Predetermination, agency and narrative

Hey all!

It's been a month, and I've been slack. So here's a little something about agency to make up for it. It's a section taken from a paper on Bioshock. Just note some of the formatting might be off due to the quick word-to-net copy:

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What is agency? What is predeterminism?

Agency in the traditional sense is the ability to be in control of one’s actions, the general belief that what human’s will to occur, or work to occur will generally happen if logically right (George Wilson, 2002). An example of this would be the decision to not eat soup on Tuesdays, as you do not will it to happen, and you have no desire to – you are in control of your actions. Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics III, WD Ross) places that our actions, regardless of upbringing or nature, is firmly under our control, and that any other placement of responsibility or supposed control of a person’s actions are “unvirtuous.” For many people, this control of our actions leads to a sense of moral responsibility, and furthermore allows people to be the masters of their futures.

Predetermination is the opposite to this notion of agency, in that it presupposes that your decisions are predetermined by some force that you have no control of. Traditionally this was thought to have been due to religious:“God works in mysterious ways” Or due to a spiritual beings, such as fate: “There is nothing which the Fates do not dispose… everything that comes to pass is controlled…” (Lucian Volume II, Harmaon AM, Cambridge). Overall the philosophy seems to stem out from the notion of causation being a logical, irrevocable march on from the prime mover, or original action of the universe heimarne “an ordering and series of causes, since it is cause linked to cause that produces a thing from itself, and this is an everlasting truth, flowing from all eternity… Hence it can be understood that we are talking about the fate not of superstition but of natural science, the eternal cause of things.”  (Cicero, On Divination 1, 125 126).

Simplified the above statement reads something like:

1. Causation is a logical outcome.

2. Events are caused by previously causation

3. Events can be determined by logic.

This notion when laid out in such a fashion seems to dictate that through being logical enough about an event, all actions past, present and future of that event will be understood. This all hinges upon the fact that events hold some sort of permanence quality, without an ability of chance/luck, but Cicero’s point if this permanence holds then all events, logically, should be able to be understood. For people this permanence of causation is the foundation of many sciences and mathematic, and also underpins our understanding of logic.

How does this link back to video games?

The link between these philosophical notions and the aforementioned games are as follows:

Agency

This idea of “controllable agency,” for computer games, is the driving force behind controlling/playing a character – your actions have meaning and are firmly within your control (Wardrip-Fruin, 2009, E. MacCallum-Stewart, 2007, Jim Bizzochi, 2012). In this idea of agency there are two different fields, gameplay agency and narrative agency.

Gameplay agency is the ability for players to interact with the elements of a game world and have it react back in regards to gameplay mechanics, e.g the player being able to move around in game, shoot, or interact in a way that affects the overall gameplay.

Narrative agency is the ability for players to interact with the narrative of the game world and have it react back in terms of setting, character development, or any over arching theme to the game, regarding narrative, e.g. the player is able to save a characters life, to do a good action instead of a bad one, to have their motives regarded by something in the game. (Sean Hamilton, 2007)

Most games will allow for the gameplay agency (so as to have some interaction with the player), but only optionally have the narrative agency. This narrative agency rarely is given fully to the player, instead a limited amount of narrative agency will be given, enough to sate the demands of the player to have control of a games narrative. Too much narrative agency can radically change the nature of a games story to the extent which the game designers are no longer the writers of the game, but rather it is the players. As such the narrative agency that the player is given is often considered to be illusionary compared to what games purposely offer.

Predetermination

This predetermination, for computer games, lies in the very code of games, leading to the construction of the world, the cause-effect flow of any action (moving, or doing a certain action in an area triggers an in-game result), the flow of the overall plot, the overall game – it dictates the scope of action in the game (Jim Bizzochi, 2012).   Games are predetermined in construction, and in the overall ability of players, but yet players seem to enjoy agency that is at odds with this – their actions aren’t free from the whims of the game designer (Rowan Tulloch, 2009, E. MacCallum-Stewart, 2007).

This is the same with a lot of traditional media, the plot construction of beginning, middle, and end is always predetermined, as it is defined by an author. The outcome is set from the end of production of the book, film or game, but yet we wish to experience these texts, dimly aware of the lack of agency we have, constantly being surprised by the twists and turns offered to us (Janet Murray, 1997). Furthermore we accept the predetermination of books and film without question, and ignore the lack of agency, while computer games are somehow granted this role of agency driven media, while the predetermination aspect is ignored.

Bibliography:

• Bizzocchi, Jim, and Joshua Tanenbaum. "Mass Effect 2": A Case Study In The Design Of Game Narrative." Bulletin Of Science, Technology & Society 32.5 (2012): 393-404
• Murray, Janet Horowitz. Hamlet On The Holodeck : The Future Of Narrative In Cyberspace / Janet H. Murray. n.p.: New York : Free Press, 1997., 1997.
• Harmaon AM, Lucian Volume II. Cambridge, 1961. http://www.archive.org/stream/lucianha01luciuoft/lucianha01luciuoft_djvu.txt Tues. 14 May. 2013.
• Ross, David. The nicomachean ethics. OUP Oxford, 2009.
• Tulloch, Rowan. "A man chooses, a slave obeys: agency, interactivity and freedom in video gaming." Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds 2.1 (2010): 27-38.  
•  Sharples, R. W. "Cicero: On Fate and Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy IV. 5–7, V, edited with translation and commentary, Warminster: Aris & Philips.——(1996) Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics: An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy." (1991).
• Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, et al. "Agency reconsidered." Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory. Proceedings of DiGRA 2009 (2009).   
• Wilson, George and Shpall, Samuel, "Action", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/action  Tues. 14 May .2013.

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This is mainly working  as a preliminary piece to explain my conceptions of what narrative and agency are and how they play into each other. Stay tuned a discussion of the types of agency that are in play will be coming sometime this week.

-Dan