In the context of the computer gaming industry as it
exists today, Andrew's recent comments concerning
interactive fiction are quite appropriate and
valuable. However, simulation is broader than
interactive gaming and storytelling is broader than
closed structure models such as books and movies.
Certainly understanding the consequences of modes of
control is generally applicable, but who says control
can't or shouldn't shift? Some, particularly the
reader-response literary school of thought, would say
that the storyteller is never completely in control.
Janet Murray in Hamlet on the Holodeck takes this
view. She uses the term "participatory narrative"
which I prefer over interactive fiction but I don't
think interactive fiction is an oxymoron any more than
human-in-the-loop or other forms of "simulation" which
mix real world inputs with simulated ones. Whether
"simulation-with-a-bit-o-story", or
"story-with-a-bit-o-simulation" as Andrew put it, this
mixed thing exists and we have to call it something 
right?

The drama Poetics describes the structure of was not
"entertainment" in same sense we have drama today. It
had a functional role. In The Art of the Long View,
Peter Schwartz states: "Stories are an old way of
organizing knowledge, but their place in the world has
been less visible since the rise of scientific
philosophy during the Enlightenment." Brenda Laurel,
in Computers As Theater says "The Greeks employed
drama and theatre as tools for thought, in much the
same way that we employ computers today - or at least
in the ways that we envision employing them in the
not-too-distant future."  Drama in its origins was
very much a participartory form and I agree with many
of the points made by Murray and Laurel. My
Participant-Activity-Scenario-Stage(PASS) system(see
Morphic Joules docs for a description) is a
model-based development approach founded on the
premise that object-oriented software systems consist
of Participants that engage in the Activities of a
Scenario which is played out on a Stage.
Scenarios(paths thru a use case) are simulations which
can benefit from storytelling. They seem like a form
of participatory narrative to me but, perhaps there is
no one single term that is appropriate. Do folks
prefer one?

Cheers,
Laurence

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