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

[Matthew Mihaly]

Hi. First let me say that this thread disturbs me, because I fear that
Mike may be right. I put a _lot_ of thought into Achaea's back story, and
the whole world is tied in with it. We've got about 35,000 words of back
story, which you can find at www.achaea.com/history/history.html (If you
go there, it's best to read them in order. You can skip the Modern Age, as
that's not really backstory. It's what players actually have done. It's
becoming backstory though.) I'm quite proud of our backstory, as I think
it's fairly excellent.  (incidentally, the best written of them is the
Seleucarian Empire one, which is the only one not written by me. I did the
plot, and someone else did the writing. It's the last in the backstory
histories though).

In any case, while the histories are very important to me, I really have
no idea if they're important to the players or not, so these posts got me
thinking. I just started a survey in Achaea to ask the players how much of
the backstory they've read. Their choices are 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, or
none. I'm only having the survey run for a few hours (that'll be enough to
get a statistical sampling that shouldn't be off too much) and I'll post
the results here when it ends.

Mike asked if there are games where the backstory actually affects things
or foreshadows things, and I'm willing to tentatively say yes, in Achaea.
Does it pervade everyday life? I don't _think_ so, but then, if a lot of
people have read the histories, it's definitely going to help form the
context within which they play Achaea. 

Does it have any effect? Definitely, yes. I can think of numerous things
off the top of my head that have happened that were foreshadowed in the
backstory, and in our plans for the future, we have a number of other
things that will happen that are foreshadowed. Things that have happened
that are spinoffs from the backstory are game-wide plots, new playable
races, new areas, etc. 

Further, we hold quizzes, with sometimes valuable prizes (at the last
quiz, we gave away about US$200 in credits (the stuff you have to buy with
real money) to the winner. This sort of thing is a bit incentive to
players, as the quizzes sometimes may have as many as half the questions
be questions about Achaea, with a significant percentage of those being
about the backstory.


On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, J C Lawrence wrote:

> On Fri, 9 Jun 2000 15:34:31 -0700  
> Sellers, Michael <MSellers at maxis.com> wrote:
> 
> <nod>
> 
> > Unfortunately, the reality is that they're almost all meaningless
> > and irrelevant babble.

Sob, I hope not.

 
> > 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?

Most people are horribly educated about real-life history (and there's a
_lot_ more of it than in any mud, obviously) and they get along fine
without it, but many people enjoy it. I realize it's not the same as a
game, but I tend to read history, whether about, say, tolkien's world, or
real-life, as vastly entertaining stories. You might not HAVE to know it,
but then, I think players like a lot of things in games they don't HAVE to
know about or do, but which are satisfying to know about or do. 

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

I suspect you are right about that (the memetic osmosis). As I've written
this post, we've had 35 players fill out the survey. 21 said they have
read 100% of the backstory (again, it's 35,000 words, so it's not
insignificant in terms of time committment), 5 said they have read 75%, 5
said they have read 50%, 2 said they have read 25%, and 2 said they have
read none of it. Unfortunately, that doesn't help to answer whether it's
memetic osmosis or not, but it does demonstrate, I think, that players
like the backstory. The quizzes where there are tangible rewards aren't
that often, and I don't think most of them are going to sit through 35k
words of text for the occassional chance at winning a quiz. 

Think about who much of this audience is and what they read. Many of them
read fantasy books. It seems to me then that many of them would enjoy
reading backstories if they are reasonably well done. 


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

I'd be interested to have you read ours and tell me what you think. I'm
open to criticism. Maybe if you think it sucks, I can tell you why I did X
this way, etc.

--matt




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