Non-electric Interactive Written Solo Entertainment

[Wayne]

What is next in interactive written solo entertainment of the non-electrical kind?

1. First there were Books
2. then Choose Your Own Story
3. then Choose Your Own Adventure
4. So what comes next?

Books allowed an author to convey a story to a reader in written form, but didn't allow any interaction except the use of the imagination to see the story.  Then Choose Your Own Stories allowed the reader some interaction in where the plot lead to.  Then Choose Your Own Adventures not only allowed the reader some interaction in the plot, but actually play a character with stats and all.  So where does non-electric interactive written solo entertainment go now?

[Dr. Velocity]

I'm not entirely convinced physical written media can really go any farther than the adventure gamebooks (in these, I include stat and non-stat types, since those are a more gamist trapping than add any real level of 'interaction').

The basic picture is that you are using a physical written work, to entertain yourself in a more 'immersive' fashion than a standard 'passive' novel - you want interaction... BUT... objectively, we know only so much interaction IS possible.

If there is NOT another entity involved REAL-TIME, then you honestly can't 'interact' in any meaningful way - it is, in fact, only through consciously using suspension of disbelief and accepting the ILLUSION of interaction, that 'interactive novels' or game books function.

You have, in some books, a very good selection of reasonable and likely choices or options to some events, which will carry you on, but there is no ability to think of play 'outside the box'; its still a book, its static and written and can sit on the shelf or be read - it doesn't care, it won't try any more or less to please you, the author has written more since then, he doesn't know you personally; there's no way for him to account that you might want to try to dig through the roof of the cave to the surface, or set fire to the bridge which you and the villain are on, just because you're crazy enough to do something like that.

The limiting factor is not so much the closed-potential aspect of gamebooks, as it is the closed-CHARACTER aspect - for there to be a detailed and sympathetic character and/or plot driven work, development has to occur, and the identity and passions of the character have to be established, the setting has to become familiar - this forces you, no matter what the book says, to play "someone else's character" - you can NEVER develop your OWN character, or drives, or goals, thus, there is a definite jumping off point, especially for more creative minds, where the allure of interactive gamebooks simply cannot provide the type of interaction and nourishment of personal expression desired.

Sadly, electronic 'gamebooks' or websites, etc, will naturally also fall into these exact same categories, no matter what fancy javascript or php format they're in; you can have four hundred different stats and flags and skills and abilities, all kept track of invisibly by the script, but that puts you zero steps closer to personal character development and expression - and definitely no closer to true INTERACTION. Interaction STILL requires OTHER people. E-mail and chat role-play is very freeform for the most part and so is closer, but it lacks the general storyline of gamebooks because the characters are not, generally, as well written and developed (relying on the players).

[Valamir]

There could be some interesting evolutionary enhancements to these existing forms.

For instance html would allow a whole order of magnitude increase in the "choose your own" model.  Instead of a slim paperback and just a couple of choices, there could be thousands of possibilities and "pages" that assemble themselves to account for previous paths.  For instance it would be a realatively simple matter for a sentence "you meet Mr Jay" to be replaced with "since you killed Mr Jay last night, you meet his replacement, Mr Kay"...something that was always an obstacle in the old paper forms.

But to a great extent most of what you could do with this form was already done better in the MUD and MUSH era, and I don't see a real demand for it now.  Although the existance of PDAs and electronic book readers might supply a demand.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hello, Wayne

I think solo RPG have yet to find the real multitude of forms possible. I think the gamebook form is but one form for solo play. There can be card games, board games. These have yet to be explored with a handful of exceptions.

I find it interesting that a pick-a-path format seems to be considered the only way to solo roleplay.

[ejh]

Jack: this brings up the old "what are the limits of 'role-playing'" problem, but I think that one reason that, say, T&T solos, have been accepted as a style of RPG play is that, like face-to-face games, they feature a two-way feedback between a set of "mechanical" rules (dice & numbers) and a textually defined/expressed imaginary situation.  What you roll on the dice, and what the numbers on your character sheet are, can affect the flow of the narrative text, and purely narratively/textually defined matters can affect those numbers and the stuff on your character sheet.

In this case, the text is entirely written by one party: the adventure designer.  Hence the feeling among some that it's not a "real" RPG because of lack of player input.  But there is that text<->mechanics two-way feedback, which is characteristic of RPGs, nonetheless.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Not sure what you're driving at, ejh. I am one of those who think solos are not "real roleplaying" see my perspective thread. But that does not mean it is not fun.

But the numbered paragraphs of the T&T solos, game books, etc is not the only way to solo roleplay. I was noting it was funny that it was the only way thought of usually.

[Christopher Weeks]

If there is NOT another entity involved REAL-TIME, then you honestly can't 'interact' in any meaningful way - it is, in fact, only through consciously using suspension of disbelief and accepting the ILLUSION of interaction, that 'interactive novels' or game books function.

What is an entity?

I can imagine a computer based choose-your-path kind of game in which a fantabulously huge number of options are available.  In fact, I can suggest that within any framework established by a set of game rules and played in a given language, I could assemble all possible choices (digging through the roof, and bridge-burning included).  If such a database of outcomes were linked to a moderately clever simulator, you wouldn't know that there weren't another 'entity' working with you in real-time.

So what's an entity?

What is the role of interaction in role playing?  And how/why can't you develop your own character in a sufficiently sophisticated solo-RPG tool/game?

I think there are technological limits that we must currently endure that prevent us from realizing this vision, but I don't think they are inherent of permanent -- or even long term, really.

The real question in my mind, is of value.  Why bother?  When you can play a multiplayer RPG (of sorts) online, what do you gain by implementing a perfect solo game?  Maybe it's just a matter of taste?

Chris

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hrms, Christopher.

I think that Dr V was refering to another human being by "entity." I can't say why he used that word. Possibly to be clever; possibly to allow for those who play with space aliens. Anyway...

As to why bother? I don't know. Why bother playing Solitaire with card when you can play it on your computer? Actually, more accurately, when you can play multiplayer card games on-line? It's a different thing to do. That's why.

[Lxndr]

And what about non-real-time interaction that still involves other entities?  is a play-by-email (or play-by-message-board) game not a subject of meaningful interaction?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

And what about non-real-time interaction that still involves other entities?  is a play-by-email (or play-by-message-board) game not a subject of meaningful interaction?

I'm sorry to hear you find this interaction not meaningful.  ;)

[M. J. Young]

I think that the point about real-time interaction is really about whether each party responds to the other. That is, a CYOA or computer emulation, a CRPG, all of these have the circumstance that one participant contributed his part in advance of the other, and never responds to what the other actually does. He attempts to do so by trying to provide his responses to everything he can imagine the other might do, and placing limits on what the other can do, but he never actually is involved in a creative interactive way once the second person becomes involved.

I'm not sure that's a necessary part of role playing, but that seems to be the objection there.

--M. J. Young

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I'm not sure that's a necessary part of role playing, but that seems to be the objection there.

I guess this will never completely go away, I guess. I attempted to address this in my perception thread.

The best comparason I can think of is the difference between having sexual intercourse with another person and viewing porn, especially a first person porn that was attempted a few times.  This is probably a tasteless and for some a wholly inappropriate comparason, so I won't dig into gory details. Suffice it thus: Do these two activities involve similar aspects of human behavior? Yes. Are there differences in the activities mostly to do with having another human being involved? Hell yes. I for one find the differences are enough to take group and solo roleplaying as separate activities.

I suppose some would consider both activities as being under the umbrella activity of "roleplaying" rather than calling group roleplaying just plain roleplaying   But I'll leave that to the semantics monkeys. :)

MJ's post made me notice, or reno-tice that solo roleplaying has quite a bite in common with railroading and possibly illusionism.

[pete_darby]

Solo RP and Computer RP: where's your social contract? Don't hack? Don't peek at the other paragraphs?

Can't think of a positive answer, but really hoping someone will prove me wrong (again) in new and interesting ways.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Solo RP and Computer RP: where's your social contract?

Cant speak for computer RPGs but in solos it's with yourself. But is a social contract with yourself really a *social* contract?

[Walt Freitag]

A few years ago I participated in extensive discussions led by Chris Crawford, one of the gurus of interactivity and computer game design, about this thread's topic. The issue was couched in terms of "process vs. data," where a branching story tree would represent a highly data-intensive approach to interactive storytelling while a computer-based simulator (such as Chris's Erasmatron system) would represent a highly process-intensive approach. His position: data is inert and therefore not capable of meaningful interaction; process is therefore the way to go. My position: no mechanical process can do what an author does, so the only way to have meaningful authorial vision in an interactive work is to load it in as some form of data.

Keep in mind that we're talking entirely about solo "canned" works here, not games with GMs and not collaborative interactive authorship between two or more participants.

The distinction between process and data, as most people here probably know, actually becomes fuzzy when viewed from a very basic level (such as via information theory). So under special circumstances, you can draw an equivalence between the two. For instance, consider the following thought experiment:

In version 1, an author and a reader communicate with each other via the Internet. The author begins by sending the reader a piece of story text in "choose your own adventure" style, followed by a limited number of distinct choices that the reader can make for how the story should proceed. The only information that comes back to the author is which choice the reader chose. Based on that choice, after careful thought and using all his skills, the author writes the next text segment, along with the next set of choices. This segment is transmitted to the reader, and the process continues. Other rules: the story must run for a specified number of segments (never ending "early") and must end after that number of segments.

In version 2, the author writes the entire tree of story segments and reader choices in advance. This is an enormous amount of work but is feasible provided that the number of rounds is small (example: at 3 choices per round, with 9 rounds, you'd need to write about 10,000 segments, more than two thirds of which are endings). As in version 1, no "dead end" branches are permitted, and an additional constraint is added that all branches must be distinct; no converging of branches is allowed. (Dead ends and coverging branches are what makes real-world branching text adventures "railroady.") After the author is finished, the reader can interact with the text database over the Internet using a dirt-simple program that registers the choice at each round and mindlessly delivers the next appropriate text segment.

It's pretty clear that version 1 is far more practical than version 2 (at least, if there's only ever going to be the one reader; it's a little harder to say, if you want to entertain 10,000 readers one at a time). It's also difficult to argue that version 1 is not interactive, because despite the highly limited amount of feedback from reader to author, the author is right there inventing new fiction based on the reader's choices. (Listen, think, and respond: Crawford's requirements for what a system must do to be considered interactive.) But version 2 is also exactly equivalent to version 1 as far as the reader's experience is concerned. (If sticklers deem it necessary, we can add a delay mechanism to the dirt-simple version 2 program to simulate the time the author requires to write the next segment in version 1.) This means that version 2, a highly data-oriented approach, is no less interactive than version 1 in any meaningful way.

Well, yeah, admits Crawford, but the practicality issue is important. The version 2 scenario gives you nothing to build on in the future; if you want a different set of stories you have to start all over again. It's like making a processor chip that divides numbers using a huge lookup table full of pre-calculated results, rather than one that implements an algorithm for long division. In the long run, the processor that "understands" long division will be more flexible and useful than the one doing a "dumb" table lookup. Sure, I respond, but algorithms for authoring stories don't exist and the prospects for developing them in the next decade or two are slim.

Hence, I advocate approaches that mix data (such as text or text templates) and process (sophisticated ways of selecting and modifying text based on story context). My ideal interactive storytelling system would require a skilled author to create its library (which would somehow capture some degree of the author's vision, which would be carried through to the outcome seen by the reader) but the actual shape of the plot would be entirely contingent on the reader's choices. But this set of approaches has its own so-far-insoluble problems, a lot of which comes down the the granularity of adaptive story fragments. "Big" fragments (like in Choose Your Own Adventure books or my Star Saga computer games) are good vehicles for narrative quality and authorial vision, and are easy to assemble into complete stories, but they can't adapt to context so they can handle reader choice in only the most crude ways. "Small" fragments (like the verbs in Erasmatron or the location description texts in (text) Interactive Fiction) are easy to select and manipulate on the fly to adapt to reader decisions, but they are very difficult (without human-level intelligence being engaged at runtime) to assemble into stories of any quality.

And that's where progress in "canned" solo interactive stories, whether in print or electronic form, has spun its wheels for the past twenty years now. Despite the diligent and often passionate efforts of many authors, designers, and academic researches throughout that period.

So, to answer Wayne's question: we're still waiting for (or, some of us, struggling toward) what's next. Exclusion of electronic systems pretty much limits you to the most "data-intensive" approaches, but there have been occasional exceptions where a game conceived as a computer game has been released as a paper game, using manual procedures (looking up lists and tables, mostly) instead of a computer program. The most interesting of these is probably the board game Tales of the Arabian Nights published (now long out of print) by West End Games.

For hybrid approaches, where electronics are used but the emphasis is on story interaction or generation rather than conventional game play within a fixed frame story, here are a few resource links:

1. The Star Saga computer games. A multi-player hybrid board-computer-text adventure game, partly written and largely designed by yours truly in the late 80s.

The amazingly well-written, insightful, and dramatic sci-fi plot alone makes Star Saga the best example of "Interactive Literature" I have seen, and certainly one of the best multiplayer RPG games for the computer.

You can download them for free (a fact I was rather surprised to discover a few weeks ago, but I suppose it's a good thing) here and here.

2. Chris Crawford's Erasmatron, and a library of excellent essays and discussion transcripts on interactive storytelling and related issues. It's all here. (Click the Free Software link for the Erasmatron itself, the Library link for information about Erasmatron and the other essays.)

3. The Facade project at InteractiveStory.net, a good example of recent high-end efforts in interactive storytelling using AI techniques, based largely on Joseph Bates's Oz project at Carnegie Mellon in the early 90s. Lots of links to academic papers which will give you a sense of just how much thought has gone into this area. Then click the "Big list of links" link about a third of the way down the page, for thousands more relevant links.

- Walt