First, I think that the “storyworld” seems so important in hindsight because the gamemaster/writer/storyteller has invested so much time and effort into creating a detailed world that “sucks you in.” As Rob Donoghue wrote, “World building is easy.” More importantly, many people find it to be incredibly fun (perhaps because it’s easy?) to build detailed settings/storyworld for their story, which for many gm’s/storytellers takes a backseat and is not nearly as engaging as the storyworld because we get a return corresponding to our investment. So, years later, our players remember the world vivdly, but the story gets lost. In video games, designers often focus on building a huge open world or on environments that are awe inspiring to the players, so that things like entering Rapture for the first time are difficult to forget.

I’ve been a fan of the Silent Hill series for years, because I find the stories those games tell to be very engaging. At the same time, I’m always frustrated by “scenery blocks” and the extremely linear nature of the games. I want to explore those rubble-choked side corridors and see what’s in that abandoned building over there. Most open world games seem to follow the model above. Lots of investment in storyworld, not so much in actual story. I did find the latest installments in the Grand Theft Auto Series (IV and Episodes from Liberty City) to have pretty good stories for an open world game. Bioshock is a rare game where the story, and learning what was happening/had happened around me (“Who is this Atlas guy anyway?”) distracted me from the somewhat linear nature of the environments (well detailed backscenery can help with that as well, as long as the flow is such that we aren’t reminded that we “can’t get there from here.”

I also think that your points about the fail state are spot on. Let’s face it, as much as I love video games, I just seem to suck at them. As much as I love the Silent Hill games, a playthrough is going to take me much longer than the average gamer. Knowing this, I have always longed for games that engage the brain more than the reflexes, and where failure doesn’t lead to the frustrating repetition of trying over and over to get through a particular level or past a particular boss, re-spawning endlessly from the same point, having to replay a huge chunk of the game every time, or worse yet, having the game end abruptly because of my lack of hand-eye coordination. I think Heavy Rain is a step in the right direction because “failure” to some extent changes the story instead of ending it or causing it to loop.

The closer video games can get to allowing the player to influencing the story, ie. becoming more like pnp games, the happier I will be. I don’t know if they will be more effective or more profitable/successful, but I think they will certainly be more engaging. I’m looking forward to Rockstar’s game L.A. Noire, because I think there is an opportunity for an open world game to have an engaging story in addition to a large, detailed setting. I also have high hopes for Funcom’s The Secret World MMORPG.

That last brings a question to mind. Where do you think MMORPG’s fit into this conundrum? ARE they a place where pnp meets video game? I’m not so sure that’s true, since they come with their own inherent considerations.

I think everything boils down to the definition of a story. I’m going to throw one out, and we’ll see how it goes. A story is a catalyst for change. That’s my definition.

Under that definition, I can talk about games. The problem with both computer games and tabletop games is that the GM can only control the story arch for the world. The GM cannot make a player play a character differently, so the emotional changes a character would experience in a novel cannot be easily replicated at the table. Change becomes an exercise in math, where the player raises some stats and adds some skills. This is why, I think, you think that video games and tabletop games do not do a good job of telling a story. The character story archs are random.

This made me remember: we take the “game over” screen for granted in this media, and therefore cannot help but wonder how this abruptly ends the story being told… But that screen isn’t really required for a game to be a game, and I’d say that realizing this goes a long way when one is set to improve the medium as a storytelling device.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, for example, doesn’t have a game over screen or even condition; you either turn the game off or keep going. The story flows between setting exploration scenes and Nightmare scenes, where the protagonist is transported to another dimension and needs to run from monsters. If he is caught, the monsters try to bring him down, and if you don’t shake them off and keep running to escape the area, the character will simply fall to the ground, beaten… And then the game promptly throws you back to the beginning of that Nightmare scene.

This seems a minor point but I don’t really think it is. This smooth transition may appear to be a subtle form of reverting the game to the last checkpoint, something that’s integral to many games… But actually there’s a story-driven reason for the character not to be outright killed (sorry, won’t spoil things here). The designers actually *could* have shown us the main character being killed without suspending disbelief – the story-driven reason mentioned would see to that all the same – but to me this lack of a game over screen clearly is an intended feature, one which says outright to the player: “no, the story still goes on, it didn’t end and it won’t just because you got caught. Keep going and you’ll see why”.

In short, there’s no game over because the story isn’t over – and the story was designed to only be over when you, the player, reaches its end. You can set it aside by turning the game off, but that’s all.

I will respond more aptly when I have time and brainspace — just sent off a script, and I’m headmelty.

BLURG!

Keep talking, though. This is all good stuff.

– c.