The Power of Choice: Why Storytelling Drives Impact

Aug 25

4 min read

Psychologists have a name for what happens when a story pulls you in: narrative transportation. Once a person is "transported" into a story, they process information differently and the situations they encounter get encoded in the brain the same way a lived experience does. It's why storytelling outperforms straight data when the goal is to reveal new perspectives.

“A well-built narrative helps people understand why their choices matter.”

- Miranda Verswijvelen, Senior Narrative Designer

Stories that Influenced Social Change

A scene from Umfeld. Worried crowd of sketchy figures surrounds an angry face-off in a glowing circle over a neon red-green network background.

Umfeld, a serious game built by researchers and designers at Hochschule RheinMain in Germany, shows this effect. Players take on the role of the people around a couple, a friend, a neighbour, a coworker. Scene by scene, they relive moments from before a woman named Sabrina ends up in a coma after violence from her partner, and each time they decide whether to speak up or stay quiet. The game grew out of research into why domestic violence so often goes unaddressed in small communities, but it doesn’t state its message outright. Players find themselves feeling the weight of their choices in the position of a bystander which makes it a powerful example of pick a path storytelling.

Animated girl with book and backpack stands by a pink monument under yellow-orange sky, beside Go Nisha Go sign.

Go Nisha Go, a mobile pick-a-path experience funded by USAID, follows Nisha, a teenage girl in India, as players guide her through choices about her health, relationships, and family. Each choice plays out in full before she gets to try again. A randomized controlled trial of nearly 2,000 girls found that confidence in negotiating contraception rose from 60% to 85%

When Narrative Storytelling Is the Right Tool

Narrative works best when a topic involves people making decisions, with something real at stake and no single right answer. Equity, sustainability, consent, financial literacy, climate adaptation, and community decision-making all sit here.

It's also the right tool when a society is working through adversity, stigma, or misinformation, the kind of topics people won't openly discuss but will quietly work through if a story gives them the room to.

Choice-based simulations are popular with researchers because they reveal behavioural insights as the path that a player takes generates data that deepens our understanding.

"I am a big believer in using narrative experiences to help young people practice real life scenarios. We saw that in the success of Stand Tall, which has had 14.7k unique users so far this year, across New Zealand schools teaching financial literacy and life skills to neurodiverse young adults. Since then we've built other titles the same way, like Cat Angels Triumph, which puts players into real situations any cat owner might face. We're seeing a completion rate of 58.8% on that one, well above the industry average of 20 to 30%."

- Melanie Langlotz, CEO of Geo A.R.

Animated girl with purple hair beside a card saying Don't worry, it's normal to feel unsure, with boxes, plant, and NEXT button.

How to create a powerful narrative

Plain language test: Flowery prose slows a story down. Compare "The golden light of a new day spilled tenderly across the weathered fields" to "She was relieved to see the new day." The second focuses on how the character feels rather than overwhelming the player with description. Cut the adjectives as much as possible. Rule of thumb… don't describe what the player can already see on screen (unless it's serving an accessibility need).

Give the player agency: What they choose to do or say needs to advance the story. If every path leads back to the same outcome, players notice quickly and disengage. In Cat Angels Triumph, deciding not to microchip a cat has a consequence that plays out later. That's agency. A choice that doesn't change anything isn't a choice and players will spot it straight away.

Show, don't tell: Avoid exposition that explains a character's feelings or backstory outright. Let it come through action and dialogue instead.

Be careful with coincidences: Be careful with coincidences. You can get away with one, and only for very good reason. Even then, never use it to get a character out of trouble. Otherwise it risks breaking trust in the story.

Give your character a clear point of view: Give your characters a certain way of seeing the world, and a clear motivation or objective.

Be careful with messaging: Even though most narrative simulations in the research space carry a message, avoid making it overly obvious. Let players arrive at the conclusions themselves.

Stick to the core story line: Don't get distracted with subplots or details that don't move the central story forward.

Protect suspension of disbelief: Once a player accepts the reality of the world, even a fictional or larger-than-life one, that trust is fragile. The moment they spot something they know is inaccurate, you don’t want to lose them. Do the research. If the experience is set in a specific place or time, the details need to be accurate: the political climate, common beliefs, food, clothing, how buildings looked. The story can be fictional. The world it's set in needs to be believable.

Keep the tension tight: Dialogue is the best way to keep advancing the story. Every scene needs its own beginning, middle, and end, to earn its place. If a scene doesn't move the story forward, cut it.

Let consequences build over time: Real trade-offs, like health, equity, or sustainability, often don't show their cost immediately. Letting a choice ripple forward, rather than resolving instantly, teaches players to think in the way real decisions actually play out.

Let failure teach: A failure that shows the player why it happened teaches more than a nudge toward the "correct" choice.

Build moral complexity gradually: Don't open with the hardest dilemma. Let the stakes and ambiguity increase the way tension builds in any good story.

Make choices sticky: If a player can simply undo a decision and pick the other option, it stops carrying weight. The strongest narrative experiences don't let players take it back.

Storytelling to Create a Better Tomorrow

Every good story ends the same way it begins, with someone facing a moment that changes them. It reminds us of what we are capable of. It reminds us that there are always other choices to consider, and it gives us the courage to make the right choices that lie ahead.

Resources

Hochschule RheinMain. (n.d.). Umfeld. AusWege Project. https://auswege.itch.io/umfeld-pilot-deutsch

Howard Delafield International. (n.d.). Go Nisha Go: My Life My Choice. Game of Choice, Not Chance. https://www.howard-delafield.com/gonishago

Population Council Consulting. (2025). Enhancing reproductive health among adolescent girls in India: Results of an individualized RCT to study the efficacy of the Go Nisha Go mobile game. Reproductive Health. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11977884/