Response to The Stanley Parable

The Stanley Parable is possibly one of the strangest games I've ever played. The gamer has the option to go almost anywhere in this office building against the urging of the narrator for you to follow his instructions. Similarly he can stop the gamer if they do something he disagrees with or end up somewhere that the narrator does not want. Even when following the narrator's instructions there are infinite ways to mess up along the way or end up somewhere completely unexpected. In Dungeons & Dragons the Dungeon Master takes this role as the narrator and leader by setting up the story and the path and the goal but still while leaving the players to do what they choose along the way. In class my role as the DM which connected very closely with the narrator in this game. I would nudge the players in a certain direction but if they diverged from that I allowed it aside from the occasional reminder of the end goal or of the direction that seems most likely to lead us to the end goal. Mostly even if they were far off the intended path I just adjusted and kept moving forward. 

Screen Shot from The Stanley Parable

There were a few times that I directly altered their plans to make the story progress in necessary ways. Since half of my party were new to D&D I did not want to split the party at any points because I wanted our somewhat small party to stick together and learn to function as a cohesive group. Just like the doors shown about in Stanley Parable there were times that they could choose a different direction and go somewhere I didn't intend. One instance of this was a party member asking to request help from authorities during D&D so that the party would have reinforcements to help find and stop the assassin. I didn't want to involve NPCs when there was minimal combat for the session so when the party member left the group I quickly diverted him back to the group after brief discussion with those NPCs in authority. Although the narrator in Stanley Parable is more aggressive with the role he ends up taking that same role of the nudging guide along the way. 

Screen Shot from The Stanley Parable

In both cases the games allow for the “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle from Gee in which the players can take risks without facing real life consequences. In reality, Stanley is shown spending his hours each day at the office sitting at his desk following instructions and hitting buttons exactly as he is told. This is in stark contrast to the Stanley the gamer plays as who can defy the narrator and aimlessly explore his office building now that it is empty. Although he is encouraged to follow a specific path, sometimes to the point of the narrator adding a yellow line to push the gamer in a specific direction, the gamer is not required to listen and the game relies on the idea that the gamer will not listen to the narrator. The gamer does not have to follow the rules of this office building which, if they work in an office building they can probably relate to, but can instead go into closets and offices and the basement and some type of control room. The more off limits the area the more agitated the narrator becomes but those are the interesting places to find because they differ from the areas that are large rooms filled with matching desks and chairs and some small mugs or papers left behind. In D&D players can do anything they choose. They can steal from royal NPCs or start fights with random people. They can explore any area they choose and they can go against the DM if they want to but the consequences they face are all in game and their reality outside of the game remains safely untouched. 

Screen Shot from The Stanley Parable

The most relevant of Gee's principles to D&D and The Stanley Parable is the Multiple Routes Principle. Both games offer the gamer the opportunity to solve problems and get to places in nearly infinite ways. This is why there are campaigns for D&D that are available to buy a pre-generated story for because no two campaigns that follow those stories will be identical. Each group's characters and players will add something new to the campaign and take it in a different direction. My party avoided conflict and every time we faced combat it went different from how I planned. The first time they avoided the conflict entirely and found an alternative to fighting the enemies. During the following session they had combat but ended it sooner than I expected. In another group they may spend a while focusing a lot of time and effort on combat even if they played a campaign with the same basic ideas. Stanley Parable allows the player to take a route entirely their own if they do not want to listen to the narrator. I played through multiple times but never took the same route twice. It would alter my path as I went along and sometimes doorways would open to winding hallways or hidden storage rooms. Some rooms I found were places John and Dan said they had never seen in all the time they had played the game, but the paths they took were also not present when I played the game. It creates the opportunity for the player to repeat the game for hours while still having new areas to explore each time if they take a different turn or go through a different hallway. 

Screen Shot from The Stanley Parable