Binary Narrativism (relates to CRPG's)

[contracycle]

Does the endgame change depending on the selected choices? You say that it makes some statements - are those in any way affected by your choices? Or does the statement come out the same no matter what you chose?

Yes; at the very end, you will have necessarily chosen one of 3 possible outcomes depending on whose story you believed.  One of these I know can be ruled out by certain prior decisions, and is somewhat forshadowed as a bad idea anyway.

I'm not actually sure I would go so far as to claim that this game is Narratavist in real terms.  I get the TROS comparison and there are definite similarities, but the extent to which Deus Ex necessarily pulls you back to a single storyline which only really branches in the final scene undermines this, IMO.

[clehrich]

You know, a lot of this sort of thing might be possible in old-fashioned IF (Interactive Fiction, like "Adventure" and "Zork") formats.

First, some references:

Nick Monfort, "Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction"
Emily Short, "On Multilinear IF"
Jim Fisher, "Advanced NPCs: Introduction" (and the subsequent articles)[/list:u]Backing up to these sites' homes will get you lots and lots more -- it goes on forever. Note that the Inform people are more interesting than the TADS or other system people.

One of Short's points is that there is no intrinsic reason you cannot have an IF game that really has no goals or scores as such, or that assigns them dependent on what sort of story you seem to be walking into.

So for example, you could treat the thing as a pure puzzle and try to "beat" it, in which case the game should be written such that it notices a kind of statistical buildup of puzzle-solving and slowly increments the rewards provided by such activity, when successful.

If on the other hand you decided that you were more interested in having elaborate conversations with NPCs and grappling with some Premise (front-loaded, as in Deus Ex), the system again notices this behavior and increments the rewards offered for such interactions. Note that in this case, "success" would be simply a matter of having the conversations and choosing, when offered let's say a number of different things to look at or places to go, the option most compatible with the Premise concern. This would be very difficult to program, but it's possible (especially now that the Glulx engine has lifted pretty much all the memory restrictions).

Note also that, as Fisher discusses, NPC conversations do not have to be "choose your own adventure" types (called CYOA in that community), because the player interacts with the game through text and a complex parser rather than menu lists.  So you can develop very intricate trees that are genuinely multidimensional rather than simply giving that illusion.

What I doubt very much is possible is a Nar IF game that doesn't have a frontloaded Premise, because there would be no way for the computer to guess why you were doing what you were doing.

It's of course also possible simply to drop all the scoring stuff and have a series of choices (invisible to the player) available for the conversations and room descriptions and such. The more the player keeps harping on the character's personal problems, let's say, the more the responses match those same concerns.

For example, let's say that the Premise is about what you are willing to give up to save your baby.

Janet says, "I'm Mr. Johnson's secretary. Can I help you?"
>TELL JANET ABOUT BABY[/list:u]This suggests, if done early in the conversation, that the player is focused on this issue, whereas
>ASK JANET ABOUT JOHNSON[/list:u]suggest this somewhat less.

If the player keeps focused on the Premise, the descriptions will shift:
David asks, "So... when are you due? Sorry, I don't mean to pry."
>TELL DAVID MAY
"May, huh? That's pretty soon. Gonna be quite a change in your life, you know. Believe me, I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, being a father and all, but it's changed everything."[/list:u]And so on.

Difficult to program, but not in any sense impossible.

[Mike Holmes]

This was precisely what I was imagining when we were speaking of "choose your own adventure" books online. They are functionally similar, yes.

I wonder if anyone from www.skotos.com would have any commentary on this and how they present their games? Though multiplayer, many of their rooms have programmed responses, last time I checked.

Anyone know anybody over there?

Mike

[clehrich]

This was precisely what I was imagining when we were speaking of "choose your own adventure" books online. They are functionally similar, yes.

Well, yes and no.  You can actually partly rewrite the game-world through IF parsers, where obviously the CYOA book is what it is.  

For example, you could have a system under which you (the player) can alter NPCs and their interests as you go along.  Potentially, at least, you could even reprogram things a bit.  You'd have a very reflexive piece of weirdness that way, which isn't really very possible with CYOA books (or the awful menu-driven IF games).

This isn't something a lot of games actually do, but it's possible.

I'd have to think about the intricacies of this, but it's possible by such means to produce a range of potential conclusions to the game that is so large as actually to be difficult to calculate.  Essentially you'd have so many interwoven bits and pieces, and so many different factors for how they come together at the end, that you'd end up with a huge text message at some not-very-predictable point telling you more or less where you've gotten to.  Emily Short's game Metamorphoses is large enough that she's not sure how many possible endings and interactions there actually are!

Anyway....

[epweissengruber]

Game Theory has described a number of scenarios where the outcome isn't completely random & which force the players to make choices about what is important to them.

A quick glance at the theory of non-zero sum games would help you set up situations.  

Moreover, Nigel Howard's Drama Theory combines set theory with game theory to describe six typical (non-zero sum) games where individuals have to reframe their own values, rethink their perception of a situation, negotiate compromise, or even rethink the game itself.

I am making it sound more touchy-feely than it actually is.  The math (what I can understand of it) makes sense, and the logical description of the "6 Dilemas" is persuasive.

Check the Dramatec website (http://www.dramatec.com/articles/beginner.html)

There was a good article on text gaming and Drama Theory, but they have pulled it from their new website.  I can email you a copy if you are interested.

Somewhere else, Mike Holmes said this:

If, on the other hand, you want to go with a real narrativism based [computer] design, then we're talking about getting into an area of development that's never been tried before. Never. I've postulated such games before, but have never gotten beyond the idea stage.

I've done a little thinking on the topic of Nar facilitating CRPG's lately. I think the form they would have to take is what I'm going to call "Binary" Nar. Basically, the player would be confronted by a string of binary choices. Either you pick A, or you pick B. The designer could then map out a tree of possibilities based on these choices.

Do y'all think this type of binary decision making would satisfy the Narrativist player? At first glance, it sounds like it would work. I think that many bang-type decision points in tradtional RPG are often more "binary" than they first appear. What does everyone think?

[Mike Holmes]

OK, let me rephrase what I said: it seems to me that simple adventure games fall under the IF umbrella, and it's those that I see as like CYOA books. Adventure and Zork etc. The originals.

Yeah, I'm old.

Sure you can hack these, but it's not part of the inteded game play. That's not to say that I'm against more complex versions of this sort of thing, including the sort of thing that you're talking about, Chris. IF in that case might be very good for this.

But it does leave a question. Which is, now I'm sorta understanding the problem of playing with oneself here. That is, if the game is too maleable, and the player is the one creating the dilemmas for themselves, it's not good narrativism, for the same reason the "Chalk Outlines" is problematic. That is, it's just not as fun when you're creating the dilemmas for yourself to solve. After all, don't you really know where you're going to go with it? Or at least have a sense that you may have known?

How can one create a Bang for oneself? I mean, technically, sure. But will it be effective? There's a neccessary element of surprise that I think is key. That, "Oh, I didn't think that I'd have to make that decision for my character."

Now, if the system can be semi-fixed, and semi-open-ended, then maybe - and I stress maybe - this can be made to work out well. But I have no vision of what this would look like.

Mike

[timfire]

This is the set-up I've been thinking about. The character would have a number of invisible stats. Each stat represents a certain Premise response. For example, you could have 2 stats, Justice and Forgiveness. At pre-set decision points, depending upon the choice made the player, one of those stats would go up. Then again at pre-set moments, the computer would analyze the stats, and depending upon the values, would run one of a few pre-programmed bangs.

You could also have a hiearchy of decision points. At the lowest level, you could have little decisions that don't really change the course of the immediate game. But depending on these minor decisions, the computer would run differernt medium-level bangs. And then these medium level bangs would control your options for the Big Decision points (which would decide major plot branches).

How does that sound?

[Mike Holmes]

Sounds good to me.

Mike

[Callan S.]

Why are major plot branches important?

Do you need the game to branch, in order for it to be nar? Don't get me wrong, the branching would make it sweeter. But is it required? We seem to be running along the idea of 'and then we'd have to have branching plot lines'.

It's cool an all, but much like combat sections in an RPG, shouldn't we consider it optional? Unless I haven't noticed something, and nar really needs this?

Otherwise its not something we need to talk about in regards to faciltating nar gaming. In regards to sprucing up nar gaming, yeah, but not facilitating it.

[M. J. Young]

That is, it's just not as fun when you're creating the dilemmas for yourself to solve. After all, don't you really know where you're going to go with it? Or at least have a sense that you may have known?

How can one create a Bang for oneself? I mean, technically, sure. But will it be effective? There's a neccessary element of surprise that I think is key. That, "Oh, I didn't think that I'd have to make that decision for my character."

First, I have done this to myself when writing--I've taken a turn with the story that felt right but I didn't know where it was going, and then had to respond to it in character. So it can be done. On the other hand, there isn't necessarily an inherent incentive to do it, so that could still be a problem that would have to be addressed mechanically.

Multiverser's botch lists come to mind on this point. When a character botches on a skill check, the usual approach is to make a list of things that could have gone horribly wrong and then dice against it to see which one did. The rules provide ideas for such things, but it's really up to the referee to devise ideas. When I do this, I come up with usually six to ten potential complications, and then roll--but I don't usually know how most of them would work, they're just idea seeds of things that could go wrong. It's only after one has been chosen that I figure out how that plays out.

You could do something similar in a solo game. Create a means of marking that a complication has to be added to play. (This could be based on elapsed real time, or a number of interactions with specified kinds of elements such as X number of characters or Y locations, or when whatever score system reaches specific numbers, for example.) Require the player to make a list of a specific number, minimum, or range of possible complications, and then randomly select between these. Once one has been selected, the player must figure out how to integrate this complication into play, and respond to it.

Having a relatively high number of complications--say six to ten--will force the player to include potential complications he has not considered in any detail, and so provide something akin to surprise, in that he does not know how to respond to each of them before he rolls.

--M. J. Young

[Selene Tan]

I know of two games that are pretty Nar-ish, although neither of them are very binary.

There's an old computer game, Turst and Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot, which does a pretty good job of addressing premise. (Link is to a PC version; an old Mac version is available at the author's website.)

In the game, you are an alien competing with several other aliens for leadership of a small colony. To win, you need to collect psychic auras by fighting other candidates and taking theirs. Since you can predict an opponent's behavior in combat if you know how many auras they have, the game is mostly about information gathering.
To find information about the other candidates, you have to talk with them, befriend them, make deals and promises, and choose when to betray their trust. Deals always involve trading information about other people's auras. Betrayal occurs when you make a promise (not to attack someone that day, or not to reveal information about them) and break it. In order to get the information you need, you will have to betray someone at some point. You just need to choose who you're willing to betray. And you need to make sure that you place your trust in the right people. There are also little "interstitial stories" that pop up where some text is displayed, and then you're given several choices. Occasionally the game's designer pops up to give hints or comment on your progress.
I've started the game, but never finished it. I tried to play it nice (no betrayals) and had an interstitial story pop up where the designer actually told me I was being too nice. ;)

Facade is a more recent game that uses some innovative AI to create a short, interesting story game. You're the friend of a married couple who's been invited over to dinner. However, their marriage is currently dissolving, and what you do during the night will affect how it turns out.
The game structure is arranged as a series of "beats", which are small story segments that involve some pre-recorded dialogue and a choice of some sort. Every beat changes the state of the game in some way -- it could raise the tension level (which is tracked throughout the game) or increase your affinity towards one of the two spouses. The AI is responsible for selecting what beat to play based on the current game state. As the game progresses, it increasingly forces you to take sides. The spouses will keep asking you loaded questions, and in later stages, will interpret refusal to answer as taking one side or the other. The AI keeps throwing out beats until it determines that the game state warrants a conclusion of some sort, and then it plays one of the endings.
The game can be played six or seven times, each turning out differently, before there's a noticeable repeat in the beats used. Each play-through takes about 10 minutes.