Backstory (was RE: [MUD-Dev] New poll)

[J C Lawrence]

On Fri, 9 Jun 2000 15:34:31 -0700  
Sellers, Michael <MSellers at maxis.com> wrote:

> JC wrote:
>> I've added a few new polls: ...  Is having a backing story
>> important in a MUD?

> I found the phrasing of the answers on this one a bit difficult:

Aye, I didn't find them that easy to write either.

> Hmmm.  Yes, I think back stories (not "backing story," btw)
> *should* do a lot of these things -- they should explain the game
> and give context, make the game more real, help the players create
> their own stories, and give the key for the game culture.

<nod>

> Unfortunately, the reality is that they're almost all meaningless
> and irrelevant babble.

While I consider that the above (two quotes up) are what a good back
story should do, I'm not convinced that any backstory no matter how
well written and presented can reliably do that, or that a backstory
is in fact necessary and that there are not other better, more
facile approaches to achieve those ends.

> How many games have you played in where you didn't just rush past
> the exposition and backstory in a "yeah yeah yeah -- get out of my
> way and let me PLAY" sort of mode?  

Which is the real convinving factor.  If backstories are so
thoroughly ignorable and ignored, and yet we are achieving some
modicum of success in communicating the framing of our games (ie the
backstory), then what is actually doing the work?  Is the backstory
really a critical part that merely pretends to be irrelevant?  Or is
the backstory truly irrelevant and there's something else which is
accomplishing what we consider the purpose of a back story, and we
just don't realise it?  Or, is a back story really only used by a
very small percentage of the player base who then memetically infect
the rest of the player base with the appropriate effects from the
back story?

My suspicion is that its the third form that actually happens.  I
don't have anything to demonstrate it other than gut feel however.

> That is, a game that subtly and quietly provided you some nuggets
> of info that really helped you do something you wouldn't have been
> able to do otherwise, or helped you avoide danger, etc.  

Infocom's HHGTTG.

> When was the last time a game's backstory foreshadowed something
> that didn't become obvious until much later on?

Heck, how often does literature successfully achieve that end?
Algis Budrys was a past master of this art (cf Rogue Moon), but it
hardly a common literary skill.

  Aside:  Budry's has a good piece on story construction under:

    http://www.webdreamer.com/algis_budrys_writing_part_one.html

> Backstories suck.  They shouldn't, they really shouldn't, but
> almost all of them do.  Why is this, do you think?

Because the only defined purpose we have for them is to act as a
data dump for the players, usually dressed up in glitzy clothing and
a wonder-bra, rather than as fictional narrative devices.  We try
and bubblegum the player to the drama with sex and effects rather
than interest.  We're not looking at them as fictional works which
incidentally happen to have a data load, but instead as either a
data load wrapped in a fictional skin, or a genital waving
introduction to the game implementor's assumed capabilities
(demoware).

We're dealing with stories here, which immediately rephrases part of
the question as to what scale of stories are we dealing with?
Hollywood movies are inherently a short story form.  They're
certainly not novels tho they keep pretending to be.  What is the
narrative scale of our games?  What is the narrative scale of our
player's participation in our games?  I see many mostly abortive
attempts to establish vignette and ultra-short-story contexts in
MUDs, all with the seeming assumption that by piling those on, by
bundling them endlessly into a player's growth curve and game
experience that we can eventually create a novel in some magical
happenstance fashion, and I don't buy it.

What is the actual fictional scope of a player's intended experience
in our games?  That seems something worth knowing.

  Novels are not merely a series of semi-related short stories
  bolted together.  It is a different form.  It has different rules,
  both of construction and of purpose.

Which aets the question on the framing of the backstory: Is it just
an introduction; a recital of context to frame the short stories of
the players?  (I start getting very interested in Skotos' intended
and realised position on this area) Or does it attempt to frame a
larger context such that the players can attempt and in fact be lead
by the game system to start to frame a novel-type story within the
game, with short-story-ish (minus the single emotional effect
restriction) component adventures and vignettes?

>From a game design vantage: Romantically, narratively, how big a
story are we trying to drag our users into?  Is it really possible
to go whole hog and realistically aim for an epic?

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...


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