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Last week, Ninja Theory said that story is the most important aspect of game design. This caused quite the stir in the comments that I was unable to participate in. So, I shall post my thoughts here.
First I will say that I don't completely agree with Ninja Theory. I don't think that story is the most important aspect of game design. But it's importance is growing.
For me, gameplay is the most important aspect of games design. You can have the best looking, sounding game with the best story ever, but if the gameplay sucks, it will destroy any other good will it may have had with gamers.
So where soes that leave story in the ranking? Personally, I would toss it in the same level as art direction and audio. All of which falls behind gameplay.
To help explain this, I will be looking at the 5 W's: Who, What, When, Where, Why; and the H: How. Each of these is impacted by one of the main factors of games design in some way.
Who
This is two fold. First, we have "Who will be playing the game?" This is the first question you may ask yourself when designing a game. This will often determine the type of game you make. This will also determine the controls you use in the case of platform specifics.
Next is who the player will be represented by in the game world. There will not always be a clear answer to this as the player will be some disimbodied persona that is not referneced in the game (ie Tetris, Bejewled) Yet, there will often have some kind of avatar representing the player (id any FPS, RPG)
Is it necessary for the player to have an avatar representing them in the game? No. But having one can often help the player immerse themselves in your world. Having a good story for the game can help in designing the player's avatar.
What
What is the goal of the game? What is the player shooting for?
These questions can have a variety of answers ranging from "to get a high score" or "save the world"
Gameplay will often define short term goals and at times define the end goals. So for a puzzle game the short term goal will be "use the pieces to match 3 like shapes" or for an RPG "use your abilities and equipment to win the battle"
But just like with who, a story provides context for these goals. What type of enemies are you fighting? What abilities are the players going to have? What equipment?
When
This is a little more abstract. There are two possible ways to address this point. The first is "What is the time frame for completion of the game goals?" It is also "What is the timesetting for the game, future, past or present?"
Gameplay will always determine a time fram for completion. In racing, the goal is often to get the fastest time on a track. In a puzzle game it is to get the most amount of points in a set time.
But when you add story, you can often add to the setting of the game. So an RPG or FPS will be able to expand on the setting and provide further context to the gameplay. Story can also help define why you have given time frame. (ie the enemies have set a bomb and you have 10 minutes to escape.)
Where
This is where the player will be spending their time while playing. Gameplay will often define the abstracts such as a gameboard or battle arena.
But just as we have seen in the other points, story expands upon those locations. So we can place the player in a variety of locations such as a Mars base, or a fantasy kingdom. Having a location also helps define the who and what of the game as it gives greater context to the player's avatar and the enemies they fight.
Why
This is state of mind that the player needs to be in to play the game. Why are they playing? What is their motivation. Along with What, this point helps define goals of the game. If they are playing to get the most points, why are they doing it? Are they doing so to be number one on a high score list?
It can also define those other goals such as "Why is the player fighting these enemies?" Are they doing so to take over the world, save the world, or protect their home? Having a story to define the why, you can give the player a stronger motivation to complete the goals of the game.
How
Finally we have how. This is the most basic aspect of game design. How will the player be interacting with the game world? I would say that this is the most important of the six points. This will be strongly defined by the game play. How will the player manipulate the peices in the game area? How will the player access the abilities of the avatar and use them on the enemies?
This is the least likely area to be strongly influenced by story as it deals mostly with input and UI.
Conclusion
So in the end, you can create a great game while completely ignoring story. You can create any game from a puzzle to and FPS to an RPG and completely ignore story elements. But having a story to add context to a game can provide the same or possibly greater impact of the art you put in the game.
For one last point, let's look at one of the most successful games ever made, Madden NFL. At its very core, this is just a football game. Its gameplay is defined by the NFL rules. You can create a very good football game without needing the NFL tema names and stadium. But when you add certian story elements such as who, when and where you give the player a greater immersion into the game. This has added to the success of the franchise.
There have been other football games that did not use the NFL trademarks, but none have been as successful. It is when you provide the player the ability to select their favorite team and players and put them in familiar settings that you gain that recipe for success.
So while you can create a great game that has no story to add context to the player's actions, and ome games don't need it at all (ie puzzle games), adding context through even a minimal amount of story elements can greatly influence the player's ability to enjoy the gameplay, just as art and audio does.
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In drama and narratology, the who is mostly understood in regard to character or story persons. You are right in splitting the concept though. The other who, which is the reader (I use *reader* in the broadest sense here, as someone who reconstructs meaning with the sign system presented to her) , is covered by concepts such as identification. After all, a story is always told to someone. Games differ from most other media in that a player is both, a certain someone [i]in[/i] the game, [i]and[/i] a spectator, that is, a certain someone who watches, next to the actions of other characters, those actions that he performs as the certain someone in the game universe. This is a tricky twofold presence. I'd like to add a third who to all this: Stories are not only always told to someone, but also always told [i]by[/i] someone. The classic divide between diegetic and mimetic narrative is based upon the difference between a narrator telling the story herself (diegetic), or by telling it through invented characters that he lets speak to convey his ideas (mimetic). But modern theories of narration go well beyond this divide.
The What would be appropiate to address such important drama concepts as conflict and plot. But it also refers to Theme, in my opinion. It is simply the content of the narrative, the events. But in narrative this is always connected to the Why: In other words, why did it happen the way it did? Why not otherwise? We arrive at necessity here. The logical connection between the elements that constitute the What. It is the why that connects the events that unfold in time into a logically connected unit. Hence What and Why are of a chrono-logical nature and create telos, that is, the current that drives things forward the way they do. This is what allows us to ask questions like What is the problem? What is at stake? What keeps the characters moving? In other words, we can address necessity and motivation with the what and why questions.
Where and When are about setting, first and foremost. However, narratology would label Where and Who elements under Existents, whereas questions in regard to time (the When elements) would be labeled under Events and Narration. Time is a matter of Narration because events unfold in time and they can be re-arranged differently from the way in which they happened. Examples are leaps into the past or the future, or omission of certain events. The way in which the order of events is presented to us through narration is called "story" by narratologist. It always implies arrangement for the sake of suspense. The realization of how things really happened, the true order of things, which can be only really fully understood after the "story" is finished, is called fabula in narratology. Fabula can only be constructed in the mind, and is the mental chrono-logical construct that the story allows us to build. It can be said that the whole purpose of narration is to make us realize the fabula through the intriguing ways in which story is presented to us.
I like the way how you connect the How question to affordances. How can we solve the things we are asked to solve? This is clearly connected to the question of how to build strong (able) characters. A character always must be in possess of the strenghts to engage into the challenge that is ahead of her. Otherwise the plot can't be maintained. Often the following example is given: A weak character must put forward this weakness in a strong way, she must possess the strenghts to carry weakness so that the weakness maintains it usefulness in the story in which it is supposed to achieve something. This is important in regard to believability and verisimilitude.
Thanks a lot for this read!
"This will often determine the type of game you make. This will also determine the controls you use in the case of platform specifics."
I don't think this is a definite statement. You could just as easily work the other way around (and I'm inclined to suggest that you should), building a character that fits the gameplay and controls.
"You can create a very good football game without needing the NFL tema names and stadium. But when you add certian story elements such as who, when and where you give the player a greater immersion into the game. This has added to the success of the franchise. "
This is the crux of the debate - there are gameplay stories and there are extraneous stories.
To me, the debate of story vs gameplay has always seemed redundant, since both exist regardless of what you do. A game of football has a story - the story of one team rising to meet and overcome the challenge of another. Sometimes this is the compelling story of a young upstart team scoring an unlikely win over a more established team. Sometimes its the rather dull story of a small team that tried and failed. There's an argument that a compelling game environment is one that supports these kind of stories in a way that tends towards the compelling in every play-through.
When adding more story elements to a game - such as a stronger central character or a narrative timeline - I would suggest that the key is to make sure this supports the central story presented by the game itself. Imagine if, in the case of an NFL game, different teams were replaced by having characters of different fantastic and abstract species. This wouldn't offer the same level of compelling experience, since the iconography would relate in no way to the game itself.
Another interesting thing to consider is the corruption of play by the insertion of a narrative timeline.
In creating a gameplay environment, a linear play space has to be marked out wherein the player knows everything must behave by the rules of the game. Yet there is an argument that one thing that differentiates a play situation from a life experience is that play has no fixed, real-world consequences. In football, once a point is scored, the game is reset. Until the end of the game, there is no final winner and the play is in constant flux - and even when the game is over, the final result is relatively inconsequential. By example, many sports feature a "mercy rule" where a game will be called off when one team simply cannot match up to another - because the final declaration of a winner kills the fun inherent in play.
Narrative timelines, however they are presented, are fixed and progressive by their nature. Even if they branch and split, they move in only one direction on one primary axis. This equates to the "mercy rule" and a corruption of play - where actions have consequences, we are experiencing a life event, not a game. Life events might be compelling and exciting (fun derived from mimicry/playing along or vertigo/adrenaline rush) but are no longer a game of skill or luck.
That's not to say narrative timelines can't be used to enhance a game, but they must be applied carefully and with respect to the concepts of play at all times.
That's a very strong point that I think is overlooked by a lot people involved in the "ludology/narrative" debate you mention. Unfortunately, the reality is that RPGs ARE on one primary axis, otherwise you would be developing a game for each individual player. The closest games have come to being truly open are having those choice conditions that end up feeling like one of those choose-your-path-teen-page-turner novels, or by having a sandbox game.
But to say that linear narratives are no longer games of skill or luck is a little hasty. Granted navigating in-game narratives doesn't take much skill but to say it takes away from skill involvement is wrong. Like previously stated, narrative has no impact on game mechanic, hence narrative isn't necessary. We need to look at story implementation and game mechanics as separate pillars in development.
Even if story has room for ludic actions and choice, it becomes its own game mechanic that shouldn't have an implication on the skill dependent elements of a game. They are separate pillars that support a great game experience. Sometimes you can knock one of the pillars out and the game still stands (I'd like to say Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion proved this, cause the fighting mechanics were pretty lame and clunky in many people's view, but the game still stood and thrived).
I think careful phrasing is key here - games naturally contain a narrative element in their gameplay - a protagonist (me) meets an antagonist (my dad's Tetris high score), tension is created (the playing field fills with blocks), and then the issue is resolved (even if I beat the score, the blocks will eventually fill the field - yes, Tetris is gaming's greatest tragedy). When hanging narrative elements like character and dialogue on a game, one might argue that its a case of weaving them into this.
Clint Hocking was the man I first heard use the phrase "ludo-narrative dissonance" to describe a failure to do this, but I'm not sure if he created it.
The example he used was Bioshock. What it did brilliantly, and what it has been praised for, is its use of setting and environment to tell its story. This is "ludo-narrative resonance": as a game that allowed you a general freedom to explore, and had only semi-linear paths, exploration is a key portion of the game. Thus tying the storytelling dynamic into this element of the gameplay was immersive and supportive.
Unfortunately the other prominent area of gameplay - the combat - was not only a distraction from the story, but was arguably at odds with its morals and themes. Hence "ludo-narrative dissonance".
I'm curious as to what you consider to be "navigating an in-game narrative" in terms of skill or luck. From my perspective, there is no way to do this - any game I play simply puts the story on hold until I complete a task. This isn't really exploring the story, its using the story as a reward system.
It kind of reminds me of a good technique for interface design in that you create it in black and white or shades of gray (without the distraction of textures and colorful details) and ask yourself, "Does this look good?" Then you add the color and graphical details. That would probably work well for character and level design too.