Column: 'Homer in Silicon': Betraying the Protagonist
August 9, 2008 8:00 AM |
['Homer in Silicon' is a biweekly GameSetWatch column by Emily Short. It looks at storytelling and narrative in games of all flavors, including the casual, indie, and obscurely hobbyist. This article looks at the problem of separating player and protagonist goals.]
Last year I participated in a panel on tragedy in interactive storytelling. One of the big questions there was: if the player identifies with the protagonist and is motivated by the desire for the protagonist to "win" or "succeed", how can satisfying interactive tragedy exist? Won't the player always be trying to avoid actions that propel the story to an unhappy conclusion? What can an interactive tragedy offer to the player in place of traditional metrics of success?
My ideas then were largely about tapping into the player's desire for other kinds of gratification: the desire to see the end of the story; the desire to make significant choices (even if those choices lead to endings that are unhappy in different ways); the desire to explore the constraints of the universe in which the story takes place.
To that list, I would now add: the desire to precipitate a dramatic crisis.
The player faces a situation where he could do something risky and stupid, with negative ramifications for the protagonist, which would nonetheless be narratively interesting. He's probably curious about what would happen if he did.
How does the game get him to go ahead? How is the player cajoled into doing something that sets the protagonist back?
The clearest example in my experience comes from a game you almost certainly haven't heard of: "Treasures of the Slaver's Kingdom", a text adventure by RPG author S. John Ross. It's set in the parody-RPG universe of "Encounter Critical", and was marketed primarily to Encounter Critical's existing fanbase -- namely, people who enjoy a spoofily ridiculous mix of elements from Star Wars, Star Trek, Conan the Barbarian, and similar geek-sacred texts.
To discuss how "Treasures" gets the player to betray the protagonist, I'll need to spoil it a bit. Details after the jump.
The protagonist in "Treasures" is a metal-and-furs-style Barbarian. His sword is broad, his wits dull. He makes regular visits to a Delicate Doxy, who treats him to the sorts of pleasures a Barbarian enjoys most (for a very reasonable fee). The player likes her too, because she's got lots of useful plot information.
On the second or third visit, the Barbarian notices that the Doxy doesn't look like herself. She appears to have grown antennae and to be making a strange buzzing noise. But he assures himself that this is nothing to worry about, and is eager to proceed with the usual transaction.
Now the player, who has by this point seen several references to evil bee people, cannot possibly be so credulous as the protagonist. But when I played I felt no compunction about walking the protagonist into the obvious trap -- in fact, I enjoyed doing so. It was in character for him. It was much more interesting than getting away. Moreover, I was pretty sure that whatever happened next, I wasn't going to ruin the game for myself.
Several things have to happen to create a context for such dramatic choices. The connection between protagonist and player has to be attenuated a little: I have to sympathize with my protagonist while at the same time not feeling that my fate is bound into his. My primary commitment has to be to the story, rather than to my avatar. That allows me to enjoy and get something out of a narrative that features set-backs for the character. And there has to be a guarantee of safety. I'm not going to play with the interesting but potentially negative outcomes nearly as much if I think they might later interfere with my ability to finish the story.
"Treasures" addresses all of these points. It accomplishes the player/protagonist separation through one of the most straightforward means available: it draws the protagonist as significantly less intelligent than the player. The text of the game frequently describes things in such terms that the player understands them better than the protagonist (a trick also used by the award-winning "Lost Pig").
This is not difficult to do in prose, since a reader will often recognize from a literal physical description what something must be, even if the protagonist doesn't know the name of what he's looking at. A graphical interface would have to work harder to create such a separation between protagonist and player perception, perhaps offering access to the protagonist's thoughts via a voice-over or other hints; and the characterization still needs to be deft enough that the player enjoys spending time with his stupid protagonist, even while looking down on him.
"Treasures" also takes full advantage of the conventions of its genre. The barbarian warrior is supposed to be proud, strong, and stupid, so "Treasures" plays that to the hilt: the protagonist frequently notices the manliness of his own thews. The player is more or less forced to regard him as an example of a type, rather than a fully-fleshed person.
Finally, "Treasures" makes it feel safe to experiment with the dramatic possibilities through external assurances that the game will never become unwinnable: as the website memorably puts it, "If your arm falls off, that's part of the story, I promise."
This still doesn't get us all the way to interactive tragedy. "Treasures" is certainly not one, and some of the techniques it uses wouldn't be appropriate for a tragedy meant to be taken seriously. "Make the protagonist thicker than bricks" isn't exactly a design methodology suitable for all seasons.
Some of the other techniques are more widely applicable, though: guaranteeing that the story will never become unfinishable; offering the player options that are in-character but disadvantageous to the protagonist; and setting up scenes in which the question of what's behind the door marked DANGER is just too fascinating to leave unexplored.
The player's curiosity provides a game-play reason to try the dangerous action. The protagonist's flaws (if not stupidity, then pride, vanity, greed...) provide the narrative justification.
It can be done.
[Emily Short is an interactive fiction author and part of the team behind Inform 7, a language for IF creation. She also maintains a blog on interactive fiction and related topics. She can be reached at emshort AT mindspring DOT com.]
Categories: Column: Homer In Silicon
7 Comments
Funny you should bring this up: I always thought the only satisfying solution for doing a game where the protagonists suffer setbacks (and thus, tragedy) was to remove direct control over the protagonists from the player, such as with a God game or an Incredible Machine type game. Interesting to find out this doesn't have to be the case.
Merus | August 9, 2008 9:08 AM
i've written something before about cactus's psychosomnia which i think may be relevent here:
http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=141
zarf's shade is pretty similiar in principle: a game where the player and player character are working toward opposite ends.
auntie | August 9, 2008 1:03 PM
It would be interesting to perceive this in terms of the Japanese "mono no aware" ("pity for things") which observes that tragedy, failure, and/or death is more or less inevitable and stories should celebrate the bittersweetness of a thing or individual's passing, rather than foist a lie of a happy ending on the audience.
I've always had a hunch that "mono no aware" was the reason Japanese games seem more inclined to take control away from the player, usually with cutscenes, but occasionally with how they've set up agency as well. This is not a perfect example, but in the recent .hack//G.U. RPGs from Bandai-Namco, the protagonist is... well, a huge jerk, and the player, no matter how sweet his or her intentions, can ever get the protagonist to not be a jerk. Pretty soon you see this jerk is biting off more than he can chew and you welcome the chance that something is finally going to shut him down and teach him some humility.
As a result, it's virtually impossible (for me, at least) to perceive the protagonist as an avatar for the player. Instead, the games become a surprisingly involved character study, with a lot of highs and lows and eventual transformation brought on by calamitous moments of crisis. I believe part of the emotional efficacy of the game is that you are pulling for these moments, even if the fallout can be perceived as a failure in gaming terms.
Kris Ligman | August 9, 2008 1:41 PM
There's an easy mechanism by which a game can persuade the player to undertake actions which are bad for the protagonist, which is to exploit the desire to see the rest of the game. When the only way to reach the next level is to do something with a bad outcome, then few players will hesitate.
For example (spoilers ahead), in the Shigeru Miyamoto/Eiji Aonuma game Ocarina of Time, it's the player whose actions allow the villain Ganondorf to gain the power of the Triforce and rule the world, setting up the tragic second act of the game. But once you get to that point, there's nothing else to do: your choices as a player are to give up on the rest of the game, or go ahead. Everyone wants to see the rest of the game, so it's not really a choice. Nonetheless it still sets up a very powerful emotional effect.
Some of the Final Fantasy games have something similar. Still, the trope is not common enough to make the Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Clichés [http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html].
Gareth Rees | August 9, 2008 2:25 PM
Modern indie pen & paper RPGs are really big in having the player want things that the characters do not want. There are many techniques that you can use here, but by far the easiest is to (1) take away any idea that player success is protagonist success (and one way to do this is to ensure that the player is not out of the game when something happens to his character, or that although he might be out of the game, its easy to get back into it or in some other of not much consequence), and (2) setting up character creation and scene creation and the theme of the game in such a way that it is clear that more adversity for your character is simply more fun.
Victor Gijsbers | August 9, 2008 3:33 PM
Gareth wrote:
There's an easy mechanism by which a game can persuade the player to undertake actions which are bad for the protagonist, which is to exploit the desire to see the rest of the game.
Yes, in theory, but it has to be handled carefully. I recall being very irked by a couple of IF games where the whole plot was about undoing a mistake that the player was forced to make at the beginning, even though at the outset there was no motivation to do this stupid thing other than to get the game rolling. (Lazy Gods of Earth does this; so, as I recall, does Snatches by Gregory Weir.)
Emily Short | August 11, 2008 12:37 AM
Gareth--
That technique seems to grow more and more common, which is not surprising since it lends itself well to videogames. Pitting the player's desire to continue--the instinct to survive at its most fundamental--against some narrative consequence of doing so will probably remain a common idea throughout interactive media for a long time.
It's worth noting that many games employ this technique in the more subtle and less tragic sense of foreshadowing danger upon the road ahead. Something as simple as a dark and dreary environment through which the player character must navigate if the player is to progress is at base no different from the tragic idea, and I think we are all aware of it to some extent.
For example, take a survival horror game in which your character is stranded and presses forward through increasingly dire circumstances in an attempt to find rescue. While playing, you are certainly aware that in real life you would be likely to wait in relative safety for help to find you, but in the game the passage of time is not of narrative significance, so this cannot work. So we force our avatars to progress even though we have great reason to stop them from doing so.
Halfway through the DS title Etrian Odyssey, you are tasked with a mission to execute genocide; if you want not to carry this out, you may as well quit because there will be no more progress for you. And the PS2 modern classic Shadow of the Colossus is a doomed and selfish quest from start to finish, a very focused and well-known example of keeping the player at odds with that which s/he is accomplishing.
Skye Nathaniel | August 11, 2008 11:24 AM