Russell Gillette - - PDF document

Russell Gillette Chapter 7: Story-Telling and Narrative The History of Stories – Stories are a part of our daily lives – used in recounting and learning from the past – used to explain the unexplainable – used to speculate about the future Stories can be fictional: Or Non-fictional TV news Movies books Novels documentaries Plays biographies The History of Stories in Games It has been argued whether or not stories have a place in games. The common excepted idea nowadays is that stories DO fit in some games, and that the depth of story to be used in those games should be dictated by if the story will add to the game. Reasons for a Story 1) Add entertainment value

• Extends the competition
• Increases emotional attachment
• Adds context
• Offers a goal with a dramatic purpose (rather than abstract)
• Facilitates immersion

2) Increase Audience

• Draws in those that require a story to be entertained
• Maintains the audience that only seeks a challenge (provided story is non-intrusive)
• increases development costs however...

3) Increases Duration of Interest

• Long games need something other than an abstract goal or points to warrant continuing (variety)
• Short games arguably should NOT have a story.

4) Stories help to sell the game

• Stories offer a side to a game that is non-interactive, and thus can be marketed to attract an audience

When and How Much Story

• Length – the longer the game, the more it benefits from a story
• Characters – if the game centres on one person, object or character it usually benefits from a story
• if the game has no central figure than incorporating a story may be very difficult
• Degree of Realism – more realistic games lend themselves more readily to stories
• Emotional Richness – There are some emotions that are unreachable without a story.
• Division – stories can be used to set apart games with similar game-play

Key Concepts definition:: Story – “ an account of a series of events (usually set in the past) “ Good Story – a good story must be credible, coherent, and dramatically meanigfull credible – believable within the bounds of the world that has been set up coherent – cohesive, harmonizing, pleasing whole, with nothing irrelevant added dramatically meaningfull – engaging usually by involving something that the player has become attached to Interactive Story – A story set in the present, as opposed to the past like most, where players' actions effect the story

• a story that the player interacts with by contributing actions to it. A story may be interactive even if the plot cannot be effected

contain three types of events: Player Events: actions that the player performs In Game Events: main game mechanics (both world events as well as reactions to the player) Narrative Events: events the player cannot change (but may be able to prevent)

Agency – the ability to effect the direction of the plot (non-linear games) Narrative – story events told or shown to the player (non-interactive)

• can be used to introduce the game or chapters
• can be used to show success or failure at a task
• can be cut-scenes, scrolling text, voice-over, pre-rendered movie, sometimes even the dialog itself (when not chosen by the player)

Narrative Blocks – brief episodes used to further the story or give context

• usually very short (sometimes opening and ending excepted)

DESIGN RULE: Non-Interactive Sequences Must Be Interruptable DESIGN RULE: Do Not Seize control of the Avatar

• game-play and narrative needs to be balanced
• players need to be given the feeling that they are controlling the output of the story (even if they aren't)

Dramatic Tension – Tension brought on by the story: something at stake, exciting situations, desire to know what happens next

• Does not persist given repetition or randomness

Gameplay Tension – Very similar to dramatic tension in terms of feelings, but evoked from the desire to overcome a challenge, and the uncertainty associated with the outcome

• can be maintained even through repetition and randomness

DESIGN RULE: Randomness and Repetition Destroy Dramatic Tension The Story-Telling Engine Story-Telling Engine – manages the interweaving of narrative events into the game.

• interacts with the core mechanics to decide when to show a narrative event
• gives queues to the game mechanics about when to let it play narrative sequences

Linear Stories Linear Stories – stories who's outcome the player cannot influence

• player still faces challenges, and makes decisions

Advantages:

• require less content than non-linear stories
• have a simpler story telling engine
• less prone to bugs and confusion of the story (continuity errors, etc...)
• deny the player agency
• capable of greater emotional power

Non-linear Stories Non-linear Stories – stories in which the player can effect the outcome through his actions

• have many structures: branching, feedback, emerging narrative

Branching Stories – allows the player to have a different experience each time (s)he plays the game

• offers many plots, splitting from each other at varying points
• during game-play, the core mechanics tell the story engine which path the player has chosen

Branches – have two categories overcoming challenges, and making decisions

• decision branches may have many possible paths where as challenges tend to have two

Branch Types – Immediate, Deferred, Cumulative

• Immediate events will cause the plot to branch right away
• Deferred events effect the plot at a point later in the story
• Cumulative events will add together to effect the plot later, with no one decision effecting the result that much

DESIGN RULE: Trivial Choices should have trivial Consequences DESIGN RULE: Be Clear About Consequences Branch Rules – the story always moves forward, never backward

• branches may merge
• the story will have different endings, and possibly even different starting points

Disadvantages of a Branching Story: – Extremely expensive to implement because each branch requires its own content

– Every critical event has to branch into its own unique section of the tree – the player needs to replay to see all content (often playing in a way not natural to themselves) Foldback Stories – compromise between branching and linear

• stories branch, but eventually fall back to inevitable events
• most of these stories have one ending
• limits player agency but is also a reasonable compromise between cost and game

Emergent Narrative – story telling produced entirely by player actions and in-game events

• events not fixed by a linear or branching structure
• player can control the game only within the core mechanics, however
• core mechanics need to be able to generate credible, coherent, dramatically meaningful stories
• not currently in use or possible, but in research as a field of AI called “automated story telling”
• side note: stories using characters designed by the player suffer from a mild need to make the story character-agnostic. This is mild because the

player HAS specified attributes that the core mechanics can use, but they may be varied, and thus might lead to a branching story line. Endings - one of the most critical points in terms of emotion, and should be crafted to evoke certain emotions

• multiple endings may be used to evoke emotions and outcomes reflecting the players' decisions

DESIGN RULE: Premature Endings Don't Count!

• Players tend to expect that if they complete the challenges they are presented with, the story will end in some reasonably positive

manner, reflecting the skill with which the story was completed. Multiple Endings – use only if each ending will wrap up the story in a dramatic, and emotional way consistent with the player's choices and play.

• If the player didn't have much dramatic freedom then there is little point in multiple endings

Granularity granularity – the frequency with which the game presents narrative elements coarse granularity – narrative events are infrequent fine granularity – narrative events are frequent Mechanisms for Advancing the Plot The Story as a series of Challenges or Choices – the fact that a level or mission has come to an end, or a decision has been made is what progresses the story – if requiring the player to succeed at a task, the story will appear jerky The Story as a Journey – the character's arrival in various locations trigger plot events – presenting a story as a journey results in: – automatic novelty – player controlled pace – the tradition “hero's journey” is often used: – Challenges are provided along the path of travel – Results in story becoming linear The Story as a Drama

• story progresses at its own path and triggers gameplay moments

Emotional Limits of Interactive Stories Emotional Limits of Non-linear Stories – non-linear stories are limited by the fact that the user can chose non-ideal choices in many situations – designers often make all paths lead to one ending so that the player has a satisfying ending Emotional Limits of Avatar Based Games – you know that the story teller will live (in most cases) – there is almost no emotional attachment to your avatar when it dies, you just reload and try again – to really effect the emotions of the player you should kill off not the avatar, but the main characters friends

– FINAL FANTASY VII – Party based dynamics offer much more room for killing off characters Scripted Conversations and Dialog Trees – scripted conversations allow us to appporximate natural language AI – scripted conversations must be initialized by either the player or the npc (usually disallowing all other actions) – the player may get a list of predefined options that (s)he can choose from –

• r the npc may have some predefined text to dictate to the player

Structure of a Dialog Tree – a branching tree with possible bidirectional links. – conversation can flow in forward or backwards to previous menus – not all conversations with npcs will offer the same degree of information (people know different amounts) – not all questions need to produce unique answers Design Issues for Dialog Trees – every possible pathway through the dialog tree must be credible (this includes if the player wants to re-ask questions) – asking the same question repetitively is not credible, but often times accepted – Conditional Branches and Exchanges: – sometimes other outside factors effect the path of conversation and should be accounted for in the dialog trees – these conditional paths should be indication somehow within the dialog tree An Alternative – flexible exchange list – the npc contains a list of numbered exchanges that the player can choose from, at the end of each exchange, the list is modified to portray the new state of the npc – this approach saves from a lot of duplication –

• ffers a lot more control as items can be added to the list at any time

– harder to read through Benefits of Scripted Conversations – produces plausible conversational situations – allows you to write lines for the npcs or the main character that give them personalities – This can be a complicated process and may require a dialog engine for conversation intensive games: “Chapter 14” When To Write A Story DESIGN RULE: The Story Comes Later – the deisgn phase involves deciding on game-play, gathering level ideas, thinking of situational events, but the story should be designed after it is known what the gameplay can offer. Other Considerations DESIGN RULE: Be A Game Designer. Not A Filmmaker Episodic Delivery Unlimited Series – each episode consists of a self contained story

• no order is inherent in the episodes

Serials - plot extends over several episodes

• involve several different ( possibly unrelated) plots
• climactic points in one of the stories drive the player to return for the sequal
• no definitive end to the story to give satisfaction to player

Limited Series - may contain many sub-plots, but there is an over-arching main plot

• overarching plot will eventually come to an end, offering the player a conclusion
• overall story draws players back, rather than individual climactic moments from separate plots

Notes on Different Deliveries – currently most games are unlimited series format

• the limited series may soon enter, as it encourage players to play other games

• limited series offer a higher starting cost, and with rapidly changing technology are not currently viable
• if a manner to make quick games is developed, serials might start to arise
• currently most continuing development efforts are within the field of MMOPGs