Dramatica & Interactive Fiction, Can it be done?

Hi everybody. I wasn’t sure whether the following question should have gone under THEORY or here under WRITING, but it seems to be more aking to the application of theory rather than theory itself.

I come from Interactive Fiction (IF) background—ie: those computer text-games/adventures where the player imparts commands to his game-character (like “go north”, “open the box”, ecc.) and thus explores the world and solves puzzles to reach the story end.

IF was very popular back in the 80’s, when home computers didn’t offer graphics (and the best graphic-card was one’s immagination). But today the world of IF is still much alive, although a niche, and free softwares like Inform7 have evolved spectacularly — you actually write an adventure in English as the programming language — and the possibilities of story telling are rather powerful.

Some works of IF are linear stories where the player has only to solve puzzles in order to proceed toward the end. Other IF works actually offer different story path according to player choices, and might thus lead to different endings. It’s these last type of IF that made me wonder if Dramatica could find applications in Interactive Fiction.

I’ve been wondering about how one would approach such a task. The main difficulty consists in the fact that slight storypoint changes can have great ripercussions. So, ideally an author would have to work out two or three storyforms that have in common at least the 1st Act’s signposts, journeys and thematic points—ie: the beginning of the story should be rooted in the same conditions, from there on, according to player’s choices, the story might follow different courses.

For example, one might envision the same story but with different Outcomes (Succes or Failure).

Overall, I think that the factors that can be taken in consideration for forking the story should be on the player’s side, and giving for granted that player will be in the MC role: things like MC Dymanics (his PS Style, Resolve, Mental sex, and Growth) could be “measured” during the first stages of the game by presenting him choices that would determine how he relates to one or more of these points.

It doesn’t seems likely that you can leave all 4 MC Dynamics without having to face completely different storyforms. So my question is whether anyone could advice which way is best to go about it, so that the different possible storyforms would have at least the 1st Act in common.

This is a subject which I am sure needs a lot of investigation. Fortunately, in the IF community there are a number of academic people who devoted quite a long time to Interactive Fiction theory, its study, and attempting to opening new paths—like Nick Montfort, who authored the book Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction, a very interesting work in the field.

http://nickm.com/twisty/

But so far, Dramatica has never been proposed as a tool to associate with IF—at least not to my knowldege.

Unlike CYOA books (Chose Your Own Adventure), which only offer simple choices which make the reader jump to different paragraphs, computer IF works allow for the creation of complex rule-based worlds, were is possible to change the state of the world, handle highly interactive NPCs (Non-Player Characters) and thus it should be possible to create a highly dynamic Impact Character which interactively pushes his argument, or even remains Steadfast when player is heading to Change, or viceversa.

But again, if the different storyforms are to wide-apart (especially in Progressive Points explorations), this might be a daunting task. It would be ok to have the story take different courses which end up handling different thematic issues, problems, ecc.—actually, it would make the story game even more attractive, since replaying it would provide a whole different experience (and there are such games). The only difficoulty I foresee is in the story beginning.

Is there a better approach to Storyforming to achieve this? Or would the best approach be to try out a huge number of Storyforms and, ultimately, just make a selection of those combinations that are more manageable? ie: creating a fixed stock of empty storyforms on which IF works can be build.

At present, I have no idea if there is a way to go about the Story Engine so that one might ensure that 1st Act Plot Progression points remain unafeccted by other choices (ie: there is no way to “lock” them so that no choices would be presented that would upset 1st Act).

Or maybe there is some story-weaving/-telling escamotage to get around the whole problem, and provide some kind of neutral beginning which does not impose to much of the 1st Act. But the whole point is that the different possible story experiences available should have some overlapping, and not be some completely different stories.

It would be very interesting to see a complete work of IF build on Dramatica Theory, after all there is no reason why an IF work should not accomade a Grand Argument Story—and it defenitely can be done easily if the story unfolds linearly.

Best regards!

Tristano

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Similar field of work here. Earlier this year I was looking at the Story Engine to find elements where player choice could affect the plot while staying within the storyform. It is difficult because storyform elements are so interconnected. Granting players the choice to make plot-relevant decisions (like MC Resolve at a leap-of-faith moment) may be dissonant with prior elements of the story, such as the order of the Signposts.

Part of the problem in games is presentation - they tend to make a big deal out of granting players plot choices (often with obvious UI), so it pulls them out of the experience. Ultimately a hurdle that the video game medium has yet to clear is that players are acting both as audience and participant, which seems anathema to the Grand Argument Story IMO.

This is an interesting subject for me, and I’ve tried some way of using Dramatica for Interactive Fiction, although in my case I mostly used Twine instead of Inform and such, so a more Choose-your-own-adventure + Variables approach (here’s a pretty nice explanation of what I’d try to do).

I think the easiest approach for this stuff would be to go with Propaganda (as Dramatica describes it). Leave out the Main Character Throughline, and then use the same storyform for all paths, but different illustrations. “Game Overs” wouldn’t really count as “real” endings in this sense, and all “real” endings would be a Success (or Failure), but may be achieved differently. This way, whatever path you choose, it always argues for the same point.

I tried something else as well. I chose all the Signposts (in this case from Star Wars 4). 32 Storyforms remain, letting you choose Limit, Concern, Issue and Problem (the other 7 essential questions have the same answers as SW4). In my mind, using this method, you could, in a way, visit the same signposts in different paths while highlighting different things, depending on which storyform you determined at the beginning. I’m always thinking about the exponential branch explosion that would happen if you used different storyforms. 32 still seems manageable (although I’d just use Optionlock and make it 16).

The fact of the matter is, once you’ve passed the first act, the story form is pretty much set (given the current story engine). It’s not even about signposts having to appear here, it’s about static story points having to be established during this act. A simple thing like the objective story problem being the same as the subjective story problem would mean that the Story Outcome is Failure. Judgment is a bit more complicated, but still, if you tell me in the beginning that all my choices matter, and they only really matter in the first act, and no matter what I do after that it will always lead to Failure? Even if the Outcome is always Success, it would make my choices kind of meaningless. Unless it’s a matter of degree. How successful was I? I saved the world, but how many people died? or something less cheezy than that.

And I second LunarDynasty’s thoughts about players being both audience and participant. I mean, if you’re confronted with a choice, do you take the choice that fits you the best, fits the player character the best, or would lead to the most interesting story?

And I wouldn’t necessarily worry about the beginning. You could start the game before the story. Use the time to establish the status quo and figure out what storyform to use.

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Thanks @LunarDynasty

Yes, you centered the problem: choices must not have a backward effect, otherwise dissonance would creep in (you’d be living though a story which started with the wrong Act).

As for the UI problem, I gather you are referring to other types of video game. In text-based IF works this wouldn’t pose a problem since there is already in place an expectation from the audience as to how the medium works: inputed text interacts with the story, action by action, and some action have more consequences than others, so author storytelling and player action can freely mix—a certain comand (open the box) could trigger a long narrative text ultimately throwing the player in a new setting. Actually, Inform7 even provides commands related to scenes in its basic command set.

But I was thinking that even in other types of games the issue didn’t need to be take so directly as to ask an explicit question to the player. Rather, the game should “observe” the player behaviour and deduce its line of action. This would be how I’d implement it in a text-adventure. I’d place different objects or choices in front of the player, and based on which one he approaches first I’d establish his orientation toward the story and/or specific thematic point.

Even in action games it’s not unfrequent that the game checks to see if the player is stuck and going in circles, and might thus suggest a course of action to help him move one. So the idea of piece of code that silently monitors the player’s action is not unsual.

Maybe sometimes a single choice might not be enough to establish the player’s relation to Dramatica’s Dynamics, but using some kind of table to record and measure his actions could be implemented to keep track toward which area he is more attracted—fuzzy logic could provide a great way to measure overlapping values here. At other times, it would be possible to present him with mutually exclusive binary choices (eg. either chase the Foe or stay behind to help a wounded mate), thus similar choices would not need to be explicited at all, they could be set as invisible “trip wires” along the game experience, in strategic places were the player is expected to pass through.

Quite a number modern console games (eg: Dishonored, and Le Last of Us, just to mention few) have different ending and developments depending on player choices and approaches (eg: if he uses to much force, if he proves selfish, ecc.). I’m sure that for such games it would prove precious to implement Dramatica model to preserve consistency along the different possible story developments—and we are speaking of major games, most of them produced on Hollywood settings, and employing real actors for characters animations and voices, often even famous ones.

But as for now, it’s quite a shot in the dark, for Dramatica’s UI doesn’t offer any tools in this direction, nor there is an accesible criteria for approaching the issue. From what I read around, Signposts are the real hardcore feature of the engine, which wouldn’t be possible to predict or calculate mentally—unlike simpler equivalences, like Growth and Approach, which can easily be mentally tracked.

It would be very nice if a future version of Dramatica might take into account such a feature, allowing the user to lock some Signposts, just like it presently allows to lock user choices in the Story Engine, so that all else can be reset whilst keeping certain values. I guess it something that the authors of the software could look into.

But doesn’t the new Dramatica SE offer in the Story Engine screen also the Signposts? Can’t it be handled from there, by locking the 1st signposts in at least the MC and OS throughlines, and then playing around with the other values? (sorry, no Mac, so can’t try it, and I don’t know anyone who has Dramtica SE).

I’m glad to see that this need it’s not confined only to text-based Interactive Fiction, but also in other videogame design areas. After all it makes sense: video games are generally evolving into fully formated stories, so I guess that Dramatica would have a future in this field as well (beside the multiple endings use). After all, millions of bucks are invested in a console game production, employing all kind of counsellers (from light, to color, sound, FX, ecc.), and some games take years to produce. The story element is becoming a requirement for a good game, we are no longer in the 80’s, where arcade games were just about going through levels; now video games are full citizens of the entertainment industry.

Dramatica could empower Indy game producers to produce good stories without having to spend hard cash on professional movie consultants, nor having to embark too deeply into storytelling theory (after all, they are programmers, not writers). From my experience as a text-adventures developer (but also had some experience in arcade games creation), I can see new applications of Dramatica in this field. But it might require some dedicated book addressing the issue. Possibly its in this forum that such a project might find its birth…

Dear @bobRaskoph,

you’ve given me quite a lot of “bread for thoughts”, some of which I’ll need time to think about. Surely you’ve already faced the issue, and your suggestions do make sense.

My compliments for Slayers Inc., that is a living example of Dramatica applied to IF! Twine is a nice tool, and I guess it’s more used than Inform, which still feels too much programmers oriented, even though its not like its predecessors, heavily relying on knowledge of C code.

I’ll have to reread the Propaganda chapter, and I admit that I didn’t think of obscuring the MC throughline before.

But as for the endings issue, I’d like to call attention to Vespers, which is considered one of the best IF pieces of all times (freely downloadable, open source code). It provides a good example of a game where subtle choices lead to very different endings (not only Success/Failure, but also Good/Bad). The game is set in a monastery, and the Devil has lurked in to wreck havoc. Tempation crosses the player’s path in different forms, and it’s easy to think that you are carrying on a “good action” only to discover too lately that you’ve been trapped by the Devil. Some actions might not lead to Failure, but will compromise your personal success and be Bad in Dramatica’s terms.


http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=6dj2vguyiagrhvc2

I forgot to indulge in the “player as audience and participant” issue brought up by @LunarDynasty—sorry for that. True, that’s an issue, but surely not a new one in Interactive Fiction. It has been discussed by the “theorists of IF”, but most IF producers and players don’t really suffer too much from it for there is a certain established tradition in the genre, and somehow IF has managed to cope with it in the years.

The moment the player sits in front of the screen he is expecting to enter the fictional world and interact with it. The opening usually provides some context and backstory, and the first moves are usually explorative and help to set the mood and establish the goals and the types of commands available (as well as if its a NPCs oriented game, or puzzle oriented, ecc.). As an accustomed player, it comes natural to me to play both roles of audience and paricipant without feeling any longer the discrepancy—I enjoy the story as it unfolds, and I actively push it forward by my actions.

The issue if the player is going to take a course of action which best suits him, or the character, or make the story more interesting, is in itself something that can be exploited to change the story course. But usually they tend to blend together if the story is well formed—after all he is in the story only as a character, and he is playing because he finds it interesting. Failure in creating these connections would be more an issue of bad storytelling. But they can still be exploited —for example, to push the player toward a deeper immersion into the character, which is often needed to push him in the right direction; and Vespers is a good example for this, for the right choices will always be those of the characters, which should be deduced from the context, but most players fall in the game traps which exploit this discrepancy.

Your other considerations about the Static points are very valuable, so I’ll be rethinking the issue by taking them in consideration. I guess the idea of starting the game before the story would work only for stories that don’t start off with the problem already in place (like a war, ecc.). But it did prompt me to think that after all IF doesn’t have to be presented in linear time, and just like novels it could jump up and down in time (as many works do).

I was quite amazed to find so quickly two other people who had thought of Dramatica for video games—one even within the specific field of IF! In less than an hour my post got 2 replies. I wasn’t so expectant at the beginning, and I pleasantly surprised to see that the same need is felt by others.

I also somehow suspect that video game coders (for their being programmers) are more keen to accept Dramatica than writers (which often are skeptic toward creativity aiding software).

Before reading anything else you wrote here, I want to quickly make clear that I had nothing to do with Slayers Inc. or the website it’s on; it’s all Evan Hill’s. I don’t know if that was the impression I left in my first post, or if you even assumed that (my English Reading Comprehension leaves something to be desired sometimes and it’s late evening where I live), but I want to be sure.

Sorry @bobRaskoph, my mistake: I’ve misread your linking and gave for granted you might have created it with an art name (as many authors do).

No harm done!

Let me drop a little link where Melanie Anne Phillips talks about Dramatica and Video Games

I’d like to explain what I tried to do when I was working on my Twine+Dramatica project (which would use the concepts described by Evan Hill). It was set in the far-distant future. You play a psychology student who is tasked to go inside the copies of template patients’ minds (story minds taken literally), having to find a way to solve the inequity within. Failing to do so (Game Overs) would simply eject the student, making them start over (in-universe; the player could just go to a save state). The reason for this second level player character is so that we have an in-universe explanation why the pc can’t simply use the solution to solve the problem; the patient is simply blind to it, and sees the symptom as the actual problem; the patient also has specific concerns/issues/problems to deal with, that the student would have to work within or around.

One mind only has one storyform, but within this mind, the player can make choices determining the degree of Success/Good (as all minds would have at least a Good judgment, if not Success as well; we’re trying to help patients here; most are probably Change characters, too), as well as figuring out where the player stands on the variation-level, on the issues of the storyform. Should we focus more on Skill or Experience, etc. Hopefully those choices (whether they’re on the nose or more subtle) would be good vs good (or evil vs evil) choices, instead of good vs evil. I’m sure in Text Parsers and such, these choices could be a lot more subtle.

The player would have to solve a certain number of story minds to “beat” the game, not necessarily in any particular order, and they could try to redo a mind to improve their solution.

So, this is an extremely simplistic way of using Dramatica in an interactive way. There’s no real form-shifting going on, instead you just choose between different forms. And, yes, this idea is heavily inspired by the likes of Psychonauts and Assassin’s Creed.

I hope this made sense at all. It’s been a while since I’ve worked on this and I’m sure you’ll find things that wouldn’t really work. Still, back then it seemed like a good idea.

I gotta say that I don’t really like that. I know this is a bit off-topic, but I do think that story in games has its time and place, and shouldn’t be a requirement for the game to be considered good (or better).

This is my favorite thread of all time. Thank you!!!

Dear @bobRaskoph,

your project seem very intriguing. I have some difficulty to imagine it in action, but I guess is one of those things that you need to see and play to fully understand.

After having given a better look at “Slayers Inc.” and a quick look at its code, it came to my mind of a software tool that I had bought in the past—but when my previous PC crashed I forgot to reinstall it.

Its called Divine Gamebook Creator, and its price is very reasonable. It allows to create interactive books with variables and conditions, without requiring coding in a strict sense. So it might come handy for your project:

http://www.divinegames.it/#book-index

In the meantime I’ve had a nice email exchange with Melanie on the issue, and she kindly provided me with some good insight on the possibilities to use Dramatica for IF. She confirmed that player and MC need not be one and the same, and that having the MC out of the picture—or even as a Character which comes and goes—might make things smoother.

Her reply was rather lengthy and rich, and I’ll need some time to fully get a grip on all that—and realize I have to re-read her Mental Relativity paper.

I am rather determined to take some time and get into the issue, and then draft a sketch of an IF work which takes advantage of Dramatica concepts. My idea is to present it to one of the various IF yearly contents around the world, and attach to it a paper describing how it was designed (something not unusual in a genre like IF, which is always looking for new roads of expression). There is always a great interest for new ideas and approaches in the genre, so even if I were to partly fail in my intent, someone else might be prompted to explore this potential. And luckily there are in the IF community some well prepared academics who have studied non-linear fiction, its theory and its history. So I might drop a mail or two over there too.

In the meantime I’ve recalled some passages I’ve read from Twisty Little Passages, and some IF gameplays in which the player is shifted from one character to another in order to finish the game—and each time he shifts, in order to progress he has now to take advantage of what he’s learned while being the other character. So the initial problems I envisaged are now taking a different shape because I realize that perspective changes would allow to handle different storyforms (after all, one character’s storyform needs not be the same of anothers, even though all them have an overlapping role in the others’ storymind).

Which only confirms that Dramatica is a representation of what goes on in the real world too, where each of us is living a private narrative mental journey “collectively”.

Also, Melanie pointed out that story progression doesn’t have to be an impediment to using Dramatica, after all the game can offer exploration of the various story points through other means, or not taking into account plot progression at all, and players are still able to reconstruct mentally the storymind they’ve traversed—ie: after the game is finished, they will relive mentally its meaningful moments, reordering them in a meaningful sequence even if they were not explored exactly in that order.

I guess that the higher the dynamics of the storytelling medium employed, the less can be nailed into fixed positions—but people are used, after all, to quickly rearrange experience to make it conform to their bias (otherwise bias would not be a strong factor in the storymind).

But most of all, I realize I need to get some ideas on paper and start coding them and do some world-building, because only by playing it I can test the “feel” of its story exploration. Maybe its easier done than said!

Hi @jhull !

Tristano

I have a question for you @jhull, do you know if in DSE’s Story Engine is possible to lock Singpost choices, like in Dramatica Pro 4 was possible to lock any storypoint? Therefore assign to some specific Signposts in any Throughline a give Type and have them locked while trying other possible storyforms?

I haven’t seen DSE and I dont’ have a Mac. I’m waiting for the Win version of DSE to be released and buy it.

Thanks!

Tristano

[quote=“Tristano, post:10, topic:458”]
your project seem very intriguing. I have some difficulty to imagine it in action, but I guess is one of those things that you need to see and play to fully understand.[/quote]
Guess my explanation wasn’t good enough. I’m not really sure how I could explain it better without, you know, actually making it, but I can’t really afford to spend much time on any personal projects for a long while.

I’ve skimmed the site, and it doesn’t seem to offer anything that I couldn’t do with Twine or program myself. My reason for using Twine instead of Inform (or Quest or anything like that) isn’t because I have no programing knowledge (I do, I study computer science), but rather because Text Parsers tend to be a lot more unpredictable in my experience.

Maybe I’ve spend to much time on the Internet, or I’ve become just that cynical, but I have to put serious mental effort into reading this in a non-sarcastic way. I think it’s the three exclamation points and the hyperbole that throw me off.

I’m pretty sure I wrote about this back on the G+ board, or maybe it was another we floated around on before settling here, but there were a few interactive movies made in the late 1990’s that I had owned at one point. One of them, Tender Loving Care, had John Hurt playing a psychiatrist who briefly appeared from time to time (perhaps at act breaks or maybe even the equivalent of signposts) to ask the viewer a series of questions that would shape the outcome of the story.

The idea is that the movie’s pre-determined plot would play out in a manner that mirrored the viewer’s own psychological make-up and, if I remember correctly, it would even give something of a profile at its conclusion. It was, in a sense, like playing a dramatic video game on your DVD player and the idea that the outcome was dependent on the choices you were making along the way always fascinated me (though I can’t recall how many possible endings there were).

A quick glance searching the internet seems to show the movie itself has found new life with app makers as an option for the iPhone/ipad, etc. It would be interesting to track down a copy and look at it through Dramatica.

It seems the new App is a remake taking advantage of iPad/iPhone features like touch screen, and possible other things. How was the original DVD interactivity, via the DVD Player remote control? Did it present you with a list of choices to which a certain button would correspond?
Again Mac-world … so I’m cut off.
It shouldn’t be difficult to get old of the original DVD, via some online second hand resellers.
Thinking of terms of DVD size, it must have amounted to a full story with different paths and ending, some maybe overlapping (or “cross-roading”). Definitely analyzing it in all its paths in Dramatica terms could provide some insight.

Yes, it was used via the remote. For example, it might show you a picture that had nothing to do with the story, but give you a selection of five or so things that best described how you felt about it or what you thought was happening in the photo while other questions would be more pertinent to the narrative. You would simply use your remote to arrow up or down for your selection. I wouldn’t doubt it if it’s available on the internet in some form as there are clips all over youtube involving it.

I assure you it’s 100% sincere. I think the development of Dramatica in interactive fiction/gaming is extremely exciting and love seeing work being done on it.

Also, I played a lot of Zork when I was a kid and solved Deadline so…yeah. I’m a fan.

I was listening to episode 321 of podcast On the Page with guest Susan O’Connor where she discusses writing for video games. Of course, I thought of Dramatica and how it could all work together. O’Connor suggested a solution. this episode is from November 1, 2013. I think it’s worth listening to. She uses Breaking Bad as an example (i.e. bringing it over to a video game) The thing that makes the show compelling is watching Walter White problem solve. His stakes and his loved ones are all a part of his urgency to solve his problems but she suggests that it is a hard sell for the player to care as much as Walter White about all his problems/loved ones. I think what she’s saying is making the POV character as the Protagonist makes it difficult to make choices and still have an immersive experience and you don’t want to operate in a morally empty universe because you would lose what makes Breaking Bad Breaking Bad. So if you make the POV immersive in the world as a passenger character or supporting driver character. You could be Tuco or Hank the cop or someone from Mexico comes up to try to be the new Heisenberg.
At least this way you can have the overall story more complete.

I had an idea that may have been similar to yours, @bobRaskoph, but instead it was a Fantasy Island show called Dramatica Therapy.
People would come to the Dramatica Therapy studio with issues. They see symptoms as problems and they have critical flaws and unique abilities. Mr. Roarke would plug them into the Total Recall patented Memory machine and while his dialogue is filled with exposition explaining why the guest star is there that week he inputs the overall story, the relationship story, the influence/obstacle character and main characters issues, critical flaws, unique abilities and let the guest star of the week try to figure out his issues in the context of the Overall story conflict. etc.

Of course that would be all scripted but why couldn’t in the near future people put themselves in a Dramatica Therapy virtual reality with gists type choices and plug in your own personal inequities. Then you would work out your issues in a totally new context that you may not be so blind to as you would be because of your emotional closeness to the real issue.

Thanks for the podcast @SPotter, I’ve found it on their website:

I also took a chance and Googled to see if there are any books on the subject, and I’ve found two titles that deal with video game writing/narrative:

  • The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design (by F.Dille & J.Z.Platten)
  • Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing (by Wendy Despain)

not having read either of them I have no idea how inherent and helpful they might be, but peeking at their TOCs they seem to contain useful guidelines and considerations.

I find it very interesting that, so far, most replies suggest having the player in a non-MC role. I also notice that somehow this discussion brings up issues relating to Mental Relativity—especially your project idea, with the Dramatica Therapy studio. IF work seems to require a step back from usual Dramatica use, and rethinking the issue over in terms of Mental Relativity processes, so as not to loose sight of perspective in the process.

I was thinking that for my IF experiment, I could take a novel which I like and know well, analyze it in Dramatica terms and then think how I could turn it into an IF game and preserve its storyform. And after that, think of how I could add forkings to it, allowing different endings—or other approaches which would allow fictional interactivity without loosing dramatic potential.

It’s not unusual in the IF world to take a famous novel or movie and make a text-adventure of it—usually it’s considered a tribute to the novel. In my case, having a solid reference to start to work on, would allow me to avoid many pitfalls that I’d otherwise have to face if writing from scratch (and juggling with story creation, alignment to Dramatica, plus interactivity). Also, the original novel/movie would function as a “benchmark” to measure success and failure of my project—both in its making as well as after its completion.

Dramatica analysis would allow me to grasp where the story dramatic potentials are, and ensure that they don’t get lost in medium-translation. From there I could test various IF patterns, and see how far I can stretch narrative deviations from the original.

I wouldn’t say put the player character(PC) in a non-MC role but do not put the PC in a Protagonist role. The Protagonist can move the Overall Story forward and it’s Success or Failure can be decided ahead of the time but your PC/MC’s Judgement of Good or Bad will be open ended.

On a similar note:
I have been getting into Dungeons & Dragons this past year (again after 30 years) and here you are dealing with a group dynamic. I guess the Dramatica analysis will have to be done after a campaign has ended. My guess that since we are dealing with several Player Characters who come up against given circumstances and can make infinite choices but all have a shared goal (usually) that a story form will happen naturally. All the PCs think of themselves as the MC in their story but usually one of the group stands out as the Protagonist or a Non-Player Character(NPC) takes that role. Because we are dealing with real human beings the PCs are complex but you get Sidekicks and Guardians and another is the Emotion character and another is the Reason character, etc. A NPC is almost always the Antagonist.

I would say most Players in D&D don’t turn out to be change characters but wouldn’t it be cool if the Dungeon Master/Game Master was so good at storytelling and the Players were so good at Role Playing that the characters actually had an epiphany and overcame personal issues? In the new 5th Edition of D&D they have actually set this up now for this to happen. You are encouraged to create characters with critical flaws and unique abilities and personal issues whether they be internal or external issues.