Ludonarrative Dissonance: Is it real? And if so is it bad?

I knew that, but when I did there was no comic. There is now.

There's been a bit of massive backlash against the term of late; Moviebob had a shot at it, Jim Sterling did, and at least a few others have of late. That said, I think most of them have missed the point.

It's true that the term has been used a bit loosely, even here on the Wiki. It's not just Gameplay and Story Segregation, at least, not as Clint Hocking originally defined the term. Rather, it's more specifically about when the gameplay directly counters the themes of the narrative. What particularly irritated Hocking was the way the 'twist' basically shoved the original dissonance into the player's face, mocking them for having gone along with it. That's a key point that gets missed a LOT: Hocking never minded the dissonance, he minded the way Bioshock used it.

I think Chris Franklin's probably written the best piece on LD yet, arguing that what's at hand are two very different concepts, and that most of the attacks are less about LD (which has a strictly different definition than the one the attacks seem focused on) and more about 'gameiness', the overt touches of gameplay that aren't really connected to the story. (Jim Sterling's critique, for what it's worth, is kind of close to the mark here: He criticises not the idea of LD, but the loose use of the term. Except that he then goes on TO misuse the term by bringing up the scrounging example in Bioshock Infinite as an example of LD. As an aside, I'd say Infinite is surprisingly LD free, perhaps the first game in the series to be!)

Either way, it's a bit sad to see a potentially useful term getting so demonised, rather than reformed and defined.

I will let Yahtzee describe Ludonarrative Dissonance in the form of a rhyme.

That's a fair point. However, there's a lot of forms that it can take. Even using your more narrow definition, it still applies to a lot of games.

Take Skyrim, for instance. The plot is centered around slaying dragons. However, one of the core gameplay mechanics is that you can build your character any way you want, including ways that are not optimized for actual combat. The narrative (you are The Chosen One, born to kill dragons) conflicts with the gameplay mechanics (you can play as a wandering alchemist, or a career thief, or a magical researcher, or...), and poof, we're back here again.

I'd like to add "Most MMO stories" to the discussion pile, and Final Fantasy XIV in particular since it's what I'm currently playing. I'm mostly enjoying the game to my surprise (as someone who doesn't care for most standard MM Os) so this ciriticm is mostly on the nitpick level, but in a game designed to be *multiplayer*, the storyline focuses a lot on you being the hero rather than one of many in a shared world. The people you meet along the main quest are routinely shocked that you've got the special magic phlebotinum, that you are the one who does the great deeds of the "save the world" quests. Heck, even in main story quests that you have to do as a party, the cutscene (which is done in-engine with your character's current appearance and the current game world day/weather conditions) doesn't even bother to show the other members of your party. I'm not expecting that they write unique content for each player but they could do a better job of acknowledging that while you may be special, you aren't a snowflake, and like as not you'll be working with other people, which is kind of the point of an MMO.

I think that can be generalized as one of the reasons that High Fantasy narratives (I use the term loosely, as it applies to stuff like The Old Republic as well) don't fit well with the MMO gaming model. The other reason, of course, is that the traditional outcome of said narratives (The Good Guys Always Win) doesn't mesh with the one-two punch of grind-based gaming and open-ended content that compromise most modern MMOs.

Both reasons, of course, are further examples of the sort of thing Hocking meant.

edited 19th Sep '13 1:53:26 PM by TotemicHero

I don't think that your Skyrim example is an example of Ludonarrative Dissonance. You're basically talking about going Off the Rails. That would only be an issue if the conflict was presented as a "if we don't act now the dragons will consume the world" and then the next step in the quest required you to frolic through fields catching butterflies and picking flowers.

Players have agency in games, and they often use that agency to flip off the themes and do their own thing. That's not LD. Games have to use abstraction to create interesting play, and sometimes the justification is too thin to maintain verisimilitude. That's also not LD.

Ludonarrative Dissonance happens when the only way to advance the plot/the only way to play the game "right" is to play in a way that actively contradicts the themes being put forth by the game. GTA IV is the best example I have seen of this—according to that Other Wiki, "Grand Theft Auto IV follows the story of Niko Bellic, a veteran of an unnamed war in Eastern Europe, who is haunted by the betrayal of his 15 man army unit." You kill more than 15 people buying groceries half the time. The gameplay of GTA IV does not jive with a main character haunted by past guilt.

At the same time, Ludonarrative Dissonance is kind of a crappy word to describe this. There are different ways the gameplay game conflict with the theme of a game-scene besides conflicting with the narrative. The Rainblower (can't link it, just Google) from Team Fortress 2 is a great example of this—there's no plot to speak of in a Team Fortress 2 games, but there's something dissonant (and hilarious) about running around as a murderous Pyromaniac blowing bubbles at people. At the same time, "ludonarrative" is an over-complicated word that nobody understands unless it is explained to them.

What I would prefer—and if I knew more about the TV Tropes ways I would contribute more, but this is my first post—is for there to be a trope named "Gameplay Dissonance," which would be a sub-trope of Mood Dissonance. The description would be very similar to Soundtrack Dissonance, but for gameplay instead of the soundtrack. I think TV Tropes could help the dialogue greatly with its ability to affect jargon.

edited 20th Sep '13 8:59:53 AM by Abnaxis

edited 22nd Sep '13 9:27:21 AM by Robotnik

Honestly, I think the term is meaningless, the result of people wanting to nitpick and tear at their media until nothing is left but critical shards. And I say this as someone who enjoys overanalysis.

However, clicking on some of the original article's links... ye gods, that writer is full of pretension and self-importance. They come across as someone who despises video games and like to come up with new ways to mock and belittle them.

People have pointed out that the GTAIV example was pretty much the point. Niko just did what he knew and never actually left his old lifestyle behind.

edited 22nd Sep '13 3:14:42 PM by MikeBreezy92

I think the phrase itself is a bad, misleading, and misappropriated, but I think the idea that the gameplay can run in conflict with the tone of a game is an idea that has merit. To me, it seems like we need a new term. So not so much "worthless" as much as "not good enough"

What is the thinking behind the people pointing that out? When I played the game, I often got Face Palm levels of Mood Whiplash, as I went from "YEAH, CHAOS AND ANARCHY AND EXPLOSIONS" gameplay to "oh, now I'm supposed to be sad and withdrawn because Niko feels guilty about a few guys back home." I really didn't get the feeling that was deliberate.

edited 24th Sep '13 7:09:24 AM by Abnaxis

I mean Haven't played the game enough to give a proper opinion but I've seen that come up a lot.

Total Biscuit once coined the term "Narrative-Mechanical Disconnect" in his Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider 2013 videos, which is probably not that much better than "Ludonarrative Dissonance." Certainly sounds a bit less pretentious though.

"Ludonarative" just means "gameplay story". I've seen various forms of the word "Ludo" thrown around in discussions about game design. Gameplay and Story Segregation is pretty close on our part, if you replaced Segregation with Dissonance you'd pretty much have the same thing.

I'm glad there's a term for this. I've definitely felt it in some games.