Podcast on Emergent Narrative
Jason Lutes speaks to Tom Chick about emergent narrative. This is super important to me, because it combines the dramatic involvement of story with the replayability facilitated by variety.
Usually games can only have it one way or another. FF7 is an awesome game the first time, but subsequently you know the plot twists and how it's going to unfold. It's great because of the storyline and the surprises along the way, the theories you come up with, and the guesses you make about the plot revelations.
Western RPGs like Baldur's Gate allow you to customise your character ad infinitum, but don't have as strong writing, because the creators can't craft a tight story for all of the possible configurations.
Will Wright drew attention to the possibilities by adding the album into his game The Sims; players were making their own little sandbox stories. I haven't played the GTA series so I don't know how much emergent narrative it offers within its little ecology. X-Com was a fantastic game that gave you emergent battle tactics - destroy the platform an alien is on to make it fall to its death, blast through the walls to get to your squadmates in time.
The podcast also makes some very interesting points about cooperative games; I recently acquired Reiner Knizia's LotR game, and while I see why people might find it too abstract, I do enjoy it. Lutes and Chick point out very adroitly that the information restrictions (you can't show your cards but you can talk about them) are there to promote social interaction, not to prevent people from finding out what your cards are.
Usually games can only have it one way or another. FF7 is an awesome game the first time, but subsequently you know the plot twists and how it's going to unfold. It's great because of the storyline and the surprises along the way, the theories you come up with, and the guesses you make about the plot revelations.
Western RPGs like Baldur's Gate allow you to customise your character ad infinitum, but don't have as strong writing, because the creators can't craft a tight story for all of the possible configurations.
Will Wright drew attention to the possibilities by adding the album into his game The Sims; players were making their own little sandbox stories. I haven't played the GTA series so I don't know how much emergent narrative it offers within its little ecology. X-Com was a fantastic game that gave you emergent battle tactics - destroy the platform an alien is on to make it fall to its death, blast through the walls to get to your squadmates in time.
The podcast also makes some very interesting points about cooperative games; I recently acquired Reiner Knizia's LotR game, and while I see why people might find it too abstract, I do enjoy it. Lutes and Chick point out very adroitly that the information restrictions (you can't show your cards but you can talk about them) are there to promote social interaction, not to prevent people from finding out what your cards are.