Chris Crawford Has Not Given Up

Though this post has been around since mid-summer it only just recently came to my attention via a student of mine who saw Stephen Totillo’s post at Kotaku. In it, Chris Crawford talks about turning sixty and looking at his self-perceived lack of success with the StoryTron project and interactive storytelling in general. Last year, Chris was a guest speaker at Columbia College Chicago visiting the Interactive Arts and Media department, where he talked about many things, including interactive storytelling. His presentation was dynamic, thought-provoking, and a little controversial, which meant it was typical Chris.

In his blog post Chris talks about hitting sixty and looking backward at the fact that he has not succeeded to the level he’d hoped for with the StoryTron project. He laments that failure but ends with the resolution that he’s going to dig in and take another shot at it.

I heard about this and read Chris’s post while here in Vancouver at the iDMAa  2010 conference, subtitled “The Digital Narrative”. And while conference is about digital art, media, and narrative in all it’s forms there’s been significant conversation about narrative and interactive storytelling. The coincidence of reading about Chris’s introspection while at this conference has not been lost on me.

Personally, I do not think that computer-moderated dynamically generated narrative will succeed to the utopian level that Chris seeks simply because the task is too complex and the output too subtle. I come from a strong table-top role-playing game background and I know the difficulty of teaching a human being (let alone a computer) how to tell good interactive stories. (Everyone who’s had a crappy gamemaster raises your hand…) I also oversee the Castle Marrach which is an online, text-based multiple-user role-playing game (basically a MUD) where a great deal of the storytelling us shared amongst the players. There, some players understand storytelling (in this case cooperative), but many do not on anything beyond a fundamental level. Storytelling and story generation is hard enough with human beings that I find it hard to believe that it is possible to create a computer surrogate that will satisfy our needs as story participant.

That said, I want to be wrong and I hope that Chris succeeds. But even if he does not succeed I am heartened that his endeavor is going to continue. Chris is his post is looking at his failure to bring the StoryTron to a final product (in the loosest sense) or even produce a viable framework that could be built upon. While that may be true, I think Chris fails to recognize the value he’s generated just by taking the journey. The discourse around interactive storytelling has been elevated due to his efforts, his ideas, his energy, his writings, his provocation, and his perhaps Quixotic pursuit of the goals of StoryTron. Thank you, Chris Crawford.

I do not think that StoryTron will ever do what Chris wants it to do, but boy if it ever does I will happily be there to experience it, edible crow in hand.

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Video Games and the Female Audience – A Rant

Dan Floyd

So, a month or so ago Daniel Floyd, he of the neat and insightful animated shorts, teamed up with Leigh Alexander, the news director at Gamasutra and the proprietor of game news and commentary blog Sexy Videogameland, and produced a piece called Video Games and the Female Audience that hits all the right notes about video games, women, and their depiction therein. (The SVGL page talking about how it came about is called Women Audiences, Women Characters.) Now, one glance around my office, and at certain sectors of my hard drive, will tell you that I am not opposed to sexy, well-done images of women. Oh no, not at all… but I think there are times when it all just gets too vulgar, boorish, tawdry or any of another dozen words to that effect. So, yea, I agree with Dan and Leigh (if I may be so familiar) about how the industry presents itself and how that is, or is not, appealing or attracting female gamers.

And all this really hit home the night before last while performing my habitual tour of the magazine racks at Borders. There was the new issue of PC Gamer – October 2009 – sitting on the shelf staring back at me, promoting Star Trek Online (which being a long-time Start Trek geek I am really looking forward to.) Here it is:

PC Gamer Star Trek Online Cover

Go on. Get a good look. Apparently it is one of three covers available on the newstand (I only saw this one.) The other two are described on the magazine’s masthead page as a “sultry Klingon” and a “sweet custom made alien”, with this cover being the “sexy Vulcan”. Subscribers get a picture of of a starship.

So. Atari. Cryptic. You’ve got the cover of PC Gamer magazine, and the opportunity to present a defining, intriguing, exciting image for your upcoming Star Trek Online game designed to attract the interest of curious Star Trek fans and MMO players… and this is the best you got?

Really?

Can I repeat that… Really? Three covers on newsstands – front and center – promoting Star Trek Online, PC Gamer magazine, and the video game industry – the “sexy Vulcan”, the “sultry Klingon”, and the “sweet custom made alien”. This is the branding, the positioning, that you are going for with Star Trek Online and associate with Star Trek in general? This is the way you decided to go with a cover opportunity? Star Trek has admittedly always presented sexy women, but rarely this blatantly, cat suit or no cat suit. From a marketing standpoint, what is the upside for pushing the imagery this hard compared to the downside? Given that the three newsstand covers are sexy images, and the subscription edition is a not-quite-as-T&A starship, there was a deliberate decision made to put the three women out for public ogling.

Oh, did I mention there’s a fold-out/poster version of the cover image included with the issue?

Leigh Alexander

Hello? No wonder some have problems with how our industry depicts women. Admittedly, as Leigh herself points out in the comments for the above referenced SVGL post, other media such as film and television haven’t done a particularly good job of challenging gender roles overall and its probably not fair to point fingers at the game industry when the media industry overall isn’t getting the job done. But, please… I’m going to say it again… Really? We can and should do better. We have to do better than that. That image in particular could easily have said competent, skilled, smart, and yes even wow! sexy – as the women in Star Trek are often portrayed – without going as far as it did. I don’t think anyone is lighting a pitchfork and shouting “No sexy women in our game imagery!” – I’m certainly not at least – but can we pull it back from absurdly hypersexualized? Can we? Really?

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GDC 2010 – Submission – Agency and Authorship

The second submission has the really long title of  “Plot and Purpose: the Non-Existent Conflict Between Agency and Authorship in Game Stories“, which though accurate is a mouth full. My guess is if the lecture submission is accepted it will be shortened.  Here’s the submission:

Plot and Purpose: the Non-Existent Conflict Between Agency and Authorship in Game Stories

Exercise:
Choose an action verb, past tense. [VERB]
Choose a game character sounding name. [CHARACTER]
Select a noun that is a familial or personal relationship [RELATIONSHIP]

“Hello. My name is [CHARACTER]. You [VERB] my [RELATIONSHIP]. Prepare to die.”

Congratulations, you’re written the premise of too many action-driven computer games.

Seriously, though, many recent top-tier games have fortunately moved beyond this structure. Entire discussions could be based on the meaning and execution of each portion of that sentence: The player/character, the inciting action, the emotional stake in the story, and so on. Instead, this presentation looks at the last part – “Prepare to die.” – the Desired Resolution – which is the Character’s response to the Inciting Action and how that’s crafted in a game story.

The Desired Resolution is what the Character wants… but it isn’t what the Character does. In order to achieve the Desired Resolution, the Character follows a Course of Action that brings about the ultimate outcome. This Course of Action is what the player/character can do within the structure, or allowances, of the game, which is the simplest expression of Agency, created by the “author” for the player to experience. Authorship doesn’t conflict with Agency – it enables it.

This presentation talks about defying the traditional story creation paradigm of conceiving of, and then plotting, the story from the beginning, through the middle, to the end. Once the writer has fleshed out the main plot – the primary Course of Action – that’s when they think about the alternatives… but look at the words used: Primary. Main. It establishes the desired set of events and it’s very hard to weave in alternatives. For telling interactive stories – game stories – don’t start from the beginning –start from the end. Construct possibilities based on desired outcomes.

Since there is no right plot thread or Course of Action, this presentation talks about determining what elements of the Desired Resolution are variables, affected by choice (Agency) – As obvious examples, is death required for the antagonist’s downfall? Does an ally change sides due to the character’s actions? And so on. Decide what the states for these narrative variables are and then devise what Courses of Action can affect these states.  Once all these options are defined – within the constraints and allowances of gameplay and content creation –weave them together into the web of all of the possible Courses of Action leading to the Desired Resolution. Authorship enables Agency.

Attendees of this lecture will be exposed to not only theoretical talk about Agency and Authorship, and the false conflict between them in game and interactive stories, but also practical considerations and possible solutions to enabling and expanding Agency in game stories. What kinds of narrative variables are practical to work with? How do we deal with the constraints of content creation? How are gameplay and Agency interrelated, but not the same? Some answers to the big question of “Yes, that’s all well and good, but how do we do this?” will be presented.

(c)2009 Tom Dowd. All Rights Reserved.

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GDC 2010 – Submission – “Designing Gatsby”

I’ve sent in two submissions for GDC 2010, one is a lecture and the other is a roundtable. I’ll be taking time to jabber about each on this site, but for the moment, here’s the information on the first, a roundtable submission:

Designing Gatsby

Designers, and critics, of narrative-driven computer games speak often of a desire to find deeper meaning in game stories and plots. Is it possible, or do the constraints of the medium prevent the inclusion of more so-called literary qualities in game stories? Thus far, the narrative structure of games has relied more on film than anything else, but should it? Should, instead, we be looking at novels and short stories for inspiration? Using the “Great American Novel” – The Great Gatsby – as a lens, jumping-off point, and crucible, this roundtable discusses how more literary concepts related to character, setting, perspective, drama or melodrama, structure, and so on can be applied to games and interactive narrative. All of this must also be looked at on the context of the reality that, at this time, games replicate physical action better than anything else. Are deeper meanings, complex literary elements, and action-driven plots incompatible, or is there some chance for synthesis of these ideas? And lastly, even with all these literary buzzwords and high-art talk, how do we actually do these things?

Running multiple times across the Game Developers Conference, this roundtable provides a great opportunity to dig deep into a handful of ideas, or broad spectrum of topics, depending on the make-up and inclinations of the attendees. The intention of the roundtable is to not only discuss these ideas on a theoretical level, but to also address practical considerations in presentation and execution. “Yes, but how do we *do* that?” is expected to be an often-asked question at the roundtables.

As with most roundtables, the takeaway here is food for thought and the opportunity to push boundaries and exchange ideas. Are we looking at the wrong paradigm for game structure? Can we weave deeper meaning into our run-and-gun content? Should we? With luck, these discussions will inform future game development decisions, or at the very least provide some fodder for the next round of beers.

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Middle October is when the submittors find out if they’ve made it to Round Two.

(c)2009 Tom Dowd. All Rights Reserved.

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