Story and Plot Design

- by demagogue

Dark Mod FMs, like the long tradition of Thief FMs before them (which we should all take notes from), allow for a much bigger role for story and plot than other first person genres, and most players expect a good story to come as part of their experience playing FMs. It's not really sufficient anymore to build a mission first and try to throw together some plot or story to fit it without putting a little thought into what makes for good storytelling in an FM first, and ideally designing the mission's architecture, objectives, gameplay, plot, and story all as a coherent whole from the beginning.

The purpose of wiki entry is to give a mapper some good methods and things to think about when working out the story and plot-progression of their FM, as well as looking at specific examples from good storytelling FMs. The structure of this tutorial will be to walk through a general thought process a mapper can go through, although of course since storytelling is a creative thought process, there is no universally "right" way to design a good story and plot. But hopefully some of these ideas can inspire your own thoughts on the issue.

NB, For the next few days or weeks, this is going to be work in progress and probably subject to serious revision and complete re-writing. So it's not really a trustworthy tutorial until it's done.

Introduction: Plot, Story, and "Making Progress" in FMs

"Plot", in the context of an FM, really means two things that are interconnected:

(1) The gameplay plot, the progress and logic of the gameplay from the start of the mission to fulfilling all the objectives and winning the FM. E.g., sneaking past guards-A & B allows you to get into room-A, that gets you key-B, that opens door-B, etc ... that finally lets you swipe the holy golden trinket of summoning, fulfilling objective-1; and

(2) The narrative plot, the progress and logic of the FMs storytelling from the briefing, to story details the player gathers as he explores the FM, to finally the "narrative climax" of the FM. E.g., if you had a FM with 10 rooms, various rooms will contain storytelling elements (readables, overheard conversations, visual-storytelling elements like finding a body or fighting an important NPC, etc), which the player will see or hear in the order he or she explores those rooms. The "narrative plot" would be the progress and logic of how those story-elements reach the player, e.g., the player reads readable-A before readable-B the room with readable-B requires a key you found under readable-A, whereas readable-C is in an open room and could be read at any time, etc.

As this last example intimates, the progress of the storytelling will flow primarily from the progress of the gameplay as the player explores the FM and opens up new areas, and in turn the "storytelling" directs gameplay by giving directions to players what to do next or how to get past some gameplay barrier they face, both driven ultimately by whatever events or information gets the player closer to fulfilling the objectives of the FM (which also usually plays the secondary role as fulfilling the story of the FM, or a subplot, as a climax). The two are connected at the hip and often there isn't a clear distinction, and we capture both ideas in the shared concept of "making progress" in the mission closer to the objectives/story-fulfillment.

In fact a good test of what's part of the FM's plot is to ask, does the player in this scene get closer to fulfilling the story-game objectives he or she is after? Finding a key to the important room you have to visit to get closer to your objective, or reading a readable with key information about the NPC running the show and his intentions and where you might find him, can both be considered part of the FMs plot, because you feel like you've made progress in the FM when you find them. They're "useable" to getting deeper into the story-gameplay plot. Finding a key to a beautiful but empty room or a Builder prayer book can set the scene and be entertaining, but you don't feel like making any progress finding them and they're not really part of the plot.

- A little affordance theory

Story-Telling Elements

- Readables

- Conversations

- Visual Storytelling

- Revelations

- NPCs

Specific Techniques and Story-Types FMs have Used

- Jobs & Events

- Reconstructing Past Events and Leading them to the Present

- NPC-Relationship Webs

- Private Spaces in Proximity: Storytelling in City & Mansion FMs