Over the years I’ve studied maybe a hundred different strategies for creating real time story, more specifically interactive story, and come away with the same three things.
- Nothing seems to be a finished product I can my hands on
- I don’t have the foggiest idea how to go about using these tools to create a story
- Conflict is never discussed
The last one has me the most confused. Reading everything I could find about Chris Crawford‘s Storytron, AlterAction’s Masq, the Oz Project, and the Virtual Theater Project I’m always struck with how little conflict is discussed, if at all.
For me Facade was the first example of interactive story that reflected what I imagined in my head as interactive story. For those interested, many of it’s creators thoughts can be picked from Grand Text Auto and their earlier work on the defunct Oz Project at Carnegie Mellon University.
The Oz Project’s approach to interactive story is similar to other platforms. It always reminds me of your car’s GPS – you enter a destination and it plots a course based on your current position. If you make a wrong turn it will simply recalculates the route. The Oz Project uses a similar process to create believable agents. Each believable agent has their own goals and motivations, or in our analogy a destination. Just as a driver can take the wrong turn the player character in an interactive story can take an action that requires the believable agent to recalculate their route.
Lets say in the future GPS units go even further and help you plan a trip. Taking in time allotted, traffic conditions, weather, etc. they will plan a weekend road trip guaranteed to give your kids a true sense of LA. If you spend too long at Disneyland the GPS unit will slot in a quick bite to eat at In-N-Out Burger instead of risk a long line at Pink’s Hot Dogs. This capability would be similar to Oz Project’s drama manager where it might remove or add a character, adjust a character’s objective, change an environment, etc.
So where is the conflict? A common error of novice screenwriters is to see story as the sequence of events – continue down the street, left at the light, take the first right, etc. Where is the conflict in that? How would I start a fight with a GPS unit? I could do the opposite of whatever direction it gives me, continually forcing it to recalculate? Perhaps I’m being too literal, but if conflict is central to story wouldn’t it be central to real time story? The philosophy behind the Oz project doesn’t mention conflict.
Drama = Character + Story + Presentation
Conflict is the core of any story. Conflict is what grabs audiences, it’s what makes interesting characters interesting, it’s what drives stories.
Nothing moves forward in a story except through conflict.
Each scene is designed around a conflict. Scenes build to larger conflicts and form acts. Acts build to an overriding conflict that drives the entire movie. If there is no conflict there is no scene and no movie. When examining a scene a script doctor will ask first – what is the conflict you’re trying to show? Either you pump up the expression of the conflict or you cut the scene. There is no place for transition scenes that fail to drive conflict.
Granted, screenwriting is stricter about conflict then other mediums. A novel might allow for a transition scene, but I believe real time story will be closer to screenwriting then a novel. Plus, given our short attention spans it would be safer for real time story artists to follow the cardinal rule of screenwriting - never be boring.
With the GPS recalculation model of real time story, I’m afraid the developers have gotten carried away with enabling interactivity and forgotten about story and conflict. It’s an easy thing to do, real time story and especially interactive story is a rather complex thing. But whatever we do, we can’t forget about conflict.
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