Trust is a powerful force. It can lead people to great and terrible things. A great literary device involves a betrayal of that trust and having the reader’s perception of events radically change. This leads to an interesting situation in games where characters around the main hero can choose the path of evil from almost out of nowhere, but the hero himself must always follow one path. Some games seek to change this pattern by turning the hero into the villain at the last second with an "amnesia scenario". This has often felt cheap to me as a player. Why must the story simply end when "OMG he wuz da bad guy, GAME OF YEAR". The story ends because the main hero's quest has ended, but why. Surely there are other men of valor in this tale, why not take up their reins. Why must the game simply put up a stop sign when it has the chance for real character development and evolution? Imagine the players entire world view of what’s good and evil flipped on its ear, and then make them explore this new world without a trace of trust. They won't have any inkling of what will happen and their emotional development in their remaining "good guys" will increase through their fear that "no one is safe".



Now with your main character the villain of the story the player will also gain a better understanding of his motives. Perhaps his wife was tortured and killed by some empire, a quest for revenge, or maybe he seeks power to save the world, but through all the wrong paths. Now the villain is more sympathetic to the player and thus they'll be rooting for both sides and perhaps the "wrong" side, which can lead to much more interesting situations. Now the "villain" is suddenly a hero to some players, will they try and mess up their own "hero's" journey to allow the villain to win, or will they do all they can to defeat him? This ties into "moral choices" in a new way, there is no right and no wrong, no good or evil, just a choice, and the rewards are the experiences the player truly wanted.



Without the barriers of "main hero" true openness in story telling can begin. The new world the player now lives in is drastically changed, not through some cataclysmic event (though this has been used excellently in the past), but through perception. Who can they truly trust, who will they want to trust, and why? The player now longer has to choose the "good" side to get the better ending, they can choose any side they want and get the ending best fit for them and their choices. With no good or evil the player can finally shape the future for themselves and not be tied down by keeping the status quo of perception.



I'm just throwing out possibilities (simple ones as there isn’t enough time to tell a more complex story here), but the spirit of this piece is simple, perception is best when kept shifting. When the player is so set in their perception of the world they wish for change the story has become stagnant an crusty. Story telling in games can be so much more then it is. Games like Bioshock (sorry had to mention it because if I didn't everyone else, the two people who read this and one who comments, would) show how thrilling and rewarding a good perception change can be to a plot. There are games in the past that have accomplished what I've mentioned before, but normally this twist(hate to use that word) has occurred too late in the story to be of any game changer. When done right changing a person’s perception and blurring the lines of right and wrong can have a lasting impact far beyond the initial shock of it.

My favorite part of games is their story, which is the reason I choose this topic (but didn’t really stay on a narrow train of thought). My first ideas were Why are guns only used as weapons, why do characters never change their cloths, and why don’t characters cry about a death long after it has happened(like just randomly during game play). I chose Trust for the sole reason that it would have the greatest effect on the industry if it were changed.