Ludic Sujet

The Ludic Sujet is the fiction of a game in its order: the ascriptions of this game in the sequence in which the corpus sets them and makes them known. In Zelda: Ocarina of Time cutscenes and temples follow in a fixed order; in Pandemic Legacy sealed dossiers are opened in set months; in Werewolf the narrator announces what has happened, and on elimination the role is revealed.

The sujet is composed through sequence. Its places lie on the Temporal Structure: a dossier of Pandemic Legacy is opened in a particular month, not in any month. That rounds count as days and phases as chapters, by contrast, does not belong to the sujet - it is the fiction for the temporal structure itself. What is hidden and when it is revealed depends on the View Structure. Sequence is not chaining: the ascriptions do not act on one another, they follow one another.

The sujet is set in the corpus; the fabula arises for each agent. From the sujet and what happens in the match, every agent builds their own Ludic Fabula. In Breath of the Wild the memories are set and the players choose their order: the sujet is the same, the fabulae diverge.

Not every game has one. Chess, Go and Dwarf Fortress are at the zero point: their fabulae arise from what happens alone.

What it is not. The sujet is not the theme and not the motif, as the word suggests in other languages. It is not the fabula - that arises, the sujet is set. And it is not the premise: the premise of a game (“Ganon threatens Hyrule”) has no order.

In everyday language

• “story” (largely): The story the game tells in a fixed order and reveals. Does not distinguish what the game specifies (Ludic Sujet, in the corpus) from what a match produces (Ludic Fabula, one for each agent); nor the reason for acting from the order of telling.

Place and design access

Place on the axis: CORPUS - the sujet is a determination of the corpus: the game-specific composition of Ludic Fiction, the counterpart of the Ludic Procedure on the side of regulation.

Design access: designable - designers determine which ascription is set when and when it is revealed.

Relations on the axis:

• CORPUS: the sujet is a special form of Ludic Fiction - its ascriptions in the order of this game. It realises a Ludic Narrational Structure where it follows a narrative scaffold. It presupposes a Ludic Temporal Structure: without a division of time the order has no places.
• PROCESS: the places of the sujet are passed through in the process. If the sujet branches, it sets the possibilities; which order a match takes is decided in the process - branching narrative (NA-10) is therefore a named combination of fiction and regulation.
• AGENT–PROCESS: what is told by design comes from the sujet; what happens comes from the process. From both, every agent builds their Ludic Fabula - the distinction between embedded and emergent narrative.
• FORM: the form conditions how a sujet is conveyed - the cutscene in a digital game, the sealed envelope at the table, the narrator’s voice in a party game.

The trias at this concept

Regulation - the order belongs to fiction, its triggers to regulation: the cutscene starts after the temple, the dossier is opened in May, the role is revealed on elimination. Where a sujet branches, rules set the decision points.

Appearance - the sujet appears in cutscenes, texts, envelopes, the narrator’s voice. Its turning points are often marked specially - by music, light, a change of camera.

Ascription - the sujet consists of ascriptions. Rarely is anything ascribed to it as such - unless the sections of the order carry names: chapter, act.

Delimitations

Delimitation from Ludic Fabula

Against the Ludic Fabula: set and arisen. The sujet is set in the corpus before anyone plays, and it is the same for all. The fabula arises in the process, a separate one for each agent: the story of the match as it is for them - built from the sujet and from what happens. Bordwell calls the fabula what the viewer constructs from the syuzhet; in games, what happens is added as a second source.

Delimitation from Ludic Narrational Structure

Against the Ludic Narrational Structure: pattern and realisation. The Narrational Structure is a transferable narrative framework - the hero’s journey, the three acts, kishōtenketsu. The sujet is the order of this game. It realises a narrational structure as a Procedure realises a Mechanism: the hero’s journey is the pattern, the sujet of Ocarina of Time its realisation. It can also exist without a catalogued pattern.

Delimitation from Ludic Procedure

Against the Ludic Procedure: two orders on the same time. The procedure brings rules into the sequence of this game, the sujet brings ascriptions. Both are game-specific, both are composed through sequence, both have their places on the Temporal Structure. They interlock where a rule triggers a place of the sujet - but they remain distinct: the procedure says what happens, the sujet what is to be imagined of it.

Examples

• Zelda: Ocarina of Time: cutscenes and temples in a fixed order - a hero’s journey as sujet.
• Zelda: Breath of the Wild: the memories are set, the players choose their order - the sujet is fixed, the fabulae diverge.
• Pandemic Legacy: sealed dossiers are opened in set months; what the world is changes from match to match.
• Werewolf: the narrator announces, on elimination the role is revealed. That the phases count as night and day is fiction for the Temporal Structure, not the sujet.
• Minecraft: a sujet only at the end - the poem after the Ender Dragon.
• Chess, Go, Dwarf Fortress: zero point - the fabulae arise from what happens alone.

Explanation

A game can tell its story in a particular order: first the departure, then the trials, at the end the return. This order, as you set it, is the Ludic Sujet.

What players tell at the end is something else: their own story of the match, the Ludic Fabula. It is built from your sujet and from everything that happens while playing. The more you set, the more alike the fabulae become; the less you set, the more the game itself tells. Both are a decision - and some games need no sujet at all.

Usage context

• Narrative worksheet: the experience segment per narrem sets the places of the sujet; zone B chooses the narrative framework it realises. The sujet appears there without a name of its own.
• Table narratio-ductus-correspondence: the turning points of the sujet should lie on the ductus curve.
• Fabula design worksheet: here it is recorded which fabulae should arise from the sujet and which should not.
• Phase: mainly development; in evaluation the comparison between the sujet and the players’ fabulae.

Theoretical foundation

• Viktor Shklovsky, O teorii prozy (1925), and Boris Tomashevsky, Teoriya literatury (1925): the fabula is the sequence of events, the sujet its arrangement in the work.
• David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film (1985): the fabula is what the viewer constructs from the syuzhet - LUNA adopts the direction and adds what happens in the match as a second source.
• Marc LeBlanc (GDC 2000), taken up by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play (2003), and Henry Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture” (2004): embedded versus emergent narrative - what is set and what arises in play.