However, if you're going to go to the trouble of making a world-web, you should at least be able to specify the storytelling effects freedom can offer over other linear forms. When it comes to storytelling games, does choice matter?
The term "meaningful choice" is just as frequently invoked by players for its lack thereof as they refer to its presence, as in: "The choices weren't meaningful," often conflated with "The choices don't matter."
Gameplay is full of interaction; what special properties must I/O take on in order to deserve the term "choice" or "meaningful choice"?
(To create meaning out of otherwise unconnected events is one definition of narrative.)
STORY VS. NARRATIVE
Before discussing meaningful choice, I would like to define some terms. Even though most people use them interchangeably, there's a difference between narrative and story. Narrative, as defined above, is a connection between events. It could be a daisy chain of cause and effect, or a snapshot in time, like a collage or a portrait. There are many successful dramas that are not stories, but instead anti-structured.
The play Under Construction is a great example. Scenes in the script are numbered. The stage direction in the script suggests a sequence in which the plays should be presented to the audience, but:
"... in the future, when others do it,
it may be that they will want to throw out some of these scenes,
write some new ones,
change the order of things."
Charles Mee embraces the anti-structure and openness. In my opinion, this transcends a gimmick because it serves a narrative purpose as well. In a play that portrays traditional scenes of Americana and puts generational differences under a microscope, this openness is self-reflective. It is permited to change so that it may stay relevant over time, and give more ownership to each dramaturg. Throughout his work, Charles Mee often repurposes his scenes from one play to the next, viewing his craft as a collage. In doing so, he rejects the causality of linear storytelling the and instead opts for a more abstract connection between scenes.
Story is also narrative, but it's got special properties. In the words of Alan Olifson, host of Pittsburgh's Moth, "A story is a little different. Typically it has a beginning, a middle and an end, and there's some sort of emotional arc that changes the protagonist irrevocably."
A story is charged. A story, in the words of master storyteller, Robert McKee, is the stuff that happens in between expectation and result. The things that happen in the story, known as story events, are typically imbued with a causal relationship, and the agent of change is your protagonist. (Because William listens to music, he is inspired to become a rock journalist, because he is passionate about rock n'roll, he gets backstage at the Black Sabbath concert..)
Although there is a case to be made that looser narratives are better suited to games, this post concerns story development.
MEANINGFUL CHOICE
Most people know meaningful choice when they see it. It's that moment in the movie theater when, in the sequence of flashing images, the action lingers. The collective breath of the audience hitches. You can feel your heart beat in your ears and you know that what happens next hinges on this choice.
You wouldn't give this attention to the protagonist's choice of morning cereal (or maybe you would depending on the cereal's story relevance). However, certainly not everything that happens in the fictional world of the character is compelling. The writer selected this moment out of a world of events, and you're seeing it because it matters. It matters because it will change the charge of the story. Each story has values (confident/weak, healthy/sick, rich/poor, etc) and a scene will move your agent of change along the value spectrum. This is the goal of the storyteller: for every scene there is a change in the charge of the story.
A classic:
"You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." - Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)
Stakes raised, clock ticking, everything comes down to the actions of Neo in this moment in time. It is the ultimate meaningful choice.
The takeaway here is that this type of choice is the product of classical story structure. You will not find this moment in Under Construction or in a game of Tetris. This moment was built up through previous scenes and will set off a chain link of events. This is the same meaningful choice game players and game designers want delivered.
USER-CHOICE DRIVEN PLOT
Ok, so we're able to identify meaningful choice: it's a choice made by the agent of change, a.k.a. the protagonist, that will determine story events and change the value of the story.
The next step for a game designer would be to understand how to recreate this moment. A literal translation would be to cast the user as Neo, and at this point in the story, have some dialogue exchange with NPC Morpheus and, once that's over, provide a choice: the red pill or the blue pill. The user choice determines whether the story ends or, as Morepheus would say, continues down the rabbit hole.
This is the type of choice you'd find in Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories.
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| "How original. A post about choice that talks about Choose-Your-Own-Adventure." I know. Bear with me. |
Readers played this "gamebook" by reading a passage and at each passage ending, making a choice. The choice would lead to a corresponding page. Reader choice literally decides story events.
Think of the possible use cases. Here's one: the reader begins the book. Fifteen pages in, she takes a wrong turn down the fork in the road and falls off a cliff to her miserable rocky death below. The End. Story now complete, the reader closes the book and puts it back on the shelf, satisfied with their experience.
Absolutely no one plays this way, because it is not satisfying at all. You go back, change your decision, and try to make it farther through the book. A book is "done" when you've read through all the endings. At this point, the protagonist's agency becomes tangential to the primacy of exploration play.
This makes for a great game, but fails as story. The fact that these books are ultimately about exploration is also reflected in the settings - they take place in exotic lands, feature character stereotypes, and are altogether the portrait of camp. It is explorative play at its best, and at its worst it's a gimmick.
Now, look back at the Matrix. Imagine if Neo chose the blue pill. The story would end and the curtains would close in the first 20 minutes. People would demand their money back. The truth is, in the most meaningful choice in all of cinema, there was really no choice at all.
When designing story events, the more freedom of choice there is, the less inherently charged that choice becomes.
McKee says that to plot is to "navigate through the dangerous terrain of story and when confronted by a dozen branching possibilities to choose the correct path. Plot is the writer's choice of events and their design in time."
Plot is a ride you're taken on, meant to pull audience attention through events based on expectations and results. In game language, you wouldn't want users to create their own story any more than you would want them to control their own level design.
GAME NARRATIVE
Where does this leave interactivity? Why not just go and make a movie?
Freedom may be antithetical to classical plot development, but look at all the other elements of drama: character, setting, style...
World Building
Any fantasy writer worth their salt knows that fantasy is as much about imagination as it is about creating rules of a world, and then pitting your character against them. With interactivity, a player can probe these rules for themselves, and make them feel more real.
For example, in Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic, when your character is out roaming the open world of Taris, you can overhear NPC dialogue that enforces the status quo of the world. Taris has a strict social hierarchy that is reflected in its city layout - those on the upper level are well-off, while those on the ground struggle with poverty. So, when the subplot of retrieving medicine to give to the good doctor, who will distribute this high-demand material democratically, is introduced, its emotional resonance is amplified based on your understanding of this world.
You can do this in linear storytelling too, of course. A great example of a rich fantasy world is Hogwarts, which comes to life for so many people because of the details J.K. Rowling's uses to describe a rich vision. However, when trying to convince players or an audience that something is real, interactivity has an interesting edge in that it can respond to the user's probes. It's the difference between watching fish swim behind an aquarium tank and swimming in the tank yourself a la Ms. Frizzle.
Character Building
During the 2015 Game Developer's Conference, a panel of Telltale games designers was the last event in the Writer's and Game Narrative Summit. During Q&A, one of the panelists spoke to his understanding of how choice has evolved and functions in Telltale games. He described an epiphany of realizing that the choices are were about "playing the character" instead of playing the game.
What this means is, the point of dialogue choices are to try and understand what the character's motivations are, and then to play them accurately. The way the player interacts with your prison guard transport, the way your character interprets your prompts - the language, the pacing, the voice-acting - fleshes out what kind of person she is. Regardless of choice, the car crashes and you awake in a zombie apocalypse.
Character development and empathy for the protagonist make us care about changes in story value. This isn't "meaningful choice" as defined earlier but it is storytelling, and strong storytelling at that.
DELIVERING MEANINGFUL INTERACTION
And this is what state-of-the-art game narratives are doing. Contemporary game-narratives use interactive mechanics to flesh out character and build the world of the narrative.
...and yet. And yet, players still say: the choices aren't meaningful. They want that Matrix moment. What is a designer to do?
First, you have to build to those moments. There are different layers to a story - inner life, personal life, political, and environmental. Through all of these levels, the emotional build up cues to audiences what should happen next. It's like Chekov's gun - if you put it in the story, we're going to expect it to go off at some point. After you build to a moment that is loaded with expectation, the next step is to let the user participate in it.
A great example of this is at the end of Nancy Drew, Shadow at Water's Edge, where Nancy decides the fate of the captured culprit - you can either give him an opportunity to explain his actions to someone he loves, or you lock him up immediately. The credits each show a different story ending. Now, you might argue that this is an example of branching narrative used effectively as a story tool. I would say: I disagree. I don't think that moment felt good because the player could decide the ending, it felt good because we, the player, understand that the next thing that happens in the story is a just and resolved ending. That is the expectation. Neither ending drastically reframes the story, but each delivers a satisfying conclusion. And as a player, you're not satisfied from the choice, you're satisfied from watching the final event unfold as it ought to, similar to the power a reader has when they turn to the last page of a book. It's a subtle distinction.
Does
it matter that meaningful interaction is the product of a predetermined ride? For philosophers, yes. For
storytellers, no. But if you can make a user feel like their choice
matters, you've already achieved the effect.
