Game Designer's Playlist, The: Innovative Games Every Game Designer Needs to Play

Chapter 16

Whose Stories?

“Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.”

—Robert McKee

Games are a really complicated way to tell stories. It is much easier to write stories on a notepad or word processor. Sure, you have rules of grammar, but out-and-out “bugs” are rare. To reveal an unpopular opinion of mine, the story of something like Final Fantasy VII isn’t that interesting: The characters are one-dimensional, the world lacks nuance, and the plot hits a fairly conventional rhythm. So why do games provide a peculiar connection when it comes to stories?

Negotiated Storytelling

Dungeons & Dragons is, of course, the standard bearer for many ...