Is it Story or Storytelling that truly makes a "tale" great?

How many times have you seen this on a forum "[Game A] has a terrible story, it isn't original at all! Just the same redundant crap we see all the time!" Well I hate to tell you "Junior" but at the end of the day a lot of it is the same redundant crap... at least in terms of raw "Story".

In his book "The Seven Basic Plots" Christopher Booker explains that there are only seven "Raw" stories that are repeated over and over again within literature, with or without the author of said work actually recognizing what is occurring. I'm not going to go into exactly what these 7 Plots are, the list is pretty easy to find on the internet, in fact I'll even give you a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_%28narrative%29

According to this and similar theories like "The Thirty Six Dramatic Situations" as proposed by Georges Polti we can surmise that there ARE no original plots, not really. Every "raw plot" that can be written HAS been written, codified, studied, analyzed and hence can be predicted... at least that's what some people would have you believe.

At the end of the day I don't think it really matters. Expecting a story to be wildly original every time is a sure way to end up a horribly disappointed human being, especially when you realize that barring a divine act you WILL use one of the 7 Basic Plots and many of those Thirty Six Situations no matter what type of story you try to tell. The key to achieving peace with this idea is realizing that at the end of the day, this is NOT the element of Story that truly matters.

"Basic" plot is just that, basic. There are no characters in those 7 Plots, nor are there characters in those situations. They're just the raw elements necessary for the construction of a story, they aren't what make it enjoyable, meaningful or worth experiencing in anyway. Think about it like a building, at the end of the day all buildings will require, to some degree, a foundation, a superstructure, probably stairs depending on the size and height of a building etc. Any building that doesn't have these fails as a building and would not be recognized as such or used as such, and a story is similar. Yet when you look at a particularly attractive building do you pat attention to the foundation, the superstructure, the stairs? Not really I say, these are just the elements that make it a building, not the elements that make it an attractive one. In order to make these individual elements stand out, indeed to make the building itself stand out, something needs to be added to it. For a "Plot" or "Story" this is where "Storytelling" comes in, it is that "something else" added to a basic structure that makes a story memorable, enjoyable and worth experiencing.

Take my most recent favorite game, Mass Effect 2. At the end of the day what are you doing? Saving Humanity from Evil Aliens, a combination of an Against the Monster, A Quest and a little bit of a Journey and Return plotline. Not wildly original by any stretch, yet like its parent Mass Effect 2 comes across as wildly original in terms of storytelling.

You don't just Save Humanity from Evil Aliens, you take a character deeply rooted in a heavily realized fictional universe yet shaped through your personal choices and actions into either a virtual expression of yourself or a fully realized character in their own right. You find companions for this character, earn their trust and learn more about yourself in the process before triumphantly charging off with suicidal abandon to protect the universe and everything you care about because goddamn it you are a HERO and you will save mankind. This to me is the real "plot" of Mass Effect 2, not the simplistic and basic"Save Mankind from Aliens" story you might see on the surface. This belies the uniquely personalized yet cinematically sweeping style of storytelling that characterizes the game, you feel like that hero, you feel like this is your universe to save and that is what makes it different from a standard Humans vs. Aliens space opera.

Something similar could, once upon a time, be said about the classic "Lunar: The Silver Star Story Complete" for the Playstation 1. At the most basic level, Lunar is a game about a Boy rescuing his Childhood Friend from an Evil Emperor who wants to use her Innate Powers for Evil. Standard JRPG stuff right? Pretty much but the addition of warm, funny and likable characters with well done Anime Cut Scenes and the substantial amount of voice acting combined with a well paced set of revelations regarding the overall story makes Lunar something to behold despite its stereotypical trappings. Look at Bioshock, Half-Life, Portal and many other games out there. Many of them really aren't that original in terms of basic plot, but the method by which they convey their narrative, the Storytelling, makes them so much more than that.

Hence at the end of the day it isn't the story itself, it's the storytelling that makes something a truly great narrative. It's a combination of Pacing, Character, Presentation, Art, Dialogue or lack there of, Mood, Setting, Set Pieces etc. not just "plot" that makes something great and allows it to transcend the simplicity of the 7 Basic Plots.

Am I a Writer?

One of my good friends has just "officially" become a professional writer. He's getting paid to produce material for a small, still in production game project which should be popping up in the sometime this year. It's interesting stuff too, tons of ideas that make me go "damn I wish I'd come up with that"and there's a large group of very talented people working on it, all of whom are also very likable.

Unfortunately I find myself livid with jealousy over my friends success in the writing field, mostly because that kind of thing was something I've always wanted from myself but never been able to achieve. This has led to a bit of soul searching on my part as I honestly cannot recall the last time I seriously put some prose to page. I haven't even given it a good attempt within the last several months, what with my workplace being thrown into chaos and my baseless melancholy crippling my creativity. All I've written are notes for my numerous Roleplaying Projects and the occasional discussion thread or review on The Escapist and even these feel like crap lately.

What have I become? Am I even a writer anymore?

I cannot recall the last time I created a character, established a scene, wrote an action sequence or even tried to seriously convey an idea or meaning through indirect means. I haven't even tried to prose up my Roleplaying notes, not since the summer and the last description piece I tried to write turned out like complete crap.

I am seriously down on this...

However I can only see one solution, I need to pick up the pen once more and kick my own ass until I actually write something I can look at with some measure of contentment. Yes sir, I must do this once more, I WILL be a writer again even if I'm only writing for myself.

Best of the Year 2009 Videogames Part 1

Well since it is January and it's been a whole year since I did any regular posting I thought I might enlighten all of you as to my favorites of the last year.

Video Games

2009 was the year of the Action/Adventure game, seeing an unprecedented glut of high quality releases all focusing around this hard to pin down genre that nonetheless endears as a mainstay of the industry and a favorite of this particular gamer and while there were some other major releases none of them really held a candle to the Action/Adventure titles that dominated the stage. Anyway here's my obligatory list of titles that made the grade this year...

Infamous
In June gamers were treated to a one-two punch of Sandbox Superhero games, one where you play as a misanthropic mutant in a blood filled rampage through New York, the other where you play as an Electrical Superman who can choose the role of Hero or Villain while he searches for the secret behind the events that empowered him and that have been laying waste to his city. Infamous developed by Suckerpunch and exclusively for the Playstation 3 is the second of those. You play as Cole McGrath, a man who gains electrical super powers, destroys a large portion of Empire City, his home and must now contend with a bevy of superpowered foes in a quest to learn about the disaster and himself. Two things about InFamous really stood out to me, for one it's a 3rd Person Shooter rather than a Brawler and it's the only super hero game I've played that really makes you FEEL like a HERO. This is something that oddly defines the game in a way you might not expect as I noticed something about reviews of InFamous, those who took the Villain Path did not enjoy it much and gave it a low score. Those who took the path of the Hero seemed to get a whole lot more enjoyment out of the game since when playing the hero path you get to see your actions inspire the population of Empire City, they put up posters of you, rally against the supervillains taking over neighborhoods, clean up the streets and cheer you as you go by. You feel like a hero who has made a difference in the world, this city is BETTER and it's because of you and the choices you've made. I have yet to go through the villain path myself, but a friend assures me that it's not really worth it, being a Hero is where it's at and InFamous is good at conveying that idea.

Some thoughts on Storytelling in Videogames

With the recent release of Mass Effect 2 I've been thinking pretty regularly about storytelling methods in Videogames. See to me Mass Effect 2 represents probably the pinnacle in Player Driven Narrative, where the player can not only decide through their actions the outcomes of various stories but can also effect personality and relationships on a much deeper level than in most other games. In fact it beats out November's Dragon Age, a game soaked in choice and depth of consequence, purely through its focus on "personality" because unlike Dragon Age, in Mass Effect one actually gets the feeling that Cmdr. Shepard is a REAL character, not simply an extension of the players will. Yes you get to put the words in Cmdr. Shepards mouth, but those words are translated into the voice of the character, a character you define but one that is still somewhat separate. As I see it this is the key to developing a real "Roleplaying Game" in an electronic medium, where you play AS a character who is still a CHARACTER, not just an avatar for your actions.