Organization: University Libraries - Technical Service, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Path: gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!pw0l+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Message-ID: <cfLp=_600iV089AONk@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 20:50:02 -0500 
From: Paul Christopher Workman <pw0l+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
In-Reply-To: <C152v6.L99@rice.edu>
References: <3150124@hpsemc.cup.hp.com> <BENH.93Jan19172359@gradient.cis.upenn.edu>
	<C152v6.L99@rice.edu>
Lines: 48

>The other problem is that storylines--indeed, the very concept of a
plot--would
>need to be reworked if there are two players competing for the same goals.
>One could really hose the other if puzzles are not carefully designed.
>...
>The problem is, though, that without certain well-defined puzzles, what you
>will end up with is a MUD like structure.  With certain well-defined puzzles,
>you have a situation where the players have managed to each put the other in
>a no-win situation.

Has there ever been a good analysis of what plot is under interactivity?
The standard for IF seems to be a string of puzzles, to be solved more
or less sequentially, with text distributed between the puzzles.  This
is easily conceptually parsed: text-puzzle-text-puzzle.....puzzle-text-YouWin.
(Which makes me wonder if anyone has ever made a parser/compiler for
IF which takes a text file -- I mean actual literary text and not
program code -- and produces a game as output.  But I digress.)

But this is a far cry from the plot used in actual fiction.  Certainly the
quality of literary elements varies, generally, with the quality of
the literary work itself (although the plot to a Mickey Spillane novel
might be more complex than that of "The Great Gatsby," the nature of
Fitzgerald's plot aspires to more), but in general the plot, or any
literary element, from fiction should allow the author to communicate
an idea or effect that's greater than just the sum of its (the element's)
parts.  Interactivity, one would think, abandons that since it abandons
the author's control over the plot; and the traditional IF-game
approach mentioned above, although it does allow tight control over
the progression of the plot (since the user can't, usually, go to
the next step until the puzzle preceeding it is completed), reduces
the plot *too* far, I think -- the plot is interactive only to the
extent that the user can solve puzzles.  That's not really what
your average fiction writer thinks of when you say "plot."  I've heard
reports of non-game interactive fiction (usually with respect to
StorySpace), but I've never had the opportunity to see it close up,
and anyway the reports suggest that the fiction produced is really
more like meta-fiction, which is fine for literary critics but not
much else.

Multi-user IF seems integral to the idea of IF, implicitly if not
explicitly.  (If an IF plot consists of the interplay between A, B, and C,
it shouldn't be a big difference if only A is human or if both A and B are.)
I would expect that if the true-plot-in-IF problem is solved, then
the multi-user IF problem would be solved immediately, as a result.

--paul


