Three-way Plotting in AvP2 (long)

[Joe Murphy (Broin)]

I *think* this is the best forum for this observation. This post will have some spoilers for the AvP2 game.

A dear friend gave me a copy of 'Aliens vs Predator 2' - http://www.planetavp.com/avp2/info.shtml - for Christmas. While not the be-all and end-all of well-plotted computer games, there's a couple of elements that fascinate me.

The game is divided into three separate mini-games, which you play as the Marine, Alien, and Predator. Unlike AvP1, the plots in each story interrelate and bounce off each other at various junctures.

For example, when playing the Predator, the opening cut scene shows a Pred injuring a human. The human goes on to become a general, and develops a hatred of the Predators that rules almost everything he does. As one plays through the Predator game, you come to realise that your primary foe is this devious, bitter human and his hatred for your kind.

However, when you play as the Marine, you might come across references to that guy too. You read notes and computer logs that mention him and hint at the mysteries in his past. You may meet him. His ties to the Preds are never confirmed, though.

As a player, my sense of the overarching story comes from playing *three* different characters. I love that. There's something wonderful about it.

The plots are engaging enough when I play the games individually, but I've been bouncing between the three characters for the last few days. I'll play the Marine till I get to a difficult bit, then switch back to the Alien for some head-munching jollies, then to the Pred when I want a stealthier game of cunning and wits.

Most chapters open with cut-scenes which may or may not relate to specific characters one plays. For example, playing the marine, Harrison, one cut scene shows people in another room about to betray you. You never hear their conversation first-hand.

Additionally, the three separate stories take place at different points in time. The Marine game starts off at 'Incident +6 weeks'. The Alien game starts off just before 'The Incident', and you eventually realise you *are* the incident. In the Marine game, a woman refers to a boyfriend she lost 6 weeks previously - you see his death when you play as an Alien.

And obviously, playing as a Marine, one often encounters Aliens. And a Predator, once or twice. Playing as all three races gives one a huge appreciation for the capabilities of your enemies.

Because it focuses so much on plot, the game has a very tight story-structure. There's very little lee-way in how one can solve problems, for example.

Anyway, the three-way structure fascinates me, because I can see ways I *could* use it as the basis for a game. Most stories I've run in the past have had fairly simple clues-investigation-conclusion structures. I have run a *few* parallel stories, though in general, my players found them intrusive. But what if I ran a game like Continuum, where the finale might be perceived before the opening clues are found? (cf: Memento).

And I wonder could I run a game where the characters play two sets of protagonists, and only the players have a sense of the entire story?

Have people run stories like this, or set up a game such that the players would routinely play two sets of opposed characters?

Joe, doing his bit for 10,000 posts by the 1st.

[Mike Holmes]

Very interesting idea.

Are both sets of protagonists set against each other? Or can they be "on the same side" as it were? And does the conclusion involve some sort of ending that keeps both sets protagonized (possibly joining against a larger foe, or something along those lines), or do you have to choose one to win in the end?

Mike

[Joe Murphy (Broin)]

On 2001-12-28 10:22, Mike Holmes wrote:
Very interesting idea.

Are both sets of protagonists set against each other? Or can they be "on the same side" as it were? And does the conclusion involve some sort of ending that keeps both sets protagonized (possibly joining against a larger foe, or something along those lines), or do you have to choose one to win in the end?

Mike

Well... in AvP2, the ubiquitous foe is the 'Corporates'. They're the guys who are experimenting on Aliens and Preds (instant dislike of them for both those factions) and getting in the way of a Marine operation. The Corporates aren't 'playable characters', effectively, and are that 'larger foe' you mention.

I was mostly thinking that the protagonists would be opposed, yup. For example... say the factions are the Orcs and the Elves. In one session, the Orcs attack a forest village and wipe out the inhabitants, leaving traps for those who follow them. In the next session, the characters would play Elves doing their best to avoid the traps.

In a typical parallel story, the GM might spring such a scenario upon their players. Say the game involves ghosts. The parallel story might involve some fratboys staying overnight in a haunted house, being PCs to the PCs who have now become NPCized. Thus, the players would realise how terrifying and inhuman their characters are. The fratboys would have to cope with the high-level powers their PCs have. But usually, the parallel story is 'just for fun'. The goal of the session is not to have the fratboys survive, because, after all, it's just a one-off event. Usually.

I've run a parallel story before in Mage where the characters played space marines investigating a monster. They were all slaughtered. Thus, obviously, when the PCs encountered signs of the monster, they were greatly scared. It worked quite well. But there was no real connection between the marines and the Mages in that example (besides both being victims).

In a way, I suppose, Rune is a good example of what I'm curious about. There, the players design fiendish traps for each other, so in a sense, are opposed factions.

Joe.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Joe,

I was mostly thinking that the protagonists would be opposed, yup. For example... say the factions are the Orcs and the Elves. In one session, the Orcs attack a forest village and wipe out the inhabitants, leaving traps for those who follow them. In the next session, the characters would play Elves doing their best to avoid the traps.

With really knowing how well it would work, let me try and re-conceive this as a Narrativist scenario. Let's say the orcs have been plagued by the elves, who hunt them and keep the orc population as low as they can. It minimizes cholera outbreaks among the human populations along the river, besides being a rather traditional pastime among the elves, associated somewhat with snorting fairy dust and working yourself up into a lather.

So, realizing that the cycle of resistance and retribution hasn't really produced positive results, the orc leader has formulated a plan. "If we can't kill them out of existence...we breed them out of existance!"

So in the first session, the players are a small group of orcs on a raid kidnap the elf princess and bring her back to the orc leader for a night she'll remember for...well...forever. What a great plan! That's why he's the leader.

And in the next session, the players are the elves attempting to get her back.

I think we all recognize that the AvP2 story is horribly railroaded. Your elf/orc solution avoids replicating that railroading by concentrating on Gamism, which isn't a bad thing, presenting obstacles to the players from two sides of the same conflict, but I know from our private messages that you're interested in Narrativist play as well. What I'm hoping my version shows is that it's possible to do it Narrativist, presenting the players with real conflict, rather than just a structure that presents obstacles to be overcome. Beyond the setup I described above, this is what I think it would take to make it work:

1) Make Sorcerer-style Kickers part of character creation, so that the characters are motivated to take action from out of immediate circumstances. Perhaps one of the orc characters is motivated to prove himself as a warrior because the snaggly-toothed femorc he's pining for has just shacked up with the shaman. The elf characters would have Kickers too.

2) Read up on posts on the Forge and on Gaming Outpost about "dickweed" characters, and make sure your players understand how they work. It's important, because they're going to be playing their own antagonists somewhat. Perhaps you'll use flashbacks to reveal prior interactions between the elves and the orcs, setting up rivalries or comeuppances.

Recognize that conflict that drives character protagonism in a Narrativist game is more than just obstacles, or offers that the character either accepts or rejects. It's about being pulled in two directions at the same time. It's about the choices the character makes. The situation reaches out and engages the players.

You'll note that I didn't describe an ending situation for the scenario. That's because it's not railroaded. I suspect the last session would cut back and forth between scenes with the orc and elf characters. Did the elves get their princess back? How do they handle the fact that she's carring an orc child? What's the fallout among the orcs from the success or failure of the venture? A leadership challenge?

Joe, if you succeed in running a game where player characters are protagonists in their own stories, and antagonists to the stories of other characters, you'll absolutely be right on the cutting edge of Narrativist play, right there with the discontinuous story stuff that Ron describes in Sorcerer & Sword.

Paul

[Bankuei]

During my highschool summer days, I was running Feng Shui  2 or 3 times a week, with whoever could make it.  Feng Shui avoids its time travel paradox by making Junctures, so that you could only travel to certain time periods, and each day that passed in "our time" also passed for each juncture, so that you couldn't go back 1 minute and see yourself.  Me being the psycho junkie I am, said  "screw that mess" and let time travel work however it needed to.

With shifting game groups each session, and time travel, I must have overlapped and ran plots in such a convoluted manner as to scare the players.  Instead of railroading players to meet at set points or events, think of carryovers from an event or place, usually in the forms of people, information or objects.

These 3 things spread like a ripple in a pond from any given event. Likewise, they also can lead characters towards an event.  People, information, or objects can also give insight or further clues into some event the players did witness, or failed to understand.  It's great fun to drop a  revelation and break some understanding the players thought they had about a subject.  "You mean we've been helping him all along!?!"

Keeping track or making up one of these connectors is the best way to link different groups together, whether with similar, completing, complimentary, or opposing goals.

Chris

[Epoch]

Just as a supplementary note, there's recently been a D20 module published in which first you play some ogres trying to steal back a relic of power that humans stole from you, and then you play humans trying to keep the nasty ogres from invading.

The review of it that I read on RPG.net was favorable, and it sounds like that adventure might be right up your alley if you're a D&D fan.