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Books on the craft of writing say that the "main character" plays three roles at once: the character the story is about, the character we root for, and the character through whose eyes we see the story. Typically, these three distinct roles are called the protagonist, the hero, and the viewpoint character, respectively. (Interactive media add a fourth role, the controlled character or avatar, who effects agency.) Also typically, in both media all these roles are rolled into one, collectively called the protagonist, among other things.
But casting the avatar as the protagonist is not always the best choice from a gameplay perspective. Gameplay is about decisions with consequence. The protagonist's goals and opposition are already set, so the only thing left remaining is the work, the "how", to attain those goals. Such an activity shares more with puzzle design than gameplay. The player just goes through the motions to complete the pre-written story, all impactful decisions already made for him.
The interesting choices exist near, and before, a conflict. From this vantage, one has many options on how one wants to relate to the conflict, effectively creating a gameplay resource out of the conflict itself. These choices can affect the tone of the game, so allowing the player all of them may not further the design goal, but they offer the player what is arguably the only freedom that counts: the freedom to choose one's impact on the world. Here they are:
Ally. Pick a side, any side, even if it is a new side. Though the result won't be much different than being the protagonist oneself -- indeed, an ally could become the protagonist in the event of a loss of faith or life -- having the choice is generally what games are supposed to be about. But also, once we consider life outside the major conflict, shades of grey can reveal themselves to us.
Support. Much like allying, but covertly. The avatar's alliance is kept hidden from most if not all characters. This leaves open options in case the conflict tips the wrong way. As long as the avatar pays lip service to multiple sides, sympathetic to all (at least in private), the player cannot definitively lose. Also, many major plot revelations in fiction involve a hidden ally -- or betrayer -- coming exposed.
Defuse. Play the diplomat. This again plays out like a puzzle game, but the pieces are the conflicting desires of people. Provided their desires are confused or chimeric enough to warrant sorting out, the compromise needn't even be an optimal, perfect solution that so many puzzles in videogames demand. Also, diplomacy handled badly can trigger a story advancement and gameplay change, with two added bonuses. One, later repercussions on the avatar can be nearly anything, which is a handy hook for a drama manager to have. And two, the player can certainly say he experienced agency in the story! In many ways, failing the diplomacy puzzle is more interesting than succeeding at it!
Escalate. Raise the stakes. Make it worse. Purposes for doing so vary, and depending on the stakes, may even be mannerly or morally suspect. But pushing things to a climax can be fun in both the gaming and fictive senses. Game-wise, fireworks happen and the pace picks up. Fictionally, one or more characters, including some not directly involved, will be pushed toward change and growth.
Prolong. Keep the conflict going as long as possible; ensure no one will win, ever. This is useful if the avatar would accomplish things that one or both of the conflicted parties would oppose. Since the conflict consumes their attention, much good work can be done in the lurch. Of course, prolonging a conflict is a little like keeping multiple plates spinning on their stilts: one is in constant danger of it all coming down on one's head.
Ignore. The last case, whether considered an edge case or the base case, is needed for more than just contrast or completeness. Negligence has consequences, too. Outside the saving-the-world trope, an avatar's political power, social standing, parental ability, freedom, or even humanity can be called into question by non-player characters if the game's AI is capable of recognizing them. For negligence to exist requires only a duty or a relationship to one or more persons involved in the conflict. No man is an island, and abandonment by one's adventuring party or ostracism by one's people is surely as much of a reason for Game Over as death. In some cultures, exile equals death. In some games, marginalization equals loss of agency.
Interactive media specialize in a wide variety of emotions: guilt, shame, guardianship, responsibility, complicity, achievement, competence, and anything related to roles and their expectations. But to mobilize these emotions, we must give players the power to affect NPCs in ways more subtle than life-or-death. This makes a new direction for game AI, since each character must be able to calculate his or her relationship and response to the avatar based upon their shared gameplay history. But in an industry filled with mindless hordes of enemies, perhaps an AI that must justify its antagonism is a creature -- and a choice -- worth making.
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"Gameplay is about decisions with consequence. The protagonist's goals and opposition are already set, so the only thing left remaining is the work, the "how", to attain those goals. Such an activity shares more with puzzle design than gameplay."
I'd like to point out that this is a matter of semantics regarding what each individual defines as "gameplay." I would not quite agree with your definition, for example, and someone else may not agree with either of our perspectives. Even the meaning of terms such as "game" or "simulation" varies with each individual's perception and understanding of the terms. Sometimes this is purely subjective based on personal interpretation while other times such variance might be due to specific, agreed upon definitions in certain fields of endeavor or areas of study.
I think that we may want to be very careful about approaching the subject with broad generalized meanings that may differ between individuals. It might be better to approach the topic with an awareness and acceptance of varying individual definitions and understandings of core concepts such as "gameplay" and discuss what definition can be agreed upon for any particular discussion session. The same is true for the development and design process - the accepted definition need not remain constant and generalized, but can change with each specific effort.
Your analysis is probably correct, and should be the way (some) games head in the future. This sort of approach to narrative is something that I believe games can offer as a unique experience.
Also, I am not sure why you bring AI into it at the end, since this would not necessitate a specific change in AI, just more branching decisions. Justification for the actions of an AI agent is illusion, at best, and nothing more is needed for the scenario you describe. See any Bioware game, where, on a very basic level, NPCs react directly to player decisions.
Kevin, thank you. The above six can be mix-and-matched, of course, and with degrees of commitment on each. A player could ally with one side, support a similar but different side, and all the while trying to escalate the level of conflict, for example.
Jeff: If you add all this in addition to all the other things a game typically has: big traversable world, photo-realistic graphics with a camera that could be stuck anywhere, etc., then yes, it adds cost. I've already expressed my thoughts on travel, though.
On branching decisions, let me make an analogy to 2D graphics that try to simulate a 3D view of an objects (such as cars in an overhead-view driving game like RC Pro-Am (NES)). Each view is its own 2D graphic, to be completely drawn separately, manually, from scratch. If the game wants smoother animation or hilly terrain, these necessitate drawing even more views of the car; we have a combinatorial explosion of car views. Narrative does the same thing when it uses branching decisions: manually write out each resulting view of the world. The "3D solution" for that is an AI called a drama manager, the subject for next week.
It seems like what you are describing is making separate decision trees for an agent based on each possible action taken by the player. This is sort of the brute force way to do it that would not result in the best representation, nor the most open gameplay.
Maybe I am misreading your response, but regardless, I look forward to your next blog post.
Since that's a big combinatorial space to write out, creators currently must collapse the space into a reasonable number of writable scenes. They ignore a lot of cumulative effects, make some branches merge back into others, etc. It's a workable solution, but it isn't ideal. Just as the 2D game that required a full 360-degree view of a car really needed a single 3D polygonal model, narrative too needs something to deal with the combinatorial space.
So when I say AI is the answer, I don't mean the kind of AI that's attached to any particular character in the game.
Thanks for pointing me to this blog entry. I must say, you bring up some really fascinating points here. I see what Jeff is saying about them being suited for a purely open world game and I must admit, I was even thinking that myself. However, I think they could easily be adapted, as you said, to a 2D or closed world 3D game. These are not ideas that are inconsistent with linear gameplay, you just have to make sure you AI can respond to them. With the power of your average personal PC over the last few years, it's not something that would be very hard to do. I've got two games on the fire right now, one of which is a linear-story RPG, which has a similar type of interaction with NPCs
The NPCs you encounter in the world will react differently to you based on the race you chose, your religious leanings, your karma leanings, and you class. In some cases, the NPCs will even attack you, depending on where your loyalties lie. The programming time I've already spent on it, just trying to figure it out has been ridiculous, but once it's finished, it's going to open up the possibility for the player to really tell their own story, and they'll be able to be any and all of the types of characters you mentioned above.
There's an unfortunate oppinion that these types of systems are only plausible in sandbox/open world type games, when in fact they're not, you just have to be more flexible in the story you're telling.
Excellent food for thought, Ron. Absolutely excellent.