[Ninja Dodo]

So I was pondering in this other thread how player choice is reacted to by games...

This hits on something that bothers me about a lot of non-linear games... that there seems to be no real inertia of character, if you will... you can morally and emotionally turn on a dime, be the most despicable swine known to history and suddenly start acting like a saint (or vice versa), you can go through all this story and still end with a discreet set of options deciding the fate of the universe (or whatever) in no way influenced by the choices you've made up to that point.

Well.

Between Bioshock's subjective truth (spoilers), KotOR/Deus Ex' choice till the end, and Vampire: Bloodlines' way of forcing you to like Nines Rodriguez*, I just realized something.

What if this narrative inertia is in the player's head?

It's the Aristotelian brand of ethics. You make a certain type of choice because you've built yourself a habit of doing so. You won't want to act a certain way, because it does not fit with the direction you are going.

Games could use that.

They can reinforce the player's choices by showing a side of the story that justifies them, much in the same way that people rationalize the things they do in real life. Basically, encourage the player to continue on his chosen path by giving him emotional story reasons to do so. Positive narrative feedback.

Through story suggestion you drive the player to make certain choices and stick with them. They can still choose to go against the current if they really want to, but most likely they will be driven to do what fits their direction and the information you've given them.

Now you could use this in different ways. You could make a game that's very ethically subjective, right and wrong shifting depending on perspective, or you could be more heavy-handed and take a specific stance in terms of what the story suggests and let the player decide where they stand relative to that. The latter is mostly what developers are doing now, but more I think can be done to acknowledge player interpretation.

What if, say, you had a game about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and depending on your choices the game gave you more reasons to empathize with the people you gravitate towards. Not necessarily sides, but individuals. You get to know them and become involved in their perspective of the struggle. I think that could be very powerful.

Let me know if I'm making any sense here.


* - among other things by having the game start with him saving your life

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Ninja Dodo

What if, say, you had a game about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and depending on your choices the game gave you more reasons to empathize with the people you gravitate towards. Not necessarily sides, but individuals. You get to know them and become involved in their perspective of the struggle. I think that could be very powerful.

This may be a mild spoiler but Mass Effect features a more or less pivotal sequence where...

Spoiler:

...one of your party members forces you to make a choice that could determine the fate of their entire species (it may or may not end violently). This happens later in the story and game so by then you have had many opportunities to know that character and develop either a fondness for them or an indifference, if not outright apathy.

Let me know if I'm making any sense here.

It would help if you give another couple of examples, either made up or from actual games.

[Lucien21]

Player choice is an illusion.

Ultimatly there are only so many options and variables that can be programmed into a game.

The trick is to fool the player into thinking he can play the game anyway he likes while subtly pushing them in the direction you wish them to advance.

Oblivion and RPG games are pretty good at this. In Oblivion you could wander the hills for hours on end without doing the main quest or any of the other tasks involved in the game, but in the end the point of the game is to complete those missions and move forward the narrative. Becoming a monk and living a life of glorious peace isn't really an option.

Adventure games are pretty bad at it, as they tend more towards the linear storytelling end of the spectrum.

Certainly in previous Bioware games the choices have always been polar opposites, even in Bioshock it is one extreme or the other. No real space for the grey area that we all live in reality.

Mass Effect however does contain 2 seperate light/dark meters so it is less of a swing one way or another and more a mixture of both.

[Ninja Dodo]

Sure. But I'm talking about making what choice there is more compelling. If you're already letting the player make certain choices, make that perspective colour the narrative.

(minor spoilers outside spoiler tags, major ones inside)

Okay, so since I mentioned it already anyway: Vampire Bloodlines. It's both a good and bad example, and for the same reason. It doesn't much budge in terms of the perspective it offers you, but it (quite strongly) manipulates the player into making a certain choice. It starts with Nines Rodriguez essentially saving your life in the opening cutscene.

Spoiler:

Throughout the game he is portrayed as one of the more sympathetic characters, giving you advice and training. While his politcs may or may not be to your taste, him and the Anarchs are pretty much the only faction that isn't actively trying to stab you in the back or manipulate you. That and he saves your ass again twice.

So when push comes to shove, you owe this guy. You might be compelled for other reasons to side with another faction, but the game really makes you feel like you'd be letting this guy down...

My point is: What if you were given a different perspective and Nines was portrayed in a less sympathetic light? What if you were given a deeper insight into the motivations of another faction like the Kuei Jin*, perhaps thereby making them more agreeable. This could very well change the choices you make towards the end of the game.

Now what if this portrayal changed depending on your early choices in the game? What if you were taken in by a different character and given their side of the story?

Things you thought you knew might change drastically.

For another example, Bioshock:

Spoiler:

Through much of the game, you're led to believe that Atlas, the man you're helping, just wants to get out and save his family... until you find out you've been manipulated the whole time and Atlas' pleas are revealed to be commands. As the article I linked to points out, 'truth' in Bioshock is relative to the information you're given.

A game could offer different truths depending on who the player talks to. If the things they hear depend on the choices they make, the perception of story can bend with choice and basically 'agree' with the player in his continued direction.

Instead of judging the player for doing something they deem is right, why not go along with it? You could argue that even if you wanted to make a statement against doing something, letting the player explore it themselves might be more persuasive than *telling* them. [edit: Shadow of the Colossus, anyone?]

I may or may not be contradicting myself with that last bit. I've got to sleep now, but I'm going to think about this some more tomorrow.

* -

Spoiler:

without them stabbing you in the back at the end of the game. Seriously, wtf?

[Ninja Dodo]

What I'm getting at is that it is perhaps okay if the options are there regardless of history... to do good even if you're evil (or more subtle out-of-character choices) because the player can be relied upon to stay true to the role they have chosen to play.* Instead developers should focus on helping them get further invested in that interpretation of the character by offering a side of the story that fits, rather than trying to ram another path down their throat, even though they've clearly chosen not to take it.

Make the Alliance really seem like rebel scum if you're playing the Empire. Make the Anarchs really seem like a threat to the peace and continued existence of vampires if you're playing the Camarilla (Bloodlines), etc.

I don't think this is something suited to every game, but in highly controversial conflicts, fictional or otherwise, I think it would be very interesting to explore the effect of perspective on perception.

It's not about offering more choice, but about making what choices you have equally satisfying. I'll have to try The Witcher at some point because it seems to be one of the few games that toys with choices that are neither right nor wrong. I never really cared for the Elder Scrolls games because there's nothing to empathize with in the characters. The wealth of choice becomes sort of meaningless because it's not affecting anyone. When it does, as you point out, it's usually so black & white that there's rarely any question which is the correct answer. Bioshock I'm looking at you.

Treps: That Mass Effect bit is sort of what I meant in the sense that you're affecting your choices down the line by choosing to engage this character and learn about them at an earlier stage, but I think there's more you could do with that.

* - if that includes redemption, then so be it...

[Catbert]

To me KOTOR2 presented some very ambiguous morality at the time I played it. I wanted to play it good, but Kreia presented damn good arguments why I should be more levelheaded and not jump into a fight to help someone simply because they need. Ultimately you'd still have the good/evil choice, but you were questioned as to why you were being bad or good with logic, and that made it a pretty damn interesting change in a game for me, also making some choices very ambiguous and making me feel a bit blindfolded as to where I was going and what I was doing. I haven't been near games anywhere as much lately because I feel they lack things like these which you find constantly in movies and music or simply one-sided statements. Saying you should give back the teddy bear to the girl in fable to be a good boy isn't really making a moral, political or philosophical statement of any remote interest or importance, and having grown up I feel I need something a bit more poignant and intelligent than most games are offering.

Like it or not, games are still a pretty childish environment in terms of relaying a message or a purpose other than entertaining. I know there are examples of good games with a clear message like Deus Ex, but those are one in a million, literally.

[Lee in Limbo]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Player choice is an illusion.

True.

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Ultimatly there are only so many options and variables that can be programmed into a game.

Sadly, also true. Perhaps one say, when the technology is there and the stars are aligned just right...

Originally Posted by Lucien21

The trick is to fool the player into thinking he can play the game anyway he likes while subtly pushing them in the direction you wish them to advance.

*BUZZ* Wrong answer.

Oh sure, that's what game devs do now. However, they often do this so heavy handedly that you can read how it's going to turn out long before you get there. Maybe that's comforting to some, but personally, I think it's lazy.

Now given that you've already pointed out that there are economical considerations here (assets, time, money constraints), we know that it's not possible to write absolutely every possible scenario. We also know that writing just the most polarized possibilities leads to a very artificial experience. However, what if we deliberately use thematic choices to guide individual strands of the bigger story?

For instance, we see a number of games that have romantic entanglements being worked into the story to give it a more adult feel. Naturally some people in the audience feel this is gratuitous and manipulative, if not downright predictable (in light of Hollywood more than the gaming industry). The thing is, romance is a part of our lives whether we're comfortable with it or not. However, we can choose to disregard romantic overtures depending on where we are in our lives and how we feel about people at the time, even if we're already involved with them.

It should be possible to write this into a game to give the relationship some more verisimilitude. Maybe we will buy the ring and get the flowers while she's out, or maybe we won't because, really, we don't want to be with her anymore. Maybe we want to be with the quirky ingenue instead. Or maybe we don't know how we feel about anyone right now. All of these things can be explored in an interactive game far better than they can in a book or movie. That's what games SHOULD be doing.

What I want to see are more games where there are adult paths like that, but also the option to just continue with the story while leaving the romance largely to the side. However, there should be personal consequences to those decisions, things that really affect the ultimate outcome, and not just whether you get the girl or not. It's not like in action films where the hero just gets the girl (or guy) as a matter of course at the end of the film. Those secondary characters affect the story outcome as much as you do, and if you aren't nice to them, maybe they won't be there to bail you out in the end. Maybe you'll defeat the bad guy, but someone very dear to you died because you couldn't reach them, and the one who could have helped you didn't want to know because you kept comparing them to your ex.

The point is, the choices should BE the game, and the writing should reflect those choices a little more. You don't have to write every conceivable variable. You can afford to leave out the obvious stuff, and you can also leave out the stuff that really only makes sense to you personally, if you can figure out the difference. But as a game dev, you should be challenging people to make choices based on what seems like the best way to resolve the conflict, and that shouldn't be a simple route from A to Z. You're going to spend money on the assets to get from A to Z anyway, so why not make focus on the points inbetween that make the story more interactive? That IS why we're here, right?

Something I'm having to learn right now (which I'm sure I haven't mastered yet) is how to write stories that actually have choices and consequences that affect the ending, even if the net result is that Good triumphs over Evil (or whatever theme you're going for). Make every path seem plausible, given the situation (and perhaps the proclivities of your audience), and just have the ending affected by which path they chose. Make every ending integral to the plot, as if that was the only way it could have worked out. Then people won't feel ripped off when they get the so-so ending. It will add a lot more weight to the notion that games can and should have interactive narrative. It' s all down to the writers to make those choices and endings work.

[Ninja Dodo]

Catbert: I hear you. E3 coverage used to really depress me for all the recycled crap that was coming out. Never a new theme. The ratio seems a bit better these days, but it's still hard to find a game that attempts some actual depth. It's interesting to see Bioshock being so successful now. It may yet pave the way for other more thoughtful games.

Lee: Interesting point. I think for interactive love stories to have a shot though, character interaction has to come a long way. Advances have been made certainly and between Valve's Alyx and Façade's marital difficulties I'm optimistic, but there's much left to be done.

That said there are more simple interactions that could be experimented with... I'm still waiting for someone to make Will Wright's Battlefield 1942 idea.


I was thinking some more... Going back to inertia of character: having choices incompatible with your current self, maybe the problem is not having these options per se, as in KotOR, Deus Ex or Bioshock, but them being presented in such a discreet* manner.

If the act of rescuing or 'harvesting' a Little Sister was not a choice of press H or L but a more natural extension of the gameplay it would feel perhaps less arbitrary. The thing is, Bioshock's gameplay is basically destructive and acts of altruism do not flow very naturally from it, a point addressed by Jonathan Blow in his interesting "Design Reboot" talk at MIGS 07.

Deus Ex had similar difficulties with its ending(s). To its credit your final choice is made through action, not abstract selection, but it's still one that is clearly laid out for you.

If you're not told explicitly you have a certain choice but simply arrive at a point where you do *something* the gesture I think is more powerful. Whether that's saving a little girl, throwing the world into a new Dark Age or becoming the Sith master of the universe.

Ramble on.

* - When I say "discreet" I mean the mathematical term of clearly defined separate states with no space in-between, digital on/off...**

** - Can you tell I like footnotes?