#25 Group Psychology

 This time we will take a quick dive into the dynamics and regulations that may emerge in groups. I will try applying the won knowledge in a quest design thought experiment.

Group Psychology

In post #12 I mentioned dynamics between characters, which "are concerned with the processes happening in and between characters". I linked the concept of dynamics to systems theory and cybernetics, which deliver approaches to understand systemic and processual units.

If we understand characters as systems with internal ressources, loops, processes, sub-systems and input/output possibilities, then we come closer to understanding the principles of character design. And if we go further and describe a meeting or a group of people as a meeting/group of systems, then we can look at those temporal system-collections too through lenses of reciprocal influence, information exchange, shared informations, regulation of common beliefs/actions and so on.

The term dynamics describes all happenings in a meeting caused by that meeting. If a group decides to not go to school even if secretly not everyone is content with that, then both events are a dynamic that has emerged from the meeting.

A regulation describes standardized processes in a system. In a group this might be a certain manner of greeting or a time slot in which they usually meet.

How and why do groups form? I'd say the answers are the same: Because and via of interpersonal attraction, or commonalities. I think the main regulation of a group then is mainly decided by exactly those premises it built on and consequently all dynamics will be influenced by this. Opinions, reactions and attitudes negotiated in a group will be influenced by this base line.

Examples for typical regulations/structures in a group over time include:

• group membership status:
• full member
  
• "black sheeps", which eventually might become
• outcasts
• adjacent/marginal members
• new members
  

• roles, such as "leader" and
• functional/task roles: defined in relation to the tasks the team is expected to perform, e.g. "coordinator", "recorder", "critic", or "technician"
  
• relationship/socioemotional roles: maintaining the interpersonal and emotional needs of the groups' members, e.g. "encourager", "harmonizer", or "compromiser"
• individual roles
  

•  norms, the informal rules that groups adopt to regulate members' behaviour
• prescriptive: the socially appropriate way to respond in a social situation
• proscriptive: actions that group members should not do
• descriptive: describe what people usually do
• injunctive: describe behaviours that people ought to do

•  intermember relations, e.g. 
• friendships
• relationships
• power relations, see for example the 'rank dynamic position model' by Raoul Schindler with G (the outward fix point of the group), Alpha (leader, who leads the interaction with G), Beta (the expert, advises Alpha), Gamma (identifies with Alphas view on G, assists and works), Omega (opposes Alpha, antipole that expresses group deficits)
  

I'll admit that this knowledge is mostly (but not entirely) drawn from a wikipedia page. It won't bother us here, if it helps us designing quests.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Wikipedia: Group dynamics Link

• German Wikipedia: Gruppendynamik Link

  Here I got the informations on Raoul Schindler's model, of which I learned in university class on organisational theory.

Another Quest Jam

Martin, the player avatar, is weak, needs help remembering what is, and is lost in terms of navigation. He manages to get up and the player finds a way out of the unfriendly place he initially was in. He meets Henry, who offers him help in all his problems. The player can choose some minor dialogue options, but none will prevent weak Martin from accepting the help in exchange for collecting certain items. Henry follows Martin with every step, an unhealthy relationship is starting.

They meet Maria, who is a free spirit, naive and optimistic. He is lost in the space they're all in too and thus joins the now forming group, whose base line is about fixing things. In the group currently Henry is the leader, with Martin being a central and possibly powerful figure who is of lower rank right know. Maria is the antipole, who is sceptical of Henry and bonded with Martin on a very human level of positivity towards life.

They travel together for a while and slowly the authority of Henry crackles, which he himself notices. Henry begins to silently retreat (for such is his nature), being replaced by Maria in his stead. Martin still doesn't manage to be present in his fullness and commit to the leading skills he has. The group gets distracted onto side paths, lost from its goal and the now antipole Henry critizes his opponent Maria while alone with Martin.

They meet a third character, Kristoph, who has a strong rhetoric voice and hard values, he immediately attacks Henry whom he sees as a threat to healthiness and overwrites the presence of Maria. The scene escalates, the "badness" of Henry is openly discussed. Martin acts as a harmonizer and calms the group down. Henry makes concessions and withdraws from any participation apart from standard assisting. Kristoph degrades Maria to mere assistant too and makes Martin an advisor, seeing him and himself as "the true leaders" (overseeing that he himself has final control).

The group has re-stabilized and focused on its goal of getting out of that place, but its leadership is enforced. In the final phase, Martin realizes who he is and gains the advantage of being authentic, which brings an irresistable atmosphere to him. By simple actions Kristophs so strong leaderships is crumbling, and Kristoph himself realizes the glory in Martin, who eventually leads them out of the calamities, fulfilling the groups quest.

What means might be used to communicate all that?

• spatial arrangement of characters when they are all together
• where the group is going, what they are doing
• what characters say, how they act
• who is determining norms, actions, beliefs
• who is (if silently) opposing
• what objects are collected form/distributed to whom

This being a jam, I won't elaborate further. But it gave me at least me some interesting ideas for some current and future projects. Also, I'd like to analyse group dynamics in the lord of the rings *thinking emoji*

Ideas for Feedback

• Do you know a good book/reading on the subject?

• What other means might there be to communicate group dynamics and regulations?

Conclusion

Another post, another conclusion. This writing was quite pragmatic, but it highlighted one of the fascinating aspects of life for me. I'm looking forward to seriously apply this knowledge in a project.

I hope you're having a good time. Until the next post!

#24 Dialog Systems & Ocularis

 Today we're going to talk about dialog systems, their integration in quest systems, and how I implemented such a thing.

Dialog Systems

Let's hear what Chris Bateman has to say about dialog systems (or engines):

"A dialogue engine is the means by which a game speaks. This software mediates the delivery of all dialogue (and monologue) inside the game"

Consequently we may understand them as a component of the medium computer game, being in particular responsible for the channel of perception that is "speech" or "conversation".

So we usually have the possibility here to deploy speech lines, e.g. a sentence being displayed as a subtitle, heard out loud or seen as a (possibly synchronized) lip animation. Lines are usually not unconnected from each other but tied together into forms like trees, graphs, hubs and so on.

Many dialog system allow choices, in which the player is given with the possibility to steer the dialog flow. Oftentimes a list of written options is presented which can be scrolled and selected. There are special variants like timed choices, optional choices (on which lines follow that lead back to the same decision node), choices that lead to special mechanics (e.g. a boxing minigame) and so on.

Furthermore, additionally, moreover, especially nowadays many dialog engines tend to lean towards a more cinematographic style. Dialog partners/actors are positioned, there are fadings, blends and NPCs may walk around in the shot.

In general - the gaps between cinematic, in-game animated sequence, dialog scene and gameplay tend to blur more and more. This is for example visible when tracing CD Projekt RED's games. While Witcher 1 had that classic distinction quite rigorous and didn't make much use of cinematography, already Witcher 2 very explicitely employed cinematographic principles to tell certain things. In The Witcher 3 cutscenes and dialog scenes became almost indistinguishable because of the possibilities that were added to the dialogsystem. In Cyberpunk 2077, dialogs and cinematic sequences aren't separated from gameplay but flow flawless into each other.

Here is an example (Cyberpunk 2077 main quest spoilers), where the gameplay literally is the scene. Dialogs and choices dynamically pop up when moving around the space. The space is set up in such a way that the player is automatically drawn to look at certain things the right way.

The last point I'll consider here is the means of activation - when does a line (text or choice) fire? As Bateman puts it, "event-driven engines are by far the most common form of dialogue engines". So basically all those systems in which batches of lines are played to the player (haha) when some event in the game world is happening, say, a weather change or the player enters a certain area. this is the type I'll be implementing below.
Bateman distinguishes two more dialogue engine types: Topic driven engines are those in which the next lines is determined by the current context - which actions have been done, what items are in the inventory. It is less about when lines are played but which.
Dialogue trees, or maybe rather branching dialogues, are dialogue systems which allow for different subsequent lines depending on a choice made.

When you look at it, these three aren't actually completely distinct (in the sense of you can't have them at the same time) but rather different features a dialog system might have.

But now let's see, how an implementation might work.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Chris Bateman: Game Writing. Narrative Skills for Videogames. - Dialogue Engines

  In general, I can only recommend reading this.
  

Dialog System in Ocularis

Ocularis (very secret project) is basically an Action-Adventure-RPG - the avatar Leonora has fighting abilities, but she also talks a lot to herself and the ones she finds in the world. The world is constructed as a space of progression, and depending on that space-progression both fighting and dialogue-events are delivered. So this is how quests are in Ocularis.

And this is how the dialog engine works:

Overview of Ocularis' dialogue engine.

In every level an overall UI for dialogs is instantiated and communicated to all scenes. A scene object in Ocularis consists of 

• a scene trigger (usually a box that the player may run into), 
• scene content (text and choice lines), 
• scene logic, which is responsible for blending in/out the dialogue UI, setting texts in it, adding/removing choice options and forwarding to the next line. And also dialogue-relevant player input is managed such as scrolling through choice options and selecting them is handled.

Here you'll see some in-engine (Unreal) screenshots of all that with explanations.

Example of scene trigger boxes in the level.

Screenshot of the line data structure.

Example of a scene content definitions with various text lines and a choice line.

Overview of scene logic.

The scene logic is event based: Every red node on the left is the entry point for a certain event. In the middle the scene start section is placed which  is activated e.g. by player overlap with the scene trigger box. The NextLine event is fired to calculate and deliver the next line. Text lines automatically call NextLine again, choice lines have to wait for player input, which is catched in the logic on the top left.

Dialog UI creation and propagation to scene objects in level.

A Quest Jam

Alright, this was fun. But I realized. This wasn't a quest design I wrote down - but this is what I want to commit to. So here is a short quest jam.

Scenario: Two friends meet in a café. Karla and Hannah. Karla is a notorious fast talker and always feels like there is not enough time. Hannah, our avatar, has light depressions, has just lost her job and wants to reveal that to Karla but won't feel in the right situation for that, which'll later cause tension between the two.

The level should contain the café and its surrounding and be entered upon about 9am. It should feel too open, the café has many glassy walls and little separation to other tables and guests. The player is funneled over the busy street, past a beggar who is pleading for money (representing Hannah's fear). Getting to the entrance she isn't greeted instantly, but has to call twice for someone. She's then guided to the unpleasant place and has to wait there some time, overhearing a conversation of a very successful man.

Finally, Karla arrives. She is in a rather pragmatic busy mood and starts talking long and much about her own life. The player at several times gets the choice to try bringing up her own issues, but Karla misinterprets that or quickly diverts in another direction. The noises are increasingly loud to Hannah, at some time she falls silent. At last Karla notices, but suddenly a fire alarm starts, chaos breaks out and everyone leaves the building. In the mess the friends loose each other. The player is directed to a silent place in a dirty side lane where Hannah sits down.

In a monolog with herself the player can express how he would talk to himself in Hannah's skin.

Ideas for Feedback

• What is the meaning of life?
• What kind of dialog system might fully evade the descriptions I gave?
• What might be building bricks, toys to play around and construct quests with for brainstorm/ quest jam sessions?
  

Conclusion

What a long post. I'm wondering why I write so much about things already known or done. I mean, it surely isn't for potential readers alone. Maybe classic need for any self-expression? Maybe the strive to achieve something? I feel there's like a huge amount of ideas, concepts, text, music, images and so on in my head that just want to be put out into the world, simply because it would be kind of... stressful(?) to let them stay inside. Maybe this is about freeing my mind from the necessity of needing to let those things endure inside.

Well, on the other hand, of course, I enjoy documenting things for other people and myself to build upon that, to synthesize the knowledge and energy of people.

Those reflections are a nice closing.

Until next time, have a good time!

#23 Queer Quests

 Queer quests! What is that, I hear myself ask. Pride month being about, I got inspired to connect a concept learned in university about games with quests in particular. In the end, such a quest will be written.

Queering Quests

What, is queering? What is - queer? I'll come to this right now. 

"deconstruct existing game genres to find the fundamental assumptions driving patterns of play then queer the genres by twisting, flipping, or undermining those conventions."

Deconstruction is something we've met already in the very, very beginnging: I began my first post with a paragraph that expressed belief in the absence of any final truths, existents or answers.

Rather, so I think, we humans ourselves define, based on our perception, what we deem "true", what "a thing" is or what is "existing". We utilize systems such as language, memory and any medium to let such constructions endure. And because we're having a habit of thinking in categories, differences and so on, beliefs too often tend to become structured and finite, which isn't a very good method of approach to meeting many things in reality. However constructions still are incredibly useful and probably the best tool to understand and orient yourself and exchange our approaches to being, so most of us will want to take that bitter pill of imperfection.

But there is hope! We come to deconstruction, which involves taking some constructed thing and not only just experience it as it is, but also look inside, break it, find its connection. Deconstructing doesn't mean to destroy things, but to analyse it, doing a close reading and laying open what it is and why it is that. That allows for improving, refining. It is a safety mechanism for our faulty (but necessary) constructionist efforts.

I find the question "how much deconstruction do we need?" hard to answer.

Quests are products of constructionist efforts. Differentiating events is a structuring which is produced that way. Proclaiming a connection between events is another structure. Saying there are goals to them is the next one. When I say there is a meaning to things, then this, too is a structural differentiation. The meanings to quest elements/the quest itself may refer to other distinct meanings in our memory (which makes quests potentially relevant for contextualization). Quests often are stories - when they're enacted the player has probably pursues certain goals with some mechanics - even more levels of structuralism and proclaimed borders ...

In a way, while writing this blog, I deconstructed my own intuition and previous knowledge of quests to re-construct to something new, improved.

So I think we understand that there surely is a lot to deconstruct when taking a quest as object of study and we also understand why that might be sensible. But now, what about queerness? Let's repeat that citation above:

"deconstruct existing game genres to find the fundamental assumptions driving patterns of play then queer the genres by twisting, flipping, or undermining those conventions."

Applied to quests, I'd say queering means to twist (etc.) a part of what makes a quest - determining und understanding those parts being possible by deconstruction.

Let's see how this might look in praxis.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Naomi Clark: What Is Queerness in Games, Anyway?, in "Queer Game Studies", 2017
  Origin of that citation I cited twice.
  

• I found the wiki-article on building deconstruction very interesting in this context

A Queer Quest

Let's queer, that a quest may contain multiple events. What remains? If I adjust my quest definition:

a series of connected goals and one event, where subsequent goal(s) are only revealed, when previous goal(s) have been reached or the event has happened.

What are the consequences? Well, in order to say "a goal has been reached", some change in the game must has happened. There must have been a final event, that triggered "a goal has been reached". In our case, it will be the same event for every reached goal.

Now if the event were a computer action, then the quest would be quite boring, because the player wouldn't have a direct influence onto it. If we make the event a player action it becomes more interesting: We then have a quest, which progresses only if the player does one specific input action. The quest basically becomes a to-do list which the player may tick himself. Maybe there are two types of quests: player-event quests and computer-event quests to a game and both interact.

Here is a quest design, in which I applied those thoughts:

 There are three things worth mentioning here:

1. The quest is partly inspired by Star Wars: Rebels season 3 episode 6 "The Last Battle"  

2. The graphic looks interesting

3. I reintroduced some events; the current quest design indicates an interesting mix of "player ticking" events and other events, who, however, never trigger that a goal was reached
   

I am quite interested whether there is actualy any game who does something like that and if so, how it feels. Maybe I'll find the possiblity to implement something like this somewhere sometime myself.

Ideas for Feedback

• What is your understanding of deconstruction (especially if you're somewhat proficient in poststructuralism, postmodernism etc. etc.)?
• How else could quests be queered without collapsing to meaninglessness (which is a problem)?

Conclusion

Thinking about and doing (de-)construction is one of my favourite free time activities. Guess I just have to live with that, but it really isn't that bad: I've heard they are just another synonym for doing science, artsy things and so on.

Until the very next time (proably not so strange as today, I might assure)!

#22 Non-linear Stories & The Witcher 3

Today I'm doing some theorizing on non-linear stories, finding a few design guidances usable for them - in particular those involving consequential player choices. The third part will cover how I change my witcher quest design to better accomodate those guidelines.

Non-linear Stories

At this point, I'd like to present some terms more "scientific" than "non-linear":

"In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text."

For example, ergodic literature is any text adventure where you are faced with decisions of what command to type next. This stands in opposition to books or movies where "what comes next" is usually quite clear. So an ergodic story is any story which you are not passively experiencing, but in which you have to give an effort to let the storytelling progress.

Cybertext is a form of ergodic literature, in which the text is determined by the interplay of a sign pool, a machine and an operator. So here interaction is of great importance: The "reader" takes part in creating the story, he participates in the storytelling. This is the case in many simulation games or games with a complex, dynamic system, where the concrete story cannot be predicted because the possibility space is just too high. Stories produced in such a way might also be called emergent.

If, on the other hand, all possible stories told by some computer game (being ergodic literature) are known from the beginning, then we might call these stories enacted. Quests and missions are very close to this type of story, since they define the key events and let the player progress through them with less important things being acted out by the player and only some (few) more important things being decidable.

Even though emergent stories have their own charm, we are on a quest design blog here, so this is why I'm mainly gonna focus on enacted stories here.

In ergodic stories, the audience enables the storytelling to progress.
Enacted stories allow the audience to choose between different branches.
Emergent stories let the player create her/his own stories.

As you can see, I understand story as "a series of related events" being part of a larger narrative which contains all minor happenings. For example, a character's mentor figure dying is most likely part of the story (and therefore narrative), while a character unconsciously moving some foot muscle while working is most likely no event relevant for the core story. It is, though, a happening in the overall narrative. Take this second fancy graphic:

Note that the terms I used here certainly have many different meanings
and relations in other places...

Note how I distinguished the narrative (that which has to be unveiled and be discovered by the audience) from the narration (that which is presented, told to the audience, from which it interferes the narrative). Story and plot are the core of each, while the happenings are "accessories", supplements needed to give the story context, a place, scene, world etc. to dwell in.

So while those happenings are not part of that which we usually remember from a narration, they certainly are necessary to make important events possible.

Alright, enough theory. What about those practical guidelines I promised?

So, here we go. This is a synthesized compilation of properties that enhance the non-linear aesthetic of a story:

• decisions with narrative meaning (there need to be (communicated) consequences)

  There's a great appeal in having the feeling to shape a story. If there is no meaning to the story, then the decisions affects irrelevant happenings only, which might be cool too, but not as cool as changing the story. Communicating the consequences of a choice is very important to let the player feel that (s)he has made an impact.
  

• decisions that feel personal (make room for player expression in the choices provided)

  Even better than being able to shape a story is shaping a story in a way that fits yourself. And if a dialog wheel does not offer you a choice that expresses your thoughts, than one feels detached.
  

• amount of content/advantages following different choices should feel balanced in proportion to risk or and effort put into the choice

  If this is not given, then player might feel the need to always choose a certain way, because they want to experience the "most" content.
  

• different branches and quests should not be isolated from another, but intertwining, mingling

  In reality, series of events do not happen independently from another. And if you do one decision but not another, then it's unlikely that the resulting world state will be completely different. The world doesn't revolve around a single actor.
  

• some choices that create dilemmas

  If every choice is obvious to a player, then those choices may become boring and feel useless. Some morally gray decisions enhance player involvement and allow for feelings such as guilt and proudness when addressed later.
  

• delayed consequences: players need to commit to choices they made

  This important to prevent players from optimizing their playthrough by reloading. This destroys  the emotional bond to a decision. Note how e.g. german let's player Gronkh becomes heavily invested in a certain choice in The Witcher 3 because of that: Link
  

While I'm certain - well, actually I know that there some other things that could be listed here ~ but I won't research and write down all of them right now.

Further Reading / Inspiration

• Espen Aarseth: Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature Link to Wiki-Article
  This work introduced the terms "ergodic" and "cybertext".
  

• Henry Jenkins: Game Design as Narrative Architecture Link
  From this paper I borrowed the terms "emerging" and "enacted" story.
  

• Russian formalists distinguished between fabula (story) and syuzhet (plot) Link to Wiki-Article
  

• Many of the guidelines stem from this talk by CD Projekt RED quest designer Phillip Weber
  

A "Witcher" Quest - Part 11: Consequences

When I considered the current structural outline of my Witcher quest design, then I realized an inbalance concerning the amount of content following the first big choice. Furthermore, looking at the second big decision the consequences weren't really delayed, but rather immediate.

The story structure, as it was until now.

Let's fix that real quick:

The story structure, as it will be from now on.

So, what changed?

• the content following the first grand decision is now balanced

  Both branches now have a roughly equal amount of things happening and a balance in good/bad things happening. E.g. in branch "Alene" Alene is freed from that bad situation, but Geralt won't be able to find the right murderer without the village becoming violent. In branch "The Contract" Alene dies, but Geralt can present the right murderer in a peaceful way.

• swapping the quest branch is now mirrored

  By allowing to change from branch "Alene" to branch "The Contract", more balance between both branches is achieved.

• the first and second grand decision now both have delayed consequences

  The first decision set (whether to help Alene or not) determines the fate of Alene and which ending follows when Geralt brings forth the true murderer. The second grand decision determines whether the village will be released from the tension of an unsolved murder or not.

Ideas for Feedback

• Did my theory of story/narrative/.. match your intuition on those terms? If not, what feels off?
  
• Should I maybe delete the possibility to change quest branches after the first grand decision?

Conclusion

Thinking about narration as something which is "told to the audience" reminded me of a thought that I really like: In computer games, the player participates in the construction of his own experience. He is part of the medium. Thus, he basically is partly his own narrator. I think that's quite cool.

Also, having said that stories are "a series of related events" being part of the larger narrative, we easily see the relation to quests, being defined by me as

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.

which is indeed a very story-adjacent definition. Maybe I'll find some other definition to test against some time.

I also am quite happy with the guidelines I found and how I managed to apply them. Those really seem like very useful (heuristic) rules. I'd like to find some guidelines for story irrelevant decisions in the future.

Until then, have a good time!