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游戏设计课程之故事情节设置理论(9)

发布时间:2011-11-21 17:22:26 Tags:,,,

作者:Ian Schreiber

直到此刻,我们之前一直单纯从游戏理论的观点来讨论游戏。也就是,我们将游戏视为规则系统,含蓄地假设规则就是游戏,叙事之类的元素只是装饰而已。(请点击此处阅读本系列第1第2、第3、第4、第5、第6第7、第8第10第11第12、第13第14第15、第16第17第18课程内容

但是,这种想法并非完全正确。正如我们在讨论决定类别时提到的那样,有些玩家选择可能根本在游戏系统中毫无意义,但是它们仍然是有意义的选择,因为这些选择充满了个人情感。

玩过桌面角色扮演游戏的人可能更容易意识到这一点。想象那些你曾经历过的有趣游戏过程。你可能想不起某次造成角色死亡的投掷,或者某个玩家在战斗中做出的有趣战略决策。你能够回想起的是某些充满戏剧性和充满情感的时刻。你铭记在心的是故事,而并非死亡投掷。

如何才能够形成优秀的故事呢?在告诉我们如何制作可以直接应用到游戏中的有用故事时,游戏设计师通常会特别提到三部作品。如果你感到好奇的话,我可以告诉你,这三部作品是:亚里士多德编写的《诗学》;Joseph Campbell编写的《The Hero with a Thousand Faces》;Robert McKee编写的《Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting》。

今天,我们将研究这些文章以及它们对游戏设计的影响力。我们将构建起整套指导如何在游戏中讲述优秀故事的理论。随后,在结尾时,我们将进行总结。

在开课前,我建议各位先阅读以下文献:

1、Bob Bates编写的《Into the Woods: a Practical Guide to the Hero’s Journey》。这篇文章概述了Joseph Campbell的作品,因为后者与游戏设计相关。

2、John Sutherland编写的《What Every Game Developer Needs to Know about Story》。这篇文章概述了Robert McKee编撰的书籍《故事》(游戏邦注:这部书籍本身就是亚里士多德的《诗学》的实用指导书籍),为游戏设计师总结出故事讲述的三位一体法。

3、《Understanding Comics》第2章和第3章。在你阅读这部分的内容时,要特别注意如何将这些内容运用到游戏中。Scott McCloud并不会直接告诉你,所以你需要自己找出主要的内容。

亚里士多德

aristotle(from hhs-english-iv.wikispaces.com)

aristotle(from hhs-english-iv.wikispaces.com)

在亚里士多德的年代里,许多词语的用法与我们现在使用的方法并不相同。《诗学》所探讨的并非诗歌,而是编写悲剧的方法。亚里士多德所谓的“悲剧”,指的并不是“有着悲惨结局的故事”,而是栩栩如生的故事,即不含超自然或空想内容的故事(游戏邦注:他将这种类型的故事称为“喜剧”)。

然而,数千年来从未改变的事实是,确实存在许多质量较差的文章。

亚里士多德可能不是第一个注意到这种情况的人,但他肯定是第一个对此情况采取做法的人。他就如何编写得体的故事编撰了一本书。如果你觉得他的许多建议似曾相识,这也不足为怪,因为这些内容在写作课堂上不断重复,甚至包括小学的写作课。

比如,你可曾听说过故事应当要有开头、中间和结局?这种说法便来源于《诗学》。这提醒了我们,故事中有各种不同的部分,作者应当注意如何将这些内容妥善地搭配起来。

《诗学》中还提出了甚为著名的故事三幕结构,从根本上将故事分割成3个部分。在首个部分中,发生的事情奠定了故事的背景。在第二部分中(也是最长的部分),主角努力在事件发生时做出某些举动。在最后的部分中,最终解决了问题。(游戏邦注:作者听过更为形象的描述,第一幕,让英雄爬上树,第二幕,向他投掷石头,第三幕,把他从树上打下来。)

亚里士多德强调的重点在于,每幕与前幕都存在逻辑上的因果关系。较差的作品的样子是:“X发生,然后Y发生,然后Z发生。”较强大的作品应该是:“X发生,正因为此而发生Y,从而触发Z的发生。”

在主角的问题上,这种因果规则更具约束性。当坏事发生在主角身上时,不可能是毫无缘由的。坏事应该是由角色能够为人所理解的举动而产生的,而事件应当是该举动必然发生的结局。这会使得观众怜惜和同情英雄,因为我们可以看到人性的弱点,我们可以理解为何该角色之前会做出那样的举动,而且我们也看到了正是之前的举动导致了最后的事件。这也就解释了为何亚里士多德非常讨论所谓的“解围事件”(游戏邦注:也就是说,主角身上的结局毫无缘由地转好,比如“在主角濒临死亡之时,忽然醒来,意识到所有的这些都只是场噩梦,故事结束”)。在“解围”中,英雄并不会影响故事结局,主角丝毫无从控制故事。

将这种理论运用到游戏中,我们就很容易理解为何有时发现电子游戏中的角色在过场动画中死亡会让人产生挫败感。因为玩家无法做出选择,此时主角不受玩家控制,而情节就这样发展下去。

最后,亚里士多德所定义的舞台剧由6个元素组成,提及这点还是有一定价值的。在故事成分强大的游戏中,会出现类似的6种元素:

1、情节。描述所发生事件的内容。

2、主题。事件的涵义?事件发生的原因?

3、角色。故事中所涉及的人物。

4、措辞。对话,也包括演员在表演中的口头对话。

5、节奏。包括音乐中的“节奏”,也包括人类话语的自然节奏。

6、宏伟场景。这便是亚里士多德所称的“视觉奖励”或者他那个时代的特效。他经常抱怨,许多戏剧只包含宏伟场景,除此之外毫无内涵。你是否觉得这种感觉似曾相识?

McKee

我并不确定Robert McKee所编写过的电影剧本是否曾被真正拍摄成电影。多数时间,他负责教授电影剧本创作。如果你曾经从电影院中走出时感叹道“这个故事真得很棒”,那么这个剧本便很有可能出自McKee某位学生之手。

robert-mckee-story-seminar(from writersstore.com)

robert-mckee-story-seminar(from writersstore.com)

从本质上来说,《故事》重述了《诗学》的内容,但是更具体化地关注电影剧本创作。我觉得《故事》阅读起来更加容易,书籍以口语化的风格来编写(游戏邦注:而且,这部书籍使用的是现代英语,而不是古希腊语)。以下是本人意译的部分McKee所著书籍中的内容:

对故事来说,重要的不是公式,而是形式。你并非根据某个模板来创作故事。而是,通过对不同故事间普遍联系的理解,创作出独特的故事。(游戏邦注:作者补充称,这种想法同样可以用于该过程所涉的全部做法。)

所有的故事都有如下形式:

1、主角有个目标,这个目标来源于某个激励性事件。

2、主角努力去实现目标,但是遇到了沟壑(游戏邦注:各种各样的障碍,并不一定是字面意义上的沟壑),所以无法马上实现目标。

3、主角尝试跨过沟壑。所遇到的情况不是沟壑变宽使他们难以跨越,就是他们在跨越沟壑后发现有个新的沟壑。

4、这种沟壑跨越循环不断持续,直到主角最终完成目标,或者某种因素导致主角永远无法完成目标。

5、在典型的三幕结构中,在幕与幕之间会产生两个新的沟壑。

从本质上来说,故事的内涵就是改变。每个场景都应该有改变发生,或者有某些意料之外的事情发生。如果角色在某个场景的开端和末尾的状态毫无改变,那么就表明你应当移除这个场景。以如下方式考虑问题:如果你要将自己的生活转变成时长2个小时的电影,难道你会将这些宝贵的时间浪费在日复一日的循环性任务上吗?还是说你只会呈现那些让你的生活发生重大改变的时刻,而让观众合理地假设这些改变期间的所有事情都按照常态发生?

你会注意到,上述情况与游戏极为吻合。游戏中需要玩家做出决定,导致游戏状态发生改变。游戏都有个结局,最后角色的目标要么实现要么因某种无法扭转的因素而无法完成。因而,有些游戏根据玩家的体验来编造强大且自然发生的故事也就不足为奇了。

另一个有趣的地方是,McKee讨论了“性格”和“特征”间的不同之处。当我们定义“性格”时,通常联想到的是表面化的数据,比如最喜欢的食物、血型和发色等。McKee将这些内容称为“特征”。“性格”是定义角色本身的因素,比如“彰显角色性格的行为”或“她有很强大的道德感”等。McKee的说法是,只有当将某个角色放在对立矛盾的情形中时,才能够体现出角色的性格。比如,我们或许会说某个人很“无私”,但是口说无凭,只有面对某些事件的选择才能体现出角色的性格,比如在着火的建筑物内是选择救助陌生人还是自己逃生。

性格和特征在游戏中分别指代什么呢?首先,线性化故事通过过场动画(游戏邦注:而不是游戏玩法)可以更好地展现出角色的性格。为主角做出道德选择会让玩家感到甚为艰难,因为选择通常并不会导致现实世界中的变故。因为这只是游戏,玩家很安全,因而他们不会失去现实世界中的任何东西。因而,玩家所做的决定并不会反映出他们自己的性格,因为他们的性格并没有收到考验。在现实世界中为好友挡子弹与在游戏世界中决定是否获取Light Side Points并非完全相同。在游戏中加入道德考验并非不可实现,但是那些选择的所产生的情感后果很难真正被玩家感受到。,因为做出这些决定的是玩家而不是主角。因而,在玩家无法控制故事时呈现强大的性格也会更加容易。

但是,这也会让游戏失去部分互动性,游戏性就此减弱。而这正是为何游戏中的故事讲述较为困难的原因之一。

Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell花了大量的时间来研究深化、传说和英雄故事,寻找它们之间的相同和不同之处。他发现多数神话普遍采用某种结构,他将其称为“Monomyth”或“Hero’s Journey”(英雄之旅)。这是种具体的故事类型,因而所阐述的内容比McKee得故事描述更为具体。由于许多游戏将玩家视为英雄,所以了解以下内容也是很有用处的。

hero's journey(from vajrakrishna.wordpress.com)

hero's journey(from vajrakrishna.wordpress.com)

Hero’s Journey的流程如下:

1、英雄开始时只是普通世界中的平民,而且这个“普通的”世界正常运转。

2、英雄听到了冒险的号召。

3、英雄可以决定听从这个号召,也可能会忽略。但是如果出现后者这种情况,就会发生新的事件逼迫英雄听从号召。

4、英雄开始他们的征程,遇到了首个障碍。通常情况下,英雄需要克服这个障碍才能够继续前进。

5、随后,英雄越过障碍,进入一个更为黑暗的新世界。他们历经考验,而且考验一个比一个艰难。在这个过程中,英雄逐渐成长。增加的不仅仅是“经验值”和“等级”,还有“成熟度”。英雄自身得到升华,他们变得更强,成为了真正的英雄。

6、最后,英雄遇见了最终的邪恶之事,而且解决了这个问题。

7、英雄获得了奖励。

8、英雄开始回到他们自己的世界。在这个过程中他们遇到了最终的障碍。

9、最后,英雄回到了之前的普通世界。世界或许并没有发生变化,但是英雄已经有所改变。

你或许会发现,这种结构出现在许多英雄故事中,而Campbell所著书籍细节化地阐述了上述情况发生的缘由、其中的内涵以及与社会价值观的关系。简单地说,英雄故事讲述的是某种文化所认可的理想道德和价值观,英雄的性格中潜藏和展现了这些东西。

现在,你或许正打算将此用作开发的公式。不幸的是,事情并非如此简单。正如McKee所述,故事(游戏邦注:包括英雄故事)并非公式,而是形式。这篇文章的目标就是让你不盲目地遵从Monomyth法则。

那么,如果我们不能用上述理论来编写故事,那么它有何种用处呢?我觉得,最重要的事情是掌握故事的普遍形式,这样你就可以选择那些对自己所编写故事适合的做法。但是,重点在于,需要谨慎地思考,“Campbell如是说”这个理由远远不够。应当注意的是,并非所有的游戏都采用这种结构,尤其是那些你在其中扮演反派角色的游戏。

Bob Bates在他的文章中对结构发表如下评论:

1、在编写故事时,先确立核心前提或愿景。选择一个合适的英雄。

2、展现英雄所生存的普通世界,然后通过某个刺激性事件破坏这个世界。游戏开始时通常都会发生这种事情。

3、进入“森林”,也就是游戏本身。

4、“遭遇邪恶之事”是对BOSS战的本质性描述,这也是为何我们在游戏中遇到如此多BOSS战的原因。

5、“获得奖励”可以视为英雄意识到你为故事设置的前提。并不一定要获得真正意义的“奖励”,比如一袋金币、一个公主或者一件古老的魔法物品。

6、在游戏过程中,英雄角色应该能够成长。我们作为设计师,很容易陷入主角只在能力层次上有所提升的困境。然而,如果英雄的性格也能够在故事发生期间获得成长,这将会使故事的质量有所提升。英雄没必要一开始就是完美的。如果他们刚开始是个农夫,随后通过故事成为圣人,这样的故事会更加有趣。记住,英雄也必须获得成长,不仅仅是玩家。

Scott McCloud

《Understanding Comics》在第2章和第3章中有关故事讲述的内容并不多,但是却在创建强大角色和戏剧化时刻方面提供了许多有用的建议。

在44页和45页上,McCloud断言图表和现实主义照片的艺术形式存在不同之处。他指出,东西越图标化,我们越能够将自己融入其中,越细节化和现实化,我们越会将其与自身区分开来。(游戏邦注:这是因为人类的大脑是很棒的样式识别机器,我们能够在空白处填上我们看到的样式,与其他我们已经识别的样式区分开来。)

游戏中如何呈现上述理论呢?

1、想想许多电子游戏中的主角,包括Master Chief、Samus Aran、Gordon Freeman和Chell等。通常情况下,你不会看到自己所控制角色的过多信息,你也听不到他们的许多话语。这种情况的出现并非偶然。这是故意设置的,使玩家可以将他们自己的个性融入到角色之上。角色成为了玩家的延伸,你觉得自己与角色存在情感维系,因为二者已经融为一体。

2、此外,你也会看到某些定义分明的强势角色,如Duke Nukem和Lara Croft。在这种情形中,我们迅速地识别出主角并非我们自身。为补偿这种感觉,角色们必须展现出强大的个性。

3、总的来说,我觉得主角的设计可以选择上述两种做法之一。将其图标化而不定义其个性(游戏邦注:让玩家可以创建出蕴含自己个性的角色),或者将其现实化,赋予角色强大的性格。二者任何形式的结合都将使得玩家更难与他们的化身和角色产生情感维系。

4、再考虑下游戏中的敌人和对立角色。因为现实主义视觉能够产生外部感,高度细节化的敌人让玩家看起来非常陌生,而有着卡通化和或图标化感觉的敌人看起来会更加熟悉。视频游戏《毁灭战士》中的怪物以现实主义风格绘制而成,让它们看起来更加像外星人,因而感觉起来更加危险。相反,《口袋妖怪》中的怪物更为卡通化,让它们看起来更加友好,这完全适合这款可以招募怪物将其转变成好友的游戏。在桌游中,我们希望接触的是那些有着图标化棋子(游戏邦注:如象棋中双方颜色不同的棋子)的游戏,这可以让玩家将棋子视为自身的延伸,其他玩家的棋子也能够带来某种熟悉感。相对而言,有着高度细节化棋子(游戏邦注:带有深层次角色描述的现实主义风格小模型)让玩家将自己和角色区分开来,而且也会导致玩家之间处在对立面上。

5、在环境的处理上也会看到上述理论。如果环境(游戏邦注:包括电脑中的3D环境和桌游的2D实体游戏环境)采用现实主义手法,就在不断提醒玩家这是个游戏世界。这种做法更适合那些想要让玩家感受到自己进入某个新世界的游戏。比如,高质量的现实主义环境能够提升悬疑和恐怖游戏的质量。

McCloud提出的又一个看法是我们会使用工具,我们也会将这些工具视为自我的延伸。我们的自我延伸感并不仅仅局限于身体,还可以是处于直接控制下的所有东西。正如他指出的那样,当你身处车祸现场时,你更有可能说的是“他们撞了我”,而不是“他们的汽车撞了我的汽车”。

这与游戏有何关系呢?

1、对于电子游戏而言,主机控制器(游戏邦注:还有鼠标和键盘)成了人类身体的扩展。玩家将控制器视为自身的一部分。这也就解释了为何玩法控制以及良好的用户界面对电子游戏的重要性,如果你不知道要如何通过控制器来玩游戏,那种挫败感不亚于你想要用手捡起东西时发现自己的手不听使唤。

2、对于电子游戏和桌游二者来说,虚拟形象(游戏邦注:也就是玩家在游戏中的化身)也扮演着玩家的扩展。就像在汽车事故中那样,如果你的对手吃掉了你的棋子将其送回起点,你很可能会说“他们刚刚让我退会起点”。作为设计师,应当注意玩家与游戏中化身的情感链接。

我想要让你注意的最后一个要点是McCloud的“blood in the gutter”概念(游戏邦注:书中66页到69页)。在书中描述了两个场景,其一是谋杀者将斧子挥向受害者,其二只是展示了个尖叫声。受害者的死亡时间是何时呢?在这两个场景之间,正是你这个读者靠着自己的想象力杀死了他,而这个画面并没有真正呈现出来。

这便是所有故事讲述媒介中的暗示。Alfred Hitchcock是这方面的大师级人物。比如,在著名的《Psycho》中,事实上你并没有看到任何内容。有个人手上拿着刀做出刀割的动作(游戏邦注:并没有呈现出任何受害者),另一个画面是妇人尖叫的声音(游戏邦注:并没有呈现受害者是她),如此反复并最终呈现流淌的血液(游戏邦注:此时谋杀者和受害者画面都没有呈现出来)。

我们要如何将这种方式运用到游戏的故事讲述中呢?

1、某些故事讲述者有强烈的欲望说出所有发生事件的技术性细节和奇幻世界的背景故事。但是并没有必要这么做。玩家会自行填满空白之处。事实上,你并不需要告诉他们所有的事情。

2、事实上,如果你不告诉所有细节的话,有时候效果会更好。玩家的想象力无疑比游戏中的艺术作品更为鲜活。

3、将玩家视为故事中的积极参与者。你所编写的故事要对他们使用想象力予以奖励。

4、该做法还存在经济上的好处。我们总是想将大量的资金投入细节化的艺术以及时间更长的过场动画中,但是如果我们采用更为经济的做法,展示较少的内容,做法恰当的话我们可以取得更好的效果。

5、换句话说,少可能转变成多。对于故事编写者来说,找到“理解所发生事件的足够信息”和“给想象力的发挥留下空间”是最具技巧性的工作,这也是游戏故事讲述较为困难的又一个原因。

6、想想你看过的某些故事(游戏邦注:包括游戏和其他故事),研究过少或过多的信息对故事所产生的影响。再想想那些保留部分信息的故事,用户或许会获得更为愉悦的体验。

Ernest Adams

ernest_adams(from paulhazel.com)

ernest_adams(from paulhazel.com)

游戏设计师Ernest Adams在GDC 2006上做了个鼓舞人的演讲,题为“互动故事新愿景”。首先,他简单地总结了上文中描写的某些内容,然后进一步挑战我们所有的基本想法,随后他尝试取得进一步的发展。以下是我的记录以及部分个人见解:

1、亚里士多德的《诗学》很不错,但不要忘记了,这部书籍针对的是戏剧而不是游戏。故事可能确实包含开始、发展和结局三个部分,但是在游戏中,故事通常包含多个开始、发展和结局。三幕结构对2到3小时的戏剧和电影确实有效,但是并不一定适合30分钟的桌游、玩时长达1个月的RPG竞赛或100个小时的主机游戏。

2、Campbell的Hero’s Journey的效能仅限于英雄故事。那么,如果你的故事与英雄无关又会怎么样呢?而且,正如Campbell自己承认的那样,Monomyth并非模板,所以我们不能将其用作构建故事的工具。

3、McKee的《故事》关注的是电影剧本,因而它或许并不适合于所有游戏。游戏是种与电影不同的媒介。尽管二者间存在某些共同之处,但是了解差异性也是很重要的,因而任何有关电影剧本创作的建议在用到游戏设计中时都应当小心谨慎。

那么,如果上述这些书籍都无法起到作用的话,难道我们就毫无收获吗?(我不这么认为。我们仍然需要有个起点,而以学习其他媒介中形成优秀故事的元素作为起点确实不错。)

随后,Adams阐述了我们在讲述游戏中故事时经常做的3个假设:

1、互动故事的“圣杯”是个完整的沙盒,这是个完美的模拟世界,对玩家的所有输入都能够做出令人相信的回应。

2、互动故事并非游戏。

3、当玩家被包含到互动叙事时,他们应当考虑的是故事而不是游戏机制。

接下来,他向着3个假设发起挑战:

首先,呈现完美的模拟世界可能产生何种坏处呢?实践性的原因总是存在的,因为这样做势必要花费大量资金。还有来自Koster的论据,我们已经拥有了一个现实世界,而且并非总是充满乐趣。但是多数情况下,关键的问题在于,即便在最为“开放世界”的游戏中,玩家并非从完全自由中获得快乐,他们的快乐源于在被限制的环境中拥有自由。

Ernest提出了另一个设计师的规则,他称之为“Ken Perlin原则”:互动故事中事件的成本必须与它的不可能性成比例关系。那么,“成本”的含义是什么呢?他解释道,每个作者都有个“可信度预算”,如果发生了过多令人不可思议的事情,故事就会让人产生怀疑。故事中发生的所有不太可能发生的事件的总和不能超过某个特定的数量,否者便会引起玩家的反感。(自然,某些游戏与其他游戏相比有较高的可信度预算,这与游戏所设置的场景有关。比如,在魔法世界中,在空气稀薄的高空中出现小鸡是稀松平常的事情,而在现实主义现代化场景中,这种情况会被人当成是不恰当的设计。)

作为互动故事设计师,从本质上说你是在与玩家达成协定:如果你(也就是玩家)做出可信的行动,你就会得到可信的故事。这是很重要的,因为设计师和玩家共享可信度预算。玩家必须接受故事所设置的场景。如果玩家采取与故事世界不相一致的举动时,他们得到的就是不可信的故事,而且过错并不在故事作者,而在玩家。如此,故事作者的目标并非创造出在所有情况下都100%可信的故事,他们必须实现的是在玩家采取可信做法时呈现出可信的回应。

正如我们从Doug Church的《Formal Abstract Design Tools》中所看到的那样,玩家意向和叙事间存在某种平衡。但是,我们可以通过玩家和设计师间达成的“角色扮演”社交合约来扩展。

当然,为了让玩家能够接受这个合约,他们必须了解游戏的规则,而且他们必须同意在这些规则之下玩游戏。如此说来,规则是游戏中的重要成分,但是互动故事和游戏也通过某种方式联系起来,让玩家获得游戏和故事的双重体验。

融合游戏和故事的方法,这难道不是我们苦苦追寻的吗?

总结

亚里士多德、Campbell和McKee为故事讲述者提供了许多经常被引用的建议,因而我们将他们的建议应用到游戏中是很自然的事情。对于那些对游戏这个层面特别感兴趣的人,我强烈推荐你自行阅读他们的书籍。

在游戏中,玩家及其角色和化身的识别是让玩家与游戏间产生情感维系的常用方法。在你设计游戏时,考虑这部分的内容,想想你还可以采取哪些做法加大玩家对游戏的情感投入。

记住,故事作者构建的故事情节同来源于游戏玩法的自然发生的故事间有所不同。在制作每款游戏时,想想哪个部分更加重要,你可以如何对该部分进行加强。

游戏邦注:本文发稿于2009年7月27日,所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。(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

Level 9: Stories and Games

Ian Schreiber

Up until this point, we have talked about games from a purely ludological viewpoint. That is, we have looked at games as a system of rules, with the implicit assumption that the rules are the game, and that a narrative of any kind is just window dressing. (Any word with the root lud- or ludo- is referring to games; the root is Latin for play. We use words like ludology and ludography and ludic because everything sounds more distinguished if you say it in Latin.)

But this is not entirely true. As mentioned when we talked about kinds of decisions, some player choices may have absolutely no meaning within the game system and yet they are still meaningful because they are emotionally charged.

Those of you who play tabletop Role-Playing Games are probably more keenly aware of this. Think of the most interesting play session you’ve ever had. You’re probably not thinking of a die roll, or an interesting strategic decision that a player made in combat. You’re remembering something dramatic, emotional. You remember the story, not the die-rolling.

What makes for good stories? Game designers often reference three works in particular that tell us how to make useful stories that apply directly to games. If you’re curious, these works are: Poetics, by Aristotle; The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell; Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting, by Robert McKee.

Today we will look at these works and their effect on game design. We will build up a set of guidelines for how to tell a good story within a game. And then, at the end, we will tear it all down again.

Course Announcements

As I’ve been out of town and offline since early Friday morning, I have not had time to validate new user accounts for the forums, read email, moderate comments on this blog, etc.

I will catch up on these things later today, or tomorrow morning at the latest, after I have fully recovered from a nearly-sleepless (in a good way) weekend. I’ll say this: playtesting your games with skilled game designers is very different from playtesting with typical gamers.

Mini-Challenge Results

Here are some new kinds of fun that were proposed from last time:

“Servant”: opposite of a griefer, someone who gets pleasure out of making sure other people have a good time. (I would actually call this something else, like “Party Host”… and yes, it makes sense that this would be valuable to a hunter-gatherer. You are showing value to your tribe. I understand that Disney has identified this as a customer archetype, usually associated with the mom in the family.)

“Maker”: someone who gets joy out of constructing and building things. (The example given was user-generated content for video games, but you sometimes see this in standalone board games as well, like Settlers of Catan. Certainly, building and construction are useful to survival, even if all you’re making is a tool or a crude hut.)

Readings

Read the following:

Into the Woods: a Practical Guide to the Hero’s Journey by Bob Bates. This article summarizes Joseph Campbell’s work, as it is relevant to game design.

What Every Game Developer Needs to Know about Story, by John Sutherland. This article summarizes the book Story by Robert McKee (which itself is essentially a practical guide to Aristotle’s Poetics), rounding out the Holy Trinity of storytelling for game designers.

Understanding Comics, Chapters 2 and 3, if you have a copy of that book. As you read, pay particular attention to how any of this might apply to games. Scott McCloud isn’t going to come out and say it, so you will have to connect the dots yourself.

Aristotle

A lot of words were different in Aristotle’s time than how we use them today. Poetics is not about poetry, but about how to write tragedy. Tragedy, as Aristotle used the term, did not mean “a story with a sad ending” but rather a story that is serious and lifelike – a story devoid of the supernatural or fantastical (which he referred to as comedy).

However, one thing that hasn’t changed in all this time is that there is still a lot of really bad writing.

Aristotle may not have been the first to notice, but he was certainly one of the first to actually do something about it. He wrote about how to write a decent story. If a lot of his advice sounds familiar, it is because it is often repeated in writing classes, even at the elementary school level – although Aristotle may or may not be credited for the idea in any given class.

For example, have you ever heard that stories should have a beginning, a middle, and an end? That was from Poetics. It is a reminder that there are different parts to a story, and that the writer should be aware of how it all fits together.

Poetics also defined what is known as the three-Act structure for stories, basically a division of a story into three parts. In the first part, something happens to set the events of the story in motion. In the second part (which tends to be the longest), the protagonist tries to deal with the events as they happen. In the final part, a resolution is reached. (I’ve heard it described thus: in the first act, get the hero up a tree; in the second act, throw rocks at him; in the third act, get him down.)

One important thing that Aristotle really hammered on is that each scene should follow the previous ones with a logical cause-and-effect relationship. Weak writing goes like this: “X happens, then Y happens, then Z happens.” Stronger writing is more like this: “X happens, and because of that Y happens, and because of that Z happens.”

This cause-and-effect rule is even more restrictive when it comes to the protagonist. When bad things happen to the main character, it should not be random; it should be caused by that character’s understandable human action, and it should follow as a plausible and inevitable effect of that action. This makes the audience pity and empathize with the hero, because we can see the human weakness, we can understand why the character did what he did, and yet we also see that it causes his undoing. This explains why Aristotle really hated what was called deus ex machina (that is, an ending where everything is suddenly made better through no fault of the main character – for example, “…and just as the main character was about to die, he woke up, and realized it was all just a bad dream, The End”). In a deus ex machina, the hero is not the cause of the ending. The main character is not in control of the story.

Applying this to games, it becomes clear why it is sometimes so frustrating when, for example, a character in a video game dies during a cut scene. The one time the player doesn’t have any choice – the one time when the main character is not in control – is the one time when the plot advances.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that Aristotle defined a stage play as being comprised of six elements. We have similar elements in games with a strong story component:

Plot. The narrative that describes what actually happens.

Theme. What does it all mean? Why does it happen?

Character. As in, a single role within the story.

Diction. The dialogue, and also the actor’s delivery of that dialogue.

Rhythm. This does include “rhythm” in the sense of music, but also the natural rhythm of human speech.

Spectacle. This is what Aristotle called the “eye candy” or special effects of his day. He often complained that too many plays contained all spectacle and nothing else – sound familiar?

McKee

I’m not sure if Robert McKee ever actually wrote a screenplay that was made into a movie. Mostly, he teaches screenwriting. If you’ve ever come out of a movie saying “wow, that was a really great story,” the screenplay was probably written by one of McKee’s students. (I would love to be considered the “McKee of games” some day. Note to my former students: go out there and make me look good!)

Story is essentially a re-telling of Poetics, but made specific to screenwriting for movies. I found Story to also be a lot more accessible to read; it is written in a conversational style (not to mention that it is written in contemporary English and not ancient Greek). To paraphrase a few of the many lessons from McKee’s book:

Story is not about formulas, it is about forms. You do not create a story by following a template. However, by understanding the common links between different stories, you can make one that is unique. (I would add that the same is true for everything in this course.)

All stories have this form:

The protagonist has a goal, which is created by an inciting incident.

The protagonist tries to reach the goal, but a gap (that is, some kind of obstacle, not necessarily a literal gap) opens up and prevents the immediate achievement of the goal.

The protagonist attempts to cross the gap. Either the gap widens and they are unable to cross, or they do cross the gap but a new gap appears.

This cycle of gap-crossing continues until the protagonist either finally completes the goal, or is prevented from completing the goal in an irreversible manner.

In a typical three-Act structure, there are two reversals (new gaps) that happen between the Acts.

Stories are, at their heart, about change. Every scene should change something, or have something unexpected happen. If a scene has the characters in the same state at the end as it was in the beginning, that’s a sign that you should remove that scene. Think of it this way – if you were to convert your life into a two-hour movie, would you waste any screen time on your day-to-day maintenance tasks? Or would you only show the times when something big changes in your life, and allow the audience to assume that things are carrying on normally in between?

Notice how nicely this dovetails with games. Games are about decision-making, which causes a change to the game state. Games rely on having an uncertain outcome, and it is only at the very end that a goal is attained or lost in an irreversible manner. It is not surprising, then, that some games have very strong emergent stories that arise from a particular play experience.

Another interesting thing McKee talks about is the difference between what he calls character and characterization. The things we normally think of when we define a “character” are superficial data: favorite food, blood type, hair color, and so on. McKee calls these characterization. Character is what defines the person – used in the sense of “this activity builds character” or “she has a strong moral character.” What McKee says is that character can only be revealed by putting a person in opposition. For example, we may say that someone is “selfless”… but until they’re in a burning building and have to make the choice between trying to save a total stranger or saving themselves, it’s all just talk.

What is the implication of character and characterization in games? First, that linear stories have the best opportunity to show character through cut scenes, not gameplay. Having the player make moral choices for the main character is hard, because the choices often don’t involve real consequences. Because this is play (“only a game,” the “Magic Circle”), the player is safe, and therefore has nothing in their own real world to lose. The player is therefore not making choices that reflect their own character, because their character is not being tested by extreme opposition. Taking a bullet for a friend in the real world is not quite the same as deciding in a menu whether or not to gain Light Side Points. It is certainly not impossible to embed moral dilemmas in a game, but it is a lot harder to make the emotional consequences of those choices felt by the player, because the player is making those decisions and not the protagonist. It is therefore much easier to show strong character when the player is not in control of the story.

But of course, that also makes it less interactive and thus less like a game. And this is one reason why storytelling in games is hard.

Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell spent a lot of his time studying myths, legends, and hero stories, and finding the similarities and differences between them. He found that most myths follow a common structure, which he called the Monomyth or the Hero’s Journey. It is a specific kind of story and therefore more specific than McKee’s story description. Because many games put the player in the role of a hero, this is obviously useful to know.

The Hero’s Journey goes something like this:

The hero starts off a commoner in a common world, and this “normal” world is established.

The hero receives a call to adventure.

The hero may decide to follow the call, or to ignore it. In the latter case, new events then force the hero to follow the call anyway.

The hero starts their journey and encounters the first barrier. There is often a guardian that must be overcome to proceed.

The hero then moves through the barrier into a new, darker world. They follow a trail of trials, each more difficult than the last. Along the way, the hero grows – not just in the “experience points” and “levels” sense, but in the “coming of age” sense. The hero becomes a better person. They become, well, a real hero.

Eventually, the hero encounters the final evil, and is able to overcome it.

The hero claims the prize.

The hero starts returning to their world. Along the way they encounter the final barrier.

Finally, the hero returns to their common world. The world may be the same, but the hero has changed.

You may recognize this structure in many hero stories, and Campbell’s book goes into detail about why each of these things happens, what it symbolizes, and what it says about our values as a society. In short, hero stories are about what a particular culture sees as the ideal set of ethics and values, and the hero character embodies and demonstrates these things.

Now, you might be tempted to use this as a formula. Get a list of archetypes with a checkbox next to each, and presto, you now have a suitable story! Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. As McKee says, stories (and hero stories are included in this) are not about formulas, but forms. The purpose here is not to follow the Monomyth blindly.

What use is it, then, if we cannot use this to make a story? I think the most important thing to take from this is to be aware of what the common story forms are, so that you call follow each step or not as appropriate to your own story. But, it is important to do so deliberately and not just “because Campbell said so.” Note that not all games follow this structure – especially games where you play an anti-hero.

Bob Bates comments on the structure in his article:

When writing, start with a core premise or vision first. Choose a hero and villain that embody your premise.

Show the hero’s common world, then disrupt that world through an inciting incident. This is typically what happens at the beginning of a game.

Enter the “woods” – the game itself.

“Encountering the evil” is essentially a description of a boss fight – suggesting why we see so many boss fights in games!

“Claiming the prize” can be thought of as the hero realizing the Premise of your story. It does not have to be finding a literal “prize” like a bag of gold or a princess or an ancient magical artifact.

During the game, the hero character should grow. Again, it is easy for us as designers to fall into the trap of only having the main character “grow” in terms of power level (and it is convenient that the player is growing in their skill at the game as they play). Still, it can often make a better story if the hero’s character grows during the story as well. They don’t have to start out as a god. It can be more interesting if they start out as a peasant and become a god. Remember, it’s the hero that must grow, not just the player.

Scott McCloud

Understanding Comics doesn’t say a lot about telling stories in Chapters 2 and 3, but it does give some useful advice on creating strong characters and dramatic moments.

On pages 44-45, McCloud notes that art styles can vary between iconic (like a smiley face) and photo-realistic, with many potential steps in between. He points out that the more iconic something is, the more we project ourselves onto it; the more detailed and realistic, the more we see it as something other than ourselves. (Taking it back to Koster, we can say that this is because our brains are wonderful pattern-recognition machines, and we will fill in the blanks with what we already know from the vast library of patterns we’ve built up.)

What are the implications of this in games?

Consider the main characters in many video games – Master Chief, Samus Aran, Gordon Freeman, Chell. You do not typically see your own character much at all, nor do you hear them speak much. This is not an accident. It is done deliberately to allow the player to project their own personality onto the character. The character becomes an extension of you as the player, and you feel an emotional connection to the character specifically because they are not very well defined.

On the other hand, you can also have a strong character that is very defined – Duke Nukem or Lara Croft, for example. In this case, we immediately recognize the main character as not ourselves. To compensate, they must show a strong personality.

In general, then, I would say that you can go one of two ways with the main character. Make it iconic and do not define its personality (to allow the player to create one for themselves), or make it realistic and define its as a very strong character. Any other combination makes it harder for the player to connect emotionally with their avatar.

Also, consider the enemies and opposition within the game. Since realistic visuals impart a sense of otherness, enemies that are highly detailed will seem very alien, while enemies that are cartoony or iconic feel more familiar. The monsters in the video game DOOM are drawn in a realistic style, making them seem more alien and thus more dangerous. By contrast, the monsters in Pokemon are cartoonized, making them seem more friendly, which is fitting for a game where you can recruit enemies and turn them into allies. In board games, we would expect that games with iconic tokens (like colored pawns) that represent players make the pawn into an extension of the player (a sense of familiarity), and also that other players’ pawns have a sense of the familiar – it promotes togetherness. By contrast, games with highly detailed tokens (realistic miniatures, or detailed art or photographs of player characters with in-depth character descriptions) gives a sense of separation between player and character, and also would cause players to regard each other as opposition.

This also has applications when dealing with environments. If the environment (whether a 3d computer level or a 2d physical game board) is photorealistic, it is a reminder to the player that this is an other world. This is more suitable for games that wish to make the players feel like they are in an exotic or unsettling location. For example, suspense and horror games would do well to include highly photorealistic environments.

Another point that McCloud makes (on page 38) is that we are made to use tools, and we see those as an extension of ourselves. Our sense of self extends not just to our own bodies, but to everything under direct control. As he points out, when you are in a car accident, you are more likely to say “hey, they hit me” than “their car hit my car.” It becomes personal.

What does this have to do with games?

For video games, a console controller (or mouse/keyboard) becomes an extension of the human body. The player thinks of the controller as part of themselves. This explains why play control and a good user interface is so important for video games – if you have trouble figuring out how to use the controller, it is just as frustrating as if you tried to pick something up with your hands but your hands didn’t respond.

For both video games and tabletop games, the avatar (that is, the representation of the player within the game) acts as an extension of the player as well. As with an auto accident, if your opponent lands on your pawn and sends it back to start, you are likely to say “hey, they just sent me backwards.” As a designer, be aware of the player’s emotional attachment to their avatar within the game.

The last thing I’d like to draw your attention to is McCloud’s concept of the “blood in the gutter” (pages 66-69). In the book, there are two panels, one with a murderer swinging an axe at a victim and then the next that just shows a scream. When did the guy die? Between the panels… and it was you as the reader, with your imagination, that killed him. Nothing was actually shown.

This has implications in all other kinds of storytelling media. Alfred Hitchcock was a master of not showing anything. As an example, in the famous Psycho shower scene, you actually never see anything. There is one shot of a guy making a stabbing motion with a knife (but not showing any victim), juxtaposed with another shot of a woman screaming (but not showing her being stabbed), back and forth, and eventually a shot of fake blood running down a drain (without showing either the murderer or victim).

How do we apply this to telling stories in games?

Some storytellers have a strong desire to give every last technical detail of how everything works and every last bit of backstory in their fantasy world. But this is not necessary. Players will fill in the blanks on their own. You don’t actually have to tell them anything.

In fact, it is often more effective if you don’t! A player’s imagination is infinitely more vivid than the artwork in your game.

Think of the player as an active participant in your story. They will be thinking about it anyway; write a story that rewards them for using their imaginations.

This also has an economic advantage. We tend to pour a lot of money into detailed art and long, drawn-out cut scenes, but if we economize and show less, the net effect can actually be more powerful if we do it right.

In other words… less can be more. Finding the balance between “enough information to understand what is going on” and “not so much information that nothing is left to the imagination” is one of the trickiest jobs of a story writer, and is another reason why storytelling in games is hard.

Think of some examples of stories you’ve seen (from games or otherwise) where there was too little information, or too much, and the story suffered from it. Think of other examples where you were not told everything, but was fine, and the audience was able to still have an enjoyable experience.

Ernest Adams

Game designer Ernest Adams gave an inspiring talk at GDC 2006 called “A New Vision for Interactive Stories.” First he briefly summarized much of what I have written above, and then he proceeded to challenge all of our basic assumptions, and then he tried to take things one step beyond. What follows are my notes and personal commentary from the session.

Aristotle’s Poetics is great, but never forget that it was written for stage plays and not games. Stories may have a beginning, middle and end… but in games, they can often have multiple beginnings, and middles, and ends. The three-Act structure works great for a two or three hour play (or movie), but is not necessarily appropriate for a 30-minute board game, a month-long RPG campaign, or a 100-hour console game.

Campbell’s Hero’s Journey is limited to hero stories. What if your story isn’t about a hero? Also, as Campbell admits, the Monomyth is not a template, so we cannot use it as a tool to build our stories.

McKee’s Story is focused on screenplays, so it may or may not be applicable to every game. Games are a different medium than movies. While there are some similarities, it is important to be aware of the differences, so any advice on screenwriting must be used with caution when applied to games.

So, if none of this stuff is useful, are we back to square one? (I don’t think so. We still have to start somewhere, and starting by studying what makes a great story in other media is still a useful starting point. We will get into the unique forms of interactive stories this Thursday.)

Adams then stated three assumptions that we often make when trying to tell stories in games:

The “holy grail” of interactive stories is a complete sandbox, a “Holodeck,” a perfect world simulation that responds believably to all player input.

Interactive stories aren’t games.

When a player is involved in an interactive narrative, they should be thinking about story and not game mechanics.

He then challenges these assumptions.

First, what could be wrong with having a perfect world simulation? There is always the practical reason that it would be infinitely expensive. And then there’s the argument from Koster that we already have one of those, it’s called the Real World, and it’s not always fun. But mostly, the problem here is that even in the most “open-world” games, players do not get their enjoyment from complete freedom… but rather, from having freedom within a constrained environment.

Ernest proposed a rule from another designer, which her referred to as “Ken Perlin’s Law”: the cost of an event in an interactive story must be directly proportional to its improbability. What does he mean by “cost”? He explains that every writer has a “credibility budget” – and if too many incredible things happen, you violate suspension of disbelief. The cumulative sum of all improbable things that happen during your story need to not exceed a certain amount, or the players will call foul. (Naturally, some games have a higher credibility budget than others, based on their setting – chickens appearing out of thin air may be mundane in a high-magic world, but would be considered out of place in a realistic modern-day setting.)

As a designer of an interactive story, you are essentially making a pact with the player: if you (the player) act believably, you will get a believable story. This is important – both the designer and the player share the credibility budget. The player must accept the premise of the story as part of stepping into the Magic Circle to play. If the player acts in a manner that is inconsistent with the world of the story, and gets an unbelievable story back, that is not the fault of the story writer; it is the fault of the player. As such, it is not the goal of the story writer to create a 100% believable story in all instances; it must merely respond believably to a player who acts in a believable manner.

As we saw from Doug Church’s Formal Abstract Design Tools, there is a balance between player intentionality and narrative. However, we can extend this through the social contract of “role-playing” (in the sense of actually playing a role, not crawling through dungeons) between the player and the designer.

Of course, in order for the player to accept this contract, they must be aware of the rules of the game, and they must agree to play by those rules. In this sense, the rules are an important component of the game, but the interactive story and game are also linked together in a way that makes the experience both game and story.

A way to merge games and stories. That is what many of us are looking for, is it not?

Lessons Learned

Aristotle, Campbell and McKee provide some of the most often-cited advice for storytellers in general, so it is natural that we apply their advice to games. For those of you who are primarily interested in this aspect of games, I would highly recommend reading their books on your own time (after this course is complete, of course). You can find them here: Aristotle, Campbell, McKee. I provide these links for convenience only; they are not required for this course.

In games, identification between the player and their characters, avatars, tokens and so on is a common way to get players to be emotionally engaged with the game. As you are designing a game, think about this and how else you can get emotional investment from players.

Remember that there is a difference between the embedded narrative that the story writer creates, and the emergent narrative that arises from gameplay. Think about which is more important in each game that you make, and how you can make it stronger. (Source: Game Design Concepts)


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