Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: whitten@netcom.com (David Whitten)
Subject: To Plot or not to Plot? and programming
Message-ID: <whittenCK3Bz6.JF9@netcom.com>
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Date: Sun, 23 Jan 1994 16:18:41 GMT
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Seeing the large number of posting about plotting, (and the excellent list
of Plot Outlines (when will the rest be posted?) brings to mind the question:

What would a programming system that supported integrating a plot into an
adventure include?

Using the analogy that a plot is kind of like a path thru a terrain, we have
a familiar model already. This is the movement of a character through a map.
Each room has connections to other rooms, some of which are blocked until
some condition comes true. 

The main difference with moving around a plot-map and moving around a space
map is that in general you can retrace your steps in the space map, and you
can't really undo your actions in the plot-map.

But of course we are in the non-real world of IF! yeah! so we could (if we
were generous as writers) allow someone to change their mind and go back
to the state they were in before they made some important decision.

so what are these programming elements ?

below is a list of some that I have thought of :

SITUATION
	A plotmap equivalent to a LOCATION.  You have three kinds of
	situations: Start situations, story situations, and final situations.
	The start situations are the beginning of the game situation and the
	limbo situation where you decide if you want to play the game again
	after you have been killed.

DECISION
	A plotmap equivalent to an EXIT.  Any time the plot is going to 
	change significantly from a particular SITUATION to another SITUATION
	a DECISION is made.  Contrary to its name, a DECISION (in current IF)
	is rarely actually asked of the player. (Although the Choose-your-path
	books include a lot of these.)  Usually a DECISION occurs when a 
	puzzle is solved.  In other cases a DECISION occurs when the player
	figures out exactly how to phrase a verb-noun combination to tell the
	computer what she wants done.

Note that all plot does not 'move forward' based on the actions of the 
player.  Fuses, NPC characters, Monsters, etc. all can move the plot forward.

I think one of the reasons many int-fiction works are boring is because the
plotmap of the work is extremely simple.  They reduce to a START SITUATION,
with the DECISION of SolvePuzzle and then some number of copies of the
SITUATION of FindPuzzle and then a DECISION of SolvePuzzle until you have
no more puzzles, and then you are in the FINAL SITUATION.

Thoughts anyone?

David Whitten : whitten@netcom.com : (214) 437-5255
