How Valve Spins a Story
Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/03/03 – 00:00 -Recently the Internet has exploded about the Portal update. It got me thinking about how to keep a crowd interested in the gaming you’re creating. Valve is well known for their minimalistic story and refined style of play making for extremely enjoyable games. So what lessons can we take to our tabletop games?
Refine, Refine, Refine
I bought Orange Box when it came out and played Portal and Team Fortress 2 much like everyone else. While Portal was touted as the end all, be all, single player experience, but I found myself constantly coming back to TF2. Valve has been steadily releasing patches and class updates for the game refining the game since it came out. They’ve tweaked the classes gave them new styles of play and have kept their audience engaged in their game. As GMs we always want to tweak our games here and there. While this temptation should be allowed every once in a while pick your battles carefully. Make little changes at first and then play them out; then see where it takes you.
Go Big, just don’t tell anyone about it
One of the most intriguing things about the new Portal teaser is how quickly the fans begin to speculate. How quickly they craft the story around what they are seeing. The rumors build and build into a cascade of excitement. Use this to your advantage. Come up with an idea and tease at it in the background. Try not to give away more then you have to and let the players piece it together. If they are completely off base, run with it. It might turn into a grander tale then what you were looking to tell anyway.
Keep them Guessing
In recent play testing for our game I had a player that kept asking tons of questions about what was going on each bit more elaborate then the next. I played my cards close to my chest (we’ve seen this done before in previous testing) and let her go wild. The results were quite hysterical (they typically are). Valve does this by not answering questions about the story they are telling; it draws people in. Carefully keep your players on their toes and keep them guessing.
Who do you look to for story style inspiration?
Side Note: The Team Fortress 2 community is hilarious. As show in this hilarious Spy & Pyro video.
Tags: campaign planning, portal, story telling, team fortress 2, tyson j. hayes, valve software
Categories: Game Masters |
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