Disgaea DS has a fun little bonus for a “new game plus” playthrough. If you finish the main game and then start it again with the same save data, you not only keep whatever loot and levels you had, but you also get your own one-Prinny Greek Chorus commenting on the plot during cutscenes. It adds a fair dose of humor, and even a few nuggets of backstory.
Greek Choruses serve a few different purposes, shifting between exposition and explanation, interpretation and instruction, emphasis and education, even serving as pacing and distraction tools, making the stage play format work. Sometimes they tell us how to react if the script itself isn’t terribly clear. Sometimes they tell us things that aren’t apparent by the acting, like the inner thoughts of characters. They are a significant fudge factor, filling in the gaps in backstory and setting that aren’t always apparent when we are limited in time or technical aspects of a presentation.
Games aren’t plays, and games aren’t movies, but we can still benefit from some Greek Chorus mechanics. Sure, we’re often told as writers (especially in visual media) to “show, don’t tell”, but sometimes it actually is more efficient to tell. Sure, that pensive look on Oedipus’ brow shows the vast emotional range of the actor, but do all the viewers understand what’s firing in his synapses? Do they understand the context and circumstances that moved him to stare dramatically into the middle distance? A Greek Chorus can fill us in.
Perhaps it could be argued that those attending plays and actually paying attention do understand what the characters are thinking. There’s a certain level of interest and extracurricular preparation that avid playgoers indulge in. Perhaps that sort of interest and focus exceeds the modern gamer’s attention span. And yet, we do have examples of lore fans for something like WoW. Sure, it’s one thing to flash your Silmarillon or rattle off Aragorn’s lineage to establish Tolkien geek cred, but waxing philosophic about Malfurion Stormrage is another thing entirely. Some gamers do want to understand the worlds they play in, and certainly the devs have poured a considerable amount of effort into making them interesting and credible.
I believe that a world that has a credible backstory (recent history), a cohesive sense of logical rules for how the world behaves (“you can do magic here, but only if you’re not a Muggle”) and a real sense that it’s lived in (a well-plotted long-term history and a sense of progression from that history), as well as interesting characters, will naturally be a more wondrous place to visit than a ramshackle Potemkin village with a few shooter mechanics. This is especially true in RPG design. The trouble is that players may not always get to see all of this construction.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since getting lost in a Grand Quest to save the Duchess’ Long Lost Twin Brother who has The Key to the one and only Book of Doom (previously owned by the Big Bad’s mentor, and claimed as a reward for another quest chain) that you need to read to learn the password to the Lair of the Evil Eye (and so on) can be a rather tedious affair. Even so, if devs are writing their stories with a clear understanding of this underlying structure, the slice that actually gets presented can make more sense.
Devs need not hit players over the head with exposition to make their world interesting. Some devs tuck story away in optional tomes found in the game world (Planescape Torment apparently had hundreds of pages’ worth of story tucked away for investigative players), some use cutscenes (that players inevitably want to skip), some just rely on smart writing to pick up enough of the world to be interesting. When the depth of the setting and characters are left for the player to tease out on their own, those who are interested will find it, and those who just want to get on with killing ten rats will be able to do so.
Greek Choruses, or game characters that serve a similar function, can be valuable to making a world work by teasing out some of those details from within the game. Auron is a sort of Greek Chorus for Final Fantasy X. He’s a grizzled warrior who has history with the main romantic pair’s fathers. He’s walked the road Yuna and Tidus find themselves on, and takes several opportunities to wax philosophical about “telling stories”, and how his story is important, but the characters (and players, by proxy), must tell their own story. It’s his memories that serve to flesh out the world of Spira, told as vignettes relevant to the task at hand. (It helps that the story of FFX is a fairly cyclical one, to be fair.)
Auron’s story makes the world more believable, and gives the tasks the heroes undertake more emotional weight. The cyclical nature of the Big Bad, and how Auron dealt with the previous cycle, bear witness to the terror and gravity of the situation, and give the player more reason to push through with the wild plan concocted by Yuna. Her line in the sand, her effort to stop the cycle, makes a lot more sense when you understand what’s really at stake. The story gains more credibility and plausibility when we understand not only the present danger of wolves chewing on our intrepid team, but why we’re bothering with the grand operatic quest to Save The World in the first place.
The Prinny Chorus of Disgaea DS is considerably more tongue-in-cheek, but that’s the nature of the game in the first place. It’s still a great addition to the game, not only adding to the player’s understanding of the nature of Prinnies (a key plot element), but also letting us understand the other characters a little better. It’s notable that it’s a wholly optional aspect of the game, added simply to make the game world and story more entertaining and interesting. It has no direct bearing on the story, no mechanical relevance, and yet, it makes the game better.
Not every game can benefit from a blatant Greek Chorus character or mechanic, but if world and story are important to the game, it’s worth experimenting, trying to find ways to clue in the player to some of the context of the story. They can also stand in as a player avatar of sorts, reacting how a player might when they are only given a mute protagonist or a predefined story to play through. They can be a way to lampshade some of the more notorious oddities in a game story, since humor can go a long way to making dumb things look planned or interesting. They can call attention to Chekov’s Guns or other MacGuffins (or even be MacGuffins). They can bridge the gap between dev intent and player experience.
Presentations can be more persuasive with a Greek Chorus in the wings, or they can at least give the sense that something Important is happening, that You Should Pay Attention To. It’s almost an appeal to authority, where the Greek Chorus is presented as an authority on the game world who can relate to the player, while the protagonists can get on with their own concerns within the story. That need not always mean they are reliable sources of information (in fact, tweaking the expectation that they are trustable can be a fun experiment), but they do help sell the story.
Obama's Greek Chorus
Image shamelessly swiped from this article at Fox News… yeah, they are a bit rabid at times, but that’s the best picture I could find of this particular case of a modern Greek Chorus… which honestly creeps me out a bit. Call it the dark potential of a Greek Chorus; they can and do manipulate the reaction of the audience. Any tool that has power can be misused, standard disclaimer, etc. …
Still, when we (as devs) are trying to present something that we consider important, sometimes it’s nice to have a chorus backing us up. A Greek Chorus, a character or group of characters standing between the player and the dev, is another tool in the box for crafting an interesting narrative and a plausible world to put it in. It’s not always going to be the best tool, but it can be a valuable one.
Excellent description.
I love atmosphere, which is usually rather “shown than told”, to keep your lines.
On the other hand, a plot reaches another dimension when it’s written, rather than played. Of course, due to the fact, that writing and acting are different forms of mediation. Like people complaining about books that have been converted into movies.
Therefore I always asked myself, why Devs tend to be rather bad editors.
The problem is, that in most cases the Text in games are real masterpieces of art. But even as a thoroughly reader, I usually get to the point, were I am lost in the Plot of regional Story, Quest , Background History etc. Desperately trying to connect that Quest to the Leitmotif.
Most Quests are just Task. After you have read through the eleventh novel why those 10 rats must die, you will stop paying attention to the text. Even if you enjoy reading.
Besides the fact, that you are not paying attention to something, somebody probably spend a lot of time writing about, you might also miss the shrapnels of background information it contains or even miss the “important” leitmotif driving Quests.
So everything that makes that red line in a story become visible is wonderful, be it a Greek chorus or banning “Kill 10 Rats” to the notice-board, leaving the Log with “real” Quests.
Usiel, indeed, there really does need to be a way to work the storytelling in organically. A laundry list of critters to slaughter might be one stone in a great story arch, but far more often, it’s just a mindless time sink. Those can be fun, to be sure, but they can’t be expected to carry the weight of a story or worldbuilding.
Game mechanics and storytelling need to work in concert, and this is one tool to smoothing the rough edges that sometimes come up.
It’s also notable that a Greek Chorus can break the fourth wall with less consequence than if the main actors did so. They can be expected to throw in a little wink or nudge here or there; it’s part of how they work. This way, the author can deliver information that would otherwise break the narrative tone or pace. Some immersion is exchanged for greater clarity, which may be a good thing at times. (Though, as with the Auron example, it’s possible to have a character serve the function without breaking the fourth wall; each game will handle it differently.)
I always found the concept of developers or creators commenting on their work very interesting. It’s like watching a DVD with a commentary and listening to everything the actors and creators had to say about it.
Of course, it does raise that old question of who’s meaning is really the most important. Is the meaning of the author/creator more important than the meaning the user derives or interprets from it?
Look at the works of Shakespeare. We don’t actually know his true meaning behind his work yet we’ve concluded so much from it that may, or not may, be true and valid.
Not really sure. The Prinny is a greek chorus to give an alternate take on the story and provide humourous asides. You unlock him after you have beaten the game, and I think he can highlight a flaw of using it-it creates distance between the action and the reaction.
You wind up not identifying with the main characters, and instead the chorus, because they are the ones you spent the most time with. Point of prinny commentary is to hear what the Prinny says, not so much the story itself.
I think it is taken to its logical extremes in the plays “Rosencranz and Guildenstern are dead” or “Waiting for Godot.” You just have the greek chorus, but no actual main play-it happens offstage. It would be interesting to see though how it would work in the context of a game.
Gordon, aye, that’s a big concern, especially given the interactive nature of games. Just look at Braid, and how that’s been interpreted as opposed to how Mr. Blow wanted it to be interpreted. Authorial intent is a sticky topic in games. Greek Choruses are one way to assert that intent, but yes, you don’t always want that in a game. At least, not on the first playthrough…
Dblade, you’re absolutely right, the Prinny is a distraction and more of a “behind the scenes” bonus for playing a second time. Good call on the Rozencranz and Godot; it would be interesting to see if that sort of narrative could work in a game.