Cheating in the Name of Narrative

March 1, 2019

There’s been a long history of narratives having the protagonist and antagonist interact in a seemingly friendly way while really engaging in a battle of wits and nerve with one another. Whether it’s the faux sportsmanlike conduct of the golf game between James Bond and Goldfinger or it’s Bret Maverick waiting on an ace of spades to complete his royal flush to beat his opponent’s straight flush, these types of scenes really ratchet up the tension. In a linear storytelling format that is. I wondered if it would be possible for Sleuthhounds: Cruise to provide a similar experience but keep it interactive for the player.

When writing a non-interactive story – a novel, movie, or comic for example – this type of tension building is easy to achieve. Within such a format, the author is in complete control over the situation. Multiple characters having winning hands at poker? Unlikely in the real world, but no problem to simply write. In essence it’s a cheat. The writer goes to the implausible end of probability but we, the audience, don’t care because it makes for great storytelling.

The problem with trying to do a similar type of thing in a game stems from interactivity. How can agency be given to a player in such a situation but still have that scenario build the tension as it would in a linear, non-interactive format? That was the main challenge I faced when I decided I wanted to include such a sequence in my game.

After spending a good afternoon investigating different games of chance that might possibly work, I ended up settling on Liar’s Dice because it did a lot of things that lent itself well to my particular goals:

  • Liar’s Dice is simple. Player’s take turns bidding on the quantity of a given die value with the restriction that the bidding must always go up either in die value, quantity, or both. There’s no need to learn which hands beat which or how to strategically choose which cards to keep as in poker. The player gets one die roll and then has to work with that.
  • The nature of Liar’s Dice itself raises the tension. With each bid, the probability of someone making a statement that is false goes up and up. In a movie, the camera might sweep around the table to show each players’ hand and reveal that the protagonist is in a tenuous position unless they get extremely lucky. Liar’s dice allows the other players’ dice to remain hidden while still providing an estimation of the veracity of each players’ statements as the bidding escalates.
  • Players bid not just on what they have, and can see, but on what the other player may have but can’t be seen. Even if the player doesn’t get a good dice roll themselves, there could still be a good set of dice out there. Combined with the fact that the player can’t simply drop out by “folding” it means that the game can be prolonged.

It’s the last point in particular that made Liar’s Dice attractive for pulling into Cruise. As the player can’t just “walk away” they have to keep bidding. In between player bids the characters involved can exchange short bouts of banter, just like what would be seen in a James Bond film. Here they can seemingly be discussing the game but with a level of subtext that serves to heighten the story telling drama.

As the opponent’s dice are hidden from view, it provides the opportunity for narrative cheats to impact the dice. The basic idea is that the Liar’s Dice game be kept going until it’s dramatically appropriate to end it. To help with this, the dice of the computer controlled player, which are unseen, can be changed to keep the bidding going, with the computer controlled player bidding as conservatively as possible. Then when it’s appropriate for the human player to win or lose the dice can be “fixed” to make that outcome happen. It’s definitely cheating, but it’s cheating that players won’t see and, more importantly, its cheating that enriches the story.

Of course, the player can always do something unexpected. They can choose to call their opponent a liar before narratively that point is arrived at or they can make a bid with no possible better response. For example, both players have five dice each and if the human player has two sixes then at most there can only be seven sixes in play – the two the player has and the five potential ones that the computer has. In this case, assuming the human player doesn’t have three of another face value, there are no possible bids that can top what the player declared. If the human player jumps to this point before the confrontation has reached its climax then the computer player will have to call the human player a liar and the computer player’s dice are adjusted before being revealed to make that so.

In the event that the human player forces the game to end prematurely, the human player will “fail” the encounter. That’s fine, as long as the story keeps going and adapts to the player’s failure. I already employ this success through failure approach elsewhere in the game so this becomes just another scenario where such a result can occur.

[Marion Wood teaching Liar's Dice. You didn't really think I'd reveal the bad guy. Or did I?]
Marion Wood teaching Liar’s Dice. You didn’t really think I’d reveal the bad guy. Or did I?

Of course, the game can’t just drop the player into this dramatic Liar’s Dice confrontation unprepared. While Liar’s Dice does have simple rules they’re still rules that the player has to learn and practice with. To that end the Cruise provides a learning opportunity. Marion Wood, the young socialite, has taken up residence in the cruise liner’s casino. Well before encountering the antagonist and the dramatic Liar’s Dice matchup, the player will have access to Marion to play her in as many friendly matches as so desired. It shouldn’t be hard to arrange events in such a way that the player has to do at least one friendly match with Marion before going on to face the opponent in the big confrontation. The difference with playing against Marion in this situation is that she will play “by the rules” and so won’t have her dice changed in any way to affect the bidding.

While I wouldn’t advocate cheating at games in real life, when done in a story and done in such a way that the audience either doesn’t realize the cheating is happening or accepts the cheat because it heightens the tension it is a very useful storytelling trick. Naturally, if the player is determined to lose the match they can do so, but the computer player will keep things going until the appropriate time for the battle of wills to come to its climax and then decide how the game will fall out. Regardless of whoever wins or loses, it’s actually the narrative that is the ultimate victor.