All of human literature, fiction and myth can be reduced to two archetypal plots: a man goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town. These basic formula are even more true of role-playing games, where the story must leave room for a main character who is controlled and sometimes even created by an unpredictable player.

The interactive aspect is what set video games apart from other media. In a traditional story, authorial control over a character’s disposition and history is absolute. Games follow the same structures and conventions of plot.

The most significant impact of these binary plots on gameplay is a reduction in the degree of creativity the player can exert over the protagonist, especially that character’s past. The man who goes on a journey must come from somewhere defined by the game’s creator; the stranger who comes to town is liberated from an established history, transferring responsibility for creating history from author to player.

Man goes on a journey

Scholar Joseph Campbell wrote extensively on the hero’s journey, that fateful series of events that drew mythic and modern heroes like Odysseus, Conan the Barbarian, Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker to epic adventure. The journey begins with the hero’s call, sometimes refused, and the crossing of the threshold. Guided by mentors like Obi-Wan and Merlin, he overcomes a series of trials, receives a boon, and returns home with boon in hand.

Because they must have a home from which they set out, these characters often have pre-established backgrounds that fit into the plot. Link starts The Ocarina of Time as a normal kid in Kokiri Forest, and Crono’s mom wakes him up so he can cruise the Millennial Fair in Chrono Trigger. In games where the player can choose the hero’s race, gender, and appearance, he becomes an orphan (Jade Empire) or an amnesiac (Knights of the Old Republic).

Newer role-playing games like Mass Effect or Neverwinter Nights 2 include background in the character creation process and have it influence over the plot itself. Commander Shepard could be a man or woman born in the slums on Earth, the Colonies, or a space-bound warship, with a history as a war hero, a brutal pragmatist, or a survivor. The game’s dialog shifted depending on the chosen background, accommodating player investment in the character.

The hero in Obsidian’s Neverwinter Nights 2 could similarly chose a deity and background which influenced stats and dialog. In this game, much of the character’s history is taken out of the player’s hands as he always begins an orphan in a small swampy village, but a character creation process which influences the plot and the gameplay is a step in the right direction.

Bethesda’s Fallout 3 promises to give even more control to the player. The game begins with the hero’s birth. The player crafts his appearance, which in turn generates the appearance of his father. As the hero grows, the player selects his skills and attributes in the game world. The hero of Fallout 3 still has an established origin, but the player is involved in its creation. Character creation becomes an immersive experience, not an independent ordeal before gameplay can begin.

These options add another layer of interactivity to the plot but they cannot make it fully interactive. The hero’s humble origins, if not his character, are essential to the plot, and therefore page one of his journey can never be subject to the creative direction of the player.

Games that follow the hero’s journey require the same origins even for divergant playthroughs. You can take the Bhaalspawn hero of Baldur’s Gate in completely different directions in terms of his race, disposition, morality, and how he interacts with the world, but he will always be an orphan raised in Candlekeep by Gorion.

Stranger comes to town

The other archetypal plot is the opposite of the first. Instead of a hero leaving town for great adventure, a stranger comes to town and shakes things up. The stranger is Shane, the Man With No Name, Valentine Michael Smith, and Othello. In games, he is the nameless hero of Morrowind, Arcanum, and MMO’s like World of Warcraft and Age of Conan.

The stranger is a wandering adventurer with a history created by the user, whether independently or through in-game mechanics. The heroes of the Diablo series and Neverwinter Nights enter the game world in response to a call for aid. Those of Arcanum and Oblivion are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

All these characters are unfettered by a past history with the world to which they are strangers. Their personal history is either forgotten or not stated. None can know the stranger within the game world, and he can never be as intrinsically entwined with the plot as fated heroes like Cloud in Final Fantasy VII or Revan in Knights of the Old Republic.

Freedom from an established past allows the player unrestricted creativity in investing his character with life and history. The Vault Dweller of Fallout and the nameless prisoner of Oblivion are simpler characters established not by the messianic revelations of the plot but by actions chosen by the player.

Development for the player-created strangers of open world games come entirely through the moralistic decision to save or ruin a town, ask for money or only a kiss as a reward from the rescued princess, and break or follow the law. They are true role-playing characters who take full advantage of the interactive mechanics that make video games such interesting vessels for storytelling.

This influence is what distinguishes the player from the reader or viewer. The player is a writer, not just an interpreter.