because here's the thing here's the thing the question was not "would you be more surprised to run into a fairy or a walrus" the question was "would you be more surprised to find a fairy or a walrus AT YOUR DOOR" and while no, i do not believe in fairies and would be surprised to know they EXIST i would NOT be surprised to find one at my door. HOWEVER, if a WALRUS shows up at my door i have to contend with the fact that a walrus somehow made it to my apartment specifically and knocked on my door for god knows what reason. i would be more surprised to know that a fairy EXISTS, of course, but NOT that they're at my door, do you get me?
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when i say qjaiden and qcell are narrative mirrors i mean it in a lot of different ways and i often see 'connection to roier' get kind of buried, understandably, because connections to others are not at all the core of who we are
but i like i need you guys to understand that when i say they're narrative mirrors i mean roier started off in the worst place possible and he was distrustful and heartbroken and wanted revenge and understandably so and that would've put so many people on edge especially in the beginning of the smp--
he could not trust Anybody with that secret *besides* Jaiden, who took everything he told her and held it and said its okay, i trust you, i'm with you, i know you're doing bad things, i'm here all the same.
and then to see that SAME FUCKING NARRATIVE play out with roier and cellbit, where cellbit is breaking off all his loyalties and his friends and making enemies and is undeniably a danger, a potential threat, during his infiltration arc and roier SEES THIS and hears it and holds it and says its okay, he's here for him
he's knows he's doing bad things and he's here all the same do you know how fucking insane that is to see. that qroier had grown from an awful fucking start with a huge betrayal to trusting despite the dangers, something he couldn't do and /fucking learned/ from qjaiden--?
AND THEN TO SEE IT PLAYED AGAIN ? from cellbit to jaiden that he knows what people will say and that they think she's a danger but all three of them have gone through this they've played the villain in peoples stories and they know they KNOW what they need is someone to trust and be there--
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"Martyn is loyal" this and "Martyn isn't loyal" that
Loyal or not, this man loves. No matter what he might say. Calls himself selfish, or a wanderer, or a wildcard, or whatever else he'll readily claim to seem unanchored. And sure, he is highly driven by self-interest, that is undeniable especially after Lim Life's ending. Yet every season he gets attached to people, finds a fondness in someone. To Scott, to Cleo, to the Southlands (especially Mumbo), to Ren--and to an extent he is loyal, or devoted, or whatever other word you want to use for it. As loyal as he can be up until he can't be anymore. Looks at every alliance with the idea that they'll make it to the finale together, even if what happens after is unsavory. He knows too much for his own good, knows that every life will end as him versus everyone he's allied with. It's inevitable, given the nature of his lore and his role in the grand scheme of things. It's an always present truth that backs every plan he has. An audience is Watching, and we need a grand finale, after all.
But until then:
"That's it, they're dead."
"I'm more than happy for you to link back up with me, and we can be real proper soulmates."
"You said, 'You and your allies will see the end.' You said I could bring them all!"
"I'm with you. This is us, now. This is us."
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Thinking about how Romeo doesn't know he's in a narrative, and that's what dooms him, whereas Hamlet knows he's in a narrative, and that's what dooms him.
Romeo doesn't check Juilet's body in the crypt because why would he? He has no reason to believe that she isn't actually dead. He never got the message from the friar, and since whatever Juilet took was good enough to convince everyone else, why wouldn't it convince Romeo? And so, he dies.
Hamlet, on the other hand, is so hyper-aware of the circumstances he's in that he stays stuck in his indecisiveness until it's too late.
-Kit
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i've shared some of Alex Freed's narrative writing advice before and i recently read another article on his website that i really liked. particularly in branching/choice-based games, a lot of people often bring up the idea of the author "punishing" the player for certain choices. i agree that this is a thing that happens, but i disagree that it's always a bad thing. i think Freed makes a good case for it here.
...acting as the player’s judge (and jury, and executioner) is in some respects the primary job of a game’s developers. Moreover, surely all art emerges from the artist’s own experiences and worldview to convey a particular set of ideas. How does all that square with avoiding being judgmental?
[...]
Let’s first dispel–briefly–the idea that any game can avoid espousing a particular worldview or moral philosophy. Say we’re developing an open world action-adventure game set in a modern-day city. The player is able to engage any non-player character in combat at any time, and now we’re forced to determine what should occur if the player kills a civilian somewhere isolated and out of sight.
Most games either:
allow this heinous act and let the player character depart without further consequence, relying on the player’s own conscience to determine the morality of the situation.
immediately send police officers after the player character, despite the lack of any in-world way for the police to be aware of the crime.
But of course neither of these results is in any way realistic. The problems in the latter example are obvious, but no less substantial than in the former case where one must wonder:
Why don’t the police investigate the murder at a later date and track down the player then?
Why doesn’t the neighborhood change, knowing there’s a vicious murderer around who’s never been caught? Why aren’t there candlelight vigils and impromptu memorials?
Why doesn’t the victim’s son grow up to become Batman?
We construct our game worlds in a way that suits the genre and moral dimensions of the story we want to tell. There’s no right answer here, but the consequences we build into a game are inherently a judgment on the player’s actions. Attempting to simulate “reality” will always fail–we must instead build a caricature of truth that suggests a broader, more realized world. Declaring “in a modern city, murderous predators can escape any and all consequences” is as bold a statement on civilization and humanity as deciding “in the long run, vengeance and justice will always be served up by the victims of crime (metaphorically by means of a bat-costumed hero).”
Knowing that, what’s the world we want to build? What are the themes and moral compass points we use to align our game?
This is a relatively easy task when working with a licensed intellectual property. In Star Trek, we know that creativity, diplomacy, and compassion are privileged above all else, and that greed and prejudice always lead to a bad end. A Star Trek story in which the protagonist freely lies, cheats, and steals without any comeuppance probably stopped being a Star Trek story somewhere along the line. Game of Thrones, on the other hand, takes a more laissez-faire approach to personal morality while emphasizing the large-scale harm done by men and women who strive for power. (No one comes away from watching Game of Thrones believing that the titular “game” is a reasonable way to run a country.)
These core ideals should affect more than your game’s storytelling–they should dovetail with your gameplay loops and systems, as well. A Star Trek farming simulator might be a fun game, but using the franchise’s key ideals to guide narrative and mechanical choices probably won’t be useful. (“Maybe we reward the player for reaching an accord with the corn?”)
Know what principles drive your game world. You’re going to need that knowledge for everything that’s coming.
[...]
Teaching the player the thematic basics of your world shouldn’t be overly difficult–low-stakes choices, examples of your world and character arcs in a microcosm, gentle words of wisdom, obviously bad advice, and so forth can all help guide the player’s expectations. You can introduce theme in a game the way you would in any medium, so we won’t dwell on that here.
You can, of course, spend a great deal of time exploring the nuances of the moral philosophy of your game world across the course of the whole game. You’ll probably want to. So why is it so important to give the player the right idea from the start?
Because you need the player to buy into the kind of story that you’re telling. To some degree, this is true even in traditional, linear narratives: if I walk into a theater expecting the romcom stylings of The Taming of the Shrew and get Romeo and Juliet instead, I’m not going to be delighted by having my expectations subverted; I’m just going to be irritated.
When you give a player a measure of control over the narrative, the player’s expectations for a certain type of story become even stronger. We’ll discuss this more in the next two points, but don’t allow your player to shoot first and ask questions later in the aforementioned Star Trek game while naively expecting the story to applaud her rogue-ish cowboy ways. Interactive narrative is a collaborative process, and the player needs to be able to make an informed decision when she chooses to drive the story in a given direction. This is the pact between player and developer: “You show me how your world works, and I’ll invest myself in it to the best of my understanding.”
[...]
In order to determine the results of any given choice, you (that is, the game you’ve designed) must judge the actor according to the dictates (intended or implicit) of the game world and story. If you’re building a game inspired by 1940s comic book Crime Does Not Pay, then in your game world, crime should probably not pay.
But if you’ve set the player’s expectations correctly and made all paths narratively satisfying, then there can be no bad choices on the part of the player–only bad choices on the part of the player character which the player has decided to explore. The player is no more complicit in the (nonexistent) crimes of the player character than an author is complicit in the crimes of her characters. Therefore, there is no reason to attempt to punish or shame the player for “bad” decisions–the player made those decisions to explore the consequences with you, the designer. (Punishing the player character is just dandy, so long as it’s an engaging experience.)
[...]
It’s okay to explore difficult themes without offering up a “correct” answer. It’s okay to let players try out deeds and consequences and decide for themselves what it all means. But don’t forget that the game is rigged. [...]
Intentionally or not, a game judges and a game teaches. It shows, through a multiplicity of possibilities, what might happen if the player does X or Y, and the player learns the unseen rules that underlie your world. Embracing the didactic elements of your work doesn’t mean slapping the player’s wrist every time she’s wrong–it means building a game where the player can play and learn and experiment within the boundaries of the lesson.
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