With 4X games, stories form a minor part of the game. The game basically
takes a scenario, and the interesting part is how it develops from there.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brandon J. Van Every [mailto:vanevery@...]
> Sent: 16 January 2005 00:34
> To: Gamedesign-L
> Subject: [gamedesign-l] scenarios vs. stories
>
>
> They're not the same. A scenario comes from the brain of a programmer /
> engineer. A *story* comes from a writer / dramatist. Lotsa extra
> things are required: character, plot, pace, conflict, resolution. And
> most importantly, a focus, a point. Scenarios make good backstories,
> but they simply aren't the nuts and bolts of "Why are these events
> happening? Why should the reader care?"
>
> I have consistently failed to come up with a story for Ocean Mars. I've
> taken several stabs at it. And, I'm not a complete literary idiot.
> I've read books on screenwriting. I spent years watching movies about
> things "possibly related" to Ocean Mars, like other Martian colonization
> movies, or near future space movies, etc. I spent a lot of time in the
> early days doing collaborative improvisational writing, in the form of
> freeform PBEM RPGs. Granted, those were about The Game Of Mallor and
> The Game Of The Immortals, not about Ocean Mars.
>
> Most recently, I've *really* tried to deal with it, instead of shrinking
> back into more tractable problems like planetary display and combat
> systems. (Emphasis on 'more' tractable: I find combat systems a
> terribly difficult question.) I've got pages and pages of stuff in
> notebooks on "what is this about?" I've been reading "Red Mars" by Kim
> Stanley Robinson, which is about colonizing the real Mars. All sorts of
> things go wrong. It's got everything a Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri fan
> could hope for, and in fact the book was on Brian Reynolds' recommended
> reading list.
>
> But has all this effort helped me? Yes, in a negative sort of way.
> I've realized a couple of things:
>
> - when you have tons of possible ideas to deal with, you write a novel.
> A long, rambling novel. That'll give you sufficent room to put all that
> 'chrome' in. A preoccupance with chrome will alleviate you from some of
> the plot burdens, if not all. Put another way, people like big books
> for all the details they contain.
>
> - when you are sworn, as a matter of Game Designer decision, to have
> your game finishable in 5 hours, you're going to have problems tackling
> a detailed subject. It's more like a screenplay. Screenplays are much
> shorter than novels, they have far less stuff in 'em.
>
> - I have no emotional investment in the *story* of Ocean Mars at all.
> I've never cared about it like I'd expect a true sci-fi writer to.
> Namely, "Gosh, wouldn't it be great if we could all get to Mars!!!" I
> merely synthesized a realistic scenario for my "Civ-like" game. And
> sometimes, I think "sci-fi" concerns get in the way. For instance, I
> really don't want to deal with orbital mechanics and orbital combat.
> I've been trying to write a cultural simulator ala Civ, not a dropship
> simulator.
>
> A screenwriting friend of mine in LA observed, whatever we're stuck on
> in our own lives, comes out in our writing. For instance, a friend of
> his was writing a screenplay about a pizza delivery guy. It's comical,
> he goes through all kinds of madcap antics, but they only happen because
> he's a complete pushover and always does what other people tell him to.
> This exactly mirrored the real life hangups of the screenwriter. He was
> a doormat. Probably the only way he is going to solve the structural
> problems of this main character in his screenplay, is to face up to
> being a doormat in his own life.
>
> So what am I stuck on? Certainly, a preoccupation with "realism for its
> own sake" has hindered me. For instance, back when I was trying to
> render Mars at 10 km/hex, 1.5 million hexes! Drove me into all but
> bankruptcy, it did. I never resolved the combat system because I wanted
> realism in that too. Now I'm sidestepping that issue, but that's a
> subject for yet another post. "Perfectionist tendencies" are definitely
> part of my problem. I want to make an epic cultural work, not just an
> expedient set of game mechanics...
>
> There is probably an underlying emotional issue here. Like, I don't
> wish to feel ordinary, so I undertake monumental problems which may not
> actually be tractable. There may be further hangups, but I'll let
> someone else play shrink on that.
>
> Fortunately, I have some workable plans going forwards:
>
> - I'm sidestepping the issue of story for now. I'm going to write an
> abstract game, as a stepping stone to Ocean Mars. See yet another post.
>
> - I've almost finished reading "Red Mars," and it hasn't inspired me to
> say, "Ah yes, now I know what my story is and how it needs to work!"
> But I still have "Guns, Germs, and Steel" to read. It's factual, about
> why some continents ended up with advantages over other continents.
> Covers 13K years of human history. Maybe this will give me a story.
> Maybe it will tell me, once and for all, that my story is impossible.
>
> - My actual emotional investment was in "The Game Of Mallor" and "The
> Game Of Immortals." I played those out as RPGs. *Far* more tractable
> to write stories for them, so maybe I will deal with them as stories
> someday. The main reason I didn't take 'em on is production difficulty.
> They'd need lotsa 3D animation, or else possibly a King Of Dragon Pass
> type treatment. At any rate, they're artwork intensive projects.
>
> So my warning is, you have to figure out what you care about. If you
> care about bullets or points, you won't have any problem... I'm speaking
> to those Game Designers with an "artistic" temperament.
>
>
> Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
> Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
>
> "The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
> - anonymous entrepreneur
>
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