Writer? Narrative Designer? Hire-in? WTF?

[Psynergy]

Ok, I've lurked enough, about time I post something somewhat worthwhile.

I've got to say, from the point of view of someone trying to get into the games industry, it has to be the most confusing in the world. These past few months, I've been worrying myself into a piss-stained coma about what I'd be good at when finishing my degree. Writing seems to be my +10 skill of choice, when it's about stuff I'm interested in(videogames mostly), and I was keen to find out what the best route would be to start applying my writing skill to the industry.

That was until I attended recruitment fairs and asked my contacts in the industry.

Want to be a games journalist? should of taken a journalism degree.

Want to be a writer for games? Writers are hired in. You should write for tv or movies.

So my dreams were crushed. I submitted to a life of urine-soaked sheets and seizure inducing bouts of daytime television.

Then I browse Gamasutra, and read an article by a student who is planning on becoming a 'narrative designer' when she graduates, with Gamasutra, and I'm assuming all who read it's pages, acting as if 'Narrative Designer' is a common job description.

So really, Where did Narrative Designer come from? Isn't it just a euphamism for writer? and why is it that the industry, that is apparently expanding so vastly and so rapidly, seems so reluctant to have writers who WANT to write for games? Does it really just boil down to experience? and experience in what? writing? the games industry as a whole? life?

And why the hell can't I make my profession to write for games if they're my main passion in life?

......

Crumpets....

[LK]

Bioware is the only company that is hiring writers and has been looking for some in their Austin offices for some time.

Otherwise, writing is a secondary talent in most places.  Game writers are really rare.

[Tale]

Want to be a games journalist? should of taken a journalism degree.

Want to be a writer for games? Writers are hired in. You should write for tv or movies.

I've been a journalist for 14 years (took a journalism degree, sorry) and spent the first 7 working for technology magazines, where I was allowed to write about games a lot. The problem with writing about games is everyone wants to do it (see F13 message boards). Freelance, it pays less than any other kind of journalism. If you want to earn a living as a tech writer, you do the Linux technical guides or grill CEOs at the Intel developer conference.

Online, it's pure exploitation. There are hundreds of websites offering "get paid for your games writing" who will pay you "a portion of the web advertising revenue generated by your page" (hurrah for 5% of $23). Even among the full-time games journalists you love to hate, last time I checked it was the journalism equivalent of waiting tables - you get all the passionate feedback, all the jealousy of your apparent privileged position, and nothing but pocket change from your employer.

I wrote a couple of class guides for MMOGs, purely out of community spirit and put my email address on the end. I still get spammed with "write for us, we'll PAY you". Sorry, I am busy writing for employers who pay 60c a word. I'm not going to write 2000 words on my two days played in AoC for $20 when I can spend two hours interviewing a guy who makes electric cars and write it up for $1200.

That said, there's NOTHING better for your writing career than getting published. It does not matter where. What employers want to see is a collection of stuff with your byline on it, and then they know you are not another "hi, I wanna be a writer" - you ARE a writer and they can commission stuff. Freelance journalists who can churn out excellent copy to deadlines are always in demand.

I gather the same goes for creative work. You need to write something and get someone to use it. Because, again, everyone thinks they can do it. The internet is full of shitty fantasy drivel and unpublished novels from people who should never have typed a word. But if you are an experienced scriptwriter and can demonstrate that people have performed your stuff (it does not matter who), you are a resource from whom scripts can be commissioned.

[Velorath]

Most developers are still trying to figure out how to work narratives into games in a way that doesn't just involve splicing cut scenes in periodically throughout the game (MGS4, I'm looking at you with your 90 minute non-interactive cut scenes).  Very few people have the talent to tell a good story though games.  I'd even say the majority of games that are generally considered by most gamers to have a good story, actually fail on several basic levels of storytelling.

That's part of the reason I'd agree with the advice that if you want to write, start off with TV, movies, comics, plays, etc...  At least there you have a set structure to work with.

[lamaros]

As Tale said, writers write. Expecting someone to hire someone to write something without some basis to judge if that person can write is just stupid.

Who the fuck would want to be a game journalist anyway? Isn't that just what people who don't want to actually work but want to sit around playing games say they want to do?

[SuperPopTart]

Ugh - had to repost.


Yeah so hi. My opinion is this (and barring that fact that I know Psyn and how talented he actually is.): That people want to build a career writing game reviews for the same reason people end up writing movie reviews or adding commentary to comics or being a community manager or doing storyboards for games. They do it because it's what they want to do. If that's what makes him happy then so be it. How many of us out there can actually say we do what our passion is?

Granted it's gonna be a relatively hard road but if it's what he wants to do and he's willing to put his nose to the grindstone for it, then god bless him and world be damned. One way or the other he'll succeed. Besides, he's got talent. More than I can say for a lot of reviewers out there.

[Psynergy]

In my case, I realised that writing is my strong point, when I'm writing about videogames, or technology and whathaveyou. I didn't realise writers in the games industry were so frowned upon though...

Slightly putting my individual case to one side, am I the only one to notice the strange paradox in the industry at the moment?

We have speeches and seminars and conferences on writing for games/story in games etc, where narrative seems to be that newest subject that everyone's talking about and struggling to grasp the concept of, yet at the same time, most companies are only willing to hire writers for the very last stage of development, if at all.

[Margalis]

We have speeches and seminars and conferences on writing for games/story in games etc, where narrative seems to be that newest subject that everyone's talking about and struggling to grasp the concept of, yet at the same time, most companies are only willing to hire writers for the very last stage of development, if at all.

There is a big difference between what you see on Gamasutra and conferences and what happens in real life.

[tazelbain]

Maybe make some NWN2 modules that focus on dispaying your narative skills in a game format.

[Grimwell]

There is some opportunity as a designer who writes. Not every game designer can create lore for a game, or put great dialog in for their NPC's along the way. From what I've seen it's a smaller portion of the design team that does the bulk of writing on the larger scale for games while the rest pull from that to keep their story lines coherent.

This means you would have to pick up game design skills, but the writing side becomes an asset and bonus.

[Tale]

In my case, I realised that writing is my strong point

You're on the right track then. While I'm not the world's greatest success, I chose my profession for exactly that reason. I'm not a mathematician or a sportsman. Writing is my strong point and for better or worse, I'm a writer.

when I'm writing about videogames, or technology and whathaveyou. I didn't realise writers in the games industry were so frowned upon though...

It's not frowned on, it's just supply and demand. Many people can write well about games, and many want to. Few people can write well about screen scrapers, and few want to.

It's also a function of the audience you're writing for, how much disposable income they have, and how much advertising can be thrown at them and how they will respond to it (which is required for a viable publishing model, creating the ability to hire and pay writers).

Mass market magazines targeted to grocery buyers can make lots of money and pay their writers well, but so can niche publications targeted to IT managers who make purchasing decisions. Medical newspapers read by prescribing doctors can make more money than general newspapers.

Games magazines? Games websites? Sure, it's an audience that likes to blow a lot of cash on entertainment products, but a large part is younger people with no income of their own. Older gamers with their own incomes would be where the money is, but look how many publications there are - hundreds of websites and magazines. It's a flooded market AND everyone thinks they can write for it, so publishers can get away with paying as little as possible for writing.

Slightly putting my individual case to one side, am I the only one to notice the strange paradox in the industry at the moment?

We have speeches and seminars and conferences on writing for games/story in games etc, where narrative seems to be that newest subject that everyone's talking about and struggling to grasp the concept of, yet at the same time, most companies are only willing to hire writers for the very last stage of development, if at all.

I agree totally. I am sick of in-game writing done by fantasy novel-reading programmers living their limited creative dreams. But that's the problem - everyone thinks they can write, and these people are genius programmers who CREATE WORLDS to tell the greatest story ever told: Izzard the Wizard and Froblin the Goblin quest for the Sword of Bored.

They don't know they need us.

By the way, I've edited my post above - I initially wrote "You need to fucking write something and get someone to use it", which didn't read like the confidence booster I intended.

I'm used to work talk like "fucken earthquake in fucken Japan, write me a fucken story", where the use of fuck is redundant and inoffensive. I was saying "you'll be fine, don't worry, fucken write something and get some fucker to use it". I mean that, but quite calmly. Good luck!

[lamaros]

I agree totally. I am sick of in-game writing done by fantasy novel-reading programmers living their limited creative dreams. But that's the problem - everyone thinks they can write, and these people are genius programmers who CREATE WORLDS to tell the greatest story ever told: Izzard the Wizard and Froblin the Goblin quest for the Sword of Bored.

People who can write (and by write I mean fiction) really well are quite rare. Given how much control you have to give away in writing for someone's game, how few of them might care about games at all, and how much money they might make by "selling out" to other markets there is not much surprise on my part that in-game writing remains shitty.

Also, many people who are passable writers of mass market appeal write books for the mass market; why would George R. R. Martin, Peter F. Hamilton, etc want to write for games? I remember Raymond E. Feist talking about BaK; he didn't write for it because they couldn't afford it, liscencing his world was the cheaper option, paying him to write their stories was out of the question.

If writers like them (who I would say are not generaly speaking great writers, but instead great sellers and reasonably fantasy/SF writers) can't be involved why should we expect the system to produce stuff even better? You're only going to get that from people who are passionate about games and also happen to be good writers, and that's going to happen that often.

In my case, I realised that writing is my strong point, when I'm writing about videogames, or technology and whathaveyou.

I would suggest there is a difference between journalism and fiction and you are not necessarily going to be good at both. Many great writers are terrible critics and poor journalists and vice-versa (though many are good at both).

[Tale]

I would suggest there is a difference between journalism and fiction and you are not necessarily going to be good at both. Many great writers are terrible critics and poor journalists and vice-versa (though many are good at both).

I was once on a bus with the staff of a weekly newspaper, and to pass the long journey our marketing manager made us play shitty teambuilding games. One question involved "what's your dream job?" and almost every journalist answered "novelist", including me.

I studied journalism because it seemed the answer to my question as a young published writer of short stories and poems, "how can I reliably make a living as a writer?", not because journalism was my goal. It helps that I'm a news addict, but I still stubbornly consider myself a writer who makes a living as a journalist.

Ironically, I write almost no fiction nowadays because I come home and I've been writing/editing all day, so the last thing I want to do is write more. And that described most of the journalists on the bus, plus many I've worked with since. Few of us will ever write our novels, scripts or game plots, but some of us will.

And until then, just like the database programmer who just knows he or she should really be working in the games industry, I'll call myself a writer in the broadest terms and rudely consider myself able to write for games :) Psynergy is therefore the same!

[Hellinar]

That's part of the reason I'd agree with the advice that if you want to write, start off with TV, movies, comics, plays, etc...  At least there you have a set structure to work with.

Yeah. The set structure is a big part of what makes independent screen writing possible. I think the IGDA special interest group on Outsourcing is looking at developing game document standards that would make hiring independents more practical. If you could submit a quest script that could be plugged straight into the production process, it might open up more opportunities for outside writers. 

[Velorath]

Slightly putting my individual case to one side, am I the only one to notice the strange paradox in the industry at the moment?

We have speeches and seminars and conferences on writing for games/story in games etc, where narrative seems to be that newest subject that everyone's talking about and struggling to grasp the concept of, yet at the same time, most companies are only willing to hire writers for the very last stage of development, if at all.

It's not a paradox.  Like you said, everyone is still just struggling to grasp the concept of it.

When you write a book or a screenplay or whatever, you know the story is going to be flowing continuously from beginning to end.  Games don't work like that.  Pacing works much differently and it varies from game to game.  That makes it hard to just have someone bang out a script early on in the development process.  In many ways it requires a different skill set from other kinds of writing.  It's like tying to write a screen play at the same time the director is actually filming the movie, except that in games, the story isn't even the most important part of the end product.

[lamaros]

It's like tying to write a screen play at the same time the director is actually filming the movie, except that in games, the story isn't even the most important part of the end product.

You havn't seen many recent films? 

[Lantyssa]

It's like tying to write a screen play at the same time the director is actually filming the movie, except that in games, the story isn't even the most important part of the end product.

I would dispute that, depending upon the intentions of the game.  Some of the best known and well-liked games in existance were because of the story.

[Velorath]

It's like tying to write a screen play at the same time the director is actually filming the movie, except that in games, the story isn't even the most important part of the end product.

I would dispute that, depending upon the intentions of the game.  Some of the best known and well-liked games in existance were because of the story.

That's true to an extent, but I think we gave a lot of those stories leeway.  If you really look at them critically, how many of them are actually well crafted stories, and how many are just "well, this is a pretty good story for a video game"?  Also, tying this back into the original discussion, in the case of most games that focus heavily on story (like Final Fantasy for instance), the story is more often than not I'd say, written or co-written by the director or producer of the game, making it somewhat easier to build the story and game at the same time.

[Lantyssa]

Think about your favorites.  The ones that survived the years.

KotOR, Fallout, Morrowind, Wasteland are mine.  Now I am heavily biased in favor of RPGs, but coming up with a coherent world and a good story (both need good writing) are always what make the game for me.

Portal was an awesome game, but would its innovation (deserving of all its props) have gone anywhere without the story?  Would it have had the fan base?

SWG could have been, without its faults, where sandbox replaces the story for me, simply because I could create my own.  That kept me in the game for a long time because I had the opportunity to develop a character to an extent I haven't elsewhere.

Being pretty and technical competence can likewise be important, but story makes the difference between okay and "OMG awesome I will remember this forever".

[Venimor]

In my case, I realised that writing is my strong point, when I'm writing about videogames, or technology and whathaveyou. I didn't realise writers in the games industry were so frowned upon though...

Slightly putting my individual case to one side, am I the only one to notice the strange paradox in the industry at the moment?

We have speeches and seminars and conferences on writing for games/story in games etc, where narrative seems to be that newest subject that everyone's talking about and struggling to grasp the concept of, yet at the same time, most companies are only willing to hire writers for the very last stage of development, if at all.

Problem 1: There's a Writer's Guild out there that is a widely recognized and respected force that helps writers make a good living in the legacy media. In the gaming industry, however... well, it's a different matter. Most game companies, I think, are not signatories to the Writer's Guild convention, therefore are not bound by its guidelines.

Problem 2: The economy of scale, technical constraints, scheduling, etc. of the modern game industry doesn't always lend itself to a 'money-where-your-mouth-is' approach to the hiring of writers as an important field of development talent. Payroll resources are more commonly dedicated to attracting top-notch programmers, digital artists and animators, game designers, QA analysts... writing is seen as less of a technical (and therefore less of a critical) skill-set. Modern games are more and more often fueled by hot graphics which require more artists to create, that growth of investment causes other fields, like writing, to stagnate as far as budget outlays.

Problem 3: Some employers know they need good writers, but didn't have the resources to hire any, or would even know where to safely look for a decent one who can get the job done at the kind of lightspeed pace and near-perfect first draft that a game project requires. Server programmers are rare enough, interactive writers who understand games, and can get the most out of fifty words of quest text, are rarer still.

My advice, as one who's done it: Learn as much as you can about game design, bust your chops in hourly-wage QA slot for a year or two, demonstrate your knowledge and creativity in a non-obnoxious way, and get the nod to become a game designer someday. Game designers do the lion's share of the game writing. If you don't want to go that route, you can do like some friends of mine do, and get gigs free-lancing the writing for RPGs, but you really have to have the steady stream of contacts coming in to make that pay off full-time, year-round.

PS: Never sign a free-lance writing contract with the word 'rewrite' in it. That'll easily put you in an endless recursion loop of rewriting. Not that my experiences in the industry have been anything less than totally pleasant, but ehhm... let's just say that I've been around the block a few times, and I've seen some wacky stuff. 

[Moorgard]

So really, Where did Narrative Designer come from? Isn't it just a euphamism for writer? and why is it that the industry, that is apparently expanding so vastly and so rapidly, seems so reluctant to have writers who WANT to write for games? Does it really just boil down to experience? and experience in what? writing? the games industry as a whole? life?

And why the hell can't I make my profession to write for games if they're my main passion in life?

Here's the thing. There's a huge push right now for telling better stories in MMOs, so naturally most people assume that means you need to hire really good writers.

But that's wrong. You need to hire really good storytellers. There's a difference.

Designing for an MMO requires a different kind of storytelling ability from writing a short story, novel, or poem. While you can certainly tell great stories in all three of those forms, they don't match up well with MMOs for one reason: they rely solely on words. The thing everyone knows (but some of those people looking for great writers haven't quite put together) is that an MMO needs to be based around action, not words.

Some of the most memorable story moments in MMOs come from witnessing the action of cool NPCs within amazing environments. Did you need to read a book on Nagafen and the fire giants to appreciate the story that unfolded as you journeyed through the dragon's lair? No. Did you need a treatise on the Plane of Fear to understand the relationship of the minions to their god when they called out obeisance to the will of Cazic-Thule? Nope. That was amazing storytelling with very few words.

Now, that doesn't mean a great writer isn't useful on a game team. After all, every designer needs to be able to express his or her thoughts and intent clearly so that the gameplay can be implemented properly. But a designer can't fall into the trap of writing a great story in an MMO, because words only slow players down. Focus on telling a great story using all the tools at your disposal, not just the written word.

On EQ2, I worked with a brilliant designer who was only an average writer. But his zones were fantastic, perhaps because he knew he couldn't rely upon words to get intent across. He told great stories using zone population, set dressing, mob abilities, treasure drops, scripted behavior, and more. You understood what was going on by playing through the zone, not by reading about it.

Game design relies upon great storytelling, but the designer has to be able to adapt his or her techniques to the tools that are available.

So despite the pomposity of the term "narrative designer," I think it actually describes the position pretty well. If you want to be a great storyteller in MMOs, becoming a solid writer is the beginning of the journey, not the end of it. Just as a great poet won't necessarily make a great novelist, a great prose writer won't necessarily make a great MMO storyteller. But it can't hurt.

[Tale]

Thanks for the enlightening post. Great point about Plane of Fear and Nagafen's Lair. Characters were inside an ongoing story  - even as newbies in places like Runnyeye and Gorge of King Xorbb, centred on the ominous but not-entirely-explained beholders Queen Borxx and King Xorbb, and what were clearly their minions.

It didn't quite work so well for me in Najena, for example. OK, here's a mix of monsters in a dungeon, then a locked room with some wizards in it. People laughed when I wanted to know more - it was just the jboots dispenser.

I would have liked EQ to come with a novella like my dog-eared copy of Elite's The Dark Wheel by Robert Holdstock, or a better intro movie like AO's "my father taught me how to use a gun". At least EQ didn't use giant slabs of quest text (at first), but leaving things unexplained sometimes meant people missed the story and just looked at the game mechanically.


Edit - trying to make funcom's ftp:// link work as a url= ... ah it accepts http too

[lamaros]

I had assumed some of that Moorgard, but it's nice to see it put clearly with relation to what actualy goes on.

I assumed Psynergy was talking about "world creation" writing rather than 'quest text' stuff, which obviously requires a different skillset. You can have someone with little imagination churning out lots of decent quest filler if they're told what to do and have an established world to draw from, but you would need to be really excellent to get as decent a result if all you were trying to create the world story from the quests on up.

I assume you need more than good storytellers too. To tell a truly good MMO story you need someone with an excellent imagination working from the outset with the whole team, as the 'feeling' of the world comes from art, creature concepts, world geography, etc. It's once you have this in place that you filter the story down through the more direct channels like npcs, quest text, item descriptions, instance design and the like. But if you don't have a good world from the get-go your story is always going to be limited. It's easy to see why the inventive capacity of the developers is going to be key in any such process.

I think the ability to actually write isn't probably that important explicitly in that regard, only insofar as it indicates an ability to communicate well generally; you can leave all the dialogue and such to someone who has a knack for it as long as you tell them where it has to lead to.

Writing/creating in such a way is something that I'm interested in myself, but I don't see how someone not involved with other aspects of game development would really bring the skillset and experience required for it at this point in time.

I'm actually reminded a bit of something George R. R. Martin said. At one part of his life he had been spending a whole heap of time as a GM for his D&D crew, obsessivly spending his hours creating new advendures for them to embark upon in his spare time, putting heaps of effort into the creation of a world in which to enchance their experience. He hadn't been publishing stuff and felt that he was in a period of 'writers block' until one day he realised "hang on a second, I have been creating all this time"; for despite the fact that his D&D notes were not plotted like a story and set down in prose they still formed important elements of storytelling. He realiesed that he could take all these things and use them for more than just D&D scenarios. His strength in creating worlds and events in his hobby could be taken into his job. His Ice and Fire series demonstrates this creative ability of his very strongly, the ability to create a world from scratch, much more than it demonstrates his skill with words.

It is writers like him that you would want when it comes to hiring for MMOs, not journalists, as their writing is much more concerned with generation rather than observation. And the skillset doesn't necessarily crossover.

When I was younger I spent some time writing a collaberative fantasy story over the internet with some random people. We created a world from scratch and so the process had two stages: We had a "story" thread on a forum, in which we took turns writing chapters of what was happening, and we had a "world" thread, in which we defined things like currency, geography, language, magic systems, political states, and all other manner of issues that we needed to have a solid framework for to achieve consistency in the story. Of the 3 participants in the story I was far more active in the creation thread, while others were far more active in the story thread; our apptitude and enthuasism for the different parts of the creative process didn't necessarily apply equaly to both fields.

e: Typos.

[lamaros]

oops.

[Moorgard]

I assumed Psynergy was talking about "world creation" writing rather than 'quest text' stuff, which obviously requires a different skillset. You can have someone with little imagination churning out lots of decent quest filler if they're told what to do and have an established world to draw from, but you would need to be really excellent to get as decent a result if all you were trying to create the world story from the quests on up.

I assume you need more than good storytellers too. To tell a truly good MMO story you need someone with an excellent imagination working from the outset with the whole team, as the 'feeling' of the world comes from art, creature concepts, world geography, etc. It's once you have this in place that you filter the story down through the more direct channels like npcs, quest text, item descriptions, instance design and the like. But if you don't have a good world from the get-go your story is always going to be limited. It's easy to see why the inventive capacity of the developers is going to be key in any such process.

The thing with story in an MMO (I'm referencing the large-scale style MMO here, such as WoW or EQ) is that it has so many layers to it. You need a solid world and IP framework, because the setting needs to jump off the shelf and get the buyer's attention. And while lots of people can come up with settings that sound interesting, not a lot of folks can envision worlds that support the depth of content needed for an MMO. And yes, you do need more than words to make it work; you need a ton of art concepts of the world and the creatures that inhabit it.

Beneath that, there are the major big-picture plot points. Who are the major players in your world? How do they interact? What are the key conflicts? Not only do these need to stand on their own, they need to reinforce all the coolness of that top layer.

You keep going further and further in until you reach the level of making individual zones cool, and then population and quest lines cool. Now you've gone from that overall visionary level into the nuts and bolts of it, and this is where the game is going to sink or swim. It's at this level that players make decisions about whether the act of playing the game is fun, or whether one area in the world is as interesting and worthwhile as another.

Ideally your game would excel at all these levels, but an awful lot of games falter at one point or another along the way. Any area of weakness has pitfalls. A game with a great IP or vision is likely to sell boxes, but if its day-to-day gameplay is weak then it will probably lose subscribers quickly. On the other hand, a game with an uninspiring or obtuse IP probably won't sell a ton of boxes, but if its base level gameplay is fun then it will probably keep subscribers and maybe even grow its following over time.

And you're right, the skill sets to pull off the various layers are different, but all benefit from having strong storytelling skills. The thing with building MMOs is that the sheer volume of content means they are development marathons, and it can get really tough to maintain a consistent pace of building fun, unique, and exciting content. You need to pound the baton of quality all the time, at all levels of development--including the writing.

[mutantmagnet]

So despite the pomposity of the term “narrative designer,” I think it actually describes the position pretty well. If you want to be a great storyteller in MMOs, becoming a solid writer is the beginning of the journey, not the end of it. Just as a great poet won’t necessarily make a great novelist, a great prose writer won’t necessarily make a great MMO storyteller. But in defense of writers, learning those skills in a classroom can’t hurt.

My concern about using the term "narrative designer" is that it creates the same problems as community manager. If I wanted a world builder or episodic content I would look for a writer period. Asking for narrative designers is an obtuse way at looking for world builders because Ian Banks and Tolkien certainly built some creative worlds and we are more familiar with them as writers than as "narrative designer."

In fact the term can easily be misinterpretted. I looked at narrative designer and thought of world builder initially, because my mind is biased to think that way since I have certain preconceptions on how an MMO should be written as. Removing that bias I thought my interpretation was and still is illogical and "correctly" defined narrative designer as someone who knows how to set up the preconditions where the player is drawn into the world.

That in of itself doesn't mean world building. One could drawn in players in a world through first person narration where the player is put on rails and goes from point A to B doing tasks that fulfill a story. One could draw in players by using their knowledge of mass psychology and set goals to be won in a game for a large group and the story being told is how the group interacts with each other. Things get messier when you may have to consider that "narrative" may have different contexts across different cultures because of where that culture emphasizes how stories should be told.

In the end I think narrative design should be discouraged, not because it is pompous, but because it is obtuse.

After looking at gamasutra's explanation of narrative design.

I suggest any writer seeing any job posting asking for a narrative designer to not be immediately discouraged. Not everyone who is labled as a writer is prone to a usage of high caliber worlds or disinclined in explaining the biology/evolutionary patterns of various races.

 The only valid criticism I see is that writers may not have any experience understanding how a story needs to be told in a manner based on how the audience interacts with the world. Then again, the jobseekers are obvously clueless if they first go after tv/theatre writers and not the guys who write for amusement park rides like the ones found in Universal Studios because that's the only type of venue out there that remotely comes close to providing the prerequisite experience.