James Wallis uses genre as the fulcrum for balancing game rules and narrative structure in story-telling games, which he differentiates from RPGs through their emphasis on the creation of narrative over character development.
The source is the essay-review on www.electronicbookreview.com written by James Wallis.
"In the ongoing debates about storytelling and narrative in games, the various commentators often overlook a key point: even in the most cutting-edge examples of the state of the art, it is not the players who tell the story, it is the game. Whether computer games with a narrative element, board games, card games, or face-to-face role-playing games, the essential plot and structure of the narrative is predetermined before the game begins, and cannot be altered."
"Human beings like stories. Our brains have a natural affinity not only for enjoying narratives and learning from them, but also for creating them. In the same way that your mind sees an abstract pattern and resolves it into a face, your imagination sees a pattern of events and resolves it into a story."
"the game's mechanics must take into consideration the rules of the genre that it is trying to create: not just the relevant icons and tropes, but the nature of a story from that genre. A fairy tale has a very different structure and set of requirements than a horror story or a soap opera, and a game must work to replicate that. "
"In most games, the structure is simply the way the game is played. In story-making games, it is also the principal way that the narrative shape of the story is formed (...)."
"Structure is not the same thing as rules. (...) That's how the game plays. It's not how the game works."
"The key to a successful story-making game, at least in the ones that have been released so far, is simplicity of design. (...) it does mean that rules have to be integrated with structure and genre to form a coherent package. I am a self-confessed proponent of "elegance through simplicity" in game design, and I realize that this doesn't fit every taste, or every style of game. "
All quotes were directly pulled out of the essay.
Jonathan Tweet explains how, unlike highly narratively structured games such as The Call of Cthulhu, the free-form, character-focused Everway includes a matrix that allows for the creation of coherent characters and productively constrains the otherwise open-ended game-play.
The source is the essay-review on www.electronicbookreview.com written by Jonathan Tweet.
Everway is a free-form tabletop fantasy RPG in which players take the roles of heroic figures that travel among countless parallel worlds. Action resolution uses cards drawn from a Tarotlike deck rather than dice. Character stats determine the likely outcome of an action, and the card draw provides a conceptual result that the gamemaster interprets creatively to determine the actual result.
The quote was rewritten directly from the essay.
Keith Herber discusses how in his "Haunted House" scenario for Call of Cthulhu, characters are driven insane by their attempt to unravel the game's mysteries. Herber's explanation distinguishes his work from many other role-playing games in which the goal is to develop characters and acquire power and/or wealth. In contrast, characters in Herber's scenario are rewarded with mental instability.
The source is the essay-review on www.electronicbookreview.com written by Keith Herber.
The original Call of Cthulhu "Haunted House" scenario that appeared in the book Trail of Tsathoggua was written in 1983, when Call of Cthulhu was still a relatively new game and role-playing was still in its early stages. Seeing the light of day in 1981, Call of Cthulhu was unique to RPGs in that it didn't rely on experience points, treasure, or other tangible rewards to induce players to participate. CoC investigators would not find hordes of gold or powerful weapons, nor would they gain fame or respect for their daring exploits. Quite the opposite, in fact. Investigators usually finish adventures in worse shape than they began, with less money, less sanity, and possibly a lowered social standing. Like cats, investigators are driven by curiosity, not by material gain.
The quote was rewritten directly from the essay.
Kenneth Hite argues that the long-running, H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Call of Cthulhu franchise differs from traditional tabletop role-playing in its focus on suspense rather than character growth. Hite's analysis suggests that in its origins and emphasis on narrative structure Cthulhu is a highly literary game.
The source is the essay-review on www.electronicbookreview.com written by Kenneth Hite.
"A scenario in Call of Cthulhu can be organized like the layers of an onion. On the surface, suppose that the scenario looks like it's about a conventional haunted house. It might even look like a hoax. (...) The sixth edition version is slightly less proscriptive than the first, substituting "can" for "should," and being headlined "An Example of A Plot" rather than the sterner "How to Set Up a Scenario" from the first edition.The sixth edition also provides a sidebar with step-by-step guidelines for "Building a Scenario":(...)1) A mystery or crisis is posed. . .2) The investigators become linked to the problem. . .3) The investigators attempt to define the mystery. . .4) The investigators use the clues and evidence to confront the danger. . .5) The mystery or problem is solved. (Ibid., 136)."
The quotes was directly pulled out of the essay.
An essay by Tara McPherson (and a conversation with Anne-Marie Schleiner) concerning patch mutations, opensorcery, and other explainable gaming offshoots.
(Source: EBR)
People categorize each other in many avenues of our lives; these categories also play out in our
fictions and games. For example, within role-playing games (RPGs), racial categorization is
often used to trigger reactions when conversing with non-player characters (NPCs). However, in
most such narratives, category membership is determined in a simplistic fashion in which
members are slotted into boxes with no possibility for identities moving between the center or
the margins social groups. These deficiencies are particularly visible when trying to create
expressive stories that can evoke nuanced phenomena such as social stigma. This paper
presents our steps toward enabling interactive narratives more aligned with the social critiques
by writers such as Octavia Butler or Samuel R. Delany than the uncritical play of identity in
many mainstream computer role-playing games.
We implemented the Chimeria1 platform to model social categorization phenomena including
the movement of members within and across social categories [1]. By implementing a system
based on a theoretical framework encompassing sociology [2-4], cognitive science [5, 6], and
computing [7-9], we provide a platform for modeling social group membership with greater
critical awareness.
Here, we focus on two Chimeria-built applications called Chimeria:Gatekeeper and
Chimeria:Music-Social-Network.
The Chimeria:Gatekeeper scenario is designed as follows. The player wants to gain access to
the inside of a castle. To do so, it is necessary to convince a guard NPC that she or he can
“pass” as a member an accepted social category. The PC is a “stigmatized” category member
and the guard is an “accepted” category member. The stigmatized category is defined as a race
stereotyped as tall, well-spoken, and wearers of fine clothing. The accepted category is defined
as a race stereotyped as short, plain-spoken, wearers of rough-spun clothing. Player choices
within the conversation shift the NPCs internal model of the PCs membership with respect to the
two categories, bringing the player closer to or further from gaining access. However, rather
than simply encouraging players to “pass” as accepted in order to win, the game narrates the
internal thoughts of the PC to emphasize trade-offs between gaining access and the loss of self
that can occur in trying to pass. Chimeria:Music-Social-Network narrates a similar tale of
movement between social groups, however rather than a fantasy setting, the story takes place
on a social network for music sharing. The system is tied into Facebook, Youtube, and
RoviCorp Services (the All Music Guide engine,) drawing upon real user preferences, musical
clips, and descriptors of musical genres, themes, and mood at runtime.
The narratives above demonstrate ways that Chimeria enables more expressive and socially
nuanced conversations related to social identity in games. We do so seeking to develop more
expressive forms of computational narrative capable of evoking pleasures and pains associated
with social identity and all of its associated illusions.
(Source: Authors Abstract.)
Today, we not only see video games and online role-playing games interpreted, in print-based scholarly journals, by way of classical literary and narrative theory (to the dismay of the radical ludologist), but we also see the inverse: classical novels interpreted by way of role-playing games staged in computerized, simulated environments (as in Jerome McGann's IVANHOE Game). The use of classical theory for the study of contemporary video games and video games for the study of classical literature, however, does not necessarily mean that we now inhabit a mixed up muddled up shook up literary-critical world. In fact, these examples might mark opposite sides of a continuum of critical practice, and underscore the logic of analyzing a text in a given medium with the tools of a different – and complementary – medium.
The notion recalls McGann's own assertion that problems in textual scholarship inevitably arise when we "deploy a book form to study another book form," thereby creating an undesirable "symmetry between the tool and its subject" (2001, 56). If the assertion holds true across media, it would appear that we have arrived at a rather tidy formulation: scholars should utilize the tools of a dynamic medium in order to study a text in a fixed one and, conversely, they should make recourse to a more stable medium in order to study dynamic works of (digital) literature. The formulation is, of course, too tidy, and breaks down as soon as we consider texts that would fall anywhere in the middle of this continuum. What sort of critical tools and critical perspectives would best suit works of digital literature that rely on a fusion of discursive and material complexity / movement?
Most theorists and critics invested in language-driven digital literature at least tend to agree on a pronounced need for more "close readings." At the same time, it is still not entirely clear what is meant by "close reading" and how (or even if) the very notion of close reading applies to digital literature. This paper suggests that digital literature prompts a revisitation, re-articulation, and reanimation of the concept of close reading, one that attends to the material context of its process and product. It will first consider the historical and genealogical development of close reading alongside the material and technological developments of 20th century literary production – the very context that was consciously elided by its earliest practitioners as they sought to insulate literature from the vulgarities of industrial and technological culture. Then it will perform a series of short close readings of a recent work of digital literature, TOC: a new media novel by Steve Tomasula (et. al.) (2009). The first will disregard medium and materiality, the second will "read" only the medium and its materiality, and a third will read both elements in concert. The experiment aims to demonstrate how understanding textual materiality as something distinct from a work of digital literature is at once impossible and absolutely necessary.
(Source: Author's abstract for ELO_AI)