Sandy's Soapbox
A naive punter recently claimed the TV show 'Lost' had invented a new form of storytelling, the hypertext narrative it. 'In Lost, the connections between characters form the essential hypertext content, which is emphasized by the structure of flashbacks that give the viewer privileged information about characters'.
An apt refutation (DrYak on /.) notes: "The Odyssey begins telling the end of the story (the gods deciding to let Odysseus go home) and the biggest part of the story is told through flashbacks and characters telling what happened to them before, sometime with several such layers of indirection. (Imagine flashback-in-a-flashback). The beginning of the story (War against Troy) is told in a such several-layered indirection somewhere in the middle of the text. This leads to a great complexity in story telling. The story doesn't happen in the same order as one reads the chapters.
Probably other even older epic poem feature similar out-of-order telling. But Odyssey is the oldest I've studied. As the top-parent sarcastically said, it's nothing new and it's not something specific of Lost or of Hypertext. Human mind works in non linear manner, so out-of-order story telling is probably as old as story telling around a fire in some cave.
Now, some might argue Choose-a-Path books provide a hypertext story. If you agree with this, read paragraph A. If you disagree with this, read paragraph B.
A: However, Choose-a-Path still represents a linear narrative. Sequences occur to the character in chronological order. You experience the story from beginning to end. And the end is known, mapped out. It's just that there are multiple stories written in one book, sharing some sections. Now read paragraph B.
B: Obviously, Choose-a-Path are still finite. There are multiple storylines, sharing some scenes. But the narrative chugs on in ordinary, prosaic fashion. Now continue reading.
Gaming itself is non-finite: the story is not known at the beginning, and the story arc can go anywhere. But it does tend to run as a linear tale from start to finish, in that order.
Within the context of gaming, there are some attempts at novel storytelling. John Tynes' "In Media Res" comes to mind; it's the standard 'you wake up amnesiac and piece it together', with clever use of flashbacks and player input into how you got there.
A scenario seed suggested on an RPGnet forum once broke this, a bit. Paraphrased (as I lack a link), it says "you start with the King rewarding you, thanking you for the service you did and that you were willing to have your memories magically erased to perserve the throne's secrets. You're then escorted out, and have to deal with the repercussions of all the stuff that happened to you earlier, doing a quest you cannot remember."
That's still linear, though. What if, instead, you started with the King's reward, but no memory loss. And the King somberly notes "and let us remember your comrade that did not survive." You've established an end-- some (but not all) of you survive and are rewarded. But there's no beginning or backstory yet.
Then the GM asks "Do you want to do the pirate scene or the dragon scene? It's the scene where no one dies." Then the GM asks you when that scene happened. Was it the first challenge, the last culmination, a middle hurdle, a distraction?
The players now get to decide which scene and where it falls into the plot.
After that interaction, run a flashback where the characters meet. Let them play this out as pure role-play. This helps establish the character relationships prior to someone dying.
Then run 'the other scene' (pirate or dragon)-- this time, as a crucial scene where someone will die. Let the players figure out how.
Some might argue 'but by specifying live, die, succeed, you've removed player choice'. The rebuttal is that no, the players gain more choice. They decide who lives and who dies. Because, face it, 99% of games assume the players succeed in some fashion. RPGing isn't "do we win", it's how we win, and at what cost.
RPGing could use non-linear styles. We just haven't yet.
Until next month,Sandy
