Effects of Narrative Structure and Salient Decision Points in Role Playing Games

This research-in-progress paper reports an experimental study that investigates two research problems: first, how does narrative structure impact the experience of role-playing games (RPGs)? And second, what are the effects of salient decision points on players’ perceptions of narrative structure and game play? Can players perceive branching narrative without salient decision points? Previous research literature was reviewed, two hypotheses were developed based on prior research, and an experiment was designed to test these two hypotheses. The findings will likely shed light on the development of narrative and feedback structures in RPGs and other allied fields, such as digital media, virtual reality, and human-computer interaction.