Christopher Morrison
Reality+, LLC
A writer-director who has worked on over 200 films, plays, XR, videogames, and immersive shows on three continents. His VR “The Werewolf Experience” is available world-wide. His feature ‘The Bellwether’ released in 2019 and viewed over 80k times. He is a Narrative Designer for videogames. Cirque du Soleil called him “A huge asset to the creative process.” He's spoken about storytelling around the world including the UK House of Lords twice. He's the Digital Experience Director/Lead Narrative Designer for the Doris Duke Foundation project "Vita Nova", a seven-figure grant recipient, working on live/metaverse musical hybrid focusing on accessibility for a 2028 run.
Christopher Morrison is speaking at the following session/s
Telling Conflict-Less Stories
We are taught that conflict drives story—to believe that conflict is the only way to tell a “good” story. That without opposition, escalation there is no movement, no meaning, no growth. But what if that assumption is not just limiting—but actively harmful?
Telling Conflict-Less Stories argues that adversarial narratives narrow our imagination, normalize violence, and reduce complex problems. Rooted in Aristotelian hero-centric themes, these stories offer violence without solutions. These structures insist on isolation, domination, and conquest—values that are the foundations of colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy. The result is not catharsis, but trauma; not resolution, but a narrow focus of ONE answer to all problems - violence.
This talk proposes a shift: from conflict to tension, from opposition to questions. What if stories were driven by curiosity instead of combat, by cooperation instead of conquest, by empathy, exploration, and collective transformation? Drawing from cozy games, Indigenous and
non-Western narrative traditions, and structures like kishōtenketsu, Conflict-Less storytelling decentralizes the hero and recenters the world—its systems, relationships, ecologies, into shared meaning-making.
This talk is a mix of case studies, practical advice, and my signature entertaining delivery.
It demonstrates that the world is already full of conflict-less stories and IPs making hordes of money, along with the disturbing, mounting evidence that centering conflict in our stories limits our ability to solve problems in any other way than incorporating violence, or at best they only strive to preserve the status quo. In other words, proof that stories driven by conflict are putting restraints on our imaginative problem solving.
The solutions offered in the talk create/increase/allow for more:
- Investigation
- Empathy
- Suspense
- Curiosity
- Multiple perspectives
And most importantly:
- CONTEXT for your narratives and experiences.
Session Takeaway
- Unlearn the 5 Conflicts and Learn the 5 Tensions.
- Case studies of how Conflict-Less Narratives are already making money.
- How to subvert the Win/Loss condition in your games.
Session speakers
