作者：Ben Serviss

游戏总是喜欢提供给玩家大量选择。可惜，大部分时候，玩家所面临的最终选择要么就是从饿狼那里救下无助的小羔羊，要么便是交由游戏决定，而不存在中间选择。

由于经常要从这种粗制滥造的‘选择’中做决定，所以精明的玩家总是能够轻松地揣测出之后的情节发展，并根据自己的经验做出相应选择。

这怎么能称得上是真正选择呢？尤其大部分游戏提供的选项均类似亚策略，即游戏设计师所谓的“按照自己路线”。无论该线路是良好还是混沌不堪，它都是你的通关路径。如果你想改变路径？那就尽管这么做，但在大多数《D&D》的奇幻世界中，玩家却很难做到这一点。

你已经明确了自己的玩法，虽然你可以改变这些既定观念，但你的选择只是关于游戏内部的改变，而非能够产生微妙结果的真实决策。

这听起来极其类似对现实选择的粗糙模仿。但这也正是其乐趣所在。假如：现在是清晨，你正准备上班。那么你是会打开大门径直走出去还是踢倒门后先探出脑袋？或是打破窗户，然后利用捆绑的被单滑下去？除非你是个特技人员或精神病患者，否则，你应该会选择打开房门，像正常人一样走出去，因为这属于最低必要的行动。

fable3（from gamasutra）

（Lionhead的《神鬼寓言3》力图为玩家呈现出有意义的选择）

其实我们在某一天内做出的所有决定，或‘选择’，仅仅只是自己为了完成某些事物的最低必要行动。

需要注意的是，关于最低必要行动的定义会根据不同的变量而发生改变：包括你的性格和品行，目前心态以及当时所获得的有效信息。如果在你准备上班的那个早晨，你发现房子着火了，你便会径直跳出窗户，逃离那里。但如果你并未闻到烧焦味呢？你可能就会和往常一样平静地走出大门。

（游戏邦注：简而言之，如果某些事情阻碍了你，你便会加强最低必要行动——这是让人紧张的高潮部分，是形成任何媒介中出色故事情节的核心。）

在此，我要阐明的是，你在生活中做出的每个‘选择’都是基于这些变量，它们最终会促使你做出当下的最佳选择。

所以你在现实生活中所做出的选择并不属于技术选择，反而更能呈现出你当前的品性、心态与所获得的信息——那我们该如何在游戏中制定有意义的选择呢？

其中一种方法便是通过摆脱枯燥的逻辑而挣脱出色/糟糕/中立等亚对策限制，脱离完全枯燥的逻辑形式。Molleindustria的《Unmanned》便是该方面的典范。在该游戏中，你会扮演一个在美国远程操控阿富汗地区无人机巡逻战役的控制员。其核心玩法便包含了各种选择，从最世俗的问题到生与死之间的选择等等。

我们不需要始终清楚地呈现出每个选择的结果，偶尔的模糊感反而更加接近现实生活。总之，我们在《Unmanned》中看到的选择几乎都与产业的传统理念相背离。

如果更加精美却详细的画面与日益复杂的机制是用于衡量技术发展的主要元素，那么，更加模糊的选项则能帮助游戏传达出更加复杂的情感。（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）

The Fallacy of Choice (In Games and Real Life)

by Ben Serviss

The following blog was, unless otherwise noted, independently written by a member of Gamasutra’s game development community. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Gamasutra or its parent company.

Games love to make a big deal about choices. Unfortunately, most of the time your only options boil down to either saving the helpless baby lamb from starving wolves or punting it to the pack leader, with nary a shade of gray in between.

With such shoddy ‘choices’ to pick from, any savvy gamer can easily size up the predictable ramifications for later gameplay, then depending if he’s playing through as a saint or a shithead, make the corresponding selection.

How is this really a choice? More than anything else, choices in most games resemble a metagame that game designers play called something like “Stay in Your Lane.” Lawful Good, here’s your lane. Chaotic Bad, here’s your lane. Want to switch lanes? Go right ahead, but in most of these D&D wannabees, there’s simply no option to carve out a mixed path.

You’ve made your decision about how you’ll play, and though you can stray or even change philosophies, your choices amount to on/off switches throughout the game as opposed to real decisions that ripple out nuanced consequences.

Sounds like a pretty poor imitation of what real life choices are, right? Here’s where it gets interesting. Take this hypothetical scenario: It’s early in the morning, and you’re getting ready to go to work. Do you open the door and walk outside? Kick it down and leap out head first? Break the window and rappel out with tied-together sheets? Unless you’re a stuntman or a psychopath, you open the door like a normal person because it’s the minimal necessary action to take.

Think about it – all of the small decisions, or ‘choices,’ that you make in a given day are simply the minimal necessary actions needed to accomplish what you want to do.

Note that the definition of minimal necessary action can fluctuate wildly based on a few key variables: your overall character and morals, current mental state, and the information available to you at the time. If the morning you got ready for work, you discovered your house was on fire, then damn straight you’d bust out the window and get the hell out of there. But if you couldn’t smell the smoke yet? You’d walk out calmly like any other day.

(Aside: Simply put, if something gets in your way, then you step up the minimal necessary action required – this is the heart of dramatic tension, and the core to good storytelling in any medium.)

What I’m trying to say here is that every ‘choice’ you make in your life is simply based on these variables, which combine to point you to what amounts to the best choice at the time.

So if your choices in real life are not technically choices but more like confirmations of your character and morals, mental state, and information at the moment – how do we make choice meaningful in games?

One way is to break the constraints of the good/bad/neutral metagame by opting out of such bland logic completely. Molleindustria’s Unmanned is an excellent example of this. In the game, you play as a US-based remote operator for an unmanned combat drone patrolling in Afghanistan. Core gameplay consists of choices that range from the mundane to life or death matters, but always in the removed setting of the pilot who is never in danger himself.

Outcomes for each choice aren’t necessarily clear, and the results come across fuzzy – kind of like in real life. In a way, your choices in Unmanned are almost a reverse of what the industry typically considers cutting edge.

If sharper, more detailed graphics and increasingly complex mechanics are a measure of technical progress, then maybe fuzzier, murkier choices are the way to bring more sophisticated emotions to games.(source:gamasutra)