Constrained vs. Unconstrained Narrative Philosophy in Western RPGs

Exploring the philosophies of narrative design in cRPGs.

When I was young I divided the games I played into two categories: the ones where I could kill everyone (including my friends) like Halo: Combat Evolved and Fallout; and the ones where I could only kill people when I was allowed to kill them (including my enemies), like Knights of the Old Republic and Metal Gear Solid. My preference was for the former. To this day I still try to murder everyone I come across in video games, just to see if the designers will let me get away with it.

These categories applied to "narrative games," specifically cRPGs, I think of this today as the Constrained versus the Unconstrained narrative: the sandbox, where agency rules; or the highway, where any path will lead to Rome. As a child I would have instead called this the BioWare vs. Obsidian dilemma, and although unnecessarily restrictive categories, these two developers provide the most useful examples for analyzing how and why differing RPGs do what they've set out to do.

A Case Study

Both Fallout 2 and Dragon Age: Origins have clear end-points: defeat the Enclave and slay the Archedemon, respectively. These two games are both cRPGs and generally considered to be of the same genre, and are two of the mostly highly regarded games in that genre. But their approaches to reaching this end-point could not be more different. They are galaxies apart.

BioWare

No matter what decisions the player makes throughout the course of Origins, the overall journey will remain the same. Every playthrough hits the same beats, outside of the prologue, even if the content of those beats varies wildly. The player will go to Redcliffe, to Orzammar, to the Circle of Magi, and to the Elves, before ultimately heading to the Landsmeet. The order can vary, but each event must occur. This is the Constrained philosophy of narrative design.

The Constrained philosophy is plot-driven and character-focused. It is about telling a specific story, rather than allowing the player to tell his own story. Every game is necessarily constrained to a certain degree, as narrative games are finite. True unconstrained design is only possible in tabletop RPGs. What I refer to here is intent rather than the objectively concrete.

Origins is unconstrained in a number of ways. Choices feel as though they matter. The player is often permitted to make decisions that feel spontaneous and change the outcome of the narrative significantly, such as refusing the Dark Ritual and dying for it. But he can only reach the end of the game by following the course set out by the designers. He cannot beat Origins without recruiting every faction first.

Obsidian

In Fallout 2, the player's mission is to retrieve the GECK. The game does not care how he does this. It does not tell him how to do this. The journey's course is irrelevant: it is his decision, as a player, how to reach the end of the game. When it's revealed that the GECK doesn't matter because Arroyo has been destroyed, the philosophy of the design still hasn't changed. The player's goal has shifted toward the Enclave, but how he goes about defeating the Enclave is up to him.

The end of Fallout 2 is still linear. As far as I know there's only one way to get the credits to roll. It is constrained in this sense. But everything between the beginning of the game and the final sequence is completely optional. The player could kill everyone, or he could speedrun to the tanker; it makes no difference to the game at large (although some courses are obviously more optimal than others).

The Unconstrained philosophy is player-driven and setting-focused. It is about sandboxes and emergent storytelling, rather than characters or well-paced stories. Fallout epitomizes the Unconstrained philosophy, even the less-than-spectacular Bethesda titles. These games possess constrained components via their individual quests, but in general allow players to solve problems in a broad variety of ways--including genocide.

Fallout 2's options for solving the Gecko powerplant problem are constrained. There are only a handful of solutions. Yet these on-paper constrained solutions work hard to feel like they're the only solutions that make sense for this given problem. And if the player doesn't feel like repairing the reactor, he can opt to kill everyone instead--at any point, whenever he desires. In fact he can do this to solve any quest and any problem at any point in the game. In summary, the player can beat Fallout 2 without ever bothering with any narrative, listening to any dialogue, or solving anyone else's problems. He does have to hit a number of beats along the way, but these are most often presented as necessary steps: of course the PC needs to get a boat before he can get to an off-shore oil rig. The best Unconstrained RPGs do this elegantly, so that the player never notices.

Again, it must be stressed that even Fallout: New Vegas, which is without doubt the most Unconstrained game ever made, still possesses a finite amount of content. It cannot be entirely reactive. This is an impossibility. But when contrasted with the Constrained philosophy, the differences become clearer: Dragon Age: Origins does not explain to the player why he cannot commit genocide to solve the problems of the dwarves in Orzammar. In some cases the game permits this approach, as with the Circle of Magi and the elf curse questline, but these actions all require permission first and foremost. There may indeed be implicit reasons why killing Lord Harrowmont is not a valid solution to the dwarf succession crisis, but there is no objective reason in the mechanics why the player isn't allowed to kill all of the dwarfs, as he could in a Fallout game.

The reasons are, of course, obvious. Killing the dwarfs does not necessarily lead to an alliance being formed. Failing to achieve an alliance would too radically alter the game's outcome and change the story the writers have set out to tell. Therefore it is not a valid option.

Because Origins is a roleplaying game in which we're asked to assume the role of a Gray Warden, and thus required to roleplay in ways that fit the character, we don't necessarily notice that there are certain actions we are forbidden to take, even if said actions make sense in other situations. This is because BioWare's writers did an excellent job constructing their game's narrative.

I want to stress that neither philosophy is inherently better than the other. Each has benefits and detriments. I would say, in general, Constrained games do a better job with pacing and characters, as their relative linearity permits better character development, while Unconstrained games are more immersive and allow for more roleplaying opportunities.

A Constrained game in which the writers have not been careful--such as Dragon Age II--can become very frustrating if the range of permitted behaviors appears arbitrary. Likewise, in an Unconstrained game, if the player slaughters Caesar's Legion and no one seems to notice, he will likely be very frustrated. Down that path lies ludonarrative dissonance.

A Few Examples

The first litmus test for deciding which category a game should be placed within is that which I used to introduce this essay: can the player murder whoever he feels like murdering?

In general, the more he's allowed to murder everyone and get away with it, the less Constrained the game. Obsidian's games in general tend to follow the Unconstrained philosophy, and as such very rarely prevent the murder of important NPCs. Fallout: New Vegas, both Pillars games, and Outer Worlds all permit genocide, to varying degrees. Morrowind and Fallout 3 both do a decent job in this regard. Fallout 4 and Oblivion try in places and do okay. Skyrim is a catastrophe and Constrained in all but clothing, as the player is permitted to stab any NPC to death...only for them to get back up two seconds later. BioWare games, meanwhile, and RPGs in that vein, haven't allowed the player to go on unconstrained killing sprees since the days of Baldur's Gate 2.

The second question I pose is: can the player b-line it to the end of the game, if he wants to and knows where to go?

This is a test that all BioWare games fail. However, Bethesda's Fallout titles, and TES to a lesser extent, receive a pass--nothing is stopping the Lone Wanderer from running straight to Three Dog and getting the story underway in Fallout 3. Prey passes both this test and the previous with high marks.

The ability to ignore content and rush to the conclusion is the most significant factor in determining whether or not a game is Constrained. This is because the quality of constraint is all about how concerned the game is with developing its characters and using pacing to tell its story. These are obviously not possible if the player is going to ignore all side content and finish the game in thirty minutes. Constructing a game that is Unconstrained, therefore, requires an entirely different mentality: Morrigan's arc would not work for an NPC in Fallout 2, even though she works brilliantly in Dragon Age: Origins.

Conclusion

Constraint exists on a spectrum. Fallout 4 is highly constrained in most of its content, but it still permits more leeway in its overall approach to narrative than Mass Effect 2. This does not mean Fallout 4 is a better game than Mass Effect 2. Instead, I suggest that there are foundational differences in the philosophical approaches of the designers. Identifying those differences can give us language to better understand what designers are trying to do while analyzing their titles, and also permit designers to better understand what they themselves are doing when working on games.

After all, it's an important question for a developer to ask himself. What kind of a game is he making? Is it a sandbox or is it story-driven? Is it one where the player can kill everyone or will some NPCs be immortal? Will the player be able to finish the storyline before the end of the first act, or will he be required to hit certain beats first?

The answers to each question do not matter. All that matters is the intent behind the design at large. Constrained and Unconstrained RPGs can both be excellent for different reasons. But a game which doesn't know what it is results in Skyrim: Unconstrained in appearance, but utterly linear in practice. A sandbox two inches deep. An ocean with the depth of a puddle. It's only through this confusion of intent that bad design can come into being.