Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: rendell@cs.monash.edu.au (Robert Paige Rendell)
Subject: Definitions, please? (Was: To Plot or not to Plot?)
Message-ID: <rendell.758509226@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au>
Sender: news@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au (USENET News System)
Organization: Computer Science, Monash University, Australia
References: <1994Jan11.145828.9898@netnews.wku.edu> <CJJyD2.Byx@world.std.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 01:00:26 GMT
Lines: 61

tob@world.std.com (Tom O Breton) writes:

>mollems@wkuvx1.wku.edu (Molley the Mage) writes:
>> What I mean is that if you don't know what kind of game you want to
>> write and what you want the story to be about before you start writing,

>There is obviously some great semantic confusion here, because I
>wouldn't call either of those elements "plot". To me they are named
>"genre" and "theme". (This is established usage in literature.)

>In summary: We are obviously not talking about the same thing.

Ok, so there appears to have a confusion of terms here...  Not being 
of a particularly literary bent myself, I've had to infer what people
mean when they use the word "plot".

As far as I can see, Tom Breton uses the word "plot" to mean the thread
of storyline from start to end, for example, in describing the plot of
a movie to a friend, when you say "and then they went there and
such-and-such found a thingo that meant that the first guy..." etc

Molly the Mage seems to use the word "plot" to mean a broader outline of
the potential story... perhaps saying that the plot is what's happening
in the world that the player has to interact with, such as what the
villian is doing, where the disabled spacecraft is heading, what the
disease the main character has does to him or her...

So, if I can use these two definitions to reiterate the discussion so far,
Tom said that setting down a "plot" loses you 90% of the charm of IF, i.e.
saying that the player must do this, then that, then go and meet X, etc.
In other words, you don't want a highly linear game, where the player only
has one "correct" choice at every point.  As Graham Nelson, author of
_inform_, said in his "Bill of Players Rights" in the inform manual:

} After a while the player begins
} to feel that the designer has tied him to a chair in order to shout the
} plot at him.

(oops, that p-word again :)

Then, Molly the Mage, using his definition of the word "plot", said "if you
take away the plot", (i.e. the general direction you want the player to go,
and what's going on in the world that the player should react to,) "you end
up with a goal-less simulation, which is infeasible to write and not very
enjoyable to play in."

So, I don't think there's an actual difference of opinions here, only a
difference of interpretation...

... and I agree with both of you, I don't want to play a linear story (unless
it's particularly engrossing, in which case, I could have just read it as a
novel :), and I don't want to play a goal-less simulation (well, maybe for a
while, if someone could write one ;)

I hope I haven't put words in the mouths of Tom or Molly, or at least, if I
have, they fit what they were saying anyway.

--
Robert Rendell                                                    \((/
rendell@molly.cs.monash.edu.au                                    ~oo~
        What do you know about Tweetle beetles?  Well...          /))\
