[MUD-Dev] Creating a Player Narrative

[Tim Schubert]

> Ben Hawes wrote:

>> Has anybody deliberately designed with the goal of facillitating
>> player created stories of thier in-game exploits? Anybody else
>> found this sort of thing to be helpful for player enjoyment? I
>> suspect there are MUDs out there who have. In suggestions for
>> incorporating this into more mainstream or graphical games? Would
>> this help create the sense of "epicness" missing in many of these
>> worlds?

I think that encouraging player stories is a valuable way to weave a
strong community together in a MMOG.  Its somewhat disheartening to
see how rarely games pull this off though.  The "sandbox" MMOGs let
the random interaction of players create events that spawn stories
which works for their limited audience.  Players that prefer a more
guided experience however, tend to lose out.  They are presented a
static story that doesn't have much personal impact, rarely
surprises them, and has been consumed endless times already.  The
content tactic is better used in single player games which can
convince the player they are magical and special butterfly.  In
MMOGs "epic" is relative to the experience of the other players.
The experiences have to differ from player to player for an event to
be worthy of a story - and that is what makes it epic.  MMOGs have
the intrinsic advantage that group dynamics will differ as people
play with different groups can contribute to unique situations - but
only if an event was more interesting then pummelling baby seals.

Also be sure to consider risk versus reward.  Players avoid harder
content (and thus anything that is "epic") because that content is
too risky to be worth whatever reward they get if they succeed.  The
quests players consider epic are the really amazingly hard ones that
they only bother with due to the big payoff.  We should encourage
players to try to do difficult tasks because an epic and fulfilling
result is more likely.  Easy monsters all die the same, but harder
ones can cause vastly different scenarios to play out from battle to
battle.  The group dynamics mentioned above can produce different
tactics and the monster could have some differing AI from fight to
fight.  The resulting surprising and unique experience is more
likely to be shared back at the inn then then a cookie cutter
experience.  So come on, spawn the giant space walrus with the
photon flippers and leave the baby seals alone.

It comes down to having something happen that is unique, or at least
uncommon, for a player and their peers.  In this way I agree that
for something to be epic there has to be an element of surprise.
Find ways to present randomness to players in a way that creates new
experiences and results in meaningful conclusions.  It could be
dynamic quests that follow a looser story line.  Alternatively,
clever game play can do this and potentially cost a lot less then
trying to fight this battle with content alone.

Consider Tetris.  Its a fun game, we've all probably played it.  It
starts slow and a little dull but eventually it gets nutty.  What's
the highest level you ever hit?  How many people did you tell?
Tetris is epic.  The high level is an interesting accomplishment
worthy of sharing with others.

For contrast, consider solitaire.  Its a fun game, we've all
probably played it too.  How many times have you beaten it?  Does
anyone care?  Not epic.  Its always boring and it never gets too
hard.  Most importatnly - the accomplishment of winning is so common
that it would be really boring topic for dinner conversation.  I
wouldn't generally suggest talking about Tetris either if it was a
date.

Diatribe aside, my thoughts: Put hard stuff in the game for players
to do.  Make it worth the trouble for them to do it.  Make some of
these things take awhile to do.  Have random strange events occur
for players to create weird fiction around.  Don't explain
everything (metaclorines, Christ) and try to make it hard for others
to do so.  Avoid predictability with randomness and/or branching.
Use the players to create interesting and random situations for each
other - by which I don't mean content.  See what happens when you
pit 30 players with daggers against 5 with halberds.  Both sides
would have something to talk about.  If you want to go the route of
static content, try to encourage players from spoiling the surprise
for others (perhaps smaller communities would help) - but remember
that players will still be bored when they make a second character.

-- Tim
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