On Narrative Stagnation In Games, And How To Combat It

The last word of this introductory paragraph will prove very naughty. For some of you, it will conjure up images of your most despised English professors; for others, it will neatly summarize everything that went wrong in twentieth-century thought. And I'm sure that for at least half of you, it has already entered your lexicon as a dark and terrible curse -- the sort of base profanity that would make a serial killer interrupt his meal of human flesh to defend his own moral integrity. But I think it is a term that holds some promise for the gaming industry, which has long suffered from an inadequacy of fresh plot ideas; and if there is even a slight chance that it could help us in that regard, then I'm afraid we are obligated to consider its implications, if only for a little while. I'm talking about that bane of scientists, moralists, and right-headed folks everywhere: post-modernism.

For a long time I was unsure what the term "post-modern" meant in any context. My longstanding confusion was not due to a lack of trying. The simple truth of the matter is that most of the people and sources that attempt to explain just what it is that constitutes the post-modernist movement do a terrible job at it. Often this is because they've already decided that they hate post-modernism, and so their explications are tainted by a highly pejorative construal. Sometimes, as in the case of this dictionary definition, the failure may be chalked up to sheer incompetence. (Whoever wrote that entry should be shot.) Given the fact that I sought to understand post-modernism for a long time without much success, I imagine that many of the people who talk about post-modernism do so without really knowing what they mean. If true, this would lower the signal-to-noise ratio even further, thereby rendering any sane discourse on the matter quite difficult.

Post-modernism is a symptom of the "linguistic turn" which came to dominate nearly every facet of intellectual thought in the mid-to-late twentieth century. The foundation of the linguistic turn is often thought to be Ludwig Wittgenstein, and for this reason Wittgenstein is reckoned to be the most important philosopher in the last hundred years. The gist of it is: anything that we might call a "fact" depends upon our language, and there is no such thing as a reality outside of that which is wrapped in language. Post-modernism mixes in a few notions from such movements as Marxism, frequently arguing that the "reality" we perceive is determined, at least in part, by socio-historical factors. Post-modernists therefore claim that we owe responsibility for our thoughts to nothing other than ourselves, since nothing in the world may ever puncture our own interpretive framework.

As it happens, post-modernism is basically a very ancient phenomenon. It differs only slightly from such long-abandoned philosophical movements as skepticism and radical relativism, and so it is open to the same refutations. In his Theaetetus, Plato's character Socrates exposes Protagoras as a self-contradictory sophist for the claim that "Man is the measure of all things; of what it is that it is, and of what is not that it is not." This doctrine of "true for me" is self-refuting; if all beliefs are true, then the belief that no beliefs are true is itself true. The relativist may respond that the claim of self-refutation is no threat to one who views truth as relative. The non-relativist may in turn point out that, if the relativist claims as a subjective truth that there is no objective truth, then the relativist has asserted nothing at all, since to assert a subjective truth is (by the relativist's own lights) to assert nothing. So, if the theory does not refute itself, then it is cognitively meaningless; it is either impossible or gibberish. Post-modernism and similar movements may therefore be seen as a regurgitation of gristle that most philosophers had thought well chewed thousands of years ago.

There is an exception, however: post-modernism is most at home in the fields of artistic and literary criticism. Post-modernist critics maintain that there can be no privileged interpretations of a painting or sculpture, of a book or film -- or even, of a game. Post-modernism has been shown to be untenable with respect to epistemology in general, but in matters of aesthetic judgment, claims to objectivity simply cannot be sustained.

As a result of this fact, there are now subsections of literature, film, and art that are called post-modernist. Post-modernist works of art tend to defy many of the conventions and traditions common to their respective media. A post-modernist narrative might present events in non-chronological order, for example, or it might refrain from explicitly connecting those events in a straightforward manner. One popular technique is to combine seemingly disparate characters into an absurd, upside-down spectacle; imagine a story about how much Julius Caesar hates Charlie Brown, or something along similar lines. In essence, post-modernist art is just art that is deliberately fashioned so as to be very hard to interpret using traditional methods. Any of you who saw the film Pulp Fiction and weren't quite sure what to make of it afterward know what I mean. This is not to say that Pulp Fiction defies meaning or interpretation; it is only to say that the film itself will provide scant evidence in support of any single interpretation. Consider the diner conversation between Jules and Vincent near the end of the film, in which "walking the earth" is contrasted with being a bum. Which of them is right? The film doesn't say -- and if it had bothered to do so, it would have been a very different sort of film (worse off, in my opinion).

Some games don't really have a plot at all. But some games do, and of these, nearly all of them cling to a nineteenth-century style of plot, in which it is assumed from the outset that certain agents and their actions are "good" and others are "bad," with no wiggle room in-between. Planescape: Torment is a noteworthy exception; in the end, it demands that the player decide for herself whether there is an overall message, and if so, what that message might be. But every other plot-heavy game I've played seeks to make that determination in advance, and then ram it down the player's throat. (Note that the "good versus evil" theme is but one of many examples along these lines.)

Games should no longer tenaciously cling to this tired old method of aggressive and rigid narrative proselytizing. The post-modernists have shown us that there's little point to it. Other artistic media have learned to use the post-modernist insight to craft works far outside of what could be done in the past. Games would be more fresh and compelling if they, too, learned to move with the times. More traditional forms of narrative will always deserve their place, but we should be wary of their stifling effect when we rely upon them too heavily.

Comments

Interesting read, Lobo.

While we all agree that new and interesting narratives would be a welcome change to the current course, I have to question which directions we really have to go. I love the thought of experimenting with new methods of storytelling, but what to do? When I compare to literature, there would seem to be a limited number of methods of storytelling, and a limited number of stories to tell. What makes some works exceptional, is how skillfully the story itself is told. It's the job of the artist is to create a work which exceeds the limitations of the medium in which he creates art, and in doing so the form often counts greatly.

Games like Planescape (and the other RPGs like it) are great examples of breaking the norm. But after a while, even those narrative styles become overused. If I correctly understand your definition of post-moderism, then it seems that with time post-moderism is self-defeating. Of course, it might just be a cyclical path post-moderism takes us down.

In any case, we shall patiently (or not) await some new and exciting methods of narrative, and rejoice when it arrives

The best story in a game is not one that is set in stone...but rather subject to the player(s) actions...

I'd much rather have that then Pulp Fiction in a game.

That is the best mini lecture on post modernism that I've heard yet, and I have an Honours degree in English.

I would say, given the games that I have personally played, and those I've witnessed Certis play, that story is not usually the most important facet of the game-making process. Sometimes the developers care, and sometimes they don't, but on the whole, writing a good story is secondary to gameplay, graphics, and the like. It is entirely acceptable to both the makers and the consumers of games to shoehorn in the most cliche ridden and poorly scripted storyline possible, so long as the rest of the game passes muster. In most reviews of games that I've read, story is not even considered in the score. You obviously care, Lobo, but how many others are standing with you?

Are there good writers among the developer's ranks? Are they willing to go find some? What would be the impulse to make telling a good story a primary goal for developers, when the medium that relies entirely on telling good stories (books) so often publishes and promotes crap, and it rewarded for it?

hoochie wrote:

Are there good writers among the developer's ranks? Are they willing to go find some? What would be the impulse to make telling a good story a primary goal for developers, when the medium that relies entirely on telling good stories (books) so often publishes and promotes crap, and it rewarded for it?

There may no longer be writers in the ranks, but there used to be. I think of Infocom's fantastic titles, which were brilliantly written stories before graphics even become a factor. In fact, some of those games were even driven by popular writers like Douglas Adams.

Unfortunately, your point about books pushing crap is quite true. But every once in a while, there's a gem somewhere in the piles of Dan Browns and his ilk. Likewise with gaming, I suppose, except those gems come far more rarely.

For the most part, it's RPGs which are the story-driven games on the market - and a complaint about rehashing old narrative styles is well targeted there. I just think that a little effort to improve the storytelling in games would improve sales, and make gaming more enjoyable for a number of gamers. Or, maybe not. How many people really do care? I insist it's greater then a handfull!

All I need is a setting, something to do and character customization and Im happy.

DrunkenSleipnir wrote:

If I correctly understand your definition of post-moderism, then it seems that with time post-moderism is self-defeating.

I think this is a grand insight, and aptly worded!

Also, I think I agree with you that there are only so many stories to be told before repetition sets in. The difference that a post-modernist approach would make is that the story and whatever meanings are associated with it would vary -- and be strongly encouraged to vary -- from player to player. That's what happens in Planescape: Torment. Depending upon how I interpret certain aspects of its plot, my conception of the game and what it means to me will be quite different from the conception of someone who chose different actions. Which leads us right into Guru's point:

TheGameguru wrote:

The best story in a game is not one that is set in stone...but rather subject to the player(s) actions...

I'd much rather have that then Pulp Fiction in a game.

I hear you Guru. Insofar as I am holding up Pulp Fiction as something worth imitating, I mean only that it is precisely its aspect of self-determination that is desirable. Just as Pulp Fiction refrains from suggesting a single interpretation, I think that games should refrain from telling a single story. Story should ideally be open to input from the player, and therefore it should not be set in stone, as you say.

Edit: Although, I should add that I don't think that a player-determined story by itself will suffice to realize my vision. In addition to a greater emphasis on player-determined stories, I would like to see a less didactic approach with respect to how the player is supposed to interpret the story. For example, KOTOR has a player-determined story, but there's never any doubt that the path of the light side is "good", and the path of the dark side is "bad." It's better than having a completely fixed plot, but it's still not at the level of player determinacy of something like Planescape: Torment. (God, how I love that game... notice how I keep mentioning it?)

hoochie wrote:

You obviously care, Lobo, but how many others are standing with you?

That's a damned fine question, hoochie. I think we all know the answer... but I'm working hard to change things.

hoochie wrote:

What would be the impulse to make telling a good story a primary goal for developers, when the medium that relies entirely on telling good stories (books) so often publishes and promotes crap, and it rewarded for it?

Another great question. I hope that for at least some of the people in the games industry who are capable of crafting and telling a good story, doing so would be its own reward. Maybe that will be enough to engender more widespread interest in quality storytelling.

We're still al long way from interactive storytelling, since that would involve a bottom-up approach in a world where everything is interactive and intertwined, with NPC's able to perform a realistic conversation, ...

So right now you have stories on one hand and games on the other. Not all games have stories, games don't NEED stories to work. But when it HAS one, the way it interacts with the game is everything.

It's the way it is told. Take Half-Life 2 for instance. The story is not rammed down your throat, it's everywhere around you. Leaving you to puzzle the pieces together. And not giving you every piece of it, leaving much to the imagination and interpretation of the gamer/reader (très post-modern).
Not letting the narrative and the interactive collide, fitting the two together seemlessly is the key to succes imo. Half-Life 2 did it, Torment did it, Pariah didn't.

What kind of story is told will depend on the genre I presume. The HL2 storyline is VERY similar to action movies like True Lies or Commando.

Forcing a story into a game seldomly works. Developers should be careful to avoid the pitfalls of adventure games, where interactivity often is next to none. And game developers should work together more often with artists, as Chris Crawford is trying to tell the world for decades now

We've got a long road ahead of us...

I hear you Guru. Insofar as I am holding up Pulp Fiction as something worth imitating, I mean only that it is precisely its aspect of self-determination that is desirable. Just as Pulp Fiction refrains from suggesting a single interpretation, I think that games should refrain from telling a single story. Story should ideally be open to input from the player, and therefore it should not be set in stone, as you say.

Edit: Although, I should add that I don't think that a player-determined story by itself will suffice to realize my vision. In addition to a greater emphasis on player-determined stories, I would like to see a less didactic approach with respect to how the player is supposed to interpret the story. For example, KOTOR has a player-determined story, but there's never any doubt that the path of the light side is "good", and the path of the dark side is "bad." It's better than having a completely fixed plot, but it's still not at the level of player determinacy of something like Planescape: Torment. (God, how I love that game... notice how I keep mentioning it?)

I actually look back and think that many of my favorite games told no story... insofar that it was simply all about the gameplay...

MOST interesting article, Lobo.

hoocie wrote:

You obviously care, Lobo, but how many others are standing with you?

To paraphrase Gimli - he has my axe!

One of the chief reasons I play games is to be entertained (and hopefully enthralled!) by the story. Really, if I just wanted to go and shoot things I'd load up UT2k4 and play that over and over. Performing rudimentary game actions (shooting, jumping, driving, etc) is pretty meaningless to me if there isn't any context. Other people find pleasure in the actions themselves, of course, and that's ok too. I just want more.

Now to cut back to Lobo's article: If I understand you correctly, Lobo, you're advocating a type of "create your own adventure" story? So instead of having a fixed narrative, the player is left to create his own story at the hand of a number of (hopefully random) game events.

This is certainly an interesting direction, but are current game developers really equipped to create worthwhile versions of these experiences? In fact, is technology really at a point where truly magnificent personal narratives can be created from seemingly disjointed events?

The reason I ask these questions is because there are already games that contain these personal narrative elements. Think of something like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto. True, there are quests with traditional narratives, but these games also allow players to make up their own stories. The problem is that these made-up narratives are almost always crap! Exciting they may be, but they do nothing to establish or build upon the background of the universe.

For these personal narratives to truly surpass the traditional narrative form they would have to be intricately linked to the world or environment in which they take place. That is, what GameGuru said in his first post. And there's the rub - the technology to do so simply does not exist yet.

So for the time being I'd rather stick with well-done traditional narratives.

EDIT: Blast, everything I wanted to say already said because I type so slow.

TheGameGuru wrote:

I actually look back and think that many of my favorite games told no story... insofar that it was simply all about the gameplay...

Gaming is wonderful, in that it provides myriad enjoyments for people of many different preferences. While I certainly love some games which have next to nothing in the way of story, strong story driven games are really capable of doing some amazing things to promote my love of the hobby. Personal preference, of course.

Many of my favorite games were very story driven, be they RPGs like the Suikoden series or mystery/horror games like Fatal Frame or RE.

I suddenly feel obligated to point out that story doesn't always help a game either. Raven Shield, for example, has a story I could care less about. It's cliched, annoying, and gets in the way of the missions I just want to play, dammit! Sometimes I just want to play a game.

I think the level of sophistication it would take to tell such a story simply does not exist in the industry. Furthermore, the way the industry is operating it seems like a risk that the corporate suits would not be willing to take.

Instead what we often get are "open" stories where the player is often pushed to collect all the different pieces of the plot. Even when the plot can move forward without 100% completion, the game often leaves the player feeling like they missed out for not having discovered every subplot, item, and character that was in the last section/chapter/map/etc.

A real evolution would be to stop penalizing players for simply moving a plot along at their own pace. To allow the story to be as complete as the player wants it to be. In fact, the best implementation of this is not necessarily a non-chronological story like Pulp Fiction, but a story where the chronology is determined by how the player does things and when. We some of this in a smattering of RPG's, but for the most part it is uncommon. It is also very tricky to pull off successfully as well because you're asking a level of sophistication that will be difficult to implement unless you have talented writers working practically hand-in-hand with the people who actually code the game.

In this sense I liked Morrowind because in the end it didn't really determine if you were actually some sort of savior for the land (Trying real hard not to go into specific spoilers here). What were you exactly? To some extent they let the player define it, but they also allowed the player to sort of leave it open. Even then, it wasn't clear. Of course, you could have just as easily ignored the main plot as well and done as you liked. Though this might be a little too open for some, so long as the game provides some sort of conflict, and in Morrowind there was plenty, I think the game succeeds.

This also illustrates another hurdle though. In the attempts to tell a story from a less rigid perspective, some games simply give the player nothing to do. I know in open-ended space sims, ignoring the plot often means non-stop combat with pirates, some repetitive bounties, and probably running freight. It's so droll that you may as well spend time actually working. There is little escapism there. Where are the choices? Where is the conflict? Where is the part where I actually feel like one of the good guys, the bad guys, the anti-hero, or just the average joe swept up by events around me?

I think it is because of the above, because it is so difficult to pull this off, that most games simply adopt the approach of "This is the bad guy and this is the good guy. They are both trying to thwart each other. Enjoy your game!" It takes far less thought and is much simpler to execute.

DrunkenSleipnir wrote:

I suddenly feel obligated to point out that story doesn't always help a game either. Raven Shield, for example, has a story I could care less about. It's cliched, annoying, and gets in the way of the missions I just want to play, dammit! Sometimes I just want to play a game.

Agreed. Sometimes the story just gets in the way. I think game designers don't always consider exactly what kind of game they are making and why a story might even be necessary. Quake didn't have a story that was really effective, but that didn't stop it from being fun.

Lord_Xan wrote:

Now to cut back to Lobo's article: If I understand you correctly, Lobo, you're advocating a type of "create your own adventure" story? So instead of having a fixed narrative, the player is left to create his own story at the hand of a number of (hopefully random) game events.

I think that's part of it, but what I'm really driving at is a "create your own interpretation" or "create your own moral" or "create your own meaning" style of game. It's been done with great success before, so I know it's not just a pipe dream. However, it's clearly not the easiest thing to accomplish; nor is it highly marketable in the present market climate.

"Create your own moral" type games are plentiful now with everyone and their brother trying to copy/outdo GTA. It may not be part of the official plot but if it were the game wouldnt be as fun and incorporating it into the plot structures the randomness. Randomness and exaggeration are where all the excitement and replayability lay.

"Create your own adventure" is not really a solution since its simply a branching mechanism. Instead of one pair of tracks players get three. Or four. Or dozen. In the end, its the same rails all over anyway. If I understand you correctly, Lobo, you wish for more depth in stories by introducing moral dilemmas. While its certain that game stories need to take some steroids and dig deeper, the main problem, imho, is that its still the same tracks. Branching is illusion of interactivity and not a very good at that.
The problem is that game industry looks upon literature and cinema with awe, yet those are completely different mediums with completely different mechanics. In literature and cinema there is that Author who sets things in stone. In games it doesnt work naturally because there the player is author. Its just that developers rarely give them quills to write their stories.

Game shouldnt have stories per se, they should have vibrant settings and dynamic ecosystems responding to every player`s choice. The perfect game story would be like Black Box where even developers do not know what boils within.
Its easy to make Max Payne rail-story because there are decades of movies backing developers up, its a well trodden path. However, no one really knows how would they go about story in a games like Civ, which is more "gamely" than Max, is randomly generated, allows complete freedom of choices in a given framework and responds to players choices dynamically. How to create a story-telling mechanism that would not lag behind such dynamic gameplay mechanism?

The problem with wanting a game with a good story without a well-fashioned narative plot or characters is that most gamers are horrible storytellers. Beyond practically being a contradiction in terms ( a story without a story ), a gamer doesn't necessarily want to read a story she just made up or that she is in the process of writing. That's boring for the most part unless you're a writer, but most people are not and do not want to be when they are playing a game.

If you're going to have narrative in your game, make it compelling, interesting and complete. I can be minimal, but if the game centers around the plot, make sure it doesn't suck. With games there is gameplay, narrative, interface and presentation. Narrative can be as small as pong if the gameplay is good. There is a place for ecosystem games if that is the whole point of the game, but if you present the plot (or anti-plot) as Morrowind did, it becomes annoying, bland and hard to follow.

A compelling narrative requires interesting characters and relationships between those characters, plot twists, a beginning and an ending, etc. The art is in the character and plot development, with the setting to a lesser degree. Most of the time we get caught up in the setting with games because either the plot is non-existent or sucks, or the eye-candy is so seductive. Much the same with movies and special effects. Just look at Star Wars. Much ado about space ships, explosions, little green computer-generated lifeforms. The movie sucks if characters are bland and we don't care what happens to them. Pulp Fiction, Planescape: Torment both have good plots and compelling characters, they're just unique, different. The gamer should not be responsible for telling the story on the fly.

Now there are very creative ways of presenting plot and character to the player, which is perhaps what you are getting at. Interactivity with a narrative is very tricky as they are very much opposed. You'd really have to have a themed narrative that changes flavor as the player interracts with it, but where do the exciting plot twists come from? By definition, the player doesn't know about them (or shouldn't). Many things in the plot move independently of the main character and he must react to the circumstances. An interractive narrative with too many options and rabbit holes just becomes diluted and bland. It must maintain coherence.

Post-modern narrative is just solid narrative done unconventionally.

Some of what you are postulating is theorized here: Mediating User Interaction in Narrative-Structured Virtual Environments (gamasutra.com) [reg required?]

Films and novels effectively convey intriguing stories, powerful emotions, and meaningful messages to their audiences. Telling interactive stories in a virtual environment seems a natural progression of the narrative. While users find virtual environments more engaging when they perceive that they have agency within them, current attempts at interactive narrative environments often limit a user’s sense of agency by restricting his ability to affect critical elements of the story.

The process of mediation is designed to give users as great a sense of agency in an unfolding narrative as possible while still maintaining the narrative’s coherence and goals. This is accomplished by making the system, user, and author collaborators in the production of the storyline.

Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers (gamasutra.com)

There's one character who's outside your control as an author, and that's the player. The player is doing whatever he wants, and taking as long or as little time about it as he likes. How do you make sure that when the dramatic climax takes place in your interactive story, your player is there and ready for it? This is the Problem of Narrative Flow.

Interactive Narratives Revisited:
Ten Years of Research (gamasutra.com)

Games, Adams went on to say, are repetitive by nature. This is tolerated in gameplay, but not in narration. Narratives are not a simple recounting of events, he argued. “You can tell the story of a hockey game, but that would be boring.�

Lot's a' good stuff there http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/article_display.php?category=view_all

If the classical was the dialogue, the early medieval the bardic, the high medieval the romantic, the modern the allegory and the post-modern the sarcastic.

Then I say game writing has reached no further then the cave paintings of beast and of hand outlines.

With few notable exceptions: Torment, BG series, Flashback, Fandango and MMORPGs.

Most wrote:

If I understand you correctly, Lobo, you wish for more depth in stories by introducing moral dilemmas.

I'm not really looking for moral dilemmas -- although I do admit to finding them interesting. But most games with moral dilemmas don't really defy interpretation in the way that a post-modernist game should; they simply cause the player to hesitate a bit before choosing an action. Also, a strong post-modernist effect could be attained without necessarily addressing matters of moral ambiguity. Take my Julius Caesar versus Charlie Brown example, for example.

illum wrote:

If the classical was the dialogue, the early medieval the bardic, the high medieval the romantic, the modern the allegory and the post-modern the sarcastic.

Heh, that's pretty good!

Another fine article about a failing of the industry in general Lobo. Although blaming anyone -the video game industry included - for not meeting your intellectual standards is like hating a fish for not breatihing air. Your brain is just too damned big. Remove some of it, and you'll be far more comfortable here.

Kidding aside, great examination of a complex theory. Perhaps someday we'll see a more creative level of creativity in games. Or perhaps it's there already and we, who were trained in the old ways, just aren't seeing it.

Getting away from discussions of post-modernism, or as I like to call it, 'The Way Things Seem When You're Totally F'ing Stoned,' I don't think that the issue has anything at all to do with the content that we're being presented with. Very moralistic games can have great stories (Beyond Good and Evil, The Longest Journey,) as can games which allow you to draw your own conclusions (Knights of the Old Republic, Torment.) Saying that "Games should no longer tenaciously cling to this tired old method of aggressive and rigid narrative proselytizing" is no different than saying that games should steer clear of directionless and sloppy storytelling which offers no real payoff for its buildup. Not only is it unfair, it's also misguided. There is room enough for all sorts of storytelling, and games are a powerful enough media to support everything you can imagine, if you do it right. Unlike with books, or movies, or poetry or songs, the only limits on what a game can deliver in terms of storytelling (or lack thereof,) are defined by the talent of the team, the time they've got and, fankly, the money they've got. Movies have the drawback of being too short to have a story as intricate as some of the 1000-page whopper novels out there, and books can not match the visual and aural impact of movies. Gaming has the drawbacks of neither approach. Books also have the advantage of being able to do truly rediculous things, as do games via their 100% virtual worlds. Games even have the virtues that no other major storytelling medium has, such as the ability to allow people to see directly through the eyes of a character.

The point is this: Quality is what matters, when it comes to stories in games, not the content of the story or philosophy behind it. I would certainly like to see MORE of the sorts of stories you describe, but your wording makes me believe that you see these sorts of stories as a mark for which ALL games should shoot. This seems, much like post-modernism itself, self-defeating.

Now, I'll tell you where I really think that game stories should go. That style is the style of the Myst series, of Metroid Prime, of Eternal Darkness, of Torment, of Ico. What do these games have in common? They take extreme advantage of what interactive media has to offer. The narratives of these games (I don't even want to say stories, since in some cases the word doesn't really apply,) could never have been achieved in a movie. They could never have been achieved in a book. These are the sorts of narratives which excite me. The most obvious examples of this are Metroid Prime and Ico, but I have much more experience with MP, so let's look at that one.

Prime has, pretty much, absolutely no story at all. In the opening cutscene Samus finds a beat-up Space-Pirate ship, you play for an hour, then you crash on the planet. The rest of the game is you doing what is necessary to fix your suit and your ship, and leave, as well as play out your age-old crusade agains the Metroids. As you play, you will discreetly learn more and more about the past of the world you are now on, but this is not really story. There is no plot. There are no characters. There is no dialogue. There is only setting and atmosphere. And the game is enthralling. As Bungie's Jason Jones once said: "It's not playing cutscenes for an hour between every five minutes of gameplay. So much of the story of a game is just leaning flavour to the times your're running around, so when you're driving around with a gunner and a guy hanging out the side of the warthog, you believe that you're on this alien planet..." Metroid Prime takes advantage of everything that makes games great - its sound and music are amazingly atmospheric and give weight and emotion to everything you see and do, the visuals give you a world, and the presentation puts you there. Much the same can be said about Myst, or Ico. Both of these games are philosophically allied with Prime (Myst less so.)

Games like Eternal Darkness are really VERY plotted, but again it is a story which could never have been done in a movie, or a book. It just wouldn't have worked. Playing as a character gives you an ultra fast-track to caring about them. A book (even one written from the first person,) could never have made you feel attached to no less than a dozen VERY major characters, and kept you feeling attached to them for the rest of the narrative cycle, when any given character is only brought to your attention for, maybe, a twelfth of the overall length.

These games that I mentioned are incredibly varried. Some are linear, some almost sandbox-ish, some plot based and some situation based, some very long, others quite short, some action games, some point-and-click adventures. My point is that what I see as the real avenue for narrative advancement in games has nothing to do with the stories. It has to do with how those stories are told. Whether I have a moral dipped in honey and rammed up my ass, or if I'm left with a game that says 'screw you, do your own work,' means little-to-nothing, to me.

As both a newcomer and a game-addict, I find this thread engrossing. I'm quite interested in the progress gamers make when reaching adulthood (as I have, although some might disagree) and I often find myself to be the only one in the room. I think this topic speaks to a greater importance of interactive media. I believe there is a place for both linear and free-flowing gameplay.

I say this because, as Lobo pointed out, games with traditional stories have repeated, and thus boring, plotlines. Boy/girl endeavors to save girl/boy/world, boy/girl wants revenge on person(s) who(m) have wronged him/her, and so on. Its obvious from the get-go when games go along a pre-set plotline that is destined to suck.

However, when discussing a game's story, linear and free-flowing gameplay can work well together, but the ones that get produced by the ever-increasing big-budget studios will be ones with generic plots, characters and, ultimately, generic conclusions.

I believe that these stories are globally adopted because they are the plots that most human beings can identify with on a whole. However, when a game or series presents a plotline that is semi-original, it can be touted as exceptional storytelling within the genre of games while not being directly original. For instance, the Metal Gear franchise has a world-wide reputation for being exceptionally well-written. I did think that what I was presented with in these games was incredible and the story I was told was, at times, all that kept me from pulling the plug.

This game was terrific in the way the story was told, but international intrigue and the spy motif are not original by any stretch. At the same time, however, I was always looking for what was around the next corner, not from an objective or subjective standpoint, but from the viewpoint of a reader EXPERIENCING the story.

Maybe I am missing the point, and if I am I sincerely apologize. But I think that, speaking as a low-brow gamer with a job, I prefer to be told a story a lot of the time, rather than live the story. I know I am talking to a lot of individuals that participate in MMORPGS, and while I do not, its not because I do not like them or find them repetitive or the like. I play the full assortment of games, and I always come back to the ones that have the most involving story to me. In the end, it always comes down to personal preference, and games with generic stories are like every summer blockbuster ever: They are produced because the masses accept them and identify with the stories being told therein, no matter how much they are going to inevitably blow.

Not to get off-topic, but does anyone think that this kind of conversation was taking place in the early 30's and 40's regarding the film industry? When films themselves were original and breathtaking, were older film buffs and people within the industry standing to the side and remarking on how banal and lackluster the effort had become? Just a stream of consciousness. Not to say we are watching from afar and ridiculing the product, but I wonder if, when a fledgling medium becomes mainstream, those involved from the start see the medium as losing its appeal? Does anyone else's head hurt?

Morrolan wrote:

I would certainly like to see MORE of the sorts of stories you describe, but your wording makes me believe that you see these sorts of stories as a mark for which ALL games should shoot.

Well, I did write this:

Lobo wrote:

More traditional forms of narrative will always deserve their place, but we should be wary of their stifling effect when we rely upon them too heavily.

I don't want all games to change their approach. I just wish that said approach were a more commonplace endeavor, since I feel it has much capacity for originality and beauty.

Your insights into Myst and Metroid Prime are highly valuable, Morrolan. Interestingly, the idea of a game which does not tell a story, but instead presents a certain intense atmosphere, corresponds very well with some of the most well known examples of post-modernist literature and film. Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow, for example, contains almost nothing but evocative descriptions and disconnected events. It's not my favorite post-modernist novel -- that honor goes to Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany, which functions along the exact same lines. It's a book about... well, stuff that happens. I'm not an ardent post-modernist, but if one were here I bet they'd argue (contra my article) that the entire notion of plot is, at its core, anti-post-modernist.

For examples in film, just think of all those "crazy" black-and-white student films, in which a naked woman in a sterile white room tosses a wrench in the air before drawing X's over her nipples with lipstick, turning toward the camera, and whispering the word "starvation." Stuff like that mostly sucks, but it functions by presenting no plot at all: only moments, feelings, images, sounds.

Balance wrote:

As both a newcomer and a game-addict, I find this thread engrossing.

For a newcomer, that was a hell of a post! Welcome to GWJ.

Balance wrote:

But I think that, speaking as a low-brow gamer with a job, I prefer to be told a story a lot of the time, rather than live the story.

This is a fine distinction, which sums up quite a lot in very few words. Personally, I'm undecided on this issue. I don't mean that I'm undecided as to which approach makes for a better game; I just mean I'm undecided as to which approach suits my tastes better than the other. Clearly they're not mutually exclusive.

Balance wrote:

Not to get off-topic, but does anyone think that this kind of conversation was taking place in the early 30's and 40's regarding the film industry?

Yup. Discourse along these lines has its origin in France of the 1920's, in which a vast outpouring of revolutionary art transpired in the shadow of the Great War. After WWII there was a similar surge, largely in response to the insane poet, dramatist, and artist Antonin Artaud. I highly recommend you track down some of his stuff... a lot of it is pretty unsettling.

This stuff is gold to me. I'm writing a thesis on the chemistry between interactivity and narrative in Half-Life 2, and many of my (future) conclusions are confirmed here.

It's very hard to make a game with a good story. Not (only) because the storylines usually stink, but because stories are not interactive. And games are. The key to making stories and games work together is the way the game switches between both, how the story is intertwined with the game. Cutscenes are a desperate solution: game stops, story begins, story stops, game begins. Yet it's used so often, because of the difficulty of remaining interactive whilst telling the story.

Then why even bother? Because stories CAN make a game stronger. Games are about achieving goals, both long-term (gotta have that 15.000gp megasword... someday) and short-term (he's gotta die). Unravelling a story can be one of those goals. We all like stories, so we want to hear/read/see/play more. But we hate to see the game interrupted.

The genius of Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life 2, and Planescape: Torment then is HOW they tell the story. In Torment, the story involves everybody you play with - yourself, your party and the whole world, thus creating a strong bond with the entire gameworld. I'm still researching the game, but the way the story is told in Half-Life 2 is very interesting:
- the world around you is full of cues. And at one point in the game, they all tell the same. For instance, when you get of the train at the start of the game, EVERY cue points at repression, and the helplessness of the people.
- Whenever a story part ends, and an action part is about to begin, you are told relentlessly to move on, get going, no time to waste. While every gamer knows you could leave your computer for three years and you'ld still be safe. It's just to make that important switch from story to game go more fluid.
- You don't HAVE to listen to the game story, but sometimes they make it hard not to. Whenever a vital piece of information is passed on, you're locked somewhere waiting (like in the entrance of Black Mesa East, where you are "scanned" and Mossman tells you what and when), or following an NPC to the next part. Thus creating the illusion of interactivity while they serve you the story.
- The interface helps too: you can still interact with the world while listening to the story. But Valve made sure you couldn't hit the NPC's... or talk - the only time your muteness is spoken of is when Alyx in the beginning says "you're am an of few words, aren't ya".

I'm sorry if this was too specific or technical, but I just wanted to prove how incredibly hard it is to let a story and a game work together. How many tricks one has to pull out of it's sleeves. It's MUCH harder to tell a story through a good game than through a good book or decent movie.
But WHEN they succeed, you've got something way better than any other media can offer imho. Here's me hoping game developers will keep on experimenting, trying, improving.

Good post dejanzie.

Being able to properly integrate a story into a game is both needed and difficult. Unfortunately, I believe that because of this repetitive formula games are being pumped out like crazy. Effort = Money, after all. Gaming as a media provides whole new ways to tell a story, which was never possible before. I don't claim to have all the answers to good story/game chemistry, but I'm certainly willing to spend money on games made by people who do. We've certainly seen it can be done, with titles like PS:T, Half-Life, and System Shock 2 (which needs to be added to the list of games with good interactive stories :))

Thanks Lobo. Judging from the other posts I have read of yours, this is praise from Caesar indeed.

But enough ass-kissing! I must say that I agree with the general idea that games have hit a bit of a wall story-wise, and I would like to see a game that involved free will. That will be the nest gaming innovation, IMO. It will be bigger than rag-doll physics and normal mapping combined!

Seriously, I do think that games with traditional stories will always have a place, not only in gaming lore and history, but at the forefront of gaming culture. The revenge-driven and person-saves-world plotlines are so intertwined into American (and dare I say global?) culture that they will always serve as serviceable backdrops for a brilliantly produced game. RE4 really had a crappy excuse for a story with a few new droplets of coolness on top to make it look nice, but it was just satisfying to blow a villager's head off and head that "SPLUISH!" sound that they make. Priceless.

[quote by Lobo]This is a fine distinction, which sums up quite a lot in very few words. Personally, I'm undecided on this issue. I don't mean that I'm undecided as to which approach makes for a better game; I just mean I'm undecided as to which approach suits my tastes better than the other. Clearly they're not mutually exclusive.[end quote]

I agree with Lobo. I am not on one side or the other. However, I am a lazy bastard, so most of the time I just like to lay back and play a game that wants to lead me along. Hmm... that didn't sound right.

However, no one really knows how would they go about story in a games like Civ, which is more "gamely" than Max, is randomly generated, allows complete freedom of choices in a given framework and responds to players choices dynamically. How to create a story-telling mechanism that would not lag behind such dynamic gameplay mechanism?

Civ, and other games like Sim City, or even Football Manager, are idd more "gamely" in the sense that there's no "outside" narrative cramped into it, with which it has to switch. These are games that kind of create stories, as you play along. Ted Friedman has written a great article on the subject, which can be found at http://web.mit.edu/21w.780/Materials/friedman.htm. He calls the phenomena spatial stories, a story is created while you discover a map. I find it applicable to many bottom-up games, especially simulation games. I for one remember creating my own story when leading KVK Tienen from second division to European football in Championschip Manager
This kind of narrative is practically unique to games, since games are spatial in opposition to the time-driven narrative media. There has been a spatial experiment in some novel, a story about a plot of land - but then again, what HASN'T been experimented with in novels?