Storytelling

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Storytelling
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academic colonization
Outside academic theory people are usually
excellent at making distinctions between
narrative, drama and games. If I throw a ball at
you I don't expect you to drop it and wait until
it starts telling stories. On the other hand, if
and when games and especially computer games are
studied and theorized they are almost without
exception colonised from the fields of literary,
theatre, drama and film studies. Games are seen
as interactive narratives, procedural stories or
remediated cinema (Eskelinen, 2001, n.1
www.gamestudies.org)
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games vs narratives?

• The player can tell stories of a game session.
• Many computer games contain narrative elements,
  and in many cases the player may play to see a
  cut-scene or realise a narrative sequence.
• Games and narratives share some structural
  traits.
• BUT
• Games and stories actually do not translate to
  each other in the way that novels and movies do.
• There is an inherent conflict between the now of
  the interaction and the past or "prior" of the
  narrative. You can't have narration and
  interactivity at the same time there is no such
  thing as a continuously interactive story.
• The relations between reader/story and
  player/game are completely different - the player
  inhabits a twilight zone where he/she is both an
  empirical subject outside the game and undertakes
  a role inside the game.

(Juul, 2001, n.1 www.gamestudies.org)
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but... arent all these experiences literary?
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all coterie members are dead, press ESC to load
saved game
Our fixation on electronic games and stories is
in part an enactment of a denial of death. They
offer us a chance to erase memory, to start over,
to replay an event and try for a different
resolution. In this respect, electronic media
have the advantage of enacting a deeply comic
vision of retrievable mistakes and open options.
(Janet Murray)
The charm of a text is that it forces you to
face destiny (Eco)
catharsis is impossible
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from the design point of view...

• Meanwhile

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Designers story versus players story
(Rouse)
makes sense?
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Storytelling is not only about linearity

• Storytelling is not opposed to interaction

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story
A person has a problem ? tries to understand it ?
makes a choice (usually difficult) that changes
understading and resolves the difficulty.
narrative
Essential What? (Plot) Who? (Character) Why?
(Causality) Optional Where? (Descriptions)
When? (Temporality)
Emotional release
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Narrative What? (Plot) Who? (Character) Why?
(Causality)

• plots?
• characters?
• causality?

do games have...
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Essential What? (Plot) Who? (Character) Why?
(Causality)

• Quest
• Adventure
• Pursuit
• Rescue
• Escape
• Revenge
• The Riddle
• Rivalry
• Underdog
• Temptation

• Metamorphosis
• Transformation
• Maturation
• Love
• Forbidden Love
• Sacrifice
• Discovery
• Wretched Excess
• Ascension
• Descension

The 20 master plots of all time, by Ronald B.
Tobias
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Adventure games

• Playing for the plot
• It is not the same to read about a detectives
  work than to play the detectives role, in a way
  to be the detective. Most adventure games cast
  the player in a detectives role under various
  guises the detective of Deadline, the
  mistery-writer "Shattenjäger" of the Gabriel
  Knight series, the curious traveller of Myst,
  the journalist of The 11th Hour... Something has
  happened (usually a crime, assault, disappearance
  or any mysterious deed the programmers can think
  of), and the player must investigate in order to
  learn what. She must look for a plot behind the
  apparently meaningless terrible acts in order to
  reconstruct the story from clues that she finds
  at the crime scenes and the interviewing of the
  non-playing characters. The main character/player
  usually has a motivation to find a lost
  girlfriend, to free somebody, to write a book,
  etc.

genre fiction
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characteristics

• Explore the world
• Objects
• Puzzles
• Dialogues

Jonas Heide Smith
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antidotes

• Deistic narration
• Better Ais (characters actions)
• Multilinearity (beyond myst), more branching
• Narrative decision points at key moments

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Essential What? (Plot) Who? (Character) Why?
(Causality)

• Simple world interaction move, talk,
  inventory...
• Simple battle (you are attacked, you respond)
• QUESTS Goal obstacles resolution
• -Simple exchange (NPC asks to obtain item...)
• Breach of contract (same but reward is withdrawn)

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Essential What? (Plot) Who? (Character) Why?
(Causality)
Narrative mode Reader constructs scenarios
imaginarily.
The characters in a film, book or play are the
people that the film, book, or play is
about. Collins English Dictionary
Dramatic mode Viewer watches unfolding scenarios.
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you are...
You are Blade Runner Ray McCoy, engaged in an
adventure uniquely your own. But what you dont
know each time you play is whether you --or
anyone else-- is human or replicant. Westwoods
Blade Runner official website
overdetermination
Illusion of control
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characters in games...
- are part of a frame narrative (Half Life) - are
the goal of the game (any RPG) - live a story
(adventure games)
LEVELS OF NARRATIVE DETERMINATION
player
character
RPGs
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we construct characters...

• through description
• through their actions
• symbolic
• naturalistic
• relationship to reality
• through relationship to space
• through other characters view
• through a name

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Optional Where? (Descriptions) When?
(Temporality)

• Scenery (Gerrold) / Look and feel (Rollings,
  Morris)
• World Physically/Geography/Nature
• World Philosophy/Basic idea for existence
• World history
• World sociology economy
• World rules (program)
• Why would player want to be/play in that world?
  What makes it particularly compelling?

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Optional Where? (Descriptions) When?
(Temporality)
Jesper Juul, 2001.
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Readings for next session

• Muramatsu, Jack. Computing, Social Activity, and
  Entertainment A Field Study of a Game MUD
  (http//www.ics.uci.edu/ackerman/pub/98a6/illusio
  n.cscw-j.970827.html)
• Baron, Jonathan. Glory and Shame Powerful
  Psychology in Multiplayer Online Games
  (http//www.gamasutra.com/features/19991110/Baron_
  01.htm)
• Yee, Nicholas. The Norrathian Scrolls.
  (http//www.nickyee.com/eqt/report.html) Just for
  browsing