I never thought I'd have eight rewatches of a GDC talk, but damn this is great. I keep getting things out of Meg's talk and ideas. Thank you so much for giving a clear voice to techniques enabling subtle and respectful storytelling!
This talk could have been titled "Down With the Mary Sue". A lot of video games would read like terrible, indulgent fanfiction if they were in book form.
I would love a game like Skyrim that enforced your race and gender selection. Trying to join the Stormcloaks as a high-elf? They'd cast you in the stockades. Have the Empire accept all the races, even the Nords while the Stormcloaks treat Nord very well, other humans less well, beast folks poorly and Elves horribly. That way the player gets to feel what the people in the world feels. So many games forget that your character is ONE OF THESE PEOPLE living in this world. You know you're the protagonist in your story, but guess what? So is that tavern keeper, so is that hunter. So is that bandit. You're not special to them. Yet.
Really enjoyed the talk! About the Sunless Sea: I feel that the "choice not to play" as an example of enabling a player to make a moral choice is actually highlighting a crappy design method. When a story-driven game leaves me with two options, where one is doing something completely unethical, and the other is to quit playing the game, chances are that I probably *will* put down the game but it's not going to leave a good impression on me. You can certainly argue that I as a player am not entitled to being entertained in the first place, but I do think it's part of the social contract. If the premise of a game is "I'm going to tell you a story" and at some point very late in the experience my choices are to either swallow something gross or cancel play, that's not good design. It would be preferable to have a second (or nth) choice available in the game, even if these alternatives are also negative. I agree that not every problem in a game needs to be solvable, but outright quitting play completely should not be a part of the intended decision tree. If you're reading a book, and at some point the story grosses you out so much you have to quit reading it, the takeaway isn't that the book taught you something about choice, it's that the story was told in a crappy way.
As an aside, I really recommend watching Westworld to anyone who hasn't yet, because it's a story told entirely for the "NPCs" and neatly contrasts their plight against the superficial needs and entitlements of the players.
Udo i tend to swing on this idea. Media as a consumer product should certainly me thete to consume... But I think that ignores the point of the media. Horror movies are horrid to experience, but give a certain experience asked for (ala your swallowing a bitter pill). Games are only different in that you have to take that action, and she's wrong... you can just sail away from the Isle of Cats or just restart that character. And because Sunless Sea is a horror-lite adventure, it should be expected that you'll face more than desciated people and a few creapifying girls. That said; as the writer says it here... if the choice is to do something repugnant or to stop playing... is that not an experience in itself? I think in a linear game this would put a barrier for entry up. But in a "rogue-like" game, this type of barrier is acceptable. Your milleage may vary.
I'd agree that this lack of choice is a cop-out when the whole experience depends on it. This is why I found Spec Ops: The Line disappointing and why its criticism of the player actions fell flat to me. But this seems like a valid approach for some questlines of a game. The choice to disengage is not detrimental if there are other things to be done.
I partially agree. A game trying to present "do something bad or stop playing" as a *choice moment* is stupid. The player will just think "obviously I wouldn't do that but I want to see the rest of the game I've paid for" and they'll never feel any culpability for it. However, I wouldn't go as far as to say games should never force you to choose between all bad options. Firstly, it's fine when there's a clear divide between the character and the player. For example, people bemoan The Last of Us for not giving them a choice at the end but I think they made absolutely the right decision. Joel is *not* a stand-in for the player; he's a fleshed out person. It doesn't matter what you want, _Joel_ would rescue then lie to Ellie. Not all "story-driven games" need to offer branching choices. Secondly, it can (sometimes) work if the game's consciously raising that point. Spec Ops: The Line is the best example. It works because the whole game is playing with the notion that blindly following orders and killing everything in your path is heroic. Without spoiling, the game explores what happens when that goes wrong. But, it's worth noting that there's no choice moment where it says "do bad stuff or stop playing" (even though later it all but says your persistence caused everything to go wrong). The whole point is that you charge ahead with heroic self-righteousness without thinking about the consequences until it's too late (which obviously doesn't work if you already know what's going to happen).
Quick minor spoiler warning for Dragon Age 2. For fans of DA2, the sections starting at 9:25 talks a bit about companions in DA2 that you'd most likely enjoy!
You'd have to be careful with taking away player agency. Nobody likes being on rails, or having an interaction where there's nothing to do. If the focus is on building empathy with that person, or challenging your preconceptions, that's valuable (unless the player is a sociopath, check the comments section of this and every other video to find some), but there should still be SOMETHING for the player to DO, even in situations where "there's nothing you can do" is the point. Just clicking through dialogue screens, even if they're well-written is a little flat. Maybe it's "Look I appreciate you wanna help, but this is not your problem to solve, okay? Generations of my people have fought to change this and generations more will have to keep fighting. You know what I need right now? A cup of coffee, real coffee, none of that synth shit. That's all I need from you, you come back with that and I'll be happy." _Quest: Get a cup of coffee_ Something small, but a way to DO a game-mechanical thing. Maybe it's the preamble above and "You think you understand what we go through? You want to help? Go tell people about it, people who don't see it and don't believe us. Shine a light on it for people like you, who will never listen to people like me when we talk about our own lives." No quest - but other dialogue options open up with some NPCs, in appropriate situations. You can't solve the problem but you can build empathy with other people, you can help people understand that there is a problem, and you can challenge people who deny it. That's the most marginalized people usually ask of people who want to be "allies". Acknowledge that our problems actually exist, and when people like you try and step in to correct us or dismiss us or blame us or say we're just playing victim, you handle them, and clean up your own House, because we're sick of trying to "educate" them every damn day when they'll never listen to us anyway. That's honestly a pretty good place for "allies" to be. And not everyone understands that, so honestly, teaching people to be better allies to marginalized people is a pretty worthwhile "educational" goal for a game. With a lot of "gamers" though... just teaching basic empathy is job one. And that empathy is valuable (in fact, the social glue that allows us to build societies) and natural - as a social species, empathy is one of our mechanisms for creating social bonds that help us survive and like I said, build societies - and sociopaths/psychopaths/narcissists literally suffer from an underdeveloped part of their brain where the rest of us process empathy. It's detectable in a brain scan, it's like they're missing a sense. Then they're like blind people who go around thinking they're better than sighted people or trying to convince sighted people that rainbows don't exist and everyone is just pretending they exist and talking about them as a fad for "social points" - which is not something blind people generally do. But there are forms of therapy that help even people incapable of conscience, who have no visceral understanding of why anyone should ever care about anyone else who is not themselves, learn what it's about and why it matters. There's actually now experimental medical intervention to stimulate growth in the underdeveloped part of the brain, but we're years away from a world without sociopaths, psychopaths, and narcissists - which is unfortunate because they're why we can't have nice things.
The "we can't help the Murri girl" sequence would be a lot less difficult to deal with if we didn't also make a trip to the newspaper for a crippled submarine crewmember in the same town on the same day; it seems there should be some link between the two actions. I would have hoped the Murri girl would have saved us a trip out to Moreton flippin' Bay. I for one am not particular interested in a powerless protaganist, because I live and work in a world already where that is the case. I know that in the real world I'm an NPC. I play video games as an escape from that; I don't need a reminder of what is already clearly evident. Be that as it may, 80 days was a spectacular game because it considered these issues and made the game more 'real'. Excellent writing on Ms. Jayanth's part.
With all due respect, and yes this is completely just stereotyping from the extremely limited information available, but are you not a white male, Brian Pendell? Considering that, exactly how much experience do you have with being powerless and bereft of privilege? Perhaps your unfamiliarity with powerlessness is why you aren't interested in it. Bit of a thinker.
@@RosscoAW While I am, in fact, a white male, I have had more than enough experience with powerlessness. I've been homeless. I've had family that were homeless. I've seen my child die before my face and been able to do nothing. Even now, when I'm no longer as powerless as I was when younger, I'm still a cog in a corporate machine with very little say over what does and doesn't happen. I don't know what you think life as a white male is like, but just because white males are the ruling class doesn't mean all white males are in it. I see enough of them begging on street corners here in Raleigh to know that even outside of my own experience. White male may be the lowest difficulty setting in the US but that doesn't mean it's easy. I would say 99% of those reading this comment are NPCs as far as the real world is concerned -- we rarely have the chance to really make a significant and obvious difference in the world we live in, for good or for evil. "Powerlessness" is the default state of much of the human race, regardless of their race or sex. And for my part, I don't need a video game to remind me of it.
To do x or not do x, is still a binary choice. But teasing a player with a thing FOR the sake of telling them that they cannot do anything about it? Eh, you better be sure it's worth all that engagement you've been carefully building up. If you've ever tried to run a dnd campaign you would notice how a good game tends to follow the flow of a good conversation. Listening is more important than speaking - let the player express something, then show that you are paying attention to them. Yes there can and should be things in a game narrative that the player cannot change, but they should never be presented as a choice in the first place.
Interesting watching this after the Lives of Others talk, there the "your option is to not play" is given as a really bad idea whereas here it's presented as a good option.
In the case of Sunless Sea she mentioned I believe the storyline in question is not the only one available or necessary to progress with the story. As others have mentioned, in such a situation it's not a matter of either give in or don't play the game, but rather a situation in which your interaction with certain part of the game world is limited by you not being in control of it and thus needing to either interact with the character on their own terms or moving on to whatever you're able to do if you want to deal with the world on your own terms.
While I agree with the overall sentiment that some games benefit for NPCs having their own agendas and feeling like real people, I dislike the narrative of the tall. Maybe it's the situational vocabulary she chose.
I like the thrust of the talk - that NPCs are more interesting if they have their own agendas. I could do without all the SJW talking points - I have a few examples of unoppressed people helping oppressed ones.
25:17 I think I'd like to know the exact definitions of hero and protagonist, at least in the current context. Sometimes they are interrchangeable and sometimes they are different...
hero has morals accepted in some degree by society, do heroic acts, and might sacrifice himself to safe others. a protagonist don't need to follow that path. both concepts are not dependent to each other, you could have a hero that its not a protagonist in the plot or a protagonist that is not a hero.
My thoughts: - Giving NPCs unique and personal backgrounds, opinions, and goals can help them feel a lot more interesting (regardless of player agency, power, etc). - Subverting player expectations should be handled carefully, as you want to keep the player engaged, surprise them at times etc, but you still need to respect your players. - Removing a player's agency (or ability to affect the world) doesn't sound fun, and shifts a game closer to being "on rails". - Mechanics, gameplay, agency, player-choice, and interactivity are what make a game a *game*, rather than a book. If those things aren't important to the designer, then they should probably write a book rather than create a game. - Deep and interesting NPCs can help a game, but they should be paired with good gameplay.
To be completely honest, I think the only demographic incapable of handling their decisions being "disrespected" (by thoughtful, intentional game design) are white males. No, I'm not being facetious. People that have suffered inequality on a day to day basis their entire life don't immediately throw a hissy fit when they encounter a video game replacing what 10% of that experience is like, separate from the consequences of systemic violence IRL. I think we just need game design to focus less on catering exclusively to the narrow expectations of a straight, white ~17 year old audience. ... Which I seriously doubt is going to happen anytime soon, unless and until straight white men constitute less than half of the actual game developer (designer, at least) demographic, unfortunately.
My guess is that being full of SJW nonsense has something to do with that... I don't know if she used their terminology to mock them but every time I hear "white privilege", "people of color" or other crap I cringe.
The only thing that came close to SJW was her stating that she thinks its more interesting when NPC's presents a narrative different from the typical one of white male protagonist saves the world. I find it hard to disagree with that point - why not change it up? Its only fair for her to want to explore different things. Although I don't like to get into these discussions on RUclips - why do you find those terms cringe-worthy? Whats wrong with wanting to make games that explore other cultures and ways of seeing the world?
I think we are on the same page, Andrew, and I get why the 'white savior fantasy' line could be abrasive. I also think that games offer something most of life doesnt - agency and empowerment, you can do good in the world because you want that agency. That being said, I read her 'white savior fantasy' point as being a critique of specific narrative tropes, biases, and generic characterization. She did follow it up by putting it in reference to her game, saying it was a critique of a colonial Frenchman who travels the world in 80 days and yet thinks he can save every person he sees. Its a critique of using a version of the white man's burden as a way to enable video game agency/entitlement simulation. What makes her point so interesting isn't that she thinks people shouldn't want to save everyone or play the white savior fantasy or to be video game Jesus. Its that she says it could make for interesting narratives if the game was about showing you how little agency you have or depict a different world from that of your generic modern day RPG. This isn't to make someone feel conscious of white guilt or anything, I think its to provide a different time of gaving experience, giving more life to NPCs, the world, and their relationship to the PC. Her argument is, for example, the whole point of Bioshock - showing and questioning player agency.
Agreed. Calling her a SJW is the quickest way to write off a speaker. Its pretty much saying 'I'm not interested in hearing another generic brown woman who wants to do something different with video games'. Not sure why someone would come listen to a 30 minute lecture and yet be so unwilling to consider someone else's views and opinions.
I'm all on favor of games which don't make the main character a Mary Sue. Games which piss all over the player character like a bully however, ESPECIALLY by making you do awful things that the game doesn't actually give you an option to abstain from (like the phosphorus attack in Spec Ops The Line) are disgusting.
Yes, npcs feel so fake in most games, my solution was to create a complex emotional simulation, still in development beta available on the unity asset store.
That's a good idea, the project I was working on used a psychological model to quantify the emotions, using Circumplex Model of Affect, but it was tricky trying to get the interactions between different emotions right. I had to abandon my project but I joined a group working on something similar but a lot more complex and sophisticated. @@jsmith434w
I kinda agree from a narrative perspective but how does this make a game more fun to play? If I can’t fight the final boss because of some npcs background and they get to fight the final boss that’s boring.
there s 2 agencies. agency of the player = how much u influence ur avatar. can u sit? can u jump? can u do everything u would want to do in his place. thats the kind u speak about - its really wrong to limit that type. yes. she was speaking about the protagonist agency in the world. is he a king? a god? can he solve any proble and beat any enemy. that agency should be limited. yes, u can jump and sit and take photos but u r a penniless peasant and noone listens to you. thats interesting. thats how survival works, u r weak ass pussy, everything kills you, so go and hide.
Watched the entire video. My thoughts on NPCs haven't really changed. If they present the player with info it should have meaning. It should either move the plot or fill in missing infomation otherwise it;s just useless words. And telling the player about a problem and then telling them that there's nothing they can do is a waste of time for the player. It's the same with having companion NPCs just suddenly doing something that the player can see coming from a mile away and still being unable to stop it. If the player has the info then they should be allowed to do something with it or it's useless words.
I see the value in giving NPCs their own agency so that they are more than empty dolls, but taking too much agency from the player can make the game lose something fundamental. If all the player is allowed to do is to observe and think about it, why does it need to be a game at all?
It's not as if she's suggesting that every NPC in the entire game should act on their own disregarding the player's influence. The point is that sometimes an NPC might have his own agenda and goals, just as the player has his. Not every NPC has to be a quest-bearer. Personally, I love it when games have recurring NPCs with their own stories progressing over the course of the game. I love re-visiting towns and chatting up NPCs and seeing what's going on in their lives, even if (or perhaps, especially when) their updates are as mundane and everyday as "Oh I've recently picked up a new hobby." It makes the world so much more alive.
I can understand looking into their lives, but when NPCs do things on their own to affect the player that they could do something about if they have the info, but the game won't let them because the designer didn't give them a chance is where this falls apart for me. If you pose a problem to the player they should have some way of solving it or it's just useless noise.
She talks way too fast, pauses aren't just so you can take a breath but also allow the audience to digest what you just said. the Other talk that goes with hers is much better imo.
I had actually listened to that talk already, then this talk, then realized the first talk was the one she was referring to. That talk *WAS* way better. Other talk: Better NPCs This talk: Less protagonist (and less player)
Hey, notice a pattern? All the dumb negative comments on this video are from RUclips accounts with *extremely straight, white male*-sounding names. Not even really RUclips handles, just straight white asf names. Ever considered that maybe -- just maybe -- you're part of a *particular* demographic that other people might have labelled? Just pointing out coincidences and food for thought (lmao)
Such a muddle of great ideas and awful ones. For example, denying the player regular expectations, giving them dead ends and lying NPCs? Great! Nonsense about games doing anything or training people? Our brains train us. Some flashing lights and sounds and pictures and the history of humans for the last 20,000 years isn't going to usurp the way our brains are wired since the last 200,000,000 years which is, for males, greatly goal and competence oriented.
Haven't you ever loved a game for some of it's aspects, despite the bugs or weird design decisions, or crappy graphics? She is the intended audience of DA2, so she appretiates it for story reasons and the approach to romance, ignoring gameplay flaws.
I never played Dragon Age 2, but your comment seems very fitting of what I believe I've concluded as my opinion of the talk: "How to make not-bad-NPCs, but not good games either"
My experience is that GDC has great quality in their speakers and theme, but in this case I really disliked this. It was by far the worst GDC video i have ever viewed. An entitled, toxic and obviously cynical speaker indirectly calling unknown others as entitled (and many other labels ) while throwing BS politics in game development speech. And to get a minimum of credibility she remembered to mix basic rookie writer advices that should be dropped as soon as one has finished writing the first story to gain some scars. That same story that any writer worth its salt would be ashamed to show anyone. I think she doesn't understand or even care about game development. She should concentrate on political rallies.
Wee-woo, wee-woo, whaaa'mbulance comin' through, one fragile, special snowflake needs their narrow male fragility resuscitated, stat! Quick, somebody give him a medically necessary hug, before the hollow, lonely edginess takes another brave soul from us! Ohhh, the humanity. (Seriously, though, in all due respect I hope you have a therapist or somebody else trustworthy and objective you can talk to and share with. Seems you really need it, so I genuinely hope that's going well for you; if not, there's no shame in therapy. There *sure is* shame in the comment you made above, though.)
@@RosscoAW Look! What did i found? A little troll in the growing stage. And he is making small noises. Mmmm. He still looks a little weak. He probably was grown in a greenhouse and was abruptly transplanted to the real world. Never knew rain or ice. Never knew blood and sweat. Is he from the US strand? One can see how confused he is. Those little words like masculinity and others. The naivete showing each time he talks of politics and rights as if they came from some god given right that has fallen from the sky. It is unfortunate that he comfortably forgets that those "rights" were given to him by 2 atomic bombs, by several "oil wars", by drones and stealth fighters. Those right are dripping with the blood of countless victims and they will quickly disappear the moment those guns do the same. Naïve? Or should we call it hypocrite? By the way should we be quiet and let them bring politics to the game industry just because they are so cute and young? Or not? We all can see how those (from the US species) ruined all of their country with politics reaching every part of their life. Brothers and sisters even distrust each others just because they have different political views. Will we see, in the near future, another civil war? Not that they would know what that reference is. Everybody know how ignorant of history (do they call it geography?), and most anything, this generation is. In their school system they only need a pencil to pass the year.
I never thought I'd have eight rewatches of a GDC talk, but damn this is great. I keep getting things out of Meg's talk and ideas. Thank you so much for giving a clear voice to techniques enabling subtle and respectful storytelling!
After reading this comment, I want to inquire further. Tell me what your wife's bull thinks. The guy you watch tag her.....
This talk could have been titled "Down With the Mary Sue". A lot of video games would read like terrible, indulgent fanfiction if they were in book form.
That's why they are not books.
I would love a game like Skyrim that enforced your race and gender selection. Trying to join the Stormcloaks as a high-elf? They'd cast you in the stockades. Have the Empire accept all the races, even the Nords while the Stormcloaks treat Nord very well, other humans less well, beast folks poorly and Elves horribly. That way the player gets to feel what the people in the world feels. So many games forget that your character is ONE OF THESE PEOPLE living in this world. You know you're the protagonist in your story, but guess what? So is that tavern keeper, so is that hunter. So is that bandit. You're not special to them. Yet.
Really enjoyed the talk! About the Sunless Sea: I feel that the "choice not to play" as an example of enabling a player to make a moral choice is actually highlighting a crappy design method. When a story-driven game leaves me with two options, where one is doing something completely unethical, and the other is to quit playing the game, chances are that I probably *will* put down the game but it's not going to leave a good impression on me. You can certainly argue that I as a player am not entitled to being entertained in the first place, but I do think it's part of the social contract. If the premise of a game is "I'm going to tell you a story" and at some point very late in the experience my choices are to either swallow something gross or cancel play, that's not good design. It would be preferable to have a second (or nth) choice available in the game, even if these alternatives are also negative. I agree that not every problem in a game needs to be solvable, but outright quitting play completely should not be a part of the intended decision tree. If you're reading a book, and at some point the story grosses you out so much you have to quit reading it, the takeaway isn't that the book taught you something about choice, it's that the story was told in a crappy way.
As an aside, I really recommend watching Westworld to anyone who hasn't yet, because it's a story told entirely for the "NPCs" and neatly contrasts their plight against the superficial needs and entitlements of the players.
Udo i tend to swing on this idea. Media as a consumer product should certainly me thete to consume...
But I think that ignores the point of the media.
Horror movies are horrid to experience, but give a certain experience asked for (ala your swallowing a bitter pill).
Games are only different in that you have to take that action, and she's wrong... you can just sail away from the Isle of Cats or just restart that character. And because Sunless Sea is a horror-lite adventure, it should be expected that you'll face more than desciated people and a few creapifying girls.
That said; as the writer says it here... if the choice is to do something repugnant or to stop playing... is that not an experience in itself?
I think in a linear game this would put a barrier for entry up. But in a "rogue-like" game, this type of barrier is acceptable.
Your milleage may vary.
I'd agree that this lack of choice is a cop-out when the whole experience depends on it. This is why I found Spec Ops: The Line disappointing and why its criticism of the player actions fell flat to me. But this seems like a valid approach for some questlines of a game.
The choice to disengage is not detrimental if there are other things to be done.
I partially agree. A game trying to present "do something bad or stop playing" as a *choice moment* is stupid. The player will just think "obviously I wouldn't do that but I want to see the rest of the game I've paid for" and they'll never feel any culpability for it. However, I wouldn't go as far as to say games should never force you to choose between all bad options. Firstly, it's fine when there's a clear divide between the character and the player. For example, people bemoan The Last of Us for not giving them a choice at the end but I think they made absolutely the right decision. Joel is *not* a stand-in for the player; he's a fleshed out person. It doesn't matter what you want, _Joel_ would rescue then lie to Ellie. Not all "story-driven games" need to offer branching choices.
Secondly, it can (sometimes) work if the game's consciously raising that point. Spec Ops: The Line is the best example. It works because the whole game is playing with the notion that blindly following orders and killing everything in your path is heroic. Without spoiling, the game explores what happens when that goes wrong. But, it's worth noting that there's no choice moment where it says "do bad stuff or stop playing" (even though later it all but says your persistence caused everything to go wrong). The whole point is that you charge ahead with heroic self-righteousness without thinking about the consequences until it's too late (which obviously doesn't work if you already know what's going to happen).
Quick minor spoiler warning for Dragon Age 2. For fans of DA2, the sections starting at 9:25 talks a bit about companions in DA2 that you'd most likely enjoy!
You'd have to be careful with taking away player agency. Nobody likes being on rails, or having an interaction where there's nothing to do. If the focus is on building empathy with that person, or challenging your preconceptions, that's valuable (unless the player is a sociopath, check the comments section of this and every other video to find some), but there should still be SOMETHING for the player to DO, even in situations where "there's nothing you can do" is the point. Just clicking through dialogue screens, even if they're well-written is a little flat.
Maybe it's "Look I appreciate you wanna help, but this is not your problem to solve, okay? Generations of my people have fought to change this and generations more will have to keep fighting. You know what I need right now? A cup of coffee, real coffee, none of that synth shit. That's all I need from you, you come back with that and I'll be happy." _Quest: Get a cup of coffee_ Something small, but a way to DO a game-mechanical thing.
Maybe it's the preamble above and "You think you understand what we go through? You want to help? Go tell people about it, people who don't see it and don't believe us. Shine a light on it for people like you, who will never listen to people like me when we talk about our own lives." No quest - but other dialogue options open up with some NPCs, in appropriate situations. You can't solve the problem but you can build empathy with other people, you can help people understand that there is a problem, and you can challenge people who deny it.
That's the most marginalized people usually ask of people who want to be "allies". Acknowledge that our problems actually exist, and when people like you try and step in to correct us or dismiss us or blame us or say we're just playing victim, you handle them, and clean up your own House, because we're sick of trying to "educate" them every damn day when they'll never listen to us anyway. That's honestly a pretty good place for "allies" to be.
And not everyone understands that, so honestly, teaching people to be better allies to marginalized people is a pretty worthwhile "educational" goal for a game.
With a lot of "gamers" though... just teaching basic empathy is job one. And that empathy is valuable (in fact, the social glue that allows us to build societies) and natural - as a social species, empathy is one of our mechanisms for creating social bonds that help us survive and like I said, build societies - and sociopaths/psychopaths/narcissists literally suffer from an underdeveloped part of their brain where the rest of us process empathy. It's detectable in a brain scan, it's like they're missing a sense. Then they're like blind people who go around thinking they're better than sighted people or trying to convince sighted people that rainbows don't exist and everyone is just pretending they exist and talking about them as a fad for "social points" - which is not something blind people generally do.
But there are forms of therapy that help even people incapable of conscience, who have no visceral understanding of why anyone should ever care about anyone else who is not themselves, learn what it's about and why it matters. There's actually now experimental medical intervention to stimulate growth in the underdeveloped part of the brain, but we're years away from a world without sociopaths, psychopaths, and narcissists - which is unfortunate because they're why we can't have nice things.
You talk a lot probably, and I could listen to you for ages. Probably.
Anyway, nice comment. You've broadened my narrative game design and knowledge.
The "we can't help the Murri girl" sequence would be a lot less difficult to deal with if we didn't also make a trip to the newspaper for a crippled submarine crewmember in the same town on the same day; it seems there should be some link between the two actions. I would have hoped the Murri girl would have saved us a trip out to Moreton flippin' Bay.
I for one am not particular interested in a powerless protaganist, because I live and work in a world already where that is the case. I know that in the real world I'm an NPC. I play video games as an escape from that; I don't need a reminder of what is already clearly evident.
Be that as it may, 80 days was a spectacular game because it considered these issues and made the game more 'real'. Excellent writing on Ms. Jayanth's part.
With all due respect, and yes this is completely just stereotyping from the extremely limited information available, but are you not a white male, Brian Pendell? Considering that, exactly how much experience do you have with being powerless and bereft of privilege? Perhaps your unfamiliarity with powerlessness is why you aren't interested in it. Bit of a thinker.
@@RosscoAW While I am, in fact, a white male, I have had more than enough experience with powerlessness. I've been homeless. I've had family that were homeless. I've seen my child die before my face and been able to do nothing. Even now, when I'm no longer as powerless as I was when younger, I'm still a cog in a corporate machine with very little say over what does and doesn't happen.
I don't know what you think life as a white male is like, but just because white males are the ruling class doesn't mean all white males are in it. I see enough of them begging on street corners here in Raleigh to know that even outside of my own experience. White male may be the lowest difficulty setting in the US but that doesn't mean it's easy.
I would say 99% of those reading this comment are NPCs as far as the real world is concerned -- we rarely have the chance to really make a significant and obvious difference in the world we live in, for good or for evil. "Powerlessness" is the default state of much of the human race, regardless of their race or sex. And for my part, I don't need a video game to remind me of it.
funny how this talk was much more interesting and deep than the talk it accompanies. I like her. Really good ideas and passionate delivery.
Wow, this presentation is one huge hidden gem!
I love this talk so much, thank you for sharing it!
To do x or not do x, is still a binary choice. But teasing a player with a thing FOR the sake of telling them that they cannot do anything about it? Eh, you better be sure it's worth all that engagement you've been carefully building up.
If you've ever tried to run a dnd campaign you would notice how a good game tends to follow the flow of a good conversation. Listening is more important than speaking - let the player express something, then show that you are paying attention to them.
Yes there can and should be things in a game narrative that the player cannot change, but they should never be presented as a choice in the first place.
Thank you from Brasil ^.^
Interesting watching this after the Lives of Others talk, there the "your option is to not play" is given as a really bad idea whereas here it's presented as a good option.
In the case of Sunless Sea she mentioned I believe the storyline in question is not the only one available or necessary to progress with the story. As others have mentioned, in such a situation it's not a matter of either give in or don't play the game, but rather a situation in which your interaction with certain part of the game world is limited by you not being in control of it and thus needing to either interact with the character on their own terms or moving on to whatever you're able to do if you want to deal with the world on your own terms.
While I agree with the overall sentiment that some games benefit for NPCs having their own agendas and feeling like real people, I dislike the narrative of the tall. Maybe it's the situational vocabulary she chose.
I like the thrust of the talk - that NPCs are more interesting if they have their own agendas.
I could do without all the SJW talking points - I have a few examples of unoppressed people helping oppressed ones.
Meg is hilarious and witty, loved the talk. I'm not much for adventure games, but I'll check hers out for sure.
Brill stuff!
25:17 I think I'd like to know the exact definitions of hero and protagonist, at least in the current context. Sometimes they are interrchangeable and sometimes they are different...
a definition of "game" would also have gone a long way
hero has morals accepted in some degree by society, do heroic acts, and might sacrifice himself to safe others.
a protagonist don't need to follow that path.
both concepts are not dependent to each other, you could have a hero that its not a protagonist in the plot or a protagonist that is not a hero.
I love being insulted thank you so much for this talk. Brave and stunning.
My thoughts:
- Giving NPCs unique and personal backgrounds, opinions, and goals can help them feel a lot more interesting (regardless of player agency, power, etc).
- Subverting player expectations should be handled carefully, as you want to keep the player engaged, surprise them at times etc, but you still need to respect your players.
- Removing a player's agency (or ability to affect the world) doesn't sound fun, and shifts a game closer to being "on rails".
- Mechanics, gameplay, agency, player-choice, and interactivity are what make a game a *game*, rather than a book. If those things aren't important to the designer, then they should probably write a book rather than create a game.
- Deep and interesting NPCs can help a game, but they should be paired with good gameplay.
Fantastic summarization
To be completely honest, I think the only demographic incapable of handling their decisions being "disrespected" (by thoughtful, intentional game design) are white males. No, I'm not being facetious. People that have suffered inequality on a day to day basis their entire life don't immediately throw a hissy fit when they encounter a video game replacing what 10% of that experience is like, separate from the consequences of systemic violence IRL. I think we just need game design to focus less on catering exclusively to the narrow expectations of a straight, white ~17 year old audience. ... Which I seriously doubt is going to happen anytime soon, unless and until straight white men constitute less than half of the actual game developer (designer, at least) demographic, unfortunately.
Why so many dislikes? This is fantastic - well presented, well argued, super eloquent and great examples. Should have no dislikes.
Couldn't agree more!
My guess is that being full of SJW nonsense has something to do with that... I don't know if she used their terminology to mock them but every time I hear "white privilege", "people of color" or other crap I cringe.
The only thing that came close to SJW was her stating that she thinks its more interesting when NPC's presents a narrative different from the typical one of white male protagonist saves the world. I find it hard to disagree with that point - why not change it up? Its only fair for her to want to explore different things. Although I don't like to get into these discussions on RUclips - why do you find those terms cringe-worthy? Whats wrong with wanting to make games that explore other cultures and ways of seeing the world?
I think we are on the same page, Andrew, and I get why the 'white savior fantasy' line could be abrasive. I also think that games offer something most of life doesnt - agency and empowerment, you can do good in the world because you want that agency. That being said, I read her 'white savior fantasy' point as being a critique of specific narrative tropes, biases, and generic characterization. She did follow it up by putting it in reference to her game, saying it was a critique of a colonial Frenchman who travels the world in 80 days and yet thinks he can save every person he sees. Its a critique of using a version of the white man's burden as a way to enable video game agency/entitlement simulation. What makes her point so interesting isn't that she thinks people shouldn't want to save everyone or play the white savior fantasy or to be video game Jesus. Its that she says it could make for interesting narratives if the game was about showing you how little agency you have or depict a different world from that of your generic modern day RPG. This isn't to make someone feel conscious of white guilt or anything, I think its to provide a different time of gaving experience, giving more life to NPCs, the world, and their relationship to the PC. Her argument is, for example, the whole point of Bioshock - showing and questioning player agency.
Agreed. Calling her a SJW is the quickest way to write off a speaker. Its pretty much saying 'I'm not interested in hearing another generic brown woman who wants to do something different with video games'. Not sure why someone would come listen to a 30 minute lecture and yet be so unwilling to consider someone else's views and opinions.
Was Passpartout allowed to steal the letter and get it published? How's that for protagonist morals.
aw I play 80 days!
2:24-Uncharted 4 does something like this tbf
I love this talk
thanks so much
I'm all on favor of games which don't make the main character a Mary Sue. Games which piss all over the player character like a bully however, ESPECIALLY by making you do awful things that the game doesn't actually give you an option to abstain from (like the phosphorus attack in Spec Ops The Line) are disgusting.
"The entire crops were lost"
- Agent Smtih
Instant like.
P.S. And I am a 30-something brown haired white male btw.
Yes, npcs feel so fake in most games, my solution was to create a complex emotional simulation, still in development beta available on the unity asset store.
That's a good idea, the project I was working on used a psychological model to quantify the emotions, using Circumplex Model of Affect, but it was tricky trying to get the interactions between different emotions right. I had to abandon my project but I joined a group working on something similar but a lot more complex and sophisticated. @@jsmith434w
PREACH! THIS IS SO GOOOOOOOD
I WANT TO PERSONALLY THANK THIS WOMAN. I WROTE A 12000 WORD SHORT STORY ABOUT THIS VERY SUBJECT WITH THE EXACT SAME CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVE
LIKE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS IS ALL I THINK ABOUT
Did you publish it? I'm getting into game design and I'd like to find more resources and theories that elaborate on subjects like this.
I'd love to read this if it's online somewhere!
Really enjoyed this talk, and have to admit, I have a crush on Meg now.
Aw! She's adorable, I don't blame you. Oh damn this is 3 years ago I best be going LOL
I kinda agree from a narrative perspective but how does this make a game more fun to play?
If I can’t fight the final boss because of some npcs background and they get to fight the final boss that’s boring.
amazing talk :3
it's hard for me to imagine rock-paper-scissors as an "entitlement simulator", I think I'm starting to see where the dislikes are coming from.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
there s 2 agencies. agency of the player = how much u influence ur avatar. can u sit? can u jump? can u do everything u would want to do in his place. thats the kind u speak about - its really wrong to limit that type. yes.
she was speaking about the protagonist agency in the world. is he a king? a god? can he solve any proble and beat any enemy. that agency should be limited. yes, u can jump and sit and take photos but u r a penniless peasant and noone listens to you. thats interesting. thats how survival works, u r weak ass pussy, everything kills you, so go and hide.
@@TiMonsor i think you might have responded to the wrong comment, i totally agree with the video
@@landis9767 sorry if i misread u, but i thought your point was «she asks to limit player agency but actually its quite dangerous»
i'm confused. my comment was just hand clapping emojis, so i don't get where you got that from
Watched the entire video. My thoughts on NPCs haven't really changed. If they present the player with info it should have meaning. It should either move the plot or fill in missing infomation otherwise it;s just useless words. And telling the player about a problem and then telling them that there's nothing they can do is a waste of time for the player. It's the same with having companion NPCs just suddenly doing something that the player can see coming from a mile away and still being unable to stop it. If the player has the info then they should be allowed to do something with it or it's useless words.
The point is that you're always allowed to think about it. She couldn't have been more clear about it.
Thinking about it and taking control away from the player no matter what they do are two different animals.
I see the value in giving NPCs their own agency so that they are more than empty dolls, but taking too much agency from the player can make the game lose something fundamental.
If all the player is allowed to do is to observe and think about it, why does it need to be a game at all?
It's not as if she's suggesting that every NPC in the entire game should act on their own disregarding the player's influence. The point is that sometimes an NPC might have his own agenda and goals, just as the player has his. Not every NPC has to be a quest-bearer.
Personally, I love it when games have recurring NPCs with their own stories progressing over the course of the game. I love re-visiting towns and chatting up NPCs and seeing what's going on in their lives, even if (or perhaps, especially when) their updates are as mundane and everyday as "Oh I've recently picked up a new hobby." It makes the world so much more alive.
I can understand looking into their lives, but when NPCs do things on their own to affect the player that they could do something about if they have the info, but the game won't let them because the designer didn't give them a chance is where this falls apart for me. If you pose a problem to the player they should have some way of solving it or it's just useless noise.
She talks way too fast, pauses aren't just so you can take a breath but also allow the audience to digest what you just said. the Other talk that goes with hers is much better imo.
I had actually listened to that talk already, then this talk, then realized the first talk was the one she was referring to. That talk *WAS* way better.
Other talk: Better NPCs
This talk: Less protagonist (and less player)
She went overtime
Yeesh
well she clearly hasn't watched the last samurai, hope she can overcome her hateful way one day
Hey, notice a pattern? All the dumb negative comments on this video are from RUclips accounts with *extremely straight, white male*-sounding names. Not even really RUclips handles, just straight white asf names. Ever considered that maybe -- just maybe -- you're part of a *particular* demographic that other people might have labelled? Just pointing out coincidences and food for thought (lmao)
@@RosscoAW I'm sorry your hateful thoughts consume you so much that you get triggered by a name, which I bet you don't even understand
She needs to take her Soros privilege elsewhere.
last
even laster.
Arstroztka *Socialist* Bureaucracy. Conveniently forgot to mention.
Such a muddle of great ideas and awful ones. For example, denying the player regular expectations, giving them dead ends and lying NPCs? Great! Nonsense about games doing anything or training people? Our brains train us. Some flashing lights and sounds and pictures and the history of humans for the last 20,000 years isn't going to usurp the way our brains are wired since the last 200,000,000 years which is, for males, greatly goal and competence oriented.
Dragon age 2 are you fucking kidding me
You don't actually play games, you've played a few.
Have you listened?
Pretty interesting things to learn from it actually.
yeo pal so she's a poser? Dosnt she, oh I dunno MAKES the games? Yeah I guess she don't know shit about games
Haven't you ever loved a game for some of it's aspects, despite the bugs or weird design decisions, or crappy graphics? She is the intended audience of DA2, so she appretiates it for story reasons and the approach to romance, ignoring gameplay flaws.
Dragon Age 2 is terrible. No discussion. Yes, the NPCs were not all that bad but the game was just trash.
I never played Dragon Age 2, but your comment seems very fitting of what I believe I've concluded as my opinion of the talk:
"How to make not-bad-NPCs, but not good games either"
@@chriswahl1337 If you've ever played 80 days, then you'd now how interesting games developed with these considerations in mind can be.
My experience is that GDC has great quality in their speakers and theme, but in this case I really disliked this. It was by far the worst GDC video i have ever viewed.
An entitled, toxic and obviously cynical speaker indirectly calling unknown others as entitled (and many other labels ) while throwing BS politics in game development speech.
And to get a minimum of credibility she remembered to mix basic rookie writer advices that should be dropped as soon as one has finished writing the first story to gain some scars. That same story that any writer worth its salt would be ashamed to show anyone.
I think she doesn't understand or even care about game development.
She should concentrate on political rallies.
Wee-woo, wee-woo, whaaa'mbulance comin' through, one fragile, special snowflake needs their narrow male fragility resuscitated, stat! Quick, somebody give him a medically necessary hug, before the hollow, lonely edginess takes another brave soul from us! Ohhh, the humanity. (Seriously, though, in all due respect I hope you have a therapist or somebody else trustworthy and objective you can talk to and share with. Seems you really need it, so I genuinely hope that's going well for you; if not, there's no shame in therapy. There *sure is* shame in the comment you made above, though.)
@@RosscoAW Look! What did i found? A little troll in the growing stage. And he is making small noises.
Mmmm. He still looks a little weak. He probably was grown in a greenhouse and was abruptly transplanted to the real world. Never knew rain or ice. Never knew blood and sweat. Is he from the US strand?
One can see how confused he is. Those little words like masculinity and others. The naivete showing each time he talks of politics and rights as if they came from some god given right that has fallen from the sky.
It is unfortunate that he comfortably forgets that those "rights" were given to him by 2 atomic bombs, by several "oil wars", by drones and stealth fighters. Those right are dripping with the blood of countless victims and they will quickly disappear the moment those guns do the same.
Naïve? Or should we call it hypocrite?
By the way should we be quiet and let them bring politics to the game industry just because they are so cute and young?
Or not? We all can see how those (from the US species) ruined all of their country with politics reaching every part of their life. Brothers and sisters even distrust each others just because they have different political views.
Will we see, in the near future, another civil war? Not that they would know what that reference is. Everybody know how ignorant of history (do they call it geography?), and most anything, this generation is.
In their school system they only need a pencil to pass the year.
gratz, you created call of duty, or you never played gothic..... yeagh you would like dragon age.....
ted belcher huh?
ted belcher I really like that you edited your comment and it still makes no sense.
you cant read, sounds like a personel problem
ted belcher Your comment reads like a text message as written by a twelve year old. Pretty sure the issue isn't with me.
low blow! low Brow! harambe loved low blows and cheep shots