You know, there, there is a tradeoff, um, between the author’s desire to tell a coherent story and the player’s desire for freedom and to do whatever they want to do. And it is absolutely the case that the more freedom you give the player the more possibility there is that the player will screw up or interf-, interfere with your predefined story. And, so, you are constantly as the designer trying to decide, well, how much freedom will I give the player? To what extent am I prepared to allow them to, to mess with my story and what areas am I going to sort of lock off to prevent them from interfering with because a player can create absurdities. You know, if you, if you destroy a car at, at time A in the story and it’s needed at time B, well, then when time B comes along the car’s gone, you know, and something is going to go wrong. Or it will suddenly and magically reappear, you know, and how did that happen? So, um, this is, this is an eternal tradeoff, but I realize that if the player cares about story, then the role is their's to enact. And if they want it to be consistent, then they actually have to take some personal responsibility for it. The role that they play is kind of the fulcrum of the balance between this, eh, you know, the author’s desire for control and the player’s desire for freedom. Um, if I choose to enact Hamlet, then I, I have agreed to be Hamlet, you know. With, with whatever that means say, okay, I can, I can enact Hamlet with greater or lesser degrees of freedom, but I know that if I screw around too much I will destroy the play. And that will be my fault. It will not be Shakespeare’s fault. So, uh, you know, that’s the way I, I see it is that, um, the paradox is, is kind of resolved by the player’s willingness to enact the role that they sign up for. And, uh, and, you know, w-, of course, as a designer there’s a great deal of work to do to make all this work. Um, but it’s, it’s not impossible and players do love stories in games. I mean, there’s, there’s a small number of game theorists out there who, who think that we should never try. Story should never be in games, you know. It’s impossible and hopeless and it's the wrong thing to do. I think that’s ridiculous. Players love stories in games and so why not figure out how to put them in?
