FREN417

How Games Tell Stories: Fiction and Narrative in French Game Culture

Games have never been a bigger part of mainstream culture: the video games industry is a behemoth that dwarfs most other fields of entertainment; the last decade has a seen a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) renaissance with the rise of Actual Play shows like Critical Role or Dimension 20; board games have never been more numerous and diverse; and game culture has entered our daily lives in the guise of “gamification”. Why are games so successful? Are they just a new way for the entertainment industry to monetize our attention spans and free time, or do games fulfill a deep human need that has become more pressing in our current circumstances?

One of the most notable innovations that games bring to the table (no pun intended) is a new way to tell stories – a way that emphasizes interactivity, choice, immersion and possibility. Whereas literary and cinematic storytelling tend to favour linear narratives with clear bounds between storyworld and reader/viewer’s world, game narratives blur the lines between storyteller, audience, and characters; they raise fundamental questions of agency, free will, intent and consequence in new and surprising ways.

French game culture presents a unique perspective on these issues. Since the early 1980s, French game developers have sought to balance commercial imperatives with creative experimentation. The video game industry in France was famous in the late twentieth century for the “French Touch”, an approach that emphasized cinematic storytelling and artistic flair. Against the domination of American TTRPG blockbusters like Dungeons & Dragons, French TTRPGs embrace weird concepts, dreamlike universes and gonzo aesthetics. Board game developers such as Bruno Faidutti or Serge Laget blend theme and mechanics in order to create emergent, freeform storytelling.

With its focus on fostering unique and weird experiences, French game culture embraces the possibilities of interactive story-building in ways that are both unexpected and thought-provoking. Through the study of famous French games from of the past four decades, this course will explore the theoretical underpinnings of game fiction as well as the sociological and practical implications of a gamified world. Our corpus will include video games such as Dishonored (Arkane Studios) and Life is Strange (Don’t Nod), board games like Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde (Days of Wonder) and Mascarade (Repos Production), TTRPGs like Maléfices (Jeux Descartes) and Nephilim (Multisim), as well as less widespread forms such as gamebooks – a.k.a. choose-your-own adventure books – and Live-Action RPGs (LARPs).

Language of instruction: French

Instructor: Dr. Patrick Moran

Prerequisite: Either (a) all of FREN 311, FREN 321 or (b) all of FREN 328, FREN 329 and one of FREN 225, FREN 402.