Why storytelling doesn't work in some games

[him over there]

Weeeeeeel, sure a lot of times there are inconsistencies between what is seen in the narrative and what the player is allowed to do. That is just the result of sloppy writing in which the writer is disconnected from what the designers are doing. That is easily avoidable in any game.

Kinda goes back to my statement that sometimes stories just don't belong in certain games. Since the story of MGS doesn't mesh well with the game, then another story would have worked better... maybe even none at all.

I find that when you try to correct that though, you just get annoying things like "unsynchronizing youself" in Assassin's Creed where you get a game over for going on a random killing spree, or invulnerable NPCs in Oblivion and Skyrim (God that was irritating).

yeah, the thing is a gritty game usually fails to tell it's story because the whole grimdark thing is undermined by the fact that the player is having fun. But if you tried to make the gameplay match the story then you end up with a game that's no fun to play because the act of playing it and the mechanics are equally somber and depressing. So the issue is how can we make engaging gameplay without making necessarily entertaining gameplay so it doesn't ruin the tone the story is trying to tell?

 

[geK0]

Weeeeeeel, sure a lot of times there are inconsistencies between what is seen in the narrative and what the player is allowed to do. That is just the result of sloppy writing in which the writer is disconnected from what the designers are doing. That is easily avoidable in any game.

Kinda goes back to my statement that sometimes stories just don't belong in certain games. Since the story of MGS doesn't mesh well with the game, then another story would have worked better... maybe even none at all.

I find that when you try to correct that though, you just get annoying things like "unsynchronizing youself" in Assassin's Creed where you get a game over for going on a random killing spree, or invulnerable NPCs in Oblivion and Skyrim (God that was irritating).

yeah, the thing is a gritty game usually fails to tell it's story because the whole grimdark thing is undermined by the fact that the player is having fun. But if you tried to make the gameplay match the story then you end up with a game that's no fun to play because the act of playing it and the mechanics are equally somber and depressing. So the issue is how can we make engaging gameplay without making necessarily entertaining gameplay so it doesn't ruin the tone the story is trying to tell?

Well, tuning up the difficulty in a game and limiting resources can make the player feel more desperate/afraid. That's more of a survival horror thing I guess, but I hear Dark souls does a good job of it (I really need to try that game). There were several points in Deadspace where I was out of ammo, out of medkits and at my last sliver of life and was forced to desperately beat the monsters down with the butt of my gun to survive (I was playing on hard mode, it would be difficult to replicate that feeling on normal or easy). In FireEmblem, as long as you don't just reload every time a character dies, permanent death can make the game seem pretty bleak when the characters you have become attached to are being wasted because of your poor tactical decisions, especially approaching the end where you really start to notice the devastating affects of attrition. I'm not sure this type of feeling is what you're trying to describe though.

 

[him over there]

snap

That's really close to what I mean. The thing is with a story it can be depressing or dark or upsetting but still be an enjoyable engaging experience, like grave of the fireflies because you're empathizing. But with gameplay that isn't as desirable because it happens directly to you. This means that a game with depressing or sad gameplay wouldn't be enjoyable because you'd actually be upset rather than being upset about the events of something else. Ultimately I think it comes down to whether gameplay can be engaging but not enjoyable because having fun could undermine the experience, which sounds sort of silly in hindsight.

 

[Waffle_Man]

Are you essentially saying that simply through the act of playing a game a player writes his own story?

Yeah, pretty much, but that was only about half of what I was saying.

To be honest, however, I am a big advocate of video games as a form of interactive fiction. Written narrative has a lot to do with that. I thought Mass Effect was the greatest and most progressive example yet of how an interactive, player driven story could be told... until they lost all integrity and f***ed up. It is the lackluster and disruptive stories in video games as of late that have led me to wish that developers would lay off on stories in their games until such a time as they're willing to get them right.

But it's not so much that there shouldn't be any explicit narrative so much as it should be there to strengthen the context, the environment and circumstances that determine the emotional responses of a player. The problem isn't how good or bad the writting is, any more than the quality of a song is determined by the quality of a single chord. It's all about how it fits into bigger picture.

-snip-

The comment wasn't so much that players do out of place things as much as it was a dig at Rockstar's recent attempts to be "mature." As much as I love what they're trying to do, there is a lot of things that I dislike about their execution. I've already typed more than a few choice words [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.322817-Critically-acclaimed-games-you-didnt-like#13219505] on the matter in the past, so I'll leave it at that.

Though if you want to know how I view save scumming or screwing around (when I actually do, because at that point I've usually stopped taking the game seriously), it's either as a blooper, or some sort of super power that gives protagonists infinite do-overs.

I'm not saying those things should be removed, I'm just saying they shouldn't be the emphasis of the game. I feel like a lot of games lately just make me run between cut scenes instead of letting me just play.

Nor would I accuse you of wanting that. Rather, I'm just trying to illistrate that it's very hard to distinguish "story" from "context" (or what ever else you want to call all of the things that define where you are, what you are interacting with, ect.)

Id est, when you said "I like a good story in a game, but it should always always always be secondary to the actual game itself," I was trying to say that while cutscenes, narration, and dialogue, aren't necessarily integral to the game, a good story is. Why? Because the story isn't what the developer says about which characters are banging who and what object of great vagueness does what, that's just more context. The story is the unitary sum of what the player experiences when they play. Think of it in terms of the "death of the author" idea with regards to literature.

Although they aren't that recent,Final FantasyXIII and the second half of metal gear solid4 are the best examples I can think of right now; they put an ass load of effort into the story and cinematics for both of those games and didn't really have a lot of quality gameplay between those cinematics. (At least MGS4 had great online play).

Games like Bioshock, Fallout, Ederscrolls, Warcraft

Yeah.

and Grand Theft Auto

Hmm... maybe not quite as much.

however do a pretty good job of implementing a story without interrupting the game too much. I feel like those games prioritize actual gameplay while having story as a nice little thing on the side that you don't necessarily have to pay attention to in order to enjoy the rest of the game.

Which I would highly agree with. One of the first series of games that I really got into in terms of the story was the Marathon series, partly because it made me track down snippents of the story rather than trying to shove it all in my face. It really sold the sense of mystery in the games, as well as giving you a reason for doing all of the stuff in the game. Keep in mind that it was what I brought up in this thread, [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.375768-Games-where-you-enjoyed-the-story-more-than-the-gameplay] so it's definitely not the ideal, but the whole idea of making a world with a ton of depth without trying to dump all of it up front while the audience is forced to watch, read, or listen is the thing that made me so excited about the potential of games as an artistic medium in the first place. It's something that sets video games apart, which is why it's infuriating to see it so under utilized! Grrr...

Then there's games like Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Megaman, Left for dead, Team Fortress, Pokemon and others where the story is basic or non-existent. I've seen plenty of people argue that games like this should improve their stories, and that games without a good story aren't worth playing, but I strongly disagree.

I think you and I are on similar pages but with slightly different terms. I love the fact that left for dead focuses more on the continuity and background than on set pieces, allowing that actual story to be the results of me and my friends' hijinks interacting with the incredibly robust system. Once, all four of us were gray-screened and living only on pain pills, with a Tank barreling down on us, a witch in front of us, and a car alarm going, all at once. I remember us have a "pre-heroic sacrifice" conversation straight out of a movie as one of us used and adrenalin shot, got both the tank and the witch following them, and threw a jar of bile at the tank just as the hoard came into view, allowing the three of us to get to make a mad dash for the the nearby safe house, shutting the door just as an on coming mob reached it. It was far more memorable than end of "The Sacrifice" could have ever been.

Sorry if there are errors or odd syntax in this post, it's gotten so long that it's hard to check everything over. Lastly, if anyone wants a good piece on emergent story and the role of players in a story, I'd reading this. [http://www.pentadact.com/2008-10-24-far-cry-2-impersonation-of-a-buddy/] Or more importantly, read the comments section afterwards (starting at about the seventh comment, you'll know it when you see it) for a very special guest appearance...

 

[geK0]

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It's funny how most arguments on the internet turn out to be a disagreement on what words mean x D

 

[Waffle_Man]

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It's funny how most arguments on the internet turn out to be a disagreement on what words mean x D

Well, I wouldn't take it that far. You and I apparently share at least some common ground.

The internet as a whole? Not so much. :/

 

[geK0]

crackle

It really depends what you find fun. Any game that gives me an adrenaline rush and makes me feel on edge is pretty fun by my standards; any game that forces you into a desperate situation is pretty fun by my standards. Sadness though...... is hard make fun, but perhaps the challenge associated with losing a character you had become dependent on would be pretty fun, I mean, what if in the middle of a tactical RPG similar to Dragon Age, you just lost your tank character! You're sad that your character is gone, and you have to figure out how to use your other guys without him. Or what if in an rpg where you use a small town as a central hub to replenish supplies and heal up, the town is overcome by some sort of natural disaster and you're forced to scavenge for supplies?

Games just need to be more challenging I think x P it's hard to be immersed in a game when you just breeze through it.

 

[geK0]

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It's funny how most arguments on the internet turn out to be a disagreement on what words mean x D

Well, I wouldn't take it that far. You and I apparently share at least some common ground.

The internet as a whole? Not so much. :/

Eh, I've just noticed that a large portion (maybe not most) of the arguments I see on the internet, people end up getting into arguments over semantics when they both are pretty much trying to argue the same thing : \

 

[YouShouldDeleteThisAccount]

In music, there is both rhythm and melody. Neither is the sole purpose of music in general. But one might be the focus of the individual song or piece. In general music has both, and ideally both work together towards an effect.

In film, there is both audio and video. While it isn't a film without video, it's a very limited film without audio.

In video games, there is both narrative and interaction. While it isn't a game without interaction, you have limited the amount of experiences you can create with the work and tools the designer can use to create emotions and feelings of all ranges, if you ignore everything about narrative. But one might be the focus of the individual game. In general games have both, and ideally both work together towards an effect.

A game can have both narrative and play, but the line between them does not exist. You merely have self-contradictory, flawed works.

 

[Breadline]

The thing with No More Heroes is that it is a commentary on how much of a loser Travis (and people like him) are. He's just a ridiculously unpleasant person. But because playing as him is fun, functional and exciting that whole point is thrown totally out the window because you think he's awesome, especially since Travis always wins because he is the protagonist.

...

Or maybe I'm over thinking this and what I'm really getting at is people taking "OMG LAZOR SWORDS GUISE" at face value.

I think one issue here is your perspective only goes one way. It's funny because out of the many many games with horrible synchronicity between story and gameplay (a popular example is GTA IV) you chose No More Heroes, which I completely disagree with.

Don't think of it as "The game was showing how awful Travis Touchdown is but that didn't work because the gameplay was fun". I feel like that itself is missing the point. Instead, try to think of it as "The game was showing you how awful YOU could be if it's so easy for you to relate to a character because the gameplay is fun".

It's not failing at making Travis seem contemptible, it's showing how close you are to becoming the same contemptible person if something as emotionally shallow as fun gameplay can completely overshadow the cons of his personality. Travis is a self-indulgent sociopath and you the player demonstrate that not only do you accept that role in nearly every game (albeit with gilded justification), but you willingly seek it out. Travis Touchdown is "awesome" because he is the personification of every player's base desires and motivations. He's your id, he's you in every game, without the lazy rationalizations most of those games provide to make you feel like less of an animal for wanting and loving it.

Be the best killer and have fun doing it, that's both the plot and gameplay of No More Heroes. That marriage of context and gameplay is something you rarely see in other games.

 

[Waffle_Man]

And until developers can open their eyes and see that bigger picture I'd rather they'd just try and leave as much story out as possible lest they f*** up yet another otherwise enjoyable game.

The only problem with that is that if you only do something once you've learned how, you'll never do it, especially when no one else has figured it out before. Games are new medium, so it's hard to fathom just how much developers still need to figure out about games, which they're only going to do by trying. Sure, people will certainly fuck up on the way, but if even one game gets it right, I think it's worth it.

 

[him over there]

And until developers can open their eyes and see that bigger picture I'd rather they'd just try and leave as much story out as possible lest they f*** up yet another otherwise enjoyable game.

The only problem with that is that if you only do something once you've learned how, you'll never do it, especially when no one else has figured it out before. Games are new medium, so it's hard to fathom just how much developers still need to figure out about games, which they're only going to do by trying. Sure, people will certainly fuck up on the way, but if even one game gets it right, I think it's worth it.

True, but Mass Effect was well on its way until the writers got lazy, sloppy and lost their heads. That's good old fashioned human error. Some games are just bogged down by their story and would be much better off without one. Having one is just good old fashioned human misjudgment.

Remove the factor that is the cause of human error and misjudgment and you remove the problem. Obviously, we can't remove the humans, but we can remove the possibility of them f***ing up another excellent game with another crappy story by removing the story.

It's not so much that they try to get it right and fail because they don't discover the right way of doing it. They fail because they get sloppy and lazy. So until developers are willing to buck up and do their stories as well as the rest of the game, personally, I'd rather they just quit. Make a game that is fun to play and don't even bother to touch the story element if they're unwilling to do it right.

Right but that seems to be circumventing the problem. That train of thought is all about how game writers can't seem to write a good story period so they should keep it out of our games so it doesn't ruin them. But let's say a story on its own was decent. Suppose Mass Effect didn't get sloppy and kept up its narrative all the way to the end. It still has trouble working with the gameplay because the gameplay is shooting tons of robot aliens in the face while the story is a dramatic philosophical sci fi epic. Like I feel you're saying that a good game is fun, it's enjoyable. But if you're enjoying the gameplay, enjoyment being the success state for gameplay, then it conflicts and ruins the tone of any sort of darker or more bittersweet story because the story is somber but the player, the audience is having a blast. So can a game be engaging without being "fun" in order to entertain without undercutting a story?

 

[Waffle_Man]

Make a game that is fun to play and don't even bother to touch the story element if they're unwilling to do it right.

Do you think that the people at Bioware tried to not do it right? No, I'm sure they tried their damned hardest to make something brilliant. You don't spend several years of your life on a project that demand long hours and notoriously stressful working conditions to make something that sucks. The problem is that they probably just had no idea, or at least not the right idea, of what to do with the ending. But think of it this way: Now other developers have a place to reference when trying to decide how not to end their franchises. Because of that, perhaps someone in the future will be stuck with a similar decision, but be able to come ahead because of what happened with Bioware. If that ever happens, it will have more than worth it.

Aside from this, let me ask you something: Would Mass Effect have been nearly as fun or engaging if it had never had the story? Sure, they wouldn't have fucked up and disappointed us all, but think about what that means. It means that they ended up crafting something that people cared about. We might have Have been spared the disappointment, but we would have also been spared the sense of mystery, awe, camaraderie, and anticipation that proceeded it.

People taking risks is what has gotten video games to where they are, where they were, and where they will be. I don't know if what people have planned will be wonderful or horrible, but I do no that if games stay the way they are, or people don't bother trying to doing things because they might mess up, games aren't going to ever be any better than they currently are.

Screwing up isn't a reason to not try something, it's a reason to make sure it's done right. If people don't do it right anyway, simple move on and wait for the one that does it right.

 

[Waffle_Man]

Your very less pessimistic outlook is refreshing

It comes from loving so many of what I like to call "beautiful messes," games that are the heaping skeletons of an incredibly ambitious project. Disappointing at times? Yes, but it makes me hopeful when I think of what would happen if someone with the same idea as the people behind S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or far cry 2 was armed with a lesson learned and suitable budget.

Perhaps you're right. Now they have something to look at and go "okay... here's how not to do it." Even though any gradeschool english student can tell you that's no way to end a story.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, even we do take artistic license with it at times. I doubt that the writers realized just how terrible the idea was on paper. No, it wasn't really a failure until they had finished it, but by then it was probably too late.

Sure, some games would not exist without the story because the story is the game. But perhaps I'd rather them not make the same mistakes again by making another story focused game.

Perhaps if they know what not to do, they'll do it better in the future. Even if they don't, I sure someone else will. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to support someone who repeatedly crashes their car with my keys, but that doesn't mean that I'll start to loath the concept of driving.

And, fwiw, I do not presume to know. I never presume anything and pretend it is fact, but I honestly don't think Bioware gave a s**t about their story or their work.

Well, then nothing I can say will convince you otherwise. but Bioware wasn't a company created by a large corperation wanting to cash in on "this vidjamagam trend that my son talks about." It was company formed by people who wanted to make games, so they're going to have at least a little passions for what they do. I don't work for Bioware, so I don't know if they all really did just sat around drinking beer all day. However, I do know what it's like to work on a long project that I wanted to work on: It's your baby. Granted, it might have down's syndrome, but you love it no less.

Writing stories for games isn't an experiment. There have been great gains towards interactive storytelling thus far. Bioware had it going just right with Mass Effect until they lost it.

Having great strides doesn't mean that you've figured something out, it just means that something you threw at the wall sticks, intentional or not. If making something good was always intentional, I doubt that the same person who wrote Unbreakable and the sixth sence (and hell, even signs) would come up with... well... pretty much everything else M. Night Shyamalan has done. Was Mass Effect really dragged down? Or did it simply build it's house in the sand? In all honesty, as much as I liked the first mass effect, I knew from the way that they were writing that they would have a hell of a time figuring out where to go from the start.

That's what I don't want to see happen anymore. That's what I don't need dragging down my games. Of course, I could just opt not to play story-centric games until they start doing better but I'm still denied games that play great by doing so.

I have to admit that I can relate. I generally don't watch television shows anymore. One might think that it's I haven't had very good regular access to TV anymore, but that isn't the reason why. Various websites make it painless (and legal) to watch countless numbers of shows. Yet the problem is that ever since lost, everyone has been trying to make a super slowly plotted arc heavy affair that meanders around aimlessly either by drawing out the initial conflict for way too long or but resolving the initial conflict way too early. To make it worse, I used to absolutely love the few arch heavy shows that seemed to exist.

However, I don't want producers to stop making arc heavy shows because I know that sooner or later, someone is going to make something so incredible that it will justify the last half decade or so of terrible pacing and uninteresting plot developments. Aside from this, every time I hear my friends talk about some series on TV, I often feel like I want to get in on it. Speaking of which, I heard that Person of Interest is being written by Jonathan Nolan. Perhaps I should check it out.