Handling of Scripted Scenes: Technique and Theory
tod...@gmail.com
sub-plots that need telling and consequently I have 4-5 scenes of 2-4
turns that are triggered in different parts of the opening landscape.
The wise player, as the game is written now, more or less passively
watches what is going on once he reaches a trigger point. The scenes
are important, and I hope interesting, but I begin to wonder if I am
favoring the wait-and-see approach too much. But these particular
scenes build an important foundation for the rest of the story.
The question is: how much to force-feed the player? One approach, is
to keep each scene in stasis until the player arrives, perhaps forcing
him to view the entire thing with messages like "As you move to leave,
you notice an orange spider crawling up the leg of the Queen's
chair..." Another method is to just let it all unfold, whether or not
the player is there to see it happen. In either case, do I accept the
player's departure as his choice (and/or the scene's failure to
captivate)?
It occurs to me that something good might happen if I bound 1 or 2
introductory scenes into a playful object, so that narration unfolds
as the player tinkers with it. Part of my problem, though, is that I
have several NPC's to introduce.
It also occurs to me that this a question of balance and feel. So what
I would like are other author's experiences, both good and bad, as
well as any guidelines experienced writers may have unearthed. I am
sure this topic has been thoroughly discussed, but I am unsure how
even to google it. I welcome any advice, links, or tales of triumph
and woe.
Tod Levi
Andrew Plotkin
> It also occurs to me that this a question of balance and feel. So what
> I would like are other author's experiences, both good and bad, as
> well as any guidelines experienced writers may have unearthed.
The classic gimmick, going back to Christminster, is to give the
player some (easy) puzzle to work through, which takes (at minimum)
exactly as long as the scene takes to play out. (In "So Far", I had
the player tripping over people's feet as the theater play finished.)
But repeating that for several introductory scenes is probably a
mistake. Unless the puzzle is genuinely interesting, and gets more
interesting with each repetition.
I generally don't write plot-relevant scenes without somehow ensuring
that the player will see them. Having something play out outside the
player's view, because the player isn't there to see it, *is* a way
for player choice to affect the work -- but I don't find it to be an
interesting choice. It's not mindful choice, it's gears turning behind
his back.
But my way of writing games isn't universal. :)
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a
warrant, it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because of
the Fourth Amendment.
Emily Short
> The question is: how much to force-feed the player? One approach, is
> to keep each scene in stasis until the player arrives, perhaps forcing
> him to view the entire thing with messages like "As you move to leave,
> you notice an orange spider crawling up the leg of the Queen's
> chair..."
That can work; I'd certainly rather have that happen (as player) than
miss some important piece of information that I am going to need
later.
> Another method is to just let it all unfold, whether or not
> the player is there to see it happen. In either case, do I accept the
> player's departure as his choice (and/or the scene's failure to
> captivate)?
That seems kind of dangerous, unless you're planning to write a very
robust, multilinear story which a) can go multiple directions and b)
has enough plot content that it will be interesting even if the player
misses large chunks of it. I have written work in which there are
multiple different scenes that give the player the same information,
and a plot manager hangs about waiting to trigger whichever of these
the player stumbles across first; this can make the game feel a bit
more open, and add replay value, but it also costs hugely in
development time. So beware.
You can also make this optional-scene-viewing thing work if you're
writing a game that you expect the player to replay again and again
until he identifies the important plot events and gets there in time
to see them. Both Deadline and Varicella work essentially this way:
there are all sorts of things happening on a fixed schedule which you
may happen to miss on the first N times you play the game, but since
there's no way to win without seeing them and the game is designed to
be replayed, the player will get to know about them sooner or later.
You get a certain amount of realism out of this -- that is, it makes
sense for a bunch of NPCs to be going on with their business with or
without you -- but on the other hand it's a real challenge to write a
game fun enough that people are willing to learn-by-dying to that
extent. In my opinion, Varicella does a better job at that particular
task.
> It occurs to me that something good might happen if I bound 1 or 2
> introductory scenes into a playful object, so that narration unfolds
> as the player tinkers with it. Part of my problem, though, is that I
> have several NPC's to introduce.
If these are scenes of NPC *interaction*, it may not be too hard to
keep the player from leaving before the scene is over: depending on
the PC and the context, I usually either have the NPC refuse to let
the PC go until they've finished the discussion, or say something like
"It would be rude to leave now." until the conversation is over.
One of my favorite techniques is to write NPC scenes where the NPC has
two or three important things to say to the player and won't let the
player go until they're done, *but* the player is allowed to ask his
own questions (possibly making the scene go on for more turns if the
player is really interested in it); what's more, if the player himself
introduces one of these key points, the NPC won't mention it again. So
the NPC's code tells him to talk about the next undiscussed item in
the list of A, B, and C whenever the player is not otherwise
distracting him. This can play out as
NPC says, "A".
> WAIT
NPC says, "B".
> WAIT
NPC says, "C".
> EAST
... but can also go something more like
NPC says, "A".
> ASK NPC ABOUT X
NPC says, "X".
> ASK NPC ABOUT B
NPC says, "B".
> ASK NPC ABOUT Y
NPC says, "Y".
> WAIT
NPC says, "C".
I've had pretty good luck with this kind of structure, in that it
tends to produce good dialogue flow and guarantee that all the topics
are covered before the player moves on, but it doesn't always feel as
though the conversation is being completely directed by the NPC.
There are some other subtle things you can do -- for instance,
identifying topics that have no logical followup for the player and
letting the NPC change the subject actively at that point, so you get
conversation like
> ASK NPC ABOUT Y
NPC says, "Y".
NPC changes the subject and says, "By the way, C".
This often means that the player doesn't have to WAIT during the
conversation in order to hear any final conversation topics that he's
missed. Unless I have something *really* compelling going on, I try to
avoid making the player type WAIT very much, since this feels
basically equivalent to writing a cut-scene.
I think this NPC method generalizes to something broader, namely:
-- if your scene is mostly about getting some facts to the player, you
may be able to package this in a form where the player gets to explore
and find some elements on his own, and only the elements he doesn't
find are force-fed.
This doesn't work all the time, and the time-consuming-but-
straightforward puzzle is a good alternative for those occasions.
> It also occurs to me that this a question of balance and feel. So what
> I would like are other author's experiences, both good and bad, as
> well as any guidelines experienced writers may have unearthed.
The other thing I'd recommend is playing some of J. Robinson Wheeler's
work, if you haven't done so before: he manages to achieve scenes that
are very cinematic in feel, with events continuing in a set direction
while the player explores/acts, but in ways that feel fairly natural
at the time that you're playing. ("Centipede", "Being Andrew Plotkin",
and "Tale of the Kissing Bandit" come to mind. They're all short and
colorful games, so it wouldn't take you long to get a feel for them.)
Conrad
> I am wrestling now with writing an opening to a game. I have several
> sub-plots that need telling and consequently I have 4-5 scenes of 2-4
> turns that are triggered in different parts of the opening landscape.
> The wise player, as the game is written now, more or less passively
For my part, I'm never much interested in being a wise player; it's
so much more fun to make bad decisions and watch Hell break
loose.
> The question is: how much to force-feed the player? One approach, is
> to keep each scene in stasis until the player arrives, perhaps forcing
> him to view the entire thing with messages like "As you move to leave,
> you notice an orange spider crawling up the leg of the Queen's
> chair..." Another method is to just let it all unfold, whether or not
> the player is there to see it happen. In either case, do I accept the
> player's departure as his choice (and/or the scene's failure to
> captivate)?
In a perfect world, you'd have the player focused on the information
you're giving him, but looking for something else. For example, he's
trying to figure out who has the key to the cupboard, so he can pick-
pocket it from them; then he'll be reading closely (one hopes) for
clues.
> It occurs to me that something good might happen if I bound 1 or 2
> introductory scenes into a playful object, so that narration unfolds
> as the player tinkers with it. Part of my problem, though, is that I
> have several NPC's to introduce.
Again, if you can set something up so the player is actively eves-
dropping, the dialogue will be less intrusive to game flow.
> It also occurs to me that this a question of balance and feel. So what
> I would like are other author's experiences, both good and bad, as
> well as any guidelines experienced writers may have unearthed. I am
> sure this topic has been thoroughly discussed, but I am unsure how
> even to google it. I welcome any advice, links, or tales of triumph
> and woe.
In this case, what I would do is to try to smuggle the expository
information in to the player's mind while he is primarily focused
on something else. So give the player something to do concurrent
with the exposition; examples above.
Conrad.
Alice Merton
> sub-plots that need telling and consequently I have 4-5 scenes of 2-4
> turns that are triggered in different parts of the opening landscape.
> The question is: how much to force-feed the player?
Do you need to do everything in scenes? In movies it's a great way to
get backstory across, but it doesn't always work that well in IF.
How about conveying your subplots using objects, especially reading
material? Then there's no problem with having to make the player sit
still and watch a cut scene, and they can read it in detail and refer
to it if they forget anything. Consider letters, wills, books, signs
and so on.
If you are set on scenes how about having MORE scenes triggered by the
player arriving somewhere, but make them much shorter, so they are
only one or two turns long, so the player can't miss them by wandering
off.
Alternatively, maybe the scene could follow the player? E.g. voices
are still audible in nearby areas, events are visible in the distance?
Conrad
PS to my prior post, wherein I wrote:
> In this case, what I would do is to try to smuggle the expository
> information in to the player's mind while he is primarily focused
> on something else. So give the player something to do concurrent
> with the exposition; examples above.
-- Ideally, you'd make the task and activity you give the player
thematically related to the overall story.
So, if the story is about getting getting into high society by
breaking
the rules, you have him crash a costume party; if the story is a spy
story, then have him looking for a specific letter to steal; if it's
about
brains over brawn, then have him trick a thug out of a fair fight;
and
so on.
For each character and situation, you can if you want ask yourself,
"What is this situation about? What is the story of this character?"
Then organize your decisions about that character, that situation,
that task or that activity around your answer.
That's not really what you were asking, but it seemed that partly you
were looking for help in coming up with relevant tasks for the player.
Conrad.