Games + Storyworlds: Matching Mechanics

Before I start tossing out tips like a clown hurling candy at kids from a float in a parade, I have a small confession to make: When I started discussing game stories in my previous post, I failed to state my two basic assumptions…

Assumption One: The mechanics of the game in question are partially or completely designed already. It’s your task to use the medium of the game to tell a story that fits into a larger storyworld. You’re mainly the story-teller, not the game designer.

Assumption Two: The game in question is not a tabletop roleplaying game. An RPG rulebook is a great delivery system for the storyworld itself, but isn’t so good for telling specific stories. Oh, it gives the players hundreds of tools for telling their own stories in the storyworld (which is why I love RPGs so very much) but a core book is a poor medium for storytelling. Now, an RPG adventure is a completely different product. It’s all about telling a specific story. Nevertheless, the story-telling and mechanical game-design are so closely intertwined, I make no guarantee that my tips for “game stories” will be of any relevance in adventure writing.

With these assumptions in mind, let’s talk about…

Matching the Mechanics

The game mechanics have been established. The storyworld has either already been established, or is being developed simultaneously along with the game itself. In order to tell a story through the medium of the game, you must find a suitable part of the storyworld on which to focus. This, in turn, will help inform what story would be a good match for the game.

Here’s an example: Let’s say your storyworld is an alternate 1954 in which a giant spaceship full of hundreds of alien species crash-landeded in the American desert in 1938. With a premise this crazy, there’s no limit to the types of stories you could tell. Some of those stories, however, will work better than others for (say) a first-person shooter. Or a trick-taking card game. Or a co-op board game featuring an electronic talking timer with Wil Wheatons’ voice.

Some things to keep in mind when picking an aspect of a storyworld include:

• Conflict: Yes, there is a story in how the more peaceful, human-like aliens were patrioted into the United States between 1939 and 1941. But if that story doesn’t have a conflict, or the conflict doesn’t lend itself well to game mechanics, you might be better off looking for a more strife-rich aspect of the storyworld.

• Scale: Note the scale of the game mechanics. If the game is an RTS, with hundreds of units on each side at any given time, it might not be the ideal medium for telling an intimate story of the forbidden love between a human and an alien. Likewise, an abstract worker-placement board game for two players may not be the best way to explore the government’s policy of offering bounties on the heads of the more antagonistic aliens.

• Thematic Resonance: This is fancy way of saying, “The story and mechanics have to feel right together.” A game with detailed combat mechanics should tell a story about fighting and violence. Less confrontational mechanics can support stories of subtlety and intrigue. It might be best to work backwards from the story you’re trying to tell: what sorts of things will players expect to do in that sort of story? How are those things represented in the the game mechanics? If they’re not represented well (or at all), you may have a problem.
  
• Multiple Outcomes: The aspect of the storyworld that you choose should allow for multiple outcomes that all make sense within the storyworld. For instance, if you’re doing a Harry Potter game and decide to focus on the aspect of Quidditch, it doesn’t matter who wins a given Quidditch match; different teams win all the time in the books. On the other hand, if you’ve somehow got Dementors in your Quidditch game (okay, a bad example, but stick with me), and players can defeat the Dementors by laughing at them… Well, that doesn’t make sense within the storyworld. While it might make mechanical sense within the context of the game, the point of this exercise is to create stories that fit into a larger world — and that just doesn’t fit.
  

Of course, if you’re developing the storyworld at the same time as the game itself, you have the luxury of tailoring the story to specifically match the mechanics. You should still keep the elements above in mind, but it’s a lot easier to ensure there’s conflict and to match the scale when you’re creating that aspect of the world from scratch.