Exposition and Denouement

While there are a number of ways to introduce your game world to players, I think some methods are both more straightforward than others while also more effective storytelling. In the previous post, I discussed using the introductory lore paragraph in the rulebook as an inciting incident for the narrative of gameplay. In this post, I'll be looking at using setup as exposition and scoring as denouement. (NB: I am assuming that setup includes at minimum a brief rules review.)

But first, why would we want an inciting incident before exposition? When we place the inciting incident in the lore paragraph in the rulebook, it functions similarly to a cinematic cut scene at the beginning of a video game. We get dropped into a dramatic narrative moment, then we pause to learn who we are and what we are doing. In a video game, this might happen in a tutorial level. In board games, often all we have is setup. 

How can setup function as exposition? Setup is when the game world is literally built on the table. You learn who you are, what you are good at, how much you possess. You learn your goals. Take Sheriff of Nottingham for example: The world is a line of carts waiting to get through a city gate. You have limited funds that you can use to bribe the sheriff. You have the goods you are bringing to market. The law prohibits the sale of contraband at the market, but a well-placed bribe could circumvent it. The Sheriff makes money either through bribes or penalties. All this is learned during setup. This is the game world; the player decides how honest they will be at the city gate. The inciting incident, as described in the rulebook, is that Prince John has placed the Sheriff at the gate to inspect all incoming goods. According to the lore paragraph, the merchants are overtaxed and trying to make a living and the Sheriff is greedy. Setup, rules, and gameplay all flow together to create a single story. 

Setup as inciting incident (something I mentioned in the last post) is trickier to pull off. It is harder to include important story moments while learning the rules of the game. Vengeance has an initial draft that functions as the inciting incidents for why the player characters want revenge. Importantly, the exposition of Vengeance is largely "you have seen these types of movies before; you know what to expect." When players have preexisting knowledge of a genre, designers can get away with less explicit exposition. To have inciting incidents in setup, the game should be strongly story driven and some element of setup should be variable. Otherwise, let the lore paragraph do the heavy lifting for you rather than drag out setup for the sake of story beats. The goal of the players will always be to get into the game quickly; don't stand in the way of that goal. 

Not all story-driven moments in setup can be inciting incidents, however. In my game, Deadly Dowagers, players choose a husband before the game starts. Different husbands grant different temporary benefits. However, the inciting incident is not the act of getting married, but the scene in the rulebook where a PC discovers an older woman who can set her on the path to becoming a deadly dowager. Choosing what character you will play or their starting gear is not an inciting incident. Inciting incidents must create motivation for characters to act out the actions of gameplay. 

Gameplay is made up of rising and falling action and turning points. (I've seen it argued that board games are all rising action. I disagree.) Before the game starts we can provide exposition and inciting incidents. What about denouement? (Read about story structure here if you aren't familiar with these terms.) Not all game structures need or can accommodate a denouement. However, games with post-game scoring can have the scoring phase integrated into the theme by treating the scoring phase as denouement. This is where Sheriff of Nottingham breaks down. Nothing in the game world explains why it is important or desirable or profitable to be the king or queen of apples. The bonus points are necessary for the mechanics to feel balanced. We can make inferences about the economy, but the extra steps needed to rationalize a game rule will make the game feel less thematic even if the theme can be justified. (I feel this maxim applies most glaringly to the 'thematic' nature of the drafting in Sushi Go!, whereas Sushi Roll does not require the extra steps of rationalization and thus feels much more like a conveyor belt sushi restaurant.) In the case of Sheriff, additional exposition could have been used to explain why the merchants wanted to sell a lot of one good. 

Regular scoring should tie directly to the players' main goal in the game. Bonus scoring should, where possible, make sense in the overall story. We should have an idea of what happens to a character in the immediate aftermath of the game: they won or lost a contest, they amassed wealth, they lost a war, etc. Board games are stories as snapshots; we won't know much about the lives of characters after a (non-narrative) game is over. But we should known how their position has changed from when the game began and what that might mean to them. 

A game begins at setup and ends when a winner is declared. Designers have opportunities to make their games more thematic simply by including the whole game in the theme. Every game tells a story and I want to see designers become better storytellers.  

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.