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Editor's note: Michael takes a look at how developer Rockstar guides the character of John Marston, without taking decision-making power out of the player's hands. -Demian
Playing Red Dead Redemption, I found myself thinking a lot about the story, specifically within the context of the objective vs. subjective storytelling (which I discussed in a previous post). The one thing that I kept coming back to was that there are really two John Marstons: the one that Rockstar created and controlled, and the one that the players create for themselves within the game. Rockstar's John Marston exists in the cut-scenes and in-game dialogue, while the players’ John Marston fills the many moments in between.
This could create a big problem with the storytelling and the narrative — if the players’ John Marston is radically different from the John Marston of the cut-scenes, the story falls apart.
But that doesn't really happen. While players seemingly have carte blanche over the game world between those scripted moments, they actually don't. In fact, they're rather limited in what they can do, especially when compared to the Grand Theft Auto games (post GTA3). Need an example? Prostitutes.
In the past GTA games, one was able to have sex with prostitutes, which was a way to rejuvenate the character’s health. But in Red Dead Redemption, which certainly has no shortage of prostitutes, it's impossible to procure their services in any way.
Remember, this is Rockstar, a company that seems to actively court controversy — has it suddenly grown conservative? I don't think so. Rather, I think that this was a conscious (and smart) storytelling decision.
John Marston is a married man, incredibly devoted to his wife. So much so that he goes around hunting his old friends to make sure that she is safe. If he weren’t so devoted he would have no reason to do the things he is doing. Thus, if the player were allowed to make Marston cheat on his wife, it would completely compromise his character.
This is in line with Anthony Burch’s “suspension of agency” idea, that a player is willing to give up some control/choice for the sake of immersion in the game. When forced to play Marston like Marston, gamers can't play him as themselves — but players are more invested/empathetic to the character and thus more immersed and engaged with the game as a result.
Now I would argue that John Marston in the game is supposed to be a good guy; by that I mean he doesn’t go around shooting everyone, robbing banks, stealing horses, etc. Well, perhaps not a “good guy," but a reformed or partially reformed bad guy. The player has the option to do bad things, but it's not a choice between creating a good Marston or a bad Marston — rather, John Marston wants to be good but can easily lapse back into doing bad things. The bad choices, the actions that give you dishonor, tempt Marston back into his old outlaw/bandit way of doing things, and thus are also there to tempt the player as well.
The “morality system” supports reinforces this — it's based on honor and dishonor, which is less defined than the binary good or bad. And in fact, it's relative: In order to gain or lose honor, one first has to have a morale system in place to judge actions as being honorable or dishonorable. In the game, the actions that earn honor are good deeds — rescuing people, not killing a criminal when you can capture them alive, etc. — while the actions that bring dishonor include stealing horses, money, killing innocents, and killing your own horse.
Based on what constitutes honor and dishonor, we can deduce that Marston generally aspires to be good (which is supported by many of the scripted moments as well). This is because if he were a bad person, then the actions of killing and stealing might be considered honorable, and the good deeds dishonorable.
The result of all this is that somehow Rockstar managed to walk a narrative tightrope: Red Dead Redemption tells an objective story (one without any branching or multiple endings), but still gives the player a feeling of agency (that they can do whatever they want in the world) without making any of their choices inconsistent with the character and story. And for an open-world/sandbox game, that's no small feat.