Plot vs. Storytelling
Well said. I agree, in general.
As a roleplayer, I see this problem crop up a fair bit when people run their own plots - everything becomes about moving the events forward, and there's not enough time to digest the background, to discuss, to plan, to think of ways forward before the next step in the plot pushes upon the players.
The most effective means available to avoid this problem is to avoid linear plotlines - never write "this happens, then this, then this" - but to instead have them couched as "if this, then that". The downside being that this suddenly explodes the size of the plot from "23 separate things happen in a Dr Q TF" to "dependent on player actions, something in the region of 100 things might happen in a Dr Q TF".
The only way this could really work in-game is through some form of amendment to the branching dialogue tech - branching story arcs, where if A happens in mission 1, then X happens in mission 2, but if B happens in mission 1, then Y happens in mission 2, instead. This is actually tackled a little bit in some of the new DA stuff, where if you rescue certain individuals, you get aid from them later.
I'd like to see actual alterations to mission objectives based on the outcomes of earlier missions (probably using "fake badge" tech to allow the system to determine what happens next), so that if in mission three I do the optional objective to defeat everything on the map, in mission six I have the information I need to pick out the correct objective.
Back to a point you made, though - "taking the time to stop and smell the roses". These are the beats of the plot. It can be achieved in CoH with "talk to" missions - as long as the subject being talked about is interesting. Another option is the "fake door mission" where you enter a map full of friendlies and have to talk to one of them. It breaks things up from the monotony of battering the ever-living heck out of bad guys.
If this were combined with branching story arcs, it would be possible to create truly wonderful stories, I think.
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As a roleplayer, I see this problem crop up a fair bit when people run their own plots - everything becomes about moving the events forward, and there's not enough time to digest the background, to discuss, to plan, to think of ways forward before the next step in the plot pushes upon the players.
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In a way, I don't think the work involved in making more content is the biggest stopping block, so much as the work required to keep it all straight.
That said, City if Heroes is already flirting with some of that. Speaking with a character before starting a mission can trigger a bonus objective, not killing a character in one arc can have him show up in another arc and so forth. And they can do even the very simpler "branching paths" thing by having an optional mission give information about how to solve a subsequent mission, a happens in Dark Astoria. If you know the trick, you can solve a maze directly. If you don't, you get to wander and be ambushed every intersection.
Back to a point you made, though - "taking the time to stop and smell the roses". These are the beats of the plot. It can be achieved in CoH with "talk to" missions - as long as the subject being talked about is interesting. Another option is the "fake door mission" where you enter a map full of friendlies and have to talk to one of them. It breaks things up from the monotony of battering the ever-living heck out of bad guys.
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Again, though, this CAN be achieve by ostensibly active events, and I think the key here is pacing. In City of Heroes, our "chapters" are defined by how a story is split between missions, and I fear a lot of the newer story arcs just seem to try to tell too much plot per "chapter." In what looks like an attempt to interconnect every story into the broader world, there are many different plotlines competing per mission, many characters that need to be put in a specific positions, many mcguffins that need to be in a specific state, many events that need to happen and so forth. There's so much busywork that there's just no time to tell a story.
I firmly believe that a good story is more than just the combination of events that take place in it and the justification why they happened as they did. In other words, you need more than just plot to tell a good story. You need substance to this plot, you need to take time to characterise people and give us reason to care about them, you need to set up events and give us reasons to want to see them resolved. And a lot of this game really fumbles on this note. We're out-and-out told why we care about events and why we want to see them resolved and we're told we care about people.
Look at Dark Astoria again - Scirocco's story arc there is AMAZING, and it doesn't even have all that much to do with the central plot. Like the player, Scirocco is just an actor in the broader play without being "crucial" in any specific way. But because his personal story plays out over time and we can see his progression, as well as that of Ice Mistral, we're given reason to care. Oh, sure, a cynic might still not give a toss, and that's perfectly understandable, but the story gives us a reason to care if we choose to, and it's not just because we're told we care.
The problem with writing the story all around plot is that it just devolves into problem resolution, usually within the same story that introduces the problem. But the problems doesn't give us a reason to want to solve it while the resolution doesn't give us reason to celebrate. When not enough time is given for the audience to settle into the story before more plot intrudes on a character moment, the audience really has very little to connect.
Stalin's famous words of "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic." hold true in storytelling. A single death because we can identify with the dead person and we can sympathise. We have reason to care. But as altruistic as we may be, we can never "get" a million deaths because we can never know a million people. Hell, most people can't really picture what that even represents. That's what "too much plot" does - it throws so many technical events at us that we have no time to connect with them on an emotional level, and if we can't do that, we can't care.
All I'm really saying is you CAN have downtime in battle, provided that battle isn't charged with too much plot. Instead of piling too many plot points in a single mission, put just one in, but have it carry some meaning beyond the practical need to do this. Have it offer some form of insight or reflection. Have it be important in some way OTHER than because it must be done. Doc Delilah muses on the life of Akashi Knight, Pia Marino muses on her love for her brother while Angus McQueen muses on the nature of Rikti Society. The point is that all of these people have stories which talk about more than just the logistics of getting from the beginning to the end, and manage to achieve resolutions that transcend mission objectives.
At the end of the day, the plot is not the point, it's the vessel for that point to reach people, and it can harm as much as it helps if it takes over as the only meaningful part of the story.
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More story arcs like Seer Marino's, is basically what you saying?
I AGREE!
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More story arcs like Seer Marino's, is basically what you saying?
I AGREE! ![]() |
I firmly believe that the balance between plot and storytelling is important for every story ever told. There isn't a specific balance "point" to speak of, obviously, but there are limits to it. If you have too much plot and not enough effort put into storytelling, you end up with a manual on how to put your book case together. If you put too much effort on pretentious storytelling but forget to give your story any point, you end up with grandpa telling us about how he managed to walk a road up hill in both directions, somehow. To me, storytelling is what makes us care, and plot gives us something to care about. Too little of either is bad for the story.
And when I say "too much plot," I don't mean to imply there's some limit on how much plot a story can have. You can have it as dense and expansive as you want, you just need to pace it well and provide enough storytelling to keep interest. To me, the Soul Reaver series, especially 2 and Defiance, are a good example of games with FAR more plot than is reasonable for a good story, yet games that nevertheless manage to be compelling because they pace their plot well and supplement it with constant storytelling through the eyes of the protagonists. Sure, internal monologue is not the best way to tell a story, but when your story has this much plot, then filling the dead air of gameplay with it is not a bad idea.
Actually, I'd go as far as to say that, in a game, actual gameplay is a "pause" in the plot, at least when it comes to conventional narrative through cutscenes and conversations. You get a section of plot, then you get a section of gameplay that has minimal plot in it. THESE are the times when characterisation can happen and storytelling can come into its own. Rather than having this be dead air, add little mood pieces that don't mean much, but add up to the experience. When I wrote my ill-fated Architect arcs, I tried to have an NPC drop a single line of dialogue at least once every five minutes of gameplay or so. This was never anything major and plot relevant, just some soldier going "I don't like this plan. We're too exposed." and another replying "Are you questioning Lord Nemesis' foresight?" It's not a plot point, just a little window into a couple of low-level grunts for atmosphere.
This is actually why SSA1.7 is my favourite of the lot - it has a LOT of gameplay sections with no plot in them, and it does make decent use of the time. For instance, at one point I'm told to climb a pile of floating ships to reach a device on the top one, with the ships arranged in a sort of ascending path with Rularuu on the way. I didn't fly, so I went along the path, fought some Rularuu and had time to take in the scenery. This is in stark contrast with the previous SSA1s where I felt like I had a nagging wife behind me at all times. Go there! Now go there! Do this! Not like that, like this! Now go there! And hurry up! I could never enjoy the experience because I was being bludgeoned over the head with plot as dense as a brick that would need twice the number of missions to tell well and might still feel rushed even then. Not SSA1.7. This one was over twice as long as the other, yet tried to give out about half the plot, and it struck pretty much the perfect balance, in my opinion. I should hope the new ones are like this.
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The tension between exposition in the plot, plot events and the trappings like character development is very tricky to resolve.
Do it well, and you have "Casablanca," which has a pretty simple story but is drenched with memorable characters and wonderful dialogues.
Do it poorly and a glaring example comes to my mind in which the film devolved into a rampant deathfest in the last two minutes in which not only was every participant in the film was summarily killed (as in, *BLAM* *DEAD* with nothing more), but a narrator then intoned that the entire planet had in fact been destroyed. The End.
CoH has had work that approaches both of these extremes. I have never played SSA1.7 which you like so well because the greatly fanfared and spoiled Death Of Statesman failed on so many levels, which I shall not belabor here. I did the next one, where Malaise attacks Sister Psyche, and have been totally put off them since. The Doppleganger arcs and what I had done in DA so far, however, are quite good.
One would hope that the CoH writers would lean towards what have been commonly acclaimed as well-done arcs and away from the poor ones, but if it were easy, they would all have been great in the first place. But here's hoping.
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CoH has had work that approaches both of these extremes. I have never played SSA1.7 which you like so well because the greatly fanfared and spoiled Death Of Statesman failed on so many levels, which I shall not belabor here. I did the next one, where Malaise attacks Sister Psyche, and have been totally put off them since. The Doppleganger arcs and what I had done in DA so far, however, are quite good.
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I see SSA1.7 not so much as a great story arc that all future ones should aspire to be like... It really isn't. It's mediocre at best, but on the positive, sympathetic side of mediocre. It comes off as the writers trying to make up for the horror of the previous SSA1s and just being pressed for time. What it's an example of is that if you don't try to make the Gordian knot of plotlines and leave room for storytelling, you can make decent, acceptable work even out of the worst of source materials.
If SSA1.7 can be playable and enjoyable given the arcs that came before it, that has to mean something.
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However, one look at the TF's souvenir reveals what I consider to be a much more fundamental flaw with this TF's design - it's all plot and no storytelling. There is literally nothing there to inspire or engage, it's just a sequence of events linked together by a logical timeline that has no storytelling of any sort to offer. |
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This is a big issue for me in AE arcs. Very few people get the idea that the missions should actually have detail.
Most content in CoX is what I call bookend content. The contact tells you something you have to do, you go do a mission with no details except the plot point (defeat boss, etc) and then the contact says the resolution.
Now bookend content is fine for teams where the goal is just to find foes to fight, but it is lame for solo play where you can have a real story and experience.
The purpose of plot is really to explain the events and motivate the player/character. Arachnos is going to blow up Atlas Park with a bomb, you need to disarm it. It is what you need to do and why.
The storytelling is what makes the actual mission fun. Rescuing innocents, witty banter from the villains, etc.
Please, don't use those terms
There's a reason: They mean different things. In narratology "plot" and "story" are two ways of looking at narrative sequence. (basically the plot is the narrative as it moves chronologically through the work in question, while the story is the narrative as it moves chronologically "in-universe")
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
Please, don't use those terms
![]() There's a reason: They mean different things. In narratology "plot" and "story" are two ways of looking at narrative sequence. (basically the plot is the narrative as it moves chronologically through the work in question, while the story is the narrative as it moves chronologically "in-universe") |
storytelling != story
All I'm really saying is that WHAT happens in a story is not the most important aspect of making a story, and can sometimes be detrimental when that's all the story has to offer. HOW that story is being told is often just as important.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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That's easy to say, but it's a bit like saying "More movies like Star Wars!" and we all know how that turned out. We know Pia's arc is good, but I want to try to pin down at least some of the reasons as to WHY it's good, so that we can apply those same techniques to fundamentally different stories and get them to be just as good, but in their own unique way.
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You say we need more storytelling and less plot, I'd argue the opposite. Most of the new missions seem like a sequence of unrelated cutscenes glued together in haste, and the plot is just an afterthought to make them seem connected. That might be how scripting is done in a video clip, but an actual movie or novel isn't just a random collection of cool scenes - those are born out of necessity as the script demands it, not the other way around. Could these scenes have more feeling, more emotion, more involvement? Certainly, but let's make sure the mission objective actually makes sense before giving our pixeled actors a tryout for the academy awards.
Now, I understand it's difficult for the animators to come up with cutscenes on the spot, and it's tempting to just adapt the script to what's already been coded, but at some point the writers are going to have to start banging their hands in the table and demand that decisions aren't made before they're actually included on the script. Does that mean leaving out the cool NPC with her flashy new costume? It's a shame, but yes. Does that mean not putting to use the newly created moon textures that everybody at the graphics department spent the last month working on? Sorry, maybe next time.
Please, don't use those terms
![]() There's a reason: They mean different things. In narratology "plot" and "story" are two ways of looking at narrative sequence. (basically the plot is the narrative as it moves chronologically through the work in question, while the story is the narrative as it moves chronologically "in-universe") |
Story - the plot or succession of incidents of a novel, poem, drama, etc.:
Outside of a corner of academia, plot and story share the same common usage. As an internet forum, I hardly think we need to hold ourselves to such lofty standards... at least until someone touches on the newer stories and why they're breaking with the traditional 1-50 chronology.
To reroute this comment back on topic, I agree with what Sam is getting at here. A series of events, no matter how grand in scale they may be, offer little entertainment if they read like a history book. Great story telling, on the other hand, can make even the most common and mundane events very engaging.
A series of events, no matter how grand in scale they may be, offer little entertainment if they read like a history book. Great story telling, on the other hand, can make even the most common and mundane events very engaging. |
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Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Now, I understand it's difficult for the animators to come up with cutscenes on the spot, and it's tempting to just adapt the script to what's already been coded, but at some point the writers are going to have to start banging their hands in the table and demand that decisions aren't made before they're actually included on the script. Does that mean leaving out the cool NPC with her flashy new costume? It's a shame, but yes. Does that mean not putting to use the newly created moon textures that everybody at the graphics department spent the last month working on? Sorry, maybe next time. |
The problem isn't really the cutscenes anyway, as I'm sure those are coded to fit the script, not the other way around. There has been, however, a tendency to create arcs around new mechanics, which is completely backwards.
But anyway, mechanics are irrelevant to good storytelling. The Dark Astoria arcs are mechanically quite good (aside from the aforementioned long cutscenes and extended NPC conversations), but that doesn't change the fact that Mot could eat everybody involved and I wouldn't give a damn.
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What made the story awesome was it involved a signature character, the story actually seemed to mean something, and for redside, I didn't feel like a lackey.
Using signature characters in story arcs is one of the best things the writers could start doing.
Not having the story seem random is also a very big plus.
Marino's arc is just...that awesome! It's the story arc that I always made sure to run when I played redside.
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The personal story missions are also an awesome new mechanic for storytelling.
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Or, you know, they could leave out the cutscenes entirely. Considering that the devs have repeatedly stated they're a lot of work, they sure seem fond of them. Personally, I'd like to get rid of all the cutscenes in the game, but that's just me. They certainly have no place in content that is designed to be repeated, such as Incarnate stuff. The extended conversations between NPCs while you stand there and pick your nose are just as bad.
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The problem isn't really the cutscenes anyway, as I'm sure those are coded to fit the script, not the other way around. There has been, however, a tendency to create arcs around new mechanics, which is completely backwards. |
But anyway, mechanics are irrelevant to good storytelling. The Dark Astoria arcs are mechanically quite good (aside from the aforementioned long cutscenes and extended NPC conversations), but that doesn't change the fact that Mot could eat everybody involved and I wouldn't give a damn. |
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Yes they are (assuming they've fixed the lag problem in Cole's PoV), and I'd like to add that the new cutscene in SSA #2 has a pretty cool new feature - it actually includes the player character in it! The PC just runs for a bit before standing still, no dialogue or emotes yet, but it's a good start to including the PCs in the action, assuming they're still planning to use these cutscenes to advance the plot.
The biggest issue with storytelling in the game is that the game design is so adverse to story telling. The only way to get everything out of an arc is if you are soloing it. The contacts that give information on the missions before and after the mission are nearly impossible to read unless you are the team leader. The clues given in mission require you to stop everything and read them to get the story. The in-mission contacts are a race to finish the dialogue, but not too quickly or else the contact will go away and no one else can talk to them. Souvenirs are a nice way of wrapping things up, but those break immersion and aren't truly effective methods of conveying the story since to get the story you have to slog through the missions with no idea what you are doing. Even then, some souvenirs contain information that wasn't actually covered in the mission, such as the praetorian souvenir that gives the history of the destroyers.
This is also one of the biggest issues I encountered while making AE arcs. During the few playthroughs of my first arc, I would get players who would admit they have no idea what is going on, even though I had clearly spelled out that information in the mission text and clues. Being built for a team, the sad part is that most of the players aren't going to get the full story since they won't stop and read the clues, the mission text, and the descriptions for custom characters.
The devs are doing better, though. With cutscenes and public chat bubbles, it is now possible for players in a team to take part in the story without having to abruptly hold up everyone so they can read a clue or race to the story contact. Though what I think is the most effective and yet underutilized tool for story telling in the game is the gameplay itself. The maps, the enemies, and the enemy's strength themselves can be an effective tool for conveying emotion in the game's content.
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The biggest issue with storytelling in the game is that the game design is so adverse to story telling. The only way to get everything out of an arc is if you are soloing it.
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It is my opinion that even team oriented arcs and task forces should have lots of details that you will miss. At some point, you will not miss a detail and it is like finding money you forgot about. Trials are about the only place I'd expect and forgive thin story since they are generally a climatic battle scenario. That said, UGT and MoM have a fair amount of storytelling packed into them.
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What made the story awesome was it involved a signature character, the story actually seemed to mean something, and for redside, I didn't feel like a lackey.
Using signature characters in story arcs is one of the best things the writers could start doing. |
"He's a signature character!" isn't an adequate answer to "why should I care what happens to this person?" I think the response to Statesman's death proved that.
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Now if you feel simply posting "I agree" isn't very constructive or conducive to a conversation I would ask why you bothered to post your silly image macro, which is neither. |
If you feel the conversation needs to tread some new ground then perhaps ask some pertinent questions such as "What story telling elements are missing from these arcs that make them fall flat?" or "How can they build characterization with the limited amount a player can interact with an NPC?" |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
This is an idea that's been forming in my head for some time, and seeing a few stories that really disappointed me finally gave me the words to describe this. I apologise if it seems like idle musings, I'm just trying to get the basic concept out.
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A story can be broken down in many different ways, but one important way it can be broken down is in the two basic components of plot and storyline. I believe these need to be in a pretty narrow balance in order for a story to be good, and I've seen far too many tip too far in one direction or another. I'd like to explain what I'm referring to here, however.
Plot: When I say this, I'm referring strictly to the sequence of events that take place in order to provide structure to a story, as well as all of the events that had to happen beforehand in order to set the stage for that story, and indeed all of the events the story ends up hinting will happen past its end point. While plot can indeed be artistic, it is also the more technical side of a story, as it comprises logistics more than anything else. What do the characters need to do? Where do they need to be to do it? How do they get there? Why do they need to do this? Why can't they do something else? All of these are technical questions which serve to craft an unambiguous itinerary for the plot to move through its fictional world in order to get from the beginning to the end.
Storytelling: When I say this, I'm referring to the act of telling the story absent of what's actually being told. This encompasses the more abstract side of a story, dealing with art style and aesthetics, psychology, drama, ideology and basic skill of the storyteller. This can be the more artistic of the two aspects, but it still hinges on the highly technical aspect of moderation, as devolving into rambling is just as bad as an Ikea narrative of "this happened, then this happened then this happened." Storytelling is less about what you tell and more about how you tell it.
Now, the reason I brought this up is because the games which disappointed me that I mentioned have one thing in common when it comes to their stories - they have too much plot and too little storytelling. What I'm referring to is a writer's tendency to believe that plot twists, if they are shocking enough, are an apt replacement for actual shocking or dramatic story moments, and they really aren't. In order for a moment in a story to really affect us, it needs to have been built up and established before it can be capitalised on. A lot of the time even an obvious plot twist can end up being very emotional if it's simply told right. Inversely, a very good plot can still be ruined by stilted exposition.
This problem of "too much plot" can often lead to what most people would consider padding. The most common of these is the "war plot," where much of the story is taken up by accomplishing a variety of military objectives that move the technical side of the plot forward, but really contribute nothing to the actual story the work is trying to tell, and thus come off feeling like they're wasting our time. A lot of City of Heroes actually falls under this, especially older content, where you'll often run through missions that even your contacts will admit accomplished nothing. From a technical standpoint, events happened - you went to a location, beat up some dudes and progressed to the next point in the plot. From a storytelling perspective, however, nothing at all was accomplished because the story did not progress.
To illustrate, I want to give a couple of examples, both of them from this game and from fairly old content, as well. I'm trying to be objective here
Let's start with the Dr. Quaterfield TF. Now, it's widely accepted that this may well be one of the worst pieces of content in City of Heroes, but I want to take a minute and examine why this is. Some would quote the TF's length, some would quote the Shadow Shard as being inconvenient or the Soldiers of Rularuu being a pain to fight, some would even cite the hunts. However, one look at the TF's souvenir reveals what I consider to be a much more fundamental flaw with this TF's design - it's all plot and no storytelling. There is literally nothing there to inspire or engage, it's just a sequence of events linked together by a logical timeline that has no storytelling of any sort to offer. Just take a look at an excerpt of that souvenir:
[quote]You next attacked a Crey forward base. and found information that could lead to more of their bases.
You struck the first of 4 Crey bases you found. taking it out.
You struck the next Crey base. shutting it down as well.
You took the third Crey base down. leaving one left.
You finally hit the last of the Crey bases you knew of.[/qiote]
This is the very definition of an Ikea plot - first this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened. There's plot enough for a huge story, the problem is that nothing at all is made of this plot. It's just padding with no artistry to make it interesting. The whole th
Contrast this against something like Oh Wretched Man, Seer Pia Marino's story arc. This, inversely, is widely believed to be one of the game's better stories, and there's a very solid reason for this. Seer Marino's story arc is relatively light on plot, by which I mean it's relatively light on plot twists and those are less emphasised in the story. Really, what it comes down to is a story about a misplaced vendetta, with a climax that turns the emotional content on its head, with every other plot development being more or less just a mood piece designed to aid in the overall atmosphere and emotion of the narrative. Every mission has a purpose, and that purpose is to progress the narrative in a moving way. From finding out the true identity of the Wretch to uncovering Ghost Widow's nature to the conspiracy and its eventual resolution, this is a story that's less about things happening in places all over the world and more about how those events impact the people involved in them.
At its heart, Oh Wretched Man is a story based primarily on storytelling. It's a story steeped in the personality of those involved in it and driven by the artistry in the way it is told. Everyone involved in it has a personal stake in the story, thus everyone's actions are meaningful and impacting. Pia is driven by grief, Mu'Rakir by hatred, Ohanko by greed and Belladonna by compulsion. Almost like a Silent Hill story, these people are drawn into the narrative and strike out paths of their own based on where their personalities will take them, and at the end their story arcs loop right back into the characterisation of the people themselves. At its core, Oh Wretched Man is not a story about events, it's a story about the people who take part in these events.
Is it possible to tip a story too far into storytelling and have too little plot? Of course it is. The various "walking games" that just shoot for a striking setting with no actual gameplay and plot to them are many and famous, but I can't really think of a story arc that's like this in City of Heroes. Our game is simply designed to be driven by plot because a story arc advances as we clear missions. It's still possible to create an abstract story where missions and enemies and encounters are only reference representations of broader concepts and the reality of their appearance doesn't matter, but I simply haven't run into any of these. Nor would I want to, for that matter, but that's besides the point.
The whole reason I say this is that for some time, it has felt like our own City of Heroes has been sliding into too much plot and not enough storytelling. As our plots become more complex, more tangled and more convoluted to the point where a simple story of a hero being a hero is looked upon as boring, I fear we begin to lose some of the artistry that made I6-I7 CoV so memorable. Sure, I don't really agree with the plots of those old stories most of the time, but I agree that many of them were told with a lot of artistry devoted to them. And like AAA games and their snowballing production costs, I fear our ever-sprawling plots leave little time and room stop and smell the flowers, as it were.
See, the thing with a good balance between plot and storytelling is that a lot of the time this requires "pauses" where the plot stops and we're left with just the storytelling to set up a scene. This really can't happen when there's too much plot to tell in the space given, reducing much of what should have been storytelling in the abstract sense into "story telling" in the very literal sense, by which I mean exposition dumping. The Last Airbender movie tried to tell 26 20-minute episodes of one season into a 90-minute movie, and the story that came of this was stilted, rushed and filled with exposition because there was far too much plot to deliver and no room for the "luxury" of setting tone, mood and emotion.
At the end of the day, plot is not the most important aspect of a story. It needs to be compelling, that much I don't disagree, but plot alone cannot make a good story, because a good story must also be told well.