Re: Agency and failure
This post is responding to Rohan's reaction to my previous one, and to some of the thoughts that caught my attention from the comments on our sites.
First of all, I think that the concept of 'failure' has not been clearly defined in relation to games. I ought to have been more specific in my previous post since this term is so commonly linked to game mechanics. Some commenters seem to have reduced my point to this type of failure, and even Rowan refers to failure as being inherently defined by player choice.
But games are innately adversarial, either player versus the rules, or player versus the game writer/designer. For failure to be considered valid, the player must fail because of a choice she made. Failure that is simply imposed by the rules or game designer is not considered valid, not considered fair.
My example from Neverwinter Nights 2 was a type of writer-designed failure that does not interrupt the flow of the game in the way that some commenters think failure will do: because they are considering absolute situations in some cases (ceiling collapsing on your hero's head, or ultimate boss crushing you to a pulp), or because they are assuming the position of the almighty hero we have been accustomed to. In NWN2, the pinch of salt that I am advocating for was Bishop's betrayal and what it symbolised: even though you might be a hero, you are not entitled to succeed in every endeavour. Some of your followers will not agree with you. You cannot please both Sand and Qara (the level-headed mage and the volatile sorceress).
The impression I get from most AAA games these days is that you are cast in the role of conqueror, allowed to intervene in every political and personal issue for no disbelief-suspendable reason other than you being the PC. That is the feeling I get every time I play Shepard. How is it possible that one single human being might affect the destiny of so many species, with a few words? Traditionally, the scope of a player's influence upon the world was not as wide, and it required less words and more action. That is how heroism was justified. I am thinking of NWN 1 and 2, the Baldur's Gate series, etc. For me, it is easier to accept an omnipotent kind of heroism that springs from my combat prowess, because I really did earn that through countless save and reloads, than a galactic-wide parliamentary influence coupled with extreme displays of charisma in more intimate situations. Can anyone in her crew not fall head over heels for Shepard? Can we see any instances of real disagreement, perhaps leading to dissension or even betrayal? Mass Effect needs a dosage of this type of failure to make me identify with the heroine.
I want to acknowledge Dragon Age 2 here for what I believe are better-developed interpersonal relationships which allow for disagreement, even though their consequences are not as fully carried out as in older games (Baldur's Gate is notorious for NPCs free-will). There are great narrative experiments going on here in the gaming field, especially coming from indie developers. I believe that there is a specific language that only games are endowed with, and which we have not yet fully exploited. But I do not approve of dismissing the achievements of other media and engaging with games as a completely separate entity: that is very disempowering for the gaming industry. That is why I find it necessary to call attention to aspects of games that could benefit from the progress of other fields in the way that stories are told, so that we can devise how to adapt their rules to our own medium. Games are different, but only God creates ex nihilo.
Players can never actualize the role of a traditional protagonist which makes mistakes due to her human nature, because players are not engaging in a theatrical identification with their avatar, but using it as a vehicle of their will to explore and affect the world around them. Only deviant gameplay in which the player willingly allows herself to fail for roleplaying purposes counteracts this view. In any other instances, we tend to seek the best possible outcome, and we should keep trying to do so. There is nothing wrong about wanting to be heroic. What is wrong is the extremely pliable world that we are offered, where we can be archmages, master assassins, vampire-werewolves, and anything in between those and Dragonborn. Nevertheless, some silly unbelievable narratives such as what The Elder Scrolls offers are fine, as long as they do not constitute all of the hero-themed games out there.
A failure in the sense of player misperformance is also possible and can be narratively rich. Consider the death mechanics in Ultima Online, which involved much more than a corpse-run, or in Planescape: Torment; or even in palaeolithic WoW, which enabled you to talk to a ghost in Blackrock Mountain for a quest.
Finally, the idea of failure being anti-climactic, as observed by some commenters, is precisely what I do not advocate for. Failure can and should be embedded in the story in such a way that it enforces its themes. Casualties in war, the example of Ashley/Kaidan's death, is relevant within the themes that Mass Effect engages with, and has a climactic quality. I am sure you have read plenty of novels whose conclusion was not light-hearted but it was befitting nonetheless. Some characters, some plots, are destined to fail, and no other conclusion would have done them justice. I am not sure we can apply this as crudely in games for the reasons some Rohan and his commenters drew — players not accepting imposed failures, and seeking perfect 'scores' —, but it is worth considering in discussion to find how it might improve our games.
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I have to agree with Rowan’s point of view here. Failure needs to feel “fair” to the player, and having the game force failure on the player as part of a pre-scripted story feels artificial. It’s the game ignoring the interactive part of what makes games unique, and thus helping to keep the medium stunted as a means of storytelling.
Rowan’s suggestion of an “influence” resources is interesting. That way a player could make an informed decision about where they really want their personal story to go, but without feeling railroaded by the game nor necessarily being able to “have it all”. You could also add in a difficulty type slider (which I know you weren’t fond of, Milady) that allows for more or less influence, so you could have a “adolescent power fantasy” setting on one end, and a dark and gritty end where nothing seems to go right for the protagonist, except for the one, slim hope….
The other issue to consider is how success or failure in terms of the story can have a tremendous impact on gameplay. If an NPC betrays me, but this was a character I developed to have a specific skill that nobody else had, then it can make the rest of the game really difficult if that skill is very necessary. Or, in a space opera type game, if a race becomes extinct because I failed, it would logically make any future fleet battles harder for me. So, maybe that race dying is an interesting story, but it cripples the gameplay for me because I suck at fleet battles. How does a game designer address this?
I think it’s really tough questions like this that has kept stories in games stuck at the “power fantasy” level. There are no easy answers, and as I said in a previous comment, you have to write for the mass market or perish in a AAA title.
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I am not sure how unattainable goals will stunt interactivity. I believe it could even be a means of reinforcing it: it is not the whole game which is impervious to your influence, but a particular detail here and there. As in the example of “could heaven exist without hell?”, interactivity exists within the confines of impregnability. I will appreciate my conquests more if they are enclosed by the limits of my power.
Then there is the emotional impact of failure. Consider Final Fantasy VII and the very controversial deletion of Aeris mid-game. In a influence-based system you might choose to spare her but delete a less sympathetic character and nothing would happen to you emotionally. In an influence-based system, it is extremely difficult to make all of the outcomes equally desirable to the player so that the investment carries emotional weight. To me, quarians and geth meant very little. I would have spared those resources to save, say, the turian homeworld. No strings attached. Saving Kaidan or Ashley… well, I liked neither, but I chose to save her because I detested Kaidan more. If I had romanced Kaidan, I could have easily protected that romance. That is not such a difficult choice, but it is the step in the right direction if we want our heroes to be accountable for something.
You bring up very valid issues of gameplay as well. I don’t know how to respond to that, because my take on those might be different to that of other players, and thus slanted. I do not relish losing a valuable party member, but it does add realism to the story. Back to Aeris: she was your healer, and a character you might have learnt to rely on. The shock of losing her operates in both fronts: you are suddenly lacking one of your core party members and a character you might have become attached to in a personal level as well. It was a very powerful move, you cannot deny that. Fair? Probably not. But it left an impact that cannot be emulated by any influence system that I can think of. It was the inevitability of life. It was what made Sephiroth so hated a nemesis, because it denied your hero’s “right” to fight for Aeris.
Not so much “unattainable” as “unavailable”. Again, I want to play the game to discover my own story. If I just want to be told a story, I’ll watch a movie, read a book, or something else that doesn’t require me to put in extra effort to keep progressing and enjoying the story. Basically, I still pretty much agree with what Rohan explains in his comment below (and, sorry about name confusion, but I blame the original post which had “Rowan” ;)
Since you brought up FF7, let’s take a look at it. The problem is that if you want to talk about adolescent power fantasies, that’s it. And, I’d estimate that most people who remember FF7 fondly were adolescents at the time they played it; I’d wager you’d have a hard time finding anyone currently over the age of 40 who thought it was a great example of a story. I know that personally I thought Tifa was the more interesting person, and was more frustrated that the game robbed me of my agency and violated its own rules with no explanation: after all, why could I just use a Phoenix Down on Aeris like I had done several times before?
Let me give a scenario design that I think would have been more effective while preserving player agency while allowing the player to experience his or her own story. At some point in the game, Sephiroth suddenly attacks your party in a traditional combat setup. You can harm him, but it’s obvious that he’s not a mook you can easily topple. He seems to focus his attacks on the character you’ve had in your party the least (the lowest level one, whatever metric is easy). That party member complains about the attacks being too great, and suggests a sacrifice you can make to help them. Something small, but meaningful. If you don’t make the sacrifice, then Sephiroth does a mega attack that permanently kills the character. But, and this is an important part: it leaves behind a new materia you can’t get any other way. Maybe name it something like “Vengeance” and make it powerful against Sephiroth when you encounter him for the last time.
Of course you’d have to change a lot of the rest of the game to match. But, this game was before voice acting, so it would be easier to substitute names, for example. But, this is off the top of my head, and I’m sure there are some problems you could point out without thinking too hard. But, take the spirit of the example, if not the details.
This presents another interesting decision for the player (if they are willing to be spoiled on the decision), and lets them tell their own story. Did I choose to save the character, or did Sephiroth take the character from me and cause me to swear vengeance? I think this also, more importantly, makes what appears to be “failure” to be at least (if not possibly more) interesting than being able to save everyone.
Anyway, that should be something to chew on for a bit. :)
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Let’s call Square Enix. We’ve got a new story in the making, one in which we kill Vincent instead. Fans will rejoice!
But, you see, being able to decide the outcome of that battle by means of planning who will be in your party and who will be weakest (probably on your second playthrough or if you are playing with a guide), makes the whole situation feel artificial to me. But as long as players discover the rules governing the games, they are going to “exploit” them to their favour. Perhaps the original FF7 situation felt unfair (and very emotional for that same reason), but a situation in which you can effectively decide who to kill is too much, and alleviates the tragedy by making it convenient (a lot of people did not like Vincent, they would be happy to surrender him to Sephiroth). In this situation, you have to make sure that the tragedy is preserved in every path presented to the player… or decide that the tragedy was not, after all, so necessary, and allow the “cheat” to happen.
I relish choices in games, but they are difficult to pull correctly. One has to take into account the many ways in which a player might “exploit” that choice presented. Of course, you might choose to see it from a different perspective to mine, giving more importance to player’s agency than the story’s consistency, and see no problem in the disintegration of tragedy as pointed out above.
So what if people choose to sacrifice Vincent to Sephiroth? What makes that the “wrong” choice but Aeris is the “right” choice? Why not let the player play the game the way they feel is right? Yes, some people are going to metagame the story. Other might see an opportunity to shape the story to fit the way they want. I could absolutely see myself sacrificing Tifa in the scenario I describe above; just as some people will play tabletop RPGs “to win” (the “munchkins”), others play to tell an interesting collaborative story. I imagine we’d see a similar split in how people approached RPGs if there were more player agency allowed.
I think you’re falling into the same trap a lot of developers fall into: they want to tell “their” story, which is the only correct one. Again, I think this is a big reason why game stories feel so empty, because developers keep trying to shoehorn in their own story rather than letting the player tell their own story. Just because some people’s stories might be, “And then I sacrificed Vincent because I never liked him” doesn’t that isn’t valid. I think, “And then Sephiroth attacked Tifa and I realized… I have to let her go.” is so much more powerful than, “And then a cutscene killed Aeris.”
Anyway, thanks for the insightful discussion. Have a great holiday season. :)
Brian ‘Psychochild’ Green recently posted..How to design a game economy
even though you might be a hero, you are not entitled to succeed in every endeavour
Right, and I agree with you here. What I disagree with is the idea that the *game writer/designer* is entitled to choose which endeavours the player gets to succeed and fail in.
Now, I have a little bit of trouble with your Bishop example, because I never did play NWN2. But if it was a pen-and-paper game, and the DM said that no matter what, Bishop would betray the hero, I would fault the DM for a paucity of imagination. What about a future where the hero renounces her quest to stay with Bishop? Unlikely, yes, but still a possible future.
Planescape: Torment does this. There are certain points where you can end the game prematurely because of your choices, even though you cannot die. I became king of the cranium rats in one playthrough, and the game ended.
That’s what my Influence mechanic is meant to fix. It allows the *player* to choose which endeavours she fails in, rather than having failure be imposed by the game designer. Failure still happens, but the source of the failure is very important in making something feel right in a game.
PS: My name is “Rohan”, not “Rowan”.
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I am sorry about that name slip. I know it’s Rohan, I don’t know why I wrote something else.
Now what you propose is very interesting. It has been done, as you note, in Planescape: Torment, and possibly in other games which I have either forgotten or never played. The problem is, developers/writers cannot intuit each one of our responses to a particular situation, whereas the DM does not need to, she will merely adapt to your input on the fly. So the writer will always, under the system we are operating, be the ultimate judge of your actions. If she does not devise an outcome for a situation you want to place yourself in, there will be no option for it. Those are the human limits of asynchronous gameplay. There has been loads of theorising on how an artificial intelligence could co-create the story with the player, but the technology is not there yet (and I am not sure if I want it ever to be, should the AI be capable of designing entertainment for us). But that is a complicated ethical matter which we are not discussing at the moment.
I like the idea of being able to end the game in a deviant manner, as the king of the cranium rats, or as a fugitive with Bishop. Actually, he offers the heroine (I’m not sure if the hero too) to run away with him. But your responses are thwarted because you are supposed to follow the main storyline.
Thanks for your comment and post, I appreciate the intellectual exchange ;)