CHAPTER

Twelve

The Argument for the Supremacy of Player-Driven Storytelling

Now that you have a strong understanding of each of the main types of interactive storytelling used in video games, it’s time to return to the question that was first brought up in Chapter 1. Out of all these different storytelling styles, which is the best? Do the strict structure and careful pacing of the less player-driven forms of storytelling or the open structures and freedom of highly player-driven forms create the most enjoyable and moving stories?

In this chapter, we’ll look at things from the perspective of the player-driven storytelling advocates and delve into the reasons behind their beliefs. In the next chapter, we’ll do the same for the supporters of more traditional forms of storytelling. Finally, in Chapter 14 you’ll see what the players themselves have to say on the matter.

Those of us who actively follow the game industry have heard much about the benefits of highly player-driven stories. It’s the subject of a large number of papers, lectures, and interviews. Many notable industry figures such as Peter Molyneux (designer of the Fable series) are strong supporters of the move toward highly player-driven storytelling and are very vocal about its benefits and importance to the future of the industry.

Despite the vast amount of writing and discussion available on the subject, nearly all arguments for the supremacy of player-driven storytelling can be boiled down to four key points:

•  The evolution of the art form

•  Giving the writer greater freedom

•  Strengthening the player–character bond

•  Giving the players what they want

Instead of trying to examine and pick apart each individual argument, we’ll instead focus on the points themselves.

The Evolution of the Art Form

You may hear many game designers saying that thanks to the interactivity allowed by modern computers and game systems, traditional storytelling is old-fashioned and that highly player-driven stories are the natural evolution of storytelling itself. However, they’re far from the first to voice such opinions. In his 1967 essay The Literature of Exhaustion, John Barth described traditional storytelling as an art form that reached its peak long ago and can no longer evolve or advance in its present state.

Storytelling has been a part of human culture from the dawn of recorded history. Over time, the arts of writing and storytelling rapidly improved but are they really still doing so today? The works of great storytellers from hundreds and even thousands of years ago – such as William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Homer – are still widely read and considered by many to be some of the best tales ever created. If we still attach so much reverence and skill to works that old, can we really say that the art of storytelling has significantly improved since their time? When we look at things from that perspective, it becomes easy to say that traditional storytelling reached its peak long ago and can advance no further as an art form. Traditional storytelling can still be used to create excellent stories, but nothing created using traditional storytelling methods will lead to any sort of progression or evolution in the art of storytelling itself.

If the impossibility of progression is true, then in order to push storytelling to new heights, it’s necessary to disregard traditional styles and methods and experiment with new and different forms of storytelling. Player-driven stories can easily be seen as the evolution of and successor to traditional storytelling. Unlike traditional stories, they give freedom to both the player and author to explore multiple outcomes and side trails. They also, for the first time, allow the player to take on an active role in the story instead of being a mere viewer. This can, at least in theory, significantly increase the player’s interest and immersion while ensuring that the story remains new and different no matter how many times it’s replayed.

Supporters of this argument point out that player-driven storytelling is the true evolution of the art form and that their interactive nature puts video games at the forefront of the player-driven story movement. Therefore, game designers and writers should be focusing their efforts on this new and better form of storytelling, rather than falling back on the methods and styles of the past.

Giving the Writer Greater Freedom

Of the four key points in the argument for the supremacy of player-driven storytelling, giving the writer greater freedom is the least frequently mentioned but still bears discussion, as it provides a much different view than the artistic approach of the first point and the player-based approaches of the following two points. Specifically, this point states that regardless of the artistic merits of player-driven storytelling or the benefits it provides to the player, highly player-driven stories actually provide significant benefits to the writer as well.

In traditional storytelling, the writer is forced to commit to having the events of the story play out in a single way. With player-driven storytelling, however, the writer is free to explore multiple story progressions and endings. He or she may even feel that those extra branches and endings are necessary for players to gain a full understanding of the plot and characters, show multiple sides of a character’s personality, and/or demonstrate the potential consequences of different choices that the hero could make. If that’s the case, limiting the story to a single outcome would be a tremendous disservice to both the writer and the player. The writer would be unable to fully pass on his or her creative vision, and the player would be stuck with an incomplete story. In player-driven stories, the writer leaves players free to explore the different branches and outcomes as they see fit, whether they merely pick the options that best fit their personalities and preferences or are drawn to explore them all and uncover every last possibility in order to gain a complete understanding of the story.

In addition, trying to add too much backstory or supplemental information to a traditional story can easily ruin the pacing and make it difficult to maintain reader interest. In player-driven storytelling, however, backstory and supplemental material can be spread out across multiple branches, endings, conversations, and the like. This not only keeps it in more easily manageable portions, but ensures that players who have little interest in such extraneous details are able to avoid becoming bogged down by them.

Strengthening the Player–Character Bond

Throughout this book, we’ve talked about the importance of making characters interesting and believable, as this helps players come to care about and bond with them, sharing their triumphs, failures, joys, and sorrows. After all, if players don’t care about the fate of the hero, there’s much less reason for them to be interested in the story as a whole. This player–character bond is often seen as one of the most important aspects in game storytelling. Furthermore, the interactivity present in games – even ones using interactive traditional storytelling – often helps develop and strengthen this bond by making the player in many ways responsible for the hero’s actions and survival.

If interactivity helps players bond with characters, it seems reasonable to assume that the more control the player has over the character’s actions, decisions, and even personality, the deeper that bond will become. Following that line of reasoning, players should be able to bond much more closely with a generic player-created hero over whom they have complete control than with any sort of predefined character created by the author, no matter how good that character may be. Therefore, highly player-driven storytelling should significantly increase the player–character bond. Whether this line of reasoning actually holds true is another matter entirely (as previously mentioned, it’s extremely rare for generic player-created heroes to come up when listing favorite video game characters) which we’ll discuss in the coming chapters, but that’s the way the point is argued.

Giving the Players What They Want

At the end of the day, games need to make money. Regardless of how good a game might be, if it doesn’t sell, then its creators will be out of work. Therefore, making games that players will enjoy and want to buy is extremely important. There are many factors that contribute to a player’s enjoyment of a game – story is only one of them. Exactly how important of a factor it is depends on both the player and the type of game (for example, stories tend to be a far more important part of RPGs and adventure games than music or puzzle games), but crafting a story that players will find entertaining, interesting, gripping, or some combination of the three is a big concern throughout much of the game industry.

As previously discussed, there are many things that can ruin – or at least seriously detract from – a good story. Poor pacing can bore or overwhelm players. Unlikable and/or unbelievable characters can make it difficult for them to take a serious interest in the plot. Too much backstory can bore; too little can leave a story feeling incomplete. Plots that go in a direction that the player doesn’t like can lead him or her to grow frustrated and upset (a certain romantic pairing in the Harry Potter series, for example, greatly angered many fans who wanted to see Harry end up with a different girl).

These unexpected plot turns are especially problematic when it comes to endings. An ending that goes significantly against players’ expectations and/or in a way that they think doesn’t make sense for the story and characters can drastically reduce their opinion of the story as a whole. I can name a number of stories (in games, books, and movies) that I really loved … right up until the ending. However, the endings of those particular stories were either so poorly done or so far removed from the way it seemed the story should have ended that they not only left me feeling extremely dissatisfied, but discouraged me from ever going back to reread, rewatch, or replay those stories, despite how much I liked them at first.

It’s also human nature to think that in many cases we could do things better than the characters in our favorite stories if given the chance. Looking back, I’m sure you can think of many times when you’ve bemoaned a character for making a particularly stupid move, saying the wrong thing, or not picking up on a very important and obvious piece of information. In some cases, it’s hard to say if our own instincts and intuition would have caused things to play out better or not, but at least giving us a chance would remove the frustration of watching the hero walk alone and unarmed into the room where the killer is hiding.

Game designers and writers want players to enjoy the story so they’ll tell their friends and buy more games. Players want to enjoy the story so they don’t feel like they wasted the time and money they put into it. But, as you can see, there are a multitude of factors that can easily ruin the player’s enjoyment. In theory, giving the player more control should solve those problems. If the player is in control of the hero’s personality and actions, there’s no need to complain about the hero doing or saying the wrong thing. If the player is in control of the pace at which the story progresses and the amount of backstory he or she receives, he or she shouldn’t have to worry about things going too fast or too slow. And, if the player is in control of the game’s most important decisions, he or she can always ensure that the plot and ending play out in an enjoyable way.

Taking this to the next logical step, it could be said that what the player wants most from the story isn’t to sit back and watch it unfold but to become an actual part of the story itself. If fiction is really an escape from reality, then living it should clearly be better than just observing it. Therefore, it’s the job of game designers and writers to make the player as much of an active participant in the story as possible so that the player can fulfill his or her true desires and obtain as much enjoyment from the story as possible. If we assume that what players want most from a story is to become an active participant in it, then it’s clear that highly player-driven forms of storytelling are the way to go. By this logic, it’s true that traditional forms of storytelling have peaked and outlived their usefulness. Though they can be used to tell good stories, they’re forever doomed to be an imperfect form. Linear and unchanging, they make the player a mere observer or grant only the most limited forms of involvement and can never fulfill a player’s greatest desire and make him or her an actual part of the story. Only player-driven storytelling can grant this wish, making it the clearly superior style.

With that in mind, no further argument should be needed – assuming that we’re right about what players want most. Though the logical progression works, it’s all based on a series of assumptions about what players want most from a story. Do the majority of players really want to take on an active role, shape the hero to their own preferences, and control the progression and outcome of the story? Do they want the opposite? Do they even care? Perhaps even more importantly, regardless of whether players say they want more control over their stories, does giving them that control allow them to enjoy the story more than they otherwise would have? Over the next two chapters, we’ll attempt to answer these all-important questions by looking at the arguments against the supremacy of player-driven storytelling and by researching what types of stories players really want and enjoy the most.

Summary

There has been much talk in the game industry about the alleged supremacy of highly player-driven forms of storytelling, most of which focus around the following four key points:

•  Traditional storytelling can be said to have reached its peak as an art form and is no longer capable of significant growth or evolution; therefore, it’s time to move on and focus on a new type of storytelling, such as player-driven storytelling.

•  Player-driven storytelling gives the author the opportunity to greatly expand his or her story and to explore alternative versions of events, side stories, and the like.

•  The large amount of player control and freedom in player-driven stories strengthens the player–character bond so that players will care more about the game’s heroes.

•  Most importantly, as there are many things that can reduce a player’s enjoyment of a story, putting the player in charge and allowing him or her to control how the story progresses should, in theory, fulfill the player’s wish to become part of the story and allow him or her to steer the story’s events in the most enjoyable direction. This is something that more traditional forms of storytelling can never do and is the greatest advantage of player-driven storytelling.

However, quite a lot of these arguments are built around assumptions of what players want. If these assumptions are true, the points hold firm, but if they’re false, then arguing for the supremacy of player-driven storytelling becomes very difficult. We’ll carefully examine and test these assumptions in the following chapters to see how true they really are.

Things to Consider

1.  Do you think that highly player-driven stories are superior to more traditional stories? Why or why not?

2.  Briefly summarize your own thoughts on the four key points covered in this chapter.

3.  Can you think of any additional arguments that could be used to support the supremacy of player-driven stories?

4.  Do you believe that most players want to be given more control and freedom in video game stories? Why or why not?