Difference between revisions of "Open Destiny"

Revision as of 09:57, 11 December 2010

The ability of agents to have different narrative arcs between game instances due to the events that took place in the game session.

Examples

Using the pattern

For different types of ending to be noticeable different there cannot be too many. For example, the exact fate of countries in Victoria 2 can vary in very many different minor ways (government, social reforms, colonies, technology, alliances, etc.) but these have to add up in certain ways for them to become a noticeable major differences in outcome. The rules regarding unifying countries (for Italy and Germany) are however easy to use to see what fate a country had in a particular game instance - either the many smaller countries became a nation state or they did not.

An easy way to provide clear options to players when using Open Destiny is to use Selectable Set of Goals which are linked to a significantly high level to a game's Narration Structure. Each of these goals can then be seen as one destiny and players know that other destinies are possible than the one they are striving for.

It may not be clear to players that NPCs and Factions have Open Destinies. The use of Cut Scenes that describe what happened after gameplay ended can solve this since the act of telling this can indicate that other endings were possible (this is especially clear if the Cut Scenes relate to how players solved or failed to solve goals and Quests). Examples of games which use this for NPCs include Dragon Age, Façade, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Heavy Rain, Jade Empire, while Final Fantasy 7 in the Final Fantasy series and Fallout New Vegas in the Fallout series use Cut Scenes both for the fate of NPCs and Factions. Producing all the possible Cut Scenes for multiple Open Destinies add to the increased effort required for making Narration Structures support Open Destinies in the first place. However, games with Game Masters, for example tabletop roleplaying games and LARPs, do not have this problem since the Cut Scenes can in these cases be improvised.

Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

Narrative Aspects

Consequences

Just as Selectable Set of Goals can be used to provide Open Destiny, the existence of Open Destiny with clear differences between the destinies can provide players with Selectable Set of Goals.

In general, Open Destiny promotes Replayability. It can also give rise to Meta Games based on the Collection goal of reaching all possible endings, and this can be mechanized through the use of Achievements.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Can Modulate

Algorithmic Agents

Can Be Instantiated By

Can Be Modulated By

Possible Closure Effects

Potentially Conflicting With

History

A rewrite of a pattern that was part of the original collection in the paper Gameplay Design Patterns for Believable Non-Player Characters^[1].

References

1. ↑ Lankoski, P. & Björk, S. (2007) Gameplay Design Patterns for Believable Non-Player Characters. Proceedings of DiGRA 2007.

Acknowledgments

Jaakko Stenros All larp debriefs? Thursday at 1:49pm · Like Anders Tryggvesson Fallout 2 does for some fractions, at least IIRC. Thursday at 1:49pm · Like Johan Weisz Helt rätt, Dragon Age gör det. Fallout 3 gör det, på sitt sätt. Minns faktiskt inte om ettan och tvåan gjorde det. Heavy Rain inFamous (tror jag i alla fall) ... See More Thursday at 1:54pm · Like Anders Elfgren Probably the geneforge games, though I haven't finished them. To some extent, the Avernum series does that too. Thursday at 1:55pm · Like Mathias Nordvall Jade Empire by Bioware does this. You have a number of companions and their alignment is affected by yours. So after the game ends you get a screen of text for each companion that tells a story about what happened with them in their life after you had defeated the emperor and split up from each other. I do believe you got a screen of text for yourself as well but my memory is a bit fuzzy on that part. Thursday at 1:56pm · Like Shio She Tror dataspelsversionen av Svea Rike gör detta också. Thursday at 1:58pm · Like Shio She Myst? Thursday at 1:59pm · Like Martin Dujmovic I was thinking of Fable. At least the third one, don't quite remember the first two... long time ago...Not quite sure how different the endings would be but you get to make several decisions that affect the way the world looks and works, so... See More Thursday at 2:04pm · Like Mathias Nordvall Is the question only regarding what happened to NPCs and Factions and where do you want to draw the line? In Command and Conquer you are offered three different targets to strike, if you play NOD at least, but you can only pick one. This makes it very obvious that there are alternative endings but I'm not sure if you believe that qualifies to your NPC/Faction-thing.

Deus Ex has the same thing. You get three different choices on how you want to finish the game but can only pick one so this makes different endings very obvious as well. The effects are at a planet level so it implies a lot of things must change for everyone you encountered in the game. Though it doesn't specifically say things like "Jade who you met in scene 5 lost her lease for her apartment because of you" though some endings kinda implies that she must have not only lost her apartment but pretty much her entire way of life. Thursday at 2:08pm · Like Robin Kullberg Mmm Dragon Age. Let me know if you want to know anything there. I have tried almost all starts and endings possible. Thursday at 2:15pm · Like Steve Dahlskog Facade http://www.interactivestory.net/ Thursday at 2:47pm · Like Jan Humble BioShock, you get different epilogues for what happens to the little sisters. Thursday at 3:01pm · Like Kristine Jørgensen You haven't played Mass Effect and Dragon Age? Boo! Thursday at 3:03pm · Like · 1 person Arshad Fendi No one seems to had mentioned this game Final Fantasy X-2 This game have different ending depend on what mission the player take, and also religion matters in the game..seems that the only way to get 100% of the game is by being with the non ... See More Thursday at 3:15pm · Like Jason Begy Chrono Trigger Thursday at 3:41pm · Like · 1 person Daniel Bernhoff Outcast had different endings. I'm not sure how much the epilogue takes focus on the npc:s and the world, though. It really should be much about them, since this game trades the traditional upgrading system for a downgrading of the enemies. I.e. you perform side quests to convince the oppressed civilians to stop deliver food, valuable minerals and resources for ammo manufacturing. Only game I know that goes this far in integrating civil resistance in the game mechanics as well as in the story. Thursday at 3:52pm · Like Jonas Linderoth Army of Two: The 40th Day has some sequences where the player has to choose between two moral choices. After you select you get to see one of two cut scenes telling you what happened. For example you can choose to execute an NPC for a reward or let him go. If you let him go you will see a cut scene where he escapes to Bahmas only to get killed on the beach with an umbrella drink in hand by other agents. (I also got the achievement "Naive" for doing it). Thursday at 4:27pm · Like Jon Back If you want a board game: Betrayal at the House on the Hill Thursday at 4:36pm · Like Jose Zagal Heavy Rain Thursday at 4:40pm · Like Gillian Smith Planescape Torment has a few different movies that can play at the end showing where your character ends up. Thursday at 4:50pm · Like Dmitry Kurteanu Cant remember precisely, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl has multiple endings. Thursday at 5:01pm · Like Jonathan Osborne Deus Ex. Thursday at 6:35pm · Like Erik Fagerholt Final Fantasy 7 has a mini epilog where you see what happened to the city of Midgaar(?) and also that red XIII had some puppies. I doubt that this is effected by player action though. Thursday at 7:19pm · Like Erik Fagerholt This wikipedia article has a huge list of games with this type of endings. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_fiction_with_multiple_endings?wasRedirected=true Thursday at 7:30pm · Like Erik Fagerholt Feels ashamed that Metal Gear Solid did not spring to mind sooner. Depending on if you endure Ocelot's torture or not has a huge effect on the ending. Thursday at 7:33pm · Like Sicheng Chen Of course Dragon Age achieves such a feature, there will be some description to tell the end of other characters in the game when the player finish the game. Thursday at 9:57pm · Like Staffan Björk Thanks for all the comments! I might have been a bit unclear that I was looking for different endings for the NPCs and not for the PC/main story, but those suggestions will be really useful soon as well :) Thursday at 10:51pm · Like Ben Kirman