this:
NPC: Do you love me?
PC: (Lie) Of course I do/(Truth) Of course I do/(Truth) No.

That was great. With the dialogue wheel giving you icons it lets you know more about how you are going to say things or what your character is really thinking.

Now in Dragon Age 2 if you *always* picked diplomatic...that didn't mean you got the "good" ending. The writing was more subtle than that...which I realized when I did a second play through more aggressive than diplomatic. One of my party members had a better ending if I wasn't enabling their bad behavior through politeness as I did in my first play through. And that is good.

For me, it isn't a problem to let your players know tone, etc of dialogue...the problem is if the overall treatment of choices isn't very nuanced.

@trooper6

After reminding me of that I've changed my mind. I wasn't thinking about deception. I can't imagine what I would've said to Ravel Puzzlewell without lies. To get back to the topic of true endings, though:

My feeling is that if you are going to have sequels, then structure your story differently. Use interactivity in different ways. If for your sequel to work, the MC has to end the game as the ruler of the Kargairan empire, then don't make it possible that they don't end up as the ruler of the Kargairan empire...let your interactivity determine other elements. Maybe who the MC co-regent is. Or if their friends are alive. Or if they are a kind ruler or a cruel ruler. Or the health of the empire...whatever. Stories can be made interactive with player agency and lots of replayability with a fixed end plot point if that is needed.

While I like the thought, this seems very difficult to pull off, especially with certain genres. In your example, who is co-regent in the sequel? Were the friends saved? You could avoid the dependencies by setting up the sequel with the variable cast removed, but what's the point in saving them if they're gone in the next game? And outside of your example, what about a staple genre of VNs, romance? I don't really see a way of avoiding a true end for a romance sequel with more than one love interest.

On another note, what I think some people overlook is that interactivity doesn't have to be for the sake of endings. Take, say, a James Bond game. The player has a mission to complete. But, to reach its single end, they can sneak past the guards unseen, charge in guns blazing, or use gadgets to set up traps and misdirections. For games with true endings, as an alternative to going path A to get the true ending, and B, C, and D to get these "lesser" endings, some of those paths can be different ways to get to the true ending. For an alternative to "bad" endings, instead of a wrong choice being their doom, the player now has to correct their mistake, or find a new way to reach their goal with their original method now blocked.

Jate wrote:

My feeling is that if you are going to have sequels, then structure your story differently. Use interactivity in different ways. If for your sequel to work, the MC has to end the game as the ruler of the Kargairan empire, then don't make it possible that they don't end up as the ruler of the Kargairan empire...let your interactivity determine other elements. Maybe who the MC co-regent is. Or if their friends are alive. Or if they are a kind ruler or a cruel ruler. Or the health of the empire...whatever. Stories can be made interactive with player agency and lots of replayability with a fixed end plot point if that is needed.

While I like the thought, this seems very difficult to pull off, especially with certain genres. In your example, who is co-regent in the sequel? Were the friends saved? You could avoid the dependencies by setting up the sequel with the variable cast removed, but what's the point in saving them if they're gone in the next game? And outside of your example, what about a staple genre of VNs, romance? I don't really see a way of avoiding a true end for a romance sequel with more than one love interest.

I don't know if it is dificult so much as time-consuming...and also requires foreplanning. Note, I am not really into ongoing multi-series harem games (are there many of those?)...so this won't be a problem so much for me. But the way you do it with romance or co-regents is by limiting the number of possible love interests. Analogue: A Hate Story had a couple of ending options: You leave alone, you leave with Char A (romantic), Char A (platonic), Char B (romantic), Char B (platonic)...or I think you could leave with both characters...I have no idea if it would be romantic or platonic. So in the sequel Hate Plus, it was set up to deal with either you arriving with charcter A or with character B...I imagine there might have been a different set up for if you had both with you...again I don't know about that. So if the game has you in a love triangle between a and b, the sequel could certainly deal with either of the possibilities, it just would take time. Though, I get the sense most romances are not really interested in what happens after the couple gets togther...so is that really that big of an issue?

As for dead characters, Mass Effect dealt with it. Near the end of Mass Effect 1 you have a choice between two characters that will result in one of them dying and the other surviving. In the climax of Mass Effect 2, I believe all of your party members can die at the end. In Mass Effect 3, the people who are dead are still dead, but a number of the ones who survived can join your team again and you run into the person who survived Mass Effect 1 in both 2 and 3. It is doable, but it involves writing in a way that plans for that.

Jate wrote:On another note, what I think some people overlook is that interactivity doesn't have to be for the sake of endings. Take, say, a James Bond game. The player has a mission to complete. But, to reach its single end, they can sneak past the guards unseen, charge in guns blazing, or use gadgets to set up traps and misdirections. For games with true endings, as an alternative to going path A to get the true ending, and B, C, and D to get these "lesser" endings, some of those paths can be different ways to get to the true ending. For an alternative to "bad" endings, instead of a wrong choice being their doom, the player now has to correct their mistake, or find a new way to reach their goal with their original method now blocked.

I agree that people often think of interactivity in VNs quite narrowly in terms of getting a narrative ending (good/bad/whatever). But interactivity can be about defining personality rather than plot branching. Maybe you are a guns blazing type, or a sneaky type. And interactivity can affect the state of the world not just narrative.

Okay, so let me go back to table top RPGs. As a player, I am a "Method Actor" type, caring mostly about deep RP'ing and characterization. As a GM I tend to focus on simulation over narration. So I'm interested in fidelity to the game world and assessing the cumulative consequences of player choices and allowing that to become an emergent narrative...plus I'll give them moments that will challenge their characterization. So...the sort of directed narrative focus that you get in say, classic D&D modules (or many VN)...the sort of directed narrative focus that results in the concept of the Good or Bad ending (did you finish the module? Did you win?). And that is just not how I like to GM, or how I like to play. So, I don't tend to be in the mind set of good/bad endings or true endings.

While I'm currently just working on an initial 15 minute starter game that won't really be utilizing the sort of emergent narrative I enjoy...I do plan on trying to make some VNs that work on that model. It won't be easy because there aren't that many VN models to follow...or video game models to follow either actually. But I'm going to work it out. And in that model there won't be good or bad endings, true or fake endings...there'll just be endings.

I think that the existence of the concept of a True Ending really changes narrative and game construction...and if you take that sort of concept out...it opens up for different sorts of ways of putting together a narrative. Note: I didn't like Oblivion becuase is was open world with no...real personal grounding of the character into the world. So I think there is a way to get characters grounded into the world, allowing for personal investment, while still allowing pseudo-player driven emergent narrative that has foward momentum.

I'll just be drawing heavily on my GMing experience and figure out how I want to translate the table top to a VN context.

I had a topic a while ago that kind of delved into True Endings- http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 47&t=31629

I don't particularly like them, but players like canon.

I particularly prefer True Endings, but not in the sense that they are the best ending or the superior ending, but the actual wrap-up on all the routes so far.

For example, VNs like Ever17, where each route is needed for you to better understand the story and all of its facets in whichever order you want, to then have it all converge into a single, true ending. Sure, there are other endings for each route, but the true end relates all of them into one final chapter that closes the story.

That's what I prefer, because it makes the experience more consistent for me and gives me a better incentive to read through it all. When a VN has multiple endings, each of them equally valid, I'll probably just go through one or two routes and be done with it. When I feel that every route is important to build-up for a last one, I tend to feel like the experience is more coherent.

Now, when there's multiple equally valid endings and one is just clearly more complete, it just feels like I should strive for that one and not waste my time on the others.

I don't like the idea of true endings just because I feel it lessens choices made. Do I think it's difficult to treat all character's equally? Certainly. Even if you manage to be glad with your balance as a writer - people reading it may have their own views that alter or give someone more points than others just by virtue of opinion.

That being said I think it's worth it if you don't want to just write a linear story - to take lots of things into account and at least attempt to plan ahead and mean to have those various character's all have a share of the time and endings that are 'equal'. I know I've had many times where I've started novels and wished to see one route have more time than others I felt weren't as interesting.

I'm with Funchal as I'd rather not waste time if one particular ending is going to have more meat than any other.