Game Mechanics and Story Mechanics

Something I've been puzzling over is how some games that have counter-intuitive, even "bad" game mechanics can be enduringly fun in spite of it. Here's an example: In old X-COM, you can step off of the Skyranger and immediately get hit with a blaster from an alien you couldn't see, that kills 5 or 6 of your dudes who are all clumped together inside.

That isn't fair, balanced, or fun. And yet, that moment is incredibly memorable to anyone who's experienced it. That moment is almost certain to be shared*, lamented, bitterly called up, again and again. And sure, maybe you immediately reload and try again and get past it, but from then on you know that this can happen. It colors your understanding of the game, and, for X-COM, it fits the theme** of a callously evil, alien menace beautifully. After that, the mission music is more menacing, and turning every corner is a heart-pounding risk.

Limbo achieves this same effect very early, with your first encounter with the spider.

As a gamer, I find these kinds of events fairly obnoxious. "Ok Mr. Game Designer, you got me. har har. now can we get on with the actual game?" I don't think they're good game mechanics, per se. What I'm trying to get at is that, what makes a good story is not necessarily a good game. And although we have a pretty good idea of what makes a good game mechanic, we don't widely understand or agree on what makes an interactive experience good grist for player-driven storytelling.

So that's why I'm looking for another term, which I'm calling Story Mechanics, to explain game systems and game design that encourage storytelling and memorable moments. So, what games tend to collect a lot of stories?

• Minecraft - how many stories have you heard or told about this barely-a-game?
• X-COM - the original sacrifices game mechanics in favor of theme at nearly every opportunity, thereby creating a sense of immersion that begs to be shared. Meanwhile its lack of balance encourages really memorable and dramatic abuses of power - by both sides.
• Dwarf Fortress - brutally difficult and a total slave to theme, plus an absurdly detailed account of every game object, creates fertile ground for stories. Your dwarves are bound to die, and you're bound to tell their stories.
• FTL - the different ships, systems, and weapons ensure that each playthrough is a unique story that fellow FTL players can grasp in a few words.
• Skyrim - That time you snuck in the back door and ran the dungeon backwards..
• World of Warcraft - people live here.
• League of Legends - each game is practically a morality play.
• Starcraft - the asymmetric balance and soft and hard counters make stories that are more interesting than previous, more symmetrical games.

And what can we collect from this? One thing I notice is that all of these games give you a high degree of freedom. I suppose that's important because you are less likely to bother to share a moment that everyone who plays the game can get for themselves by playing the game. So that's why, while Portal has a terrific story, and inspires a ton of love, you don't hear so many stories that start "This one time when I was playing Portal.."

None of these games locks you into a single or small handful of pre-designed characters. They all allow you to invest your own identity into the game (the two esports at the end are interesting, I think the player becomes the character in an esport, so this point is less applicable.)

Something else I notice is that each game is accompanied by a large body of optional lore and content. In Skyrim consider the books, in Minecraft you (used to) have to look up recipes on the wiki, the walls of text in FTL, the quests and lore in WoW, etc.. Most players absorb this passively over time as they immerse themselves in the game. In general this content serves to give the player the impression that the game is bigger than what you see on the surface. I suspect that when you buy into that idea, then you want to spend time in that world, and tell stories in that framework.

If I loop back again and think about tabletop games I've played, I can list a few game mechanics that directly encourage storytelling:

• Stunting in Exalted
• Character creation and Domain-related abilities in Nobilis
• Tagging Aspects in Fate, and the whole Fate Point economy.

All these compel the player to justify or storytell in order to gain a mechanical advantage. I don't know if that's very applicable to computer game design, because the goal is somewhat different; you want to enable players to make up stories of their own, rather than compel them to add flavor and narrative to a shared storytelling game that they've already bought into.. But I suspect that the surrounding mechanics are similar; As a GM playing Exalted, you make sure to describe a set that's full of interesting environmental details, so that the players can stunt off of them. So when making a computer game, build interesting environments and systems and allow players to play around with them.

I'm not entirely certain where I'm heading with this idea. Mostly, I want to be on the lookout for mechanics that encourage storytelling. Building on the previous post, I think that a strong character generator is an excellent start. I think that expressive freedom is important. I think that tragedy is important***.

I don't know if good game mechanics and good story mechanics are intrinsically opposed. I do think there's a lot of tension between them that needs to be recognized, and that those choices deserve to be made consciously.


*Seth Hendrickson advised me to make a game that people will want to tell stories of, and share.
**Dave Guskin taught me that in game design, everything serves theme. EVERYTHING.
***god damn creepers!!