Poll: Branching Story vs Scripted Story?

[FakeSympathy]

These two seemed to be the biggest form of story telling in games.

Games such as To the moon, Valiant Heart, TLOU, Spec Ops: The Line (The only decision you make is the last one), Borderlands series, and FFVI are examples of scripted stories that are expertly written and filled with twists and turns.

Games such as KOTOR, DA series, ME series, Wticher series, Fable series, and TTG games have branching stories, where player's decision impact what happens later in the game. This also adds replay values.

So, which type of story telling do you prefer?

 

[SmallHatLogan]

I prefer branching stories. Not because they're of higher quality. I'm sure it's easier to write a better story when it's entirely linear. But games are an interactive medium and I need to feel involved in the story. If I'm just being wheeled from one cutscene to the next I'm not going to find the experience as engaging as playing through a story where my actions have an impact.

I want to be a participant, not an observer.

 

[Zhukov]

Once I would have said "branching" without a second thought. Games are interactive and therefore the story should be interactive, yadda yadda yadda.

However I've come to prefer linear stories over time. They have better pacing and the writers can do what they like without having to stretch around the players haphazard actions or provide branches merely for the sake of having branches.

My problem with branching storylines is that I can never have any idea of the consequences of my actions. You might say that's how choices work in the real world too, but in the real world I can make an educated guess because I have experience of how the real world works. In a game it's all down to the writer and who knows what drugs they're on. "Oh ho, you chose the blue cupcake. Well, now the cook of the green cupcake is going to murder your brother out of spite!"

I also don't want to have to replay a game to see the whole story. If your game is really good I'll replay it anyway, I don't need choices to provide "replay value". And if your choice-filled game is mediocre then I'm probably going to be put off replaying it by the fact that I'm likely going to have to replay a lot of familiar stuff to see the maybe 25% new content.

Oh, and "open ended" or "player driven" stories, like in Bethesda games, aren't stories at all. They're just a sequence of disconnected events, most of which will just consist of killing lots of mooks. That's like throwing a bucket of marbles in a washing machine and calling the resulting series of movements a story. "Then the green marble bounced off the catseye marble and straight into a black marble! The thrill!"

All that said, I do enjoy games like Mass Effect, The Witcher 3 or Telltale's offerings where the plot basically plays out the same, but you can make small relatively inconsequential changes with your choices. It's kind of the best of both worlds. The writers can put together something decent and the player gets to feel more involved.

 

[veloper]

Just give me an interesting premise and some minimal explanation why I should pursue the next goal and play the game already.

Bonus points if the game's progression isn't linear and some extra points on top if there is dialog included that is good for a change.

Maximum score if the game itself is great, does some C&C and there's a story worth my time, but most devs should stick to trying to make just a good game.
I can't think of any game that doesn't fail on gameplay, while telling a good, interactive story.

 

[DEAD34345]

I could have chose either option in the poll, really. Branching choices are just a tool, they can be used to make some stories better and sometimes they are used inappropriately and make a story worse. It really just depends on what story the dev is trying to tell (and whether they're skilled enough to be able to add branching choices without messing up the story, I suppose).

In the end I went with the first option, pretty much just because I beat Undertale recently. It has one of the best stories in a game I've ever played, and that story fundamentally couldn't have been told without branching choices.

 

[Hawki]

Generally linear, but that's more a time limit factor for me nowadays. For instance, the last RPG I played (Xenoblade Chronicles) I played for 50 hours before putting aside. Nothing wrong with the game, but after playing it for so long, I needed a break. The thought of taking 50+ hours to complete a game, and then going back and doing the same to get the full story...even I've got my limits.

Few years back when I was playing Mass Effect I'd probably side with the branching option, but right now, I just don't have the time to commit to multiple playthroughs of the same game. Or energy for that matter.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Most stories in games dont truly branch you merely reach the same end under a different set of variables a sort of parallel conclusion. So while yes you could say well duh thats a branch yes it is but it alters very little.

Some visual novels do proper branching such as Katawa Shoujo where after the start you can be taken on a radically different route but I see each of these branching tales as then becoming linear with choices made becoming very minor and you could argue that there is really one end and you either get it or fail and get a placeholder one.

I would not class VNs as games really though. I do think a strong linear narrative is very important if you want to tell a good story now you may have a few twists and turns especially in side quests but really the game alters little. From my limited experience with the Witcher 2 and 3 it does this well.

Current barnching stories can be fun but I feel they weaken the character so I tend to only like them if character is not really the focus i.e say in an MMO. For most games I like it to be more linear if a character is supposed to be a character and not just my puppet I want them to have a personality I want to tale to be definitive and too many arbitrary choices ruins this. Then it just starts to feel like someone is telling a story but forgets bits and just muddles around it which usually takes way more than it adds. That said if the narrator is supposed to be unreliable they can still make this approach work. It would weaken the story but not necessarily the game.

 

[1981]

If I had to pick one, I'd go with scripted. But I'd take a good branching story over a good scripted story.

I don't have a problem with the illusion of choice in itself, because that's how the world often works. But providing

branches merely for the sake of having branches

is a sign of laziness.

There's a dialogue option in Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller that goes something like

Spoiler

1. I didn't want it to go like that.
2. It didn't have to go like that.

and you immediately know which one will give you the good ending and which one will give you the bad ending (emphasis on I implies egotism, whereas the second option comes across as compassionate). I love The Witcher 3, but I can't help but to wonder if the difficulty of predicting the outcome of your choices isn't deliberate but the result of poor wording.

 

[Zen Bard]

Honestly, it depends on the story. Although I find myself in complete agreement with Zhukof here:

However I've come to prefer linear stories over time. They have better pacing and the writers can do what they like without having to stretch around the players haphazard actions or provide branches merely for the sake of having branches.

The challenge is to create a well written branching story that doesn't seem unnecessarily padded with player busywork to give the illusion of choice.

Ideally, a good RPG or adventure game should have a skillful mix of both.

Vampire:The Masquerade:Bloodlines is a good example. The main arc is scripted and the player is going to be taken through the four main acts. However, the player is presented a fair amount of variation on how to proceed through that arc. Some if that depends on the type of vampire as which one decides to play, some on direct choices made in the game.

I've played this game at least four times. And while the main scripted story is the same, each gaming experience has been different enough to make the replay seem fresh and new.

 

[Lavaeolus]

Both can work depending on how you do them. There's a lot of focus on choice, recently, and while I don't have anything against choosing, I don't think it's inherently important to a game. I think the important thing is, if you're going linear, you do not just have a painfully long unskippable cutscene that the story is basically entirely told through. If you do this, I will never forgive you.

 

[Aerosteam]

Hybrid between the two.

There's a clear storyline with an end goal, but at certain points you can make your own decisions, such as:

Sneak in or purposely get captured?
Set traps or create a blockade?
Have the smaller decoy group attack the front entrance or vice-versa?

All of these are decided by your character, so you're engaged in the story, but in the end it'll achieve the same goal so the writers don't have to consider tons of conditions that'll be a nightmare to bring altogether in the end.

 

[Pyrian]

Branching stories are hands-down more difficult to accomplish. A well-done branching story can be a better experience than any linear story, but in practice most linear stories are better than most branching stories.

It's important to remember, as a game writer, that just because you're branching the story, doesn't mean you get to ignore literary conventions. They're there for a reason and you ignore them at your peril.

 

[Something Amyss]

No middle option? Because the problem is I generally don't see much difference, if at all with "branching" stories (which, btw, are still scripted). 99% of games are as linear as those walking simulators everyone seems to hate.

 

[Fox12]

They both have their advantages. Straight narratives tend to be more structured, whereas branching paths let you feel the consequences of your actions.

The only problem I have with branching stories is that the decisions are usually illusions, and it ends up being a straight narrative anyway. Or a character that was supposed to die earlier is still alive, so he magically stops talking, because the developers didn't want to pay the VA. I think this problem will get better with time, but if a studio can't afford to make a game that really branches, then they're better off just telling a straight narrative.

 

[loa]

It's not so much about "branching" a storyline but more about the game acknowledging what I do, that's what I want.

Not attacking a boss doesn't have to result in a completely different path where he's now your friend or something but it would be nice if the game still reacted to HOW I PLAY instead of using gameplay as a vehicle to put me in and move forward between predefined cutscenes.

For example in metal gear rising, you can actually play without killing anyone yet the game doesn't really care and sam will still hold his ham-fisted "no raiden, you are the monsters, you kill all of the peoples" monologue.
Just a tiny little "I see what you did there" without even really altering how the story plays out would have gone a long way.

Like the "sneaking" parts that result in different dialogue if you actually somehow manage to be sneaky. More of that.
It's so rare.
Why is that so incredibly rare nowadays?

 

[Totenkreuz]

I enjoy as many choices I can get from a game and branching plots, for me, gives a large portion of that. I have even found that if there aren't any choices to be made in a game then I will probably not enjoy it at all.

Cheers.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Oh, and "open ended" or "player driven" stories, like in Bethesda games, aren't stories at all. They're just a sequence of disconnected events, most of which will just consist of killing lots of mooks. That's like throwing a bucket of marbles in a washing machine and calling the resulting series of movements a story. "Then the green marble bounced off the catseye marble and straight into a black marble! The thrill!"

this was a great comparison, I'll have to remember this in the future if this sort of discussion comes up IRL, thanks for the chuckle.

OT: I lean towards linear/scripted, just because the dev's hopefully have some sort of vision, and I prefer a tighter story vs player freedom, I get more immersed that way and tend to want to keep playing the game, while games that give me more freedom I tend to play only in smaller doses and I'm lucky if I even finish after I've run out of wanderlust for the game.