kienbui1995 Narrative Design
When to Use
When designing the story, world lore, characters, and dialogue systems for a game.
Core Jobs
1. Story Structure
Games aren't films — story must interweave with gameplay:
- Environmental storytelling: world tells story without cutscenes (notes, ruins, NPC behavior)
- Emergent narrative: player actions create their own story moments
- Authored narrative: scripted story beats at key moments Good games use all three. Great narrative games balance player agency with authored moments.
2. Character Design
Per character:
- Want: what do they actively pursue?
- Need: what do they actually need (often different from want)?
- Wound: what in their past drives them?
- Arc: how do they change (or don't) by the end?
Player character: be careful with agency — player agency and authored arc can conflict.
3. Branching Dialogue
Design principles:
- Meaningful choices: must produce different outcomes (not just different flavor text)
- Player expression vs player influence: sometimes branches express personality, sometimes they change outcomes — be clear which is which
- Convergence: branches that recombine need clear narrative justification
- Tools: Ink (by Inkle), Yarn Spinner, Twine for writing and testing
Document per choice node:
- The choice options (player-facing)
- What each selects for (tone, faction, stat)
- Consequence (immediate + long-term flags set)
4. Lore Architecture
- Build only what players will discover (unused lore = wasted effort)
- Layer: surface lore (visible to all), discoverable lore (for explorers), deep lore (for completionists)
- Consistency bible: world rules, timeline, faction relationships
Key Outputs
- Story outline (major beats, act structure)
- Character bibles (key characters)
- Dialogue script with branching (Ink/Yarn format)
- Lore consistency bible
Anti-Patterns
- Story delivered entirely through unskippable cutscenes
- Choices with no real consequence ("illusion of choice" players notice)
- Lore dumps in opening monologue
- Building lore that players will never encounter