#21 Character Families & The Witcher 3

In general - a lot of [..] is actually about Geralt - in spite of being an itinerate monster slayer and dealing with a lot of nastiness and sleeping around with sorceresses and making questionable moral decisions - is about Geralt trying to figure out how to re-establish himself within a nuclear family.

Today we'll have a post on families, parents and why they're important for character and quest design. I'll demonstrate this on my current quest design project. (Star Wars I-VI spoilers incoming)

Family Matters

Why do so many stories have family conflicts at their heart? This one of the questions I'll try to answer here - but I'm no professional psychologist or sociologist, so rather expect some intuitive thoughts.

Star Wars is famous for its father-son conflict. Source

To make a start, let's look at the first paragraph of the wiki-page on families.

"In human society, family is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship)."

Already at this point I feel the need to intervene. To me this doesn't put enough emphasis on the "other relationships", which might include other people not necessarily romantically attached or an animal. More generally I would point out, that you may declare any other being part of your family, if you regard the other as an important part of your life. In turn you may also see someone biologically related to you as not part of your family.

This begs for a differentiation between biological and social family. While many peoples social familiy will be near congruent with their biological family, there are surely a lot of examples where they differ to great degrees. But let's continue with the wiki-paragraph:

"The purpose of families is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideally, families would offer predictability, structure, and safety as members mature and participate in the community. In most societies, it is within families that children acquire socialization for life outside the family, and acts as the primary source of attachment, nurturing, and socialization for humans. Additionally, as the basic unit for meeting the basic needs of its members, it provides a sense of boundaries for performing tasks in a safe environment, ideally builds a person into a functional adult, transmits culture, and ensures continuity of humankind with precedents of knowledge."

Reading this it becomes clear why family is important. Family provides the invidual with a big range of spaces, tools, guidances, .. to grow into "a functional adult".

Providing these things works - in my opinion (not taken from wiki) - via several basic, archetypic roles which family members may take up. Examples for such archetypes are "mother", "father", "brother", "sister", "grandfather", "grandmother", "uncle", "aunt" (C.G. Jung sends his regards). I want to emphasize at this point, that in the social family literally everybody might take up such a role and that I furthermore think that it is the social family, which is important.

Anakin was a brother to Obi-Wan, even though they weren't biological brothers. Source (modified)

A very important element of the family as a social entity are its responsibilities, commitments and deliveries. When a human child is born into a family, it needs family members to assume some the above mentioned roles, in particular "mother", "father" and "sibling" (so I believe). It is the families responsibility to provide members who commit to doing this and deliver what is needed. However there also needs to be a balance: There is such a thing as overparenting and parents abandoning themselves.

Besides Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, whom I quoted in the posts beginning on Geralt and family, Dave Filoni also provides a great example for how vital nuclear families are and how grave conflicts in them can be:

"he [Obi-Wan] is a brother to Anakin, but he's not a father figure. That's a failing to Anakin, he doesn't have the family that he needs [..] so he's left completely vulnerable"

Further Reading / Inspiration

• NoClip - Designing the Quests of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Link with Timestamp

  Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, Lead English Writer at CD Projekt RED talking about family and The Witcher

• The self is not singular but a fluid network of identities – Kathleen Wallace | Aeon Essays  Link

  If humans are a constantly actualizing network, then the family does a great deal to lay the foundations and core traits of that network. And if it doesn't - then the whole network becomes fragile.
  

A "Witcher" Quest - Part 10: The Father

Already in previous posts I explained or hinted to the underlying conflicts happening in my Witcher quest. Today I'll show a characterization of Aisker, Alene's father, who is probably the central figure to understanding what is so wrong in the village and why we encounter Alene in the way we do.

Aisker Wudmager. For higher resoution, see this pdf.

Aisker unconsciously hides his main fears and problems under the cover of "protecting Alene" and "advancing the village economy". And while he succeds in his political role, he isn't able to control his child, which divides father and daughter. He thinks he will be happy when he reaches his goals, but even though he mostly reached his goals political-wise, his happiness is far too low in proportion to the successes he seemingly had - and this makes him quite insecure.

Many of the things written down here won't be revealed in the quest, but they are important to inform how the different characters behave in specific situations.

By the way, a small trick that I often use for character names is taking a meaning/theme fitting to the character, finding a word and then translating it into some other language. In this case "Aisker" can be traced to something with fishing (I don't remember exactly what) and "Wudmager" to woodwork. A good extra trait for Aisker might be that he likes his first name, but not his family name.

Ideas for Feedback

• Do you think I adequatly described families?
• Where could the character of Aisker need more depth?

Conclusion

This was a very interesting post to write. It revealed to me some knowledge I hadn't had yet and it also allowed me to grasp the whole thematic in a cohesive way.

While my quest design journey is coming near its half-year anniversary, I'm beginning to think more and more about what I achieved here so far. Post #26 will be an interesting one, for sure - but I try to not be too hasty with my thoughts.

Until then, have a good time!

#20 Expectation Management & The Witcher 3

 Today I'll introduce to you a perspective on the design of any experience - that is, of course in particular quest experiences. To be concrete: We'll look at expectation management starting from concepts adapted from fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. Through that lense I'll afterwards look on my Witcher quest and continue developing it.

Expectation Management

I guess, if I replaced this section with "The 20 best Memes on Tumblr today" and then a list of twenty cat memes unrelated to quest design, any reader would be at least confused or even consider stop reading this post. That is because I would have broken my promise of delivering a design-oriented explanation of a concept. The progress of the blog wouldn't match and so the payoff (even though maybe enjoyable in another context) would have no value here. 

However, memes integrated in the blog post in order to serve the original purpose - delivering on the promise - are allowed:

Sudden, unexpected moments and far-fetched connections
are the heart of many funny experiences (link to a corresponding video). Source

So setting up expectations and confirming/denying them in the right way is important - and can lead an experience to ruin if not done properly. Here'll list some types of expectations:

1) Promises at a beginning - I'll call them meta-promises - have a special place, as they need to give the player (reader/..) an introduction to tone, playstyles, genre, themes, arcs/plot and so on of the whole experience. In video games, this first section of promises is called the tutorial. In films we know of the "cold open", in books the "hero leaving the village" is almost a cliché. Or think about how the start of the portuguese ESC song immediately sets up the whole mood of the song.

2) A second subcategory of promises is world knowledge, with which I mean informations on places, political situations, past events (including what happened to the world while the story progressed!) and so on - everything produced by worldbuilding and -evolvement. If e.g. worldbuilding informations are given to the player, then he'll usually expect them to not be twisted too often. There has to be a basis, on which the whole dynamic of the story can evolve, and while the world might change, its inner rules should not.

3) Another subcategory consists of any hypothesis, a player belief about something yet unconfirmed - it is less about long-term but short-term expectations. Take for example a situation, in which a player approaches a medieval village where he can see from afar a house burning. He'll (albeit unconsciously) set up the hypothesis that something terrible has happened for the house inhabitants. Approaching the house this hypothesis might be confirmed by crying people or denied by the inhabitants telling him proudly of how they burned their home down to expel the demon dwelling within.

I think all of expectation management fundamentally breaks down to the gaps between

1. how it really is
2. what informations are presented/revealed
3. what is understood - player's mental model
   

In an ideal world the last too would be fully in sync. Level designers, for example, are mainly concerned with getting the player's mental model of the space in a state such that the player finds the existing, intended paths through the level. Storytellers on the other hand may use the gap between points 1. and 2./3. to make a story more compelling through interesting reveals at the right time (pacing) and subversions.

Let's evaluate this knowledge/hypothesises on my Witcher quest.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy - Lecture #2: Plot Part 1 Link
  Here you'll find more on promises, progress and payoff.

• Paweł Sasko: Life, Love and Quest Design. Anatomy of Quests in The Witcher 3 Link
  From this video the idea of confirmed/denied hypothesises stems.
  

• Understanding your Level: Mental Mapping | Games Industry Talk with Max Pears Link
  

A "Witcher" Quest - Part 9: Expectation Management

I've continued writing on the quest design document which I began earlier. To be precise, I concretized the section "The Village" which happens directly after Alene and Geralt's meeting with Alvin. In particular, it comprises walking to the village and the introduction of the father, Aisker. At the end the most importnant decision of this quest has to be made - whether to get involved in family matters or not. Here are some screenshots of what I wrote (here is the full file):

You can see in these images how I played with the player hypothesis "there's something un-good behind Alene's story" after the meeting with Alvin, first giving the player a breather and then funneling him (while he progresses) into the tense and uneasy mood, escalating in the scene with the father (payoff). It is, by the way, this scene which I started implementing in a previous post in The Witcher 3.

Ideas for Feedback

• What are other/additional useful concepts concerning expectation management?
• How could I improve this funneling effect I intended for the section before meeting the father?

Conclusion

Managing expectations seems like a very important element of design in general. We can find similar ideas in Don Norman's books aswell, who is concerned with the design of "everyday things". And if I think about it, then you really have to ensure something very similar  for e.g. doors, portemonnaies or controllers: Their function has to match expectation.

I had already used this method kind of intuitively in my first QDD draft, so writing a new section with these things in mind now wasn't that hard. And I feel like this is were my heart wants to be - there is an excitement in preparing, constructing a quest with such tools. I'll try to continue down that path, so you'll probably see those topics in other posts too.

Until then, have a good time!

#19 Quest Structure, Definitions & Mikratheus

This post is concerned with the structure of quests as it appears in video games. I'll present a conceptualization of questgraphs in The Witcher and will then continue to write down a specialized system for my game jam project Mikratheus.

The Structure of Quests in Video Games

The following abstract description is heavily based upon the radish quest editor documentation (Link) and the REDkit wiki entry to quest editors (Link). However, when looking at other games one finds that the overall structure is mostly the same.

Let's begin with my quest definition of old:

A quest is a series of connected events and goals, where subsequent event(s)/goal(s) are only revealed, when previous goal(s) have been reached or some event has happened.

With these words I tried to grab my intuition of a structure annotated with events and goals which is (usually) defined in the unplayed game and followed - experienced - by the player while he navigates the game world (which doesn't have to be a space). 

We'll see, whether this intuition holds against the irresistible truth of practice. Here follow (slightly adjusted) quotes from the above mentioned docs:

"A full radish modding tools quest definition is more than a questgraph: it contains definitions for multiple, different game aspects (e.g. layers, communities, journals, etc.). 

the questgraph [..] ties all these aspects together by controlling when and what asset is used in the player's quest progress"

More specific, on questgraphs and routes:

"A questgraph represents the possible progression of a quest by defining one or multiple static routes for a "signal""

"Routes are defined by directed connections between quest blocks."

Any route has to begin "in one globally defined startpoint" and end "in one globally defined endpoint".

End conditions:

"If the signal reaches any endpoint (no matter what route it took) the quest is finished and no further evaluation of the questgraph is performed."

Quest blocks and signal flow:

"There are different types of questblocks: some can trigger specific game actions, query information, pause the signal until conditions are met or initiate some other block-specific task."

"Multiple connections can point to the same block: no matter from where the signal originates a signal visiting a block triggers always the block-specific funtionality." 

"However some blocks (e.g. subsegment-blocks, scene-blocks, ...) may define multiple different input- and output-sockets (called in-socket and out-socket) and behave differently depending on which socket the signal arrived."

"If the block-specific action does not pause the signal until some conditions are met it immediately exits the block and continues on its route. A signal exiting a block may branch and point to different blocks at once. In this case the signal continues in parallel to all the blocks the routes point to at the same time."

 Summary:

"It is based on the idea that there is a signal, which starts in one place (Start block), proceeds through connections between blocks and starts multiple actions in the process. Signal can be diverted between multiple connections, which means that it can be in two or more places simultaneously. When any signal reaches End block, the whole quest ends killing any other signal that may still be going inside."

Image of a quest made with radish modding tools.

Looking at my definition, I see that it originates from a player view. I feel like it would fit this technical view more and more if one added some contextual definitions/statements, because the current view - even though it captures all aspects - had to be formulated in a generic way and depends on a specific assignment of meaning to the words used.

I'll continue with a concrete questgraph design made for one of the games I participated in.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Raddish Modding Tools on making simple Quests for The Witcher 3: Link
• Quest Design with the Creation Kit: Link
• A Video that makes you optimistic regarding the easiness of Quest Editor Usage (REDkit for Witcher 2, in this case): Link
• The mundane REDkit wiki catches the pragmatics of this field much better: Link
  

A Quest-System for "Mikratheus"

Mikratheus is a small god game, in which you play a god sitting in front of a computer, doomed to manage his followers. There are different planets on which he's got those, and every now and then a prayer for help pops up. He may the decide whether he has enough ressources to help, or if you wants to decline but possibly loose some followers. If he doesn't do anything about a plea, then he quite probably looses a lot of follower. It is thus essentially a game of balancing.

Instead of displaying pleas randomly per planet, a progression in pleas shall get in place. To get some variety into the playthroughs, every node contains a pool of pleas from which one is drawn when reaching the node.
The decisions per plea may lead to different nodes, so overall we've got a signal based quest system quite similar to the one above.

Central to the system I created is the event pool. It corresponds to abstracted quest blocks in the description above. An event pool is a node in the quest and contains possibly several events.

The basic unit of this system is the event, containing informations on the endings to which this event may lead, a list of nodes/event pools to which an ending might lead, a field to inscribe the event's "felt" intensity (it is planned to do some automatized selection of events based on an ideal pacing graph) and a reference to the parent quest. Events, too, correspond to quest blocks, and also contain the connectivity informations.

The quest class itself holds all pools and their event and manages initialization, event fetching and update, which can be summarized as progressing in the quest. Nodes/event pools, where the signal is, are marked as active and are hold in the currentPoolsQueue. Currently happening events are hold in currentEvents.  When an event is updated to an ending, then the event pool belonging to that ending is added to the end of the currentPoolsQueue. When a new event is requested, an event is chosen from the first (= being the longest in the queue) event pool in currentPoolsQueue.

In the game, I let a class Plea derive from QG_Event and add three endings: "accept", "deny", "timeout". When a player hits e.g. "Accept" for a plea, then a method is called in Plea which updates the follower informtions etc. and calls an EventUpdate for this event on the quest it is assigned to.

In another place, the NextEvent method is called, whenever an apropriate amount of time has passed by since the last plea.

Ideas for Feedback

• Do you think my quest definition would fit to the technical description when contextualized? If so or if not so, why?
• Where could the system I designed be improved by "typical" quest features?

Conclusion

As the recurring reader might notice, this post didn't contain much of the much loved (by me, at least) theoretical rambling on my behalf, even though it would've been a very convenient opprtunity to do so. The reason why this could happen is two-fold, and invites for some thoughts:

• the words I found on this topic were of such kind that I couldn't have said them (much) better
• thinking of and writing down such ramblings is rather time-intensive in relation to the rest

In a sense, this is a way for me to provide some theoretical perspective without having to delve spend too much time on that - which is exactly the point of this project to begin with and which has been difficult for me at times. I simply like to re-think things when they seem flawed to me. On the other hand, I'll probably not often have the luck of finding such gems, where I don't feel the need for adjustments.

Looking at the Witcher and Mikratheus quest system I am reminded and grounded in what quests are (literally!). Quests offer the opportunity of progression in a partially pre-defined series of events and goals.

Well, I'm sure there are yet some other quest definitions to come.

Until then - have a good time!

#18 Scenes - Dialogscript & The Witcher 3

Today I want to talk about scenes. I will introduce some aspects to consider while designing them and a specific instance of where they are used in video games: In modding with the raddish modding tools for The Witcher 3 (TW3).

Following this I'll write down a part of a scene for my Witcher quest.

Scenes

What is a scene? The term itself is well-known from film:

It is the connection of time, place and characters that gives rise to something like a scenic unity [..] Change of scene is the clearest indicator of scene boundaries. In a scene of action, the time represented and the time of presentation ideally coincide; between scenes, on the other hand, there is almost always a time jump.

~ Lexikon der Filmbegriffe Link

In games like TW3 we know of roughly two categories of scenes (Source), which are both mainly about interaction with other NPCs:

• "dialogue scenes with some player interactions that (may) influence the progress of quests

• "cinematic scenes / cutscenes that are used to present some questspecific progress and most of the time don't allow interaction from the player"
  

Example for a dialogscene. Source

 We will focus on dialogue scenes as they may be found in TW3 here and refer to them whenever "scene" is said from now on. In the raddish modding tools there are four components to a scene (see tutorial in radish scene documentation):

• dialogscript defines sections containing
  
• dialog between actors
• player choices
• hints to activate certain storyboard units
  
• storyboard defines per dialogscript section (several) units of
  
• camera shots/cuts
• actor animations/mimics
  
  
• production
• settings for the scene
• list of all needed assets (cameras, actors, animations, mimics with adjusted settings)
  

• repository
• assets from the game needed in multiple scenes
  

Since production and repository can be deduced from dialogscript and storyboard, we will only concern ourselves with the latter two.

Dialogscript

A dialogscript is quite similar to a traditional screenplay as we may find it in film. We write down who speaks what, what happens besides speech, and we give hints as to how the actors behave and what the corresponding image might look like. It is here where the plot is developed most explicitely.

Storyboard

The term storyboard is borrowed directly from film. There it denotes "a series of comic strip-like sketches of shots in each scene, including notations about costume, lighting and camera work" (Bordwell & Thompson, Film Art, p. 19). If we look at storyboards as used here, we see that storyboards unit are very similar to such "sketches". Both concentrate on the visuals over time in opposition to the dialogscript or screenplay, who are concentrated on what is spoken with only small extra annotations.

But today we want to focus on writing a dialog. I'll try to write down, what my intuition on this subject is.

Dialogscripts

To write a dialogscript, we first need to know what its purpose and context is. What is the point of the scene in the whole story? Who is in it? What will happen (roughly)? Where does it take place? What is the mood? What happens before and after?

If such questions are answered, we can start with some sectioning. What parts does this scene have? Where are turning points or special happenings? If a player choice is offered, we might want to turn this into a section too.

We can then proceed to write down for every section the answers to the questions above (except that its related to the overachring scene, not story). We might identify here things like an intro-section, a build-up section, a changed-topic section, a central-moment section and things like these. By answering these questions for every section we can determine, whether the sections as a whole fulfill what we wanted to achieve with a single scene.

At last I'd write the script itself, section by section, with the section and scenes meaning in mind. I would try to think like the actors or track their reasoning, mood and intuitions while taking care that those things are expressed in a style that suits their character. One might want to play with opinions, impressions, assumptions, little/big secrets, revelations, reservations they have and letting different traits shine.
From that, quite naturally an authentic dynamic should emerge already. Going further, one might try to intentionally let characters clash, agree, wonder, etc. about each other: consciously placing (dis)harmonies in those dynamics, which as a whole create an interesting flow.

Moments of change in that conversational flow should be marked: Here a different shot might take place, which supports the change in atmosphere.

Here some further tips I gathered here and there:

• Don't overuse made-up words
• Try to be short / Stick with short words when possible
• Use bad grammar (people don't speak perfectly)
• Include details about the speaker itself
• The scene should begin with a framing of what the whole scene is about...
• ... and funnel down to a single point, with the most important word or line of dialogue last
• Good dialogue is usually more concise than in real life

One might also ponder the following scene construction tips: 

Taken from John Trubys "The Anatomy of Storytelling"

Well, now I've written quite some theoretical rumblings. Let's go to practice.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Raddish Modding Tools on Scenes: Link1 and Link2, not to mention the tutorials delivered with the toolset itself (Link) and the in-game UI to create scene parts (Link)
• David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson: Film Art
  
• John Truby: The Anatomy Of Story
• Tobias Heussner et al.: The Game Narrative Toolbox
  

A "Witcher" Quest - Part 8: Dialogscript

In the story of Alene and in my Witcher quest in general, the meeting of Geralt and Alene with her father is pivotal. It is one of the major beats in this story and reveals the reasons for Alene's insecurity and strange behaviour. It introduces her father as a patriarch, showcases Alene's trouble at home. It is also the first scene happening in the village and shows thus a lot about the mood here. At last, here Geralt is allowed to make a decision: Will he intervene and help Alene? Or will he decide to not mingle in the family's private matters?

Here are answers to the remaining unanswered contextual questions:

• What will happen (roughly)? - Alene & Geralt approach the family's home, Geralt knocks on door, father comes out and is seems enraged at the sight of Alene, takes her in and bids Geralt (friendly) to go, closes door, from inside father can be heard implying hitting her, Geralt is faced with decision whether to intervene, A: opens door, confronts father, fistfight, father demands him to leave, Geralt leaves, B: decides to not do anything, leaves
  
• Where does it take place? - Near/In front of/In the family's house
  
• What is the mood?  - Tense, Piercing, Intense, Heavy-Hearted or Determined
• What happens before and after?
      Before - Alene tried to flee, didn't make it, Geralt found her, brought her to Alvin,
                    he insisted she needs to go back
      After   - Alene reveals her secret plan / Geralt talks to father in tavern

Answering the first question already gave a good idea for some sections, but let's write them down more exactly:

section_walk_towards_house (increasing tenseness)

•  Alene & Geralt approach the family's home

section_at_door (the big, fast realization of bad things)

• Geralt knocks on door
• father comes out and is seems enraged at the sight of Alene
• takes her in
• bids Geralt (friendly) to go
• closes door
• from inside father can be heard implying hitting her

section_decision (face the dilemma)

• Geralt is faced with decision whether to intervene

section_intervene (determination, Geralt acting)

• opens door
• walks inside
  
• confronts father
• [fistfight, even though technically now a different scene follows, I count the next section as part of this scene]

section_fight_won (Geralt feeling right, father defeated, Alene looking at Geralt with trust)

• father gets up
  
• father demands him to leave
• Geralt leaves house
  

 section_fight_lost (Geralt down, father superior, Alene looking at Geralt with trust)

• Geralt gets up
  
• father demands him to leave
• Geralt leaves house

section_no_intervention (Geralt sighing, melancholy of trying to do the right thing)

• Geralt decides to not do anything
• Geralt leaves place
  

Even if I adviced this to myself above, now that it comes to far, I don't intend to anwer all the questions for every section defined here. The short descriptions must suffice.

Based on this I've written the following dialogscript:

In this scene I played a lot with Alene's silentness and Geralt's need to do some basic conversation. Geralt finds himself in the situation that he is the one who's talking a lot, which is quite unsettling to him. The lines on the "beautiful village" and the "forest flower misplaced" are quite obvious references to Alene. When the father opens the door and starts saying very un-good things, Geralt is not able to fight back, being still unsure whether he wants to get involved in all this. Aisker's first and second line show what he as a character is about: Protecting Alene from the "evil" forest and what lives in it. When he says "no need for explanation" then this is a reflection of his old habit of denying young Alene any reasons for why she shouldn't visit her uncle or go near the woods. In the decision section I intend to show the villagers watching Geralt from the background, adding the feeling of him, his decision and also everything that just happend being exposed to the whole village. These are some of the thoughts that went into this construction.

While writing this I realized that I added a lot of camera/animation clues. Next time I'll define the storyboard and probably have to remove some shots I defined here. When reading it some more times there'll probably also come up some changes in lines. We'll see.

Ideas for Feedback

• What important step/thought might I have missed in my considerations for dialogscript creation?
• At which points do you miss a line or think I've gone overboard with shot cues?

Conclusion

This concludes my first part working on a scene for The Witcher 3, my own quest, and raddish trial 6. The second part will be about finding fitting predefined cameras in the TW3 depot of predefined things. All other cameras need to be made by hand. Another task is to search animations and mimics. Then transitions need to be smoothed and, at last, voice must be added. These are all not necessarily trivial tasks, so I guess I'll have something to do for quite a while. Whether all of this will be documented on the blog, I don't know yet, but certainly the screenplay in its final form will get its own post.

Let's give it a wrap. I hope you had a good read and will have a good time!

#17 Dissonance, Decision and Resolution & The Witcher 2

If I have to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.

Today I'm gonna write about dissonances, decisions and resolutions. I learned something about those in a seminary at my university and found the learnings very useful for story-matters. Let's start.

Dissonance, Decision and Resolution

To me, a story doesn't necessarily have to have a conflict, although many a story surely has one. I believe that instead of "conflict" one should rather say "dissonance", because questions, unresolved matters, inconsistencies, any tension, a spontaneous thought.. all these might lead to choices and resolutions too. But even the spontaneous thought needs to be motivated by a perceived difference, there has to be some reason why a character wants to act in the world. This may be "I want the world to be a better place" but it may also be "I want to do a walk, but I ain't doin' one".

Geralt famously once proclaimed that not deciding is no decision. Source

This idea of dissonance, decision and resolution of course requires an actor, a character in many cases, who is able to perceive differences, make (be it unconscious) decisions and act such that things are set in motion that lead eventually to a resolution of the dissonance.

This, of course, is no template for every case. I'm thinking of all the never resolved cliffhangers and stories with an open end here. Random thought: In general, deliberate diversions from an often occuring category-defining pattern seem to often belong to the same category, if the diversion is not to big. Anyway, the pattern itself is useful for describing many stories, so I'll continue.

Notice that the actor doesn't have to be human: Animals and AIs are two obvious examples, but in fiction we can make literally anything an actor. Speaking teapots, walking toys and trees.. Even emojis have become actors in a film. Notice also, that while the main character is the obvious choice for where to place dissonance/decision/resolution, one might also give such arcs to minor characters, groups, communities and even whole societies or universes. In case of giving a collective arc to multiple actors, we have some kind of collective storytelling exemplified on single characters. So no limits there.

Besides introducing me to this way of thinking about stories, the mentioned seminary also gave me some questions to ask about a story using such a structure:

Dissonance:

• Who is a "stakeholder" to this dissonance?
• Are there interests standing against each other? Which?
• What is at stake?
• Which value is this about?

Decision:

• Who makes the decision?
• What options are there?
• What gives rise to noticing the need for/doing the decision?

 Resolution (or Consequences):

• Did someone loose/win something? What?
• Which interests were asserted?
• Which new dissonance evolved?
• How did a value change?

These questions are meant to help making a story better. I'll test this on my Witcher 2 quest.

Further Reading / Inspiration

•  Wikipedia: Cognitive Dissonance Link
  

A "Witcher" Quest - Part 7: Dissonance, Decision, Resolution

There are several instances where this pattern can be observed in my quest. The most obvious ones can be seen in the decisions made by Geralt, especially those which the player controls:

• accompany Alene (or not)
• intervene when Alene's father is about to hit her
  
• help Alene with her plan (or not)
• blame woodworker, bear or no one
• how to calm down townspeople
  

But the NPCs in this quest are meant to have a story on their own too, and thus I've given them some dissonances, decisions and resolutions aswell:

• Alene decides to lie to Geralt about where her parents live
• Aisker (Alene's father) decides to teach Alene a lesson
• Aisker decides to ask Geralt for help
• ...

There are also some things happening in the background, which are never explicitely revealed or happening before/after Geralt's visit in the valley:

• Alvin decides to move away from the village
• Aisker decides to discontinue the woodworking tradition and turn himself to the lake
• Many in the village unconsciously decide to follow him
  
• Alene decides to flee the valley

Let's take a closer look at one of the most important threads: Alene's (attempted) flight from the valley. 

The dissonance starts in her childhood: Even though not consciously, she is aware of the conflict between her father and her uncle, who visits her at times. The same holds for the loss of tradition happening in the village. She is drawn to her family's roots: Earth, tree and forest flora and fauna. She doesn't understand why her parents try to hinder these thoughts. Worse, they can't give her a good explanation, not to mention a honest one. Growing up, she questions her parents more actively, and the lack of a real answer hurts ever more. In his heart, her father realizes he can't control her thoughts, on the outside, he is not able to live with that. In fear of exposal of true reasons he goes to great lengths and, finding no other way, even hits his daughter. For a long time, Alene doesn't have the energy to get herself out of this situation, but the need is ever more urgent. This all is the dissonance. Let's answer the questions from above.

• Who is a "stakeholder" to this dissonance?
  Alene, Aisker and his wife, Alvin
  
• Are there interests standing against each other? Which?
  Aisker (stern, lake, anti-forest, anti-Alvin, protect Alene from Alvin)
  vs. Alvin (soft, forest, tradition, protect Alene from unhealthy family/village dynamic)
  vs. Alene (individuality, freedom, right on a healthy life)
  vs. Geralt (not getting involved)
  
• What is at stake?
  a family's integrity, a daughter's wellbeing
  
• Which value is this about?
  patriarchy, family, progress
  

At some point then, she is independent enough to dare making the decision to leave her father, her family, the village, the valley. Even though her wounds and insecurities stay, there's now an inner drive, a newly born stubborness that sustains her. This is the decision.

• Who makes the decision?
  Alene
  
• What options are there?
  stay in this dynamic, change it from within, break out
  
• What gives rise to noticing the need for/doing the decision?
  the increasing pain
  

She then thought of a plan. The plan is simple and not that well-engineered, since she has no practice in such things. She imagines, that she may simply pack her stuff and go of with Alvin. But she didn't consider many pragmatic things like - Alvin might not be too eager to just vanish with her. Or dangers lurking on the way to Alvin's hut. Or that more than some proviant might be needed when going on such a journey. This is why Geralt witnesses two times her plans' failure.
The next part heavily depends on Geralt, Alvin and their actions and decisions. Alene on her own - even though she surely would try again anyway - isn't able to archieve what she aims for. She needs others to help her, she needs a catalysator to get on her own feet. Geralt can provide a first part of that by deciding to help getting the lord's permission. Alvin is the more important person in the long run: Without him she wouldn't survive outside of the valley, and he will be the one preparing her to truly stand on her own feet.
On the other hand Alvin is not able to get the lord's permission on his own and without an elder companion Alene won't make it to him anyway. So Geralts help is indeed crucial. This shows in the bad ending for Alene's quest: If Geralt denies his help, she will die while trying to reach Alvin.
This all is the resolution.

If Alene flees the valley:

• Did someone loose/win something? What?
  The family lose a daughter, the daughter a family
  
• Which interests were asserted?
  Alene's: individuality, freedom, right on a healthy life
  Alvin's: soft, forest, tradition, protect Alene from unhealthy family/village dynamic
• Which new dissonance evolved?
  how do Alene/Alvin survive out there
  how will Aisker/Family cope with his loss
  was Geralt's choice right?
  
• How did a value change?
  patriarchy, family did not win

 If Alene dies:

• Did someone loose/win something? What?
  Everyone lose
  
• Which interests were asserted?
  Geralt's not-getting-involved
  
• Which new dissonance evolved?
  Family: how to cope with loss
  Geralt: how to cope with decision's consequences
  
• How did a value change?
  patriarchy, family, geralt's morale codex did not win

-------------

When looking at this analysis one might spot that there is a "happy" branch for this thread: If Alene leaves the valley. According to the "grey choices" pattern employed in many Witcher games, one might need to rebalance that imbalance with complementary consequences in the second quest branch which is intertwined with this one. I pose this as a challenge to my future self.

Ideas for Feedback

• Might a fourth step "Action" be sensible? Such that it goes: Dissonance, Decision, Action, Resolution?
• Do you agree with my final conclusion regarding my Witcher quest?

Conclusion

I believe the terms I talked about certainly are of use for designing a narrative and for writing respective design decisions down. However one should probably do analysis' like I did only for major threads.

Hope you have a great time!