Game Writing and Narrative in the Future - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 175

For contrast, let's consider the granddaddy of all computer role-playing games,
the original paper-and-dice RPG, Dungeons & Dragons .Asanyvideogamerwith
a sense of history knows, D&D is played in person with a Dungeon Master (DM)
guiding the players through a pre-planned adventure that unfolds as they explore it.
In this way, it sounds very much like computer RPGs such as Diablo ,the Ultima
series, or the Final Fantasy games. However, in D&D , the pre-planning work is left
largely incomplete and is flexible. Whether working from an adventure he created
himself or utilizing one of the ready-made scenarios that can be purchased from TSR
(nowWizards of the Coast), the DM starts the game session armed only with a rough
framework for the adventure. He is expected to improvise, embellish, add to, and
fill out that skeleton, largely in reaction to the players' unfettered and wonderfully
unpredictable actions.
Imagine, if you will, the Dungeon Master who guided his players through one of
the ready-made adventures and was completely unable to adapt to anything that was
not covered within that slim guide. Players would tell him what they wanted to do,
and if it did not jibe with what was anticipated by the author of the adventure, the
DM would reply with, “Sorry, that action isn't supported. Please try something else.�
It's hard to believe that players would be satisfied with such a rigid, unimaginative
Dungeon Master.
And yet when players enjoy even the most modern of computer/console RPGs
and MMOs, that is exactly what they must be satisfied with, because it's all the rigid
game structures are capable of delivering.
Of course, you may argue that players within those games do have limitless
choices. They can move in any direction at any moment, decide when and where
to fire their weapons, etc. But the choices the player can make that truly affect or
change the narrative direction of the adventure are few and far between, if existent at
all.
Tear away all the flashy graphics, room-shaking sound effects, and dazzling game-
play mechanics, and you are left with this sad truth: today's story-based video games,
in terms of the real narrative choices that are offered to the player, are the digital
equivalent of having a Choose Your Own Adventure topic read to you. Yes, occasion-
ally you're asked which direction you want the story to go, but in between those
decision points you're basically being read to.
What the human DM brings to a session of Dungeons & Dragons is the ability
to speak original dialog for any monster or non-player character (NPC) in the game-
world, to invent wholly new concepts and characters on the fly, and to work with
the players to determine an entirely unique, fitting, and satisfying ending to the story
that wasn't conceived until that very moment.
What if our games could do that ?
The Game Story Generation System
In order to generate a fully-realized, emergent game space like a paper-and-dice RPG
with almost limitless narrative possibilities, a game in the future would need to have