One common debate in the board game design world is who tells the story: the designer or the players? How much of the story should be emergent and how much should be scripted? How much of the designer's job is making sure the players tell the 'correct' story?
I have a hard time with this debate due to my theatre background. For me, this is like asking: whose job is to tell the story of the play- the playwright, the director, or the actors? This question is not a useful one for anyone working in theatre. Each has their own role in how the story gets told and retold over subsequent performances.
Part of the problem may be that some designers attempt to tell a story the way a book would. This is not advisable (or really possible) because a game is not a novel. Another issue is that designers may not trust their stories in the hands of anonymous players. Let me just say, if you cannot trust your game in the hands of players, game design may not be for you.
But let's return to playwrights. What is it playwrights do? If you have ever read a play, it may surprise you to learn that often the stage directions found in published plays are not written by the playwright, but rather by a stage manager during an early staging of the work. Playwrights write dialogue. Actors and directors take that script and make all the decisions of where to stand and what emotions and actions to use in order to turn the script into a play. You do not have a play without all three roles.
Sometimes, a board game designer fills the role of a playwright. Sometimes, she fills the role of both playwright and director- guiding more clearly where and how players are to move and think about their characters. Players are actors: they have the freedom to choose the actions and emotions that feel the most right in a given moment. The story will look similar from performance to performance, but will not be the same.
Of course, game players usually have a greater freedom of choice and story direction than actors do. The game script is often an outline of choices for how to shape a story- much like an improv scene. Who tells the stories on SNL? The writers or the performers? That may depend on if you are asking a writer or an actor. (I can't find where I read it, but playwright Tom Stoppard once stated that the only thing he desired from actors was "good diction.")
The problem, as I see it, is one of collaboration. In TTRPGs, writers are writing stories that are only completed or fleshed out when the module is played. That is the essence of TTRPGs, so the collaboration between author and player is expected. Perhaps there is less angst around TTRPGs because of the high level of improv or the expectation to deviate from the script.
Let's return to the original question: who tells the story? I posit that the story is built as a collaboration between the designer and the players. Board game designers collaborate with artists and publishers, but also players, by anticipating how a design can be shaped into not only a product but an experience. A publisher has to agree on the premise of a "design as product" before they will publish a game. Similarly, a player must "buy in" to an experience in order to become a collaborator in the telling of the story of the game.
Importantly, just because there is a secondary storyteller does not mean that a game designer is not still a storyteller or that she has no control over the flow of the story. Designers should not abdicate responsibility of storytelling. They have months and years to perfect their parts of the story; the players have an hour or two. The challenge a designer faces is to be willing to craft an experience to a certain point then relinquish control and let the ultimate outcome rest in the hands of the players.
I have a hard time with this debate due to my theatre background. For me, this is like asking: whose job is to tell the story of the play- the playwright, the director, or the actors? This question is not a useful one for anyone working in theatre. Each has their own role in how the story gets told and retold over subsequent performances.
Part of the problem may be that some designers attempt to tell a story the way a book would. This is not advisable (or really possible) because a game is not a novel. Another issue is that designers may not trust their stories in the hands of anonymous players. Let me just say, if you cannot trust your game in the hands of players, game design may not be for you.
But let's return to playwrights. What is it playwrights do? If you have ever read a play, it may surprise you to learn that often the stage directions found in published plays are not written by the playwright, but rather by a stage manager during an early staging of the work. Playwrights write dialogue. Actors and directors take that script and make all the decisions of where to stand and what emotions and actions to use in order to turn the script into a play. You do not have a play without all three roles.
Sometimes, a board game designer fills the role of a playwright. Sometimes, she fills the role of both playwright and director- guiding more clearly where and how players are to move and think about their characters. Players are actors: they have the freedom to choose the actions and emotions that feel the most right in a given moment. The story will look similar from performance to performance, but will not be the same.
Of course, game players usually have a greater freedom of choice and story direction than actors do. The game script is often an outline of choices for how to shape a story- much like an improv scene. Who tells the stories on SNL? The writers or the performers? That may depend on if you are asking a writer or an actor. (I can't find where I read it, but playwright Tom Stoppard once stated that the only thing he desired from actors was "good diction.")
The problem, as I see it, is one of collaboration. In TTRPGs, writers are writing stories that are only completed or fleshed out when the module is played. That is the essence of TTRPGs, so the collaboration between author and player is expected. Perhaps there is less angst around TTRPGs because of the high level of improv or the expectation to deviate from the script.
Let's return to the original question: who tells the story? I posit that the story is built as a collaboration between the designer and the players. Board game designers collaborate with artists and publishers, but also players, by anticipating how a design can be shaped into not only a product but an experience. A publisher has to agree on the premise of a "design as product" before they will publish a game. Similarly, a player must "buy in" to an experience in order to become a collaborator in the telling of the story of the game.
Importantly, just because there is a secondary storyteller does not mean that a game designer is not still a storyteller or that she has no control over the flow of the story. Designers should not abdicate responsibility of storytelling. They have months and years to perfect their parts of the story; the players have an hour or two. The challenge a designer faces is to be willing to craft an experience to a certain point then relinquish control and let the ultimate outcome rest in the hands of the players.
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