The player's story: the narrative experience in RPGs

This thesis is an examination of the presentation of narrative in role playing video games (RPGs) to discern the amount of control a player has over a video game story. In order to fully understand the player's participation in a RPG's story, the thesis is divided into three sections. "Narrative Rules VS Narrative Fiction" looks at established theories in game studies, establishing the basic relationship between a RPG's narrative and its game rules. "Immersion in the RPG Genre" builds upon the basic relationship by exploring the immersive techniques used in RPGs, like multi-linear narrative structures and explorable virtual spaces, to engage the player in meaningful play. "The Player's Agency" looks at special narrative generation, or narrative praxis, the player performs by interacting with a video game, and asks at what point the player overtakes the developer as the author of meaning. Six video games are investigated to demonstrate the value for gameplay to be contextualised in narrative, along with some supplementary video games: Deus Ex (Ion Storm, 2000), Final Fantasy VI (Square, 1994), Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 (BioWare, 2007, 2010, 2012). All games are examples of RPG genre, while manipulating the genre to serve their respective narratives, and range over a decade of video game history.