作者：Tony Ventrice

（在本系列文章第一部分，Tony Ventrice通过7种游戏趣味元素探讨了游戏化操作的可行性，并通过第二、第三部分论述了成长&情感、选择&竞争元素的特点，本文讨论的是身份&故事元素。）

身份（Identity）

身份描述的是呈现个体特征的属性。从字面上看，它指的是我们如何定义自己，它可以反映已知与预期特性这两者的对比情况。例如我可以用以下一些特性来描述自己：

我讨厌哈蜜瓜，我在加州北部长大，我31岁，我喜欢桌游。

虽然上述内容不多，但你应该可以大概得出一个模糊印象，知道我的品味，我的成长环境和年龄，我的其他爱好等。

如果说你真能得到什么结论，那也应该是通过心理比较而获得的结果，比如将你自己和所描述的个体（我）进行比较，或者将个体与你所认识的其他个体相比较。

关于身份的学术研究

在学术界，现代身份心理学方面的研究多以Erik Erikson的理论为基础，他提出了“身份危机”的概念。这位美国心理学家因提出人生不同阶段的身份发展模型而得名，许多新Eriksonian学术研究主要围绕多种“自我”而展开：你认为自己是个什么样的人，这通常与你在社会环境中所表现出的自我并不相同，其中包括身份探索（人们尝试成为某种身份的人），社会身份（游戏邦注：也称社会认同），以及理想自我（个体所追求的身份）。

这些学术研究将身份描绘为一个动态而易受影响的形体，而非人们所相信的一种与生俱来的样板。

身份的两面性

从身份的动态甚至是试验性特征来看，我们不难发现角色扮演元素在游戏中的重要性，但我想这里就会涉及到第二个与游戏中的身份元素相关的话题——社交目的。

角色扮演：我曾将“选择”和“身份”的角色扮演话题一分为二。对“选择”来说，角色扮演与获得制定决策的权力有关，而对“身份”而言，角色扮演则与尝试改变自我有关。

社交目的：它描述了一种认同需求，它不仅仅包括建立联系或达到预期，实际上还暗指我们为他人创造一些价值的内在渴望。简而言之，社交目的意指个体希望自己被他人所需要。例如，他不玩游戏了，会不会有人注意到这一点？

到这里，我开始怀疑“身份”这个词在本文的适用性。任何代表自身喜好和倾向的内容，是否都能划入身份元素的行列？例如，我所做的一切选择，以及成长轨迹是否都算是我的部分身份？

最后我所得出的结论是：所有的喜好和倾向都可以视为一种隐性的身份影响力——它们本身具有不容忽视的优点，它们对身份所施加的影响只是其发挥的第二作用。而我们现在要讨论的则是显性或不言自明的身份影响力（它们的存在目的就是塑造身份）。

而这其中的区别却会因动机而令人混淆。例如，我踢足球是为了享受竞争和决策的快感，那我的动机就是竞争和成长（克服挑战）。如果我踢足球是为了与“大众”融为一体，那我就是为了获得认同/找到身份而参与其中。

先入为主的观念

我们潜意识中并没有发现这一点，身份在我们的日常生活中扮演重要角色。我们所体现的身份常会让相遇的人产生一种先入为主的观念。当你刚遇到某人时，经常就会通过一些细节来判断或预测此人的一些相关信息。

例如，纹身、皮革、藐视权威的态度等信息可以用于暗示一个人的身份，金属框架的眼镜、实用的瑞士汽车也同样能传递某人的故事背景。

先入为主的观念有时候并不能反映个人的选择（例如种族和肤色），但那些可反映个人选择的信息却是促成社交关系的珍贵信号。

游戏中的身份元素

角色扮演：它是游戏中极易辨别的元素。拥有主角的游戏多少都带有些角色扮演色彩。而主角的故事背景和个性越是完善，游戏的角色扮演色彩就越是浓厚。例如，马里奥只是一个没多少故事背景的普通角色，所以游戏中的角色扮演元素就较为有限。而蝙蝠侠是一个拥有丰富个性和故事背景的角色，以该人物为主角的游戏就更可能含有角色扮演元素。

虽然蝙蝠侠等家喻户晓的角色一般较有深度，但也潜藏着只能吸引小范围受众的风险（有人可能并不喜欢蝙蝠侠）。因此《神鬼喻言》和《质量效应》等游戏就采用了设定丰富故事背景，但角色没有详细个人特征，它们通过牺牲角色深度和重玩性（游戏邦注：较无深度的角色可能会削弱游戏重玩性）以吸引更广泛的用户。

尽管“身份”和“选择”这两个概念之间有许多重叠性，但我认为二者之间的区别在于：我们扮演角色是为了获得不同身份的感受，也就是让自己所采纳的身份支配我们的选择。如果我是蝙蝠侠，现在可以处置Joker，我就会将其放生，因为这就是我所接受的人格——蝙蝠侠的行事风格。

换句话说，如果我玩一款游戏的时候完全随心所欲，那我就是在行使自己的选择，而如果我是以游戏人物的身份参与其中，那我就是在扮演角色。

在互动在线多人游戏中，“真实”人格与“想象”人格之间的界线可能较为模糊。假如有人只了解你在游戏中的人格，并将它当真对待，那么这种人格实际上与“真实”人格无异。我认为这种确认感是促使玩家融入虚拟情境中的强大力量。

社交目的：含有组队性质的游戏也都具有一定程度的社交目的。团队中的每个成员都在为共同目标而努力，大家都在为团队创造价值，而这也正是团队对成员的期望。

在足球队中，队员所贡献的价值可能就是射门、传球或防卫的技能。而在其他未有明确定义的情境中，例如校园派系里，帮派成员的价值或许就是所谓的“拉风”（酷）。如果个体很酷，那么整个帮派也就很酷。

在某些游戏中，组队中的任何人基本上都扮演相同的角色。例如在《反恐精英》这类游戏中，大家阻队可能就只是为了消灭共同的敌人。在这种情况下，团队成员的价值可用所有玩家都认同的标准（例如技能）来衡量，而“团队”也很可能因不同队员为炫出更强大的技能而分崩离析。

在另一些游戏中，玩家拥有不同能力，扮演互有差异的角色（例如不同职业），大家富有策略地进行协作。例如《魔兽世界》中的公会，就是由擅长承受攻击、攻击、群体控制和治疗等技能的玩家组成。

玩家所扮演的角色不仅可体现自己在团队中的价值，而且还能体现自己的个性（例如反映玩家究竟是追求荣耀、关注、权威还是感激之情的人）。从许多方面来看，你所选择的价值会显示你的社交身份——反映你和团队其他成员的关系如何（游戏邦注：例如玩家在团队中是医生，其职责就是照顾他人）。

实际运用

角色扮演：要让玩家扮演角色，就要为他们提供表现身份的方法。那么玩家要如何表现自己的身份？一般会先从个人资料入手——照片、兴趣等有利于表现自我的内容，但比表明身份更重要的是“证实”身份。

玩家需要互动目的，他们需要特定情景。大家意见不一致时，若能善处理这种情况，也许是件好事。因为这可以让玩家保持个人立场，表现自己的身份。

纪念性选择：与现实世界一样，人们在虚拟环境中也会渴望表现自己。例如，电子游戏中的虚拟形象、装备和技能有助于其他人识别玩家个性。

非游戏环境的情况与此相同，也存在可被社区其他成员“识别”的纪念性选择。例如徽章和奖杯，但前提是其选择和行为具有价值。如果这种选择是大家并不看重的东西，那么它也就不具有多大价值。

社交目的：如果说角色扮演为“表达身份”创造了机会，那么社交目的就是“证实价值”的桥梁。这意味着社区成员彼此需要，《FrontierVille》使用简单的“赠礼循环”人为地强化这种效应，而且看起来至少对一些特定的用户很奏效。

而对于那些游戏目标用户之外的群体来说，这种机制的“强迫性”和“垃圾信息化”主要体现在缺乏针对性。

关键是要找到用户的价值所在。如果你是Facebook用户，那你看重的就是关注度；如果你是《使命召唤》玩家，那就是技能；如果你是问答论坛用户，当然就是准确而详细的答案。

纪念性价值：在现实世界中，开昂贵的名车或穿着气派是一种成功的外在表现，对许多成功人士来说，他们希望找到谦逊与炫耀之间的平衡。在虚拟社区（如游戏）中，人们对谦逊的重视程度多取决于系统本身特点。假如显示身份是约定俗成的惯例，那么人们就不会将其视为一种庸俗的“炫耀”。例如军官制服所别的一系列肩章，在军队环境中，这种显示身份的做法并非不得体的表现。

只要有机会，开发者最好要在游戏或网站情境中引进可显示用户身份或价值的内容。

故事（Story）

在本文中，我把叙事和幻想作为“故事”话题来阐述，我对这两者的定义是故事中的“事件”和“背景”。虽然这些元素通常可以一概而论，但每一者在交流中都有自身的独特之处，所以我要分别进行讨论。首先，我们将把故事视为“叙述”。

叙述（Narrative）

在游戏领域，人们通常会把故事视为一种存在于过场动画和对话中的非交互式体验。这种看法有一定道理，传统意义上的故事确实是一种被动体验，人们阅读书籍和观看电影的体验并不会对（书籍和电影内容的）结果产生影响。

但从另一方面来说，这种看法未免有失偏颇。故事未必一定是被动体验。口头故事，尤其是即兴创作的口头故事，可能会因听众的建议而发生改变；而“即兴创作”的戏剧概念完全是建立在交互式故事理念的基础之上。

有款纸牌游戏名为《Once Upon a Time》，它要求玩家抽取纸牌以综合话题，并最终完成一个共同即兴创作的故事。

如果你玩过这款游戏，就会发现这其中的故事基本上漫无目的，它们没有连贯的结构，开始到结尾之间也没有任何富有节奏或符合逻辑的进程。

被动叙述 vs 交互式叙述

令人愉悦的叙述一般都是精心制作的内容。它们会细心刻画角色故事背景，设计富有吸引力的秘密，拥有高潮迭宕的变化，以及令人情绪起伏的情节。Robert McKee备受赞誉的剧本写作指南《Story》一书就详细列出了整个创作过程的要求。

但游戏开发者很难从中取经——他的方法不适用于交互式情境。玩家与系统之间的交互式故事必然会有散漫特点，要能够让玩家随心所欲，毕竟玩家有可能花半天去解谜或直接忽略谜题，玩家可能不想开启某扇门，可能认为某场战役太容易或者太难。基本上，游戏玩法的线性特征越小，设计师对故事的掌控也就越小。

被动叙述的优势在于能够调动人们的期望和情感，而交互式叙述的优势则是增加选择和个性化特点。多数游戏会结合这两种方式，我们已经讨论过选择与身份的优点，因此现在主要关注叙述的被动性。

被动叙述

既然被动叙述的价值在于期望和情感，那么我们就得详细分析这两项内容。

期望：我将引用McKee的观点和自己的一些见解来讨论这个概念。一般来说，故事会通过以下一些（或者全部）元素调动观众的期望：

*神秘/悬念——未解开的答案

*戏剧性转折——打破期望

*道德/智力考验——促使观众思考：如果是我会怎么做？我要怎么解决这个问题？

这三者都会调动期望：前两者结合起来的问题就是，下一步会发生什么？最后一个的问题则是，我的解决方法或原则会管用吗？作者的想法会和我一致吗？

情感：被动叙述的另一优势就是能够激发情感。我在之前的文章中已经阐述过情感概念的内容，并将其视为玩家的体验，但在这里我们得承认情感也可以被玩家所察觉。

虽然人们喜欢在安全稳妥的环境中体会情感，但直接的情感也会让人产生压力。游戏中的直接情感退后一步来看就是具有移情作用的故事情感。读者在故事中可通过主角的审判和胜利，或社会道德对反派人物的遣责而获得情感体验（游戏邦注：这两种情况通常会同时发生，例如警匪电影《爆裂警官》）。

游戏中的被动叙述

我认为被动叙述的优点来源于两种方式：

*脚本事件

*意外事件

脚本事件：这是指让故事遵循预先构建的路径，这也是绝大多数游戏所采用的方式。这不一定是指“线性”路径，但假如它采用非性线路径，那么就开发者需要因故事衍生出的多个分支，投入更多资源开发有关游戏玩法的内容，这显然是一种不切实际的做法。

Quantic Dream作品《幻象杀手/华氏温度计》就是线性故事脚本的一个极端典型。该游戏甚至自称交互式电影，在主菜单显示“开始新电影”，并采用“返回”而非“重玩”按钮。

许多游戏都在采用线性模式的同时，极力为玩家营造一种自由选择之感，鼓励他们探索故事内容，例如《塞尔达》系列不同地下城之间的一般关卡。采用开放式探索、可选择的独立事件、支线任务等设置均可创造一种选择感，同时又不会破坏线性故事的主旋律。

意外事件：这是因社交互动而形成的故事概念。只要有足够的玩家和发生戏剧性事件的机会，玩家之间就会因共同合作、预测和回应他人的行为而自然形成社交框架，并产生悬念、计谋、深度动机和共同感等内容。这里的故事多由玩家体验形成，而非脚本安排的结果。

意外事件的典型例子包括《部落战争》和《外交》，这两者的机制设计中均巧妙融入悬念、转折和道德等元素。MMO游戏设计师则常通过制造一些偶然性刺激因素，促使玩家在意料之外的路径面临挑战。

实际运用中的被动叙述：将被动叙述植入非游戏体验的做法，与将其引入游戏内容的方式并无不同。因为游戏与网站或应用程序一样，原本就不是被动叙述的适用环境。以前的纸牌游戏、桌游和体育运动都没有被动故事元素。直到角色扮演游戏，以及文本冒险游戏和《吃豆娘》（Ms. Pac-Man）中的过场动画问世，被动叙述元素才算被引进游戏玩法之中。

有两种方法可将被动叙述元素添加到与之无关的项目（游戏邦注：例如游戏、网站或活动）中，一种是以故事为主，然后添加情境；另一种是情境为主，故事为辅。

广告领域已能轻车熟路地驾驭这两种方法。第一种情况的案例如，电影中出现主人公手握一杯可口可乐的场景。而第二种情况的案例有DeBeers广告，它采用蒙太奇手法呈现一对情人相爱和订婚的场景。虽然将这两者称为“游戏化”例子并不准确，但它仍然值得我们借鉴。

幻想（Fantasy）

故事的另一面就是幻想。虽然“Fantasy”一词常用于描述一种小说题材，但我认为将这个词称为形容为叙述内容所发生的“世界”（例如地点、文化、风俗、自然现象和科技等）更合适，尤其是不同于观众日常体验的世界。换句话说：

幻想描述的是不同于我们所处环境的世界和居民。

而奇幻小说题材则将这个概念发挥到极致——它描述了完全不同于现实生活的整个世界。

出众的幻想

幻想的成功或强度（不一定是吸引力）通常取决于它能否遵从自身的“真实性”（即其所描述的世界规则）。它所介绍的元素对幻想世界的文化影响越深，其文化对角色的影响就越大，而这个虚构世界也就越可能体现一致性和“合理性”。出色的幻想并不在于范围有多广，而在于一致性原则有多强。

这里我们可以使用80年代情景喜剧《Alf》为例，该剧的幻想内容描述了一个爱挖苦、爱猫、外向的外星人不幸在一个乡下家庭车库紧急着陆的故事。这就是该剧的幻想元素，而电视剧的其他内容均取材于现实生活。《Alf》幻想元素的强大之处就在于，它能够使这个假设前提成立。假如Alf一开始就能跟外界沟通，找到工作和老婆，那么这种幻想可能就会缺乏一致性和可信度。

这并不是说我们不能发展、升华原先的幻想内容，只是需要为改变的规则提供一个可信而能够保持内部一致性的解释。

幻想的吸引力

逃避现实主义的概念认为幻想的目的就是让观众从对现实生活中的不满中解脱，虚拟世界是一个更有吸引力的现实替代品。这意味着幻想世界的沉浸感越强，它的潜在愉悦感也会越大。这种说法看似无懈可击，但我却并不认为如此，因为它解释不了为何同种幻想最终也会让人生腻。

有研究表明人类对未知结果的恐惧甚于对已知恶果的害怕，但人们却仍然渴望新体验。或许这正是幻想的吸引力所在——它为人们创造了无需面临任何风险就能尝鲜的机会。这种吸引力相当于出国、遇见外国人、看到新鲜事物，它不会让人们面临丧失、受骗或被拒绝的危险。

幻想的实际运用

幻想是创造一种体验环境时可考虑的因素之一。某种体验越接近于另一种事物，就越可能创造幻想，用户就越可能想象自己身处某种从未体验过的状态。

举例来说，将一个网页体验打造成深山老林考古探险风格（例如，让用户拔开树叶进行导航，将文字内容写在废墟的石碑上，并适时制造丛林音效等），这可以在探秘和历险的幻想情境中引出产品功能。

风险

比起游戏的其他元素，幻想可能更容易削弱某种体验的特点。暗示某项需要隐藏或更改的活动，很可能意味着该活动本身就缺乏价值。

游戏化活动要慎用幻想元素，必须确保这种元素能够与主要体验的基调和目标兼容。例如，以上所举的丛林主题网站就比较适用于“搜索”或“解密”的概念，但与涉及“建造”或“纪录”的活动关系不大。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Gamification Dynamics: Identity and Story

by Tony Ventrice

[In the first installment of this series on gamification, Badgeville's Tony Ventrice looked to frame the discussion around what's possible with gamification by attempting to discover what makes games fun. He has already explored Growth and Emotion and Choice and Competition, and in this article, he tackles Identity and Story.]

Identity

Identity describes the attributes that make an individual unique. At its most literal level, it’s how we identify ourselves; a comparison of attributes against known or expected quantities. As an example, I’ll start by listing a few attributes that describe myself.

I hate cantaloupe. I grew up in Northern California. I’m 31 years old. I enjoy board games.

That’s not much to go on, but it’s probably still enough for you to come to some vague conclusions about what kind of person I am; the quality of my tastes, my upbringing, where I am in my life, other activities I might enjoy.

If you did come to any conclusions, you arrived at them by making mental comparisons; comparisons made either between yourself and the described individual (me) or comparisons between that individual and other individuals you’re aware of.

The Academics of Identity

In academics, the modern psychology of identity is largely based on the work of Erik Erikson, the man who, amongst other things, coined the term identity crisis.

While Erikson is best known for his model of identity evolving through the stages of life, much of the Neo-Eriksonian academic conversation centers on the idea of multiple “selves”: from the idea that the person you feel you are inside does not always match the personas you take on in social contexts, including the concepts of identity exploration (that people experiment with identities before committing to them), social identity (the idea that a portion of the self is defined by the ideal of a group), and the ideal self (the identity an individual aspires to).

Together, the academics paint a picture of identity as dynamic and highly influenced, not the inborn template we’re often led to believe it is.

The Two Sides of Identity

Considering the dynamic — even experimental — nature of identity, the value of role-play in games should be fairly obvious, but I think there is also a second topic worth discussing under the umbrella of identity in games: social purpose.

Role-playing. In the opening article, I noted that I was effectively splitting the proposed topic of Role-play between Choice and Identity. To Choice, went the empowerment of making decisions, to Identity, and what we’ll discuss here: the opportunity to experiment with changing your persona.

Social Purpose. Social purpose describes a need for acceptance; more than simply making connections or meeting expectations, it implies an innate desire to provide some value to others. In the simplest of terms, social purpose asks that the individual feel needed. If he stopped playing the game, would others notice?

Before continuing, it’s worth noting that while writing this, I became very tempted to abandon the word Identity entirely. After all, can’t any preferences for fun be categorized as elements of identity? For example, aren’t all the choices I make and forms of growth I seek part of my identity?

The conclusion I came to is this: all the other preferences can be thought of as implicit influencers of identity — they are presumably pursued on their own merits and their influence on identity is a secondary result — while what we’re discussing now are explicit or self-aware influencers of identity, pursued for the purpose of influencing identity.

The distinction is made more confusing by the fact that it lies entirely in intent. For example: if I play football because I enjoy the competition and strategy, I’m doing it for competition and growth (challenges overcome). If I play football to fit in with the “popular crowd”, I’m doing it to find identity (social purpose).

Preconceptions

Although we might not always be consciously aware of it, identity plays a huge role in our daily lives. The identity we project forms preconceptions in the eyes of those we encounter. When meeting someone new you are likely to view known details as clues that can be used to make predictions.

Visible tattoos? Piercings? Leather? A flagrant disregard for authority? These are indicators used to represent identity. Sweater-vest? Slacks? Wire-rim glasses? A practical Swedish vehicle? These are also indicators of identity that tell a very different story.

While preconceptions may be viewed negatively in the context of attributes that aren’t reflective of personal choice (such as race or gender), those that are reflective of personal choice provide invaluable cues to facilitate social interactions.

Identity in Games

Role-playing. Role-play is easy to identify in games. Any game with a protagonist involves the potential for role-play to some degree. The more-developed the backstory and personality, the greater the role-playing opportunities. For example, Mario is a fairly flat character with limited background for context, so the amount of role-playing is limited. Batman is a character with a detailed personality and rich backstory and provides a greater opportunity for role-play.

Yet while known characters like Batman have the benefit of detail and depth they run the risk of narrowed appeal (what if I don’t like the Batman character?) Games like Fable and Mass Effect take the approach of setting up a detailed backstory but leave the specifics of personality wide open, sacrificing possible depth for breadth of appeal and potential replay — e.g. next time I’ll try it as a jerk.

While there is a lot of overlap between concept of identity and the concept of choice (the opportunity, in games, to make decisions we normally wouldn’t) I think the distinction is: we role-play for the opportunity to feel what it is like to have a different identity; in a way, to let the adopted identity dictate our choices. When I, as Batman, have the Joker at my mercy, I let him live because that is what my adopted persona, Batman, would do.

In other words, if I’m playing the game doing everything I would do, I’m exercising my choice, if I’m playing the game doing everything my character would do, I’m role-playing.

In interactive online multiplayer games, the distinction between “real” persona and “imaginary” persona can become blurred. If there are people who know you only by a game persona and treat it with complete seriousness, that persona is arguably just as “real” as any other, and I believe this sense of validation constitutes a very powerful draw to engage in a virtual context.

Social Purpose. Any game involving teamwork involves some amount of social purpose. Everyone on the team is working together for a common goal. Everyone provides value to the team and typically it is in the best interests of the team to look out for its members.

In the context of a soccer team, the value provided may be skill in shooting, passing or defending. In a less defined context, such as that of a schoolyard clique, the value provided is that ineffable attribute known as “cool”. By being cool, the individual helps to make the group cool.

In some games, everyone on a team has basically the same role. An example might be a pickup game of Counter-Strike, and in such a game it’s not unusual for teamwork to be limited to simply sharing a common foe. In these cases value is measured along the same terms for all players (e.g. kills) and the “teamwork” is in constant danger of degrading into a competition between teammates to demonstrate the most skill.

In other games, players have different roles with different available abilities (such as classes) and working together involves strategic cooperation. World of

Warcraft raids, for example, can be highly organized with different players absorbing damage, dealing damage, casting modifiers, crowd-controlling and healing.

The role a player chooses not only gives them value in the eyes of the group, but it can also say something about who they are. Are they a player who seeks glory, attention, authority, or gratitude? In many ways, the value you choose to provide sets the basis of your social identity — the tone of your interactions with the rest of the group (e.g. I’m a healer, I take care of other people).

In Practice

Role-playing. In order for players to role-play, they must be given the means to express identity. How can identity be expressed? Profiles are a great place to start — pictures, interests, anything that allows for self-expression — but even more important than stating an identity, is proving it. Players need points of interaction. They need polarizing scenarios. Disagreements, when handled civilly, can be a good thing; they let players take a personal stance and express an aspect of their identity.

Commemorating choices. In virtual environments, just like reality, people desire means of demonstrating or expressing their identity. In video games with avatars, gear worn and abilities wielded tell a story of choices made that other players will be able to read.

Non-game environments are no different and there is value in commemorating choices in a way that can be “read” by other members of the community. Badges and trophies can fulfill this need, but only if there is value in the underlying choices and behaviors. There is no point in commemorating choices that users don’t recognize as relevant.

Social Purpose. If role-playing is anchored in opportunities to express identity, social purpose is anchored in opportunities to prove worth. This means interdependencies between community members are needed. A game like FrontierVille uses simple forced ‘gifting loops’ to artificially create this effect and it seems to work, at least with a particular audience.

The reason that this mechanic might feel forced and spammy to those outside of the target audience is its lack of specificity. In FrontierVille, anybody with a Facebook account and a free moment of attention can fulfill a need for hand-drills or paint buckets. More sophisticated audiences will demand that cooperative skill measure more exclusive talents.

What’s important is identifying what your audience values; if you’re a Facebook user, it’s attention, if you’re a Call of Duty player, it’s kills, and if you’re a Question and Answer forum user, it’s accurate, detailed answers.

Commemorating Value. In the real world, things like driving an expensive car or wearing expensive clothes are explicit expressions of success and, for many of those who are successful, a balance is struck between modesty and tasteless gloating. In a virtual community, such as a game, the concern for modesty is largely deferred to the system itself; if displaying status is the default, it’s less likely to carry a “gloating” stigma. Think of a military officer with a host of badges on his jacket; within the context of the military, such a representative display of status is not immodest.

Aren’t badges kind of simplistic and out of context?

Possibly, and wherever there is an opportunity, indicators of identity and value should be integrated into the pre-existing context of your game or site. Yet that said, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a lack of subtlety, just as long as the choice or value being expressed is meaningful.

Story

In my opening article, I arrived at Story as a topic by combining Narrative and Fantasy, which I defined as the events and setting of a story. Although these topics are typically lumped together, each has something unique to contribute to the conversation so I’ll address them separately. First, we’ll cover Story as narrative.

Narrative

In games, there is a strong tendency to think of story as the non-interactive part of the experience, something that exists in cutscenes and dialog. And this makes a certain kind of sense; story is traditionally a passive experience, books and movies are experienced with no influence over the outcome.

Yet, in other ways, this doesn’t make sense. Story doesn’t have to be passive. Oral stories, especially those which are improvised, can be influenced by suggestions from the audience and the theatrical concept of improv is based entirely on the idea of an interactive story.

There is a fascinating card game called Once Upon a Time in which players compete to incorporate topics, drawn from cards, into a collectively-told improvised story.

If you play Once Upon a Time, one thing you’ll notice is that the stories it tells are meandering; they don’t have a coherent structure and there is no pacing or logical progression from beginning to end. And this, I believe, is the biggest break in expectations between the traditional passive form of movie/book narrative and interactive improvisational/game narrative.

Passive Narrative vs. Interactive Narrative

The most satisfying narratives are carefully crafted. They have clearly defined character arcs, tantalizing mysteries, dramatic shifts and a plotted progression of emotional highs and lows. Robert McKee’s highly regarded screenwriting guide Story outlines the entire process in detail.

Yet, there’s one difficulty for a game-developer looking to use his model: his prescriptions are entirely impossible in an interactive environment. Interactive stories between a player and a system inevitably meander, slave to the free will of the player, who might spend entirely too long on a puzzle or miss it altogether, refuse to open a particular door or find a certain battle entirely too easy or too challenging. As a basic tenant, the less linear the gameplay, the less control you, as the designer, will have over the story.

The advantages of a passive narrative are optimized levels of expectation and emotion, while the advantages of an interactive narrative are increased choice and personalization. Most games likely involve some blend of the two and we’ve already talked previously about the advantages of choice and identity. Therefore the focus of this discussion will be the passive side of narrative.

Passive Narrative

I just described the value of passive narrative as expectation and emotion and I’ll cover both of these in detail.

Expectation. When I mention expectation, I’m talking about a few things, drawn from both McKee and my own observations. Stories tend to engage the audience’s expectations by including some or all of the following:

•Mystery / Suspense

Unanswered Questions or Cliffhangers

•Dramatic Reversals

Broken Expectations

•Moral/Intellectual prodding

Pressing the viewer to ask: What would I do? How would I solve this?

These three things all create expectation: the first two combine to ask, what will happen next? The last asks, will my solution or philosophy be validated? Does the author agree with me?

Emotion. The other advantage of the passive narrative is emotion. In a previous article, I already covered emotions, as experienced by the player, but here we’ll acknowledge emotions as observed by the player.

While people enjoy experiencing emotion in a safe, controlled environment, direct emotions can still be stressful. A further step back from the direct emotions of games are the vicarious emotions of stories. With stories, an additional level of removal has been added — the viewer experiences emotion either through the trials and victories of a protagonist or through the morals of society condemning an antagonist (and occasionally both at the same time, as in the case of a movie like Bad Lieutenant).

Passive Narrative in Games

I think there may be two routes to obtaining the benefits of a passive narrative:

•Scripted events

•Emergent events

Scripted events. This means keeping the story on a constructed path and this is the method more than 99 percent of stories in games take. It doesn’t necessarily mean ‘linear’ but if it isn’t linear, it is going to be a lot of work as the effort-to-gameplay ratio of branching stories quickly becomes impractical.

Quantic Dream’s Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit represents an extreme example of scripted linearity for the sake of passive narrative. The game even sold itself as interactive movie, with “begin new movie” on the main menu and a rewind button instead of “replay”.

Many games use a linear model but do their best to create the illusion of freedom by giving the player free-reign to roam and explore between story sections, such as the overworld between dungeons in the Zelda series. Open exploration, optional stand-alone events, and sidequests contribute to a sense of choice without interfering with the overarching balanced beats of a linear story.

Emergent events. This is the idea of story created by social interaction. Given enough players and opportunities for drama, social constructs begin to emerge on their own and generate suspense, intrigue, deeper intent and the sense of a collective story as players work together, predicting and responding to the behavior of others.

The story isn’t so much written as it is experienced.

The purest examples of emergent story, such as Travian or Diplomacy, are well-crafted designs that contain the germ of suspense, reversal and morality in their mechanics. In the case of MMOs, designers have the opportunity to create emergent story by giving the occasional push to create tension and challenge communities along unexpected lines.

Passive Narrative in practice. Integrating passive narrative into a non-game experience really isn’t any different than integrating passive narrative into a game. This is because games aren’t a natural environment for a passive narrative any more than a website or application. Until recently passive stories weren’t found in games at all; card games, board games and sports don’t have passive stories. It wasn’t until the arrival of role-playing games, followed by text adventures and simple cutscenes like the intermissions in Ms. Pac-Man, that passive narrative was introduced to gameplay.

There are two approaches to the task of adding a passive narrative to an unrelated activity, such as a game, website or activity. The first is to start with a story and layer on the context. The second is to start with the context and layer on a story.

The world of advertising is already rather adept at both. An example of the first case would be a movie where the protagonist spends a scene holding a can of Coke. An example of the second case would be a DeBeers commercial with a montage of a couple falling in love and getting engaged. It might be a stretch to call either of these examples gamification, but it seems a valuable lesson, regardless of whether games invented the concept of story or not.

Fantasy

The other aspect of Story, after Narrative, is Fantasy. While the word “fantasy” is often used to describe a specific genre of fiction, in the context of stories, I think it’s more appropriate to understand the word as describing the world the narrative takes place in — the locations, cultures, customs, natural phenomena and technologies. In particular, where they are different from those in the world experienced by the audience on a daily basis. In other words:

Fantasy describes the differences of a world and its inhabitants from our own.

The fantasy genre simply refers to this concept taken to its extreme — entire worlds which are very different from our own.

Strong Fantasy

The success or strength of a fantasy (not necessarily appeal) is typically measured by its ability to adhere to its own internal reality, the rules the world must abide by. The more the introduced elements influence the culture, and the more the culture influences the characters, the more consistent and “legitimate” the fictional world will feel. A stronger fantasy does not so much describe the scope of the fantasy as the thoughtfulness put into its consistency.

If you’ll bear with me, we’ll use the ’80s sitcom Alf as an example. In Alf, the fantasy is that a sarcastic, cat-loving, extroverted alien has crash-landed in a suburban family’s garage. That’s about it; the rest of the series is set in reality. The strength of the fantasy lies in the show’s ability stick to the premise. If, from the beginning, Alf was able to interact with the outside world, got a job and found a human wife, the fantasy would lack consistency (although it possibly might have been a more interesting show).

This is not to say that an existing fantasy can’t evolve, it just needs a believable, internally consistent explanation for the change to its rules.

The Appeal of Fantasy

The concept of escapism proposes that the goal of fantasy is to distract the audience from the nuisances of real life; the fictional world provides an alternate reality that is more appealing. This implies that the more immersive the fantasy world, the greater the potential pleasure. I don’t see any faults with this reasoning, but I’m not sure it explains everything, for example, why the same fantasy can get boring.

Studies have shown that humans fear an unknown outcome more than a known bad result, yet they have also shown humans crave new experiences. Perhaps fantasy offers an opportunity to experience novelty without any of the risk. An appeal similar to the appeal of visiting a foreign nation, meeting exotic people, and seeing strange new things, all without the danger of getting lost, deceived or rejected.

Fantasy in Practice

Fantasy is a consideration when creating the setting of an experience. The more the experience can be made to resemble something it isn’t, the more opportunities for creating fantasy and the more likely the user will be able to imagine they are somewhere else, somewhere they have never been.

For example, crafting a web experience to feel like a deep-jungle archeology expedition (pushing through leaves to navigate, text written on stone tablets from an ancient ruin, appropriate jungle sound effects, etc.) could introduce features under the fantasy of uncovering and experimenting with unexpected mystical artifacts.

Risk

Possibly more than any other aspect of games, fantasy represents a risk of trivializing the experience it’s meant to enhance. By implying the activity needs to be hidden or changed, there is a possible implication that the activity itself lacks value.

Should fantasy be seriously considered for Gamification purposes, it needs to be thoughtfully integrated and complimentary to the primary experience in tone and objective. For example, the jungle theme given above makes more sense in the context of an activity that already involves concepts like searching or deciphering and less sense if the activity involves building or recording.（source:gamasutra）