Some rambling about choice in TWD and other telltale games
Deltino
Moderator
Warning: this is a super long fucking post that's mostly made up of rambling. Rambling that is hopefully coherent enough for people to understand to some degree
So I've been thinking about this game, and the other current telltale games, specifically about the choices presented.
Now, one problem people have with choices is how it ultimately amounts, more or less, to the illusion of choice, rather than true diverging paths. And that's just the problem: people are expecting, when they hear the word "choice", that this will be some divergent narrative adventure. That choosing to go there instead of other there will change the direction of the story, that choosing to rob or kill that guy will cause huge consequences, or that saving that guy will create a giant ripple in the episodes to come.
It's less of Telltale aiming for divergent narrative, as much as it is personalized narrative. The idea of having choices where even if they ultimately converge back into one, the end result still feels unique, personalized and tailored to the player's choices.
When I think of personalized narrative like this, I think of such choices and elements such as: your relationship in S1 with Kenny, choosing to save Carley (for more specific reasons I'll get to in a minute), who decides to come with you at the end of Around Every Corner, and the opening of A House Divided depending on whether you went with Nick or Pete.
These choices in particular are some of what I believe to be the strongest examples of a personalized narrative. These choices really feel like they're actually tailoring the story for the player. In these cases, people can get truly unique results based upon their choices. You could be best buds with Kenny, you could be mid-ground with him, or you can be at complete odds with him. Now you layer that on top of who comes with you. It could be you and Kenny to the end, having only Ben come with you, cementing that relationship with him, having Kenny refuse to come, almost feeling like a betrayal, or having none of them come to help you. All of these can feel vastly different, and the fact that there's so many different ways the lines can be delivered based on your relationships sweetens the deal. Maybe Kenny completely hates you and refuses to come, or he feels enough respect to let you back on the boat if you get back alive. They're subtleties that really work well in making it feel like the player had some agency in how they got to that point. You still reach the same ending, but you feel like you reached the ending in a different way.
Nick and Pete are the perfect example of what I'm trying to say here. The episode does, as a base level, open up the same way with either of them. Are all the same story beats hit? Yes. You're stuck in a room with them, they're both depressed about something that happened, they both lament about various things, and you get the choice of either leaving them behind, or convincing them to come with you. It's the same basic concept, but it's delivered in such a different way, but also makes sense. It doesn't just feel like Nick staying behind is there because Pete did it too, it actually fits with Nick's characterization up to that point (his drunken stupor, compounded by his kind of death-seeker mentality he assumed in lieu of Pete's death, and well as a manifestation of personal guilt over various choices he himself has made). Basically, it's the same opening, but it's completely different in various ways. There's also a very distinctive tonal difference between the two openings. It makes it feel like Nick and Pete are not just the same basic character with a different coat of paint, it makes it feel like they are two unique individuals with their own distinctive story-branch.
Speaking of unique character/story branches, let's get into Carley (and no, not in that way. Get your mind out of the gutter, dammit) First things first, Carley is one of Telltale's best examples of utilizing a determinant character, in a multitude of ways. Above all, she opens up 2 unique branches/sub-plots as a direct result of saving her: the romantic sub-plot, and the discussion of your past, and ultimately, the decision to be honest with the group and open up to them. Now sure, you can say these don't really affect that much in the long run, but that's not the point. The point is what they provide in the moment, and how they serve to actually build upon and empower both the player, and the determinant character themselves.
For example: when you have to fight the reanimated David/Travis in Starved For Help, multiple people could kill them. If you saved Doug, Mark or Larry will ultimately dispatch the zombie, but if you saved Carley, she is the one who gets the honors. This seems like a small detail on the outside, but look past that: this is a determinant character, a character that doesn't have to be there, actively aiding the player and establishing a true presence in the story. It helps make Carley feel like she's not just some addition, that she's just there because you saved her, it makes her very much feel like this still readily involved in the story, and her specifically taking the role of what another character would do if she wasn't there really helps strengthen the player's relationship with her, while also proving, respecting, and rewarding the player's choice.
That's a choice right there that, while it does result in the same outcome (zombie attacks you, X kills it), provides the exact kind of outcome that these choices should be striving for. Making it feel like these choices are being respected by the game itself, and rewarding the players for choices, or possibly penalizing them for it (such as having no one deciding to come with you).
Let's take a look at Nick, who is on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to a determinant character: he's practically there, just because you saved him. You get an additional chance to speak to him, and he gets the occasional line here and there, but it's not enough to really establish him. It truly feels like he's only there because the player saved him; he doesn't feel like he's really part of your group, nor that he's even involved.
But what if you gave him the Carley treatment? It would fix an incredible portion of the problems.
When you're sitting around the campfire, discussing the herd idea, you have Sarita and Mike actively pitching ideas, right? Why not make it so Nick, if he's alive, does this instead of them? Have him be the one to suggest using the PA system to draw the walkers, or have him take Mike's place in arguing against Kenny about the plan. Substitute him for these scenes. You already have the scene working fine without him, now all you have to do is make it work with him.
Imagine if during a walker attack, if Nick was alive, he saves you from a walker, while Luke or Kenny or someone else would if he wasn't there. Sure, the walker dies either way, and someone else gets the credit, but what matters is that, in that moment, Nick's the one getting the credit. He's the one saving your ass. And that goes a long way in the minds of players.
But to move past characters, let's get back to the more general choices. To exemplify what I'm trying to get at next, I'm going to use a fairly major outcome from The Wolf Among Us, so spoiler warnings for that:
Let's look at how we can make a major choice, with different outcomes, still arrive at the same ending without undervaluing the player's choice(s) that led them there.
You have the trial for the Crooked Man. This is the big one; where all those past choices come back to haunt you, where all the people you beat up or killed finally play an integral role. It's the evolution of the stranger confrontation from S1 of The Walking Dead.
Except that it isn't. If you bring the Crooked Man back alive, even if you played it as the worst possible piece of shit, you still win the crowd, the crooked man gets his comeuppance, and Nerissa still treats you like you're the good guy after having the Crooked Man show all the gleaming hypocrisy of your decisions and poking all manners of holes in your arguments, then after deciding to rip his head off right in front of everybody.
So what does this accomplish? Well, it accomplishes one thing; getting everyone to the same ending. But the execution here can be seen as rather sloppy.
Now let's look at elements of what happens if you don't bring the Crooked Man back alive. A lot of the fables actively turn against you here, and they start to question you and your decisions more. You can actually lose the support of damn near everyone in this scenario. The only problem is, without the Crooked Man being alive, this lack of support amounts to practically nothing.
But what if you combined elements of both of these outcomes? Here's an example:
Bringing back the Crooked Man alive plays out as normal. The trial proceeds, yadda yadda yadda. But here's where things get interesting: his points hold water. Instead of the crowd always being won over, you can actually lose the support of the community, having them side more with the Crooked Man than they do you. When he brings up points against you, like killing Dum, or abusing Woody/Dee, people really start to look at you in a negative light.
This trial backfires on you, and as a result, you actually feel the weight of your actions on your shoulders. Ultimately, the Crooked Man would still be arrested and punished, but this time around, the player doesn't get to make that choice himself, and you're practically ushered out of the room by the others. Shunned from the trial. Treated as the asshole. Essentially, the Crooked Man succeeds in turning the tables on you in this scenario. He might be heading to "jail", but he still won at the end of the day. Afterwards, Nerissa will express disappointment, partially at you, and partially at the community. She'll still give Bigby credit where it's due, that he ends up being one of the only people there that sees the Crooked Man for what he is, and that she's glad he got some kind of comeuppance, even if he deserves more. Ending plays out as normal.
Not only is this giving a player agency and making it feel like their choices had a profound effect on the story, but it also provides the perfect punishment for the player: the bad guy does get away with it. How infuriating is it when you read the news, and some asshole that murdered people or raped someone manages to manipulate and cheat his way through the system, managing to get his sentence reduced or changed entirely? It's that thing that makes your blood boil, and that would make for the perfect way to end a detective noir-style story. You don't just 'crack the case' and that's the end of it, you crack it real shittily, and the bad guy almost manages to get away with it, and practically looks more like a good guy than you do.
This already delivers a lot of agency to the player, and also provides unique punishments based on your choices throughout the series. If you did play the asshole, it really does work against you, and quite actively. But the important thing, is that it still provides the room for the story to conclude just the same way it would have if you did play nice, and did get the community to side with you (it plays out as normal if you won the crowd, with you ultimately getting the decision to choose his fate/punishment yourself this time).
We get all the things the ending required: the Crooked Man gets some form of comeuppance and doesn't get away scot-free, the consequences of previous choice come back to haunt the player, but yet you aren't completely the bad guy in all of it. Nerissa still likes you and sides with you, and the ending still plays out just like it does. However, instead of funneling all the players into the same ending, they get different shades of it: one person can be confident that they won over the community and was able to give him what he deserved (throwing him down the well, or possibly ripping his head off), while someone else who, while they did crack the case and save the day (relatively speaking), gets a much more bitter and harsh variant of it.
Now let's apply a smaller scale version of this to The Walking Dead. Let's take the infamous "choice" of robbing Arvo or not.
In this scenario, everything will play out as it does now, except the ending changes heavily here. Arvo doesn't randomly pop up in the distance and limp over to talk to you, playing bait for the rest of his friends. This time around, they just emerge from the trees without notice; a true ambush on you.
So now you got these random dudes pointing guns at you, and it's all tense as you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Then along comes Arvo, emerging from the trees. Immediately, he spots Clementine, and realizes that this is her group. Now the consequence of your choice to rob Arvo comes into play.
If you let him keep his meds, he'll start pleading with his group, attempting to convince them that you and your group are not that bad people, and that they showed him kindness and respect. If you robbed him, however, he'll resent you for it, and will readily go along with his group to rob you in return.
The situation would ultimately escalate into a shoot-out like it does, but the difference here is that while the same ending is achieved, it's achieved in a different way. Arvo isn't the straight villain in this confrontation any more: you are. Or neither of you are, and it's just a case of really bad circumstance. You didn't rob him, he respects your compassion and attempts to return the favor. The shootout is no longer Arvo's fault specifically, and he already starts to seem like a much more sympathetic character as a result. I bet half of the people here that hated Arvo stemmed from the fact that he just says "you fuckers robbed me (even though you didn't and i even thanked you straight up), now I'm gonna rob YOU"
Now imagine if you didn't steal the supplies, he recognizes that you're a good person, and he realizes that you don't deserve the treatment his group gives you. He tries to stop this shoot-out, he tries to vouch for both you and your group, people he barely even knows. You can't say you wouldn't at the very least sympathize with the kid if this was the case. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't his idea, and he tried desperately to stop it from happening. You can't really hold that against him, can you?
You get that shoot-out ending either way, but now, instead of making it feel like the players that didn't rob Arvo are just railroaded into a fight. Seriously, it's almost insulting the way it plays out now. It's like the game is actively saying "No! That wasn't the right choice! You were supposed to rob him!" It's not even making an effort to try and respect your decision, it outright casts it aside. But what's ridiculous is how easy of a fix it is. All you need to do is change up the dialogue and the set-up of that scene, and you can reach the same ending but with so much more player agency, grey morality, and personalized results. Telltale had an easy way out, but they chose an even easier and lazier way out when they designed the end of episode 4. All they truly needed were a few more recording sessions, and a small change to Arvo's characterization, and you have an ending that really does respect the players choices by the end of it, even if it has the same outcome for all players.
I guess to get to the bottom line here: Telltale's focus when it comes to the decisions in their games should be to truly live up to their signature message: The game story adapts to the choices you make, the story is tailored by how you play.
It's about the adaptation and tailoring. It's not about creating multiple different narratives that trickle down through the rest of the story, it's about making choices that are personally adapted and tailored to the player's choice. It's about making it so that even if you will always come to the same ending, it's actually a completely different ending at the same time. You still catch the bad guy, and he gets what he deserves, but the different is how you catch him, what you did to catch him, and what he gets versus what he deserved. And you're at the center of all of it. You either helped or hurt your case against him.
I don't know if anyone is fully catching the drift of what I'm saying, but I'm trying to point out that a lot of people look at Telltale's games the wrong way when it comes to decision-making, and that if we start looking at these choices using the right mind-set, we can see what the true problems of them are.
The problem is not arriving at the same ending as everyone else, the problem is arriving at the same ending in the same way as everyone else. You don't get varying degrees of an outcome based on previous choices, it's pretty set in stone. As in, even if you were a piece of shit of them, a character will still die liking you and thinking your their friend, even if you made it perfectly clear that you didn't like them at all. If the ending of S1, specifically some of Clem's last words were truly affected by your decisions, you'd be able to get a very different ending out of the same ending. If you were an asshole to a character right up to the moment they die, they'll die damning you to hell, instead of providing the same canned death dialogue that remains the same for all players.
This is what Telltale needs to focus on achieving, and what they should strive for when they talk about choices and how they matter. They're so close to reaching that level of making choices carry so much more weight than they do, they just need to look in the right direction to figure out how to successfully tackle them in their future projects.
Comments
You make some excellent points. Regarding what you said about the Crooked Man trial in Episode 5, I agree with you that that would've added a lot more characterization if the people of Fabletown could actually determine with either the Crooked Man or Bigby depending on the choices, instead of automatically liking/hating Bigby depending on how he decided to handle the Crooked Man's fate.
My favorite choices.
I can only respond to your post with this;
I agree with almost everything you said in your argument, especially with the case of Arvo in Episode 4. Amid the Ruins is the only real episode of Season 2 I have a major gripe with, this episode had no illusion and several times, it was like the writers said, "Nope, you made the wrong choice here, this needs to happen," like with Sarah or Arvo. If they needed that to happen, why make it a choice in the first place? But going back to what you said with Arvo, I truly don't understand why Telltale couldn't have just had Arvo say something different if you didn't rob him. I understand that the attack needed to happen, but to have it play out exactly the same is bullshit, that's not tailoring the story to how I play. It would have been nice to have a different set up to that shootout, even if it happens all the same. Even Arvo having a different reason for attacking you ("I told them you were the ones who robbed me," or, "I told them that your group took my gun and threatened me.") would have made the scene 10x better, and it requires 5 seconds of extra work. But not only did it get past the main writers of the episode (Eric Stirpe and J.T. Petty), it got passed Mark Darin, Nick Breckon, Pierre Shorette, Dave Grossman, and the other guys who had additional writing credits on the episode as well as the actors, directors, other Telltale staff, and game testers. The fact that it was allowed to go completely unnoticed pisses me off and completely destroys the illusion.
As I was saying, I agree with almost everything you said in your argument, and I also loved your idea of TWAU trial scene, that would have been fantastic.
I really like this!
I concur