简介

在听到故事这一词时，大多数人都会认为是一连串相连接的事件。例如：“公主被绑架了；勇敢的骑士骑着马去拯救她；骑士面前出现了一条巨龙，骑士杀掉了巨龙并拯救了公主；最后骑士获得了半个王国并娶到了公主。”也许也有人会想到一些较小的细节内容，如公主是如何被绑架的，骑士是如何对抗巨龙等等。

CampFire（from blogspot）

这并不是联想故事的正确方式。情节是事件间的纽带，它是为了将故事更好地传达给观众。而故事的真正核心则是主题，地点，情感等等。我们所听过的所有故事都是基于情节，但这是因为我们只能通过这种方式进行阐述。而既然我们已经拥有电子游戏这一普遍的媒介，这种方法便不再奏效。然而很多人仍坚守着故事等同于情节的理念。此外还存在一个非常普遍的理念，即当游戏越发脱离线性化，它也就逐渐脱离故事。我并不赞同这一看法，如果我们想要推动媒介的故事性，这种观点就需要发生改变。

营火边的故事

很早以前人们就听过各种故事，甚至是在文明诞生以前。这些故事并未被记录下来，但却一直被人们反复传播着，并且还是基于各种不同的方式。这种“营火边的故事”仍然在不同人之间流传着，并不断进化，改变着。然而，尽管讲故事的方式发生着变化，但是在某种程度上看来，它们仍保持不变。任何曾讲过故事的人都知道，你并不清楚具体的表达。相反的，你只知道对方将传达的故事的一些重要内容。

根据不同的观众改变故事是很常见的事。如果听者并未被英雄的长处所吸引，你便可以添加更多细节，事件，描述和对话。在讲故事的时候你的目标并不是准确地复制自己所听到的故事。你应该尝试着去复制之前故事对你带来的影响，并为了做到这点而做出相应的改变。

当你在做这些事时，你便已经意识到（也有可能是无意识的）真髓并不是构成故事的文字。相反的，故事是关于一些更高级别的内容。

剥开洋葱

如果一段故事正试图去说服观众英雄有多厉害，那它绝对不是依靠文字做到这点。这一“强大英雄”主题可能不是最高级别的内容，而只是为了达到更大目标的帆船。也许它设置了一个有关英雄的强大性最终将如何衰弱为首要主题。这些级别的内容并不会停止，而最终故事的真髓将归结为一些基本的内容。这些基本的内容便是故事真正的主题。删除任何这些内容的话，故事结构便会崩裂，最初的故事也将不复存在。

我们也必须记住有些级别可能是相互联系的。一些处于更高级别的内容也许不能依靠自己的力量突显出来。故事中的某一部分也许不是关于英雄战胜强大的对手，而是为了激起观众的同情心。同时，这是关于英雄遭受某些人的折磨与虐待。如果你将受折磨这一环删掉，那么最终剩下的便是两个让人困惑的主题，而不能有效地构建起一个故事。因此并不是故事中所有重要组件都位于最高级别，但是它们可能会基于层级进行传播。如此将持续下放至最低级别，但是如果删除了其中的一部分，便会彻底摧毁故事。这并不是用于证实每一个单一细节的重要的方法。

我认为在想起一个故事时，大多数人的脑海里都拥有这些层面，并在阐述的过程中基于较低级别而添加一些细节内容。这特别不利于游戏的创造。首先让我们重新回顾我所谓的故事的真髓。

什么是真髓？

有人也许会认为，一个故事是不可能分为几个高级别的理念。可能有人认为一个特定的场景必须基于一种特定的方式呈现出来；它不能基于一些浅薄的主题去描写故事。如果有人认为主题必须足够深入，引人深思或具有艺术性的话这种情况便会出现。不过这并不是我理解中的真髓，它可以是任何其它内容。

让我们以电影《Predator》中的“攻击村庄”场景为例，我想很少人会要求其表现出深刻性吧。这里的高级别理念是什么？只是归结为“愚蠢的暴力”，“文明世界是如何破坏自然”或者任何类似的内容？并非如此。比起将环境，压抑的丛林等内容作为真髓，游戏设置了一群超人去攻击村庄，呈现出了毁灭与枪战。在更高级别的理念中，如果希望观众能够对故事感兴趣，它就必须与现实保持一定的距离，远离特定的内容。

我在此想要传达的是，故事并不需要承受任何道德教训或任何深层意义（基于核心）。它可以只是为了呈现乐趣而表现得较为肤浅。即使如此，故事中也存在着真髓，并且是作为故事中真正重要的元素。

思考你所读过/看过的任何优秀的书籍/电影。你是否真的喜欢它们的低级别事件和细节？它并不具有吸引人的地点？它是否是关于角色间有趣的关系？或者逐渐揭开了一个秘密？我认为所有故事（不管何种类型）都需要重视事物的发生方式，而不只是这些事件的真髓。在面对电子游戏时我们更需要牢记这点，就像简单地明确一些细节去填补真髓是不够的。电子游戏是一个鲜活的世界，真髓需要通过机制（游戏邦注：如游戏玩法，图像，音效等等）的合理使用而有效地传达出来。

电子游戏中的故事

实际上电子游戏已经在使用这种类型的故事叙述方式！举个例子来说吧，第一人称射击游戏并未设置人们中弹或房子被炸毁的准确顺序。真正重要的应该是人们中枪以及房子被炸毁这些事。而这些事是如何发生的对于故事来说并不重要，只要行动真髓保持不变便可。

大多数游戏中的环境勾勒也是如此。主角如何经历环境或与之互动并不重要，设计师只是设计出一个世界，剩下的一切该由玩家负责。通过基于特定方法设置游戏机制，设计师将能够保证玩家能够获得一些特殊的体验，如此也就能够保全真髓。

当一款电子游戏接触到故事最棘手的环节时，较低级别的细节将变得更加重要。当提到像爱，背叛和背痛等理念时，几乎所有当前的游戏都是依赖于特定的时间组合，情节去传达这些情感。而不再考虑故事的真髓。它反倒关注于一些低级别的细节。让我们以《战神》为例。我们不需要过场动画去呈现Kratos的愤怒—-游戏玩法帮我们做到了这点。但是当需要培养其它情感时（游戏邦注：如他的愤怒的背后原因），游戏便会诉诸情节式过场动画。

但事实并非总是如此。我认为这只是关于任何真髓可以通过虚拟世界引导玩家使用各种机制表现出来。这能够进行有效传达，或者能比一些精心计划的情节做得更好。我想我们已经在一些更深入的主题（如恐惧）中看到这点。像《寂静岭》等游戏也证明了，电子游戏能够基于其它媒介做不到的方式去刺激恐惧感。有些特定的恐怖内容非常适合电子游戏媒介，并且我也找不到其它理由去解释其它情感和主题为何不能作用于游戏中。像《辐射》和《旺达与巨像》便在未使用情节的前提下使用了其它主题。但这也只是冰山的一角，电子游戏作为传达故事的一种媒介仍然可以走得更远。

结论

放弃情节和线性进程并不意味着你就创造了一款沙盒游戏。这只是代表你明确了故事的真髓并设计了一个能够传达这种真髓的虚拟世界。我认为如果你真心希望电子游戏故事传达能够不断前进，那就应该果断抛弃早旧的过场动画。相反的我们需要着眼于更高级别的内容，明确故事的真髓并专注于这些内容。当创造故事的这种方法到达了电影和书籍的那种水平时，游戏中的讲故事机制将会成为真正的推动力。

（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）

Story: What is it really about?

Introduction

Upon hearing the word story, most people probably think of a chain of connected events. For example: “A princess is kidnapped; a brave knight rides to save her; the knight faces a dragon, the knight slays dragon and saves the princess; finally the knight gets half the kingdom and marries the princess”. Most likely, one also thinks of even smaller details as integrated parts of the story; the way in which the princess is kidnapped, how the knight struggles against the dragon, and so on.

This is not the right way to think of stories. The chain of events is just the plot, and it is a device used in order to get the story across to an audience. What really lies at the core of the story are themes, locations, emotions, and so on. Pretty much all stories we have heard in our lives have been plot-based, but this is because this has been pretty much the only way of telling them. Now that we have videogames as a widespread medium this is no longer true. Still, the idea that story equals plot remain strong. It is a common belief that when a game becomes less linear, it is less about the story. I do not think this is true and if we want to advance the storytelling of the medium, this view needs to go.

By the Campfire

Humans have been telling stories for a long, long time, well before the dawn of civilization. These stories were not written down, but spread by being told over and over, never repeated exactly the same way. These kind of “camp fire stories” still remain, traveling from person to person, constantly evolving and changing. Yet, while the way the stories are told change, in a way they still remain the same. Anyone who has ever told a story like this knows that you often never know the exact words. Instead, you know of certain important things the story is supposed to “say”.

It is very common that you change a story like this depending on your audience. If the people listening do not seem impressed by the hero’s strength, you add more details, more events, descriptions and dialog. Your goal when telling the story is not be give an exact replication of how the story was told to you. What you are trying to do is to copy the impact the story had on you and any change you can do in order to accomplish this is a valid one.

The moment you do something like this, you have realized, although perhaps unconsciously, that the essence of the story its not the words that make it up. Instead, the story is about something on a higher level.

Peeling an Onion

When a section of a story is trying to convince the audience how strong a hero is, it is something that exists above the words that make it up. Still, this “strong hero” theme, might not be at the highest level either and simply be a vessel for a yet greater goal. Perhaps it sets up an overarching theme of how even the strong will eventually fall. The levels might not stop even there and eventually the essence of the story might be boiled down to a few essentials. These essentials is what the story is really about. Remove any of these and the structure collapse and the original story is no more.

It is also important to have in mind that some levels might be connected. Something that is at a higher level might not manage to stand on its own. A certain part of the story might be about the hero overcoming overwhelming odds and is meant to provoke sympathy. At the same time it is about the hero being subjected to torture and treated very badly by some people. If you remove the torture part, then what you have left is only two very fuzzy themes and not something that alone can build the story. Thus it is not always so that the important pieces of a story are all on the highest level, but they might spread out in a hierarchy. And while this might actually continue down to the very lowest level, it can only do so if removing the part destroys the story. It is not a way to justify that every single detail is essential.

I think most people already have these layers in their mind when thinking up a story, but then along the way give great weight to the details on the lowest level. This is especially harmful when making games, something I will address shortly. First I must go over what I mean by the essence of a story.

What is the Essence?

One might argue that a certain story is not possible to distill into a few high level concepts. It could be argued that a certain scene must be in a very specific way; that one cannot simply describe it as some flimsy themes. I think this happens if one thinks that the themes must be deep, thought provoking, artsy, or whatnot. This is not what I mean with the essence though and it can be any number of things.

For example take the “attack on the village”-scene in the movie Predator, something I am sure few people would call deep, thought-provoking or similar. What are the high level concepts here? Is it just be boiled down to “mindless violence”, “how the civilized world rapes nature” or anything similarly pretentious? Not so. Instead its essence is things like the environment, the oppressing jungle; to have a team of sweaty super-humans storm a village, showing off destruction and gunfighting. At a higher level it is also meant to be fun watching and must keep a certain distance to reality and stay away from certain things (like murdering of innocents) in order to keep the audience entertained.

What I want to show here is that a story does not need to be have some kind of moral lesson, ask an existential question, or whatever deep meaning, at its core. It can be shallow and just for fun. Even so, there is an essence and it is what really matters in the story.

Consider any good book/movie you have ever read/seen. Is it really the lowest level of events and details that made you like it? Was it not the locations it took you to? Was it not the interesting relationship between character? Or the way slowly uncovering a mystery made you feel? I argue that no story, no matter what sort, is not about the exact way in things happen, but about the essence of these events. This is something that is crucial to have in mind in video games, as simply nailing down a few details that satisfy the essence is not enough. A video game is a living, breathing world and the essence needs to be portrayed through the right use of the mechanics (such as gameplay, art, sound, etc).

Stories in Videogames

Actually videogames already use this kind of story telling! For example, first person shooters have not set the exact sequence how people get shot or houses blown up. The thing that matters is that people do get shot and houses do get blown up. Exactly how this happens is not important for the story, only that the essence of the action stays the same.

The same is true for portrayal of environments in most games. It does not matter how the protagonist traverse or interact with it, the designer simply constructs a world and the rest is up to the player. By setting up the mechanics of the game a certain way, the designer then pretty much guarantees that the player will have a specific kind of experience and that the essence is kept intact.

However, this how far it goes in most the games today. Once a videogame gets to trickier parts of the story, lower level details are given more and more importance. When it comes to concepts like love, betrayal and grief, pretty much all current games rely on a specific set of events, a plot, to convey them. No longer does it consider the essence of the story. Instead, it becomes focused on the low-level details. Take God of War as an example. There is no need to have cut-scenes showing how angry and prone to violence Kratos is – the gameplay does this for us. But when it is time to bring up other emotions, like showing the reasons behind his rage, the game resorts to plot-based cut scenes.

This does not have to be the case. I think that just about any essence can be expressed by a virtual world guiding the player using various mechanics. This can be conveyed just as good, or perhaps even better, than what a carefully planned plot is able to. I believe we are already seeing this with deeper themes such as a fear. As has been proved by games like Silent Hill*, over ten years ago, video games can be used to provoke fear in a way that is impossible to do in any other medium. While certain kinds of horror lends itself extremely well to the video game medium, I see no reason why other emotions and themes can not work just as well. There are of course also games like Fallout and Shadow of the Colossus that touch upon other themes without using a plot, giving a glimpse of what could be achieved. However, this is just the tip of an iceberg and videogames as a story telling medium is still far from where it could be.

End thoughts

Abandoning plot and a linear progression does not mean that one is creating a sandbox game. It simply means that one picks out the essence of the story and design a virtual world that delivers just that. I believe that sticking to old fashion cut-scenes is a dead end if we want video game story telling to progress. Instead we need to look at a higher level, figure out the essence of our stories and focus on that. When this way of creating a story reaches into areas previously reserved to films and books, storytelling in game will be a force to truly reckon with.(source:blogspot)