What is Narrative? Janet Murray, Fox Harrell, Espen Aarseth and Ian Bogost

Narratology v. Ludology Narratology - the study of narrative Ludology- study of games Do games have a narrative structure or are they just rulesets + play –Play is directed, but not structured

Espen Aarseth Is actually a narratologist. His argument was always with “narrativists” –People who think everything is a story Computer games are not games. They are software containing games. We say they are games as a metonym Games and stories have common underlying elements

Common elements Objects, events (plot), characters, and spaces All of these can be static or dynamic within a game (always static in a text) Variability in plot of the game has been explored exhaustively but has failed to generate good game stories –Should focus instead on character development “Interactivity” is too vague a term

Interactivity Four kinds: –Explorative: moving through a space in a player- driven order –Configurative: player causes meaningful change in the game world/objects –Social: player converses or plays with other people or AI-driven NPCs –Creative: player uses the game as a tool to create a meta-narrative (such as machinima), new game objects (such as virtual property), or even new games (user-generated content, game mods)

Fox Harrell “Phantasmal” or deep-structural media Interested in cognitive, creative computing and cultural specificity Focus on the author as creating subjective meaning through code, visuals, and text From the player’s perspective, an emphasis on allowing them some creativity while also procedurally generating content for them to confront and analyze

Generativity & Improvisation Comparison to numerous forms of jazz composition - formal play and variation Emphasis on content: different cultures have different values, which provide meaningful difference independent of form Chimerical identity - game avatars that change based on player action (without them explicitly wanting to change) in order to alter context

Janet Murray Famous for arguing that Tetris tells the story of the contemporary middle-class labor condition Considers the ludology/narratology debate dead. –More interested in understanding what makes a “good” or dramatic game story Procedurality + participation = agency Agency + story arc = dramatic interactive narrative Does not consider story and game (complex rules or models) to exist at an antagonistic inverse

Multisequential stories Branching narratives such as choose-your- own-adventure novels or Oulipo Drama comes from discerning the overall pattern plus intersecting nodes (as in R&G Are Dead) Agency requires clear cues for when to act and how that act has affected the game/story world (Aarseth’s “configurative” interactivty)

Multiform stories The “Rashomon effect” or meaningful difference through variation + replay Groundhog Day the ideal legacy example –Provides clear references (or static events) that anchor all variations (the puddle) Façade by Mateas and Stern allows this through dramatic arc, text parser, artificial intelligence, secrets withheld from the player but gleaned through multiple playthroughs –Unfortunately no direct agency for given action

Ian Bogost (moderator) “Are games stories?” is a lark Games are rulesets + context Like Aarseth, more interested in objects, events, characters, and world (speculative realism--“slutty” or object-oriented ontology) Procedural authorship or rhetoric is the expression of argument or feeling through code alone In fact, stories and narratives have rules… meaning it is more likely that stories are static games than games are dynamic stories Cognitively and evolutionarily, play, action, and context precede literary thought processing (George Lakoff)