Narratives and Interactive
Storytelling
Lecture 01 – Introduction to Narratives and
Interactive Storytelling
Edirlei Soares de Lima
<edirlei.lima@universidadeeuropeia.pt>
What is Interactive Storytelling?
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Interactive storytelling is a form of digital entertainment
based on the combination of interactivity and storytelling.
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Objective: create dramatic and engaging narrative experiences for
users, while allowing them to intervene with ongoing plots and change
the way that the story unfolds.
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Key challenge: balance the level of interactivity with the
consistency of the generated stories.
Interactive storytelling is not just a game with a story.
Story, Narrative, Plot
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Story: all events referenced both explicitly
and inferred in a narrative.
Story
Plot
Plot: refers to the sequence of events
inside of a story which affect other events
through the principle of cause and effect.
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Narrative: the choice of which events to
tell and in what order to tell them. Thus, it
is a representation or a specific
Narrative
manifestation of the story.
Narratives and Interactive Storytelling
Fully Traditional Stories
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Fully traditional stories are the classic form of storytelling,
which has been used for centuries.
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Examples: films, books, plays, cave paintings, ...
Interactive Traditional Stories
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Interactive traditional stories combine the tightly controlled
narratives of fully traditional stories with a degree of
interactivity.
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The main plot itself can’t be changed, or at the very least can’t be
changed in any significant way.
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Example: Marvel's The Avengers: Iron Man - Mark VII
Multiple-Ending Stories
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Multiple-ending stories follow the same structure as
interactive traditional stories, but at the end users are allowed
to choose between two or more possible endings.
End 1
Event 1
Event 2
Event 3
...
Event N
End 2
End 3
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Example: Chrono Trigger
Branching Path Stories
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Branching path stories include multiple decision points
throughout the story, allowing users to make a series of
choices as he/she progresses through the narrative.
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Example: Choose Your Own Adventure books
Branching Path Stories
Story network of the Choose Your
Own Adventure book The Mystery of
Chimney Rock (1979).
Open-Ended Stories
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Open-ended stories are an evolution of the branching path
formula. While branching path stories retain a strong writer-
controlled structure that moves the user from decision point
to decision point, open-ended stories are more open to user
interactions.
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There is no explicit branching network and the narrative is usually
generated by a computer algorithm (such as planning algorithms).
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Example: Logtell
Fully Player-Driven Stories
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Player-driven stories don’t have a main plot. The narrative
emerges from the player’s interactions with virtual characters
and environments.
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This type of story is usually implemented as a simulation.
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Example: The Sims
How to create an interesting
narrative?
We can start by following a basic narrative pattern (also called
narrative structure).
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A narrative pattern emerges from the fact that most narratives
share several common characteristics.
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These common characteristics were first described by Aristotle.
According to him, each act contains predictable elements common to
all stories.
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Examples of narratives structures: three-act structure and the
hero’s journey.
Three-Act Structure
Act One:
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Contains exposition or a summary of who are the main characters, their
background story (setting) and what they want (motivation).
It also contains a inciting incident (call to action) that leads the protagonist
to leave the security of home.
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Three-Act Structure
Act Two:
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Contains a series of challenges and obstacles (rising action) that prevent
the protagonist from easily achieving his goal.
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It also leads to some sort of a final conflict (climax), which puts the
protagonist and antagonist against each other.
Three-Act Structure
Act Three:
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Features the resolution of the story and its subplots.
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It presents a series of events that resolves the conflicts that have arisen
(not necessary with happily endings).
The Hero’s Journey (Monomyth)
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The hero's journey is a narrative
pattern that involve a hero who goe
on an adventure, and in a decisive
crisis wins a victory, and then come
home changed or transformed.
The pattern was proposed by Josep
Campbell and it comprises 17 stage
Narrative Theories
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Starting from the assumption that stories share certain
common characteristics, narrative theories aim at explaining
the narrative phenomena.
Examples of theorists:
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Vladimir Propp
Aarne-Thompson
Roland Barthes
Tzvetan Todorov
Claude Levi-Strauss
Propp Theory
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Propp examined 100 Russian fairy tales, and showed that they
could all be described by 31 typical narrative functions (such
as villainy, hero’s departure, reward).
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Propp also showed that these functions have a chronological order
that defines the basic structure of a fairy tale.
He also concluded that all characters could be summarized into only
seven character types.
Propp Theory
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Character types:
1
. The villain: an evil character that fight against the hero.
2. The dispatcher: a character who illustrates the need for the hero's
quest and sends the hero off.
3. The helper: a typically magical entity that comes to help the hero in
his quest.
4. The princess and her father: gives the task to the hero, identifies the
false hero, marries the hero.
5. The donor: prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
6. The hero: the character who reacts to the dispatcher and donor
characters, fight against the villain, and marry the princess.
7
. False hero: takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the
princess.
Propp Theory
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Narrative functions (some examples):
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Villain appears (e.g. trying to find jewels, children, etc.).
Villain gains information about the victim.
Villain attempts to trick the victim.
Hero is fooled by the villain.
Hero acquires a magical agent.
Hero and Villain in direct combat.
Villain is defeated (killed).
False hero claims Hero’s success.
Hero marries and ascends the throne.
Interactive Storytelling
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Plot Generation:
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Manually authored branching networks.
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Planning algorithms (character-based vs plot-based).
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User Interaction:
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GUI interfaces, speech recognition, virtual reality interaction, hand-
drawn sketches, social networks, …
Dramatization:
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Visual representation of the narratives.
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Text, images, video, 2D/3D animations, comics, virtual reality,
augmented reality, …
Project Assignment 1
1
) Identify the narrative in your project:
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The project includes a narrative integrated with the system (the
system tells a narrative)? If so, describe the narrative and try to
identify branching points.
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If your system is not designed to tell a story, can you describe the use
of the system as a narrative? Create a narrative describing a typical
user interacting with the system. Try to add branching points to
highlight the different actions the user can perform while using the
system.