Games + Storyworlds: Know Your Scope

When developing a game story, it’s important to understand the scope of the story you’re telling. The narrower the scope, the more limited (but more detailed) the story. The broader the scope, the more wide-open (but less focused) the story becomes.

At the narrowest end of the scale, the player experiences a specific story with a beginning, middle, and end that have been lovingly hand-crafted by a talented writer such as yourself. (Many single-player video games follow this model.)

At the broadest end, the player is set free to explore the storyworld on his own through game play, discovering many smaller stories along the way. Without the hand of the writer to guide him, the overall (composite) story may not be as satisfying, but may provide a richer storyworld experience than a narrower game story. (Most tabletop games, because of their more free-form natures, lean towards this end of the scale.)

Most games fall somewhere between the two extremes. Where your game story falls depends on our golden rule: The Game Always Comes First.

The story, and its scope, should fit the game. If the game’s mechanics rely on the player to follow the same overall strategic path each time he plays, deviating only in minor, tactical ways, then a narrow game story might be for the best. If the game allows for lots of different strategies, then each game will play differently, which suggests a broader scope may be in order.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’ve got a board game that’s based on a simple “race along the track” mechanic. Think Candyland, but in the storyworld of our jungle explorer from last week. There’s just one track, and one direction to move along it. This lends itself to a story with a narrow scope: The game (and track, and story) start with the explorer arriving in the jungle, ends with him escaping from the city of apes, and touches on his adventures in between.

Here’s another, broader, board game example: Let’s keep the jungle explorer theme, with the goal of plundering the ape city, but now it’s more of a resource management game. The player can choose whether to stock up on rations in the village, shop for guns in the mercenary camp, seek the wisdom of the natives, or just forage for what he needs from the jungle and the backpacks of the fallen. It’s up to the player what resources to acquire and spend, and in what order and quantities, depending on what strategy he’s trying to pursue. This suggests a story with a broader scope; while it might always start at the jungle and end with an escape, the middle is going to be wildly different every time you play it. There’s room in a game like this for stories of angry natives, lost explorers, drunken mercenaries, and rations stolen by packs of albino monkeys — elements that wouldn’t fit properly in the narrower example above.

So what’s the point? What’s the benefit of establishing your story’s scope? Quite simply, it helps you to tell a better story. The story and game mechanics should match, and this is one more tool to help you make sure they do so.