RE: Film Noir Simulation

["Kyle Pierce" <kyle.pierce@pcisys.net>]

Hi Walt, et al...

Good to hear from you guys!

> -----Original Message-----
...
> Goals are as
> central to narrative as they are to games. The only difference is that in
> narrative we usually focus more on the motivation for a goal --
> that is, the conflict -- than on the goal itself. No goal would imply no
> conflict, which implies no story.
>
> If you wish to make uncovering the connections its own reward, you must
> determine what conflict the act of uncovering the connections resolves.
The
> player's curiosity (I want to know, and I don't know) may be sufficient
> conflict in itself, if the connections are sufficiently fascinating. This
is
> a tall order, though. Most audiences might need a bit more narrative
impetus.
> A novelist who wishes to portray an outside observer exploring the webs of
> relationships, past connections, conflicts, and intrigues among a group of
> people usually arranges for one member of the group to murder another
first.
> I'd love to get away from the solve-the-murder role (and its SF cousin,
the
>
figure-out-who-the-suicidal-saboteur-is-before-the-hidden-bomb-destroys-the-
> space-station-and-kills-everyone role) but I'm skeptical on whether
uncovering
> relationships without some sort of overriding goal would generate
sufficient
> interest. What do others think about this question?
>
> - Walt

I have given some thought to questions that are very much along the same
lines as this one.  I have long been inclined to think of a story or drama
as having at least something in common with a legal argument, or even a
mathematical proof.  The author's task is to present a compelling sequence
of actions, one that leads to a particular conclusion.  But what compels the
audience to accept that conclusion?  I suppose it is due largely to the
author's skill in showing how these actions emerge naturally (if not
inevitably) from the motivations that have been ascribed to the characters.

This is not quite the same thing as what you described, about giving game
players explicit subgoals that accomplish, through their interactions, an
overarching goal - but these approaches have a lot in common, and they share
a common limitation, one not too hard to point to.   They make sense within
a restricted reality, one in which we are likely to miss the messy richness
of the real world; what is maybe less obvious but more striking is the total
absence of anything resembling paradox.  While this may not be a real
problem for game developers, we would no doubt strive to meet other
standards.

It seems that there is something not so straightforward about the
ingredients of a lifelike story experience.  As in real life, things are
seldom what they appear to be.  People know themselves to be something other
than what they show to the world, for a multitude of reasons, not simply
cosmetic ones.  If they know each other well, this sort of illusion does not
really fool them, and yet covertly, they continually strive to confound one
another's expectations.  They are not simply expressing irony; they
sometimes seem almost paradox-driven.  "I am more than I can possibly show
you, but I can at least surprise you with glimpses."

I could be overstating it somewhat, but real people seem to have a rather
perverse habit of subverting any attempt to pin them down as objective
entities in a factual world.  Why do people object to being objectified?
Perhaps because each of us is, in our heart of hearts, an ideal entity in an
"imaginary" world.  It is a rather interesting paradox in itself, that what
is most directly experienced as real is what we mostly agree to regard as
imaginary and the stuff of fantasy; meanwhile, what we loosely refer to as
the "real world" is by and large a construction that could never be directly
experienced by anyone as actual.

I have hardly begun to explore motivation and interaction.  When people
express an intention, are they really setting a goal for themselves, or
satisfying some immediate compulsion, or perhaps doing both at once?  And
when that intention is directed toward another person, do they give any
consideration to that intention, or does it fall on deaf ears?  What seems
to be an interaction may in fact have only a single participant.  But this
sounds more like simple ambiguity than paradox.  Is something still missing
here?

Maybe it is simply a matter of the author's skill and artfulness that takes
an interaction beyond the realm of mere ambiguity and presents the audience
with true paradox.  If that's what it comes down to, then this paradoxical
character is a mark of excellence.  This is true, I would hope, not only of
traditional dramatic writing but of any imaginable kind of authoring,
including those we have been exploring on this list.

So my sense of this problem is that if we are hoping to tell a lifelike
story, or to enable others to take part in telling or acting out anything
lifelike, we cannot approach excellence without a strong sense of that
paradoxical nature at the heart of what truly grabs us.  I agree that it
would also be a mistake to do without goals.  At some point maybe it will
become more clear how these distinct approaches could be integrated.

Best regards,

Kyle Pierce