On Approaches, Pt. 1

How do we approach the idea of writing an interactive story?  It’s a difficult question, and rather than claim I have the perfect answer for it, I would like to explore a little, and see what other people think.  Let’s start with something important: what does an interactive story mean?

Well, in broad terms it means any story in which the audience can make a decision and affect the events as they progress.  This can be represented by an old choose-your-own-adventure story, or by a game like Super Mario Bros., where player input will indicate how effective Mario is at saving the Princess.  But that definition isn’t of particular use in this situation, because we require a more precise image.  What I mean, when I say an interactive story, is a story in which the actions of the player or audience drive the plot and events that occur.  A player must have agency in the actions of their character for the story to really interact with them.  Agency – The capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.

What I am saying, more plainly, is that the player must have power over their actions, and their choices within the storyline.  This is still a difficult task, as most stories told prior to the invention of interactives (games of all sorts) have been set in stone, once told, rarely told differently.  Yes, there are more experimental and impressive works which dabble in the same story told different ways, but that’s not really what we’re here for.  We’re here for games.  Video, Tabletop, Board, Card, and more.  How do we effectively tell stories in these formats?

Some games are based around the idea of a story unfolding as the games does.  Magic: The Gathering is a game which represents the titanic duels of dimension-hopping spellcasters called planeswalkers, who summon legions of creatures and invoke the wrath of Gods to prove who is greatest.  Dungeons and Dragons exists largely as a vehicle for escapist stories.  But these formats, as in video games, are always limited by the world and content created for them.  “Railroading” became a popular term in Pen-and-Paper RPGs for situations where the story led the players by the nose, rarely giving them a chance to make a clear decision, and sometimes punishing attempts to do so.  It is clear that there will always be limitations to the content that can be created, and while I’m sure many Game Masters would love the opportunity to create an massive world and every detail in it, the truth is that such time rarely is allowed, and the GM can never create everything there could ever be.

So maybe there is a first point about creating an interactive story effectively: Know the limitations of the system.  Whether these limitations are time or money or disk space or player interest, they’re an important factor to keep in mind when creating.

"Implicit Promise" is in here.

We should also look at what basic story structure contains.  Generally, stories open with a measure of exposition or an introduction, something which gives context to the audience and often sets the tone of the story.  There is a concept called an “implicit promise” which can be made at this stage of the story as well, which comes from all the scene-setting and exposition.  The implicit promise represents an unspoken understanding between story and audience.  It represents how the audience expects the arch of the story to go, and how the tone shifts or doesn’t.  When the implicit promise is later fulfilled, the audience feels satisfied, the payoff to previous build-up.  Interactive stories must understand this nature as well, and be aware of the implicit promise they create simply by having the story be interactive.

How do we go about setting an appropriate opening to an interactive story?  We must give the player an early chance to interact.  Not immediate, there needs to be at least some context for their actions.  While I’m sure immediate interaction can work, and often does, it can separate the story and the play too much, one must flow into the other.

A simple example:  In a Tabletop RPG, the game will start with the character getting out of bed, and seeing their family.  The two examples below represent the difference between more and less immediate interaction.  Most of this will be expository, imagine the way text adventures tend to play.

Example 1:

You wake up in a bed.  There is a dresser nearby and a window to your right.  Stairs at one end of the room lead down to where you can hear voices and sizzling noises.

You descend the stairs after dressing and see two people standing in a Kitchen, they are cooking food on a stove.  They smile when they see you.

Example 2:

You wake up in your cushy bed.  Light streams in through your bedroom window, your old dresser sits nearby.  From the stairway at the end of your room, you can hear the voices of your mother and sister working diligently on a breakfast you probably almost slept through.  They seem to be arguing, which is fairly common when they’re both trying to cook.

You come downstairs yawning and your sister and mother immediately stop talking and turn to you, smiling as if nothing is wrong.  You see several foods on the stove, bacon and eggs, toast, and nearby a bowl of sliced fruit.

Example 2 is a touch more verbose, and creates a much different and well-rounded picture of the situation and characters, which will greatly influence the character’s actions.  As I see it, based on this, the best approach is to identify the relationships between one NPC and another, and possibly how the NPCs feel about the PC, but avoid telling the PC  how they feel.  When games tell me someone is my girlfriend, I don’t care, but given the chance to choose my own, I care a great deal.  Characterizing the relationships between NPCs creates the feeling of a full world and gives insight into how the world works.  It allows for the player to begin to understand the world, and how they can react to it.

Something I haven’t largely addressed is how to write a stories where the player actively takes on the role of another character, one written not as a blank slate, but as a person all their own, whose shoes we’d love to jump into.  I’ve focused most of my work on how players act when given blank slate avatars, and I have little knowledge on this subject.

Anyway, to recap.  The first part of most stories is the exposition and introduction wherein we make the implicit promise.  This scene setting should, as in most stories, characterize the world and introduce us to the types of relationships that exist.  It should give the audience an opinion, whatever that opinion might be, and provoke some kind of emotional reaction, by being familiar enough that the audience can relate to it in some way, but detached enough that they can feel to react as they see fit.

I feel like I will probably clarify this more in the future.  Largely, these articles are me working through my own ideas to arrive at important conclusions.  I’m happy to see my point disagreed with, and happy to entertain a dialogue about where to go from here.

Thanks for reading.

On Design Space

Future Article: Simple but Deep

Design Space, when spoken of in reference to game design, tends to refer to the exploration of the intricacies of the mechanics available to the game.  Design Space is most visible in games that are able to constantly evolve and bring to mechanics to play, like most trading card games and many tabletop RPGs.  It’s harder to see the how the design space has been explored in completely finished games, and obviously less visible in video games, where is math is hidden deep in the code.  I’ll be talking mostly about recognizing the design space available as you create and game, about creating mechanics that have a wide range of available design space, and about how to understand the benefits of limiting design space.

When creating a game of any kind, you’ll be identifying the core mechanics of your game, and it is important to understand how those mechanics interact, when they should interact, and if they should interact at all.  To look at an incredibly simple mechanic, let’s take jumping in Super Mario Bros.  The designers asked themselves what could be done with jumping, and noticed that Mario’s head could hit the underside of blocks, and suddenly, a huge number of possibilities emerged.  Coins, Power-Ups, breaking blocks, tonnes of secrets were suddenly available.  The designers were able to find a method of merging the available mechanics, and created a game that became surprisingly deep.  Ask yourself: do you know where every single power-up is?  And by paying a little extra attention to a simple mechanic, the designers added depth and required no increased complexity in the controls, nor much additional learning on the part of the player.  Simple but deep, the holy grail of design.

Similarly, look at your mechanics, no matter how simple those mechanics are.  In games like Magic: The Gathering, the designers have spent an immense amount of timing looking at the available mechanics; they have examined every stage of a player’s turn, and asked questions about every element.  Does your game contain rolling dice?  Monopoly paid enough attention to have rolling doubles mean an extra roll, and even enough attention to make 3 doubles land you in jail.

This is what every surface in my place looks like.

I’m going to plug the hell out of one of the games I’ve been working on.  Mis-Anthropos (working title) is a co-operative multiplayer card game in which players build would have decks of cards to create societies that must weather the cruelties of fate.  The game is almost entirely about mechanic synergy.  I’m not going to claim it’s magnificently designed, but I do think it relates to this article.  When I started designing the game, I wanted to create something that would rival the complexity of Magic: The Gathering.  A goal as lofty as it was impractical.  Magic is tonnes of fun, but it takes a huge investment of time and understanding.  Magic is not the pick-up-and-play game I was hoping to create.  I went through a lot of design options, but I knew that too often I was leaving myself too much open design space.  I couldn’t add mechanic after mechanic without making the game an unreasonable mess to learn.  I had to close in the space, so I began cutting mechanics.  First thing, I cut down the number of cards, and as such, cut mechanic after mechanic.  Eventually, I cut the idea of a deck at all.  I figured, if the game is about building a society from nothing but effort, then that’s all the player should get to begin.  In limiting my design space, I was able to get a clearer understanding of how the mechanics could support the theme and flavour of the game.  I initially couldn’t see how too much design space could be a bad thing; it’s always nicer to have more options, right?  It became obvious, as I went on, that the type of game I was making was muddy and confused.  Too much space and too many options means too much to learn.  Good games are able to introduce mechanics over time, letting the players become accustomed to a play space before adding new challenges.  This is the purpose of every Magic core set, to give a coherent, relatively easy-to-understand space in which all players can share understanding.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Magic is anywhere close to flawless, but I do see the concepts they’re attempting to use.

Little off topic.  Back on track.  Design space is something a designer must consider.  They must be able to see and understand the interactions of each and every mechanic and variation on those mechanics.  Understanding the design space available allows you to truly understand the reach of your mechanics and the dangerous places your game could go.  Also, it is important to understand the extent of design space you wish to create.  You could allow for a hundred different mechanics, all of which have special interactions, and create a rewarding and diverse system, or you can build three mechanics, but allow for them to interact in myriad ways and create something easy to learn, hard to master.  It all depends on what you want from your game.

As a final note, your design space should reflect the interests of your audience.  If your audience is a family of four on family board game night, you don’t need to and shouldn’t create a vastly intricate web of mechanics, but that doesn’t mean you can slack off just because your game only has a couple.  No one will find family game night fun when Dad figures out how to power game and crush everyone every time.  Attending to the details will keep the game flowing, free, and fun.

On Linearity

Cousin, it's a sandbox, and I say we go bowling.

    Oh gods, my computer.  It died.  Died so dead.  To death.  It's gone, I don't know what to do.  Everything, so dead.  Oh well, find a new way, I suppose.  A different way.  Wait a minute, different approaches?  That sounds like a clever intro to Linearity!
But seriously, it's dead.
    Linearity is a product of games really not possessing the technological freedom to allow players complex, multi-pathed experiences.  And though those were attempted, they rarely worked as well as they would come the days of full 3D gaming and the advents of min-maps and fast-travels systems, all of which made the necessarily unbearable traveling bearable.  But even come the huge worlds that stretch for countries with nary a loading screen in sight, the concept of nonlinearity is nowhere near universal.  Certainly, we must agree that parts of the importance and uniqueness of games is the ability for the participating audience to make choices, why not choices as simple as "I want to go here"?
    Well, because that's hard.  Really, that's what it comes down to.  Take a look at a movie, a book, an album.  In general, with extremely few exceptions, these are linear media.  They are meant to be experienced from front to back, the same way, every time.  Games, however, will almost never be played the same way by two people, and why should they?  Games are experiences, and experiences will always reflect the nature of those involved and the choices they make.  So what is it about nonlinearity?  Simply, writing a story to observe is one thing, but writing a story in which someone participates is something else altogether, and the art has not truly been yet mastered.  Are there good examples of linear storytelling in games?  Bioshock, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Zeno Clash, No More Heroes, and so on and so forth.
    But to understand the proper method and formula, let's look at a game with excellent gameplay that combines the linear and nonlinear.  Deus Ex, one of the all-time super-duper famous games people love to think about, with a sequal coming soon, merges together the different types of gameplay beautifully.  The game boasts a diverse skill system, not overly complex, but intuitive and navigatable enough to allow players to tackle the game's obstacles in a style that suited them.  Whether you prefer silent and stealthy, charismatic and charming, or a blazing-guns hoedown, the game allows you your fun.  It doesn't force a gameply style on you, but designs to allow for multiple solutions in every situation.  This is most certainly a valid and rewarding way to go about it.  It comes up when designing encounters for something like D&D, or any tabletop.  If you say to yourself "The player(s) must fight here," you've limited them in their experiences, and that's something we must always strive to avoid.  To prepare for all your players is a difficult and noble goal.  As a Dungeon Master, or as a Game Designer (Same thing in many ways, let's not pretend), your objectives include the enjoyment of your players.  To keep them happy, try to let them play the way they want.  They can affect the story, the game.  After all, they are a crucial part.

The match only burns from one end.

    Speaking of affecting the story, try to think of the number of games where you could decide the outcome of the story?  How did you decide the outcome?  If you look at one of the more prominent examples of players affecting the story, Fable, you will find, none too kindly, that your actions are not really the driving force behind the story's changes.  Rather, in Fable the choices you make are much closer to a choose-your own adventure book than the medium it pretends to lead the way for.  Affecting the story has to be made of real descisions, has to have a driving force behind it.  In games like Fable, every question becomes not "What is your morality?" or even something like "What is a man?" but instead "Would you like to be a dick?"  This is not a question normal people answer Yes to.  The "evil" options should appeal more to the weak-willed, be simpler and more of a personal interest than representing a clear(ish) greater good.  Infamous does this in a far too blatant way, but it's clear enough that it doesn't need much explaining.  Cole (the protagonist) is given the choice of saving one of two groups of people, and he must do it within a time limit.  Here are the two groups, are you wearing earplugs?  Your brain may melt.  One group is composed of six doctors, who are crucially needed in this now-post apocalypse, and the other group is: your girlfriend.  You can see which appeals to the inner Saint and which to the sinner.  But it is a good example: low effort, personal commitment versus high effort, personal conscience.  It's a question that causes many of us to force ourselves out of bed each day.
    You want to be able to let the player affect the story, but how do you do this?  Asking them how they wish to proceed is nice in that the player would always know what decisions they're making, but I find it's sometimes better to keep the player on their toes: let their gameplay choice help tell the story.  This goes back in part to a previous article (On Misinformation), but when I play certain games, I really don't know what the consequences of my actions will be, and that causes me to consider them much more.  Anyway, yes, gameplay.  Persona 4, for instance, does not ask "Do to understand this person?"  Instead, it sees how you react and has the characters react accordingly, yes with tangled dialogue trees and little else, but it asks you to care about the characters and make your own judgements based on what you know, and not on instructions.  Games like the most recent Fallout installments allow for more varied approaches that change the gameplay as well.  The difference between guns-blazing, diplomacy, and sneaky run-around is significant, and allows you to be the person you want to be, if not always successfully.  That is the basic answer, though.  Think about the mechanics your game has in place and how the player will, or could, or will want to deal with them.  See how you can manipulate the mechanics to incorporate those choices, and if you do it right, the story will follow.
    Well, now let's look at something less complex: Linearity in Level design.  The protagonist begins at point A.  You need them to be at point B.  You, the designer, are left with a conundrum.  How do you get the player to go to point B?  It's a very real problem.  Designers have implemented lots of methods of forcing you to get through their levels.  Fortunately for them, they are aided strongly by natural human curiosity and the original cause of playing video games to complete them.  Now, we need rely on this less so, since deisgners are able to give the player more complex reasons for getting to point B.  Try writing your level out as a story.  Try writing the player's journey from point A to B.  If at any point you say something like "Then they walk here," you will make a lot of people very upset.  Walking, by itself, is not gameplay.  Walking through a thin hallway in the basement of an abandoned house in serious need of construction as psychotic laughter plays quietly through the echoing stillness however, that is.  Now, things needn't be so extreme, but you get the idea.  Even when the player is forced to walk, make them experience that walking, involve them in walking, make sure they know that they're walking, and they are not bored by it in the least.
  Alright, so I've written this on a friend's computer in notepad, so forgive me if it's significantly shorter or longer than usual, I use a word count to keep me in check.  We'll see what I've done here, and when I can finally get another computer for myself.
Thanks for reading.