On the term "Interactive": A Rant

[Walt Freitag]

On this thread Doctor Xero wrote:

But in the name of sanity, please make a comment which has nothing to do with the use of the term "interactive" in its legitimate, scholarly meaning.

I'm honoring that request as far as the original thread is concerned. But I don't accept this argument from authority. Therefore I'm presenting my opposing point of view here.

In literature studies, relating to and being inspired by something, such as the already-written text, is called "interactive" and has been for many, many years.

I question why literary scholars would bother with a descriptor that appears to be so uselessly universal. If reading and reacting to a text makes the text "interactive," then no text being discussed can ever fail to be "interactive" (because if no one has read it, or reading is has triggered no thoughts or emotions in the minds of those readers, then what's to discuss?).

Also, in studies of literature and film and storytelling, the term "interactive" is used precisely as I have used it.  I see no reason to rewrite the pertinent field's lexicon capriciously. As I have mentioned before, if The Forge has a different term for the same notion, I will happily adopt it when writing here and restrict my use of the term "interactive" to writing papers for literary and culture studies journals.

There are many different uses and abuses of "interactive" in many different fields. In the field of cat toy packaging design, for instance, "interactive" means that the toy is designed to be held and manipulated by a human to play with the cat, rather than for solitary play by the cat alone. (And yes, it's meant that for many many years.)

Some cat toy makers abuse the term and slap the "interactive" label onto ordinary cat toys that are suitable only for solo play by the cat. If asked to justify the term, no doubt they'd argue that their toy is properly called interactive because the cat interacts with it. That abuses the term by rendering it meaninglessly universal. A cat toy that is not intended for a cat to interact with it is not a cat toy at all. Labeling any old cat toy "interactive" turns the term into a meaningless buzz-word that's entirely redundant with the part of the label that says "Cat Toy."

Similarly, labelling text or the reading of text as "interactive" doesn't strike me as very informative. If it merely means that the text influences the mind of the reader in any way at all, that's entirely redundant with "readable" or with the text being text in the first place. If there's some higher threshold, such as that the text must be inspiring or thought-provoking to be "interactive," then there are already perfectly good terms for that (such as "inspiring" and "thought-provoking").

But that's not my concern. If the literary scholars find the term in their own jargon useful (such as, I strongly suspect, to disguise a subjective opinion about the merits of a text by using a descriptor that sounds like an objective characteristic), they're welcome to it. However...

Computer game designers, role players, and all kinds of performers have for decades used the term "interactive" to mean something else entirely. "Interactive" applied to a work means the work can be influenced, having its form or presented content altered during the performance, by the audience. A stage play is interactive if the audience can speak to the actors and influence some aspect of the subsequent performance by so doing. A TV show is interactive if the audience can influence future developments in some way, such as by voting (as in American Idol). A performance art piece is interactive if the audience participates in some way that the performer pays attention to and responds to by modifying his or her subsequent performance. A Webcam stripper's performance is interactive if the audience members can tell her through a chat channel what to take off next or what body part to wiggle closer to the camera. A text is interactive if the reader alters its content or presentation as part of the act of reading. A story is interactive if the audience influences the plot of the story.

Computer games are universally interactive in that minimal sense -- that is, if the audience (player) doesn't control some aspect of what happens on the screen, then it's not a computer game. Thus there have been deep and intense debates about what constitutes a sufficiently higher level of responsiveness to the audience for a computer game to meaningfully be labeled "interactive." The most commonly argued threshold is that for a game to be properly called interactive, the overarching story that the game conveys in its outcome must be variable in response to the player's actions. In other words, "interactive" applied to a computer game implies that the game has an interactive story. Since that's rarely true in computer games, many don't accept that as a necessary requirement, and argue instead that changing the minor details of the story (leaving the main plot unaffected) or changing the presentation of the story (such as by deciding which of several simultaneous scenes to monitor) is enough to be "interactive." But that returns "interactive" to near universality in computer games. The debate rages on.

(Note that the same issues can arise in other media. A performance such as a play might be interactive, without its story being interactive, if aspects of the performance other than the story are what the audience is influencing. However, opinions are divided on the degree of influence required to really merit the descriptor "interactive" in any given case. Most, but not everyone, would agree that giving the audience members paper tubes to look through, so that they "alter the presentation of the play" by deciding where on stage to look from moment to moment, doesn't make it interactive. Most, but not everyone, would agree that having the actors talk back to the audience in a way that actually responds to things the audience members say does make the play interactive, even if the plot of the play is not affected.)

I have not once intended VoINT to refer to player-to-player interaction, only to player-to-text interaction (except when the latter influences the former).

As I hope the above exposition has shown, in computer games and role playing, as well as other presentation and performance media, the common meaning of "interactive" is exactly the reverse. A text becomes interactive when and only when the player influences the text.

If the player brings it, it is not[/i] pre-existing, and therefore there can be no interaction with any pre-existing structure if the structure is brought by the players.  There is nothing physically or notionally with which to interact if people sit down at a table and say, "Okay, what do we want to be here?", and therefore since there is nothing[/b] with which to interact, their actions must be grounded independently of the non-pre-existent structures.

By the more common meaing if "interactive," the one thing that everyone agrees a person can truly interact with, the one thing that can always respond to a person's actions in an interesting and meaninful way, is another person. So, this too comes out as just the reverse. You can't interact with text because it doesn't change no matter what you do. When I show up to play, I'd be saying "there's nothing here to interact with" if the text were sitting there on the table but the people were absent.

Role playing is a social activity. It's all about the people. It's natural therefore to interpret "interactive" as meaning relatively more attention paid to what the other people are doing and saying and creating (and therefore, less attention to what a text says), especially when in general people are capbable of being interactive and text is not. Similarly, it's natural to interpret "independent" as meaning relatively less attention paid to what the other people are doing and saying and creating (and therefore, more attention to something else, perhaps a text). That's why people keep misunderstanding VoIND and VoINT as being the reverse of what Doctor Xero has defined them to be.

Do I care? Not as far as the definitions of VoIND and VoINT are concerned. But I'm really sick of being bludgeoned with what the "legitimate" meaning of "interactive" is according to literary scholars. Their opinion on the matter means less to me than that of the cat toy package copywriters.

- Walt

[Valamir]

Well said, Walt.

I'm also curious as to what is meant by.

If the player brings it, it is not pre-existing, and therefore there can be no interaction with any pre-existing structure if the structure is brought by the players. There is nothing physically or notionally with which to interact if people sit down at a table and say, "Okay, what do we want to be here?", and therefore since there is nothing with which to interact, their actions must be grounded independently of the non-pre-existent structures.

I don't understand this distinction at all.

If the GM says "what do you do?"
and the player says "we walk down the road"
and the GM says "you see a cottage".

Then the players can do anything they want to interact with that cottage.  They can go inside, they can climb onto the roof, they can throw rocks at the windows, they can burn it down, they can kick down the door and kill everyone.

If the GM says "what do you do?"
and the player says "we walk down the road"
and the GM says "ok, and what do you find down the road?"
and the player says "I think it would be cool if there were a cottage here"

How is this any different in terms of level of interactivity.  The players can still go inside, climb on the roof, throw rocks, burn it down, or kill the occupants.

The only thing that is different in these two examples is who had the authority to declare the cottage into existance.  That's a director stance issue and a perfectly valid distinction.  But it has nothing to do with "interactivity".

Once the cottage has been accepted it has exactly the same notional existance either way.  Its ability to be interacted with is the same either way.

I think I understand the distinction Dr Xero is trying to make (basically, how is directoral power distributed in the game) but the word "interactive" seems to be a profoundly poor term to try and describe this.

[John Kim]

Do I care? Not as far as the definitions of VoIND and VoINT are concerned. But I'm really sick of being bludgeoned with what the "legitimate" meaning of "interactive" is according to literary scholars. Their opinion on the matter means less to me than that of the cat toy package copywriters.

Jesus, Walt.  Doctor Xero only brought up this point (about literary theory usage), what, three days ago?  So I think you're overreacting to say about how awfully sick you are of it.  I mean, it would be one thing if Xero demanded that everyone else use his meaning -- but I don't think he is.  He just wants to talk about "interaction" in the specialized context of "interaction with text" -- as distinct from other sorts of interaction.  (I think this needs to be clarified, but that's a separate issue.)  

If the player brings it, it is not[/i] pre-existing, and therefore there can be no interaction with any pre-existing structure if the structure is brought by the players.  There is nothing physically or notionally with which to interact if people sit down at a table and say, "Okay, what do we want to be here?", and therefore since there is nothing[/b] with which to interact, their actions must be grounded independently of the non-pre-existent structures.  

By the more common meaing if "interactive," the one thing that everyone agrees a person can truly interact with, the one thing that can always respond to a person's actions in an interesting and meaninful way, is another person.   So, this too comes out as just the reverse. You can't interact with text because it doesn't change no matter what you do.  

Well, there can be abstractions which are not themselves physical people -- like a "group" or "social contract" or "shared imaginary space".  For example, suppose the wife of one of the players might come in and ask if anyone wants some cake.  She is interacting with the people, but she is not interacting with the shared imaginary space.  I think it is necessary to have these abstraction to talk about game interactions in any meaningful sense.  

Consider further interactive world-building.  i.e. A group of people all engage in creating a fantasy world at a fixed moment in time.  They create continents, nations, cities, cultures, characters, and so forth -- but it is all fixed in time.  Now, the players are all interacting with each other, but there is no in-game interaction.  I think it is worthwhile to distinguish between this sort of interaction, and in-game interactions like dialogue, combat, and so forth.

[John Kim]

If the player brings it, it is not pre-existing, and therefore there can be no interaction with any pre-existing structure if the structure is brought by the players. There is nothing physically or notionally with which to interact if people sit down at a table and say, "Okay, what do we want to be here?", and therefore since there is nothing with which to interact, their actions must be grounded independently of the non-pre-existent structures.

I don't understand this distinction at all.
...(example deleted)...
How is this any different in terms of level of interactivity.  The players can still go inside, climb on the roof, throw rocks, burn it down, or kill the occupants.

The only thing that is different in these two examples is who had the authority to declare the cottage into existance.

I don't think this is the distinction Xero is drawing at all.  He is talking about interaction with "pre-existant structures" -- by which I think he means ideas created prior to that moment.  So if the GM invents a cottage on the spot, that is still "creation" rather than "interaction".  Within this usage, "interaction with text" means that something was already prepared rather than being made up on the spot: i.e. a map, a character, or other fictional creation.  

So, for example, consider a game where there was only a fixed list of 20 characters (both PC and NPC).  And the whole game takes place within a region (perhaps a manor house) that is mapped out.  This game will have a lot of interaction of pre-existing structures.  

Consider on the other hand a game where the PCs frequently go to a different locale or perhaps a different universe; and maybe there is high PC turnover.  Here there is a lot of creation of new fictional structures, but no a lot of interaction of pre-existing fictional structures.

[clehrich]

Glad you brought this up, Walt!

I am not particularly a literature scholar, myself, but it seems to me that insofar as one talks about interaction with a text in the sense of the written, graphic word, the usual focus is on hermeneutics -- that is to say, interpretation.  While some hermeneutic models, notably that of Hans-Georg Gadamer, want to push for the act of reading as a fundamentally conversational, interactive process, he did have to argue for that.  Furthermore, my sense of the hermeneutic philosophy situation right now is that Gadamer has pretty much lost the battle.

{Jargon off}

In fact, what confuses me about this use of terms is that I would also read it precisely the opposite way, but for different reasons than Ralph and Walt have proposed.  Here's why:

The usual distinction made is between textuality and orality.  In speech, we converse with each other, and there is some sense in which there is necessarily interaction at a personal level guiding our interpretations of words.  So when some guy says to me, "Hey, Bob -- bite me!" I have to interpret this.  But I have lots of contextual cues by which to do so.  Does the guy mean this literally?  If not, is he mad at me?  Is he kidding around?  Since my name isn't Bob, is he even talking to me?  If I'm still confused after running through a very complicated version of this process, I ask.  "Hey, what do you mean?"  And he explains, or not, as the case may be.

If I'm reading a book, however, and I turn the page and find the words "Bite me!" written at the top, my interpretive process stops before I get to the author.  That is, I can't say to the book, "What do you mean?" and expect an answer.  In short, the textual situation is not conversational.

Thus the classic problem of interpretation (Plato goes on about this, and everyone since) is that text is not interactive.  It's oddly divorced from its author, as compared to speech.

Now the usual conclusion is that I, as reader, must construct the text by interacting with it within my own mind; this is called interpretation.  Traditionally, the goal was to understand the meaning and intent of the author.  More recently, particularly since Heidegger, it's been recognized pretty broadly that you can't get there from here: you can't get The Meaning for sure.  So what do you do instead?  And then it all goes crazy.  But at base, there is a sense in which interaction with a text is always and necessarily interaction with my construct of the text, which I then check against my expectation, which I then put against the text again, and so forth.

As a result, the traditional read of the speech/writing distinction is that ultimately speech is interactive in a conversational sense, while writing is ultimately independent of author and even of reader.

Now post-Derrida's Of Grammatology, there has been a big push to undermine this distinction, for a whole bunch of reasons I'm not going to get into here, but the upshot is that we have moved toward independence in speech.  Much of the argument has, in fact, argued that the conversational model doesn't even hold for conversation!  In short, the post-structuralist move has been to challenge the interactive and assert the independent.  You don't need to go that far, of course, but to claim conversely that interactivity is necessarily the basis of written interpretation seems contrary to almost every model I know outside the purely mystical (and deliberately transgressive).

To take the video game example, which I like, we could compare video games to speech and television to writing.  You can only view and interpret television; you can't interact with the characters except in your own mind.  In video games, the medium reacts to you, making the process interactive and, in a loose sense, conversational.

I made a little pitch about this at the beginning of the Ritual essay (see Articles section above), where I argued that John Kim's and Ron's uses of literary models for RPG's is a bit deceptive or confusing, because those models necessarily deal with a non-conversational medium; RPG's, by contrast, are entirely conversational, or mostly so.

Thus I am at a loss to explain the "ordinary" meaning of interaction in literature, unless what's meant is interpretation.

{jargon on}
The only way I can parse this is by saying that what the player brings to the table is required for any interpretation to happen, and thus interaction must occur within the confines of what the totality of players bring to the table, which is certainly the case, but that would be true regardless of the hermeneutic situation.  That some RPG's demand a considerable prior structure of particular kinds of data and others do not has nothing to do with the hermeneutic procedure of entering the world in front of the text and returning for reflection and so on.

{jargon off}
I don't buy it.

Chris Lehrich

[Valamir]

I don't think this is the distinction Xero is drawing at all.

I don't think it is either.  Which is why the word is a completely bizarre choice.  The distinction of pre existing vs. spontaneously added is a reasonable distinction to make.  Problem is, and where the discussion got derailed, is that there is ZERO logical association between this distinction and the word "interactive".

[clehrich]

I x-posted with John.

I don't think this is the distinction Xero is drawing at all.  He is talking about interaction with "pre-existant structures" -- by which I think he means ideas created prior to that moment.  So if the GM invents a cottage on the spot, that is still "creation" rather than "interaction".  Within this usage, "interaction with text" means that something was already prepared rather than being made up on the spot: i.e. a map, a character, or other fictional creation.

That may be so, John, but what difference does it make?  If I read a mystery novel in the ordinary way, i.e. from front to back, I know hypothetically that the answer has already been created, but at the same time I do not really know this to be the case.  If I get to the end of the story and find that there isn't any solution at all, I'll be ticked off, but it's surely possible.  Hypothetically, if I put the book down and go away for an hour, and then you sneak in and switch it with an identical copy that does include the final answer at the end, how will I know that anything has changed?

This is an impossible distinction in practical terms.  If I simply assert that everything I have done in the game as GM was pre-planned, does that make everything interaction instead of creativity?  What if I'm lying?  Does it make any difference?

Chris Lehrich

[Doctor Xero]

Doctor Xero only brought up this point (about literary theory usage), what, three days ago?  So I think you're overreacting to say about how awfully sick you are of it.  I mean, it would be one thing if Xero demanded that everyone else use his meaning -- but I don't think he is.  He just wants to talk about "interaction" in the specialized context of "interaction with text" -- as distinct from other sorts of interaction.  (I think this needs to be clarified, but that's a separate issue.)

Thank you.  I was defending my use, never attempting to impose it upon others except asking it be used within that thread I started to avoid semantic tangents.

If the GM says "what do you do?"
and the player says "we walk down the road"
and the GM says "you see a cottage".

Then the players can do anything they want to interact with that cottage.  They can go inside, they can climb onto the roof, they can throw rocks at the windows, they can burn it down, they can kick down the door and kill everyone.

If the GM says "what do you do?"
and the player says "we walk down the road"
and the GM says "ok, and what do you find down the road?"
and the player says "I think it would be cool if there were a cottage here"

How is this any different in terms of level of interactivity?

I would have been content to let this issue die, but since you asked, I will answer.

In the first example, the players have an opportunity to demonstrate how creative they can be making use of what they already have -- in your example, a cabin.  In the second example, the players have an opportunity to create fresh, but there is no opportunity for them to make use of what they already have, because (when it comes to landmarks) they don't already have anything.

There's a certain creativity in finding a fixer-upper house and renovating it, restoring parts of it, and altering/building still other parts of it.  In that case, the new owners are interacting with the pre-existing structure.

Of course, there's also a certain creativity in building a new home from scratch, independent from any pre-existing structure.  I have chosen in imitation of one of my fields to refer to that as independent (but I'm sure I might well have named it otherwise were my background different).

I respect people whose sense of style allows them to go out and purchase wonderful clothes to wear (independent of what's already in the wardrobe closet).  I also respect people whose sense of style allows them to stay with what's in the closet, buying nothing new, yet arrange and mix-n-match their clothes such that they look just as wonderful (interactive with what's already in the wardrobe closet).  I don't see the two as identical actions from the perspective of person-to-wardrobe interaction.  But I imagine, from the perspective of how they look, the differences might seem moot . . . but's that not the perspective I was attempting to investigate, just as G/N/S is not intended to address the perspective of which game system costs less.

I do not consider the ability to adapt to one's circumstances to be inherently any less creative than the ability to create fresh.  The ability to interact creatively with my environment is fairly important in this world today, just as valuable as the ability to create independently of pre-existing paradigm.

Side note: this debate about degree of new creation (independent) versus degree of creativity making use of what already exists and going on from there (interactive) is related both to another ongoing thread on whether or not templates help in character construction and to another ongoing thread about whether or not fantastical "races" are of value in an FRPG (or SFRPG).

I don't think this is the distinction Xero is drawing at all.  He is talking about interaction with "pre-existant structures" -- by which I think he means ideas created prior to that moment.  So if the GM invents a cottage on the spot, that is still "creation" rather than "interaction".

Precisely!

I'm honoring that request as far as the original thread is concerned.

Thank you.  I appreciate it.

Similarly, labelling text or the reading of text as "interactive" doesn't strike me as very informative.
---snip!--
I question why literary scholars would bother with a descriptor that appears to be so uselessly universal. If reading and reacting to a text makes the text "interactive," then no text being discussed can ever fail to be "interactive"
---snip!--
A text becomes interactive when and only when the player influences the text.

But I'm really sick of being bludgeoned with what the "legitimate" meaning of "interactive" is according to literary scholars. Their opinion on the matter means less to me than that of the cat toy package copywriters.

If so, then why do you go on about it?  Why argue against a field which means less to you than that of cat toy package copywriters?

I had avoided explaining the origin of the use of "interactive" in my original thread because I wanted to avoid semantic tangents.  As anyone can see, I failed at that effort more than I succeeded.  Still, the Forge people continue to impress me with their sense of courtesy, so while there was obvious anger in Walt's original post, I do not think he was trying to disrespect me personally.

So, I will try to answer your question within my abilities, Walt.

The term "interactive" was originally used in a time before literary scholars began to investigate thoroughly the power of fandom.  Fandom has only been investigated relatively recently (by academic standards).

At the time, the term "interactive" was used as part of the attempts to investigate the differences between the degree of involvment in reading a book (interactive) and the degree of involvment in seeing a film or watching a television show (less interactive because much of the imaginative speculation has been done for you).  It was used to understand the different levels of involvement/interaction between my imagining what Frodo looks like and my being told that Frodo looks like Elijah Woods with his height altered by SPFX.

Since then, we have discovered that both with books and with film the level of interactivity or involvement has become more determined by whether the reader/viewer approaches it as someone seeking diversion or as a fan-culture devotee (those involved in the more creative fanfics and such).

A fan's own personal "mythology" or personal lexicon of images and ideas will be influenced by the text of the book or the text of the film because she or he will interact with it, using its pre-existing images and ideas as inspirations and springboards for his or her own thoughts.  People seeking diversion will be unaffected by the book or film, so they will not incorporate any of the images or ideas into their own thoughts nor will they be inspired by them -- they will remain "independent" of the text of the book or the text of the film.  This is one reason why many people have read comic books but only a few have gone on to become comic book writers.

My personal involvement with my own creations is highest when I create something from whole cloth, such as writing a short story, and it becomes less as I read someone else's short story and less further as I watch someone else's cinema interpretation of a short story someone else wrote.  My personal involvment with what already exists is highest when I am able to adapt it to my uses, renovate it, rework it, re-envision it, whether given me by my game master or by a story I'm reading or a television series I love, and that involvement becomes less and less as I move to writing my own stories with little reference to anything that already exists.

Other than the obvious -- complete originality is impossible, of course, but pointing that out is a technicality.  Heed the spirit of my words, not the letter of them!

So, for a person trying to understand the level of player involvement with creatively utilizing what is already there in new ways on one extreme ranging into creatively constructing from whole cloth on the other extreme, the continuum from "interactive" to "independent" makes sense.  If people do not care about the impact on an RPG of the degree of player improvisation and the degree of player interaction with what is already there, then no, that continuum would be useless to them.

I genuinely hope that helps clarify.

Doctor Xero

P.S. Clehrich, I apologize for not addressing your points, some of which are excellent.  However, as I hope you can see from my posting, you were referencing a different segment of literary scholarship than I was in your posting.  Still, it was very welcome to read the familiar language! <smile>

[Alan]

[Wow, I wrote a whole damn essay, when I just started out saying, yeah, what they said.]

Doc Xero uses the terms "interactive" and "independent" as they are used in literary criticism to describe the relationship of a reader to a text - or a viewer to a movie. Now, I do think that literary criticism has some validity when applied to role-playing games, but we must be ready to adapt to the differences between the media.

A text, in the literary criticism sense, is a static thing - it is complete in toto _when_ the reader encounters it, even before he goes through the process of experiencing it. When the reader experiences is a text, he cannot change it. His only means of interacting with it, is by responding with emotions and thoughts and conversation to others about the text.

On the other hand, a role-playing game does not have a text in this sense. The material of an actual play session is a series of elements added to a collective fantasy that all the players agree exists for the purpose of their game. I like to call this body of material the "shared fantasy". Others have referred to the "place" this material exists as the "shared imagined space."

The shared fantasy has some similarities to a static text, but does have some differences. The key one being dynamism. While some shared fantasy material may exist (my character, my sword, the kingdom, the history of past adventures) before a given session of play, the complete material (events, new NPCs, new places) of a game session does not exist _until_ the play session is complete. The material of a game session is created by the players.

So, unlike a static text, where the reader's only means of interaction is emotional, intellectual, or conversational, the participant in a role-playing game can also interact by _creating_ new elements of the "text." Even if those new elements are only "what my character does," they are a proactive act of creation.

For these reasons, shared fantasy is a cumulative entity that comes into existence during play. Imagine a cycle, as Ralph did:

GM: "You find a road. What do you do?"
Player: "We walk down the road."
GM: "You see a cottage."
Player: "I knock on the door."

The GM's first statement introduces a road into the shared fantasy. The player then introduces his character's action into the fantasy. Then the GM produces the cottage and the player adds another action to the shared fantasy.

Both the player and the GM are making additions to the shared fantasy - the "text." The only distinction is that the GM has introduced elements of the environment, while the player has introduced elements of action restricted to his character.

Noth the GM and the player conceived their additions to the shared fantasy _based_ on the existing material. They interacted with the existing material. Yet, some of the material they interacted with did not exist until just seconds before they addressed it.

Now, in the other example, we see the player contributing, not just action elements, but environmental elements:

f the GM says "what do you do?"
and the player says "we walk down the road"
and the GM says "ok, and what do you find down the road?"
and the player says "I think it would be cool if there were a cottage here."
GM & other players: "Ok"
Player: "I knock on the door."

In this case, the process remains the same. First, the cottage did not exist in the "text." Then it did, and then the player interacted with it. The only difference that I can imagine is that, in the first example, the player continues to experience the novelty of the unknown, while in the other case, he may _also_ experience the novelty of knowing what he wants to find in the cottage.

At first, it may seem strange to players to create then interact with an imaginary element - they may feel that they no longer have the wonder of discovery if they are the one who created it. However, I argue that creation itself also has a wonder of discovery. Though from my personal experience with writing, I know that the sense of wonder is often also tinged with performance fear: not knowing what your next creation will be.

Finally, the point of all this is that the "text" of an RPG comes into existence as players add to it. Each new element is created to be consistent with what has already been agreed to be part of the "text." This consistency may lead the player to address what exists in the text, but they may also create new elements that dove-tail into the fantasy in a way that doesn't violate previously created material.

Consistency of creation is one of the general traits that shows up in all role-playing.  Each time a player must create something consistent with the existing material, he is also interacting with that material.  I think that the scale between "interactive" and "independent" may have some application if we look at how strict players are in enforcing consistency with existing material. But the use of director stance techniques (where players have some control over the fantasy environment) are not related to enforcement of consistency. Players who enjoy director powers can also work hard to maintain consistency with existing "text." I can offer myself as an example and many other people I've played with.

So I think "VoInt" vs. "VoInd" breaks down into two separate scales which address things we already have terms for:  One scale is how much Director stance power a player prefers, and the other is how strict the player likes their consistency.  Because these scales are uncorrelated – one can be high while the other is high, or one can be high while the other is low – they cannot be conflated into a single scale.

[Doctor Xero]

Wow, you have some good points, Alan!  I hadn't considered the way many people are used to thinking of books as static things.  Mea culpa.

A text, in the literary criticism sense, is a static thing - it is complete in toto _when_ the reader encounters it, even before he goes through the process of experiencing it. When the reader experiences is a text, he cannot change it. His only means of interacting with it, is by responding with emotions and thoughts and conversation to others about the text.

You're correct.  However, I think that the involvement between fan culture and static texts makes a nice parallel to the involvement between player and what called "the shared fantasy".  Your posting came in at the same time as mine, so you didn't have a chance to read it first.  Now that I have explained the origin of the terms I was using, what are your thoughts?  I'd really like to know.

Each time a player must create something consistent with the existing material, he is also interacting with that material. I think that the scale between "interactive" and "independent" may have some application if we look at how strict players are in enforcing consistency with existing material.

I think the scale is even more valuable if applied as part of an effort to look at the range of player creative adaptability (taking what already is and using it) going from players who can be highly adaptive (interactive) to players who try to be highly independent not adaptive (when possible).  (My personal suspicion is that everyone can be both adaptive and independent.)

Now that I've read your post, I'm specifically interested in your thoughts about my comments on adapting to what is as an act of creativity equal to constructing independently.

I respect people whose sense of style allows them to go out and purchase wonderful clothes to wear (independent of what's already in the wardrobe closet).  I also respect people whose sense of style allows them to stay with what's in the closet, buying nothing new, yet arrange and mix-n-match their clothes such that they look just as wonderful (interactive with what's already in the wardrobe closet).  I don't see the two as identical actions from the perspective of person-to-wardrobe interaction.  
---snip!--
I do not consider the ability to adapt to one's circumstances to be inherently any less creative than the ability to create fresh.  The ability to interact creatively with my environment is fairly important in this world today, just as valuable as the ability to create independently of pre-existing paradigm.

When I enter a game world, the very first thing I want to know is what all the parameters are.  It's like putting together a puzzle by assembling the frame-pieces first, to provide structure for the rest of the puzzle.  It's like wanting to know whether my poetry professor wants me to write in free verse, a haiku, with a specific cadence, etc.  If not given specifics, when in a flow, I was the student who handed in seven poems, each decently well done and each in a different style, since I wasn't given guidelines and boundaries beyond the idea that I was to write a poem.

If I'm given permission to design a new race for a fantasy campaign, I want to know what races already exist, what mythic/metaphoric niches are already taken, what ambience is preferred for that campaign, etc., so that I might interact with it.  If I create independently of that campaign world, there are two dangers it seems to me : the practical danger that I create a race which replicates or elbows out another race or violates the ambience (e.g. creating a race of bone-marrow vampires in a world that is based on My Little Poney), and the personal concern that, if I'm going to the bother of creating from scratch, why waste it on a game when I can be sitting home writing it as a story?

(Yes, I know that VoIND games such as Fungeon and DonJon already have some structure, if only the idea of a classic dungeon-crawl.  I'm not putting down either approach.)

To bring all this back to the original posting which started this thread : yes, there are valid reasons for the original terminology I had used, and they were derived from literary scholarship as people began to study first the difference between reading a book and watching a film/television series and then went on to study the difference between a passive audience and the interactive audience found in creative fandom.

But we all feel free to use different terminology in our own posts, don't we?

Doctor Xero

[John Kim]

I don't think it is either.  Which is why the word is a completely bizarre choice.  The distinction of pre existing vs. spontaneously added is a reasonable distinction to make.  Problem is, and where the discussion got derailed, is that there is ZERO logical association between this distinction and the word "interactive".

It might be a bit obscure, but bear with me a moment.  Now, we're working on the level of fictional objects (i.e. characters, setting, etc.).  Imagine them as physical toys, and there is a little carpet which all the players are sitting around which is shared play.  When they set a toy on the carpet, it is put in shared play.  The players may also have other toys which are sitting around the edge of the carpet -- corresponding to bits which are create but not yet interacted with in play.  Thirdly, the players can create new toys and put them down (either on the carpet or around the edge).  

Now, the word "interaction" implies at least two pre-existing objects which, well, interact.  So having one toy do something to another is "interaction", whereas creating a new toy is something else (perhaps just "creation").  That said, I also have problems with the original terms.  But first let's try to clarify the distinction, and then make practical suggestions for what the terms should be.  

So I think "VoInt" vs. "VoInd" breaks down into two separate scales which address things we already have terms for:  One scale is how much Director stance power a player prefers, and the other is how strict the player likes their consistency.  Because these scales are uncorrelated – one can be high while the other is high, or one can be high while the other is low – they cannot be conflated into a single scale.

I don't think this is correct.  VoINT/VoIND are related to these, but not the same.  As I understand it, if a GM makes up a cottage on the spot, that is still VoIND.  If a player makes up a cottage on the spot, that is also VoIND.  It is only VoINT if the cottage has already been conceived of by either GM or players.  

This isn't something treated in current theory, but it is interesting, I think.  Chris Lehrich suggests that it is invisible, but that seems nonsensical.  It is incredibly visible to the person who is acting.  Moreover, I expect that it also has an effect on play.  i.e. If the GM makes things up completely off the cuff, the game will likely turn out differently than if they prepare.  The players might not be able to perfectly identify what bits were prepared vs not, but they will definitely notice that something has changed if the GM goes from one extreme to the other.

[Valamir]

Now, the word "interaction" implies at least two pre-existing objects which, well, interact. So having one toy do something to another is "interaction", whereas creating a new toy is something else (perhaps just "creation"). That said, I also have problems with the original terms. But first let's try to clarify the distinction, and then make practical suggestions for what the terms should be.

Understood, but I don't this is a useful distinction.

For this to be the case, every cobblestone of every road must be mapped in advance.  Every room in every cottage and every item in those rooms must be known with precision in advance.  *EVERYTHING* must be known in advance.  Because only then can everything the player character encounters in the game be said to "pre-exist" and only then can the game be said to be VoInt.

Of course, quite the contrary is true.  We know that every road is not mapped nor every room inventoried.  What happens when the players stray beyond the borders of the GM's map?  What happens if the player looks for a hair brush in a room the GM hasn't fully inventoried?

Obviously, the GM improvises.  The GM has always improvised.  Go to the most hardcore traditional old school game imaginable and you'll find the GM improvising.  

The road the party travels down didn't exist until the players decided to go left (not mapped) instead of right (mapped).  The cottage didn't exist until the GM felt the need to break up the monotony of the road with an encounter of some kind.  The inventory of the cottage didn't exist until the players decided to go inside and look around.

Sure.  Some roads are mapped.  Some cottages are placed.  Some rooms are inventoried.  But clearly not all.  And clearly on those occasions the GM is expected to improvise.

At that moment the GM is creating something new out of whole cloth...exactly what you describe as creating a new toy.  According to the definition, this is not "interactive", but clearly it goes on quite frequently in every session of every game which Dr Xero would or could ever label VoInt.

It is obvious to me that Dr Xero has confounded two completely unrelated topics.  What he is trying to differentiate is *not* whether something pre exists or doesn't pre exist.  What he is trying to differentiate is who he's willing to give the authority to spontaneously create that which doesn't pre exist.

In "VoInt" play only the GM has the authority.
In "VoInd" play other players also have such authority.

This has nothing to do with interactivity or independence at all.  Its purely 100% a matter of how Credibility gets divided during play...which is why I said this whole thing was pure Lumpley Principle.


The issue gets further complicated with issues of "consistancy".

Unfortuneately for these discussions the idea of consistancy has been confounded with the idea of credibility.  The proposal indirectly asserts that only the GM's spontaneous creations are capable of being consistant and that any player spotaneous creations are doomed to be inconsistant.

Dr. Xero quite rightly prefers consistancy over inconsistancy; but then quite wrongly asserts that only the GM can be trusted to maintain consistancy.  In point of fact, GMs are mere human beings as are every player at the table, and as a human being the GM has no greater or lesser ability than anyone else to be consistant.  It is perfectly possible, plausible, and typical for all players to be ready, willing, and able to maintain consistancy.

Trying to describe all of this with words borrowed from another discipline only marginally even related to the idea of roleplaying has created quite the muddled mess.


Ultimately, however, I think we've collectively managed to tease apart the real issues which are these.

1) Director Stance:  The concious adding to and altering of the game world

2) Credibility: Who at the table has the ability to employ Director Stance (expandable to include how much)

3) Trust:  Whether or not any player can be entrusted with the power of Director Stance, or whether only the GM can be trusted with such power.


These are the real issues at the heart of these threads I think.  It is perfectly possible to discuss any and all of these without ever needing to resort to questionable vocabulary like "Interactive vs Independent".

[John Kim]

It is obvious to me that Dr Xero has confounded two completely unrelated topics.  What he is trying to differentiate is *not* whether something pre exists or doesn't pre exist.  What he is trying to differentiate is who he's willing to give the authority to spontaneously create that which doesn't pre exist.

In "VoInt" play only the GM has the authority.
In "VoInd" play other players also have such authority.

This has nothing to do with interactivity or independence at all.  

OK, this is a simple one to solve.  Xero -- if a GM has nothing prepared about the game-world and instead makes stuff up off-the-cuff as he tells it to the players, is that VoIND or VoINT?  

Now, the word "interaction" implies at least two pre-existing objects which, well, interact. So having one toy do something to another is "interaction", whereas creating a new toy is something else (perhaps just "creation"). That said, I also have problems with the original terms. But first let's try to clarify the distinction, and then make practical suggestions for what the terms should be.

Understood, but I don't this is a useful distinction.

For this to be the case, every cobblestone of every road must be mapped in advance.  Every room in every cottage and every item in those rooms must be known with precision in advance.  *EVERYTHING* must be known in advance.  Because only then can everything the player character encounters in the game be said to "pre-exist" and only then can the game be said to be VoInt.

Eh?  Well, obviously this isn't a simple binary distinction (i.e. exists vs not-exists).  But in my experience, I feel a difference between high levels and low levels of existance.  i.e. Playing a PC or NPC who has been establshed for years feels different than making up a new character off-the-cuff.  Of course, even when the character has been established for years, it could be that I add new facts about him as I play -- but there is still a big difference in degree.

[Walt Freitag]

It is obvious to me that Dr Xero has confounded two completely unrelated topics. What he is trying to differentiate is *not* whether something pre exists or doesn't pre exist. What he is trying to differentiate is who he's willing to give the authority to spontaneously create that which doesn't pre exist.

In "VoInt" play only the GM has the authority.
In "VoInd" play other players also have such authority.

Yet, this is contradicted by Doctor Xero's assertion (by agreeing with John Kim's suggestion earlier in the thread) that GM improvisation (e.g. the invention of a cottage on the spot) is VoIND ("creation" rather than "interaction").

[Edit to note: This post was cross-posted with John Kim's immediately above, in which John asks again about GM improvisation. I also asked the same question in the previous VoINT/VoIND thread.]

Suppose the issue were pre-existing vs. non pre-existing. Where does that leave us? Well, pre-existence isn't an all-or-nothing quality. We know that a GM can have a lot in mind that isn't written down at the start of a session. We know that a GM can have a lot written down that ends up being ignored or modified during play. We also know that what's written down can be contingent. Does a random encounter rolled from a table during play pre-exist (because the table itself existed) or not (because the specific encounter wasn't decided on)? Does it matter if the table was specifically prepared by the GM for the adventure's current locale or if it was a subtable of a universal table from the system book selected based on climate? Does it matter if the GM fudges the roll? If the GM introduces a cottage on the spot, but the cottage had previously been planned out in detail for a different location, is that INT or IND? What if the cottage wasn't planned at all, but when the GM decided to introduce it he reached for a sourcebook of 100 small dwellings that he had on his shelf?

On the one hand, the pre-existence of anything prior to its introduction into the shared imagined space through play is a shaky concept. Fang Langford called this the "myth of reality." On the other hand, I've always maintained that it does make an important difference in play if the GM is improvising rather than following a rigid map and/or plan, even if the GM holds all the directorial authority either way. This is certainly something that players could have preferences for, one way or the other.

So does VoIND vs. VoIND just point out that players might have a preference (or at least two separate preferences, one for whether the GM improvises setting and one for whether the players do so)? If so, then it's one of many points of preference in play, and we must inquire whether it matters more than other preferences like combat system crunchiness and amount of character advancement. Or does the theory specify certain consequences of playing one way or the other -- in which case, we must inquire whether the consequences necessarily follow from the behaviors? That's where all the questions of consistency come in. (Why does it follow that players will be less consistent than a GM, or that a GM improvising on the fly will be less consistent than one writing notes in advance?)

I think a case could be made that, quite apart from consistency issues, the ability of a GM to express a certain "vision" through play when holding all the directorial power can give certain qualities to play that it cannot have when expressive power is shared with players through the use of Director stance. But that doesn't appear to align with VoINT (as corresponding to GM-vision) vs. VoIND (as corresponding to shared-vision) as defined in terms of whether explored elements pre-exist, because GM expressive power is if anything enhanced rather than reduced when the GM improvises, so GM improvisation would have to be VoINT.

- Walt

[Tomas HVM]

Walt Freitag writes (at length) wisely and clearly on the topic of interactivity, and the way this phrase is interpreted (and not). However; at the end he makes a statement I consider to be slightly problematic:

... especially when in general people are capbable of being interactive and text is not.

The problem with this statement, is that we're talking roleplaying games here, and those are meant to cater for interactivity. In fact the gamesmith may be considered a kind of "guiding spirit" in the game, and someone you interact with through his text. The fragments of text, on milieu and method, gives the gamesmith a presence. He has already planned how to interact with his players, and have written game-fragments which are more or less open, for the players to use in this respect. Still he can not decide how the players actually use the game. They may use, misuse and interepret at will, under the influence of his writings, so we may talk of a true interactivity, through the text.

Why make this point? Well... quite a lot of players tend to think that system don't matter. It does. So it is important to give the text of the game book it's due respect. The gamesmith lay the foundations too, and certainly influence, the game through his work.