[MUD-Dev] TECH DGN: Story detection

[Mike Rozak]

PaulMc wrote:

> This is a topic near and dear to my heart and I keep coming back
> to the same question: do players want stories or do they want
> drama? Do I care about plot and a conventional narrative
> structure, or do I care about doing something meaningful within a
> dramatic context?

Here's my theory of what players want....

  1) Players want to make choices.

  2) They want their choices to almost always result in "good" and
  "fun" outcomes. Good and fun are defined by the player, and often
  by the player's subconscious. Some players will think "drama" is
  fun, others just want to kill orcs.

  3) To do this, (I theorize) that the designer must add a
  narrator/god to the world that pulls the strings of the world to
  increase the likelihood (but not ensure) that choices result in
  good/fun outcomes. Pen & paper GMs do this all the time.

  4) Many/most players won't like having a narrator/god, because the
  narrator ultimately reduces their choices. (It's a milder form of
  the old "free will" debate in real life christianity... "If god is
  all knowing, then god knows what I will do, so then I don't really
  have free will, so what's the point of it all.") Not to mention
  the potential bias in a narrator. Anyone who has played pen &
  paper RPGs and gets the feeling that the GM is
  guiding/manipulating them knows what I'm talking about. Part of
  the reason the pen & paper players put up with it is that the GM
  is their friend; they (a) assume that as a friend he has their
  interests at heart, and (b) telling him off might hurt the
  friendship.

  5) Likewise, many/most MMORPG/MUD players want to play in a world
  populated with other players so long as those players don't
  impinge on their own fun... which is impossible.

The interactive storytelling/drama crowd has ideas about narrators
and plot, and better AI. Facade is an example of what some people in
interactive storytelling/drama are thinking about. Chris Crawford
has written a book with his slant on interactive story telling. I
have read a few others, but found them to be lots of non-technical
hand waving.

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
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