Interactive Fiction is an Oxymoron (Was: Interactive Story)

Laurence Rozier laurencerozier at yahoo.com
Mon Jul 21 18:25:53 UTC 2003


--- Tim Rowledge <tim at sumeru.stanford.edu> wrote:
> I think that, rather unusually, you've used the
> wrong words here Andy.
> 
> Interactive fiction seems a prefectly sensible
> phrase to describe a wide
> range of things, including games, audience
> participation theatre and so
> on. However, I agree completely about the problem
> you're referring to
> wrt pacing and story control.
> 
> Finding the proper word is tricky here - I think
> perhaps we could agree
> that 'interactive storytelling' is an oxymoron so
> long as we carefuly
> note that the context is computer related and so
> 'interactive' has a
> somewhat different meaning than it might have in
> stage circles. 
Very tricky indeed Tim - and "careful" probably has to
include regular update wrt the state of a shifting
context. The stage isn't what it used to be - or
perhaps it's becoming more like it was before
Aristotle penned the Poetics! Lines of distinction
between play, festival, spectacle and even work
continue to blur as people augment the stage(not to
mention themselves) with technology. 

Regardless, I don't think we have to make a binary
choice - we're mindful of the context and use the
techniques which produce the desired results. This
works whether the context is computer gaming, or
strategic scenario planning. Of course there will be
people who misunderstand and misuse the tools and
techniques, but when hasn't that been true? 
:-)

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