Let’s talk about empathy and the moral responsibility of the writer.

Suppose you’ve got an audience of a million people for your AAA video game, broadly representative of the American population (because these days, everyone loves games!) As you hash out your plot, think about your audience for a second and ask yourself: Are you comfortable with the story you’re telling to them and about them? Would you be prepared to sit in a room and justify your artistic choices, one-on-one, to your players?

• If you’re not Hispanic, are you prepared to justify to a Hispanic person how you cast (or didn’t) Hispanic characters?
• If you’ve never been a sex worker, are you prepared to justify to a sex worker your story’s handling of strippers and prostitutes?
• If you’ve never been in the military, are you prepared to justify your war story to a veteran?
• If you’re a man, are you prepared to justify to a woman the casting and portrayal of women in your story?
• If you’ve never been in a gang, are you prepared to justify your crime story to a gang member?
• If you’ve never been disabled, are you prepared to justify your handling of a paraplegic character?

These aren’t the only people and experiences you should be thinking about–this is a grab-bag of “things games have historically handled poorly.” But you see the pattern. I began writing this post to offer a rule of thumb for sensitively handling sexual violence in games, but then decided such a rule has much broader applications; “could you justify this in a one-on-one conversation” is an approach that works for so many things.

If the thought of people in the above groups (or the group of your choice) engaging with your story makes you uncomfortable… think hard about why that is. Most folks can handle opposing viewpoints, but are much less easygoing about being portrayed inaccurately, or as a stereotype, or as something less than a three-dimensional human being. Or if you can’t picture that personal conversation at all, why not? If you can’t even start to form that image, surely you don’t know enough about Group X to do it justice in your portrayal.

Of course, the fact that you are prepared to justify your handling of Topic Y doesn’t mean you’re right. Maybe you feel your over-the-top depiction of gun violence is so far in the realm of fantasy that it doesn’t convey any real-world message; maybe you did your research about life under the Khmer Rouge and you’re pretty sure you’re conveying as accurate a picture as you can. Ultimately, you’re the one who has to make the call. You could still be wrong. But be sure you’re as certain as you can reasonably be.

And if you do think you might be wrong, consider this as well: Are there other voices out there–other games, other narratives–that convey an alternative viewpoint? Or are you the only one showing characters of this particular type at all? In the former case, you can afford to be a little more slipshod; not that you want to neglect your responsibilities to truth, but if you fail, the consequences are mitigated. In the latter case, you’re potentially doing something useful but you also have a special level of responsibility–bad representation isn’t always superior to no representation.

And what if your portrayal is a common one, but not one derived from personal experience? That is, what if there are plenty of other narratives out there featuring characters of Background Z, but they all tend to treat them in a similar fashion? Again, the harm you inflict by going along with that trend is probably pretty minimal even if it’s an unfair portrayal–but it doesn’t excuse you from taking time to reflect on your writing, or from doing your research.

And that’s all this post is really about: Reflection, research, and empathy. Cover those three bases and you’ve done what you can. You can’t ever really speak for anyone else (no matter how similar to you that person may be), but that’s the mantle you’re picking up all the same, every time you write any character.

The least you can do is try to do people justice.

Or, more likely, not.

The notion of killing someone close to the protagonist to kick off a story is an old one. In traditional media, most of the time it’s not really meant to be a motivation that’s of particular interest to the audience: we’re not expected to be too distraught over Hercules’s children, or the Punisher’s family. Instead, we’re meant to accept the motivation as valid and move on–it’s just enough to give the protagonist an excuse to do what he (with occasional exceptions, it’s usually he) does while we enjoy the resulting twists, turns, and carnage. The inner pain driving the protagonist isn’t the subject of the story–what matters is what he does with that pain, and the consequences that ensue.

It’s not the most intellectual or humane way of telling a story, but you know what? Sometimes it works.

It doesn’t work in a video game. We’ve talked before about the importance of converging player and player character motivations, but to recap: The closer the player’s motivations are to the player character’s, the more engaged you can expect the player to be in the narrative. Wanting the same thing (beat the boss!) is good, but wanting the same thing for the same reason (beat the boss because he’s so, so irritating!) is better. When the player’s motivations are unlike those of the protagonist, you lose one of the unique strengths of the medium and–assuming you want a compelling story at all–you burden yourself with the need to craft a dual-track narrative that functions to motivate the player and player character separately. (A topic potentially worth tackling some day in a separate article.)

You can’t motivate a player by killing someone she’s never met before, or who she’s seen only in the briefest of cutscenes. That much should be obvious. As a consequence, if the player character is supposed to be distraught by the loss of someone dear early on, you can almost guarantee the player won’t be. Your story won’t fail on a technical level (in the sense that all characters can still act reasonably based on their internal motivations), but you’re raising a barrier to the player’s actual interest and involvement in the narrative.

This peril can arise in less contrived scenarios, as well–any situation in which a player character’s motivations are driven by something the player hasn’t experienced is a risk.

Let’s move from theory to something more concrete, and examine some different scenarios for a theoretical action-adventure game we’ll call Drug Murderer: Yes, Thou Shalt Totally Murder.

Scenario One: The player character, Karla, is a loyal member of the Red Panda gang. Within the opening half-hour of gameplay, a fellow Red Panda betrays her and kills her best friend, sending her on a one-woman rampage to defeat the gang that was once her surrogate family.

With a full half-hour in which to get to know the Best Friend, the player might actually care when he dies. But the player isn’t going to care with anywhere near as much fervor as Karla–and most likely, the player’s anger will drop off very quickly without reinforcement. At best, this can serve as an inciting incident to a larger plot in which new motivations can be introduced. At worst, it’ll be entirely ineffective.

And that’s assuming that we get a solid half-hour demonstrating that a) Karla and the Best Friend have a believable relationship, and b) the Best Friend is an appealing enough character that the player will actually like him. Fail to devote enough time and effort to either of those tasks and failure is a foregone conclusion.

Scenario Two: As Scenario One, but the game’s development team has decided that Scenario One’s perfunctory motivation isn’t going to work. Still, that opening sequence has already been designed, the cinematics have been motion captured, and so forth–the dead Best Friend stays.

As a corrective, once Karla’s rampage begins, she now quickly discovers that the Red Pandas have acquired a nuclear weapon and intend to detonate it downtown in return for payment from a terrorist group. Karla’s motivation now shifts from a simple quest for vengeance to a desire to save the city.

This is a nebulous, impersonal motivation, but it gives something for the player to experience and latch onto. Handled with delicate care (and with effort put in to make the player invested in the city), it might work; at the very least, it gets us past a severe Karla / player divide, where Karla focuses only on the Best Friend and the player has nothing driving him other than “finish the game.” A hand off in which a non-functional motive is exchanged for an adequate one is better than not making the swap at all.

Scenario Three: As Scenario One, but instead of trying to hurry past the initial motivation and replace it with something else (as in Scenario Two), the development team decides instead to make the death of Best Friend a turning point for the entire game.

The story is realigned so that for the first third of playing time, Karla and Best Friend are partners inside the Red Pandas. The death of Best Friend doesn’t happen until well after the point where the player is sold on the character and the relationship–once the player has bonded with Best Friend, killing him off has the same effect on the player and on Karla. This approach is simple and potentially very effective.

Scenario Four: After much debate, the development team has decided to get rid of the Best Friend motivation altogether and try to find something less dependent on a particular moment and character. Now Karla is an enigmatic figure with a hatred for the Red Panda gang and a depressed and detached affect. Over the course of the game, the player discovers the root of Karla’s present state–she was once a DEA agent who was held hostage by Pandas, locked away in isolation for years. Now she’s sworn vengeance on the group.

This really isn’t appropriate for most games. By intentionally obscuring Karla’s motives, the player is actively prevented from empathizing with Karla even as he works to accomplish her goals. The player is being asked to put himself in Karla’s shoes, to strive (through gameplay) to do what she’s trying to do, without understanding why.

Scenario Five: In this scenario, Karla’s past is the same as in Scenario Four, but her time as a hostage is shown in a non-interactive introductory sequence. This is an improvement–at least the player can understand what’s going on–but it’s not as effective as it could be.

Scenario Six: Instead of the non-interactive introductory sequence from Scenario Two, the player actually plays through short segments from Karla’s time as a hostage. These would need to be intense to be effective, but the job of this game is to convey a taste of the feeling of isolation and helplessness (as opposed to building a complex relationship, as would be required for the Best Friend scenarios). It’s still a challenging narrative and a tough protagonist to work with, but the approach becomes more viable this way.

Alternatively–or in addition–the player could spend time with the depressive Karla post-hostage-scenario but before she begins her murderous rampage (e.g., dragging herself through her day job at the DEA, talking to therapists, etc.) While it’s rarely as effective as creating emotion and motivation through direct experience, players can respond to a “character tutorial”–learning what sort of character they’re playing, how she reacts and how she thinks, and establishing the limits of behavior and agency–in the same way they respond to a tutorial that teaches game systems.

As with a mechanical tutorial, a character tutorial should come early and shouldn’t challenge or confuse the player. It should ease me into the character I’m playing, clearly delineate her motivations, and allow me to gradually buy into her personality, laying out the baseline from which I’ll work going forward and helping me adopt the character’s mindset.

There’s no single right answer among these scenarios. They all have strengths and they all have weaknesses. For most types of games, some will clearly be more appropriate than others, but there are always exceptions to wrestle with.

Nonetheless, it’s imperative that game writers are able to see these strengths and weaknesses instead of relying on the tricks of non-interactive media. Because if a writer (of all people!) isn’t aware of the peculiarities of interactive narrative and able to steer a game’s development appropriately, who else will?

Games–especially open-world action-adventure games and role-playing games–tend to have extremely large casts. This is partly due to length (you can cram a lot of characters into a 40-hour game), but mostly due to mechanics: If every quest requires a unique quest-giver, or if every town needs to be populated with a dozen or more conversable NPCs, or if every item seller needs dialogue attached, you’re going to end up with vastly more characters than the narrative really warrants. When it comes to speaking roles, a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition makes the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy look intimate and focused by comparison.

Let’s forget mitigating this fundamental issue for now (and there are ways to design games to reduce this problem) and focus instead on how to handle all those characters. We’re not just dealing with a cast of thousands, but a cast of a thousand walk-ons–characters who appear for one scene, serve one purpose, and then may never be seen again.

These characters still need to be interesting and engaging. They need to establish themselves fast–within a handful of words, not by the end of a full scene. They need to engage the imagination of a player who may not be fully focused on the narrative. And they need to be different. So in the space of a small number of lines, how do you make every character feel unique and memorable? If most characters can be distinguished in at least, say, two of the three following aspects, you’re probably on the right track.

Voice

When I talk about character voice, I’m not talking about actual voice acting. Instead, consider all the aspects that determine how a character speaks: Education, class, word choice, syntax, and so forth. A character who speaks in short, to-the-point phrases using precise but not obscure language has a wildly different voice than a character who speaks in lengthy, ultra-formal paragraphs. Consider these variations on one line:

• “I wouldn’t have killed her, and I didn’t. Doesn’t mean she’s worth crying over.”
• “I did not kill her. I do not mourn her.”
• “I had no involvement in her death, but I grant you this–I’d relieve myself on her grave, given the opportunity.”

They’re all (probably) awful people expressing the same sentiment, but they sound dramatically different. When characters speak in the same voice, it’s one way they can end up blending together in the audience’s mind.

It’s easy to go over the top with character voices and end up with a parody instead of a natural speaking style. It’s also easy to default to a few specific voices (e.g., working class and upper class). Not every character needs to be instantly recognizable from her speech pattern alone, but if you’re falling back on the same few styles over and over, you probably need more variety.

Presentation

I use “presentation” mostly to refer to physical aspects of the character. Age and ethnicity and accent and choice of hat aren’t personality traits, and they don’t excuse a bland NPC–but when you’re dealing with a large cast, they’re effective signposts to differentiate characters in the player’s mind. I’m going to be a lot more likely to mix up two middle-aged white male security officers than I am to mix up a young black female security officer and an elderly Asian male security officer.

This is true even if (especially if!) they have the same basic voice. Physical traits are big, clumsy, and effective differentiating features. (As a side benefit, differentiating characters in this way also gives you a more diverse cast.)

Attitude and Context

Just because characters have similar voices doesn’t mean they’ll actually end up sounding the same. Two characters with similar backgrounds and speaking styles may sound drastically different depending on their respective reactions to what’s going on, to the Player Character, and so on.

An educated, absent-minded shopkeep may be thrilled to see the player if he’s had no customers all day; or he might be irritated to have his day interrupted, if he only wants a few moments of peace. A soldier under fire may be gung-ho or terrified. If all of your characters default to emotionally neutral, they not only all feel the same–they also end up feeling as if they have no lives or history beyond the purpose of their one scene.

When writing a game with large numbers of minor roles, it can be well worth the time to select a few lines at random from a variety of characters and put them all side-by-side. Without focusing on content (that is, specific people or events or quests those lines mention), can you tell who’s speaking just based on the tone and style? If you can’t, you’ve got some work on your hands. Consider how you can adjust NPCs’ voice, attitude, and context to make each one unique–and, if not the star of the game, at least someone who’ll catch a player’s interest for a little while.

Additional Reading: The great Patricia C. Wrede has articles on similar topics (from the perspective of a prose writer) here and here.

That’s not a statement that should need much explanation, but in brief: Storytelling is communication. It’s about reaching out to strangers and presenting ideas to them in a compelling, resonant fashion. You wouldn’t write a television show for 10-year-old American children the same way you would write for Japanese senior citizens. You likely wouldn’t refuse to revise your Broadway-style musical if most of the audience wandered out midway through your dry run.

Game metrics are nothing more or less than a way of increasing your understanding of your audience. They’re not a magical means of producing an engaging story–no one’s suggesting that if players respond positively to orcs and plot twists, every game should feature an orc Player Character and a major plot twist every 15 minutes–but they are a powerful means of understanding how players experience narrative.

Sometimes, you may want to adjust how you deliver your story to better match data–if a large percentage of users tend to play in short sessions, you may want to condense your narrative into bite-sized episodes. Sometimes, your goal will be to change the data–if one of your three sidekick characters almost never gets used, maybe you’ll decide to dial back that character’s abrasive personality. And sometimes, you’ll decide that the strength of a story element is worth less-than-ideal results–but you’ll do so knowing what it costs you in audience engagement, and be prepared to compensate elsewhere.

Below is a short list of example data points you may want to know to help craft a better narrative. Often, this data won’t be available for your game until relatively late into playtesting, limiting its usefulness–but it may well be available for earlier similar games (previous games in a series, games built on the same engine, etc.) And it’s never too early to start thinking about what you did right and what you did wrong this time, so you can put that knowledge to work for the next game…

1. Know Play Session Length

From the start of any project, it’s important for designers to have an estimate of their game’s typical and optimal play session lengths. This applies to narrative as much as any other aspect of design–no one would suggest that 5-minute YouTube micro-dramas should be written the same as a multi-season television epic, or that a multi-season television epic should be written the same as a “dump the whole series on the viewer at once” Netflix original.

If you can’t guess at how long an average player will be staring at the screen, you can’t effectively break down your narrative into individual elements (quests, scenes, rooms, whatever); you can’t pace plot and character arcs appropriately; you can’t know how often to remind the player of the story so far; and so forth.

And what’s better than estimates? Actual data. Demand it, love it, and use it.

2. Know Your Target Demographic (and Actual Demographic)

Who are you writing for now, and who are you trying to reach? Demographic data can be invaluable when helping you determine style and subject matter (if you’re writing for adults, you can use a more advanced vocabulary than with children; if you’re writing for millennials, your gritty drama about the Weather Underground will need more exposition than if you’re writing for Baby Boomers) and of course representation (if you’re trying to grow your disproportionately small audience of Latinos, maybe consider how many Latino characters actually show up in game).

That’s all obvious–albeit vitally important–stuff. But demographics also impact other metrics. Suppose your current audience is mostly college students. Your storytelling is optimized for lengthy, intense (movie-length, at least) play sessions. If you’re trying to reach an audience of adults in their thirties, you may be dealing with a lot of parents of young children–which could mean that you need to change your storytelling style to support shorter play sessions from people apt to drop the game suddenly to resolve one domestic crisis or another.

3. Know How Many People Finish Your Game

Related to but distinct from the issue of play session lengths is the question of how many people actually finish your game. Any number of factors may cause a very high rate of non-completion (and the impact on narrative–as well as narrative’s impact on that rate–is a subject in its own right), but you can’t begin to respond to this issue if you don’t know the numbers.

Consider also how these numbers impact storytelling in downloadable content and expansions: if only a third of your audience finishes the original game, perhaps story-based DLC would be better aimed at adding parallel content and “broadening” the game world rather than acting as a direct sequel. Then again, if that one-third of your audience is especially rabid, there may be reasons to simply shrug and support it. Again, there’s no easy answer, but looking at the data allows you to ask the right questions.

4. Know Typical Play Styles

Do you have a game with multiple Player Character “builds”? e.g., options for classes, weapon loadouts, special abilities, and so forth? Consider play styles when writing so that you don’t repeatedly reference the player’s pinpoint gun accuracy when half your players are putting all their skill points in martial arts or stealth.

Writing can also boost player interest in underutilized play styles. If no one’s even trying to play a healer, maybe an exciting combat medic NPC can help “sell” the audience on that particular concept. Work with your systems design team to see how you can better integrate story and gameplay by using metrics as a starting point.

5. Know Content and Aesthetic Choices

Distinct from player preference for game systems and playstyle are choices of content with minimal gameplay impact: e.g., choice of player sex / race / species, outfits or skins, companion or sidekick characters, and so forth. If very few players are creating, say, elves, is that a problem with the presentation of elves? Could it be changed with more interesting elf-exclusive content? Or is it not a problem at all? If players tend to dress their sidekick characters in sexually revealing clothes, is that something to push back against–emphatically rejecting the idea of those sidekicks as romantic or sexual objects in the storyline–or lean into, accepting that players want romance / sex and building those opportunities into the characters?

Straddling the line between content choices, play styles, and our next category is nonlinear content. Do players uniformly leave one mission or map for last? If so, is it because the story is naturally inclined that way (in which case, such a result may be desirable) or because Map X is described in the least interesting way upfront? What about repeatable, “grindable” quests–if players favor one variety of side quest grind over others, it’s probably for gameplay reasons… but adding story rewards to underused quest types could encourage players to diversify.

Finally, what about cutscenes? Knowing what cutscenes the player skips and in what context (if players tend to start fast-forwarding halfway through, you probably need shorter scenes, more compelling drama, or both) can be an enormous boon.

6. Know Branching Choices

Finally, for games with branching narrative (and / or branching dialogue), knowing what branches your audience tends to follow can make a world of difference. As always, determining why players choose the way they do can be difficult–did eighty percent of your audience choose to kill instead of save the comedy sidekick because he’s deeply annoying, or because you did too good a job justifying it#8211;but such data may be the single best window into the mind of the player. When you know the player’s choices, you know a lot about how the player is reacting emotionally to the story.

Look for data that suggest a lack of narrative engagement as well: Do players choose the “default” response at an usually high rate in certain scenes? They may not care about what’s going on, they may not understand their options, or they may be impatient to get back to gameplay.

Remember that narrative branches not taken aren’t necessarily a failure–the mere existence of an alternative path adds value to the game and weight to the primary path–but it should play a role in how you write, design, and budget different branches. If very few players take the “evil” option, then perhaps it’s best to make most evil options relatively cheap to implement, pulling out all stops only for key rewarding moments.

That’s six examples–just enough to get you started. Whether you get this sort of data from QA testers, focus groups, convention demos, beta testers, online players, or through some other method entirely, study it. Learn to use it. Trust your judgment to interpret it. And make your game better.

But there are reasons why most fantasy games look an awful lot like Lord of the Rings instead of drawing inspiration from, say, Michael Moorcock’s phantasmagorical Eternal Champion landscapes or the contemplative science fantasy of C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy. There are reasons why few science-fiction games deal with a post-singularity world or meaningful cultural shifts.

In this article, we’re going to focus on diversity and originality within action-adventure genres, with a special focus on fantasy and science fiction–particularly broad genres in which games tend to emphasize very narrow subcategories. While I’m all for seeing more genres represented generally–more teen dramas, more regency romances, and, yes, even more police procedurals–achieving that goal involves its own (sometimes overlapping) set of challenges. Nonetheless, many of the issues and pitfalls discussed here can apply to any genre translated to games.

Easy Sources of Blame

Let’s first address three of the most unkind and commonplace explanations for the lack of originality in genre video games. There’s a kernel of truth to all of them, but I believe the situation is far more complex.

“Executives Want to Play it Safe.” What goes for gameplay features goes for narrative, as well. If multiplayer first-person shooters or MOBAs are profitable this year, the powers that be at major publishers and developers will ask for more of the same and shy away from investing large amounts of money and effort on untested ideas. The same is true of stories and genres–decision-makers want to avoid needless risk and work with ideas that have been proven to sell.

Is this a problem? Absolutely. But if wildly creative and original narratives were what sold, we’d see more of those instead. And look at crowdfunded indie games–while a somewhat more diverse lot, many of the most successful examples still hew close to genre cliches.

“The Writers are Hacks.” Sure, there’s plenty of room for improvement in the quality of video game writing. But many games which fit squarely into the narrowest of genre definitions (space marines, Tolkien-derived fantasy, zombies) are also lauded as some of the best-written games on the market (see Mass Effect, Pillars of Eternity, and The Last of Us to name a few–and you could just as easily name a different trio!) So it’s not some lack of magical writing talent that seems to be the problem.

“The Developers Don’t Read.” Or, put differently: “The developers have extremely limited exposure to the genre they’re working in.” This is an argument I’ve made myself on occasion–that game developers tend to be familiar only with the broadest pop culture examples of a given genre, rather than exploring it in depth. Hollywood’s mainstream interpretation of science fiction and fantasy, say, tends to run about 50 years behind what’s going on in the literary world–so if you’re going to write a near-future science-fiction game, you should probably familiarize yourself with more than Blade Runner and Her. And understanding the genre you’re working in doesn’t just mean familiarizing yourself with recent works, either–it also means having an understanding of where the genre comes from.

But again, plenty of developers are familiar with their genres of choice. This is an issue, but it’s not the issue.

In fact, maybe there’s not an issue at all. Maybe the lack of originality isn’t a bug, but a feature?

Game Genres and Fantasy Fulfillment

From the earliest days of the video game industry–and before it, the pen-and-paper role-playing game business–one of the great selling points of the medium has been, essentially, “live the experience of your favorite novel / film / genre!” It’s a seductive promise–something with a unique appeal even for people who find themselves otherwise satisfied by noninteractive media.

It’s also the reason why so many narrative-driven games from the dawn of the industry onward have been homages to specific works, tiny subgenres, or mish-mashes of existing ideas. Much of the gaming audience is coming to any given product because it wants a specific narrative fantasy–be a Bond-esque super spy, be an archetypal Viking, face a brutal and short life after the apocalypse–fulfilled.

A game narrative that draws enormously from a well-known source is perfect for such an audience. The story and setting may be well crafted, but they’re designed to evoke an existing story or set of stories as much as stand on their own. Stray too much from the template and you lose a portion of your audience that expects you to make that “live as the star of your favorite film!” promise true.

Done poorly, this sort of fantasy fulfillment becomes a power fantasy, emulating the most lurid aspects of the inspirational work without much in the way of artistic depth. (How many space marine games looked at Aliens and decided that the guys with guns were that film’s thematic core, rather than the woman who challenges their military ethos and takes on a parental role?) But done well, fantasy fulfillment can serve to deconstruct the source material–revealing insights into a similar set of ideas using a perspective unique to interactive narrative. Games that provide Players with narrative agency can go especially far, exploring decisions not made in the story models utilized by the original sources.

Does this mean that every game should take its cues from an existing work or specific subgenre? Of course not, but it does mean that doing so isn’t a move inherently without merit. Something to consider within the context of other reasons to push for originality–or not.

The Challenge of the Unknown

Game writers face a peculiar paradox: The more a game emphasizes narrative and narrative agency, the more difficult it becomes to effectively deliver a story utilizing an original setting.

Let’s unpack that a bit. In traditional media, the audience can be thrust into an unfamiliar setting with a foreign story structure so long as there are characters the audience can believe in and empathize with. If I find a character compelling, I don’t necessarily need to understand her world and the reasons for the choices she makes; I’ll be willing to go along for the ride, learning the setting and gradually piecing together a fuller understanding of the context. Of course, such a story will require more work on the part of the audience–and the creators must make sure that this work pays off, even while accepting that not every audience member will find the additional effort worthwhile–but the method is tried and true.

But in a game with any meaningful narrative agency, compelling characters aren’t enough. When a Player is the driving force behind the Player Character’s decisions, the Player must understand the situation as well as the Player Character does–or else any decisions become arbitrary, totally uninformed and devoid of emotional and intellectual weight.

As a result, even many games with relatively traditional settings (e.g., a space marine game in which the military culture is virtually indistinguishable from that of the 21st-century US armed forces) start with an enormous amount of exposition–often delivered in lengthy opening cutscenes that fail to connect with the Player or in interminable conversations in which NPCs inexplicably explain the entire history of the world to a Player Character who ought to know better. While preferable to thrusting a Player into the action and forcing him to make decisions he simply has no understanding of, this is far from an ideal solution.

Note that while most of our examples are in the realm of fantasy and science fiction, this challenge would apply equally well to, say, a detective game set in modern Istanbul or a 13th-century epic in the Ethiopian Emprie. Any scenario in which the Player doesn’t understand her context–and therefore the background and potential outcomes of her decisions–is potentially problematic.

Nonetheless, there are ways to mitigate the problem of Player immersion and comprehension in an original setting.

Ignore Narrative Agency

The first, of course, is to ignore Player narrative agency altogether (or at least minimize it). Bioshock deployed one of the more adventurous SF settings in games of the last several years. But with the exception of some minor, simplistic decisions, its narrative was largely linear and unaffected by Player input. Indeed, while the narrative was important to the game, I expect many Players focused on the game’s shooter mechanics and enjoyed the dramatic visuals over paying attention to the story. Or for even more extreme examples, look at classic side-scrolling action games like Shadow of the Beast–full of surreal, inexplicable, moody visuals that don’t need to be explained to the Player because they’re hardly the focus of the gameplay.

Make the Player Character a Stranger

A second mitigating technique is common but effective: Make the Player Character a stranger to the context, so that any lack of comprehension is shared between the Player and Player Character. Perhaps the Player Character is a visitor to a foreign location, or maybe it’s his first day on the job; or, of course, there’s always amnesia. Granted, this method limits the stories being told–if you want a game in which the Player takes the role of king of a strange fantasy kingdom, or a veteran cop already embedded in the complex intrigues and histories of city hall, this isn’t really an option.

Build “Non-Constructed” Settings

Our final mitigating technique is exclusive to fantasy and science fiction, and is best combined with one of the techniques above. Heavily “constructed” worlds are de rigueur in the fantasy and science-fiction genres–worlds with rich and in-depth backgrounds with complicated and believable politics (see the lengthy history of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth or the intricate family dynamics of Game of Thrones). But the more intricate the worldbuilding, the more complicated the context the Player must learn.

Instead, if narrative agency is important in your game, consider constructing a setting as simply as possible. Fantasy is highly amenable to this approach–consider a setting built like a dream, a myth, or a fairy tale rather than a “world,” existing only to deliver a particular idea rather than standing up to logical scrutiny. No one criticizes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for lacking a believable, internally consistent setting. No one cares that Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn is full of (intentional) anachronisms or that its world is built of piecemeal archetypes, because its focus is on its characters and their interplay with–and reinterpretation of–those archetypes. Certainly neither world appears to have a history of any sort–characters have pasts, but the setting doesn’t.

Simply speaking, there’s not a lot of context for the Player to understand because everything important is immediately apparent: the setting has weight, but not depth.

The End of the World

The video game industry needs to tell a broader array of stories in a broader variety of genres–there’s no reason fantasy and science fiction should be so dominant in the medium. But it also needs to use fantasy and science fiction to more compelling ends.

This article isn’t a call to be rid of space marines and Lord of the Rings clones, but rather, to explore the reasons for their dominance and the possibilities for diversification. Original ideas can find their audience if implemented well–and old standbys can deliver fresh concepts when handled deftly.

No one likes writing plot summaries. If you have a story that can support a game–a story designed for a multi-hour, interactive experience–of course it’ll be painful to reduce it to a handful of pages. On top of that, a plot summary needs to be engaging to read, be clear and thorough enough not to logically fall apart on examination (so no handwaving how protagonists get from Point A to Point B), and–for most plot summaries in the video game world–contain enough meat to allow artists, cinematic designers, level designers, and so forth to intelligently respond with their own concerns and plans.

Despite the difficulties, putting a summary together is a task most game writers will need to take on at some point, so you might as well do the job properly. Let’s talk about key points to consider.

What is a Plot Summary, and Who is it For?

A plot summary (or a synopsis, or a narrative outline–call it what you will) is a prose recounting of a game’s story, narrating the major events and character beats. It is not a technical document; while it may (or may not) break down the story into clear gameplay elements, suggest asset requirements, and so forth, its emphasis is on telling a story. It does not stand alone–more detailed plot summaries may be necessary for individual subsections of a game (“chapters,” locations, open world plot threads, etc.); “critical path” documents may elaborate on every gameplay step required to progress; and so forth–but it serves as a high-level reference document for… well, that’s the next part of the question? Who is it for?

A short (1-2 page) plot summary may be needed to help sell the concept of a game to company executives, potential licensors, etc–outsiders not directly involved in content creation, who may care about the details later but who initially simply want some idea of what they’re getting into before giving a project their blessing and / or money. If that’s the sort of plot summary you’re worried about, there are plenty of good resources out there on writing a story synopsis for a novel or a film. That style of summary is probably what you want–you’re prioritizing a “sell” by feel and overall narrative over particulars or interactivity. This article won’t help you.

If your audience is just you–if you’re writing an outline for your own planning purposes, say–then once again, this article won’t help.

If you’re attempting to write a document complete enough for a design team to actually build a game from–a critical path document, as mentioned above, delineating every step of gameplay, calling out every combat, listing every quest item, and so forth–you may want to separate it from your plot summary entirely. Most likely, it’s going to get so bogged down in technical detail that very few people will be able to sit down, read it, and actually understand the high-level story of the game. A critical path doc has a place, but it’s not for story comprehension.

Rather, our focus today is on a plot summary intended for development team members in multiple disciplines (design, art, engineering, audio, etc.) as a way to solicit feedback, procure high-level “buy-in,” and allow a team to have a clear understanding of all key parts of the narrative. Ideally, such a summary should be written very early in development; in reality, it may come relatively late in non-story-focused games.

For team members without a direct stake in the particulars of the narrative (e.g., a tools engineer or a QA project manager), a plot summary serves as a useful reference doc to help communicate one aspect of the overall project vision; it’s always good for people to understand and be enthusiastic about what they’re creating, and a clear, concise, engaging plot summary document will help generate excitement.

For team members with a strong direct stake in the narrative particulars, however, a summary doc is even more important. It serves as the first line of defense against unexpected problems and misunderstandings. A well-written plot summary allows a system designer to spot potential issues (“the Player can’t start with magic powers; that’s a learnable skill, and it might be cut for scope anyway”), an artist to note opportunities for improvement (“why is every location a snow-covered forest when our environment team does brilliant interiors#8221;), and so forth. It allows for pure story critique from all parties as well, making sure that all background information is conveyed, that all logic is sound, etc. It may very well be the document that is the focus of story critique for a project creative director, editor, or whoever may serve as a writer’s check and as an owner of the project narrative.

Such a summary may also be aimed at a writing team, conveying the overall events of a story that multiple writers end up detailing. Once again, the summary allows the team to offer critique and spot potential issues, but it also lets one writer pick up work where another leaves off with a strong understanding of the story’s full context. If a plot summary used by a full writing team lacks clarity, there will be inevitable conflicts between different writers’ work.

Keep it Engaging

Once you know your intended audience, you’ve got a host of new hurdles to leap. A plot summary must be engaging. It must be readable. Your goal is to make it as enjoyable, emotional, and intriguing as the plot it’s summarizing. (It probably won’t be, but that’s the goal.)

This doesn’t mean embellish in ways that don’t ring true to the story envisioned. It does mean treat it as seriously as you would anything produced for the public, even though your audience is strictly in-house. You’re telling a story, not simply rattling off a series of events.

Player-focused, Player Point of View

Write the body your plot summary from the point of view of the Player (though not necessarily the Player Character, since their viewpoints may differ). Avoid delivering expository background or setting information that the Player isn’t also receiving in-game at the same point (“The Player arrives in the land of the Lotus Eaters where she is immediately thrown into prison with little explanation. The Lotus Eaters have a highly stratified society based on lotuses consumed…”), and don’t reveal character details or contextualizing information (“meanwhile, the Player Character’s nemesis schemes in his castle”) unless the Player is actually privy to that knowledge.

Example: The Player confronts the warlord and, either diplomatically or through threats and blackmail, learns the location of the downed helicopter and the UN medical supplies. The warlord warns the Player that the guerillas have likely already picked the wreckage clean, but it’s unclear whether he’s telling the truth.

Why handle the plot summary this way? It certainly makes writing one more difficult, but the summary isn’t just meant to tell a story–it’s meant to represent the actual game narrative experience. If you’re not telling it from the Player’s point of view, you’re telling a different story altogether and there’s no way to be sure whether the game’s narrative will hold together. There’s no way for others to judge what needs to be built for the game.

Writing the summary from a Player point of view also helps reveal potentially weak areas where the Player is denied agency, where the Player Character becomes passive, and so on. If you can’t write the summary as a series of “the Player does X” events–with, of course, emotional and thematic depth to it all–then consider whether your protagonist is sufficiently protag-ing.

If you must have “supplementary” information included in the plot summary–e.g., a brief setting description or a short list of major characters–make sure it’s clearly labeled and separated out from the main narrative. Even if you include such supplementals, make sure the most necessary elements are repeated somewhere in the main synopsis. Otherwise, your readers will be wondering when and how the Player actually learns this “necessary” information (and whether you know the answer yourself).

Make it Work on its Own Terms

Consider your plot summary a minimal acceptable framework for the story to function. You may leave out certain nuances and complexities and setups and twists that you intend for the vastly more detailed final script (or even for a more detailed version of the plot summary), but your plot summary must work as a story in its own right.

If you vanish, someone else should be able to step in and write the story described by your plot summary without wrestling with basic issues of setup and logic. If your plot summary doesn’t hold together as a standalone story, it becomes impossible to critique and use as a planning tool–genuine problems will be excused by the notion that “it’ll make sense in the final draft,” and apparent problems will become distractions if they’ve already been solved in the writer’s head without making it to the page.

Of course this goal is an ideal–your story won’t work as well in plot summary form. But it’s an important ideal to strive for.

Keep Gameplay Restrictions in Mind

By the time you’re writing a plot summary, at least some fundamentals of your game’s design have likely been established. In many cases, you’ll have a very detailed array of mechanics and restrictions to work with. We’ll talk about how to handle more nebulous aspects of gameplay in a moment, but be very aware of the constraints you must work within.

For example: Are you writing for an open world game? If so, make sure your plot doesn’t fall apart on a non-linear path. Does the design require that the Player return to an NPC mission-giver or home base after every quest? Then make sure there’s an in-story reason for this to happen. Does your design not allow cutscenes in the middle of missions? Then make sure anything cinematic happens at the start or the end.

Every game has its constraints. Some of them will fundamentally dictate the manner of story you tell, while others will be irritants and speed bumps. But you should never pretend your restrictions don’t exist, assuming that they’ll change or can be fixed on the next level of detail. The plot summary is, once again, a chance to catch and correct these sorts of problems; if you’re ignoring them, you lose that opportunity.

Imply Gameplay, But Don’t Depend On It

An understanding of a game’s mechanics is, of course, pivotal to designing a story for said game. A first-person shooter requires a vastly different story than a point-and-click adventure game. And ideally, the particulars of a game’s mechanics should fit naturally into a story as well–if stealth is an option in the aforementioned shooter, some sections of the narrative should encourage (or at least naturally allow) stealth.

But mechanics tend to change drastically over the course of a game’s development. Ideally, a plot summary should imply the style of gameplay and reveal an ultimate goal without depending on any exact methods. For example, declaring “the Player uses his newly acquired powers to freeze a swarm of enemies in place” or “the Player must climb to the top of a high mountain in a jumping puzzle” in an RPG would be dangerous–both statements require certain sets of properly tuned game mechanics to work. Slightly better alternatives might be “the Player fights in a combat allowing her to showcase her new powers” and simply “the Player is required to explore the peaceful environment in order to reach the top of the mountain.” It’s fine to make suggestions (I find Microsoft Word’s Comments feature useful for separating gameplay suggestions from the core of the summary), but make sure what’s necessary and what’s mere inspiration is clear. And make sure you are at least implying a style of gameplay–I need to know if that walk up the mountain is meant to be a brief, serene bit of downtime, a showcase for puzzles, or a combat-heavy murder spree.

Keep in mind also that other development team members are likely to have a far better understanding of what mechanics are enjoyable and functioning well than you are–don’t try to do the job of the systems experts.

In many cases, a plot summary may be written around predetermined, highly specific game mechanics. Even in these situations, you’ll be better off with a plot summary that can adapt to mechanical changes; unless the game is already built, there’s every chance that specifics will evolve during development and playtesting, and you don’t want your narrative to fall apart just because it turns out your stealth system wasn’t fun after all. Hew to plans and good intentions, but be prepared for things to change.

Imply Budget

In the same vein as implying gameplay, make sure you’re implying budget as well. When something expensive is required for the narrative to work, make sure that “something” is clear in the plot summary. Don’t gloss over mentions of difficult-to-implement scenes, art assets, and so forth–make sure your expectations are obvious to anyone reading, so they can be easily assessed by the rest of the team. (Again, I find Word’s Comments useful for highlighting particular items that I know may be of concern. e.g., if I’m describing a scene in which a crowd of onlookers is required, I’ll add a comment asking whether this will pose difficulty for art, animation, cinematics, etc., and suggest some alternate approaches if the scene isn’t viable as described.)

That said, if the “something expensive” isn’t required by the narrative–if a scene can be made to play out in various ways depending on the resources available–you needn’t be as concerned with spelling out all the details. Ideally, most of the narrative will have plenty of flexibility. Yet confusion can emerge from overly vague requests, as well–people may imagine requirements you didn’t intend–so again, comments can help clarify.

Example: A crowd of onlookers waits for the Player at the top of the mountain. [We can make do with only a handful if required, but this is an emotional, important scene, so I’d love to spend some money on this one.]

Exactly what sort of expenses require explicit mention vary drastically depending on the type of game and the budget you’re working with. Large or unusual levels, original art assets, unique game mechanics, and so forth tend to be big ones–see Learning to Budget at a Glance for more.

Don’t Get Attached

And of course, don’t get wedded to a plot summary. It’s not even game content yet. It’s a blueprint, an idea, that needs to be tested by many other people before it can be deemed worthy of implementation.

That doesn’t mean you can’t take pride in a summary–but leave your ego at home. Accept critique. Reshape the narrative to help make a better game. You know your story better than anyone else, but your vision doesn’t encompass the project as a whole and you’ve got blind spots on the narrative front, too.

Revise. Get signoff. Then put the plot summary aside and start writing the real deal.

When I say “budgeting” I don’t mean in dollar figures–I’m talking about the time and effort needed by a writer and other developers to implement a writer’s designs. (In the end, of course, this does equate to cash, but the numbers themselves are a red herring.) Game development is a slow, unpredictable, painstaking process–a writer who doesn’t understand the scope of her requests and their impact on the team is a burden to the project, not a benefit.

Let’s look at an example before going further. Suppose I’m writing a cutscene for Call 2 Action: The Soldier’s Journey, a military first-person shooter. It reads something like the following:

We’re looking at a well-maintained suburban playground. Our focus is two young children who are yelling and running, play-shooting at one another with brightly colored plastic guns. One child drops his gun and rushes the other, and the two laugh as they roughhouse and roll on the ground. Cut to an old man in a wheelchair watching them; the man is missing one arm from a war wound.

Ah, Call 2 Action… you never fail to tug at the heartstrings! But profound as it may be, is this scene an easy one for your team to create? Or are you using half your cutscene budget on this one moment, asking weeks and weeks of effort on the part of dozens of people, leaving no time or money for the EMP detonation scene that occurs ten minutes later?

A complete answer to that would need to involve project managers and all the relevant stakeholders. As the writer, however, I need to have some clue what I’m asking. So at a glance, here’s what I see that needs to be accounted for:

Park environment and props (benches, monkey bars, etc.) A grassy park should be pretty easy to build for a military shooter (our game has plenty of grassy spaces, so we’re presumably pretty good at creating them fast), but the props will likely need to be built just for this cutscene. They’re not terribly complex props, so they probably won’t be an enormous burden. Then again, the scene might play just fine without them.

Plastic guns. Again, new props, but we might be able to just retexture existing gun models used by our enemies and make them bright orange.

Children. This is potentially a big one–if we aren’t using children elsewhere in the game, we’ll need to build entirely new 3d models on new animation skeletons for this. Children aren’t just scaled-down adults. How many weeks of work just for this one scene, now?

Children fighting. This will require a lot of new motion-captured animation (and hand-tuning to make it look good in-game). The roughhousing and such will probably be particularly costly and time-consuming–we need the two children to sync up properly, generate a sense of physical impact and such without clipping.

Children’s voices. If we’re doing a big-budget game with full voiceover anyway, a few shouts and laughs are a drop in the bucket. No real concern.

Wounded veteran. He’s a tricky one–at the very least, he’s a new 3d model and so is his wheelchair. We probably already have some existing sitting animations / postures, so that part isn’t too scary. (And if we don’t already have those, we’ll certainly reuse them later.) But if we need him to move his wheelchair, that’s another set of assets.

Ambient park activity. Is it okay that no one else is in our park? If not, rebudget to accommodate the background characters.

That looks like a pretty scary list, and if this isn’t a cutscene we’ve scheduled a lot of time from artists, animators, and cinematic designers for, we could be in trouble.

But… not necessarily. These are the items that catch my attention, but maybe some of them are cheaper to produce than I think. I’m not an artist, after all–this isn’t my area of expertise. And maybe we had, say, child models in the previous game (Call 1 Action: Terror on Terror) that we can import and reuse here. The only way to know is to communicate with my team and ask them what’s viable and what’s not–preferably before I write my script, rather than after I’ve already constructed a whole story that requires these items.

Of course, a different style of game would have very different budgetary costs. In a mobile game displaying static, 2d images accompanying text descriptions, a child isn’t any more expensive than an adult–nothing gets reused, but nothing is extravagant either.

Note also that budgeting doesn’t just apply to cinematic assets–art, sound, etc. It also applies to design time, technical issues, and quality assurance. If you design a mission in which the player gets surrounded by enemies and is therefore forced to flee down a sewer entrance, custom AI and scripting may be needed to make those enemies act as required. If you design an elaborate series of story branches dependent on player choice, those branches need to be understood and scripted by a designer or programmer and then painstakingly run through by the quality assurance department in every run-through of the game henceforth. (Never underestimate the toll on QA when it comes to branching storylines–and never forget how important good QA is to your game’s success.)

Lastly, the ability to judge a budget applies to a writer’s own work, as well. If you only have a week to write a mission, don’t outline a massive series of branching conversations and optional side quests.

No one expects a writer to catch every potential high-budget item before it gets written down. And of course other departments should review a writer’s design documentation and scripts as early as possible in order to provide input and request changes as appropriate. But a writer who doesn’t write while keeping in mind the resources and schedules of the rest of the team–who doesn’t bother talking through his questions and concerns with the relevant parties–is either oblivious or kind of a jerk.

Honing your budgetary instincts will be slow and painful, and there will always be aspects of your writing that end up more or less expensive to implement than you predicted. That’s okay–playing The Price is Right with game assets is a useful trick, but it’s not necessary. What is necessary is an overall awareness of what may be costly, and the willingness to communicate when you suddenly realize, “I’m not sure if we can afford to put this in our game.”

While the details will vary significantly from product to product, it’s very common for role-playing games, open world action / adventures, and similar story-and-exploration-driven games to contain segments in which the player is suddenly given access to a large number of quests (we’ll call any small, linear piece of content a “quest”) that are available

a) in a nonlinear fashion (that is, they can be completed in any order, possibly with multiple quests active simultaneously);

b) with a degree of optionality (that is, some may not need to be completed at all);

and

c) in a context separate from the main storyline (even if the newly available quests must be completed to continue the main story, they could be removed from the narrative without causing fatal damage).

This is typically the moment where the world “opens up”–the player arrives in the game’s first big city, teeming with side quests and new areas to explore, or obtains a travel option allowing access anywhere on the game map.

Agency and Modularity

From a design perspective, such a segment provides a number of benefits. For starters, it’s an easy way to supply a powerful feeling of player agency–even in situations where the player must complete all side quests in order to continue the plot or to gain enough experience points to be effective against opponents, it still grants the player a sense of choice, a chance to prioritize and make decisions about the order of events (if not the events themselves). If some of the sides quests are genuinely optional or mutually exclusive, this feeling becomes much stronger.

It also adds an element of modularity to a game’s design. Modularity in narrative is worth a post on its own, but to put it simply: Game development is an inexact art, and no game ends up looking like its original blueprint. Sections of games will be cut or radically revised because they’re too expensive, too time-consuming to develop, or simply not enough fun to play. If the sections being cut are modular (“This side quest is really awful–let’s just take it out.”) then the task is much simpler than if they’re on the game’s critical path (“You know that whole final level in the zero gravity space station? It turns out our physics engine can’t handle it. Can we put it in Alaska instead#8221;)

Now let’s look at it from a narrative perspective. Your main plot rolls along nicely. It’s linear in a broad sense–maybe with branches, but overall it follows a clear path–and then your protagonist arrives in the City of One Thousand Side Quests.

What are those side quests about? And what must you be mindful of as you design and write them?

Types of Side Quests

Let’s take on subject matter first. Here are some of the things your side quests can focus on:

Plot Point Deep Dive. The plot point deep dive can feel like the most natural approach–or at least the approach most similar to those used in direct, linear stories. In this sort of quest, we take one of the main story’s plot points, elaborate on the details, and progress it to the next stage required by the overarching plotline.

For example, if my game’s narrative is about stopping an urban gang war between the Elf Gang and the Dwarf Gang, a side quest in this style could be about reaching the Elf Gang leader and learning what his grievances are. I’ll need that knowledge when the main plot gets to the point of establishing peace. Another side quest might do the same for the Dwarf Gang.

The big downsides of the plot point deep dive are twofold: First, you may simply not have as many plot points to dive into as you have quests that need content–and if you overcomplicate your plot to provide extra fodder for side quests, you risk the player losing track of everything. Second, plot point deep dives tend to be required content and not particularly modular–if the quest is cut and the player never gets to interact with the Elf Gang and sympathize with its leader, will the player care about the gang war at all? Is the game badly damaged if the quest has to go?

Character Deep Dive. Similar to a plot point deep dive, but focused on the personal stories and motivations of major characters in the main story. These can help build an emotional connection between the player and the supporting cast–always a good thing–while still functioning more modularly than a plot point deep dive. (In fact, giving the player the choice of whether to work closely with a supporting NPC or reject the idea altogether is a powerful way of reinforcing emotional bonds.)

Care must be taken to ensure that character deep dives have stakes appropriate to the game’s tone and genre. In an RPG chronicling everyday life in high school, character deep dives could work fantastically as side quests, allowing the player to meet the family of his boyfriend, set up a romance between two classmates, and so forth. In an epic fantasy in which the world is on the verge of destruction, you’ll need a very good reason to have the player visit the home village of his mentor and resolve unfinished business from his past.

Worldbuilding. What’s an average person’s life like in a cyberpunk dystopia? How does Death Village get water in the post-apocalyptic wastes? Why does New Sodom City’s architecture involve so many gargoyles? What’s beyond the Kingdom of Murkotia’s borders? There’s much to be said for the immersive benefits of creating a well-rounded setting–it helps increase a player’s understanding of the setting’s characters and investment in a large-scale story’s outcome. Side quests are a perfect match for worldbuilding–such quests are quick enough that, individually, they won’t dilute the main plot and modular enough that they can be removed without much harm to the main story.

Like the character deep dive, of course, stakes can be a concern. And unlike the character deep dive and the plot point deep dive, worldbuilding quests often have a less obvious hook–I already care about the main plot and main characters, but why am I even interested in Death Village’s water supply?

Thematic Counterpoints. Quests in this style don’t necessarily deal directly with the main story’s plot points, but add nuance by offering a different perspective. If your game is mostly about fighting evil demons, this sort of quest might involve a side story with a demon who just wants peace. These are easy to make modular, but too many of them won’t just add nuance–they’ll actively start to undercut your main plot!

Tonal Change of Pace. Similar to a thematic counterpoint, these are quests that give players a break from the game’s usual tone. Be very careful with these–the “funny side quest” in an otherwise serious story can be teeth-grindingly awful, undercutting the drama of the main plot and feeling like a writer’s indulgence. (Funny side quests in serious games aren’t impossible to do well, but be sure you know what you’re doing.) Tonal changes of pace don’t have to be about humor, though–a romantic side quest might fit just fine into a drama, and a superhero game with a single quest revolving around supernatural horror could fit the genre, offer some fresh air, and provide worldbuilding material as well.

Linear Forward Plot Movement. Or, “the side quest that cheats.” With branching lines and trickery, linear plot progression can be achieved through nonlinear quest selection. Suppose I’m doing side quests in order to build up my reputation to get an audience with the king (the next major plot point of the main story). It may be that, after every completed side quest, I’m told of how my reputation is spreading and the allies who’ve joined me–and that news is determined by the number of rather than which side quests I’ve completed.

Depending how elegantly this information is integrated into the side quests themselves (Am I receiving different dialogue from my handler depending on how many quests I’ve completed? Or is everything identical except for a post-quest screen?), this can become expensive to write, design, test, and so forth. And of course, it doesn’t necessarily give you content for your side quests, but only guides your approach.

In all likelihood, you’ll mix and match the approaches above rather than relying on only one. In doing so, you’ll set the tone for the entire segment of gameplay. This challenge is unique to game narrative, but a comparison to episodic television can be useful.

Is your game 24–that is, purely serialized, effectively one clearly focused plotline running straight through and only broken up by episode or quest? Then you may not want a nonlinear segment at all, and if you do, you may want to focus solely on plot point deep dives.

Is your game The X-Files, interested in exploring a multitude of ideas and happy to do the occasional character-focused episode–or even a humor piece–but with an overarching story that’s often relegated to the background?

Is your game Friends, deeply interested in the state of character relationships but not really bothered by what particular events happen in what order?

While tight serialization is popular nowadays, older TV series are still especially useful as examples. “Nonlinearity” used to be a requirement for TV writing, when shows could be rerun in any order after being sold into syndication.

Questions, Pitfalls, and Takeaways

We’ve talked about approaches you can take for side quest design. But what are the big picture issues you need to consider as you put all the pieces together?

How will you remind the player of the main plot and characters? The further your side quests stray from your main plot and characters, the more you risk your player losing interest in or forgetting your core storyline. You can’t simply take a break from your story for 10 hours and expect the player to jump back in where she left off–especially since 10 hours of side quest gameplay may equate to weeks in the player’s real life. Are you regularly reiterating your key plots, characters, and themes in your side quests somehow? In cutscenes between side quests? Are you interspersing optional side quests with required main plot quests? Are your side quests so short you’re simply not worried? (See also “Subtlety and Narrative Design”.)

How will you maintain stakes and urgency? We touched on this above, so I won’t repeat myself. But the higher the stakes and the greater the urgency of your main plot, the more dissonance you’re generating when you send the player off to do side quests. If you want a high-stakes, high-urgency main plot, you must find a way to make your side quests play into it in a straightforward and obvious fashion; alternately, if you want a game with a rich array of side quests diverse in tone and content, you want a main plot that supports your design! (I touch on this in “Player and Player Character Motivation” as well.)

Consider your scale and your definition of a quest. Much of this discussion can be scaled up–what if each “side quest” is actually its own location with its own nested plot and array of side quests? This implementation is common in RPGs (“Go to these six planets before the invasion starts, and solve a variety of tasks on each.”), and while the end result won’t always be the same, you can use many of the same tools to design your macro-level quest set as for your micro-level one.

What should the player ultimately be feeling as she plays through Side Quest City? If your answer is, “I’d rather be playing the main plot,” then you probably have some adjustments to make. A nonlinear gameplay segment should be rich and rewarding in its own right–not in the same ways as a linear plot segment, but by providing something different and exciting. Don’t struggle against a design choice needlessly. Find your design’s strengths and play to those.

Many exceptions exist, of course, but for writers in video games, comic books, and film (so I’m told, anyway–it’s not my medium of choice) in particular, earning a living as a writer means sometimes writing things you didn’t create, you don’t own, and you maybe aren’t that interested in to start with.

The questions of how to approach another creator’s intellectual property and how much to invest emotionally in a project you don’t control are worthy of separate posts, but for now, let’s focus on that last part: writing for a project that doesn’t interest you.

Maybe you’re out of work and need to take the next job that comes along. Maybe an editor you’ve always wanted to collaborate with offers you a project you’re not keen on. Maybe you’re in-house at a game studio and as the last project ships, a new one goes into pre-production–and despite you pushing your favorite genre, the higher-ups decide on something else. These are commonplace scenarios, and while it’s okay to sometimes say “no,” take a risk, and look for alternatives, if you do that every time your dream job isn’t available you may run out of people to work for.

So you like writing funny science-fiction and you’re stuck writing 1920s detective stories. Maybe you keep your head down, try not to complain too much, and do the best you can. Maybe you try to inject as much humor as you can and throw in references to 1920s pulp science-fiction magazines, bringing your favorite toys to the playground.

Neither of these approaches, in my experience, is ideal.

While it can be important to carry some of your own interests into new projects, trying to hammer a story or a setting into something it’s not may only disappoint your intended audience and dilute the project’s strengths.  It’s also not likely to provide you with the driving passion you need to make the final product “great” instead of “good.”

It’s my belief that great writers who take on work-for-hire gigs are writers who can look at a wide variety of ideas and see what other people see in them. Not just on a surface-level reading, but by ferreting out the core themes that appeal to the target audience the most. Separate out the tropes–period slang, femme fatales, and so forth in our pulp detective example–from the true appeal. Are people drawn to the contrast between solvable mysteries and unsolvable character dilemmas? Are the 1920s a safe place to explore the vast gulf between rich and poor in America?

Figure out the true appeal of an intellectual property or a genre and don’t be dismissive–something is being effectively communicated, if not to you than to another demographic. It wouldn’t be popular otherwise. Working in an unfamiliar or less-favored genre gives you a chance to use a whole new set of tools and challenge yourself to tackle new ideas. Unless your interests are especially narrow or the genre is particularly unsuited to you, you should be able to find something in there to ignite your passion.

And speaking of demographics–working with a new genre or intellectual property may give you an entirely new audience as well. It’s a chance to communicate your ideas beyond the usual fans of your type of work, which ought to be exciting. You’re in this job to communicate, and if, say, women aged 50 and up aren’t your normal audience, then you should prize the chance to reach them.

Lastly, it’s a cliche to say that great writers tend to have a passion for learning–a desire to absorb new ideas about people and the world that can be incorporated into their work–but there’s some truth to it, and working outside your comfort zone is a great excuse to do research on a variety of new subjects. And even if the specifics of the research can’t apply to your subject matter of choice, maybe some of the principles can. The only way to avoid repetition and getting mired in genre tropes–even in your favored area–is to find fresh ideas to inject. Maybe your next funny science-fiction story will feel a lot more novel and intriguing with the structure of a pulp detective story, or by drawing on the mayoral politics of 1920s San Francisco.

None of which is to say that everyone is suited to every genre. I don’t write much horror because the core themes largely don’t speak to me. On those occasions that I do accept a horror-writing job (which does happen on occasion), it’s because I’ve found something in the particular project I’m enthusiastic about or because I expect the client and the audience are willing to accept a project that isn’t firmly set within the genre boundaries.

Nor is there anything inherently wrong with having a tightly focused set of interests. My goal here isn’t to pass judgment on anyone, but rather to address an important skill of the working writer. If you can’t take on a wide variety of subjects with genuine passion, then you’ll have a more difficult time finding enough work to get by–or you’ll end up producing substandard work on projects you dread.

A good editor can meaningfully improve the quality of a writer’s work. Even brilliant writers benefit from good editing and the critique of someone with a fresh perspective.

The skillset required to be a good editor is distinct (with some overlap) from the skillset required to be a good writer. Very few truly great writers are also truly great editors, and vice-versa. Such people exist, but–as with any profession–it’s difficult to achieve genuine mastery of two different skillsets.

With those points in mind, what’s the role of editing in the video game industry? Where do editors stand now, and where do we, as an industry, want to go?

Narrative Roles in Gaming

Writers have received increasing respect from the games industry over the last two decades. While many companies still have difficulty fully embedding writers in the production process, most at least acknowledge that a professional writer is needed to develop a polished and compelling story. The need for specialized interactive writers is better recognized, as well–companies are beginning to understand that a background in film or prose doesn’t, in itself, qualify a writer to write a video game (any more than a novelist can be assumed to have the skills to write a screenplay).

The concept of a “Narrative Designer” is also becoming more prominent. While different companies view the role differently, “narrative design” commonly refers to the art of holistic integration of narrative into a game. That is, working together with designers, artists, and other team members to ensure a cohesive narrative “feel.”

Writing in the video game industry still has a long way to go, but we’re fumbling our way there.

Editing, on the other hand, remains on the fringe. Line editors and copyeditors are reasonably common–outright errors in in-game messages and advertising copy are too blatantly embarrassing and unprofessional to consistently let slide–but positions for editors who aid in the development and production of narrative are scarce at best.

Where Editors Stand Now

Instead, the duties of a traditional editor are typically spread across multiple positions. The specifics depend upon the project and the company.

A Creative Director or Lead Designer may take on the responsibility of story oversight, attempting to ensure overall consistency of theme, approving plot structure, and so forth. This comes with its share of difficulties, as well–a project lead is unlikely to have the time to fully dedicate him- or herself to ensuring story quality or to work with a writer on smaller details. In addition, while a strong Creative Director is likely to have a strong overall sense of narrative, recognizing a problem is different from knowing how to solve that problem–which is ultimately the responsibility of the writer, of course, but expert support always improves the likelihood of a problem being solved quickly and efficiently.

Relying on a Creative Director or Lead Designer for editorial oversight can, of course, cause more substantial problems when the lead lacks an aptitude for narrative or, alternately, is intimately involved in the story design process. In the latter case, there’s no one left to view the narrative objectively–the Creative Director and writer are essentially collaborators editing their own work. Wonderful results are possible, of course, but the risk of problems going unspotted is much higher–it’s easy to develop blind spots when reviewing your own writing.

Alternatively, a Lead Writer or Narrative Designer may provide editorial oversight of a larger writing team. Many of a Narrative Designer’s responsibilities also echo editorial tasks from traditional media–working with other teams to make sure the project is served well overall. (Consider, for example, a comic book editor’s task of working with artists and letterers to a Narrative Designer’s task of working with System Designers and, well, artists.)

A Lead Writer or Narrative Designer should, in theory, also have a strong understanding of craft that can be applied when working with other writers on the team–but if the Lead Writer or Narrative Designer comes mainly from a writing background, he or she may lack the editorial skills needed to help impart that craft to others.

And again, we see more difficulties when the Lead Writer or Narrative Designer is responsible for writing significant amounts of content. Who edits the Lead Writer or Narrative Designer? Where’s the comprehensive oversight?

In some companies, some traditional editorial duties are also given to Quality Assurance. In certain respects, this can be a natural fit–at its best, QA is tasked with looking at both individual pieces of a game and the game as a whole, understanding what’s enjoyable for the audience and identifying where things go wrong. “Story QA” isn’t a bad way of describing part of an editor’s tasks. The difficulties here include hiring and developing skilled “story QA” analysts (whose skills may be meaningfully different from skills valued by the rest of QA) and ensuring that story QA feedback is taken seriously; remember that in many traditional editor / writer relationships, the editor has ultimate veto power over whether a story is fit for publication.

What’s the Answer?

Every company is different. Every project is different. But I believe that any company dedicated to improving the quality of its storytelling should at least consider whether and how editorial functions are being filled. Some companies may be well served by having an editor on-staff, while others may turn to other solutions–but these should be conscious choices, not defaults.

When considering editorial functions within a company, consider questions such as the following:

Should an editor be embedded within a game’s development team? Could an editor instead serve multiple projects within a company (and, if needed, oversee individual editors assigned to specific games?) Less narrative-driven projects require less editorial oversight, while dialogue- or branching-heavy projects may require more.

Can the roles of Narrative Designer and editor be merged? If so, should key writing and story development be done by a person other than the Narrative Designer (e.g., by splitting Narrative Designer from Lead Writer)?

Can an editor with a strong understanding of interactive narrative compensate for a writer’s inexperience with game writing? Or vice-versa? (My opinion: Maybe, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.)

How many writers will be working on a project? The more writers, the more need for someone to ensure consistency (of style, of voice, of quality) across the board, and the more useful it is to have someone who understands craft and critique.

Who does the person responsible for editorial oversight of the story report to? Is the person responsible for editorial oversight in a position to enforce story quality?

If editorial duties are effectively spread among other team members (Creative Director, producers, QA), will the required skills be part of hiring requirements for these roles in the future? Even if the current producer has a strong sense of story, is that something you want as a requirement?

Back to Business

While I’ve done my share of editing, I consider myself primarily a writer. I’m the last person to say that I need an editor to do high-quality work, and I like to think I can be trusted to produce strong stories and dialogue with minimal oversight. (After all, I’m not trying to talk myself out of jobs.) But it shouldn’t be controversial to say that a skilled editor can bring out the absolute best in a project–any more than it would be controversial to say that a talented QA or production team can improve a project immeasurably.

If we want game narratives to continue to improve, we need to learn from other media and find ways to raise the bar internally. We also need to find solutions unique to our own medium. We’re doing well, but we can do much better.

Storytelling is still a weakness in the video game world. Stronger editing may be one way to help turn it into a strength.

Anyone have a contrasting view they’d like to elaborate on at length? Get in touch and I’ll be happy to link or post it here.