@Spacelesbian For me that’s different. There’s a world of difference between what you’re doing, and what I’ve problems with. I’m finding it difficult to articulate at the moment though. I believe telling your sorts of stories is extremely important, and I’ve absolutely no issues with that.
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I think that the answer should be: As much as is required. Let’s say, for instance, that Macbeth was heavily edited and we delete every scene we consider “tragic” or “dark”.
Somehow, I don’t think Macbeth would be quite as successful as it is today.
Similarly, let’s take a movie, like The Elephant Man. If we cancelled all the cases of discrimination against John Merrick, I doubt the film would have as much of an impact as it does.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that dark and gritty = good (would somebody please tell the superhero film industry and the anime industry about this already). It just means that, sometimes, to tell a great story, you have to use whatever means are best to convey the message across.
You can make things as intolerant and tragic as you like, as long as you can justify it with a reason other than, “because it sounds cool.”
I’m very much of the opinion that all the above poll answers are right at different times. It’s all about the mood of your audience. The game I play when I’m on a high on life is not the same kind of experience I want when I’m feeling utterly miserable. I don’t think either is right or wrong, I just think they both have their place. Like you said, as long as it’s well crafted there will always be someone somewhere who appreciates and enjoys it.
To expand on @Wyrmspawn point concerning gritty=good, this is a problem that annoys me and ruins a lot of great books, games and films; i.e that some people seem to think there is nothing cooler than sitting in the dark being miserable about everything. I just think if you’re going to be dealing with very heavy-handed subjects you need to always remember the power of bringing a character back and allowing them to enjoy themselves.
I know a lot of people say in a story with a very hard to swallow message a break in the tone has no place, and that in runs the risk of trivializing real world issues. I’m personally in disagreement, I think it adds much more impact to see the joy and potential joy of any character in contrast to some of the horrible realities of any situation. It also makes any character much easier to relate to and more three dimensional.
The point being if you are going to be dealing with issues of prejudice and such things, yes it’s a heavy subject, but allowing it to saturate your project is a mistake, it makes a very flat experience.
I’m not suggesting you’re making the above mistake, I’m simply expression a general opinion on what I consider a mishandling of all intolerance and tragedy in any creative outlet.
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While this might come as somewhat of a surprise to some, I’m going to go ahead and say stay away from extreme darkness, cruelty, grittiness with one exception which I’ll get to at the end.
The problem with grittiness is quite frankly many people really don’t go far enough with it or rather they go about it the wrong way. I’m not even talking about the usual super hero stuff where they show the villain going out of his way to eat babies. That’s fake grittiness which is can be bad for other reasons, but I’m talking about where it’s not just one villain, it’s the entire world being crapsack.
They make this world that’s a horrible place, but the protagonist is still more or less a good person at heart (Even if they’re cynical) and has to go through misery after misery before they get a slightly less sucky ending. The heroes tend to mope and struggle over the morality of various gray areas which leads to a lot of inner turmoil. (AKA sit in a corner and be miserable)
In a gritty world, the heroes actions usually don’t do much except maybe they manage to replace one corrupt mayor with a slightly less corrupt one that doesn’t sacrifice kittens and the hero still ended up losing a hand and his family killed in the process.
Unless of course the hero just compromises all his morals and solves things the way the villains do, which leads to a better outcome, but in the process becomes worse than the villains. Which is more of a “loss” since you’ve just made the world a worse place (even if you made it better for yourself).
And while that’s all fine and can still be good if the writer’s skills are up to the task and that’s what they want to do, but it’s a tale that gets told a lot, and most of the time people want to be heroes that actually do something that doesn’t necessarily require them becoming worse than the bad guys.
Heroes don’t do well in an all gritty world because really they already “lost” a long time ago.
Which brings me to the one exception:
If you’re going for extreme darkness, grittiness, cruelty, etc, you probably need to just go ahead and make a villain protagonist. Villains get things done in this type of world more effectively and typically aren’t sitting in a corner moping about having to do terrible things. Sure they might get a little misty about having to sacrifice their favorite minion for their overall goals, but hey they can always get another.
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hello endmaster, are you comming back from you long break with more storygames.
There are too few games along this line of telling if you ask me.
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in all honesty, i’m really hoping to play as a villain in a storygame. after playing the heros rise trilogy, i had been curious about what it would be like to see things from a villains perspective, experience the villain’s side of the story.
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I don’t think there’s really a set limit. There are a lot of different stories out there for many different readers with different tastes and levels of tolerance for disaster/tragedy/etc. Personally I don’t think there is any off-limits subject matter. If a writer has enough skill then they will hopefully understand how to best present and approach something. Sometimes the point of fiction, like horror movies, is to offend. I think there’s a place in the artistic environment for offensive media. I don’t mean a creative person should force triggering content on people, but just because it’s triggering doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist
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Never stopped writing. Currently trying to finish up a story with a female protagonist.
Oh yeah, I agree. In the past I usually always found in video games and the like, the “evil paths” was just sort of tacked on as an after thought at best, which is probably one reason why I pretty much just write such stories myself the way I’d prefer to see them.
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I play games as less of an escape, and more of an exploration. Yes, escape is a reason I play, but exploration and understanding are my real goals. I want to understand the motivations of protagonists and antagonists alike. I feel as if this leads to an understanding of real world ideas. Of course this must fit into the framework created by the author. You can’t express the oppression of Irish immigrants to America in the 30’s in a game about unicorn brawls. This leads to my knowledge of games as a media of understanding through exploration.
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Please excuse me while I find and play all of your games. 
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Hmm, this really is a hairy question. For me, I think including real-life oppressive dynamics in games really boils down to two points:
- How involved is your story going to get in addressing (real-life or their in-game analogous) injustices?
- Who are these games meant to be for?
Re pt 1), I think it’s disingenuous to put in a splash of racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia/what-have-you just for a bit of “gritty” flavor. If you’re going to make a story that deals with these issues, you really need to do the research and set aside the time and space to address them with the gravity they deserve. I’m really uncomfortable with writers who use real people’s pain just to add flavor to a setting, especially in fantasy/science-fiction settings where you have a chance to establish a world apart of the prejudices that taint our own.
I’m not saying that fantasy/sci-fi stories shouldn’t have any form of oppression (because working against oppression is such a basic tenet of so many stories and it can be truly inspiring), but rather that authors should tread carefully if making fantasy analogies to real world oppression.
Re pt. 2), I think the audience actually makes a big difference. For example, I think there’s value in straight people learning about the struggles of queer people and the difficulties they face, in that being exposed to such stories might make them more interested in such issues. But for queer people, you get reallllly tired really fast of all the dead lesbians everywhere. It’s extremely tiring for every queer character to have to be there to teach you something or to die, and it really centers around a default heterosexual worldview. And to be honest, I think more representation of “minority” characters in non-“issue” roles is really beneficial in itself.
I feel like the medium of games specifically also tangles the question, since so many people go into games expecting escapism. It can be really traumatic to go in playing a game hoping to get a break from all the crap you have to deal with in real life, only to find it in the game itself. I guess I’d prefer it if I could know up front what kind of content we’re dealing with.
TL;DR, games have social responsibility too and writers should do their homework.
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I agree, there must be a way for the author to give the reader some warning about the story games content, like in CYS, they have warnings of adult content in the descriptions. That way the readers have no excuse to have the story game flagged and or banned, they chose to read at their risk, so why punish the author if there was a warning about the story games content. yes im aware that there are very sensitive people on this site, but there are just as many people who like reading intense violence in the story games.
Have you written any with female MC’s or gender options? The few of your’s I’ve poked at have been male only as far as I’ve been able to figure out.
There’s one I wrote with gender options, but it’s probably not what you’d be looking for.
Like I mentioned to Zeke, I’m currently trying to finish up a big story with a female protagonist.
Personally I like a taste of gritty realism at times, I’m fine with seeing Racism, sexism, facism, merchantism, necrophilism, eceteraism, and such in a story as beliefs of characters because hey intollerance has always existed and though i dont agree with any of these particular isms they can add a bit of proverbial spice to a good story. On the other hand i’m also a sucker for a happy ending. (though obviously sad or bittersweet endings are more appropriate at times)
So much this. And the following points.
In my own writing (nothing released yet), my hope is to avoid this kind of thing. As a person with a lot of intersecting privilege, I’m a little terrified that I’ll mess it up unintentionally. I think, and someone feel free to put me in my place on this, that it’s better to try and be graceful about criticism and corrections when you mess up than to be like, “I’m straight, I can’t write gay characters,” or whatever. If no one ever writes characters unlike themselves, then we’re all the poorer for it. It might take some research, but… it’s writing. That’s table stakes.
“Issue” games are much trickier if you don’t have personal experience with it. Examples like Gone Home are rare, in my experience. And I do think it’s entirely OK to disclaim and say, “I’m straight, so I can’t write a game about what it’s like to grow up in our society as a gay kid,” or whatever. Especially for amateurs (like me). My–possibly erroneous–thinking is that if we get more non-issue games (or any cultural content) that have better representation and portrayals, the burden of issue games becomes way less heavy.
I could be wrong, blind or ignorant about a lot of things I’ve said above. So… someone call me out on it if I am. Please.
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In my current game, I’m focussing on a world of suffering. Occupied by characters who may or may not fit in, so I guess I’m all for things being horrible, as long as it works.
When you’re finished will you create a thread advertising it in Interactive Fiction or something? I’m a big fan of your stories and you’ve already caught my interest with that, (And doubtlessly the potential interest of a good number of folk on these forums.) although I’ve long since abandoned Infinite-Story because of how badly Sturgeon’s Law is in effect over there, so I’d probably end up missing it’s release entirely.
@zeke I was actually fairly disappointed that after playing through as a complete sociopath who I was roleplaying as a Powered supremacist with delusions of being a god-like being (aka “Magneto Mode”) that there was no consequences for me callously murdering people whatsoever, trying to escalate the conflict between Powered and muggles and I was still some kind of hero at the end. It was all kinds of messed up.
I’m not saying I wanted my character to go to jail or anything but I was hoping he could jump from “Sociopathic, arrogant, hot-headed Anti-Hero with extreme beliefs and a bad attitude” to outright “Magneto-style supervillian” in the ending.
I guess my character was just another sociopathic terrorist/extremist who ended up re-imagined by people who shared a less extreme version of my character’s beliefs as a plucky freedom fighter/enlightened ruler/whatever who did no wrong. Let’s face it, there have been many examples of such people throughout history. Even the damned muggles were supporting me, despite my character tolerating the existence of the better ones at best and calling for the extermination of the worst ones.
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I think there has to be a balance between tragedy and happiness. A little bit of both.
In real life, there is both tragedy and comedy in our everyday lives (and often times it’s hard to tell them apart)
I fell like for every time there’s a child death, you need to see a child being born. For every person starving, you have to see a person giving food to another. For every person you see hurt another over race, you have to see another person who helps someone despite race. Don’t lean in one direction or the other, just give life itself.