All 5 of those examples have stories that contain conflict.

My position is that a story is a story whether it's in a game or not, and it's still impossible to create a 'significantly long' story which has no conflict, although it would be possible to create a brief anecdote or other narrative non-story which has no conflict.

Re:

I'm not done commenting on your previous post. So please don't think that my last post is a reply to you previous post.

About the 5 games, I think that only Game 1, 2, 3 have conflicts by Def3. You can't tell whether Game 4, 5 has a conflict.
You could design it so that there is none.

Re:

I'm not done commenting on your previous post. So please don't think that my last post is a reply to you previous post.

About the 5 games, I think that only Game 1, 2, 3 have conflicts by Def3. You can't tell whether Game 4, 5 has a conflict.
You could design it so that there is none.

Ah, ok. I'll reread when you're done then.

4, although it could be done without conflict, would be deadly boring if the cards that made up sir henry's story had no conflict, and if it were that boring it would be a failure as a game. 5, eh, maybe. There's conflict in the gameplay. It's questionable how much narrative content you could put in without either having conflict or being boring.

Re: sunandshadow

Objective Definition of Conflict:

Def3: A conflict of a story is a situation in the story where intentions lead to states that cannot coexist.
Def5: A conflict of a story is a situation in the story where an intention lead to states that cannot coexist.

Since Def5 includes more situations than Def3, the comparison is based on whether Def3 includes too few situations and whether Def5 includes too many. Here is one situation:

You want to buy ice cream. You walk to the store that is selling both ice cream and sandwich. You buy the ice cream.

The intention: Your wanting to buy ice cream
State 1: You buy the ice cream (Your desired state)
State 2: You buy the sandwich (A state that you don't care)
Because of your intention, State 2 cannot exist, therefore according to Def5 there is a conflict.

The cause of this strange result is that Def5 lacks a relation between State 2 and the entity with the intention. Somehow Def5 needs to include the meaning that State2 is the 'default state' so that if the entity doesn't do anything, he will get State2 instead of State1. You could try updating Def5 and see what happens.

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Objective Definition of Story

Def5:

A proper story must include:
At least one character, who has at least one goal and takes at least one action, which has at least one consequence. The action and its consequence are Causality, the first essential properties of story. The consequence of the action must convey a message (moral, point) to the audience about the goal and action taken; this is Teleology, the second essential property of story. The story fails if it does not create compelling interest to see what happens next in the audience; this is Suspense, the third essential property of story. The story also fails if it does not signal its ending and satisfy the reader by ending that suspense; this is Resolution, the fourth essential property of story.

So there's my attempt at an <b>objective definition</b>: A story must contain a minimum of 5 elements (character, goal, action, consequence, meaning) which are related by four principles (causality, teleology, suspense, and resolution). Although this does not directly list conflict, the principle of suspense implies the existence of conflict within any story which succeeds at being suspenseful. Perhaps World, Obstacle, or both are also implied as elements, because something is required for the Action to act on or in and result in a non-deterministic consequence.
I claim that your definition is not objective because you defined suspense in terms of the interest of the audience. According to this definition, to tell whether a composition is a story, you must first know the audience. For the same composition, it is could be a story to one audience (when the audience considers it interesting), and not a story to another audience (when the audience considers it uninteresting). For an objective definition that cannot happen. Whether a composition is a story should be solely determined by what the story has, independent to who is viewing it. The second weak point of that definition is meaning. How do you objectively determine whether a composition contains meaning? In particular, how do you tell when a composition has no meaning? How do you tell if the composition has meaning, but you have failed to understand it?

In my opinion neither of those are stories because they do no show any result of a character taking action. They also do not have climaxes. With the zebra story, after describing who the zebra invites and why, we need to know what happened. Did the Lion eat the other guests? Then it could be a story with a climax and a moral.
For the Zebra example, could you pinpoint which element is missing? Here is one way to map the elements:

o Character: Zebra
o Goal: Zebra's goal is to have a party
o Action: Zebra invites guests and have a party
o Consequence: Zebra invited guests, each with a reason
o Meaning: Inviting someone because they are your friend is just as valid a reason as inviting someone that is powerful or famous in some way.

o Casaulity: The party takes place because Zebra invited guests
o Teleology: Zebra invites each guest with a reason, and the reason of friendship is comparable to the other reasons
o Suspense: The reader wonders what guest the Zebra invites and wonders what reason he has. Before the last guest, the reader expects that the fourth is somehow 'awesome' compared to 'king', 'tallest', and 'biggest'
o Resolution: The suspense ends with Zebra showing that friendship is comparable to the other reasons. Thus friendship is 'awesome'.

Given this mapping, how would you tell me objectively that the composition is not a story? How do you show that my mapping is wrong? (I am not saying that my mapping must be correct, because I could also misunderstand your definition.)

The train car example is first of all not correct. The response to seeing "1,2,3,7" would not be satisfaction but would be surprise as the 7, wondering if something has gone wrong. Even then it's quite far away from being a story though.For this example, the word "you" must be considered as a character. That composition is not describing the reader's experience. It is a verbatim transcript of the story text. In that example, the reader reads this:

"There is a train car with the number '1' printed on it. You see the car, you see the number, you are satisfied.
Then, a new train car is attached. You look at it, you see the number '2'. You are satisfied.
After that, another train car comes and gets attached. You look at it. You see the number '3'. You are satisfied.
After that, another train car comes and gets attached. You look at it. You see the number '7'. You are satisfied."

o Character: The entity that the narrator calls "You" (Note that the character is not the reader)
o Goal: To see the number on the cars.
o Action: To See the number.
o Consequence: "You" sees the numbers and is satisfied.
o Meaning: While occurences in life leads one to expectations, when surprises happen, there is no standing reason to be dissatisfied. Sometimes people are too used to being dissatisfied when things didn't happen as expected, and forget that they would be satisfied if they didn't form the expectation that would cause dissatisfaction.

o Casuality: A car comes before "You" can see its number. Cars come one after another. When "You" sees the number, he is satisfied.
o Teleology: "You" has no reason to be dissatisfied.
o Suspense: Whether "You" is dissatisfied when he sees '7', which is out of order.
o Resolution: "You" is still satisfied, because, unlike the reader, he is not distracted by the ripples of occurrences.

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Content vs Interest

For this point, my main comment is that we both agree that a story with conflict is interesting to some audience, but you do not agree that when the audience has an existing concern, a story that provides a solution to that concern could be interesting even if the story does not present the topic as a conflict. Here is how I understand your position:

Situation: Mr. A is afraid of death. He reads a work about a character Mr. B who is going through a conflict with the concept of death.
Your judgement: You claim that the work contains a conflict. You claim that Mr. A is interested because the work contains a conflict.
My judgement: I would also claim that the work contains a conflict. However, I cannot claim that Mr. A is interested because the work contains a conflict. From my perspective, that is just one possibility. Another possibility is that Mr. A is attracted because the work has a solution to Mr. A's conflict (not Mr. B's).

Situation: Mr. C is afraid of death. He reads a work about a character Mr. D who is about to die, but in the work, Mr. D is calm and never for a moment afraid of death. Reading the work, Mr. C learns that Mr. D has a quite different perspective about life, that makes Mr. D unafraid in a situation that Mr. C would be afraid.
Your judgement: You know that Mr. C is interested because of a conflict. But you do not clarify that in this case, the conflict is in Mr. C's head, not in the story.
My judgement: I claim that the work does not contain a conflict, but it is interesting to Mr. C because it happens to provide information that Mr. C can use as solution to Mr. C's conflict. Because Mr. C's mind already has a conflict before reading the work, the work can attract Mr. C even if it does not contain a conflict. Although the content of the work helps Mr. C deal with his conflict, we cannot assume that the story is about the conflict or that its purpose is to address the conflict.

Situation: Mr. E has no prior concern or concept about death. He reads a work about a character Mr. F who has just died. Mr. F goes through a journey in afterlife and is reborn into his next life. As a result, Mr. E is not afraid of death.
Your judgement: You want to say that Mr. E is interested because of a conflict, the two routes that you believe to be valid are: 1) Show that the Mr. E is attracted to a the journey because the journey is suspenseful, which you alway want to equate to conflict. 2) Show that Mr. E's interest implies that Mr. E has conflict in his head, such that when he finds something novel, he wants to resolve that conflict in his head.
My judgement: I claim that the work may not contain conflict, but Mr. E could be interested for a variety of reasons. Mr. E could be interested because the story introduces a new concept, a new world, or a new rule about the world. I claim that Mr. E could be interested because Mr. E is curious about the unknown, and that curiousity as a motivation is different from conflict as a motivation.

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Different ways conflict exists in a story

In the following, I use a few different way conflict can exist in a story to show that even when a story contains a conflict, it does not always implies that the audience is attracted to the story by the conflict. I think this is an important concept to clarify because you seem to think that if a story has a conflict, then that must be the hook to the audience. It doesn't work that way. To save words, the summaries are only meant as a brief description of the story. The summaries are not written to show all details necessary to support the content of the comment.

Story 1: An example where the conflict is designed to lead the audience's interest
Summary: The story begins with an invasion where the princess is kidnapped, the hero must rescue the princess.
Comment: In this story, the player is led to care about the princess such that when the princess is kidnapped, the player wants to rescue her, which motives the player to travel through dangerous zones. If the princess is not kidnapped, the player has no motivation to travel into the dangerous zones. Since kidnapping is a conflict, we can conclude that the conflict is the cause of the player's interest. This story follows the outline structure where: first, the situation is introduced, specificying what the MC needs to do,

Story 2: An example where the conflict is not the cause of audience's interest
Summary: The story begins with the MC getting access to an infinte sum of money by chance, and the MC procceeds to explore his dream life style. The story ends with the MC losing the rest of the money suddenly.
Comment: In this story, the main attraction to the audience is the various ways that the MC spends the money. In Def3, the story may not have a conflict, because there is nothing stopping the MC from spending money until the end when the MC's access to the money suddenly ends. This is an example where the main attraction is fantasy.

Re: sunandshadow

The Mindset of Design

4, although it could be done without conflict, would be deadly boring if the cards that made up sir henry's story had no conflict, and if it were that boring it would be a failure as a game. 5, eh, maybe. There's conflict in the gameplay. It's questionable how much narrative content you could put in without either having conflict or being boring.

I think you are mixing up the topic between story conflict, gameplay conflict, story interest and gameplay interest, because you have a pre-desposition that a component with no conflict automatically corrupts the entire design.

For example, in your comment about Game 4, you are trying to say that if the cards that makes up the story would be boring, which causes the game to be boring. However, consider Uno or Scramble, where the basic gameplay elements are similar. In Uno, the players can place cards only if it can follow what is already played on the table. Uno cards contains numbers and function cards. Now imagine that instead of numbers, there are plot points, or even actor/event cards so that the deck itself looks like a deck of tarot cards. There is no direct way to judge that the design would be boring. However, you have such desposition, and that desposition prevents you from accepting "story without conflict" as a design requirement and perform a design accordingly.

For Game 5, the basic justification that the game can be interesting is that quiz shows, game shows, IQ puzzles, etc. are interesting. The fun comes from the seeming paradox of the situation that is provided as the prompt. It is fun because in order to beat the game, the players need to think outside the box and break their own assumptions about the situation. This sort of puzzles are called lateral thinking puzzles. The main assets of this puzzle type is collection of stories and situations that lead to bizarre conclusions when viewed out-of-context. This game works by giving the players the bizarre conclusion, and makes the guessing of the context, events, and intentions the gameplay.

Right now you are showing me that if you are handed the design requirement to design a game with a story withoug conflict, you would just fall flat and raise the white flag. From the perspective of design, that mindset doesn't make any sense. It is like you are spending 100% of your effort trying to persuade the customer that you cannot deliever a design that mets their requirements. That's the part I don't understand. What are you trying to reap from this discussion? Why would you want to spend so much effort trying to close an opportunity for yourself? Just consider this for a moment, if I am offering you $1million dollars to design a fun game that features a story with no conflict, would you have approached the problem differently? If so, you should recognize that the mention of a reward should be unnecessary because you could select your mindset at will.

Re: sunandshadow

The Mindset of Design

'sunandshadow' said:

4, although it could be done without conflict, would be deadly boring if the cards that made up sir henry's story had no conflict, and if it were that boring it would be a failure as a game. 5, eh, maybe. There's conflict in the gameplay. It's questionable how much narrative content you could put in without either having conflict or being boring.

I think you are mixing up the topic between story conflict, gameplay conflict, story interest and gameplay interest, because you have a pre-desposition that a component with no conflict automatically corrupts the entire design.

For example, in your comment about Game 4, you are trying to say that if the cards that makes up the story would be boring, which causes the game to be boring. However, consider Uno or Scramble, where the basic gameplay elements are similar.

Not quite. (I assume you mean 'supposition'?) My supposition is not that having one element without conflict corrupts the game. Uno is fine because it is scored by being the first player to eliminate cards, in conflict with other players. But replacing the number cards with story cards corrupts the story, because if you play story cards by non-story criteria (i.e. just to get rid of them) you are ignoring the value of the story content. Ignoring a value is the same as interpreting it to have no value. If, however, the game is actually about the story of sir henry's journey, the cards must work together to create a satisfying story with suspense and resolution. I've played a game like this, it's called Once Upon A Time. Players have ending cards which are their goals, and the conflict arises when players play non-ending cards that make the story go toward their own ending card but away from an opponent's ending card. The stories themselves must have conflict for the ending cards to resolve.

It's true that I am considering conflict within the story and conflict within the player to be equivalent. This is because they are functionally equivalent in creating a sense of 'entertainment'. A story absolutemy must create suspense within the audience. A story's functionality exists only in relation to an audience - a story without an audience is an invalid object, a nonsense idea. It is impossible to consider a story without making some assumptions about the audience because the creator of the story needs to be able to guess what will create suspense within that audience, as well as satisfy the audience in other ways.

For Game 5, the basic justification that the game can be interesting is that quiz shows, game shows, IQ puzzles, etc. are interesting.
In a game show, the conflict is about which player will get the big prize. Game shows do not have significant story content within the show.

Right now you are showing me that if you are handed the design requirement to design a game with a story without conflict, you would just fall flat and raise the white flag. From the perspective of design, that mindset doesn't make any sense. It is like you are spending 100% of your effort trying to persuade the customer that you cannot deliver a design that meets their requirements. That's the part I don't understand. What are you trying to reap from this discussion? Why would you want to spend so much effort trying to close an opportunity for yourself? Just consider this for a moment, if I am offering you $1million dollars to design a fun game that features a story with no conflict, would you have approached the problem differently? If so, you should recognize that the mention of a reward should be unnecessary because you could select your mindset at will.
As a game and story designer, I don't want to design a bad game or a bad story. That's an easy way to get a bad reputation, although it's true I would accept the bad reputation if I was getting paid a million dollars. My current opinion is that attempting to create a story with no conflict is a bad idea, although I am open to hearing a reason why a conflict-free 'story' would be desirable.

But, okay, I'm imagining you'll pay me a million dollars to design it, so I'm ignoring the fact that I think it's a bad idea. I agree with the earlier conclusion that mystery is the easiest way to create suspense in the player without having suspense in the story. So now I'll think of example games that were fun but had no conflict. The first example that springs to mind is one that I unfortunately can't remember the name of. x_X This is a game where the story is told entirely through the art. There is no combat or much other gameplay. Initially the screens are all covered with black pixels, and you have to walk and jump to remove all the black pixels from the screen, revealing the picture and thus the story. The story is that humanity has been destroyed in an apocalypse - you deduce this from walking around the broken abandoned city. There are several screens like this, which you access by discovering a door in the previous screen and going through it. When you have revealed all the screens the whole story has been told and the game is over. I'm not entirely sure it qualifies as a game since there is no score, no way to win or lose. An apocalyptic end of the world is something the audience may feel conflicted to think about, but no actions occur during the game, and no explanation is given of the conflict which cause the apocalypse, so I suppose there's no conflict in the story.

What else is similar? Well if we're allowed to have conflict in the gameplay, just not the story, we could look at Mrs. Pac Man. This game had levels of regular pac-man play, and as a reward for surviving each level you got a short movie, usually humorous.

A third example - the Myst series of games have the user explore a strange world and solve puzzles within it. The story content is restricted to notebook pages the player finds. The stories in the myst games do have conflict, they are about jealousy and a power struggle. But since the story is mostly separate from the game it is easy to imagine changing the story out for one which has no conflict. One could even add NPCs to make the world more alive and deliver more story content.

Final example - the Harvest Moon games have a story with minimal conflict. It does have some NPCs who argue with you are compete with you for the affection of other NPCs or winning prizes at festivals. But the story elements are all modular, so conceivably we could remove all the bits with conflict and replace them with more bits that don't have any conflict.

So these are the 4 types of games I would propose to the customer who is offering a million dollars for one. Which one would they prefer to develop further?

Re: sunandshadow

Objective Definition of Conflict:

Def3: A conflict of a story is a situation in the story where intentions lead to states that cannot coexist.
Def5: A conflict of a story is a situation in the story where an intention lead to states that cannot coexist.

Since Def5 includes more situations than Def3, the comparison is based on whether Def3 includes too few situations and whether Def5 includes too many. Here is one situation:

You want to buy ice cream. You walk to the store that is selling both ice cream and sandwich. You buy the ice cream.

The intention: Your wanting to buy ice cream
State 1: You buy the ice cream (Your desired state)
State 2: You buy the sandwich (A state that you don't care)
Because of your intention, State 2 cannot exist, therefore according to Def5 there is a conflict.

The cause of this strange result is that Def5 lacks a relation between State 2 and the entity with the intention. Somehow Def5 needs to include the meaning that State2 is the 'default state' so that if the entity doesn't do anything, he will get State2 instead of State1. You could try updating Def5 and see what happens.

The incompatible state and intention have to exist at the same time. For example the person wants to buy ice cream but the store has no ice cream.

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Objective Definition of Story

Def5:

A proper story must include:
At least one character, who has at least one goal and takes at least one action, which has at least one consequence. The action and its consequence are Causality, the first essential properties of story. The consequence of the action must convey a message (moral, point) to the audience about the goal and action taken; this is Teleology, the second essential property of story. The story fails if it does not create compelling interest to see what happens next in the audience; this is Suspense, the third essential property of story. The story also fails if it does not signal its ending and satisfy the reader by ending that suspense; this is Resolution, the fourth essential property of story.

So there's my attempt at an <b>objective definition</b>: A story must contain a minimum of 5 elements (character, goal, action, consequence, meaning) which are related by four principles (causality, teleology, suspense, and resolution). Although this does not directly list conflict, the principle of suspense implies the existence of conflict within any story which succeeds at being suspenseful. Perhaps World, Obstacle, or both are also implied as elements, because something is required for the Action to act on or in and result in a non-deterministic consequence.
I claim that your definition is not objective because you defined suspense in terms of the interest of the audience. According to this definition, to tell whether a composition is a story, you must first know the audience. For the same composition, it is could be a story to one audience (when the audience considers it interesting), and not a story to another audience (when the audience considers it uninteresting). For an objective definition that cannot happen. Whether a composition is a story should be solely determined by what the story has, independent to who is viewing it. The second weak point of that definition is meaning. How do you objectively determine whether a composition contains meaning? In particular, how do you tell when a composition has no meaning? How do you tell if the composition has meaning, but you have failed to understand it?
I responded to this in the previous post, but to reiterate, you cannot have a story or consider anything about a story in the absence of an audience. No story has meaning to a non-audience so all stories would fail in that circumstance. If an objective definition requires the absence of an audience, such a definition is logically impossible. That's why authors talk about an average audience and a target audience, because some kind of audience is absolutely necessary to discuss story at all.

For the Zebra example, could you pinpoint which element is missing? Here is one way to map the elements:

o Character: Zebra
o Goal: Zebra's goal is to have a party
o Action: Zebra invites guests and have a party
o Consequence: Zebra invited guests, each with a reason
o Meaning: Inviting someone because they are your friend is just as valid a reason as inviting someone that is powerful or famous in some way.

o Casaulity: The party takes place because Zebra invited guests
o Teleology: Zebra invites each guest with a reason, and the reason of friendship is comparable to the other reasons
o Suspense: The reader wonders what guest the Zebra invites and wonders what reason he has. Before the last guest, the reader expects that the fourth is somehow 'awesome' compared to 'king', 'tallest', and 'biggest'
o Resolution: The suspense ends with Zebra showing that friendship is comparable to the other reasons. Thus friendship is 'awesome'.

Given this mapping, how would you tell me objectively that the composition is not a story? How do you show that my mapping is wrong? (I am not saying that my mapping must be correct, because I could also misunderstand your definition.)
I'm happy to do that. The error with the mapping is Consequence. The action "invites" cannot have consequence "invited". The consequence must be causal but not-deterministic (i.e. surprising).

The train car example is first of all not correct. The response to seeing "1,2,3,7" would not be satisfaction but would be surprise as the 7, wondering if something has gone wrong. Even then it's quite far away from being a story though.For this example, the word "you" must be considered as a character. That composition is not describing the reader's experience. It is a verbatim transcript of the story text. In that example, the reader reads this:

"There is a train car with the number '1' printed on it. You see the car, you see the number, you are satisfied.
Then, a new train car is attached. You look at it, you see the number '2'. You are satisfied.
After that, another train car comes and gets attached. You look at it. You see the number '3'. You are satisfied.
After that, another train car comes and gets attached. You look at it. You see the number '7'. You are satisfied."

o Character: The entity that the narrator calls "You" (Note that the character is not the reader)
o Goal: To see the number on the cars.
o Action: To See the number.
o Consequence: "You" sees the numbers and is satisfied.
o Meaning: While occurences in life leads one to expectations, when surprises happen, there is no standing reason to be dissatisfied. Sometimes people are too used to being dissatisfied when things didn't happen as expected, and forget that they would be satisfied if they didn't form the expectation that would cause dissatisfaction.

o Casuality: A car comes before "You" can see its number. Cars come one after another. When "You" sees the number, he is satisfied.
o Teleology: "You" has no reason to be dissatisfied.
o Suspense: Whether "You" is dissatisfied when he sees '7', which is out of order.
o Resolution: "You" is still satisfied, because, unlike the reader, he is not distracted by the ripples of occurrences.
This mapping has a similar problem with Consequence and Action redundantly being about "seeing", but even more importantly "to see the numbers on the cars" is not a valid Goal. Goal implies a success condition which cannot be achieved without taking action. You could have a success condition of "assemble 4 cars in numerical order" or "clean the dirt off of 4 cars to reveal the numbers on them" or "record the numbers of 4 cars and report them to an NPC". You could have a goal of "see the view from the top of Mt. Everest" ONLY if you are not already at the top of Mount Everest and able to easily see the view.

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Content vs Interest

For this point, my main comment is that we both agree that a story with conflict is interesting to some audience, but you do not agree that when the audience has an existing concern, a story that provides a solution to that concern could be interesting even if the story does not present the topic as a conflict.
Actually I agree that if a story provides a resolution to a topic that an audience is already concerned about, that can work as a story. However, I think that the story will not be able to provide a resolution to a conflict if the story does not acknowledge that there is a conflict which needs to be resolved, and the only way a story can acknowledge the existence of a conflict is to contain such a conflict in at least a minimal or implied way.

Here is how I understand your position:

Situation: Mr. A is afraid of death. He reads a work about a character Mr. B who is going through a conflict with the concept of death.
Your judgement: You claim that the work contains a conflict. You claim that Mr. A is interested because the work contains a conflict.
My judgement: I would also claim that the work contains a conflict. However, I cannot claim that Mr. A is interested because the work contains a conflict. From my perspective, that is just one possibility. Another possibility is that Mr. A is attracted because the work has a solution to Mr. A's conflict (not Mr. B's).
I agree with both perspectives, but the first possibility can override the second one because if Mr. B is initially not interested in the topic the conflict in the story can cause him to become interested in the topic, thus changing Mr. B to be the same as Mr. A.

Situation: Mr. C is afraid of death. He reads a work about a character Mr. D who is about to die, but in the work, Mr. D is calm and never for a moment afraid of death. Reading the work, Mr. C learns that Mr. D has a quite different perspective about life, that makes Mr. D unafraid in a situation that Mr. C would be afraid.
Your judgement: You know that Mr. C is interested because of a conflict. But you do not clarify that in this case, the conflict is in Mr. C's head, not in the story.
My judgement: I claim that the work does not contain a conflict, but it is interesting to Mr. C because it happens to provide information that Mr. C can use as solution to Mr. C's conflict. Because Mr. C's mind already has a conflict before reading the work, the work can attract Mr. C even if it does not contain a conflict. Although the content of the work helps Mr. C deal with his conflict, we cannot assume that the story is about the conflict or that its purpose is to address the conflict.
A story about a character who is not afraid of death will fail to relieve the fear of a reader who is afraid of death. A story which does not present fear of death as a conflict cannot show this conflict being resolved.

[example 3]
This is the same as Mr.B who is uninterested in death in the first example.

Story 2: An example where the conflict is not the cause of audience's interest

Summary: The story begins with the MC getting access to an infinte sum of money by chance, and the MC procceeds to explore his dream life style. The story ends with the MC losing the rest of the money suddenly.
Comment: In this story, the main attraction to the audience is the various ways that the MC spends the money. In Def3, the story may not have a conflict, because there is nothing stopping the MC from spending money until the end when the MC's access to the money suddenly ends. This is an example where the main attraction is fantasy.

The characterization that conflict is not causing the audience's interest is not entirely correct here. The conflict arises from the MC's sudden change in wealth disrupting his life and the lives of those around him, creating new challenges he has never faced before. Since you state the ending to be the disappearance of the money, this ending must function by resolving the disruption created by gaining the money at the beginning. If it didn't resolve suspense it would not function as an ending. You could instead state at the beginning that the money would only be available for a short time. But then this would cause conflict because the MC would feel challenged to either prevent the money from vanishing, or use it in such a way that he could retain the benefits after the money vanished.

It is however true that suspense is not the only reason stories appeal to audiences. Wish-fulfillment, as prepresented by a charracter suddenly obtaining a large amount of money, is inherently appealing. You could describe a situation where the main character obtains money, spends it in ways X, Y, and Z, the end. But this is not a proper story, it is, again, an anecdote.

Re: sunandshadow

I think the posts are getting too long again. Therefore I am replying to the points that I believe would benefit the thread the most.

Conflict-less Story as a Harbinger of Peace

My current opinion is that attempting to create a story with no conflict is a bad idea, although I am open to hearing a reason why a conflict-free 'story' would be desirable.
Peace can be described as an approach to life as opposed to a condition that degrades naturally or by external coersion. Peace is not like the cleaniless of a room, that requires periodic vaccum to keep up. Peace is not like the dinner on the table that one needs to earn by gathering in the outside world or by competing with other people. Peace is more like a candle fire that never burns out, it is something that a person can always choose to use to lead the way, a quality that everyone has, that no one can take away.

As an approach of life, it can only be sustained by people that are prepared to live it. If you consider the the type of story content, most of them uses conflict as the body, peace as the goal. However, in the experience that the story transfers to the audience, most of the experience pertain to mindsets corresponding to "how to live when there is a conflict" as opposed to "how to live when there is peace." Because of this representation, people are disporportionally condition to enjoy conflict instead of peace. Then, the media is creating a culture where peace is not a goal that needs to be sustained, but an excuse to sustain conflict--Peace is not an end, but the mean to justify conflict. Therefore in terms of peace, those type of literary work is doing a dis-service. One way to combat this situation is to promote a type of literary work that uses peace as the body and peace as the end.

At this point, it is no longer a question of whether such story can exist. The only question is how to promote them, so that the audience becomes mentally prepared to seek peace for the sake of peace, not as an excuse to sustain conflict. A way of life that is worth living, is worthwhile in the absence of anything that opposes it. A person that does not accept this concept has no chance of sustaining peace. This makes the concept a requirement of peace, and the acceptance of conflict-less stories, a harbinger of peace:

When a culture accepts stories with no conflict, the culture is ready to accept peace.

Conflict-less stories themselves do not bring peace. They exist because the minds that can sustain peace value their existence.
I am not speaking as a person trying to change your mind. I am speaking as a person that prefers those stories, describing to you the origin of this preference.

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The above is the deeper reason behind the proposed design requirement. In terms of design, this reason is irrelevant, because the design can proceed as long as the design requirement is understood (i.e. the customer cannot be entertained by stories with conflict and wants stories with no conflict instead.)

Therefore the main purpose of showing such explanation, is to affect who is willing to response constructively to the cause (note that the explanation could work in both ways, it could attract people who think that the overall cause is desirable, but it could also drive away people who think the cause is undesirable (i.e. a cause about peace is too boring.) It is also possible that a person is interested in the topic regardless what the cause is (i.e. designing is fun). For this last reason, the explanation is logically irrelevant to the thread.

I think at this point this explanation is the most important because everyone reading this is capable of putting on their design hat, the only question is whether they understand that this is the type of thread that they should think not with the goal to dismiss, but to create.

The purpose of the discussions about definitions is to define the object of the design. You may disagree with the use of words such as 'conflict' and 'story', but the situation design objectives and the intentions still remain and still need to be communicated through words. So if you can think of better words that can capture the intention, please suggest. However in this process, I sit at a position that also represents the end user, that is responsible to verify whether the words do capture the intented meaning of the end user. I hope that the explanation above can create another end user that understands the intention, so that it makes it more obvious that I am taking both the role as the end user and as a designer. So that people don't get distracted thinking "why is the designer bending the rules?" I am not a designer trying to reinterpret the requirements so that my design is legit. I am speaking as the end user who is trying to correct any misinterpretation of the intended requirements.

With this in mind, how would you describe 'conflict' and 'story' as mentioned above? How would you define those words so that the end user's intention can be concisely captured?

Re: sunandshadow

I think the posts are getting too long again.

True, lol

That's an interesting characterization of peace. It's not how I personally think of peace - I think of the quote: "Love does not just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new." ~ Ursula K. LeGuin and I think peace is the same way, although maybe more like a balancing act that must be carefully and creatively maintained. Also like you mention cleaning a room periodically. I believe that if you put people in a conflict-free environment they will invent conflict to keep themselves from being bored, and the typical video game is a prime example of fake conflict consumed to avoid boredom. I do somewhat question why a person with a peaceful mindset would want to play a computer game at all.

But, I understand how someone could think of peace as a permanent thing, and I feel much better oriented to the goal of the thread after reading that explanation.

The purpose of the discussions about definitions is to define the object of the design. You may disagree with the use of words such as 'conflict' and 'story', but the situation design objectives and the intentions still remain and still need to be communicated through words. So if you can think of better words that can capture the intention, please suggest. However in this process, I sit at a position that also represents the end user, that is responsible to verify whether the words do capture the intended meaning of the end user. I hope that the explanation above can create another end user that understands the intention, so that it makes it more obvious that I am taking both the role as the end user and as a designer. So that people don't get distracted thinking "why is the designer bending the rules?" I am not a designer trying to reinterpret the requirements so that my design is legit. I am speaking as the end user who is trying to correct any misinterpretation of the intended requirements.

With this in mind, how would you describe 'conflict' and 'story' as mentioned above? How would you define those words so that the end user's intention can be concisely captured?

The other day I was talking about the enjoyment of building a jigsaw puzzle, and I described it as "meditative". I think the same word can apply to many 'games' that are toys, solitaires (I'd put jigsaw puzzles in this category), sims, puzzle games, or adventure games. I recall that one of the puzzle games at NeoPets had a 'zen' mode where you could play as long as you wanted because it was impossible to lose. I'd be inclined to use zen as another word for this meditative, peaceful mindset, except that's probably an inaccurate use of the term zen. That kind of game is often story-free, so it's challenging to think of a game which would create the same feeling using a lot of story. Going in a different direction, the person described above might simply want happy stories (which do have conflict but don't have any strong negative emotions). Many cartoons for young children are good examples of this type of story. That would be much much easier to do, and do well, than a genuinely conflict-free piece of narrative.

But, let's see... what if the game were like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales? Not the individual tales, but the basic concept of providing a group of characters who are a cross-section of society and have different personalities. Talking to all of these characters would add up to a narrative picture of a society without really having any conflict. If we want to add in some mystery, we could have the player character suddenly appear in a fantasy or sci-fi location, where this group of people is living peacefully. The player would have the goal of understanding this new foreign world. So the player would take action of going around talking to all the people. The player could be rewarded with wish-fulfillment items like a house, a garden, appearance customizations, etc. To make it more of a game we could include adventure-style puzzles, puzzle minigames, or sim content. How's that design, does the customer give it a stamp of approval?

Wai, your latest post (the logically irrelevant explanation) actually cleared up quite a bit. I think the biggest issue when I jumped in was that the focus seemed to have shifted from the proposition towards the definitions of things, which was undoubtedly necessary in respect to your overall goal (as you described it), but also could have been addressed differently on both sides. Accordingly, I'm only going to reply to certain portions of your last reply directed towards me (because I think that is the longest post in the thread and because a reply for much of it is not needed - rest assured, I read it all, so your efforts were not in vain).

First off, I want to apologize that the bulk of your reply was directed towards the last few paragraphs of my post. Aside from once again opening a subjective "can of worms", my arguments, by my own admission, lost much of their efficacy and precision by that point, becoming unwieldy and unfocused. I can attribute this both to tiredness and getting too bogged down in the less important elements of the thread. I was pleased to see (based on parts you didn't reply to) that, perhaps, my earlier arguments were a bit more well-constructed and on point.

According to you, there would be no logical fallacy if the sample size is bigger? Do you mean to say that the population of people who uses the institutionalized definition of &#39;Conflict&#39; is larger than the population of people who use the term, the way they have learned from their mothers throughout history? You specifically meant that my sample size is smaller and biased, right? Isn&#39;t it the reality that <span style="font-weight:bold;">your</span> sample size is smaller and biased?<br /> <br /> I maintain that my sample size is not smaller and biased because I never put a restriction on my sample size. You specifically said to ask people of a certain ilk (people that have not been formally taught about the art of story, literature, etc) for their opinion on whether conflict-free stories can exist. My solution would be to ask a general group without knowing whether or not they fit into one umbrella or another, but I wouldn&#39;t bother doing it because the results of any survey (even an impossible unbiased one) have no impact on the objective distinction of whether a story can be devoid of conflict. Your survey would not likely yield any interesting (that is, unexpected) results and those results wouldn&#39;t necessarily dictate any truth. Again, my point was that using popular opinion to decide an actual universal truth is illogical. This is why I didn&#39;t provide a direct counter survey to disprove yours, but merely offered an unrelated example to help show that the survey doesn&#39;t necessarily have any place in this discussion.<br /> <br /> <blockquote> assumed because in your reply you only gave one game type–puzzle games–however, according to the design requirement mindset, there is no reason for you not to imagine that the game could very well be RPG, FPS, Action etc… basically any genre. There is no basis for you to assume that the variety in genre would shrink. Also, in your reply you are mixing two concepts:<br /> 1) Game with a conflict (I highlighted this above)<br /> <br /> 2) Game story with a conflict<br /> <br /> I was not mixing these concepts, but I was taking for granted that the two are contingent upon one another. When I think about &quot;good&quot; game design, I typically think of story and gameplay being intertwined as opposed to being disconnected entities. But that may be under different definitions (my own working definitions that work for me when thinking about these elements). Working under the idea that a game story without conflict can exist in a game in which the mechanics may still be predicated on conflict makes considering the design requirements much easier. <br /> <br /> Though, admittedly, the one that gives me trouble is an FPS with a conflict-free story. I can see a first person game, but not necessarily a first person shooter (with respect to the motivation to shoot something with a gun, unless you were doing something silly such as shooting balloons because someone asked you to). I actually have an example for you that I feel works under your specifications. There is a game called Pokemon Snap for the Nintendo 64, which is in first-person, but not a shooter…well, you don&#39;t shoot bullets, but photos. I&#39;m not sure if a story - even by your definition that some here consider anecdote - is ever presented, though. Can a story that is told implicitly be counted? I think when you start the game, you are tasked with taking pictures of Pokemon for a professor (he asks you to do so for him, I believe). Otherwise, nothing else is ever asked. You travel through various levels (the game leads you to do this instinctively) on a rail-system and know to take pictures of Pokemon and that reaching the end will unlock more levels. However, when you reach the last level, there is only one Pokemon, and this one actively avoids being photographed. If we accept the implicit &quot;story,&quot; don&#39;t we have to accept that there is conflict in this final stage (the final Pokemon does not want to be photographed, but you are tasked with photographing it), in which case this stage keeps the game from fully satisfying the requirements?<br /> <br /> Going further than this example, what about a game with no discernible story or conflict (without derailing the intent of the thread)? There is a Playstation Network game called Linger in Shadows that can almost only be described as &quot;interactive art.&quot; There isn&#39;t necessarily a story; the user can just progress through seemingly arbitrary scenes (on rails, more or less), manipulate small aspects of the environment (rotate a barrel, etc) and camera angle, or pause to take a snapshot. Perhaps this doesn&#39;t qualify because there is no &quot;story&quot; (it&#39;s entirely abstract), but I&#39;m sure a similar &quot;game&quot; could be made in a less abstract fashion. First-person view, you see a train, hold the button that progresses the scene, you see the other train, etc, until the scene ends (I&#39;m loosely adapting one of your examples). I&#39;m not sure if this would be particularly rewarding (without the visual stimulation of the actual game&#39;s abstract, striking, and artistic environment)…nor am I sure if either example is even a game, despite being a controllable sequence (and I hope I didn&#39;t open a &quot;what is a game&quot; can of worms). Food for thought. <br /> <br /> <blockquote> However, in the experience that the story transfers to the audience, most of the experience pertain to mindsets corresponding to &quot;how to live when there is a conflict&quot; as opposed to &quot;how to live when there is peace.&quot; Because of this representation, people are disporportionally condition to enjoy conflict instead of peace. Then, the media is creating a culture where peace is not a goal that needs to be sustained, but an excuse to sustain conflict–Peace is not an end, but the mean to justify conflict. Therefore in terms of peace, those type of literary work is doing a dis-service. One way to combat this situation is to promote a type of literary work that uses peace as the body and peace as the end.<br /> <br /> <br /> I&#39;m starting to draw from your latest reply here, just for fun. You obviously recognize this, I&#39;m just pointing it out to any other readers.<br /> <br /> That&#39;s interesting, but how can one know how to live when there is peace if there has never been absolute peace? Don&#39;t we reach that point through stories that teach us how to brave conflict and find peace? I don&#39;t know if I agree that the media is creating a culture where peace is an excuse to sustain conflict. However, even if I accept this, most highly regarded literary work in my experience does<span style="font-weight:bold;"> </span>use <span style="font-weight:bold;">conflict as a means</span> and <span style="font-weight:bold;">peace as an end</span>, which seems like it is equally appropriate to combat the notion of peace no longer becoming an end. It&#39;s arguable, in fact, that it&#39;s more effective, because people are more familiar with conflict, thus it resonates more within them as instructions or means to reach peace. <br /> <br /> <blockquote>When a culture accepts stories with no conflict, the culture is ready to accept peace.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight:bold;">Tangent:</span> By this statement, I am clearly not ready to accept peace, because I find Zebra&#39;s Party and The Train dreadfully dull, heh. <br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight:bold;"><br /> </span>