You ever notice that we’re usually either talking or fighting?
Role-playing games tend to think of conflict as a line you cross, a state that can’t be exited until one side is incapacitated. This works as a framing for combat systems – our default method of conflict resolution in games – but what happens when we try to systematize subtler forms of friction?
Think back to your last fight, verbal or physical (I hope you were lucky enough that it stuck in the realm of the former, but not all of us are). Was it a hair-trigger to an all-out brawl, or did it take on slow, sickening curves? “You aren’t listening to me” becomes “this is just like when you hurt me five years ago” crosses the line into a slammed door or a desperate grip or a sudden shove. Surprise, betrayal, frustration, hope, even boredom as you go over the facts again?
Video game protagonists don’t generally have fights like this, at least not when the player has a say. Instead, we often position game dialogue as a way for players to access some signposted reward – to earn an upgrade, gain information, forge a bond, or avoid combat entirely. In this model, we leave out the frictions of speaking, of building reality from shared perspectives and figuring out how to act in that reality. Doesn’t it seem like we need a little more practice at that, rather than tailoring so many of our stories to the player’s power fantasy?
This is not an argument for increased realism; it’s a plea to open up narrative design in the same way Soulslikes have opened up combat design. I know, I’m sorry – but consider the thoughtfulness From Software brings to bear in each action’s weight, timing, and cost, and how other developers have run with that line of thought. What happens when we apply those same principles to how we portray speech and sociality? Could we reach for interaction systems that allow speaking to feel as fluid and reactive as combat does? What happens when we’re willing to challenge the player’s social understanding of a situation alongside or instead of their reflexes? What if an argument could be shaped into banter, or bent into bullying, or pushed into confession depending on the player’s narrative understanding of the other characters involved?
Some sample questions we can bring into our protagonists’ heads, and thus into our players’ heads:
“What tone should I use here to get them to believe me?”
“I don’t forgive them… but do they need me to say I do?”
“Should we talk about this now, or later?”
“Who else should be here for this conversation?”
“How do I get them to admit they messed up?”
“Should I admit _I_ messed up?”
These questions are not new, even if they’re underexplored in interactive formats. But we shy away from the things that make conflict sing in other media, because we’re afraid that the player may not understand, maybe they’ll miss something. But we don’t fear they’ll take a hit in combat, do we? We can tutorialize a focus on what a particular conflict means and how it works, just like we teach the player how to pay attention to enemy moves or character stats.
To make this kind of system work requires entwining the writer and designer – and luckily so, as legions of narrative designers wait in the wings, tiring of the scraps they’re thrown from ‘mechanics-first’ design. The separation of mechanics from story was false from the first, of course, because together they form the player’s experience, the story they tell themselves. And what story are we asking them to tell about conflict? That it is always possible to win, as long as you’re the protagonist?
In the process of redefining the win and the moves to get there, we can weave our friction into new textures and learn over time to sense them with our fingertips at the controller or the keyboard. Games like Thirsty Suitors show us one path – to playfully abstract dialogue and emotionality into ‘attacks’ and ‘debuffs.’ We can take this further, however, when we allow our NPCs to act narratively and give our players a broad suite of emotional tools with which to respond. This may require us to be coy about identifying any conversational outcome as ‘winning’ or ‘losing’; these are tools we use to constrain development scope and maintain narrative cohesion, but others might instead focus on theme or player-character consistency.
Crucially, we can tell that audiences are appreciating – even coming to expect – stories that truly branch, stories that open up and challenge them with their texture and depth. Can we do this while kissing the ring of power fantasy? Is it not enough of a fantasy to be able to control what you say, how you express your feelings, or how you move your body? (If we want to get really spicy, we can play with friction in those areas as well. See: Depression Quest, Disco Elysium, Pathologic, or the work of Bennett Foddy.)
We’ve seen experiments in navigating friction through dialogue, but we know there’s room to evolve, especially in the space between dialogue and combat. Starting a fight is easy, and winning it might be tough, but there’s a satisfying challenge too in resolving that fight through negotiation, insight, or humour. We as writer-designers get to calibrate the tools we give the player: we can let them make mistakes and recover, let them work to discover what our characters are hiding, what motivates those characters, and how to address the tension that arises between them. If we’re nervous about how skills like these – as indicators of human curiosity – are developing in our world, perhaps we can use our humble little entertainment medium to get people thinking about them. Practicing them. Understanding them just a little better.
I advocate for this not just because it will be fun and interesting (though it will be). I bring all this to you because I know we can do conflict differently, not only in our cathartic gameworlds, but also with each other.
(Originally published as part of the Game Narrative Kaleidoscope.)
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