An interesting example for interactive storytelling is the two Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

In the first one, the end story for the good and the evil side had pretty drastically different flavors. Even with the good or evil side there were different possibilities (I think, I never played them all).

For Knights of the Old Republic II, I only played though the good side so far but it seems like the ending for either will wind up pretty similar, except for the minor tweaks of the game thoughout depending on your actions.

I think I like the first one better...

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I think I understand now what you're talking about, tell me if I'm right. When refering to the individuality of a story, you're talking about what one might call a particular story. You're talking about ensuring that each story a player experiences is enjoyable, and that we don't sacrifice the quality of a single play through in order to create lots of different ones. I (and Trapper Zoid too I think) thought you were talking about a particular story with the ability to make some choices, but you were actually talking about a single experience of a larger set. I agree this is an issue we shouldn't overlook.

Hooray! You get what I'm saying. I need to figure out some better vocabulary for describing this sort of thing.

So, my next question... what kind of choices by the player reveal the information you need to create a satisfying story, without breaking the suspension of disbelief?

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An interesting example for interactive storytelling is the two Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. In the first one, the end story for the good and the evil side had pretty drastically different flavors. Even with the good or evil side there were different possibilities (I think, I never played them all). For Knights of the Old Republic II, I only played though the good side so far but it seems like the ending for either will wind up pretty similar, except for the minor tweaks of the game thoughout depending on your actions. I think I like the first one better...

It's a real shame about KOTOR2. Rushed during production, the falling action suffers in the extreme for it. You can definately tell after playing it that it's a half-finished game.

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Sunandshadow Wrote: A plot outline can easily be built out of the following building blocks: Character A is in state J. Character A is impacted by action X Character A reacts, changing to state K. Character A takes action Y. Character B is in state P. Character B is impacted by action Y. Character B reacts, changing to state Q. Character B takes action Z. Character A is in state K. Character A is impacted by action Z. Etc.

I didn't really read this through before, since I joined the thread late I only skimmed through the first page or so, but this is almost exactly what I've been considering. I cam up with some ideas about this a while ago and summed them up in my notes, but I've been busy with other projects and haven't had time to work on this more yet. In my model state is implicit and each "event" is composed of three parts: Evaluate, Response, Action. Using as much of your terminology as possible to show the similarities:

(some state somewhere changes somewhere from A to B)
Evaluate - Character A is impacted by the state change
Response - Character A reacts changing to state J
Action - Character A takes action Q based on his change of state

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Sunandshadow Wrote: Note: - A character can be impacted by his/her own action or an outside action not performed by any of the characters such as a natural disaster. - Taking an action might mean chosing to do nothing as well as actually doing somthing. - A single action might affect more than one character.

My model as it applies to your notes:
- Same. Any character/world can respond to an event by any character/world
- Given some properties in the world state such as time that change on their own, this follows naturally
- See the first point

After writing it all out like this, our ideas are even more similar than I realized at first. Perhaps this may be a starting place for something useful.

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Original post by Beige:So, my next question... what kind of choices by the player reveal the information you need to create a satisfying story, without breaking the suspension of disbelief?

I think the player should be able to make the same choices that they would normally be made for them in a linear story. Things like where to go and what to do next, who their friends and enemies are. This does become more specialized depending on what type of game/story you want. Using the fighting game example earlier, I might be able to choose who I challenge, what my fighting style is, do I taunt my opponents, and who my aliies are. I may even be able to chose not to fight, but doing that should have consequences within the game. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have any love interests, r be able to assinate fighters outside of the ring, unless you specifically wanted those angles in the game.

Another area to consider in backstory. Perhaps you could tell the backstory as flashbacks, dependent on the players current actions?

tj963

Things players like to be able to decide:

Goals - presented with a whole new fictional world, players like to acquire interesting objects, court/befriend interesting NPCs, investigate interesting mysteries.

Strategy - players like to think of clever plans for achieving their goals.

Aesthetics - players like to choose how their avatars and their avatars' posessions (skin, hair, eyes, gender, body type, clothing, weapons, armor, house, pets, livestock, etc.) look.

Personality/Attitude - affecting all of the above categories, players want their avatar not just to do the right things, but to do them in the right way, for the right reasons. This includes choosing which political/moral agendas the player wants to support, designing appearance to have psychological impact on NPCs, and especially using dialogue choices to have a psychological impact on NPCs. Players also like to have their personality be recognized and acknowledged by the game, for example by being awarded a corresponding title/nickname/heroic epithet.

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An interesting example for interactive storytelling is the two Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. In the first one, the end story for the good and the evil side had pretty drastically different flavors. Even with the good or evil side there were different possibilities (I think, I never played them all).

KoTOR, while a pretty good RPG, in my opinion wasn't that interactive. It was good with respect to the existing stories in games, but the only main choices I found were whether you sided with good or evil, and the conclusion of the love story (which often was a bit superfluous from the plot. I also thought the "evil" side was not very well implemented, as it didn't make much sense from both a logical and a story perspective (i.e. why would the good guys side with you if you were obviously a psychopath [smile]).

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It's a real shame about KOTOR2. Rushed during production, the falling action suffers in the extreme for it. You can definately tell after playing it that it's a half-finished game.

KoTOR 2 was a pity; a two year RPG project rushed to be completed in one. From what I've seen on the Internet from people who have hacked around in the data files, the planned finished version of KoTOR 2 would have had a lot more "interactive storytelling" than the first one; there were a myriad of different endings depending on how you treated each NPCs, and your actions would determine who would live or die. It was likely that the final villain also depended on your actions. But the rushed game that was released stripped all the interactivity away (and pretty much broke the ending too).

I've been meaning to try out Fable, since the advertising hype suggested that were trying for a very close analogue to the interactive storytelling worlds I've been aiming for. However I've also heard that they fall very far from the mark, so I'm waiting until it's cheap before I get it.

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Original post by tj963 I think the player should be able to make the same choices that they would normally be made for them in a linear story. Things like where to go and what to do next, who their friends and enemies are. This does become more specialized depending on what type of game/story you want. Using the fighting game example earlier, I might be able to choose who I challenge, what my fighting style is, do I taunt my opponents, and who my aliies are. I may even be able to chose not to fight, but doing that should have consequences within the game. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have any love interests, r be able to assinate fighters outside of the ring, unless you specifically wanted those angles in the game.

This is exactly what I'm trying to do; offer the player the option to make the choices that are usually fixed for them by the writer, but limited to those that are relevant to the domain. The tricky part is choosing an appropriate domain...

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Another area to consider in backstory. Perhaps you could tell the backstory as flashbacks, dependent on the players current actions?

That's a good idea; I hadn't thought of that. It would be neat to give the PC a nebulous background which can be filled in with detail depending on what the player chooses to do.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid Quote: Original post by tj963 Another area to consider in backstory. Perhaps you could tell the backstory as flashbacks, dependent on the players current actions? That's a good idea; I hadn't thought of that. It would be neat to give the PC a nebulous background which can be filled in with detail depending on what the player chooses to do.

Yeah that is a neat idea. [smile]

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Original post by sunandshadow Things players like to be able to decide: Goals - presented with a whole new fictional world, players like to acquire interesting objects, court/befriend interesting NPCs, investigate interesting mysteries. Strategy - players like to think of clever plans for achieving their goals. Aesthetics - players like to choose how their avatars and their avatars' posessions (skin, hair, eyes, gender, body type, clothing, weapons, armor, house, pets, livestock, etc.) look. Personality/Attitude - affecting all of the above categories, players want their avatar not just to do the right things, but to do them in the right way, for the right reasons. This includes choosing which political/moral agendas the player wants to support, designing appearance to have psychological impact on NPCs, and especially using dialogue choices to have a psychological impact on NPCs. Players also like to have their personality be recognized and acknowledged by the game, for example by being awarded a corresponding title/nickname/heroic epithet.

I think this really sums up the choices quite well.

One thing I've been thinking about, largely as an extension of Beige's comments is trying a series of events together into a story. Creating a consistent set of events based on a player's choices is challenging, but not unfathomable. I'm wondering whether you think that continuity would be enough to create a story, even a fairly simplistic one? Because while there's something to be said for and open ended world with interactivity, I think that may not be quite the same as a story.

tj963

Thank you. [smile] Well, my opinion, as I have said before but maybe not in this thread, is that to be psychologically satisfying a story must have plot structure, including closure. If you want to make an unending story that's fine, but at least make it episodic so that each chunk of the story has some closure. Have you read the current thread in the writing forum where I talk about what plot is and how to create it? I'm thinking of writing a few paragraphs on branching plots next if anyone's interested.

So, if players like to be able to decide those things, how does that translate into the dynamic creation of an experience the player enjoys?