Greg Lobanov

fun game writin trick: i'll sprinkle "mandatory" lore into rando/extra NPCs, and take it out of future mandatory scenes if you've seen it

so you can learn important stuff by meandering around, + it helps make the "main" plot moments feel breezier in small ways by removing lore

this's always done based on in-the-moment decisions about what the character would actually say, not some contrived structural plan...

just once in a while, there's a nice coincidence where they want to say something plot relevant, and I get to happily shave lines elsewhere

I felt this in ffxv in Lestallum, in which the city had culturally reversed gender roles, that are kinda only shown in main story