Narrative and Games

Important Story Elements:

Protagonists - The leading character or a major character in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text

Why is a protagonist important? Well it is quite simply in the definition; it's the lead character! No matter how vaguely a game focuses around a character, or how many characters it focuses around, it will always have one main character that is the primary force behind pushing the story forward.

Conflict - An incompatibility between two or more opinions, principles, or interests

This description of conflict is quite vague, it's quite a hard word to sum up. But in simplistic terms it is the situation that arises when two opposing forces/variables meet. It's crucial in a story because every story requires one, because anything in a story will be a conflict; 'Jim had to walk to the kitchen to get his potato chips'. The conflict there was probably getting up off his arse and walking to the kitchen.

In short; Every story has conflict, sometimes direct, and sometimes indirect.

Direct conflict is between obvious "enemies" such as Batman and The Joker, or France and Germany.

Indirect conflict is harder to see just by scratching the surface. A perfect example that we see a lot now'a days is the conflict between man and machine (technology).

Resolution of the Conflict - The ending of the conflict that results in the victory of one force over the other.

This is required, it basically has to happen for the story to work. If this doesn't occur; the story never progresses. How boring would it be if Jim Raynor in Starcraft never encountered the Zerg and just sat in his office all day doing nothing? Without pushing the story towards a resolution of some sort of conflict, you can never hope to achieve any sense of immersion or dramatic build.

Moral - A lesson, esp. one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience

No matter what your story is, no matter what it does it will always have a moral. A moral to a story will basically create itself once everything else is in place. Most moral's are planned and for good reason; it gives you something to shape the story around. the moral in Jim and his journey to the kitchen would be 'if you get off your ass; you get to eat those tasty potato chips'.

Another important thing to note about stories is that people are the crucial factor, objects have no relevance. Objects are simply an excuse to involve characters, the characters themselves are what make the story interesting. Take for example Lord of the Rings; they could have been chasing after/protecting a golden cabbage that needed to be destroyed for all we know, the stories impact wouldn't have been affected much due to the strong and impressionable characters that breathed life into the adventure.

Puzzles in Story
Puzzles aren't a requirement within a story but can be a useful tool; as long as they press the story forward, a dead end puzzle that does nothing to push the story forward is likely to frustrate players and achieve nothing else.

Spacial Thinking
No one wants to see every single part of the adventure, you need to zoom in and focus on the important aspects of the story. You should always avoid including things that the audience can simply assume themselves. It would have been pointless to have shown every toilet break of every main character in Star wars, or to show us every piece of the walking in Lord of the Rings. While players can indeed be stupid, at least give them some credit!