# [Writing Starsector][link-blogpost]
# 剧情创作
Posted December 17, 2020 by **`dgbaumgart`** in `Development`, `Lore`
Translated at Jan 17 by **`jn_xyp`**, **`Rody`**
于2021年1月17日翻译，译者：**`jn_xyp`**, **`Rody`**
> 感谢 **你是什么辣鸡？** 在翻译过程中提供的协助。
> 本片文章更多着墨于游戏设计的相关理论，虽包含对于未来游戏机制设计的暗示，但并未明确指出任何未来的具体更新内容。由于本人英文水平限制，以及David过于娴熟的语言技巧，本文翻译水平可能较为拉跨，仅供参考。
The next update will add strong narrative RPG elements to Starsector, among other things.
I feel no small amount of trepidation because this is both *a change* and it is *a particular story* about *particular characters* in a way the pure sandbox certainly isn’t. This necessarily constrains your – the player’s – experience of the game-fantasy and the meta-game fantasy of an “unfinished game” which has the potential to become everyone’s dreams in a free-floating quantum state… until you see it for real and it turns out it isn’t quite what you dreamed.
下次更新将会为游戏添加强烈的叙事性RPG元素，以及其它一些内容。
这一对游戏的*重大更改*让我深感焦虑，因为其中包含的针对*特定角色*的*特定故事内容*显然不属于纯沙盒游戏的范畴。在此之前，对于这种未完成游戏的内容和机制，玩家仍可以抱有量子叠加态般的幻想，幻想着游戏将会成为他们梦想中的样子……直到幻想被游戏的实际内容更新打破。
I suppose this seems like an awfully negative way to start off; this is what I mean about trepidation. And I am legitimately excited about sharing more of the world of Starsector, letting players dive in a bit closer and get a feel for what it’s like for people that live in this world. Find out what they think, find out a bit more about why movers and shakers move like they do. If I may say so, I think we’ve done some pretty good work!
我估计这是个挺消极的开场白，但这就是我焦虑的地方。从另一方面来说，我很乐意通过这些更新向各位展示远行星号的世界，并鼓励各位玩家去更深入地体会远星世界中芸芸众生的生活；了解人们的想法，并理解势力巨擎们的行事动机。如果让我来评价的话，我认为我们目前在这方面做的相当不错。
The written wordcount has already exceeded the minimum definition for a novel (50k) a few times over by now. I’ve attempted [Nanowrimo](
https://nanowrimo.org/) a few times in the past and always choked almost instantly. My experience writing Starsector has been a stark contrast – the words just flow! It seems so obvious, most of the time, what comes next, what feels right to be said. I suspect part of it is the constraint of the medium focusing creativity, but it may also perhaps be the very clear connection to an audience (that’s y’all out there!). A novel feels a bit like a bunch of words floating out in (ha) space. A game, however, has a player. They must actively engage and progress. I know a player is committed in a way a reader isn’t. (Which probably isn’t at all true; people read books, after all. [I’ve even read one or two in my day.](
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2015/03/12/a-starsector-reading-list/))
远行星号中的文本量，已经达到了短篇小说最小篇幅（5万字）的好几倍。我曾好几次试着用 [Nanowrimo](
https://nanowrimo.org/) （注：小说写作辅助网站）来写点别的，但基本上每次一开头就摸了，与我在创作远星游戏剧情时的文思泉涌形成了鲜明的对比。在我创作游戏剧情的大部分时候，后续的情节和适当的对白都会自然地浮现出来。我认为这种区别，有可能是因为创作媒介的限制而使创造力得以集中，但也有可能源于游戏剧本创作过程中和读者（也就是你们）的紧密联系。小说给人的感觉，仅是一堆漂浮在空间中的文字；而游戏，则有玩家的参与。由于玩家必须主动地去参与和推进游戏剧情，故玩家的投入程度是小说读者所没有的（也不一定全是这样，人们也会认真看书的，就连我也[看过几本](
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2015/03/12/a-starsector-reading-list/))
Whatever it is, maybe I can’t rationalize it. But something works here for me in a way that hasn’t elsewhere. I’ll take it.
Let’s get to the nuts and bolts of this.
不管推动我创作的力量到底是什么，可能我也说不清，但我在创作中的确发现了些独特的游戏剧本写作技巧，我反正就先用上了。
接下来让我们看看这些技巧的细节。
We’ve had to deal with certain constraints and design problems while adding written content to Starsector. Some of these are faced by all games which use writing, some are particular to the context of Starsector. I am not going to talk about any specific narrative beats or plot details, but I will talk about how the narrative is structured, so from a certain point of view one could derive meta-spoilers from this blog post. I think the most pure and magical way to experience Starsector would be with no foreknowledge of any of this, so I’ll give you fair warning now: if you don’t want to know anything, stop reading.
在向远行星号添加剧情内容的同时，也必须考虑游戏设计带来的一些限制。有一些限制是所有游戏共有的，而有一些则是远星中独有的。在下文中我将避免提及具体的叙事内容和剧情细节，但我会讨论游戏叙事本身的设计；因此，从某些意义上来说，你仍然可以通过下文描述而脑补出部分具体设计，从而造成对游戏机制的剧透。我个人认为，体验远行星号最为纯净而梦幻的方式就是预先对其设计一无所知，所以，剧透警告：如果你不想知道叙事设计的内容，立刻停止阅读。
---
Scared ’em away? Good. Now, let me tell you all the secrets…
把他们吓跑了吧？奈斯。现在，请听我娓娓道来……
Let me use [a question asked by TheDTYP in the forum](
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19524.0) as a starting point:
> … would anyone be able to comment on just how much agency the player has in these upcoming missions? Are they generally going to be straightforward like the Red Planet mission, in which you follow the breadcrumb trail and overcome the challenges for a reward while learning about the game world, or will they be more dynamic? As in, can certain elements of the mission or the outcomes be influenced by the players in some way? Like, “I stole this McGuffin, do I give it to the Hegemony or the League to turn in the mission?” kind of stuff?
让我引用官方论坛坛友 [TheDTYP 的提问](
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19524.0) 作为开头：
> …… 能讨论下玩家在未来任务中产生的影响吗？未来的任务是会像现在的“红色星球”任务一样比较直接，即让玩家追随一连串线索，解决一连串困难，并在获得回报的同时了解游戏世界，还是会更加富有戏剧性？能不能让任务的某些部分，以某种方式，受到玩家的影响而改变？例如，“我顺到了某关键任务物品，是找霸主还是英仙座交任务呢？”这样的东西？
There are a lot of questions to unpack here. I think I need to start with some groundwork.
Narrative player agency is of course an illusion. A successful game narrative creates the illusion of narrative agency through clever design, stagecraft, and the willingness of the player to believe our lies. Don’t get me wrong here: the illusion is real, and it works, and it’s good. It will also break down into its constituent parts, less than the sum of the whole you enjoyed so much, if you look too closely. I think the first few times one who possesses an inquiring mind sees through this in a media work, it’s immensely disappointing. Nowadays I find I can more consciously appreciate the illusion even if I see-what-you’re-doing-there.
这一提问中包含许多具体的问题值得讨论，我觉得我需要先铺垫一波。
在剧情叙事框架下的玩家“自由”选择当然是不存在的。但通过巧妙的构思，剧情设计，以及玩家本身对假象的容忍，一个成功的游戏能创造出逼真的**幻象**，让玩家在剧情框架下自由地做出选择，施加影响。不要误会了我的意思，这种幻象无疑是正面的，在游戏设计中确实存在，而且效果拔群。但如果你死抠细节，这幻想就会崩解为其背后的组成部分，而这些部分加起来也无法让你感受到幻想整体所带来的享受。我想，对于一个富有探究精神的人，当他前几次看穿作品营造的幻象时，一定是无比失望的。而我已经习惯了这一点，即使看穿了作者在背后的小动作，也能继续欣赏这一幻象。
Remember our spoiler warning: I am going to break some elements down into constituent parts and it will dispel the illusion if you’re not careful about managing your own experience. Let us find wisdom in these immortal words:
> What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.
> Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, “Essays on Mind and Matter”
Take control of the input. This is your second chance to get off the meta-spoiler train.
别忘了咱之前的剧透警告：我接下来就要解构幻象中的一些组成部分了，也就是说，如果你日后不能很好地控制你的想法，那么游戏中的幻象就会被打破。让我们从这不朽的圣言中汲取智慧：
> 要说我在你遭受的苦难中学到了什么？那便是不论是何种疼痛，也不过是感官接收的信息，是输入名为“心灵”的电脑的数据而已。结论很简单：你接收到了信息，现在来处理它。控制你的输入，你将掌控你的输出。
> 仰生技主席，《论心灵与物质》
学会控制您的输入。这是您第二次下车以避免机制剧透的机会。
## Leaving Space & Not Answering Questions 留白 & 不要回答
iD software’s *Quake* got into my brain at an impressionable stage of my life. I must have been 12 or so, the perfect age for that sort of thing. That game provoked my interest in everything from HP Lovecraft to electronic/industrial/metal music. Did Quake have a good story? Absolutely not. Did it have a story? Barely. Worldbuilding? Uhh… (And going back and examining the development of *Quake*, it turns out it’s the product of a bunch of people who were tired after the whirlwind success of *Doom*, and in a great deal of conflict with one another about where to take the company. Romero left, iD lost its soul. That’s all another story, however.)
在我那容易被震惊的年纪，我玩到了 iD software（注：美国游戏公司，作品：《毁灭战士》、《雷神之锤》，其《雷锤》的开源引擎被用于早期版的《反恐精英》） 所制作的《雷神之锤》。我那时候估计已经满12了，正是对这类东西上瘾的时候。这游戏启发了我一系列的爱好，从H·P·洛夫克拉夫特（注：小说家，克苏鲁神话体系创建者）到电子、工业和金属风音乐。那么，《雷神之锤》有不错的剧情吗？绝对没有。那它有剧情吗？勉强有。世界观呢？呃……（回过头来看《雷锤》，其实就是在《毁灭战士》梦幻般的成功后，疲惫的人们在公司发展上各执一词的产物。罗梅洛（注：id soft 游戏设计师）辞职，id soft 自此失去了灵魂。不过，这都是另一个故事了。）
Quake was a collection of vaguely related aesthetic impressions thrown into a bucket and due to said development issues never given a strong overall authorial voice – but it had something due, probably, to inertia from *Doom* and a weird sense of “competing dungeonmasters” in the level design. I think it’s a better game for that weird mix. I think if had iD got itself organized enough to come up with a strongly directed narrative, it’d have been super dumb. It’d have broken the magic of Quake. (See: Quake 2. Fun enough game, dumb as rocks. Arguably same deal for Doom, but I think that game works for similar reasons to Quake, though the mechanics are tighter due to more cohesive teamwork.)
《雷神之锤》是一系列松散联系起来的美学印象的集合，并且因为前述原因，从头到尾也没有一个明确的创作旋律。另一个可能的原因，则是源于《毁灭战士》的设计惯性，以及“地牢领主PK”这一奇怪的关卡设计风气。基于这么一个奇怪的杂烩，《雷锤》作为游戏还算不错。如果 id soft 能有足够的组织度，给《雷锤》设计一个强烈的导向型叙事的话，那反而会显得很蠢，打破《雷锤》本身的魅力。（《雷锤2》就是这样，游戏海星，但是蠢得和石头一样。可以说《毁灭战士》也是如此，但是基于与《雷锤》类似的原因，还不错。因为在开发时团队更有凝聚力，所以游戏机制也更加紧凑）
Anyway, what really got 12-year-old me was looking out into those blocked-off parts of the maps where you heard that howling wind and watched as layers of purple clouds flowed over each other. What kind of world was out there? I wondered. Surely something bizarre; scifi gothic horror beyond imagination populated by the best kind of monsters: the kind you never see. What was most interesting about *Quake* was what wasn’t there; what was suggested. The greatest horror movies never totally answer what, why, and how. The answer will always be disappointing; the shadowy gaps are where fear lives! Embrace it!
总之在《雷锤》中，真正让12岁的我感到兴奋的是，看向那些在地图上进不去的地方，你能听到那呼啸的风声，看着层层叠叠的紫色云朵互相流动。外面的世界是什么样的呢？我在想。肯定是一些奇异的东西；超乎想象的科幻哥特式恐怖世界，里面住着最吊的怪物：那种你从未见过的怪物。《雷锤》最有趣的地方在于游戏中不存在的东西；即它所暗示的东西。最伟大的恐怖电影从来不会完全给出有什么，为什么和要怎么样之类问题的答案。答案永远是令人失望的；阴暗的缝隙才是恐惧的所在！拥抱未知！
It’s not just horror. If I tried to explain the scifi principles behind everything in Starsector, a thousand intense physics nerds would tear me apart with their fascinating equations and they’d be right and I’d be wrong. There are questions in Starsector that I shouldn’t answer, and Ludd willing, I won’t!
This is part of the *illusion*. If the game evokes rather than answers, then the illusion takes hold in the player’s mind. Like we offload 3d rendering into a specialized piece of hardware, it’s like I’m offloading rendering of the narrative into your brain.
这种留白不仅仅是为了营造恐怖气氛。如果我尝试去解释远星中一切事物背后的科幻原理，那么999个物理学带师会用天花乱坠的公式把我大卸八块，并证明他们是对的而我是错的。远星中有一些问题，我不应该回答。向路德之神保证，我绝对不会去回答的！
这种留白也是之前提到**幻象**的一部分。如果游戏不是去回答问题，而是去启发玩家，那么所营造的幻象才能在玩家脑海中占据一席之地。就像我们把3D渲染结果载入到专门的硬件里一样；就像我把游戏叙事的渲染结果载入到你的脑子里一样。
---
Of course no one wants to read a story where every fact is hedged with a dramatic “but maaaaayybe it’s this! Or that! Or even over there! Or nothing at all.” \*waves hands wildly\*
Yeah, that’s insufferable.
当然，如果一个故事中所有的事实都必须通过戏剧性的转折来揭示的话，也不会有人愿意去读。那种“可能是这样！也可能是那样！甚至是那样！（疯狂挥手手）”的故事，谁也受不了。
## Appealing To Players Without Disappearing Up One’s Own Jump-point 在不破坏探索欲的前提下吸引玩家
It serves a narrative well to exercise restraint. The worst thing I can see when loading up a new RPG is a huge infodump about the world and what’s going on and who I’m supposed to be and the ten thousand year history of the kingdom of whatever and hey, guess what Artemisia Sun’s favorite food is! I’m going to tell you! But I don’t care – yet. I appreciate that the author is excited about showing off their work to their audience, but that care has to be earned. Start a game by framing a player’s experience of the game-fantasy with a simple archetype. Starsector has it easy: this is a space opera, you’re Han Solo①. Figure it out. When you’re ready to start asking questions, the answers will be in the game.
> ①: Please don’t sue us, Disney.
在使用叙事性描述时，保持克制是关键。在初次游玩一款RPG游戏时，我能想到最坏的开头就是大量的设定倾倒：世界观、你是谁、你该干啥，某个王国延绵万年的历史，甚至是某个角色最爱的食物。我能理解作者急于向玩家展示他们成果的兴奋，但玩家并不买账，至少目前不会买账。作者必须首先设法争取玩家的关注；而一个有效的方法，是从某种简单的原型来构建玩家对于游戏内容的理解。远行星号在这方面做的很明确：这是一场太空歌剧，您就是星战里的韩·索罗①，开整吧。而当玩家开始主动提出问题的时候，游戏自然会给出答案。
> ①：迪士尼，麻烦不要律师函警告。
I’ve gotten into playing D&D this past Year of the Plague – and more than playing, I’m also running a game. (Big surprise; right.) It’s helped me think a lot about what I find myself doing to make the game relatable to players. These are my friends, I know them, and I can come up with something I think they will find compelling. If they grab onto that hook, I go further with it and riff with them and see how their choices change the world.
I can’t exactly do that with Starsector, as much fun as it’d be to run that tabletop RPG. Computer games are a different beast. But I think some of the principles can apply, you just have to apply them more broadly.
在过去的疫情之年，我上手了龙与地下城桌游。我不光是参与，也亲自主持了桌游（没想到吧）。在这过程中，我也对如何让游戏对玩家更具亲切感方面进行了一些思考。参与我主持桌游的人都是我认识的朋友，所以我可以投其所好地提出一些我认为他们感兴趣的内容。如果他们上钩了，我就和他们耍耍，看看他们的选择将会如何改变这个世界。
电脑游戏是一种完全不同的猛兽，我不能在远行星号中采取与桌面RPG完全相同的手段；但我认为在更广泛的应用中，某些理论仍然适用。
What Alex and I try to do – and not just in narrative terms – is try to anticipate generalized player archetypes. Some people like exploring, some like building, some love fighting, some like intrigue and “lore”②, some people are named Megas and want to optimize everything. We try to imagine how each of these archetypes would react to situations we set up: uh oh, those Pathers are at it again! How can I respond? Just go down the list: fighting archetype blows them away, intrigue tries to talk them out of it, maybe someone pays them off, maybe someone else gets someone else to fight for them, the lore bore tries to wheedle some backstory out of it somehow…
> ②: I kinda hate the word and concept of “lore” as applied to videogames, though I’ll use it. It feels like a failure somehow if “lore” is a strongly separated concept from the media work itself. This probably has structural roots in media works being consciously acted upon nowadays as intellectual properties that must have profitable derivative works spun off, and… save this rant for another day. (And I say all of this as someone who played Brigador and spent all my money on lore unlocks before anything else, so don’t take me too seriously.)
我和Alex一直在做的，包括叙事性描述在内的方方面面，都是在尝试预见各种普遍存在的玩家原型。有些人喜欢探索，有些喜欢建造，有些喜欢打架，有些喜欢钻研背景设定②（注：原文为Lore，此处指游戏中除主要叙事外所有可以丰富世界内容的元素），而远星大亨们则忙着优化所有东西的效率。在我们设定的情境下，尝试着去想象不同种类玩家的反应：例如，路德左径分子又来了，我该如何应对？按之前列出的玩家类型，战狂玩家会把他们炸飞，策略玩家会劝他们放弃，有的玩家会贿赂他们，有的玩家会叫人来打他们，而远星学家则会强行从中理解出点什么背景设定来……
> ②：虽然我也在用这个词，但我其实不喜欢“背景设定(Lore)”作为单独的概念被用在电子游戏上。如果一个作品和其“背景设定”可以被严格地区分开来，那感觉好像还挺失败的。这一问题有其结构性的根因，即当今的文艺作品在被自觉地定义为某种IP（知识产权）后，其每一衍生物都必须是明码标价的可盈利产品，而且…… 剩下的部分请待日后分解。（而且以上内容源自一位在Brigador中将所有钱都优先用来解锁背景设定的人，故仅供参考）
This applies to more than just fleet encounters of course. If we send the player into dialog with a character and the topic of Big Things In The Sector comes up, I try to anticipate how different types of players will react, then allow them to take a stance on the issue. Say we’re messing with Domain-era artifacts, how do you respond? It doesn’t have to be tremendously complex – and it doesn’t have to be so simple as a good vs. boring vs. evil choice. Building toward archetypes let’s us focus the range of possibilities toward something manageable in the face of a potentially exponentially exploding number of possibility states.
To back up to a higher level, it is important to say here that the narrative is not solely driven by what [I think] players’ want. Media created purely and cynically in-anticipation-of or in-reaction-to viewer feedback is generally… bad (and is absolutely a certain level of Hell for any creative person).
So yes, I am telling a story with my own voice, my own weird ideas and interests③. But we are also making a conscious effort to [make the story inviting to the players we anticipate will show up to experience it](
http://marriedtothesea.com/index ... are+got+to+get+paid).
> ③: Alex has been very supportive of running with my weird ideas, and very kind in how he tells me when they go too far. The creative freedom he’s given me is spectacular, and I want thank him for it. Thanks Alex!
What’s this look like in the game, then.
当然，针对玩家原型的设计不仅适用于舰队遭遇战。如果玩家在与某个角色对话中，谈到了星域中的某件大事，我就会试着预测不同类型的玩家会有怎样的反应，然后给予他们用选择进行表态的机会。比如说我们现在要处理人之领时代的遗物，你会做何选择？选项不一定要非常复杂——也不一定是善与无聊与恶的三种选择这么简单。在选项或选择次数较多时，最终的潜在状态会呈指数级增长；但如果最终以适配某种玩家原型作为设计目标，就可以将最终的可能性数量限制在一个可控的范围内。
从更高的层次上来说，很重要的一点，就是要意识到叙事性的情节发展不应当仅由（作者所估计的）玩家偏好来引导。纯粹而功利地为了迎合或回馈观众的意见而创造的作品一般都是……很差的（而且对于任何一个有创造力的人来说，创作这种作品绝对像地狱般痛苦）。
所以，远星中的叙事内容仍然是在以我的声音，讲着我创作的故事，表现了我的思路和兴趣③。在此基础上，我们也在有意识地努力[让我们预期会出现的玩家来体验故事的内容](
http://marriedtothesea.com/index ... are+got+to+get+paid)。
> ③： Alex一直非常支持我实践我怪异想法，并在我走的太远时给予友好的提醒。他给了我极大的创作自由，我对此非常感谢。谢谢Alex！
接下来是以上内容在游戏中的体现。
## Long-form Narrative Mission Arcs 更长的叙事性任务流程
We have missions. You’ve scanned some derelicts, surveyed some planets. Did you find the red planet? Nice! That was one of our first test-cases to see if the mechanics of campaign-level missions could work and if they’d be appealing to players.
Answered: yes, and yes. Thank you for being good test subjects.
当前的游戏中已经有了几个任务。想必你已经扫描了许多废墟，也勘察了不少行星。你找到那颗红色的星球了吗？不错。“红色星球”就是我们对于生涯级别任务的第一个测试案例，用于测试这种任务是否可行，以及是否能吸引玩家。
两个问题的答案都是肯定的，感谢各位优秀实验对象参与本次测试。
Imagine a series of missions like those, all strung together. Let’s say we introduce recurring characters. There are random elements so you don’t quite know what to expect every time. There are different approaches possible; maybe you fight, maybe you talk, maybe you bribe, maybe you find some other way to deal with a situation. There are choices to make: some change your outlook immediately. Some don’t matter. Some don’t seem to matter until they come up again way later, and you’ll be like “Alex and David, I see what you guys did there.”
You can lie, you can con, you can betray. Maybe you’ll keep getting away with it. Maybe not.
We’re getting somewhere! It’s pretty cool, I think. And I don’t have a lot more to say about all of that than, yes, we did stuff and I can’t wait to see how people play through it.
想象一下，与此类似的一系列任务，任务之间相互串联。比方说，我们可以添加一些会多次出现的角色。由于存在一些随机元素，所以你并不知道每次的结果。你可以通过不同的途径达成目标，有的要动嘴，有的要动手，有的要花钱，也许还有一些别的方法能解决问题。在这途中，你有机会做出一些选择：有的会立刻对你的未来产生影响，有的则无关紧要，还有的目前看似无关紧要，但在很久以后却会突然浮现出来。到时候，你就能意识到我和Alex在幕后搞的把戏了。
你可以在任务中制造谎言，招摇撞骗或是背叛他人；并在此之后也有可能一直逍遥法外。
我们已经有了不错的进展！这是好的。目前能透露的，就是我们已经制作了任务相关的许多内容，就等着你们来玩了。
Now let’s temper some expectations: Factions will come into play, the player will interact with prominent figures from most of the factions, but we’re not making players swear loyalty to them as part of the primary storyline. That said, having a commission or extreme reputation with a faction one way or another will impact certain situations.
一些值得期待的细节：新的任务系统将会与游戏中的势力有关。在主线故事中，虽然玩家并不一定要向特定势力效忠，但无疑会与势力中的重要人物产生互动。也就是说，玩家与势力的雇佣关系或较为极端的声望值将会在某些情况下对剧情产生影响。
Also: there will not be an ending to the game in this update.
(Not yet. But you will “determine the fate of the Sector by your actions” before this game is finished, that much is certain.)
另外，本次更新不会包含游戏的结局剧情。
（虽然具体内容尚未敲定，但在游戏结束之际，你必定会做出“影响整个星域命运的抉择”。）
Having the experience of implementing a series of large narrative arcs, once we see how this all plays out, we’ll be in a very good place to see where we want it to end up. And we’ll know how to get it there.
Having addressed that big picture question, let’s dive back down into some more details.
基于这些长篇叙事性任务流程的实践经验，一旦我们确定了剧情的总体走向，合适的故事结局便会呼之欲出，而走向结局的剧情设计也变得顺理成章了。
在确定了总体的剧情走向之后，我们再来深入探讨具体的一些细节。
## Dialog Mechanics 对话机制
We’re building Starsector’s narrative largely on text. What can I say, the medium is cheap! So I hope y’all like reading, because there’s going to be a bit of that involved. (I shall also try to be considerate of people who hate reading, mind you. That’s definitely one of the anticipated player archetypes.)
So unless the text is purely info-dumping, there’s got to be an interactive component. Make a choice, get some different results. Make different choices available based on previous choices, or based on other conditions that can be drawn from other mechanical attributes within the game (fleet strength, credits held, location, faction relations, person relations, arbitrary variables set elsewhere).
远行星号的叙事内容大部分以文本的形式呈现。在我看来，文本是一种成本极低的媒介。叙事性内容的展现也将会借助文本，所以我希望各位都能喜欢上阅读。（当然，我绝对也会考虑那些不喜欢阅读文字的人的感受，这无疑也是我们预料到的玩家原型中的一种。）
所以，除了那些纯粹为了传递大量信息的文本以外，其他的文本内容都一定会有可交互的部分，允许玩家做出选择并得到不同的结果。其中，可选的选项可以取决于之前做出的选择，也可以根据基于其它游戏内属性的条件来确定（舰队强度、信用点持有量、当前地点、与势力的关系值、与人物的关系值等各种变量）。
What about player skills, you ask. Welllllll… Disco Elysium brilliantly inserts RPG dice-roll mechanics into dialog, and better than skill checks (though it does those), they are so often tests of the player’s character. And rightly so, because that’s a game that’s ostensibly about solving a mystery but really an exploration of a particular character’s psyche.
Starsector isn’t quite that. Starsector must function as a game, yes, but is must function as the game it already is, which is space fleet combat-focused. So while we discussed the idea of doing skill checks in-dialog, ultimately decided that this would expand the range of mechanics without meaningfully enhancing the game experience. Imagine our design process: the player experiences a challenge via dialog. Which of the 40 different skills will solve it? How many different options do we, as developers, need to provide so that it doesn’t feel extraordinarily limiting? Does this align at all with the player archetypes we’re anticipating? What if we end up using Weapon Drills twenty times but Auxiliary Support only once in dialog challenges? The player has no way of knowing that they chose a skill useless to dialog back at level 3. (We also thought through using the sum of skills chosen in a category or aptitudes as a basis for character type. It seems compelling at first because it allows for neat categorization, but once you parse through the implications it doesn’t actually make the game more interesting.)
When you’re running a D&D game you can just make up skill checks that “happen” to align with skills you know the players have. We have no such luxury.
那么，这种选项是不是会和玩家所拥有的技能相关呢？这个嘛…… 在《极乐迪斯科》这款游戏里，他们在对话中巧妙地地插入了RPG掷骰子机制来做出选择，这比根据玩家所拥有的技能来选择（注：Skill Check，后译为技能检验）要好得多（虽然他们也用了）。这种设计频繁地诱导玩家根据自己的性格做出反应；而对于《极乐》这款表面上是解谜实则是对角色内心进行探索的游戏来说，正符合了它的目的。
但是远星和它不一样。虽然远星同样是一款RPG游戏，但已经是一款以太空战斗为重点的游戏了。在游戏对话交互过程中进行技能检验将会过大地扩展这一机制的内容规模，但却不能为游戏体验带来足够有意义的增强。因此，我们最终否决了这一想法。想象一下加上技能检验后的对话选项设计流程：玩家在对话中遇到了一个挑战，那么：现有的40个技能中哪个能解决这个问题？我们开发者需要提供多少种不同的选择，才不会让人觉得非常局限？设计的选项是否能对应我们预期的各种玩家原型？如果设计完了发现“武器演习”技能在剧情中被用到了20次而“辅助支援”技能只用了一次咋办？刚开局的3级玩家完全不会知道哪些技能是有用的（我们也想过按某一分类下玩家选择的技能数量总和来作为角色分类的依据。这乍一看似乎很不错，因为可以实现很简洁的分类，但一旦玩家意识到这一点，就会失去其带来的乐趣）。
当你在主持地下城类的桌游的时候，因为你知道每位玩家拥有的技能，所以你可以针对性地设置技能检验。但在这里，受限于成本，我们没法搞得这么周到。
Yes, en masse insertion of skills into dialog could theoretically be balanced and made to work, but that’s a lot of work (and it’s absolutely not responsible to try to shove an additional huge axis of mechanics into finely tuned interdependent game systems at this stage in development). Disco Elysium made it work with a huge number of skills because that’s literally what the game is about. Here, we’d just be adding absurdly intricate icing on top of the cake. Then the icing would fall over and look terrible, probably.
理论上来说，在对话技能中使用技能的机制是可以被实现和平衡的，但这需要巨大的工作量（而且，在游戏开发的这一阶段，将这么一串庞大的机制塞进经过精心调整的、互相依赖的游戏系统中，无疑是一种不负责任的行为）。《极乐》能实现这一点，是因为海量的技能和互动本来就是游戏的主要内容。但要是在远星上强行这样做，就像是在一块蛋糕上叠加了复杂过头的糖衣。这层糖衣很可能会掉下来，变得一塌糊涂。
Take a step back. [Restate our assumptions](
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k02KIOUU8Hw). Dialog option restrictions per skill would lock out most options for most players most of the time for most of the game. The player-experience return on developer time invested would be terrible. Besides, what do dialog option skill restrictions provide that doesn’t already exist?
让我们后退一步，[重申我们的观点](
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k02KIOUU8Hw)： 如果根据玩家拥有的技能来判断选项是否可用，那么，对于大部分玩家来说，在游戏流程的大部分时间，大部分的对话选项，都选不了。开发者的投入基本上没有获得玩家体验的提升。而且，如果仅仅是基于技能限制来锁定可选的选项，那么这一机制带来了什么新东西呢？
How about instead we assume the player’s space captain is a generally competent person. Then instead of locking out options based on skill restrictions, let us take a positive route and allow the player choose the way in which they excel at the time of the choice as it comes up naturally in the dialog. Let the player lie and send a fake cryopod to the mercenary demanding they hand over the VIP, giving the player enough time to make their escape – AND take a finders fee of 20k credits from the merc. If that’s who the player wants their player to be, that is.
We even have a system for this already: [Story Points](
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2019/07/08/skills-and-story-points/).
Conclusion: we don’t as a rule do skill checks in dialog – there’s an exception, but it’s largely for flavor – instead we use story points to let players choose when and how to be a totally awesome hero of their own story.
Speaking of that-
相反，我们不如假设玩家的太空船长是一个精明强干的人； 那么就不应该基于技能限制来锁定选项，而是采取积极的策略，允许玩家通过在对话中选择特定的选项，来决定他们的偏好和特长。例如，当雇佣兵们着急着寻找装有关键人物的冷冻休眠仓时，允许玩家选择寄一个假的给他们，并在卷走两万星币的救助费后有充足的时间逃之夭夭。如果玩家这样选择了，那么，这就是他想扮演的角色了。
我们甚至已经有了实现这一目的的机制：[剧情点数](thread-502-1-1.html)。
总结：通常，我们不会在对话框中进行技能检验——有一个例外，但这主要是为了增加点特色——相反，我们使用剧情点数，让玩家选择何时以及如何成为他们自己故事的英雄。
说到这里——
## The Player Character’s Character 玩家角色的性格
How do you possibly give players a reasonable range of choice without writing tens of options, and then allowing the compounding implications of those options to expand into hundreds, thousands of possible narrative cases?
Some games define a character for the player that’s a particular person who has their own opinions and outlook. Most games define at least a character who’s a bit of a cipher, allowing them to center their game mechanics. Master Chief or Gordon Freeman are pretty straightforward; they raise few questions about player agency outside of the limited mechanical range that the game can excel at. These are useful constraints.
要怎样才能给玩家提供足够广泛的选择，同时避免在每个对话里设置数十个回复选项，以至于这些错综复杂、环环相扣的选项发展成数百种可能的叙事情况？
有些游戏会让玩家扮演一个有思想、会思考的角色；而大部分游戏则会设定一个没有什么“主见”的角色，方便游戏机制围绕着这个角色运行。例如，士官长和戈登·弗里曼就是这样的简单角色：对于游戏机制以外、玩家无法掌控的事情，他们从不过问。这是个很有用的限制。
We’re in a similar place with Starsector. This game has a nature to it, and it suggest a certain type of character: you’re some kind of cool space captain. Imagine a more successful Han Solo (which I guess makes you Lando, haha). I can safely assume that this character won’t have strong opinions or interest in something like farming except insofar as they’re buying, selling, or stealing cargo related to it. Good.
远行星号的情况和这些游戏相似。它是一个2D太空游戏，而玩家扮演的是一位酷酷的太空船长。想象你是比韩·索罗更成功的韩·索罗（您要找的是不是：兰多‧卡瑞辛？哈哈）。我向您保证，您扮演的这个角色对耕田之类的事都没有什么强烈的想法或兴趣，除非他在买卖或者偷窃有关的东西。很好。
Still, we’ve got to keep dialog a bit vague. We have to leave an openness in interpretation of actual tone and wording so that the player can project enough of their own interpretation to those words that it feels correct. If we provide a dialog option that feels out of place or that pans out vastly contrary to the player’s expectation, then we lose narrative verisimilitude. The illusion wavers!
然而我们还是不能把话说的太具体。我们必须在实际语气和措辞的解释保持开放，让玩家可以将自己的解释理解代入其中，以避免违和感。如果我们提供的对话选项让人觉得不合时宜，或者与玩家的预期大相径庭，那么我们就失去了叙事的真实性。游戏营造的**幻象**就会被动摇!
At the same time, it’s very important to give the player the opportunity to drop cool lines; there’s a time and place for specificity. The art of it is judging where to apply that and where to back off.
同时，让玩家有机会放出酷炫的台词，也是非常重要的。具体的时间和地点都需要仔细考虑，关键在于判断应在哪里使用，又在哪里回避。
## On Secret Worldbuilding 幕后的世界观构建
There are big conflicts and mysteries in the world of Starsector. If you’ve played the game, you know what they are and you probably have some theories. You can infer that the story has to have something to do with them because we’ve put so much effort into setting them up; it’d be absurd to throw that work away. And it’d be cheap to pull a shock turnaround that contradicts everything already established. There’s a light cone, and the range of possible endings falls somewhere within it.
在远行星号的世界中，存在着许多大规模的冲突和未解的谜团。如果你玩过游戏，就应该明白我指的是什么，并且或多或少地对此有自己的理论。我们投入了如此多的精力去构建这些内容，所以你可以推断主线剧情必然与之相关。毕竟，白白放弃这些已有的成果实在是太荒唐了；而且，在这种设定下，制造一波惊天反转也很容易。已有的设定已经构成了剧情的光锥，而可能的结局必然落于其中。
The worst thing we could do is explain everything. The second worst, explain nothing. My goal with the writing of Starsector is to evoke something greater than the sum of its parts, and part of doing that successfully is knowing when to shut up.
I’ll be doing that now. Enjoy the next update!
前面说到，搞设定最坏的做法就是什么都解释；第二坏的做法，就是什么都不解释。我为远行星号创作剧情的目的，就是期望能唤起比剧情本身更为伟大的东西，想要做到这一点，知道啥时候闭嘴很重要。
我现在就要实践这一点了，期待这次的更新吧！
---
> david写嗨了，我佛了；感谢罗某的协助，恭喜罗大哥入坑。
[link-blogpost]:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2020/12/17/writing-starsector/
发表于 2021-1-17 03:45:22
发表于 2021-1-17 03:55:15
我还是没搞懂中心思想
