How Game Design Improved My Writing

Three Guiding Questions for Creating Meaningful Choices for Your Characters

As a video game narrative designer, I don’t touch game design much at my company. The development team typically requests the narrative content they need from me. Sometimes, I’m asked to design an entire star system for a sci-fi universe. Other times, I receive a document filled with character concept art, and I have to write personalities and back stories for each character. While my work directly affects the player’s experience, it doesn’t usually impact how the game is played.

Since I don’t do much work with game design at my day job, I’ve been self-studying it with MIT’s free online course. To my surprise, this course has actually improved my scene-level writing. Game design is all about creating meaningful choices for the player. Whether it’s a board game or a video game, player choice is structured like this:

• The player makes a decision.

• The game presents a consequence.

• This consequence gives the player new information.

• The player makes their next decision.

The decisions that drive a game cannot be arbitrary. They must be meaningful. The same goes for storytelling. Effective stories create meaningful decision points for their characters.

Here are three guiding questions to help you create meaningful choices in your stories.

Creating Meaningful Decisions

1. How does the protagonist’s choice directly impact the overall state of the story?

In game design, a decision impacts the overall state of the game if a concrete thing outside of the player changes. An arbitrary decision would be choosing your character’s hair color whereas a meaningful choice would be choosing which follower to use on a quest.

In storytelling, arbitrary decisions only impact the protagonist. Meaningful decisions impact the other character’s ability to fulfill their concrete, external goals. For example, a story might give its protagonist a choice between walking to school or driving to school. If this decision does not impact another character’s goals, it’s arbitrary. One way to make this decision meaningful is to establish that the protagonist's sister needs the car to pick up a birthday cake for her best friend. If the protagonist takes the car before their sister can get the cake, then that decision is meaningful because there will be consequences for the protagonist’s actions.

Ask yourself: how does the protagonist’s choice in this scene affect the other characters in the story?

2. What ripple effect does this choice have throughout the story world?

In games, a decision is not meaningful if it only affects the player’s performance or abilities. An arbitrary decision would be selecting a car in Saints Row: The Third, but a meaningful decision in this game would be deciding between saving your best friend, Shaundi, or killing your worst enemy, Killbane.

While working on a scene in your story, ask yourself:

1. What is the protagonist’s short-term goal in the scene?

2. What actions does the protagonist need to take to fulfill their goal?

3. How does fulfilling their goal prevent another character from fulfilling theirs?

4. What is the consequence if the protagonist succeeds?

5. What is the consequence if the protagonist fails?

6. How does the protagonist’s choice influence the rest of the story?

7. What are the short-term effects of the choice? 

8. How might this choice lead to long-term effects?

3. How does the protagonist know that their decision directly impacted the world?

In games, players need to receive feedback to know that they’ve made a meaningful decision. Game designers often ask themselves: how does the game respond to the player’s choice?

As a writer, I do the same: how do the other characters respond to the protagonist’s choice?

When talking about feedback in gameplay, I like to use Skyrim as an example. If I draw my bow in Whiterun, and a guard says, “Guard might get nervous, a woman approaches with her weapon drawn.” This line of dialogue gives me feedback that I have made a choice, but this choice is not meaningful because this decision (1) doesn’t impact the overall state of the game and (2) doesn’t have a ripple effect in the world.

But this choice still gives me new information. I learn that the guards respond to my actions, so I have to make my next choice. Do I put the bow away or do I fire it? Let’s say I decide to shoot a random passerby with the bow. The game responds to my choice by having all of the guards attack me. Deciding to shoot someone in Whiterun is a meaningful decision because of its:

1. Direct Impact: I gain a bounty and all guards are now hostile to me.

2. Ripple Effect: If I leave Whiterun and come back, guards will try to arrest me.

3. Feedback: I cannot enter Whiterun without being attacked.

When it comes to storytelling, the protagonist’s decisions are meaningful if they have:

1. A direct impact that disrupts another character’s progression toward their external goal.

2. A ripple effect that has long term consequences in the story.

3. Feedback that demonstrates how the protagonist’s relationship with the other characters has improved or worsened because of this choice.

Just like in game design, arbitrary choices give your story texture, but stories are most effective when meaningful choices are at the core of their structure. 

Author’s Note: I originally wrote some of this content a few months ago and posted it on Twitter under the pseudonym GideonGameDev as a content creation experiment. The experiment failed, but I wanted to repurpose it for this blog.

Recap

How to Create a Meaningful Choice in a Story

• A protagonist’s decision is meaningful if it impacts the other character’s ability to fulfill their goals.

• Meaningful decisions have consequences that ripple throughout the rest of the story.

• Meaningful decisions also improve or worsen the protagonist’s relationship with the other characters.

• The following guiding questions can help you create meaningful choices in your story:

  • How does the protagonist’s choice in this scene affect the other characters in the story?

  • What ripple effect does this choice have throughout the story world?

  • What is the protagonist’s short-term goal in the scene?

  • What actions does the protagonist need to take to fulfill their goal?

  • How does fulfilling their goal prevent another character from fulfilling theirs?

  • What is the consequence if the protagonist succeeds?

  • What is the consequence if the protagonist fails?

  • How does their choice influence the rest of the story?

  • What are the short-term effects of the choice? 

  • How might this choice lead to long-term effects?

  • How do the other characters respond to the protagonist’s choice?

  • How does the choice improve or worsen the protagonist’s relationship with the other characters?

If you’re interested in an in-depth craft lesson on creating decision points for your characters, check out our lesson on crisis decisions.

What are some meaningful decisions you’ve seen in video games, novels, or movies? What meaningful decisions are you working on in your own stories? Have any unexpected experiences taught you something new about storytelling? Tell me all about meaningful decisions and the non-obvious ways you’ve improved your writing craft:

See you next week,

Kat