Narrative Design tries to bridge the perceived gap between “gameplay” and “story”. In this presentation, I’ll try to define common vocabulary to talk about what happens in games: what does story, plot, narrative, writing, and world-building really mean? Then we will take a look at the reasons that narrative in games gains from being designed rather than just written. We will tackle non-linear stories, co-authored midpoints, gameplay as a narrative tool, decisions-as-characterization, and more.

1. Narrative Design for Everyone
15-16 MAY 2023
Artur Ganszyniec
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Digital Dragons

2. Artur Ganszyniec
BLANK.

3. Who I Am
● Game designer and writer, focusing on
interactive stories and system narratives.
● I teach story design / narrative design
● Experience from AAA, to AA, to artistic
indie, to F2P mobile games.
● Teams from 4 to 120+
● 12 shipped titles
● 8 cancelled projects
● writing, game design, system design,
economy balancing, narrative design
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4. We Interrupt This Program for a Public Service Announcement
There’s a Polish Gamedev Community Salary
Survey going on in May.
Please, scan the code and answer a few,
anonymous questions.
The results will be published in June.
Last year’s report on ganszyniec.com
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5. Why This Talk?
I want more games telling good stories.
And for that I think we need more people trained
in delivering good stories in games.
Let’s talk about narrative design.
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6. The Need

7. The Same Story, Different Experiences
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8. Common Vocabulary
Layers of storytelling:
● Story – what we want to tell (plot, characters, setting)
● Narrative – how we want to tell it (means of expression)
● Personal Narrative – how the particular player experiences the story
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9. Common Vocabulary
Things to do:
● Plotting – the intrigue, what events happen, when, why
● Characters – who are they, what role do they play
● World-building – where does the story take place, lore, history
● Writing – the actual words, spoken and written
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10. Game Design and Narrative
A quote from „Video Game Storytelling”:
Personally, I prefer „Game Design is Narrative”.
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11. Why the Divide?
In books, action is easy – readers brain does all the rendering and physics
In movies, action is easy – models, animations, physics engine are already there
In games, action is complicated – you have to define everything from scratch
Pursuit for visual fidelity – heavy inspirations from cinema
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12. Two Views
Narrative are the pieces of Writing
(movies) that we inject into Gameplay.
Writing and Gameplay are means
of delivering the Narrative.
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13. Narrative Designer
A role (often combined with others) responsible for:
• designing / understanding how are we telling the story
• designing the story delivery system
• designing the emotional level of player’s engagement
• designing the way to explore the chosen themes and mood
• cooperating with writing, UX, level design, system design, art, etc.
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14. How Can We Tell a Story?
● Cinematic cutscenes
● Dialogues
● Item descriptions
● UI
● Characters (Art, Animations)
● Environmental Design
● Audio
● Level Design
● Difficulty Curve
● System Rhetorics
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15. Story Delivery System
How we want/can tell the story in this particular game?
● Do we have text, audio?
● How the animation budget looks like?
● Dialogues: length, tone, options?
● Plot / Missions: branching or not? discrete or continuous?
● UI: heavy/light? diegetic or not?
● On screen texts: diegetic, strictly instructional, breaking the 4th wall?
● Levels: enviro storytelling? levels of freedom? exploration?
● Systems: what story do they tell? what emotions do they invoke?
● Systematic simulation vs Directed experience
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16. Case Study: Unpacking
● Environmental storytelling at it’s best.
● We take an item from a box…
● … find a place for the item…
● … and learn about the protagonist.
● An emotional story about a woman’s life
told without a word.
● And yet, we learn who she is, what she
likes, whom she loves, what mistakes she
made, and what she learned along the
way.
● By the intimate act of unpacking her stuff
we learn to care about her.
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17. Case Study: Papers Please
● UX storytelling at its best.
● First person border guard simulator.
● You look at the papers and decide.
● Simple decision: red or green stamp.
● You, the player, have to learn all the
absurd rules that decide if someone can
enter the country or not.
● You feel the pressure and the tension.
● All the dilemmas are yours.
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18. Case Study: Before Your Eyes
● Control scheme as storytelling.
● A game about memories.
● You are the controller.
● A memory lasts until you blink.
● Deeply immersive and personal
experience.
● Plays on the fact that emotions are
physiological, and your body responds to
how you feel.
● CW: this is a sad story, deals with death
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19. Case Study: Disco Elysium
● Understanding the genre: detective noir
● Inner monologue as gameplay.
● Understanding the player’s psychology.
● Skill-bases options not always best.
● Understanding the tone: tragicomedy.
● Failures may lead to funnier / more
engaging results than successes.
● Understanding that games are works of
culture.
● Unblushingly, controversially political.
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20. Case Study: Uncharted
● Visible divide between „story” and
„gameplay”
● The cinematic part tells a story about
a likeable thief, Indiana Jones-like figure.
● The playable part tells a story about
a mass murderer, who headshots dozens
of people per level.
● You might say, that the headshots are
a means of expression, a genre
requirement.
● But personally, I’m not a fan.
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21. „Ludonarrative Dissonance”
Ludonarrative dissonance is the conflict
between a video game's narrative told
through the story and the narrative told
through the gameplay.
It’s a tonal mismatch within the
narrative, where the writing tells
a different story than the gameplay.
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22. A Bit of Theory

23. Story Structures
There’s a lot of literature about story structures, starting with Aristotle.
Beginning
something
unexpected
Middle
something
unexpected
End
nothing
interesting
nothing
interesting
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24. Five Act Structure
● Exposition – setting, characters, main conflict initiated
● Rising Action – conflict escalates, first victories and setbacks
● Climax – turning point, central decision, crucial knowledge
● Falling Action – consequences, complications, final suspense
● Resolution – tying up the loose ends, catastrophe or victory
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25. Story: Basic Building Block
Every story, every scene and every piece of gameplay have the same basic shape.
Crisis
Struggle
Resolution
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26. Story Layers
Every layer of the story (act, quest, scene, challenge) has the same basic shape.
crisis struggle resolution
crisis struggle
resolution
=
crisis
resolution
=
crisis
struggle resolution
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27. Story as a Journey
Every story is a journey from ignorance to knowledge.
Inciting Incident
Midpoint
Resolution
Experiments Consequences
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28. The Practice

29. Consistency
Quick and dirty trick to make your game more consistent
● List all verbs stemming from gameplay
● List all verbs stemming from writing
● Compare
● Trim excess, adjust what you can
● Anchor the narrative in the common pool
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30. Midpoint as Decision Point
● We want the player to have agency
● The midpoint decision is made / enforced by the player
● Very often in a systemic way (combat, exploration, character advancement)
● We need to accommodate for it
● This may branch our story
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31. Branching (a.k.a. Nonlinear) Story
● Final (personal) narrative is usually linear
● But the story behind the narrative may be not
● We can see the same shapes on every level:
main plot, quest, level, dialogue, etc.
● (Traditional) branching is expensive
● It’s a stylistic choice
● Not a value in itself
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32. Branching Tree
Beginning Middle End
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
End
End
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33. Multiple Middles
Beginning
Middle
End
Middle
Middle
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
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34. The Snake
Beginning Middle
End
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point End
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
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35. The Golden Path
Beginning Middle
Plot point
Optional
plot point
Plot point
Dead end
End
Plot point
Dead end
Plot point
Optional
plot point
Dead end
Dead end
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36. Storylets
Beginning
Middle
End
Middle
Middle
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point
Plot point Plot point
End
End
Variables, Knowledge Base, World State, etc.
decisions
conditions
algorithm:
pick the best,
show all, etc.
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37. Systemic Narrative
Beginning End
World
State B
World
State A
World
State …
Interlacing Systems
decision
feedback
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38. Decision Spaces
Three constraints of a good decision point
● It must make sense for the story
● It must make sense for the characters
● It must make sense for the player
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39. Decision and Characterisation
Well design options show the inner world of the character:
● Options are limited by what the character would never do
● Options show the player what the character is ready to do
● The chosen option shows who the character is.
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40. System Rhetorics
Fun fact – all systems are rhetoric devices:
● We don’t simulate the world but pur understanding of the world
● Every system makes a statement
● It’s worth checking what the statement is…
● … because it may work for or against the moral of the story.
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41. Good Practices (IMO)
● There should be someone responsible for the overall narrative.
● One of their tasks is to design the story delivery system.
● The responsibility may be shared,
● or combined with other tasks.
● Narrative designer should understand constraints, technical, business, etc.
● Other specialties should understand the need for consistent narrative.
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42. Time for Questions
Download the presentation Community Salary Survey

43. Artur Ganszyniec
BLANK.
Thank you