Dealing with "Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers"

In an article I've written, I made mention to the problems listed by Ernest Adams in his great Gamasutra article, The Designer’s Notebook: Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers. It only feels appropriate if I actually list some of the solutions I personally came up with.

1. The Problem of Amnesia – I’ve taken a look at the way in which Chris Avellone writes his stories; specifically Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (a both indepth and humorous LP and analysis can be found here: http://lparchive.org/Knights-of-the-Old-Republic-II/), and have adjusted the way I write dialogue so that the player is given short blasts of exposition from their main character themselves, which still gives the player the information they need, and it makes the player feel as though they knew what was going on the entire time. I also take the initial part of the game and stretch it out, giving plenty of time for the player to adjust and get comfortable with the way the universe works before they need to get involved in the central conflict, where a higher understanding of the universe is required.
2. The Problem of Internal Consistency – The idea here is that the player is going to play in a way that feels comfortable to them. Therefore, the game needs to recognise this, and should be designed with an edge of freedom. By offering multiple solutions to a single problem that still gel with the character’s personality (for example, Paragon vs. Renegade options in Mass Effect), we give the player room to explore the game in their own immersive way.
3. The Problem of Narrative Flow – The most important thing I’ve realised in terms of this problem is that the player will play and pace the story to their liking. For that reason, I try to make the story more modular (short missions with interchangeable dialogue that can easily be daisy-chained in any way that suits the player) and reduce the amount of alerts that the player should follow the main story; instead, I like to make all my conflicts/missions somewhat involved or related to the central quest. If I have a mission that should be played at a specific points for pacing reasons (for example, a really emotional sequence such as Thessia in Mass Effect 3), I can make a mission appear more relevant without railroading the player by playing radio messages, adding NPCs and elements to the environment that make the world seem desperate for the player to intervene, and also play with the size of mission icon on the map. Pathos is a great tool for convincing the player that they actually are playing a major role in this game world.

One should note that Problems 2 & 3 are both fairly similar, and they are less a problem for the designer, and more for the player. Our job is to make our stories interesting so the player would want to follow our lead, but we should never have to rely on railroading. To each their own.

Keep in mind, this is not a complete list, and one that I will likely often come back to and expand. As an interactive storyteller, I'm always looking for new methods to try and bring interesting stories to my players, and keep them immersed in the world. Hopefully though, this will give designers a bit of a head-start on finding solutions to these problems.