Constraining Interaction to Create Emergent Narrative - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 43
About This Presentation
Title:

Constraining Interaction to Create Emergent Narrative

Description:

People would have looked at you funny if you said something like 'games are a ... a happy compromise: Compelling story, entertaining gameplay (e.g., Grim Fandango) ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:112
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 44
Provided by: Gre5
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Constraining Interaction to Create Emergent Narrative


1
Constraining Interaction to Create Emergent
Narrative
  • Greg Costikyan
  • CEO, Manifesto Games

2
Before 1973...
  • People would have looked at you funny if you said
    something like games are a story-telling medium.
  • Chess? Monopoly? Candyland? Or even Afrika Korps?

3
In 1973, two things happened
Colossal Cave
...and Dungeons Dragons
4
Interactive Fiction
  • Colossal Cave was considered Interactive
    Fiction from the start...
  • Though interaction is limited (few viable actions
    at each location)
  • And as fiction, its not that interesting.
  • Later games in the genre work better as fiction
    (e.g., Tom Dischs Amnesia)

5
Interactive Fiction
  • Text adventures no longer a viable commercial
    genrebut they live on as a hobby/literary
    movement (see www.ifcomp.org)
  • Graphic adventures declining in popularity, but
    some still appear
  • Leads also to action/adventure hybrids (e.g.,
    Psychonauts, Fahrenheit)

6
RPG
  • Boom in tabletop RPGs in the 70s
  • Direct inspiration for computer/console RPGs
    (e.g., Richard Garriotts Akalabeth, the
    precursor to the Ultima series, was based on his
    DD campaign)
  • Indirect inspiration for MMOs (via MUDs)
  • Leads to LARPs
  • In 21st century, spawns the indie RPG movement
    of experimental RPG design
  • Still commercially both in tabletop digital
    games

7
Cultural Clash over Role of Story Games From
the Start
  • In 1977, the Game Manufacturers Association
    (collection mainly of tabletop wargame RPG
    publishers) adopts the name adventure games for
    its field (over the objections of wargame
    publishers who prefer simulation game)
  • Every GDC (and before it, CGDC) conference has
    had talks debating the role of stories in games

8
...and Continues
  • Today the biggest debate among game scholars is
    between narratologists (who view games as a
    form of narrative) and ludologists (who
    maintain they must be viewed as formal systems)
  • No end in sight (despite by calls by some, e.g.,
    Janet Murray, for a truce)

9
Basic Problem
  • Theres a central conflict between the demands of
    story and the demands of games
  • Stories are linear. Though they can leap about
    temporally, they are experienced the same way
    every time.
  • Games are non-linear. Though they are experienced
    over time, game sessions are different each time.

10
From Story to Game
  • You can put most games on a continuum from
    story-with-minor game to game-with-vestigial
    story attached.

11
Cortazars Hopscotch
  • Two Paths.
  • But really just a play with time
    (Proust/Remembrance of Things Past,
    Joyce/Ulysses, Vonnegut/Slaughterhouse Five)
  • These are hat-tricksnot going to see a genre of
    Hopscotch novels
  • But still interesting This is the minimal
    branching narrative (one decision point)
  • More game-like than a typical story, but still a
    long way from a game

12
Hypertext Fiction
  • Robert Coover, Eastgate Systems,
  • afternoon a story (Michael Joyce)
  • Multiple choices at each node, netlike narrative
  • Generally not a predefined resolution, instead
    strives for the reader to have an epiphany after
    exploring enough of the narrative
  • But not necessarily a good way to tell stories
  • And no goal, aimless browsingnot a good game

13
Gamebooks
  • A/k/a Choose your own ending or which-way
    books
  • Fighting Fantasy
  • Branching narrative, sometimes rudimentary game
    system
  • Lots of dead ends (but at least one win state)
  • Basically the same as hypertextfollow a link to
    the next bit of text

14
Solitaire Adventures Paragraph-System
Boardgames
  • Solo Adventures are similar to gamebooks, but use
    the more complicated rules of a tabletop RPG,
    thus more potential outcomes
  • Para-System Boardgame, leading to occasional
    short gamebook style adventures with resolution.
    Tales of the Arabian Nights.
  • Considerably more replayable

15
Dragons Lair
  • Arcade analog to gamebooks
  • Two paths at each decisionpoint, one leads to
    death.
  • Popular when introduced (1984) because the first
    game with cinematic-quality visuals
  • But sequels failed, because this sucks as a
    gameplay concept.

16
Text Graphic Adventures
  • More free-form Not predetermined paths, but
    limited game spaces until new ones are opened
    (beads on a string concept)
  • Free combination of game objects within spaces
  • Not that different from a gamebook, except that
    the text can respond interactively to younew
    paths opened/items available

17
Graphic Adventures
  • Characters (but limited decision-tree
    interaction)
  • Cut scenes (but when overused, kill
    gameplaye.g., Tex Avery Overseer)
  • At best, this is a happy compromise Compelling
    story, entertaining gameplay (e.g., Grim
    Fandango)
  • All games are structuresbut graphic adventures
    quite constrainednecessary to ensure excellence
    of story

18
PC/Console RPGs
  • Ultima, Final Fantasy, Zelda, etc.
  • Intimately tied to story, but far more freeform
    on a moment-to-moment basis.
  • Often multiple ways to overcome obstacles
  • Some choice of spaces to enter
  • Character growth
  • But one (or a handful) of outcomes, story
    experience not much different from player to
    player.

19
PC/Console RPGs (cont)
  • PC/Console RPGs still highly dependent on
    storybut a greater degree of freedommore
    gamelike
  • Limited repeat playability because tied to an
    essentially linear story

20
MMORPGs
  • Large-scale environment, thousands of players
  • Sometimes a story of the game, but players have
    no impact on outcomelinear story irrelevant to
    gameplay.
  • Mini-stories in the form of quests.
  • Since the game goes on forever, and it is hard to
    allow players to meaningfully impact the world,
    real story is impossible.

21
MMORPGs
  • To add story, you need to bring the game to a
    conclusion A Tale in the Desert
  • Or allow real changes to the world (but hard to
    do in a multi-server environment)
  • These are story settingsbut have almost lost
    the connection to story in exchange for becoming
    good social environments as well as good games.

22
Tabletop RPG
  • Game system very similar (sometimes identical) to
    PC/Console
  • --but vastly more freeform since there is a GM,
    players can do anything he deems physically
    possible.
  • While there are adventures (pre-written
    stories), most GMs create their own stories for
    their friends.

23
Tabletop RPGs
  • True roleplaying for the first timeshowing off
    for friends.
  • (Roleplaying in MMORPGs is bogus, because no
    possible impact on game outcomes )
  • Stories are created through play, and for
    participants, can be if anything more powerful
    than the ones they receive through interactive
    media

24
Tabletop RPGs
  • but are invariably dull as hell if told to
    non-participants (expedition write-ups suck).
  • Many RPGers dont give story a second thought
    more interested in roleplaying, problem solving,
    or character advancement (the Blacow player
    types).

25
The Continuum
  • Thus, you can view the continuum between
    story-with-minimal interaction (Hopscotch)
    through the game-with-some-story-connection
    (tabletop roleplaying) as an attempt to find
    compromises between the highly linear nature of
    story and the inherently non-linear nature of
    games

26
Constraining Gameplay
  • I used to think that was all there wasthere was
    only one dimension along which narrative games
    could lie...
  • But maybe a better way of thinking about it is
    that to tell a satisfying story, gameplay must be
    constrained to ensure that story does emerge....
  • And reducing gameplay to interaction within
    beads on a string is only one way...

27
Embedded Stories
  • Multiple stories embedded inthe gameeach
    linear, butencountered by players indifferent
    orders, thus improvingreplay value.
  • MMO quests.
  • Paragraph-system boardgames.
  • True of some (not all) console/PC RPGs

28
Beads on a StringBut Multiple Paths Within
Each Bead
  • Asset development for digitalgames is
    expensivehard to get away from beads on a
    string...
  • But you can allow multiple ways to solve each
    problemand multiple ways to shape a character
    (fighter, sneaker, hacker)...
  • And multiple outcomes (victories of different
    game factions).

29
Ending the MMO
  • The never-endingMMO with multiple shards
    essentially cannot permit players to shape the
    overall arc of the story, if any.
  • But if you end the game, you can. ATITD has two
    possible outcomes the players accomplish the
    tasks necessary for Pharaoh to triumph over the
    Stranger, in 1 year of playor not.

30
A Tale in the Desert (cont)
  • And high degree of player freedom during that
    year.
  • Commercially riskyyou lose a big piece of the
    player base with each game end.
  • But artistically worthwhile.

31
My Life with Master
  • Narrative arc is explicitlyfixed (the villagers
    willdestroy Master).
  • Game explicitly played in scenes with beginnings,
    middles, ends.
  • No dierolls for individual actions actions are
    unconstrained.
  • But a die-roll is made to determine whether the
    player succeeds or fails in this sceneand he
    must roleplay the results.

32
...The Constrained Narrative RPG
  • In other words, the game specifically constrains
    the players to an explicit narrative...
  • Which can, however, vary greatly in detail from
    playing to playing.
  • And unlike traditional RPGs, the burden of
    storytelling is shared among players and PCs.

33
The Narrativist RPG
  • More generally, a new breedof experimental
    NarrativistRPGs work to share the waythe
    story is shaped among players and GMs
  • E.g., Ron Edwardss Sorcerer, in which all
    players have paranormal powers, which they can
    use only by unleashing their inner demonsalways
    at a steep personal price
  • Not so much games as storiesbut games as
    theater

34
Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist Theory
  • Evolved by Ron Edwards and other participants at
    The Forge
  • Attempts to few RPG gameplay as motivated by a
    desire for accomplishment (gamismI want more
    EP), a desire for exploration and verisimilitude
    (simulationismthats not realistic!), or a
    desire to participate in a compelling story
    (narrativism).

35
Bartle Yee Player Types
  • Interesting overlaps with the Bartle (achievers,
    explorers, socializers, killers) and Yee
    (relationships, immersion, grief play,
    accomplishment, leadership) player types...
  • But the motivation behind GNS theory is mainly to
    try to understand how to design games to shape
    narrativist gameplay
  • ...And it all ultimately boils down to figuring
    out what set of constraints on gameplay allows
    for a high degree of player freedom, and forces
    the emergence of a coherent narrative.

36
Can This Be Done Digitially?
  • Its hard to see how (most) GNS-inspired games
    can be modified for use in digital media... Since
    they depend (as all tabletop RPGs do) on the
    creativity and flexibility of a live gamemaster
    (and live players)... But...

37
Constraining One Place is Okay if You Free Up
Somewhere Else
  • From this, we can learn at least one important
    thing You can impose strong constraints on
    gameplay (e.g., determine in advance the
    outcomeof a scene) if you free up player action
    in other spheres (no die-rolls for
    success/failure of individual actions) thus
    giving players the sense that they still have
    freedom of action within the system

38
How Else Can We Constrain Gameplay to Force A
Narrative to Emerge?
  • Worth thinking about.
  • We need to get away from beads on a stringI
    think weve basically rung the changes on what
    can be done with that approach.

39
Approaches to consider...
  • Breaking the narrative into discreet chunks that
    can be encountered in multiple orders
  • Having more chunks than will be encountered in a
    single play-through, so there are still surprises
    with repeat play
  • Imposing a defined arc on the narrative
    (beginning and ending fixed) but allowing high
    degrees of freedom in between.

40
In General...
  • Conceive of gameplay and story as discrete
    entities, and look for non-traditional ways for
    them to interact with each other.
  • Finding different ways to grant players freedom
    of action while working within a constrained
    narrativeor ways of constraining player freedom
    in one area while freeing it in another to
    produce an emergent narrative

41
References
  • Colossal Cave www.rickadams.org/adventure/
  • Interactive Fiction Competition www.ifcomp.org
  • Graphic Adventures www.adventuregamers.com/
  • Dungeons Dreamers, Brad King John Borland,
    McGraw Hill-Osborne Media, New York, 2003
  • The Forge www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/
  • Game Manufacturers Association www.gama.org
  • Janet Murrays DiGRA 05 talk on
    narratology/ludology www.lcc.gatech.edu/murray/d
    igra05/

42
References (cont)
  • Hopscotch, Julio Cortazar, Pantheon Books, New
    York, 1987 (originally published in 1966 as La
    Rayuela)
  • Robert Coover www.brown.edu/Departments/Literary_
    Arts/coover.htm
  • Eastgate Systems www.eastgate.com
  • afternoon a story www.eastgate.com/catalog/After
    noon.html

43
References (cont)
  • A Tale In the Desert www.atitd.com
  • My Life With Master www.halfmeme.com/master.html
  • Sorcerer www.sorcerer-rpg.com
  • GNS Theory www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/
  • Bartle player types www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.ht
    m
  • Yee player types www.nickyee.com/facets/home.html
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com