Special edition Metaverse: The narrative paradox

Welcome to a special edition of our nudgeletter which focuses on what Disney calles?Next Generation storytelling,?and everyone else the Metaverse.?

The narrative paradox is a term that?was popularized around the turn of the century,?when the Teletubbies entered Virtual Reality. It describes the conflicting requirements of pre-authored, linear storytelling and the interactive nature of virtual environments (VE). While VEs should be as open as possible and even responsive to the actions of visitors, most storytelling techniques only work with the premise of a passive audience that has no ability to interfere with the storyline. Just imagine a theater audience member confronting Bruce Willis in an early scene of “The sixth sense” with the fact that he is a ghost. You get the idea.

This trade-off is well known in computer games, where user interaction is not only allowed but essential. Initial story-based games solved the narrative conflict by alternating sections of pure gameplay where the player is in full control, and ‘cut-scenes’, fixed linear storytelling moments, that played out like a movie scene with no possibility to interact.

These days, the story developing process for video games has become much more fractal, sort of a BRIO railway, with tracks that go left, rigt or straight. It is up to the player to decide which direction to connect next. “At [the early] stage of development, a fully fleshed out story is not the goal”, writes Ross Berger in ‘Dramatic Storytelling and Narrative Design’. “Rather, one should strive to acquire the main ingredients to a successful franchise [..] the world of the game, the tone of the experience, major characters [...] and big-event moments.”

Once the franchise is established, designers can create a ‘golden path’, a best way to play through their game, usually measured by the level of gameplay experience. Along the golden path they can introduce story crossroads and offer players decisions and choices which influence the story progress in one way or the other, so players can experience a variety of story and character archs, rather than following a straight, linear storyline.?

Probably the most referenced games in VE-related discussions are open world games like?Grand Theft Auto,?Red Dead Redemption?or?The Legend of Zelda?with their seemingly endless choices and 360° freedom of movement. After a brief introduction to the world, players are left for themselves to explore the game area in any way they desire. There is a main story, but it is up to the player to progess the narative (or not). Next to the main task, these games also feature side quests, small encapsulated adventures in themselves, which players can choose to explore or just ignore without any consequences to the main storyline.

Stephanie Riggs' book ‘The end of storytelling’?calls these constructs a?storyplex,?“a dynamic network that balances the traditions of storytelling, human psychology, and the affordances of computational systems to create an immersive narrative. It is a network that can expand or contract based on the technology being used. And, within that network, the elements of story are integrated into a larger whole and influenced by a variety of environmental components, all of which contribute to a meaningful experience.”

In a way, the concept is close to the TV series?X-Files.?The show run a main arch, the search for extraterrestrials who took Mulder’s sister, and also sprinkeled self-capsuled “monster of the week” episodes, in which Mulder and Scully solve various paranormal cases between those, which did not affect the main story at all.

Nudges

• Interactive audiences are on the rise with the Metaverse, so start observing the emerging possibilities. Next to narrative techniques this includes the possibilites of room designs, gamifications and other ways that doesn't turn your VE-audience into a silently standing horde of zombies.
• Like open world games, presentations can be thought of having a main hall with relevant information for everyone as well as side halls for smaller audiences, either for expert break out sessions, people who prefer self-study, or 'exposition halls' with a prolonged introduction to the topic for people not as familiar with the topic as the main audience. Similar to the?six page memo?at Amazon, which opens the meeting with 30 minutes of self study, visitors could roam the halls on their own before gathering in the main hall for the meeting.