RE: the butterfly effect

["Bruce Ford"]

>From a distance I have noted and observed some great conversations here.

I have loved story based entertainment for a long time.  Wrote many episodes
of TV, mostly sitcoms.  Did movies, short stories, even sold jokes to Jay
Leno.    I've worked / created memorable characters on a few games, mostly
educational.  Latest and greatest, a Codie award winner from Broderbund,
Carmen Sandiego Word Detective.  (Fun for adults, too if you love the
English language)

My friend, John Maccabee , creator of the "Byzantine" game from Discovery
Channel and Stormfront Studios, talks about how he must cheat the audience.
As a successful novelist, he always felt the interior of the character was
never given its due.   Too much emphasis on the interactivity made the story
suffer.

In my view, characters with strong wants are always best.

I'm interested in the models of audience behavior in the internet story
based "Webisodes" that Microsoft ran last year or was it 1997?   Has anyone
seen those things?   They were dropped after 13 weeks or so.

I heard mention of the McKee school of Story.  He is good.  I had him for a
Directing course at San Diego State in the late 70's.   (He had an "artsy"
phase that was pretty disgusting)  I find it quite curious that his own
career as a writer is a vast zero of commercial success.   He's teaches well
but cannot translate that core to the commercial marketplace.    His
students does far better than he.

Since we have had limited but consistent success, My partner and I taught a
one day course on Writing the Interactive Story that we taught at Indian
Valley College in Novato, CA. in 1997 and 98.    If there is interest, we
might teach it again.   (We have no Academy Awards winners among our
students just good people who love to develop good interactive stories.)  We
learn / discuss the best and worst of the lot.

Best -


Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-idrama@flutterby.com [mailto:owner-idrama@flutterby.com] On
Behalf Of Todd Gemmell
Sent:	Friday, March 05, 1999 10:02 AM
To:	idrama@flutterby.com
Subject:	Re: the butterfly effect


Welcome Tim,

>You have covered some deep thoughts.  I figured you may want to hear from a
>veteran RPG guy.  First a response to a thread:
>

RPGs are an excellent perspective to come from when looking at interactive
stories. I knew Gary Gygax (before he went insane) and the grand sagas and
tales of the realm have a relativly tight formula, even on par with the
genere love stories.

>>> Perhaps, in any sort of game creation, there must be two trains of
>>> people: the people who make the movement of the game, and the people
>>> who make the backdrop of the game. The movement is the more important,
>>> but the backdrop people flesh out the world in the minutest detail -
>>
>
>"In AD&D the idea of NPC and PC was fleshed out back in the 70's.  PC's
were
>the player characters and NPC's were the Non-PC's.  Some have more value
than
>others, but that is designated by plot, level, relevant powers, EXP's,
etc.. I
>won't rehash that for you. OK.
>
>So there are already these NPC's defined in movies and games.  In movies
they
>are called extra's.  Even to a certain extent they are the hero's side
kick.
>In games they are the AI.  I believe that the interaction between the NPC's
>and the PC's is as important, and central to the strength of the narrative
>plot, as the PC who progresses along the timeline of the world.  In other
>words... the PC interacts with the Non-player characters because they are
the
>reflection of the players world, and how the player interacts with the
world
>depends on the NPC's reactions.
>     So all those random bits of information (the price of lima beans and
book
>sales in department store windows) all need to be noticed and recorded by
the
>various NPC's, because eventually someone needs to realize and NOTICE the
>player is loitering around the Mall. Maybe an NPC security guard will be
the
>one who knows more than the collective NPC's~ because he has remote cameras
or
>something.  That cumulative use of miscelaneous information will make the
>virtual world seem real !!!  The Game Master/God (i.e., computer game
program)
>is supposed to let the NPC's selectively draw upon a Pool (database,
whatever)
>of information that GOD has observed from the player. Some will know more
>"bits about the PC" than the other NPCs.  But that is all dependant on the
>structuring of characters and the game environment.   That use of
information
>will help define how the player character is perceived by the NPCs.  That
will
>create a loop of interactive reactions, and fill out the narrative world.
>

Yes I tend agree with your model of interconectivety of characters. I think
that causality will be simplified and cheated because the *"Butterfly"
effect is not possible or desired in a story world.  To further your analogy
God(story engine) is watching the player and God's purpose for existance is
to create an interesting path the player follows. When the player strays
from the path, God is very punishing and can be a real pain until she gets
her lamb sacrafied at the alter. Now I don't think the enviorment should
freeze up or become stale until the exact prescribed action is taken. That
would be a puzzle game. Existence is a lot of gentle tugs and pushes.......

>My Mantra for the day::: Perception is the basis for role-playing.  Role-
>playing is interactive drama.
>


Yes indeed, perhaps one of the best examples of interactive drama.


*Butterfly flaps it's wings, causes a zebra to sneeze, causing a stampee of
animals, causing a dust cloud, causing a local shift in weather, causing a
sudden frost in florida, causing the orange crop to be destroyed, causing
your uncle to kill himself because he was short in the orange market
futures....

The butterfly killed yout uncle??

-T