I found the recent discussion started off by John's question ("What I still
grapple with is how to ensure that all possible outcomes lead up to an
equally satisfying story-telling experience..."). Piecing together ideas
expressed by John DeCuir, Miriam English, Stephen Matsuba and others in
various branches of the discussion, a taxonomy of digital storytelling
emerges, based (appropriately) on a three dimensional matrix: degree of
nonlinearity, degree of indeterminism and number of authors. These three
values, I posit, describe the forces which propel a story.
number of authors
|
| nondeterministic
| /
| /
| /
linear --------+---------- nonlinear
/
/
deterministic
FORCES PROPELLING A STORY
Miriam eloquently laid out two of the dimensions:
>You can have a nonlinear, deterministic world where the user can go and do
>as they please but it has limited influence on the unfolding of the plot.
>The author would need to anticipate those effects and write them in, unless
>something like the AI-driven computer moderator Jed mentioned in his
>"Happily Ever After" machine did the grunt work of keeping things under
>control on-the-fly.
>And you can have a nonlinear, nondeterministic world. The world inhabited
>by genetically evolved AIs would be a perfect example. The author sets it
>up and watches it run, with no idea which way it will go.
...
>For the sake of completeness, a linear, deterministic world is the sort of
>thing which we walk into when we go to the movies or pick up a book. A
>linear nondeterministic world might be one where you are glued to a
>director's viewpoint in an unpredictable world... but I'm not sure...
Yes, I can imagine such a story as you suggest. Another example of linear
and nondeterministic was provided by John:
> The most primitive way of doing nonlinearity is to create N
>storylines and choose between them via a random number generator.
>Easy development time, but is not really nonlinear. Also is
>nondeterministic; if I encounter a "cool thing" it's not guaranteed
>that the next time I play, and repeat all of my actions exactly, I
>will achieve the same result.
There is yet another way to be linear and nondeterministic at the same
time, which is to tell a fixed story within a randomly selected and
assembled context. Cinderella in space. Romeo the dog and Juliet the cat.
Stephen sketched out the third dimension, number of authors, neatly with a
story of his own:
>In a previous life, I was a Dungeonmaster with my own D&D world.
>There we had a structure built by mtself, but the people who played
>in my world were the ones who generated the "story."
Understanding this matrix I believe hinges on understanding the power and
challenge of storytelling. The linear-nonlinear dimension is really the
question of how much of the storytelling power is granted to the audience
(listener, viewer, reader, player etc.). In a completely linear story the
audience has no power over the story. Nonlinear stories put some degree of
power over the story in the hands of the audience. More decisions made by
the audience means more branches in the story means more nonlinear.
Determinism has to do not with who has the power, but with how much total
storytelling power there is. A deterministic story, linear or not, is
completely authored. The power of the author is absolute, regardless of
how it is distributed. A nondeterministic story on the other hand is less
than completely authored. There are some aspects of the story which are
decided by an unpredictable process -- a random number generator, a complex
program, the weather -- and therefore the power of anyone and everyone to
author the story is diminished.
The third dimension measures how fragmented the storytelling power is, i.e.
whether the author (or the audience, to the degree that the story is
nonlinear) is one, or many. This introduces a different kind of
unpredictability than either nonlinearity or nondeterminism. For example,
an illustrated children's story is linear and deterministic but has
multiple authors, if the illustrator and writer are two different people
(or are Dr. Seuss, who is quite different all by himself). A performance
by an improvisational troupe acting on suggestions from the audience has
multiple authors while being nonlinear and deterministic (indeterministic
if the performance is held outdoors...).
Of course, a digital story may be very complex and there's no reason it has
to fit neatly in a single octant of the matrix. A story may be constructed
from separate components, with separate positions in the matrix. What we
then get is a kind of narrative geometry, capable of describing complex as
well as simple storytelling approaches.
Such a geometry might even be a useful way of discovering new storytelling
approaches. For instance, I can envision a story built of layers, a
nonlinear, deterministic story layer on top of a linear, nodeterministic
location layer. The story layer would consist of one or more narrative
threads, each one persistent and global in nature. The location layer, by
contrast, would consist of separate, self-contained locations, affected
perhaps by changing global values (time, weather, etc.) but not directly by
narrative states (hence linear, narratively speaking). They would be the
narrative equivalent of texture, providing ambience. Because they are
independent of the story, they can be kept relatively simple, are easy to
reuse, and may be independently authored.
A simple example of this would be to stage performances in other people's
worlds. Avatars invading Alan Taylor's space station and doing Hamlet for
instance. More ambitiously, one could create a whole constellation of
elaborate simulations, each one providing rich local color to serve as the
context for the unfolding story. "My linear, nonderministic local
simulation or yours...?"
Michael
...................................................................
Michael St. Hippolyte [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Trapezium Development LLC http://www.trapezium.com
