This document discusses how choice and moral design are implemented in interactive storytelling, using the Mass Effect video game trilogy as an example. It explains that storytelling allows us to understand others, and video games add interactivity and choice. Choice can affect the representation of the story world/characters or the unfolding of events/message. Mass Effect offers choices in character creation/class, narrative path, dialogue, and moral dilemmas throughout the games that shape the overall story experience. By empowering players with meaningful choices, games can engage users in co-authoring the narrative to a degree not possible in other media.

1. Choice and Moral Design
in Interactive Storytelling
Nelson Zagalo, Universidade do Minho
http://nelsonzagalo.googlepages.com
Universidade Aberta, Silves 18 July 2014
Seminar at Doctoral Program on Digital Media Arts

2. Storytelling is a communication model, and one the best ways to understand the world
around us, because it allows us to understand the Other, feel the Other, and feel for the
Other. Storytelling permits us to understand community moral values.
Videogames use this model adding the novelty of interactivity, which in essence means
adding choices to the communication model.
Storytelling and Interactivity

3. Game
Narrative
Story
Form
Linear
Non-linear
Choice means the power to act upon, to change, modify and transform according
to own motives.
Multilinear
Emergent
Branching
Interactivity and Choice

4. Message
Choice can give us the opportunity to interact with the representation of
the story (world and characters) or with the message (events unfolded).
Multilinear
Emergent
Branching
Choice has different approaches
The Last of Us (2013)
Fallout 3 (2008)

5. Mass Effect Trilogy (2007-2012)
Trilogy trailer

6. Form
1. Manipulation – Appearance, Genre, Skill
2. Navigation – Mode, Perspective, Plot
3. Participation – Morality, Dialogue
Message
4. Multilinear - Character Story
5. Emergent - Sidequests plus
6. Branching - Moral Decisions
“Mass Effect” choice deconstruction

7. Mass Effect - Manipulation
Appearance and Genre

8. Mass Effect - Manipulation
Skills, actions, power, arms and squad

9. Mass Effect – Navigation (Mode)
Casual – Story : The combat levels of enemies are scaled down based on player
level. Most enemies have no special protection or immunities. Story oriented.
Normal – RPG: The combat levels of enemies are scaled based on player level,
but Bosses are scaled up based on the player level. Some enemies have special
protection. Game and story mixed.
Veteran – Action : The combat levels of enemies are scaled up. Most enemies
have special protection. Game oriented.

10. Mass Effect – Navigation (Perspective)
Third-person view
I see the world
I see my character
I see the world as my character see

11. Mass Effect – Navigation (Plot)
Citadel Citadel
Feros
Noveria Therum
Virmire Ilios
Mass Effect Plot Structure

12. Mass Effect - Participation
Paragon: become a shining
example of the best of humanity,
a compassionate, heroic person.
Renegade: can be brutal and
calculating person who stops at
nothing to get the job done.
Permits the receptor to participate in
the definition of the tone of actions
taken. In the long run can affect also
the story message.

13. Mass Effect - Participation
Friendly
Hostile
Move on
Charm to
know more
Intimidate to
know more
Investigate
more subjects
Mass Effect
Dialogue Wheel

14. Mass Effect - Multilinear
A. Pre-service
History
Spacer
Colonist
Earthborn
B. Psychological
Profile
War Hero
Sole Survivor
Ruthless
C. Class
Soldier
Engineer
Adept
Infiltrator
Vanguard
Sentinel

15. Mass Effect - Multilinear
1.1 Spacer: Shepard was raised on ships and space
stations by his Alliance soldier parents.
1.2 Colonist: Shepard grew up on Mindoir, a colony
which eventually gets attacked by Batarian slavers.
1.3 Earthborn: Shepard grew up an orphan on the
streets on Earth.
A. Pre-service History

16. Mass Effect - Multilinear
2.1 War Hero: Shepard, at one point, risked their life
to save fellow soldiers, and single-handedly dealt
with a Batarian attack on Elysium.
2.2 Sole Survivor: Shepard's unit fell to a thresher
maw attack on Akuze, leaving Shepard to fight for
survival against all odds on his own.
2.3 Ruthless: A pragmatic, brutal Shepard once sent
most of their unit to their death, then killed a group of
surrendering Batarians on Torfan.
B. Psychological Profile

17. Mass Effect - Multilinear
3.1 Soldier: The Soldier is a tough warrior, able to deal with a range of
combat situations. The Soldier gets improved health, has the widest
selection of weapons, and is eventually able to wear heavy armor.
3.2 Engineer: The Engineer is a tech specialist, able to quickly and easily
manipulate the environment with specific talents.
3.3 Adept: The Adept is the ultimate biotic, able to affect the physical world
with the power of the mind.
3.4 Infiltrator: The Infiltrator is a tech-savvy warrior, able to win battles by
quickly disabling and killing enemies.
3.5 Vanguard: The Vanguard is a powerful combatant, able to combine
the offensive powers of the Adept and the Soldier.
3.6 Sentinel: The Sentinel is the most flexible class, able to combine tech
and biotics to manipulate the environment, disable and track enemies, or
defend the party.
C. Class

18. Mass Effect - Emergent
Mission side quests and the world
Prioritary, N7, Secondary, World

19. Mass Effect - Branching
1. The Rachni Queen (Noveria)
Let live or kill: The queen.
2. Zhu's Hope (Feros)
Let live or kill: Ethan Jeong, Colonists, Asari
3. Krogan disease (Virmire)
Convince or kill: Wrex
4. Parallel Mission (Virmire)
Let live and let die: Ashley or Kaidan
5. Final Battle (Citadel)
Convince or kill: Saren to suicide or to fight till
death
6. Final Battle (Citadel)
Let live or let die: Council
Moral decisions: Let live or kill,
Convince or kill, Let live and let die

20. Moral dilemmas
Moral dilemmas are
situations in which no
solution is satisfactory.
Crossroads defying
everyone trying to create
rules to decide what is right
and what is wrong, from
lawyers to philosophers…

21. Choice means to empower the receptor, to the limit of experimenting
with self moral values.
In movies you get to know the past, in games you get to decide the
future.
You don’t have someone telling you what happened, in order to help you
decide next time. You’ve to decide, try, go for it. It depends exclusively
on you.
That’s why playing through moral decisions in games, can become hard
on receptors, because we get that strange sensation of being lost, like in
real life.
The sensation is similar to movies, when we’re trying to predict what the
character will do, but then you pass it on the shoulders of the author.
In games we co-author the object of meaning, and that’s why
engagement reaches levels unattainable by any other art form.
Choice is Empowerment
Choose your own moral

22. Choice and Moral Design in Interactive Storytelling
Nelson Zagalo, Universidade do Minho
nzagalo@ics.uminho.pt
Universidade do Minho