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[[Category:Information Patterns]]
[[Category:Character Patterns]]
[[Category:Narration Patterns]]
[[Category:Patterns]]
[[Category:Needs revision]]
[[Category:Needs examples]]
[[Category:Patterns created on the Wiki]]
''Narration structures in games which allow players or spectators to know more than any individual diegetic person.''

Some games allow a player to know more about the game world and events than the characters he or she plays. This pattern is call [[Melodramatic Structures]] in this collection. The idea for the pattern (and [[Detective Structures]] comes from Lankoski<ref name="Lankoski2010"/>. Here, a distinction by Smith<ref name="Smith"/> between detective narration and melodramatic narration is used to form gameplay design patterns. In Smith's terms, detective narration restricts readers' knowledge to that of a protagonist while in melodramatic narration readers' knows more than any single character.

=== Examples ===
In [[Fahrenheit]] the player switches between characters played, thereby getting a more detailed understanding on the unfolding narration than any individual character in the game has.

== Using the pattern ==
Three concrete design patterns exist to create [[Melodramatic Structures]]. [[Scenes]] allows a game to switch between [[Characters]] and therefore give more information to the player than a single [[Characters|Character]]. [[Summary Updates]] can explain what happens before, between, or after [[Scenes]] so that players have the right understanding of the reasons and consequences of events in a [[Scenes|Scene]]. [[Voice-overs]] can add explanations to the events that are occurring which the players get but not the [[Characters]]. Per their definitions, [[Detective Structures]] and [[Melodramatic Structures]] are incompatible.

[[Melodramatic Structures]] can be used in both [[Single-Player Games]] and [[Multiplayer Games]]. In fact, due to the fact that [[Multiplayer Games]] typically present different view points of the game to different players ''through'' [[Characters]] these types of games nearly always have [[Melodramatic Structures]] of sorts. This does however not in itself affect narration significantly since [[Melodramatic Structures]] often require significant shifts in perspective for individual players to have their intended effects. This typically means that they are easier to plan for in [[Single-Player Games]], e.g. by switching [[Characters]] as [[Scenes]] are changed (see [[Fahrenheit]] for an example of this).

While [[God Views]] and [[Third-Person Views]] may show players more of the [[Game Worlds]] than a single [[Avatars|Avatar]] or [[Characters|Character]] may see, this typically does not provide more than ephemeral differences in what a player and a [[Characters|Character]] knows.

=== Narrative Aspects ===
[[Melodramatic Structures]] is a [[:Category:Narration Patterns|Narration Pattern]].

== Consequences ==
[[Melodramatic Structures]] is one way to modulate [[Narration Structures]] and [[Predetermined Story Structures]] is a game. While they do use [[Characters]], they do not change how these can perform gameplay actions.

== Relations ==
=== Can Instantiate ===
-

=== Can Modulate ===
[[Narration Structures], 
[[Predetermined Story Structures]]

=== Can Be Instantiated By ===
[[Voice-overs]]

[[Characters]] together with [[Scenes]] 

=== Can Be Modulated By ===
[[Summary Updates]] 

=== Possible Closure Effects ===
-

=== Potentially Conflicting With ===
[[Detective Structures]]

== History ==
An updated version of the pattern ''Melodramtic Structure'' that was first described in 
the PhD thesis ''Character-Driven Game Design - A Design Approach and Its Foundations in Character Engagement''<ref name="Lankoski2010"/>.

== References ==
<references>
<ref name="Lankoski2010">Lankoski, P. (2010). Character-Driven Game Design - A Design Approach and Its Foundations in Character Engagement. PhD thesis at Aalto University. Publication Series of the School of Art and Design A 101.</ref>
<ref name="Smith">Smith, M. (1995). Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema. Pages 152–153. New York: Oxford University Press.</ref>
</references>