Article -- Non-Linearity: The Doctrine of Causality
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Tuesday, March 1 2005 19:07
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Non-Linearity: The Doctrine of Causality You can sum up the contents of this article fairly simply: IC actions have IC consequences. This concept is fairly basic. The most extreme example, and a fairly narrow one, is if you attack the king while the king's guards are present. Logically, you would expect to be attacked by those guards and probably killed. In terms of fate and free-will, you excercised your free will to attack the king. This instigated an IC action. The action had IC consequences: the royal guards attacked your character. If you wish to make a non-linear scenario, you should still do so in a way that engroses the player. In effect, what you are doing is creating a flow-chart. At each choice, your plot splits and there are different events for the party depending on the choice. You could also have a non-choice. If the party is not presented with a choice, but they merely fail to complete a task in a set time, then they can be taken on a whole new adventure. Let us take the scenario the Zha-Khazi Run (ZKR). Instead of stipulating that you must get to Fort Cavallier in 14 days, what if you were told to get there as fast as your possibly could? Now, if you get there in less than 14 days, you can breeze in, but perhaps the Sliths are involved in a major assault, so you can't escape through the side exit until you help fight off the Sliths. If you get there in between 14 and 21 days, you have to fight your way through more serious opposition, but by the time you get to the fort and deliver the wands, that tips the ballance, and you can now safely leave. If it takes you between 21 and 28 days, the Fort has been overrun and you need to rescue the prisoners. If it takes you more than 28 days, you fail, and all sorts of other bad stuff happens. That is a time-choice. You have delayed, and you must face the consequences of your delay. Now lets discuss the whole concept of changing sides. Generally, the party will change sides to one of two types of organizations. The first is your basic turning traitor scenario. You leave one government, or city-state, or whatever for the opposing government, city-state, or similar. I call that a "treasonous side-change." Alternately, you could change from a government to a rebel force, a priesthood to a fallen priesthood, etc. I call that a "moral side-change." If the group is mostly comprised of side-changers, then it's a moral. If the group is mostly comprised of people who are not side-changers, it's treasonous. This disticntion is very important. In the real world, would you trust someone who was a traitor? If you yourself were not a traitor, you probably wouldn't ever truely trust them. In the same way, someone who treasonously changes sides will never be trusted. That's a consequence of his action. Let's put all of that together. Let's say you are in a situation kind of like Chapter 4 of Exile II/Avernum 2: you are the agent of one country being invaded by another. Your commander has asked you to destroy a forward logistics base so that the enemy won't be able to advance. Now, you can take your time advancing on the logistics base. In this case, depending on how long it takes, the enemy will advance further and further, and you may be caught behind enemy lines. If you manage to destroy it quickly, you may come home covered in glory, and then have to work through the political intruige of those who envy your sucess. On the other hand, you may engineer a distraction for the enemy force, so soldiers from a nearby fort can destroy the logistics base. In that case, you may not get the same glory, but you instead go on to do other missions, and are in the front lines of the war. On the other hand, you may decide your country is being overrun, and you may as well join the winning side. Then you turn spy. You may even be able to return to your country having destroyed the logistics base, and done so quicker than otherwise possible, but now you are twice a traitor, and have to deal with your enemy's personal anger, as well all the political wrangling. Or maybe you became a traitor after you were captured, and then you are really not trusted, and, and, and. I hope I have shown you ways in which you can present a non-linear story while keeping the player involved, and remember: IC actions have IC consequences. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 148
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written Tuesday, March 1 2005 21:03
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Tip: Explain what IC is. -------------------- My ego is bigger than yours. Posts: 480 | Registered: Thursday, October 11 2001 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Tuesday, March 1 2005 22:04
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Not much to say about the thrust of your article, apart from that I basically agree with it. Regarding your example, that's the best suggestion I've ever heard to make ZKR more interesting, although I'd suggest making the first time-limit cutoff much, much sooner, so that players would really have to rush through the rest of the scenario to get an easy ride at the end. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
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written Friday, March 4 2005 18:40
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I like this article a lot better than the previous flat denunciation of linearity. The point you make that I like the most is the one about time. A big quarrel which I previously had with non-linearity was that it reduced the game world to a static collection of possible actions for the party, that changed only in response to the party's actions. With the way in which you suggest that the designer handle the passage of time, actions are opportunities that the party has to seize, and the game world becomes more than just a set of hurdles for a small group of adventurers. Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, March 4 2005 19:11
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Well, making the entire scenario change in complex ways (i.e. more than just destroying cities or adding/removing a few missions) would require enormous amounts of effort. I can only think of a handful of games and scenarios that even make an attempt to do more than gesture in the general direction of the passage of time. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 247
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written Friday, March 4 2005 19:21
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Exactly, I don't imagine a lot of designers feel like putting that much time and effort into a scenario. But time influencing outcomes is a much better alternative to; pick 1 if you want to join lord evil, pick 2 if you want to eat a cookie, pick 3 if you want to stay with lord good. -------------------- The Knight Between Posts. Posts: 2395 | Registered: Friday, November 2 2001 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
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written Friday, March 4 2005 21:19
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Well, as you'll see in the article I am about to post, I'm more an advocate of linearity in general, because it lets the designer implement realism without a huge amount of work, it's just that the whole time thing makes non-linearity a little more attractive to me. Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00 |
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Cartographer
Member # 995
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written Friday, March 4 2005 21:27
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hrm. I'm developing a scenario, but basically, you can leave it any time and it gives a sort of rating from "well, you didn't really even attempt the goal of the scenario, but that's your choice. goodbye" to "congratulations, you achieved all the scenario goals" to having in between things like "it seems you did some exploration but didn't get into the plot of the scenario at all" and "you discovered the point of the scenario, but left without fixing any problems you found"... is that "non-linear" enough? given the limitations of the editor, are we really expected to cover every decision? I mean, we're developing scenarios with editor-built-in MAJOR limitations. not full games. how many twisting subplots and variant endings do you think we can provide? for that matter, isn't it hard enough to provide ONE plot, nevermend 20 per scenario? have any of the people *****ing about "lack of choice" even tried to make a scenario with one story (nevermind all the branching stories if you choose different paths?) [ Friday, March 04, 2005 21:30: Message edited by: silver harloe ] Posts: 206 | Registered: Thursday, April 18 2002 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, March 4 2005 23:06
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Judging by the example set by BoE, BoA can do a lot -- probably far more than Jeff anticipates. Eventually there are going to be some very large and impressive scenarios released. Having said that, it is a lot of work. I've made one proper BoE scenario; it's quite small, and it took me 3 months. At the Gallows, one of the largest BoE scenarios, apparently took Stareye 10 months to complete. A good BoA scenario of the same length could easily take much longer. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 3610
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written Saturday, March 5 2005 14:15
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Is it enough to be "non-linear"? I think anyone who can ask that question is either 1) trying to deal with community perceptions or 2) completely misunderstanding the difference between linearity and non-linearity. Linearity (in my oppinion) is a continuum. Is there black and white? Of course, but there's lots and lots of grey. I don't think that either the black or the white is much fun because one is a film, and the other is called real life. Without playing a scenario several times, I don't think I could actually say just how linear it is. Posts: 129 | Registered: Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:00 |
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Triad Mage
Member # 7
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written Saturday, March 5 2005 14:50
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With a good linear scenario, you shouldn't want to deviate from the path that the author sets for you. I point to Emulations, Chains, and An Apology yet again. -------------------- "At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander ==== Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet ==== You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse! Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00 |
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Triad Mage
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written Saturday, March 5 2005 15:03
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Please continue the discussion in this thread. If you wish to reply to a post from this thread, please quote it. [ Saturday, March 05, 2005 15:04: Message edited by: Drakefyre ] -------------------- "At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander ==== Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet ==== You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse! Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00 |