Narratives and Databases in Game of Thrones - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 142

photographs form a database that can be accessed and ordered by any number
of tagged elements: size of the photo, type of camera used, date taken, etc.
According to media theorist Lev Manovich, databases do not tell stories: “in
fact, they do not have any development, thematically, formally, or otherwise that
would organize their elements into a sequence.” Instead, he argues that narrative
only exists at the level of the user interface, where retrieving information relies
on searching and organization. A narrative is the linear and structured retelling
of that data in a particular order. Once you sort the images in that folder into
any particular order, you have artiicially created a serialized retelling of those
photos. he database makes use of networked connections to add versatility and
robust searchability in digital documents. he narrative highlights serialized
elements within a correlated structure to develop an underlying logic. Indeed,
Manovich holds the database and narrative organizational structures as “natural
enemies” that compete “for the same territory of human culture, each claim[ing]
an exclusive right to make meaning out of the world.” 6
Games make use of this same structure/serial tension, and Manovich even
uses the video game as an example of a text that uses both a database structure
to organize data and a narrative structure to access that data. Although some
might claim that video games are narratively driven, Manovich asserts that “if
the user simply accesses diferent elements, one ater another … there is no
reason to assume these elements will form a narrative at all.” 7 Even though a
player can access elements of a game in one particular order, the game itself is
still structured as a database of information, an archive of text, image, audio, and
video that gets deployed at algorithmically controlled times.
Although Manovich might be correct in addressing the database-like qualities
of the video game, paratextual board games ofer a more open-ended exploration
of this database/narrative structure. Board games are also constructed from
a database of elements (as any player who has spent hours of time punching
out miniatures and tokens can attest), but player-generated content creates an
organized structure onto that inherently unordered collection. From Arkham
Horror 's unstructure, developed from the over 700 pieces of the game, to Star
Trek: Fleet Captains 's mutability, developed from the many randomized elements,
paratextual board games become a lexible platform for player interaction. For
example, while playing A Game of hrones: he Board Game , my board game
group used the 404 separate playing pieces and tokens as the game prescribed:
we it the tokens and troops within a database of uses, in ways that, while never
codiied by us, were still algorithmically planned into the game. But at the same
time, like with he Lord of the Rings: he Complete Trilogy, we generated content