Narratio

Term

Belongs to the term

Ludic Narrational Structure: A Ludic Narrational Structure is a narrative scaffold - the order in which a game narrates: beginning, turn, resolution.

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cards

The cards

NA-01 Three-Act Structure The initial situation is established (Act I), a conflict escalates and reaches its climax (Act II), the resolution brings a solution or consequence (Act III). The most widespread Western narrative pattern.

NA-02 Hero's Journey The agent leaves the known world, passes trials, is transformed and returns changed. 12–17 stages after Campbell/Vogler. The most enduring narrative pattern of the Western tradition.

NA-03 Kishotenketsu A four-part structure that relies not on the escalation of a conflict but on surprise through contrast. The third part (Ten) brings an unexpected twist that casts what came before in a new light – without an opponent having to be defeated.

NA-04 In Medias Res The narration begins at a dramatic point – players are thrown into the action without knowing the backstory. Orientation arises through the gradual revealing of the past while the plot advances.

NA-05 Slice of Life The narration follows no arc of tension but the rhythm of everyday life. Small moments instead of big twists. Meaning lies not in the dramatic but in the ordinary – deployable deliberately against Western expectations of escalation.

NA-06 Frame Narrative An overarching frame plot contains embedded inner stories. The frame level gives the whole coherence and meaning; the inner stories provide variety and perspectives in a story within a story.

NA-07 Cyclical Structure The narration follows a cycle. The endpoint leads back to the beginning, but the context has changed. What recurs is familiar; what is different shows what has changed, often the player themselves.

NA-08 Fragmented Narrative The narration is presented not in chronological or causal order but as fragments that the player must assemble into a whole. The reconstruction is the ludic experience.

NA-09 Cumulative Narrative Stories are introduced, left, taken up again, varied and overlaid. Intensity arises not from sharpening but from accumulation – the web grows denser, the connections more numerous. No finale, but growing complexity.

NA-10 Branching Narrative At defined points the agent makes decisions that determine the further course of the narrative. Different paths lead to different developments and/or endings. The fundamental interactive Ludic Narrational Structure innovation: the story is not one but many.

NA-11 Parallel Narrative Several narrative strands run simultaneously. The agent switches between perspectives, characters or time levels. The strands can stay independent, cross or converge at the end. The parallelism creates contrasts, ironies and an overall picture that arises only through their combination.

NA-12 Iterative Narrative The agent lives through the same time period or space repeatedly. What changes is not the world but the agent's knowledge. Each pass reveals new connections that are carried into the next.

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