[MUD-Dev] narrative

[Joe Andrieu]

Dave Rickey wrote:

> When people want to enjoy a well-written story, they go to a
> bookstore, or pull an old favorite down from their shelves.
> People don't want a well-written story, they want to experience an
> adventure.  That's not at all the same thing, and that's a *good*
> thing, because we couldn't give them a well-written story by any
> reasonable programmatic method.

> What we (try to) do is create interesting situations for the
> player, and let them resolve them.  When it works, the result
> *feels* like an adventure.

Semantic arguments about "story" aside, there is something to be
said for story in games. Story is one of the most powerful
mechanisms for emotionally engaging an audience. Since Aristotle
captured the essence of drama in his _Poetics_, the world has
developed a sophisticated understanding of how drama or story
engages audiences emotionally. Joseph Campbell's work on the
monomyth (in _Hero With a Thousand Faces_) is quite significant in
understanding the commonalities of myth and how *as stories* they
provide a critical function in individual lives and society, no
matter the culture or language. Robert McKee's _Story_ distills our
modern understanding of story as it applies to film. It's a
brilliant illustration of what story means in that medium. Indeed,
the power of the dramatic arc cannot be overstated as a means for
emotional engaement.

With all this insight into the power of story, it is a
straightforward extension to tap into that power to create engaging
and entertaining interactive experiences. Indeed, most games attempt
to leverage story in some fashion... even if only as a backdrop to
give the player some reason to care. And yet, I would agree with
Brandon's sentiment; while there is a deep understanding of story in
the world, it seems rarely to be used by those who develop games or
interactive stories.

However, I must add that your statement that "we couldn't give them
a well-written story by any reasonable programmatic method" is
unecessarily short-sighted and pessimistic. Between the work that
Mateus & Stern are doing, Bringsjord's Brutus.1, and a few other
initiatives tackling this problem, there is reason to think that we
will see interactive stories worth our attention. We aren't there
yet, but we'll get there. It is a challenging problem, but to state
axiomatically that we couldn't do it is accepting failure before
really trying.

The holy grail is not simply to "create interesting situations for
the player" but rather to engage the player deeply, emotionally, and
meaningfully, sacrificing neither freedom nor artistic intent; it is
an entertainment as rich as the best play or novel, with the player
as the hero-protagonist. Such a grail shall not be easily
discovered, but I, for one, shan't be turned away from searching for
a solution by arbitrary assertions that "it can't be done."

-j

--
Joe Andrieu 
Realtime Drama
joe at andrieu.net







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