In previous articles, I’ve expressed how conflict is necessary to a story within a game, and yet without a resolution to the conflict, the story becomes stagnant. I’ve also expressed that describing how to resolve conflict within a story without ending the story is a topic that could occupy a whole article, so here goes.
Why conflict revolution rather than resolution? Because, unless the game has a predetermined closing date, the characters involved (in most cases) will continue, and once one conflict is resolved; without another to take its place, the character’s story becomes stale. Life goes in cycles. For people, real or virtual, who don’t cease to exist once the last proverbial page is turned, there is no happily ever after. Life continues, and so does RP. The key to conflict resolution in MU* is taking into consideration that every end is a beginning, and looking closely at how the conclusion of one chapter leads into the start of another.
Understanding Conflict
Conflict is opposition, either to a character’s situation or self. It isn’t always one person against another, though that is a reasonable source of conflict in RP. However, conflict can take many forms. Poverty can be conflict to a character struggling to make ends meet. Wealth can be conflict to a character alienated from the ‘common man’ who resents the privileges the character enjoys because of his or her station. A conflict of politics or ideology can cause two characters to not see eye to eye, and to come into opposition against one another. Conflict is the obstacles that keep a character from attaining his or her goals. Whatever form conflict takes, it’s what keeps the character from doing what he or she wants, or being who he or she wants to be.
To understand the nuances of conflict in a character’s life, the player first has to recognize what the character’s motivations and objectives are. What does the character want that the character doesn’t already possess? Next, determine why the character doesn’t possess them. Taking an example, let’s say the character Joe wants to become a Knight. The reason he isn’t a Knight already is that he hasn’t proven his worth. In order to prove his worth, he must slay a dragon single-handedly. The conflict here is pretty easy to understand: Joe wants to be a Knight, but the obstacle between himself and his objective is a few tons of fire-breathing scaly badness. Simple stuff.
Ambient vs. Immediate Conflict
Except that this isn’t the only conflict going on in Joe’s life. In a MU* environment, characters interacting with other characters cause many storylines to cross paths, and situations come up where the character’s long term goals must be set aside in order to resolve immediate problems. Let’s say Joe leaves the tavern one night and gets jumped by a group of brigands who outnumber him. Suddenly, that dragon-slaying thing isn’t foremost in his mind – getting past these villains alive becomes an unexpected yet pressing priority. This is an example of ambient vs. immediate conflict. Joe’s ambient conflict is this lofty goal with a harsh trial he must overcome before he attains it. His immediate conflict is the band of miscreants with daggers at his throat.
How does immediate conflict affect a story when it has nothing to do with the ambient conflict of a character’s day-to-day? Is it important, or is it a bunch of other characters wasting Joe’s player’s time? I would say it’s critical. How Joe handles the brigands is a taste of what’s to come when he confronts the dragon. The unexpected conflict, and the way Joe handles it, tests his mettle as a man. Does he have what it takes to be a staunch defender of the realm? What if the brigands beat him senseless, steal his stuff, and leave him for dead on the side of the road? Looks like Joe’s got a long way to go before he’s ready to face his hardest trial, and that leaves room for character growth. The resolution of this conflict has planted the seed of another, and the story’s cycle continues – providing Joe’s player doesn’t freak out OOC and scream retcon, but that’s a topic for another article.
Sitcom Syndrome
Immediate conflict is great for stirring up RP for a character who is still some distance from his or her long term goal, but eventually the well of ideas runs dry, and to keep a story going, something bigger has to happen. In a movie, where the story has a definitive end, this isn’t a problem. The big moment comes, the conflict is resolved, and the credits roll. MU* is more like a long-running TV series, though. There is no predetermined end, and the show runs as long as it continues to appeal to its audience. How many sitcoms die dismal deaths because they simply cease to be entertaining, because either nothing substantial ever happens, or things change to such a degree that the original show is barely recognizable? This can also happen in MU*, and this is why conflict resolution is important – the story has to go somewhere, or it fails to entertain, and entertainment is why we’re here.
Let’s say Joe has pulled himself out of the gutter, literally, and resolves to become a better warrior, so a band of brigands will never get the better of him again – not to mention that whole dragon thing, I mean if the guy gets his butt handed to him by a bunch of ruffians, what chance does he stand against a monster?. Anyway, he becomes a better warrior by going through the land doing good deeds. One day he saves a maiden from a dark lord, the next he takes on a goblin horde and wins. Day after day, he rescues someone, fights something, does a good deed, and he’s quickly becoming Knight material, yet he still hasn’t gotten a chance to face the dragon. Without a shot at the greater goal, the small-scale heroics are going to get boring. Okay, so Joe could become a jaded alcoholic and spend his time drinking in the tavern, but that wouldn’t make a very good story, and I doubt the RP would be stellar. Unless some other long term goal comes along to replace his dreams of Knighthood, he’s eventually going to have to go for it.
This is good. Without a chance of achieving a character’s long term goals, why even have them? The downside is that once the character achieves a long term goal, what happens next? Will the character still be playable if this thing he or she has yearned for is finally attained? What if the character fails, and the long term goal is forever lost? The problem with resolving ambient conflict is that it changes everything. Succeed or fail, the end result is that after this point, the character is going to be forever altered. The best advice I have is to expect this from the outset, and plan for ways to make a character playable in this new phase of his or her life. Plan on having new long term goals, because without them there are no obstacles, and without obstacles there is no conflict, and without conflict, there is no story.
So Joe defeats the dragon – bully for him, he’s a Knight. Now what? Well, he could kick back and enjoy the perks, but that wouldn’t keep the story going, would it? He’ll need another long term goal. What will keep him pressing ever onward, with new adventures to entertain and amuse? Let’s say that, once he earns his spurs, Joe notices that the Knighthood is rotting from within from the corruption of its higher ranking members. Joe has worked so hard for this goal, and now it’s tarnished by the evil deeds of selfish men who have forsaken their vows of honor in favor of personal gain. He now has a new long term goal – to purge the Knighthood of its corruption. This isn’t the end of Joe’s story at all; why, it’s barely the beginning. This is conflict revolution – the resolving of one conflict and the presenting of another.
Now What?
This is all well and good, but how does one apply it to a game? Joe’s player obviously can’t do this alone. It takes the cooperation of other players to provide reasonable conflict (while pursuing their own stories), and the foresight of staff to provide a game world in which there is a chance for conflict to be resolved successfully while leaving the door open for future stories. If the Knighthood isn’t designed to be rotting from within because of the corrupt of its higher-ups, then the opportunity for the continued story isn’t there to pursue, and the player’s best efforts won’t change that.
As a game developer, my approach to this is to take just about everything in my game world that is bright and shiny and to somehow ruin its perfection. There is no organization in my game world untouched by human greed, no politician without a skeleton in the closet, and no institution that isn’t in some way flawed by virtue of the fact that people are flawed, and people are in charge. It is something a game’s staff must consider in development, and carry through into the actual lifespan of the game. Build it into the very foundation of your setting, and while you should give the players opportunities to really change things, always keep in mind that nothing is ever perfect. As a developer, you control the other some-odd billion people in the world who aren’t PCs. Use them. Give your player base adversaries that rival each character’s station in life, so that no matter how high one ascends, there’s always someone there to make life difficult. Give your players something to do – it’s that simple.
As a player, my approach is to keep the spirit of cooperation alive. Bear in mind that your story is not the only one being told, and that other players are just as invested in their own characters as you are in yours. Your life is all about you, but the MU* isn’t. While it’s a great thing to have long term goals for your character, those goals come with absolutely no guarantee of success. Don’t get your heart set on something so much that, if IC conflict prevents it from happening, the character is unplayable. What if Joe fails to defeat the dragon and somehow doesn’t get eaten? He’ll never be a Knight, but maybe he becomes a freelance hero instead, discovers the Knighthood’s corruption, and attacks it from the outside. It’s not what the character wanted, probably not what the player planned, but it’s still a chance for the story to continue.
Be flexible, accept what comes in all fairness, and try to see beyond the resolution of the current conflict into what may come next. A little forethought and self-awareness can go a long way, so can OOC cooperation. Hey, I never said it was easy. I just said it was possible.
