作者：Soren Johnson

故事与游戏的联姻一直进行得不太顺利。从一开始，设计师已经把故事写进他们的游戏中，首先是固定的开头，然后顺着叙述，最后到达结局。同时，许多玩家涌进游戏中，因为它们缺少叙述结构；游戏体验是创造故事的过程，不是阅读某个设计师未发表的小说。

这个问题的根源近乎是一个两难的困境——如果玩家的选择真的重要，那么游戏设计师还可能叙述故事吗？如果游戏最重要的元素是它的互动性，那么设计师塞进游戏体验中的所有静止的情节事实上已经取消了玩家的主体性。换句话说，如果游戏有剧透，它还是游戏吗？

除了少数抽象的游戏如《俄罗斯方块》是例外，几乎所有游戏都因剧情元素而受益——深刻的背景、鲜明的氛围、个性的角色、有趣的对话、戏剧性的冲突等等。优秀游戏中的角色和背景甚至能与其他媒体的相媲美，比如《传送门》里的智能电脑GLaDOS或《生化奇兵》中的Rapture。

然而，游戏的真正叙述，即一系列决定情节的事件，正是最难与游戏的本质——交互性保持和谐关系的元素。因此，游戏的叙述无法像在书籍或电影中那样处理，因为在后者中，故事是其他一切元素都必须支持的核心。

想一想Sid Meier是如何把故事元素添加到《Pirates!》中的，这款充满叙述可能性的游戏流行了好一阵子。Sid Meier没有创造一个固定情节和结尾的虚假传说，而是在游戏中填充许多传统海盗故事的片段和情节。根据玩家选择，他可以拯救了失散多年的姐妹、与邪恶的西班牙人一决胜负、成为反叛的海盗、发现埋藏的宝藏、从监狱里逃脱或与长官的女儿喜结连理。到最后，游戏回顾了海盗这一生中的光辉事迹，以及命运的起落。虽然游戏攻略般的情节与专业作品相比，多少是逊色的，但对于游戏的忠实受众，这些事件都有特殊的意义。

然而，并非所有游戏都适合做成一个动态故事发生器。在几乎固定的背景下，有些主题和机制必须好好处理。比如，要给主角配一个邪恶的巫师当对手；战士要有可以战斗的敌人；水管工要有一个他必须拯救的公主（游戏邦注：例如《超级马里奥》）。解决办法是，给玩家提示，而不是命令，让情节自然流露；让玩家自己探索游戏世界，然后在头脑中拼接出完整的故事。

“滚石乐队证明了，歌词是最能唤起共鸣的，即使解释不出原因。”——Paul Evans，滚石乐队专辑指导

确实，故事在游戏中的角色类似于歌词中音乐中的角色。一首歌的词能告诉听者它的情节、情绪和背景，但仍然给听者留下要靠想象来填补的空隙。确实，录音带通常有听不见的歌词，有意使其含意显得模糊。但作家能对小说的文本进行类似的处理吗？另外，爱听歌的人通常也喜欢外语歌。但有多少读者会看另一种语言写成的书？表达意义不是歌词的主要作用；好歌曲总是给听者留下广阔的想象空间。所以，游戏的故事也必须给玩家留下空间。

想象一下益智平台游戏《地狱边缘》的氛围、它的单一基调和简单的音效。这款游戏的故事是围绕一个非常原始的任务展开的——一个男孩寻找他失踪的姐妹；然后根据这个基本任务提出更多问题，如为什么男孩要在一片黑暗神秘的森林里寻找她？为什么他会被蜘蛛怪追赶？攻击他的孩子是什么人？尽管《地狱边缘》完全是线性的，缺少传统的叙述元素——情节、对话和结局，意味着故事必须由玩家自己书写。

atom zombie smasher(from gamasutra)

另一个例子是《原子僵尸粉碎机》。在这款迷你RTS游戏中，玩家要阻止僵尸破坏一个虚构的美国城市Nuevos Aires。这款游戏中充满可笑的小片段，显示市民如何应对僵尸袭击。游戏的结尾更是经典，出现了半机械人El Presidente和AK-47果树的场景，伴随着艾森豪威尔总统的著名的“军工业基地”演讲。

最重要的是，《原子僵尸粉碎机》在不借助传统的、封闭式叙述的情况下，创造了一个能使玩家产生共鸣的世界。那些小插曲事实上是在战斗中随机发生的，要靠玩家的想象来填补空隙。该游戏的设计师Brendon Chung指出，“将信息拼贴在一起的过程很有乐趣，知道这款游戏信任和尊重自己使玩家产生满足感。”对主流玩家来说，这个效果也许有一点儿不和谐，但结果却是，与任何走道射击游戏或充满对话的RPG相比，《原子僵尸粉碎机》更加开放，更加生动。固定情节是破坏玩家沉浸感的大敌。

“祈祷的作用不是影响上帝，而是改变祈祷者自己。”——Soren Kierkegaard

游戏与故事相融合产生的最麻烦的方面就是，文字冒险游戏的可能性。这类游戏除了使玩家可以做出影响很大的决定，与传统小说没有区别。至今为止，因为玩家的选择通常受限于在几个现成的选项，所以这种游戏的潜力还没充分实现。尽管游戏中可能有不止一个结局，但只要结果是有限的，就只说实现了一定程度上不同的交互性，而不说创造了一种新的交互活动。

随着生产成本上升，开发者不可能冒险制作玩家有可能玩不到的游戏片段。因此，无论玩家的选择是什么，交互情节在某些关键时刻必须同步发生。《旧共和国骑士》的情节就是证明这个问题的例子。该游戏的玩家可以选择善良或邪恶的路径，但殊途同归：必须打败超级反派Darth Malak，要么消灭他（善良的路径），要么取代他（邪恶的路径）。即使玩家的道德选择完全相反，Malak的死亡都是必然结局。

静态情节在许多玩家当中产生不和谐的结果，他们可能花数十个小时玩一款RPG，但不会记住游戏的故事，因为其结果与玩家自己的兴趣和选择毫无关系。人们写故事的最终目的是为了分享它对人类的意义。在游戏中，这个目标又意味着什么？大多数故事的核心元素是角色做出的选择；游戏的核心是玩家做出的选择。因此赋予游戏意义的必须是玩家自己做出的选择。在叙述故事的情况下，游戏还能保持玩家选择的重要性吗？

Bastion(from gameinformer.com)

动作RPG《魔幻堡垒》成功地解决了这个难题。这款游戏叙述了神秘“灾难”将世界毁灭的故事。随着游戏进行，玩家会渐渐得知为什么引起灾难的武器会被制造出来，当使用武器时会发生什么事。在游戏的结尾，玩家必须选择倒转时间来阻止灾难降临，或者将幸存者疏散到安全的地方，重新开始。

这个选择是有趣的地方出现在玩家做出选择后——几乎什么事也没有发生。游戏只用一个画面显示玩家选择的结果，然后就这么结束了。设计师没有假装他们给了玩家做决定的真正权威，相反地，这个选择几乎成为反映玩家自己本性的思考。你会选择撤销自己最大的错误，还是作为新人继续前进？

在《魔幻堡垒》中，玩家通过做决定的行为了解自己，而不是通过看一些设计师认为应该是结果的剧情。在《行尸走肉》中，设计师让玩家比较自己的选择与他人的选择，然后提供相应的反馈，从而突出玩家选择。这款游戏通过显示个人选择与集体利益相符或相背，与《魔幻堡垒》的结果类似，反映了玩家自己的人格。

纯专注于设计师的情节选择的游戏忽视了游戏最重要的部分——玩家。在游戏中加入一个故事，无论它有多少深度，事实上推动游戏进展的力量，也是一种简单的做法。游戏必须给玩家留下空间，不只是在规则、机制和系统中，还有在故事中。（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）

Should games have stories?

By Soren Johnson

Stories and games have always had an uneasy marriage. From the beginning, designers have written stories into their games, giving the player a fixed beginning, a narrative path to follow, and a preset ending. At the same time, many players flocked to games because of their lack of narrative structure; a game experience is a chance to create a story, not to submit oneself to a designer’s unpublished novel.

At the root of this problem is an almost theological dilemma – can a game designer tell a story if the player’s choices actually matter? If the most important element of a game is its interactivity, then every static plot point a designer crams into the experience takes away from the centrality of the player. Put another way, if a game has a spoiler, is it really still a game?

To be clear, with the exception of a few abstract game like Tetris, almost all games benefit from story elements – an interesting setting, a distinctive tone, memorable characters, engaging dialogue, dramatic conflict, and so on. The best games have characters and settings that rival those of any other media – consider GLaDOS from Portal or Rapture from BioShock.

However, the actual narrative of a game – meaning the series of events which determines the plot – is the hardest element to reconcile with the essential interactivity of games. For this reason, narrative cannot be handled as it is with books or movies, in which the story is the core element that everything else must support.

Consider how Sid Meier added story elements to Pirates!, a game set in a period dripping with narrative possibilities. Instead of creating a single swashbuckling tale, with fixed plot points and a preset ending, he filled the game with the bits and pieces of a traditional pirate story. Depending on his choices, the player can rescue a long-lost sister, duel an evil Spaniard, survive a treasonous mutiny, discover buried treasure, escape from prison, and woo the governor’s daughter. Upon retirement, the game displays the notable events of the pirate’s life, chronicling the ebbs and flows of fortune. While the plot of a single playthrough would suffer in comparison to that of an authored work, the events have a special meaning for its intimate audience of one.

However, not every game is well-suited to become a dynamic story generator; some themes and mechanics are best handled against a mostly fixed backdrop. A hero needs an evil wizard to slay; a soldier needs an enemy to fight; and a plumber needs a princess to rescue. The solution is to use a light touch, to suggest rather than to dictate, to let go of the very idea of plot. Let the player explore the world and then assemble the final story in her own head.

“The Rolling Stones confirmed that lyrics are most evocative when just short of indecipherable.” – Paul Evans, The Rolling Stone Album Guide

Indeed, the role of narrative in games is more akin to the role of lyrics in music. A song’s words give the piece its context, its mood, and its setting while still leaving a suggestive gap for the listener’s imagination. Indeed, recordings often have lyrics that are inaudible, leaving the meaning intentionally obtuse. Would a writer ever do the same with the text of a novel? Further, listeners often enjoy songs in a foreign language. How many readers pick up a book in a different tongue? The exact meaning of a lyric is not its primary role; great songs leave room – often, a great deal of room – for the listener. So too must a game’s narrative leave room for the player.

Consider LIMBO, the puzzle platformer noted for its atmosphere, with its monochromatic tone and minimalist audio. The game’s story revolves around a very primal quest – a boy’s search for his missing sister – and raises more questions than it answers. Why is the boy looking for her in a dark, mysterious forest? Why is he chased by a monstrous spider? Who are the kids trying to attack him? Although LIMBO is completely linear, the lack of a traditional narrative – with a plot and dialogue and answers – means the story must be written by the player.

Another example is Atom Zombie Smasher, the micro-RTS about a patchwork military trying to stop a zombie apocalypse in the fictional South American city of Nuevos Aires. The game is peppered with gonzo vignettes (“Esposito scores the winning goal. Minutes later, he’s eaten alive.”), showing how the citizens handle the onslaught. The epilogue is a masterpiece of bizarro narrative, with scenes of a cyborg El Presidente and AK-47 fruit trees backed by President Eisenhower’s famous “military-industrial complex” speech.

Most importantly, Atom Zombie Smasher creates an evocative world without a traditional, canned narrative; the vignettes, in fact, are delivered at random during the campaign, letting the player’s imagination fill in the gaps. Brendon Chung, the game’s designer, points out that “piecing information together is fun and knowing the work trusts and respects you is satisfying.” The effect is perhaps a bit too jarring for a mainstream audience, but the result is that Atom Zombie Smasher feels so much more open and alive than any pre-digested corridor shooter or bloated, dialogue-heavy RPG. A fixed plot is the enemy of player engagement.

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” – Soren Kierkegaard

One of the most tantalizing aspects of mixing video games and narrative is the possibility of interactive fiction, in which the player gets to make the big decisions in an otherwise traditional story. So far, this potential is unrealized as the player’s choices are usually limited to selecting between a few preset branches. Although there may be more than one ending, as long as the outcomes are finite, interactivity only promises a difference in degree, not in kind.

As the cost of production rises, developers cannot risk creating sections of a game without guaranteeing that the player will experience them. Thus, regardless of player choice, the interactive storyline must synchronize at key points. The plot of Knights of the Old Republic exemplifies this problem. The player can pursue a good or evil path, but both paths lead to the same place; the villain Darth Malak must be defeated, either to stop him (the good path) or to usurp him (the evil path). Even with completely divergent ethical paths, no outcome is possible without Malak’s death.

These static plotlines lead to a jarring disconnect for many players, who might spend tens of hours playing an RPG but have no lasting memory of the story because it has nothing to do with the player’s own interests or choices. Ultimately, people write stories to share what it means to be human. What does that goal mean in the context of games? The core element of most stories is the choices made by the characters; the core of games is the choices made by the players. Thus, what makes games meaningful must be the choices made by the players themselves. Can a game ever tell a specific story and still preserve the importance of player choice?

The action RPG Bastion successfully tackles this dilemma. The game tells the story of a mysterious “Calamity” that shattered the world into pieces. As the player progresses, he learns of why the weapon which caused the disaster was created and what went wrong when it was triggered. At the game’s conclusion, the player must choose between either reversing time to possibly prevent the Calamity or to evacuate the survivors to a safer place and a new start.

What is most interesting about this decision is what happens next – which is that almost nothing happens. The game simply ends, with only a single image reflecting the player’s choice. The designers do not pretend that they are giving the player actual agency with this decision. Instead, the choice becomes almost meditative, a simple reflection of the player’s own nature. Would you undo your greatest mistake, or would you move forward as a new person?

In Bastion, the player learns about herself through the act of making a choice, not from seeing what some designer thinks should be the result. In The Walking Dead, the designers emphasize player choice by providing feedback on how one’s choices compare with those of other players. These results similarly illuminate the player’s own personality by showing which of his decisions go with or go against society at large.

Games that focus purely on the designer’s plot choices ignore that the most important part of a game is the player. Putting a story, regardless of its power or depth, inside a game is actually a crutch, an easy way out that stunts the advancement of our form. Games must leave room for the player, not just within the rules and the mechanics and the systems, but within the story as well.(source:gamasutra)