Jacob Davenport - Writing Game Rules

Sorry again, but I have yet another small blog entry here as the article was yet another small piece so I will share the whole article with you.


Writing Game Rules

Why This Is Important

When someone tries out your game, they first must read the rules you have written. If they are poorly written, even if your game is great, the players will be frustrated. Your game lives or dies on the strength of the written rules. The rules create an early impression for the players, and poorly written rules will sour them on your game. Game reviewers often will not play a game with poorly written rules, and even if they do they will mention the shortcoming in their review. The owner of your game will have a hard time finding new players to play the game if the rules are too difficult to read. Good writing is important even in the early stages: playtesters do not like to read badly written rules before they test your game. Taking time to write your rules well may even illuminate ways to redesign the game to be better.

Fundamental Qualities

The three fundamental qualities of good explanatory writing are clarity, brevity, and completeness. It is very difficult to achieve all three of these conflicting qualities. Everything extraneous to the rules must be stripped out, leaving only words and pictures that help teach the game. Unless it helps the players learn the game, do not mix in humor, history of the game design, extra information about the scenario, or anything else. If you really want something extra to appear, perhaps it could be in a side bar that can clearly be skipped by the players who just want to read the rules. But if it can be skipped, why would you waste the ink on it? You are done when there is nothing left to be removed.

Order of Explanation

Give your players information in the order they need to know it. First your rules should start with a summary of the game, or the metaphor that this game represents. This is the context in which all the rules will fit in. When done well, the rules make cohesive sense, and experienced game players may even be able to predict what the rules will be based on the summary. Usually the objective of the game follows. It directs the play of the game, and players can understand how the subsequent rules will help or hinder in achieving their objective. The rules that follow should build on this foundation.

Avoid leaving the reader in suspense. Do not talk about a game mechanic that you have not yet explained.

Use white space and lists to organize the rules, so that related rules are close together on the page. Bullet points help clarify where one idea starts and another ends, and which ones are subsets of others.

Reading Aloud

When done correctly, one person will be able to read your rules aloud to the other players, and then they may begin playing. If someone has to read the rules and then "translate" them for the group, you have failed to write the rules well. Read your own rules aloud to yourself and to others. White space and bullet points help the reader have correct cadence and pauses for reflection and digestion of each new idea.

When you teach a game to someone in person, you will have a dialog with them as they ask questions about the game. Well-written rules will anticipate those questions and answer them as the player thinks of them. Reading your rules aloud to people helps bring out these common questions, and helps you order your rules correctly.

Clarifications

Often examples help, especially one with a diagram. Have your examples in italics, so that players who understand the rule just explained can skip them, but players who need help can read them. This simulates the extra discussion that is required with some players.

There may be extra clarifications that the players will need, but they may need it infrequently. This information should be referenced later in the rules, perhaps with a note at the appropriate spot that the information is at the end. This will give the players the most important information immediately, with the ability to check on a specific problem later. This division helps get the players ready to play the game sooner, while still remaining complete.

Review

The best way to know if your rules are correctly written is to have them reviewed by someone else. You are too close to your own game and writing to know if you have done a good job. Solicit harsh and honest feedback, without which you cannot improve your writing. Get people who do not know anything about your game to read the rules aloud to other people who do not know anything about your game. Take notes on any confusion they have. Have the courage to rewrite your rules completely when it seems necessary, or even just to try out a different tact. The more people who review and comment on your rules, the better your rules will be.

Finishing

Resist the urge to print your rules in an interesting font, even if it fits the setting. Make your rules as legible as possible. If a reference card or page would help, include it in a place that is easy to get to. Consider how the rules will be used, if they will be read once and set aside or frequently examined. Wherever possible, get input from other people about these issues, because it is other people, not you, who need these rules. With frequent revision, consideration, and rewriting, your game will shine through and be as accessible as possible to new players.

Thanks again and I hope you enjoyed the article.

J.Seigel (2007) How to write rules (without confusing people)

Hello there I am going to be honest. I have read the article but as this article was so short I thought I may as well share the whole article with you.


How to Write rules (Without confusing people)

This desperately needs to be the topic of a GDC session. It doesn’t apply to most digital games, but it’s indispensable in analogue game design, and a valuable communication skill in general.

The rules of a game are the most important aspect to convey to a player. In non-digital games, if the rules are not understood, the game can not be played.

It’s important to write rules that leave no stone unturned; a player shouldn’t be questioning what something means, or unsure of how to interpret something (unless, of course, the ambiguity is intended). At the same time, brevity is key, and no player wants to read a tome every time they play a new game. The writing — the designing — of the rules is as crucial to the play experience as the design of the game itself.

I’ve been writing a lot of rules lately, interspersed with some digital design docs that will probably go nowhere. Regardless, the intersection of the two has given me some new insight into the creative process. Here are a few tips for writing clear, cohesive rules.

1.       Flavor first: If the game has a narrative tying the mechanics together, make that narrative clear immediately. The metaphors will be helpful in explaining and justifying the game’s logic and mechanics.

2.      Get the boring stuff out of the way: List the materials needed for the game next, followed by any pre-game instructions for setting up. If it gets wordy or over-complicated, slim it down and add an illustration or two to help explain.

3.      Begin with the end: The first rule you should give the players is the winning condition of the game. Tell them what their objective is. From a logical standpoint, all the other rules serve the winning condition, and will make more sense when described with regards to it. It also makes it easier for players to find when they forget how to win.

4.      Go from general to specific: Think of it like newspaper journalism, or an inverted pyramid. After the objective, describe the broad, overarching rules before describing the instances and exceptions. If it’s Mille Bornes, explain placing mile cards before you explain the hazards and remedies, explain the hazards and remedies before you explain the safety cards, and explain the safety cards before you explain the coup fourré‘s. Another way of saying this would be to explain the things that happen most often in a game first, and the things least likely to happen in a game last.

5.      Tell players what they can do, before telling them what they can’t: Somewhat related to the previous point, you should always explain the least constricting rules before explaining the most constricting. Rules explained earlier therefore become the primary rules, and the rules following are the instances and exceptions where the primary rules change or don’t apply.

In addition to these rules, remember to use short sentences with low-level vocabulary. When necessary, use illustrations (sometimes nothing beats a good drawing).

White space is also crucial. A page full of text looks intimidating. Use bullet points and short paragraphs to keep the reader/player from getting overwhelmed.

Finally, don’t be afraid to be friendly! Unless it’s entirely antithetical to the style of your game, use a light-hearted tone with your rules. I’m slowly learning that seriousness isn’t exactly a staple of this industry. When the purpose of a product is to be fun, then describing it should be fun as well.

 I hope you enjoyed the article, many thanks.

Richard A. Bartle: Players who suit MUD'S

Multi-user Domain/Dimension


2 playing styles; action versus interaction, and world orientated versus.

Mud's labelled as either"social" or "Gamelike"

"Most Mud's trace their lineage directly back to Trubshaw's 1978 game (Bartle 1990; Burka, 1995) and, perhaps because of this heritage, the vast majority are regarded as "games" by their "players""

"Mud's can be of considerable value in non-game (i.e. serious) applications"

"are Mud's:
Games like chess, tennis?
Pastimes like reading, gardening or cooking?
Sports?
Entertainment?
Or a combination of all four?"

Fours things players of Mud's enjoy:
"1) achievement within the game context
2) exploration of the game
3) socialising with others
4) Imposition upon others. Players use the tools provided by the game distress to (or to help) other players"

Labels of four player types:

Achievers, explorers, socialisers and killers

"Many (if not most) players have a primal style" but drift between all four styles, to chance their style or to increase their primary styles level.

If too many of one type dominate the game then others will leave making a domino effect of other player types leaving the game.

It is difficult to get a sort of statues quo where all player types can get along and play together.

Interest graph (lines represent source of players interest in a Mud)


"The game world is just a setting like the characters that make it more compelling"

If Muds are made biased to one player types through the mechanics then the game isn't a Mud any more as it needs a piece of each player type to be a Mud.

Players - "when all sense of elsewhere presence is lost you no longer have a Mud"
World - "if there's no one to tell, or no way to tell them, you don't have a Mud"
Interacting - "If players can't play, it's not a Mud"
Acting - "Without depth, you have no Mud"

Programming = Nature of Mud

Admin = Nature of a Mud

"Ways to emphasize players over world:
add more communication facilities
add more player-on-player commands
make communication facilities easy and intuitive
decrease size of the world
increase connectivity between rooms
maximise the numbers of simultaneous players
restrict building privileges to a select few"
cut down on the number of mobiles

Ways to emphasize world over players:
have only basic communication facilities
have few ways that players can do things to others
make building facilities easy and intuitive
maximise the size of the world
use only "rationale" room connections in most cases
grant building privileges to many
have lots of mobiles

Ways to emphasize interacting over acting:
make help facilities produce vague information
produce cryptic hints when players appear stuck
maximise the effects of commands (i.e. add depth)
lower the rewards for achievements
have only a shallow level/class system
produce amusing responses to amusing commands
edit all non descriptions for consistent atmosphere
limit the number of commands available in any one area
have lots of small puzzles that can be easily solved
allow builders add completely new commands

Ways to emphasize acting over interacting:
provide a game manual
include auto map facilities
include auto log facilities
raise the awards for achievement
have an extensive level/class system
make commands to be applicable where ever they might reasonably have meaning
have large puzzles that take over an hour to complete
have many commands relating to fights
only allow building by top quality builders"

"These strategies can be used to encourage or discourage different styles of play"

These should be used to get new players only to enhance or not the current players

"Denial of history is not, in general, a wise thing to do"

"These major factors distinguish a Mud from and adventure style computer game:
a Mud is not goal orientated
a Mud is not extensible from within
a Mud generally has more than one user connected at a time"

This rules out Amy Bruckman's theory that Mud's are a type of adventure game.

"Dynamics:
To increase number of achievers:
reduce number of killers, but not too much
if killer numbers are high, increase numbers of explorers.

To decrease number of achievers:
increase number of killers
if killer numbers are low, reduce number of explorers

To increase number of explorers:
increase number of explorers (as no one really attacks them)

To decrease numbers of explorers:
massively increase the number of killers

To increase number of socialisers:
slightly decrease number of killers

To decrease number of socialisers:
slightly increase number of killers
massively increase number of achievers
massively decrease number of explorers
decrease number of socialisers

To increase number of killers:
increase number of achievers
massively decrease number of explorers
increase number of socialisers

To decrease number of killers:
decrease number of achievers
massively increase number of explorers
decrease number of socialisers"

The following diagram shows the flow of player influence

                

                + <------------ +

                - <------------ -

        killers + ------------> - achievers

        - + + - - ------------> +

        ^ ^ | |  -  + ++        ++  --

        | | | |  ^  ^   \       /   /

        | | | |  |   \    \   /   /

        | | | |   \    \    X   /

        | | | |     \    \/   X

        | | | |       \ /  \/   \

        | | | |       / \ /  \    \

        | | | |     /   / \    \    \

        | | | |   /   /     \    \    \

        | | | |  |  /         \    \   |

        | | v v  v v            \   |  v

        - + --++ - -             ++ -- -

        socialisers               explorers

        + -     - +               +     +

        ^ ^     | |               ^     |

        | |     | |               |     |

         \ \___/ /                 \___/

           \___/

"Game-like" Muds are the ones of which the killer - achiever equilibrium has been reached

"social" Muds are the ones in which the pure social-stability point has been reached"

"all-round" Muds, which exhibits both social and game - like traits.

Overbalancing a Mud:

"Tilting a Mud towards achievers would make it obsessed with game play"

"Tilting towards explorers would add depth and interest, but remove much of the activity"

"Tilting towards socialisers removes all game play and centres on communication"

"Tilting towards killers is more difficult because this type of player is parasitic on the other three types" Make it a shoot-em-up style game.

If something is added to tilt a Mud one way a counter balance must be added to equal out the Mud's player types.

"So long as a system is a (text based) multi-user-virtual world, that's enough." To be a Mud.

So "are Mud's:

Games like chess, tennis? Yes
Pastimes like reading, gardening or cooking? Yes
Sports? Yes
Entertainment? Yes
Or a combination of all four? Yes"

Brenda Braithwaite: Elements of Strategic Skill

Elements of Strategic Skill
The Role of skill in games:
"At it's heart , a good game is a series of interesting decisions - go right or go left, build an offensive or defensive unit, figure out what your unit should do next. The success of decisions  - whether a mental or physical reaction - is a measure of player skill."

Magic circle - When we fall into the game, film, book and fall into that world.

Games are better at drawing us into the "magic circle" as they "have a stronger pull because they integrate players and their decisions into the experience." Whereas books and films you are just viewing the experience.

"Flow." Is an optimal play state and one designers work hard to achieve.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Psychologist and noted researcher who come up with "flow"

Types of Decisions:
Obvious Decisions:
In cases where obvious decisions are key it can make the game boring, if the player has choice but not choices over the consequences it is boring after a while I.e. roll a 4 and move 4 spaces, then pay the other player who owns that space in Monopoly is tedious and boring.

To make things more entertaining the more trivial decisions sometimes get removed, an example of this is in older RPG's where the player would have to choose to rest and eat for a turn to gain HP and stamina, nowadays this is changed so that they automatically refill to make the game more fun so the player can focus on the more interesting decisions.

Meaningless Decisions:
"The only thing more frustrating than a choice with an obvious right answer is a choice with no right or wrong answer."

"If decisions are interesting because they affect the outcome of a game, then meaningless decisions are not interesting because they don't affect anything." Meaning this gives to players the illusion that they are influencing the game making them feel more involved.

Blind Decisions:
Blind decisions are where the player makes a decision on something important but with no basis on their choice, it is only important once the choices have been revealed or that game state has finished. For example in Roulette "The decision is not obvious, because it's not clear ahead of time what the correct number is" It's not a meaningless decisions as the fame outcome is affected by it, either the player wins or loses their hard earned cash. It's not an "interesting decision. because the player has no information to base her choice on" But the game is still drawing because of the gamble the players take.

Trade-offs:
"A trade-off happens when a player doesn't have enough resources to accomplish all of his goals."
If one choice is better than another the choice is obvious.
"A game is called balanced if the choices are weighted so that their is no single best method that always wins"

Basically when a player has to decide between a selection of objects for example or which path to take. Each one has their own pros and cons, this makes the decisions more interesting for the player as they are not always weighted or balanced as mentioned above, so thought is needed when making a trade-off.

Dilemmas:
"Similar to a trade-off, but occurs when all choices will harm player in some way."

Golden Balls is a great example of a dilemma as at the end the players have to make a choice without knowing the others answer, if they co-operate they split the winnings but if they are both greedy they get nothing and if one "steals" and the other "splits" the person who stole gets all the winnings.

Risk Versus Reward Trade-offs:
"A form of trade-off, a risk versus reward trade-off happens when the player finds herself faced with a situation that has multiple outcomes, but whose level of risk is different. It's not so much a question of "which one of these things do I want" but rather "Am I willing to risk it all for a potentially huge pay-off... or death?""

Frequency or Anticipation of Decisions:
If decisions are thrown at the player every second the player will become frustrated, unless the decisions are such of games like The Sims where the player makes their own goals.
In reverse to this not having enough decisions can be boring for the player, but having them spread out can entice the player making them want to play on, building more drama and tension within the game.

Trade-off Mechanics:
"A trade-off puts the players in a situation where they must choose between things. In order to keep their money, they can't have the armour they have their eye on. Designers use a variety of mechanics to put players in this situation.


Auctions
Purchases
Limited use Special Abilities
Dynamic limited use special abilities ("by varying the strength of special abilities based on space, time, location or some other factor, the strategic nature of the decision is amplified")
Explicit Choices (giving the player pros and cons of each choice)
Trading and Negotiating"

Brenda Braithwaite Designing a game to tell a story

Designing a Game to Tell a Story:
"Most important feature of all - games are about players making meaningful choices that affect the outcome of the game"

If there is only one narrative trail, there is no story or options for the player, and basically no game.

Writer, designer or both?
"The game writer is also a game designer, but the two jobs are distinctly different and require different skill sets"

Best results are when a game writer is part of the project from start to finish.

Story Arcs:


"If you have any idea of where your story is going results in a better execution than slapping a story together on the fly. To do this game writers create story arcs."

Story arc us the path of the story from start to finish.

Two kinds of arcs normally used:
Classic three-part story arc (Aristotle)
Five part arc (Campbell)

Three act story arc:
The story follows this path:
Act 1:  Start with "inciting movement", maybe hours of gameplay before inciting moment (prelude or and opening sequence). Common in games is a rubbish inciting moment that doesn't motivate the player. After inciting moment, player progresses for some time towards his final goal.
Act 2: A dramatic reversal occurs. The reversal should be realistic and believable not what Aristotle calls a "Deus ex machina " an impossible or improbable  "machine of the gods" created to help the writer achieve his needs.
Act 3: The goal from the inciting moment is resolved. "An irreversible resolution is achieved. Sometimes a second reversal may occur."

The five-part hero's journey:
"As Campbell saw it, there is but one hero and one path told in a thousand different ways. He called this "Monomyth "(The hero with a Thousand faces)"

Campbell's five part story arc:
Part 1:"Hero receives a "call to adventure" and begins a journey"
Part 2:"The hero passes through a series of challenges (a trail of trials)"
Part 3:"The hero confronts the final evil and achieves his goal"
Part 4:"The hero returns to the everyday world"
Part 5:"The hero applies the lesson or objective learned in the adventure to that everyday world."

Narratology and Ludology:
""Ludology" is the study of games as rules (or mechanics)"
"Ludologists believe that a game is first and foremost a collection of rules that give rise to the dynamics of play when a player sets the game in motion through an interface of some sort"
Looking from this perspective, "modern-day games are an extension of ancient games like GO and Chess. Story is not a part of a game, but rather something layered on top of the mechanics of third person shooters."

Cheapest method
Linear Stories:
"Progress from point A to B to C. Have periodic and frequent side quests."
"Shares most common with other storytelling media so it is familiar"

Can be emotional
"does not require players to play through the game several times just to see all possible outcomes"

Mid Rang in Price
Branching Stories:
Multiple ways to get through a story, possible multiple endings.
Play path changes by player input/choices.
Take advantage of game interactivity
Can be expensive as writer has to make several related stories not just one e.g. each branch will have different story, art assets and code etc.
Variant of branching story = parallel path, makes story fold back on itself at key pre-determined points, but can reach them in many ways due to branching. This keeps price down as it is still linear arc (Parallel path).

Most Expensive
Open ended stories:
"Open ended (or multi-linear or threaded) stories start players in a particular place or a variety of places and allow them to progress in many different directions, each of which affects the outcome of their play."

Key example is Elder Scrolls Skyrim as the player can take 100's of paths so has a lot more paths than a branching story.

"Designers are careful to prevent situations where the story makes no sense because it is told out of order, either by limiting the player's choices through fact trees (if they don't know about x, don't tell them about y), or writing different stories for different paths that the player takes"

Normally have teams of writers who's job it is to make and test these vast stories.

Instances:
Special case of open-ended stories. commonly used in MMO's present player with "instance" of a particular story thread.

"Self contained mini-stories. Make them easier to write, and it also allows new instances to be added as a later time"

Emergent stories:
"Arise purely from the lay mechanics of the game"
"Stories created by player experience or player-created content... not placed by game's designers."

Thematic set-ups;
"Opening cut scenes" give an intro to the story but give no more info on the rest of the story.

Algorithmic Stories:
"Constructed by computer AI and respond to player inputs to determine story direction"
AI written by humans but the AI is given "pre-determined plot points... like a bunch of self-contained, small,open-ended stories linked together in a larger, open-ended main-story."
Very few disadvantages
"Façade took over five years to construct", but plays through in 20 minutes.

Story telling methods:
Cut scenes and cinematic's
In game events - "Do no remove from player but trigger when player does something"

Dialogue:
Spoken audio/visual; player can interact, opening different paths. In cut scenes the decision is fixed.

Text:
Useful to convey back story, cave writings, notebooks etc.
Can't force player to read text as they would get bored but if they chose not to read, they could lose valuable information. This shows the story in a passive way.

Setting and Character:
"People want to play cool characters" in a world they couldn't normally experience.

Character Design:
More than looks, good characteristics survive due to behaviour and personality.

Environment Design:
More about feel than wowing special effects.

Gamasutra - Into the woods: a practical guide to the hero's journey

The Hero's Journey Into the Woods:
Characters who the player may encounter:
The Mentor
The Threshold Guardian
The Shapeshifter
The Trickster

"What practical use is the Hero's journey to us as story tellers and game writers?"

Why the Hero's Journey is so important:
"It's important because myths and important. Myths convey the values of society. Myths are how we teach each other who we are and how we should behave"

"Myths actively guide our actions. They're not dusty old stories in a book, or crumbling temples in a far-off land. 62% of people in America say they believe in the literal truth of the Bible, and that became a critical factor in the election of George Bush to the White House. Suicide bombers in Iraq believe by blowing themselves up in their holy cause, they will go directly to Paradise and will this day be with Allah. Game developers believe that if we work just a  little bit harder, we'll soon see fat royalty checks."

Rollo May Four myths still active in Modern Life:
"Myths give us a sense of personal identity"
"Myths make possible our sense of community"
"Myths are what lie underneath our moral values"
"Mythology is our way of dealing with the inscrutable mystery of creation and death"

In ancient times a cavemen and tribes, the tribes that adapted and grouped together passed their genes on to use and was established by the telling of stories, myths, legends etc. Not just where the prey us but motivational stories i.e. "the good Samaritan" to tell them how to behave and to look out for others, not just themselves, making the stories, main character a role model.

James Frey writes in The Key about "Beowulf's heroic deeds" and how they are conveyed to others in the tribe to show how to act and to admire to be the next Beowulf.

"Hero's are our models: Their stories convey to each succeeding generation the cultural values of the tribe"

"By definition we are the biological descendants of the tribes who told stories to survive"

Carl Jung believes we have "Mythic structure built in to us, waiting for a particular belief system to be imprinted upon us by the culture we grow up in"

Frey - "The force of a myth is irresistible" they are the "foundations on which all good stories are built"

So story telling is hard wired into us to make sense of the world.

Without myths in our lives we would be lost.

When making games we need to, "what in previous ages was done by family, custom, church and state" basically create our myths to tell the story of the world of our game.

May - "Myths carry on the essential task of trying to create meaning out of our lives and actions, in a world that doesn't care"

"If we you take away a man's myth, the result is mental illness, depression and the loss of the will to live"

We need to believe that we matter, because it not what is the point of us being here.

"Literature proves there is order in the universe"

"I believe games are myth-reinforcing activities" - Gerard Jones

To make deeper, better and more complex game play experiences the myths need to be just as deep and complex combined with a deep storyline.

"To write those storied, you need to understand how myths are put together and communicated. And that is why the Hero's journey is important!"

What is the Hero's Journey?:
Joseph Campbell states that after analysing thousands of myths found that a few common elements kept appearing and no single myth contains them all. "But in categorising them, he tells us that the more of them a narrative has, the more likely it is to strike a deep mythological chord with the audience."

"Campbell summarises these elements, which become known as the Hero's journey", these are briefly :
" Establishing the hero's world 
The call to adventure 
Entering the mythological woods 
Trail of trials 
Encountering the evil one 
Gaining the hero's prize  
Returning that prize to the community"

How can we use the Hero's Journey to build stories?
"Must the hero encounter all of Campbell's archetypical characters, or is it ok if he skips a few? We are continuously cautioned against using the Hero's Journey as a template"

Two things not to do:
"Don't look at all the possible steps in the Hero's Journey and make sure you've got them all in there and in the proper order. Fiction is flexible. Don't make a list of all of Campbell 's mythological characters and try to find a spot for each of them in your story. The Herald, the Threshold Guardian, the Trickster, the Shape Shifter, etc. Just create the characters you need to tell your story and you'll be fine."

What To Do:

• Pick your premise: theme, myth. Must decide what is important and make your game about that. "Myth and stories consciously or subconsciously influence behaviour" How you want people to behave after playing your game.

Lajos Egri - "The premise tells you what you need to include and what you need to leave out. The premise is a tyrant." - The Art Of Dramatic Writing
Create your hero: Create a hero capable of embodying that premise. "A hero is the myth in action Frey (The Key) - qualities a hero will always have: Courage (or finds it), clever and resourceful, "special" talent, outlaw (living by their own rules), good at what they do for a living, Protagonist (takes the lead in action at some point) and sexually potent.

• Create a great villain: "The Strength of your villain is the strength of your story" Great villains are memorable, great example Jack Nicholson as The Joker in the original Batman film.

Frey's possible characteristics of "The Evil One":
Traits similar to hero:
Full of hubris
Outlaw (Maybe)
Clever and resourceful
Wounded
Have a special talent
Sex appeal
Traits dissimilar to the hero:
"Motivated by greed, avarice, lust for power, variety, narcissism, and so on"
"Never acts out of idealism", except for his own cause and belief.
Often Cruel
Wins by luck, hero never wins by luck
Not forgiving
Might quit at very end
Whines and grovels, hero can't do that (shows weakness)

Not social

Not logical

Not physically superior, un-like side kick

No special destiny or birth but may claim one

• Show the hero's regular world:

Show the norm, pre-threatened world, and finally how the hero has changed in conflict and how it has been resolved and how the hero is changed for the better.

• Disrupt the Hero's world:

"Bump character out of normal world and show good stuff" Threaten hero's world, reason for existence etc.

Force hero into action (Campbell's call to adventure)

When disruption is a person its the Herald, in Campbell's terms.

Hero may refuse call to help, but not in games.

• Enter the Mythological woods:

"Trail of trials"

Level progression normally best in games

Show character growth

Should end in a different place than be started on each level.

Physical or psychological "woods" - must endure inner/outer struggle

Outer struggle = achieve victory

Inner struggle = discover himself and transform his character

See character progression as levels progress

• Confront The Evil One:

Fight bad guy in "inner most lair"

Confronts and defeats evil is key

ideally confront and beat inner struggle before outer struggle

• Acquire the Prize:

Acquire the prize established by the Premise "The thing worth fighting for". Whole point of the story to let the character and player acquire what they were fighting for.

• Hero's Return:

Optional/Not optional

At the end you will have moved the character "from pole to pole" - Egri

Through identification, the hero's transformation has a greater impact on the audience

Three act structure:

"First Act, you get the hero up a tree

In the Second Act, you throw stones at him (in other words, you make things harder for him)

In the Third Act, you get him down out of the tree."

Can use Hero's Journey to fix/solve some game problems.

Hero doesn't always need to return but needs to have changed from the start of the game and the prize needs to survive.

Does the game have a flat ending? - take a look at hero's prize

Do the players not seem to be identifying with your hero? - Have you taken hero from pole to pole? Have you shown his change from start to finish? If not go back and do it!

Does working through levels become tedious? Is the villain strong enough?

Have you looked at your levels? - Each level should be a mini story

Hero's journey can't solve every problem though.

"As a game writer, the myths you create have the power to change lives. You have to take the hero's journey."

"Before you can acquire something really worthwhile to give to the rest of us, you're going to have to go through your own personal hell"

"Own personal myth: Do the work, and everything will be ok. Do the work, make it as good as you can, and eventually you will be awarded. You can always hope for the best, but not unless you first, do the work."

Gamasutra - what every game's designer needs to know

What every game designer needs to know about 
"Story is a universally human experience"

"Games aren't movies.... movies aren't games"

"They are a form of story, not jut a new toy"

"Story is conflict"

Robert McKee author of "Story"

Real substance of story is conflict

How classical stories move:
"it's simple. It works"

"First, there's a protagonist. a hero. His or her world is thrown out of order by an inciting incident."
The hero trys the right, real world approach and it fails, then attempts to try another method against the changed world which "pushes back too hard"

"There there is a reversal. Something new happens. or the hero learns something. She didn't know before, and the world is out of whack again. A second gap has opened up."

This is repeated i.e. our hero overcomes one gap another open and they have to adjust to overcome that, then another opens and so on for three "gaps". Which is when the biggest risk of all is taken to overcome everything and achieve their greatest goal.

"In a comic structure, the last gap is overcome. In a tragic structure, one final gap opens up, and stays there. But games are comic by their nature, so we'll assume it's possible to get to the end."

Character, and why it matters to games:
Characterisation = the superficial stuff e.g. clothes, car, eating habits etc

"Character is what he chooses to do" for example risk his life or stay safe that's the defining point of a character.

"Any good story will have pressures on the hero to bring out these choices, and therefore the character. This is called the principle of protagonist, because they conflict with her to define her character"

"The world of the game should be designed to oppose the player at every turn. As games become more interesting choices, and our characters will become deeper."

The importance of Reversals:
The reversal is what keeps the hero moving forward and not back or no where at all.

"As you can see in the brief summary of classical story structure, each act is driven by a reversal. When the hero accomplishes the ordeal before him, the reversal is what keeps him going forward instead of resting on his haunches. A reversal can happen through action (somebody shoots a cop's partner, and that changes everything) or by a revelation (Luke Skywalker finds out that Darth Vader is really his father) "

Lethal Weapon 2 = bad reversal when Danny Glover's character shoots the guy he could have shot earlier on. It's cheating and "Your audience can smell cheating"

"What a good reversal does is expand the story's universe. Everything you knew was true, but now there's more, so the world is flipped on its head with this new knowledge."

Story forms refine Games
Types of conflict and types of story:
Intellect conflict = "what goes on inside your head"
Interpersonal conflict = between people
External conflict = "Conflict with society in general or the physical world"

Why important? "Certain story forms to certain forms of conflict more naturally than others."

"Internal conflict happens most naturally in novels. 
Interpersonal conflict happens most naturally in plays, and in soap operas.  
External conflict happens most naturally in movies, and in games."

Games are primarily visual like movies and unlike plays, this directly affects the approach of handling dialogue in games.

"Games don't tolerate a lot of dialogue"

Empathy, and the big protagonist flip:
"The viewer is the protagonist" for the first time unlike other art forms so must relate, enjoy and understand them completely to want to keep playing.

"How do you define a character if you're not making the choices? The answer is open ended."

Pacing stretches, dialogue shrinks:
Pacing is extend like never before because the player is the protagonist and doesn't need telling because they are doing it for example in a world war 2 trench game is would be a 3 minute clip in a film but can be dragged out in a game because it's the players "ass" out there. "This is life or death."

But the dialogue shrinks, "even from the level of our very visual cousins, the movies. Players who are wrapped up in action don't have a lot of patience for talking."

Exception of the rule though is when dialogue is a game mechanic. e.g. When the text/dialogue is part of the conflict it works such as in Knights of the old republic.

A game story that works: 
Halo through a classical structure:

No deep character, as in no background or information on them, just a "Witty bad ass".
"It's thanks to Cortana that we see even that much of him"
 "It's got real reversals that drive interest in the game"

How Halo's reversals work: 
"Act 1:
Halo is a computer that the Covenant want to use as a weapon, so the humans, led by you, the Master Chief, have to get there first and activate its defence functions. There's a clear conflict: You versus the Covenant. And it's spurred by an inciting incident: The Covenant have attacked your ship, and you've had to take off in the equivalent of a minivan before the ship explodes.You have no idea what happened to Captain Keyes. 
Act II:
As you fight the Covenant along side the Marines, you walk into a room where a freaked-out Marine shoots you, and you have to kill him. That's a great moment of choice, even in a linear plot. You also see Covenant corpses that you didn't kill. Then you meet The Flood, which try to eat both you and the Covenant. Reversal: The conflict isn't as clear as you thought. It has expanded, and caused your world to change. Some of your friends are now your enemies, and there are new enemies."
Act 3:
"You are assisted by a hovering machine librarian in turning on Halo's defence system, so you can use it against the flood"
You then find out Halo is a machine designed to kill all life forms and you was tricked by the librarian as the flood and you will be destroyed.
You now have to destroy Halo.
Conflict expanded again.
The Ending:
"You have to destroy Halo" - Important point of all stories, in games the player has to end it and not just watch it.


"Show, don't tell" - stories rule
"Do, don't show" - games rule


"We want our players to experience as much of the story first hand, as the main actor in it. If there's ever opportunity to create the story through players action, make that choice. If there's a part of the story that must be out of the players control show it."


"Do show and tell in that order"


Story and the writer:
"Writers are essential to game story"


"Paste on some dialogue, buddy, and make it clever! NO, NO, NO. Don't do this."


Writers need to be involved from the start of the development process not just for dialogue, they need to know, understand, feel and believe in the whole story before dialogue so the writer knows what to write to keep the player interested.


Story and the whole development team:
"The writer isn't everything. The principle of antagonism might be planned by the writer, but it's created by the designers, and implemented by the programmers."


"Designers will always be the most direct allies of game writers."


"Designers are in charge of the forces of antagonism. Which are the essential elements of character development and plot advancement"


Art and sound obviously create the most perceivable parts of the game.


"Programmers work with everybody to keep the story alive in what the novelist John Gardner would call "The vivid, continuous dream.""


If everything is not at the same standard or something sticks out like a sore thumb the "dream" is broken.


"Creating this world so no one notices the code is the hardest job of all"
"It's not news that games are a collaborative effort"


But so is the story development in games design and this needs to be well established.


"The writer's job is to know all the details that I don't include here. Everyone else on the team, though, needs to know at least the basics I've outlined in this article. The development team has to speak a common language about story. If we all do, we stand an excellent chance of making games that will leave the last generation in the dust."