[MUD-Dev] Self-Sufficient Worlds

[Sellers]

Lee wrote:

[Lots and lots of good stuff on story.  Have I plugged McKee's book "Story"
enough here yet?  Should be required reading, IMO.]

> > > 2.  The story must be constructed as an integral part of the world.
(And
> > > not feel like an imposition or an afterthought.)
> >
> > Again, I'm not sure I agree. From a storyteller's point of view, I agree
> > that the "strange aliens we've never heard of invade" plot (ie a clearly
> > slapped-on afterthought)  is completely weak, but people seem to enjoy
it
> > in sci fi books and movies.
> 
> Here I'm talking about the development of the game.  When I design a game
I
> don't begin with story, and add gameplay later.  Nor do I put together a
> kickass game engine, then figure out why all the monsters want to kill
> everybody.  It all happens together: quests and characters, puzzles and
> skill tracking, story and sword-swinging all grow together.  They have to.
> It all needs to feel like the same world.  And all the story and gameplay
> elements need to feel as if they're an integral, consistent part of the
> overall experience.  Is it any wonder that story feels like the odd
cousin?
> That's the way it is often built.

Absolutely.  Slapping on a story is the fastest way to get a backstory that
no one cares about.  I think probably AC has the most integrated backstory
of the major MMPOGs right now, and even there it doesn't really matter.
Okay, it provides a justification for certain gameplay artifacts (e.g., the
portals), but AFAIK there's nothing set up in the backstory that becomes
meaningful only later on.  

In Meridian we tried a feeble attempt at this (I love Brian Green's
characterization, btw, of a lot of the things tried in these early games as
"Civil War surgery" ;) ) with the Duke and the Princess.  Their conflict was
set up in the backstory, and was intended to be ambiguous: maybe the Duke
was a murderous tyrant, or maybe he was just a strong leader.  Maybe the
Princess was the merciful right standing up against evil, or maybe she was
just a weak and misguided royal.  I wanted to see this conflict played out
by parceling new bits of information (and red herrings) to the players, so
they could make up their own minds and act accordingly, but we never got
that far.  Real quickly the player base made up their minds, and since we
didn't do anything to disabuse them of their cardboard cutout notions, they
were in effect right.  

Now, having said all of that, I'd also point out that a really good
storytelling and creativity exercise is to take a pre-existing group of
characters or circumstances, and build a plausible story into it and
extending from it.  The Mayor is dead and the Prince's daughter is missing.
Is she guilty?  Was she kidnapped?  Maybe the Mayor's death was faked.
Maybe he and the Prince are brothers -- maybe they're even the same person!
There are lots of maybes with this little information.
  
Taking an existing set of conditions, say for a MUD world, and building a
plausible and deep story out of them --without resorting to overt cliche--
is a difficult thing to do, but one which can be deeply satisfying if done
well.  This can also set up really nifty twists in later plots, as people
and events assumed to be one thing turn out to be another.  Consider Darth
Vader as Luke's father, and Leia as his sister -- neither particularly
subtle, but both effective.  *Now* consider what you could do to develop
Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru (if you haven't seen "Troops" ;) ) -- were they
what they seem, simple farm-folk?  Was Owen a bitter failed Jedi who was
entrusted with Vader's children?  Is Beru really the now-aged handmaiden of
Queen Amidalla?  There are lots of interesting ways you could spin this to
generate both greater integrity in the world-story and more interesting
plots later on.  

Mike Sellers



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