IF-like passage in a book I'm reading
David Samuel Myers
good read. I was pleasantly surprised to find a very IF-like passage in
chapter 16, which runs around pages 102-115 in the edition I have. Pretty
direct influence of IF, if you ask me. The rest of the book has some good
all-around writing, in addition to this surprise perk in chapter 16.
-d
Dennis G. Jerz
news:<3a653...@dilbert.ic.sunysb.edu>...
>
> -d
This excerpt seems to have been published as a separate short story in the
July 1999 issue of _Esquire_. It's not online, however.
The NY Times Book Review also identified that passage as text-game
reference: "This rhetorical gambit is a nod to the first virtual-reality
games, adventures that used only words glowing on a screen to conjure
imaginary worlds. (''You are facing east. A dragon belches fire in your
direction. What should you do?'') Though deeply ironic, Powers's strategy
does not trivialize his subject. Taimur's captivity is clearly not a game --
even if the language of computer games can best weld the reader to his
plight. "
I haven't read the book yet, but here's a quote from what might be the
passage David mentioned. I found it in a review of the book on
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2000/05/24/powers/index1.html
"You pace about, astonished. From the once-mythical far side of this cube,
you look back across the ocean of air. Seeing your corner like this, from a
distance -- your mattress, radiator, chain; the grubby country that
swallowed you entire -- it looks bounded, known, livable."
Here's another review, with another excerpt, from the Village Voice review:
"When he turns to the hostage in Beirut, Powers doesn't need to strain for
sensational effect-he simply tells a good story. In hope of recovering from
a failed love affair with Gwen, Martin, who's half-Iranian, goes to Beirut
to forget. When he is kidnapped and held blindfolded in an utterly barren
room, the irony-that all he can do is remember-is no less poignant for being
obvious. Martin quickly discovers "Where the body is chained, the brain
travels." He meticulously reconstructs a Dickens novel, the streets of
Chicago, his mother's history as a religious Muslim, and his painful
arguments with Gwen. In his desolate circumstances, these imaginings take on
a physical, inhabitable reality: "Your cell is your nave. A ship, a dinghy
adrift on the currents of wrecked empire. You lie back in the stern,
shackled to your radiator, this room's rudder. Open seas leach you." When he
begs for a book, maybe Dickens's Great Expectations, from his captors, they
give him instead a pulp paperback, Great Escapes. Still, he devours it:
"Every verb phrase puts on the full freedom of human movement. The slightest
clichés, the worst throwaway inanities pitch you into whole preserves of
wilderness whose existence you've forgotten." So palpable is the world
spawned from symbols on those pages that the illusion begets another: "When
you come to bed that evening, you turn to tell her, You'll never believe
what I read today."
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0024/mobilio.shtml
(I located these reviews via Richard Powers's home page.)
http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/powers.html#plowing
--
Dennis G. Jerz, Ph.D.; (715)836-2431
Dept. of English; U Wisc.-Eau Claire
419 Hibbard, Eau Claire, WI 54702
------------------------------------
Literacy Weblog: www.uwec.edu/jerzdg
Sean T Barrett
>I haven't read the book yet, but here's a quote from what might be the
>passage David mentioned. I found it in a review of the book on
>
>http://www.salon.com/books/review/2000/05/24/powers/index1.html
>
>"You pace about, astonished. From the once-mythical far side of this cube,
>you look back across the ocean of air. Seeing your corner like this, from a
>distance -- your mattress, radiator, chain; the grubby country that
>swallowed you entire -- it looks bounded, known, livable."
I have posted before about how I suspect the second-person
present tense device in IF derives from the narrative mode
of pencil-and-paper RPGs, although I suspect only Crowther
knows for sure. I'm not sure what the source of that tense
is prior to RPGs; did people construct stories out loud in
that mode of speech?
Although the "locked cell" situation described above is rather
IF-ish (cliche, even), I have to wonder whether everyone would
still leap to this conclusion if an author who had never heard
of IF had produced a section in second-person present tense as
an experiment. Certainly if a familiar-with-IF author chose to
do this, he or she would have to consider what effect it would
have on people unfamiliar with IF; and if that effect is still
an interesting one, couldn't an author unfamiliar with IF also
recognize the possibility of that effect and choose to produce
it in every reader, not realizing that some readers would have
prior familiarity with it and have a different reaction?
SeanB
(who has no clue what effect certain "odd" music tracks on the "Wall
Street" soundtrack were intended to have on the viewer, since he had
already been listening to "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" for years)
David Samuel Myers
> Although the "locked cell" situation described above is rather
> IF-ish (cliche, even), I have to wonder whether everyone would
> still leap to this conclusion if an author who had never heard
Just for reference, some of the little snippets that are most IF-ish are a
DIRECT take on Collosal Cave, as referenced in the novel (by name) and are
in a different font than the rest of the book, sort of courier-like.
Be aware that this is in the context of a book that has people working in
a sort of VR lab, as well, as part of the plot. But from there it gets
much stranger and less cliche.
-d
Branko Collin
Barrett) wrote:
>I have posted before about how I suspect the second-person
>present tense device in IF derives from the narrative mode
>of pencil-and-paper RPGs, although I suspect only Crowther
>knows for sure.
Well, it certainly feels natural. You give the computer instructions
as if it were a person, so the computer would talk back to you in that
way. It is a dialogue. Only when you think of it further you realise
that you are not the protagonist (if that is the correct term), yet
the computer addresses you as if you were and you in turn talk to the
computer as if it were the playing character.
>I'm not sure what the source of that tense
>is prior to RPGs; did people construct stories out loud in
>that mode of speech?
The same thing: dialogue. People used to talk to each other saying
'you' and 'though' and stuff. Heck, I would not be surprised if the
whole second person was thought up for that purpose only (to talk to
people).
If you mean: who used the second person as a literary device for the
first time, I would have to answer that I do not know that. But I do
think that it is totally unrelated to using you in paper-and-pen RPGs
(which is probably derived from using 'you' in real RPGs and in
letters) and in text adventures.
In short: I think you are looking for things that are not there.
--
Branko Collin
teks...@dds.nl, http://huizen.dds.nl/~tekst-if/
Nederlandse tekstadventures
Carl Muckenhoupt
Barrett) wrote:
>I have posted before about how I suspect the second-person
>present tense device in IF derives from the narrative mode
>of pencil-and-paper RPGs, although I suspect only Crowther
>knows for sure. I'm not sure what the source of that tense
>is prior to RPGs; did people construct stories out loud in
>that mode of speech?
Well, Crowther did play D&D, and has noted it as one of the
inspirations for Adventure. (See The Colossal Cave Adventure Page,
http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/a_history.html, for a
quotation on the subject.) So the supposition seems reasonable.
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Adam Conover
wrote:
>On Thu, 18 Jan 2001 00:45:42 GMT, buz...@world.std.com (Sean T
>Barrett) wrote:
>
>>I have posted before about how I suspect the second-person
>>present tense device in IF derives from the narrative mode
>>of pencil-and-paper RPGs, although I suspect only Crowther
>>knows for sure.
>
>Well, it certainly feels natural. You give the computer instructions
>as if it were a person, so the computer would talk back to you in that
>way. It is a dialogue. Only when you think of it further you realise
>that you are not the protagonist (if that is the correct term), yet
>the computer addresses you as if you were and you in turn talk to the
>computer as if it were the playing character.
I remember this sort of narration most from my childhood with Choose
Your Own Adventure books... the interesting question would be whether
they pre or post-date Adventure...
Scratch that, actually: the first CYOAB, "Cave of Time" was published
in 1979. (there's an EXTREMELY exhaustive list of books at
http://www.netaxs.com/~katz/game/cyoalist.htm for other Usenetters who
have just realized how nostaligic they are for these books...)
In any case, that doesn't really help us at all either way, I
suppose... perhaps CYOAB were based on early RPGs also? The timeframe
is about right...
- adam
(write e-mail address numerically to reply)
i blog at:
http://students.bard.edu/~ac484/blog.html
Magnus Olsson
>>I haven't read the book yet, but here's a quote from what might be the
>>passage David mentioned. I found it in a review of the book on
>>
>>http://www.salon.com/books/review/2000/05/24/powers/index1.html
>>
>>"You pace about, astonished. From the once-mythical far side of this cube,
>>you look back across the ocean of air. Seeing your corner like this, from a
>>distance -- your mattress, radiator, chain; the grubby country that
>>swallowed you entire -- it looks bounded, known, livable."
>
>I have posted before about how I suspect the second-person
>present tense device in IF derives from the narrative mode
>of pencil-and-paper RPGs, although I suspect only Crowther
>knows for sure.
Were there even pencil-and-paper RPG's back in 1972? IIRC, D&D didn't
appear until the late 70's.
I suspect it's more a matter of similar situations rather than direct
influence. In one case, you have a human GM telling people their
situation: "The orc attacks you with his sword. What do you do now?"
In the other case, you have a computer telling the player essentially
the same thing. In both cases, second-person present-tense is very
natural.
>I'm not sure what the source of that tense
>is prior to RPGs; did people construct stories out loud in
>that mode of speech?
Possibly, but I think you're looking at things from the wrong
perspective, that of constructing stories, rather than that of playing
a game.
I can only speak for myself, of course, but when I'm playing a game,
whether it's a computer game or a "human-to-human" RPG, I don't
experience it as being told a story (for which the past tense would be
logical), but as participating in things as they happen, which makes
present tens logical.
I think the habit of looking at IF as stories came later.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
Sean T Barrett
>Were there even pencil-and-paper RPG's back in 1972? IIRC, D&D didn't
>appear until the late 70's.
Well, we have two different copies of this quote from Crowther saying
that D&D influenceed him:
http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/a_history.html
http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/inform/short.html
The latter actually attributes it to an interview in 1983.
Now, according to:
http://home1.gte.net/papay/dnd/tsrBasic.html
the original D&D release wasn't until 1974. 1972 is widely quoted
as the date the original Adventure was authored, though. So either
there was some D&D going on before the official release, or else
the 1972 is a perpetuated misinterpretation (e.g. it's clear they
explored the real cave in 1972; perhaps that year was incorrectly
misread by someone as the authorship year). Well, or else Crowther
was misremembering, but that seems unlikely.
>I suspect it's more a matter of similar situations rather than direct
>influence.
Well, there was definitely serious activity to try to capture
the feel of D&D in computer games, but people found it hard;
the commercial successes were mostly relatively mindless
hack-'n-slash; the earliest I can recall is Temple of Apshai
by Epyx/Automated Simulations, 1979; Rogue was in 1980. That
activity is a *lot* later than what we're talking about; however
that's due to the timing of when these machines came out and when
there was a commercial market; Apple II and Atari VCS
in 1977, Atari 8-bit 1979, Vic20 1980, C64 1982.
(Of course the commercial release of Zork wasn't until 1980;
Mystery House and Wizard&Princess were also released in 1980...
as was "Adventure" for the Atari VCS!)
I've always interpreted there as being two strains of
"D&D"-inspired computer games--the CRPG and the adventure game;
the CRPG building mostly on a pure simulation of the combat
mechanics of the RPGs, and the adventure games trying to
capture the free-wheeling "overcome arbitrary obstacles and
choose what you're going to do to get out of the situation"
feeling.
>>I'm not sure what the source of that tense
>>is prior to RPGs; did people construct stories out loud in
>>that mode of speech?
>
>Possibly, but I think you're looking at things from the wrong
>perspective, that of constructing stories, rather than that of playing
>a game.
Well, my point is, before there were RPGs, I don't think
there were any other games where the question would even make
sense. So storytelling is the only possibility for any possible
previous use. I'm curious if that whole narrative mode was a
entirely modern invention for this novel form of gameplaying, or
whether previous interactive storytelling (where someone would
make up the story as they were going along based on others'
feedback, e.g. stereotypically with children) might have
already made the form familiar. Certainly it doesn't seem
familiar today to anything except adventure games... and
RPGs, and the ease with which people forget the latter makes
me wonder if we might not be forgetting some other scenario
that predates them all. On the other hand, I suppose some
people will say "it's just a natural mode of speech for this
kind of thing", but I think everybody in this newsgroup has
been trained at it for far too long; the whole idea of describing
it as happening to *you* seems to me to be the whole premise
of role-playing.
Mind you, this whole discussion is just another pronunciation
thread according to Doe's iffy theory, I'm sure.
SeanB
Dennis G. Jerz
"Sean T Barrett" <buz...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:G7F8G...@world.std.com...
> In article <949bhh$kin$1...@news.lth.se>, Magnus Olsson <m...@pobox.com>
wrote:
> >Were there even pencil-and-paper RPG's back in 1972? IIRC, D&D didn't
> >appear until the late 70's.
>
> Well, we have two different copies of this quote from Crowther saying
> that D&D influenceed him:
>
> http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/a_history.html
> http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/inform/short.html
>
FWIW, books such as "Where Wizzards Stay Up Late" and "The Soul of a New
Machine," both of which refer to Crowther as part of the group that
pinoeered the Interent, and also to Crowther's creation of Colossal Cave in
particular, take the line of inquiry that Crowther's real-world caving
experience and his RPG experience (wherein he played a character called
"Willie the Thief") are parallel influences.
While reading ordinary books to my son (who turns three next month), I
frequently stop and ask him questions about the story... his favorite book
of late is "101 Dalmations," and sometimes I ask him, "If you saw Cruella De
Vil chasing after those puppies, what would you say?"
One time, he said, "I would tell her, 'You don't hit puppies because that's
mean."
"And what would Cruella do?"
"She would get back in her car and drive away."
"And then what would the puppies do?"
"They would get into a helicopter and fly home."
"And what would you do?"
(pause)
"I wouldn't do anything because I'm not in the book."
Dennis G. Jerz
> http://home1.gte.net/papay/dnd/tsrBasic.html
>
> the original D&D release wasn't until 1974. 1972 is widely quoted
> as the date the original Adventure was authored, though. So either
> there was some D&D going on before the official release, or else
> the 1972 is a perpetuated misinterpretation (e.g. it's clear they
> explored the real cave in 1972; perhaps that year was incorrectly
> misread by someone as the authorship year). Well, or else Crowther
> was misremembering, but that seems unlikely.
"In early 1976 Will and Pat divorced. Looking for something to do with his
two children, he hit upon an idea that united Will the programmer with
Willie the imaginary thief: a simplified, computer version of Dungeons and
Dragons called Adventure.... Crowther finished the program over the course
of three or four weekends. His kids -- ages seven and five -- loved it, and
Crowther began showing it to friends. But the breakup of his marriage had
sapped Crowther's spirit, and he never got around to refining the game."
(206)
"When Wizards Stay Up Late."
Notice that these authors put the Crowther divorce at 1976. If so, that and
the detail about D & D might suggest that the 1972/3 date is wrong.
Dennis G. Jerz
"Magnus Olsson" <m...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:949bhh$kin$1...@news.lth.se...
> In article <G7C24...@world.std.com>,
> Sean T Barrett <buz...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
> I suspect it's more a matter of similar situations rather than direct
> influence. In one case, you have a human GM telling people their
> situation: "The orc attacks you with his sword. What do you do now?"
> In the other case, you have a computer telling the player essentially
> the same thing. In both cases, second-person present-tense is very
> natural.
>
> >I'm not sure what the source of that tense
> >is prior to RPGs; did people construct stories out loud in
> >that mode of speech?
>
> Possibly, but I think you're looking at things from the wrong
> perspective, that of constructing stories, rather than that of playing
> a game.
>
I don't have time to sift through this site just now, but here's a
bibliography of research devoted to the second-person in literature.
http://www.curtin.edu.au/curtin/dept/ccs/creative-writing/yous_lot/bib_3.htm
l
I wish I'd found this page back when I was thinking up the "call for papers"
on IF scholarship.
(By the way, regarding the IF scholarship, I saw some very interesting
submissions, and am waiting for the editors of _Text Technology_ to make
their decisions.)
Sean T Barrett
>> or else
>> the 1972 is a perpetuated misinterpretation (e.g. it's clear they
>> explored the real cave in 1972; perhaps that year was incorrectly
>> misread by someone as the authorship year).
>
>"In early 1976 Will and Pat divorced. Looking for something to do with his
>two children, he hit upon an idea that united Will the programmer with
>Willie the imaginary thief: a simplified, computer version of Dungeons and
>Dragons called Adventure...."
Ok, that is consistent with the other quotations from him
that it was a post-divorce activity; in fact I had spent
some time searching for "will crowther"+"divorce" on Google
in the hopes of finding a revelation there.
So it sounds likely he authored it in 1976, which is the same
year Woods is widely regarded as having worked on his version,
if I recall correctly the timelines I was reading yesterday.
Of course my original question was whether the use of second-person
narrative derived from RPGs, and I think that's pretty clear now.
SeanB
Jeff Coleman
"Sean T Barrett" <buz...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:G7C24...@world.std.com...
> Dennis G. Jerz <Jer...@uwec.edu> wrote:
> >I haven't read the book yet, but here's a quote from what might be the
> >passage David mentioned. I found it in a review of the book on
> >
> >http://www.salon.com/books/review/2000/05/24/powers/index1.html
> >
> >"You pace about, astonished. From the once-mythical far side of this
cube,
> >you look back across the ocean of air. Seeing your corner like this, from
a
> >distance -- your mattress, radiator, chain; the grubby country that
> >swallowed you entire -- it looks bounded, known, livable."
>
> I have posted before about how I suspect the second-person
> present tense device in IF derives from the narrative mode
> of pencil-and-paper RPGs, although I suspect only Crowther
> knows for sure. I'm not sure what the source of that tense
> is prior to RPGs; did people construct stories out loud in
> that mode of speech?
>
I'm sure there are other example from fiction, especially of the pulp
variety, but in the 1950's, a frequent gimmick in EC horror comics and their
many imitators was addressing the reader as the character, intended to
encourage the reader's identification with the story. "You stagger out of
bed, and look in the mirror. As you stare at a face you don't recognize,
you realize YOU'VE LOST YOUR MEMORY!!!!!" and so on...
Jeff Coleman
charm is real, progress is power!
www.handofgod.com
Joe Mason
>submissions, and am waiting for the editors of _Text Technology_ to make
>their decisions.)
Woo! I really wish I'd had time to write one, but I just had way too much
schoolwork last term.
Joe
Magnus Olsson
>>Were there even pencil-and-paper RPG's back in 1972? IIRC, D&D didn't
>>appear until the late 70's.
>
>Well, we have two different copies of this quote from Crowther saying
>that D&D influenceed him:
(...)
>Now, according to:
> http://home1.gte.net/papay/dnd/tsrBasic.html
>
>the original D&D release wasn't until 1974. 1972 is widely quoted
>as the date the original Adventure was authored, though. So either
>there was some D&D going on before the official release, or else
>the 1972 is a perpetuated misinterpretation (e.g. it's clear they
>explored the real cave in 1972; perhaps that year was incorrectly
>misread by someone as the authorship year). Well, or else Crowther
>was misremembering, but that seems unlikely.
I think 1972 is indeed a perpetuated misinterpretation. Apologies for
perpetuating it further. So I see no reason to doubt Crowther on this.
>Well, there was definitely serious activity to try to capture
>the feel of D&D in computer games,
I think the fundamental difficulty here is that role-playing is a
*social* activity; you're interacting with your group members as much
as with the GM and with his/her world. Capturing *that* feel in a CRPG
is an AI-complete problem :-).
So we may have to go to MUDs to find the closest analogues to RPGs.
>>>I'm not sure what the source of that tense
>>>is prior to RPGs; did people construct stories out loud in
>>>that mode of speech?
>>
>>Possibly, but I think you're looking at things from the wrong
>>perspective, that of constructing stories, rather than that of playing
>>a game.
>
>Well, my point is, before there were RPGs, I don't think
>there were any other games where the question would even make
>sense. So storytelling is the only possibility for any possible
>previous use. I'm curious if that whole narrative mode was a
>entirely modern invention for this novel form of gameplaying, or
>whether previous interactive storytelling (where someone would
>make up the story as they were going along based on others'
>feedback, e.g. stereotypically with children) might have
>already made the form familiar.
(...)
>the whole idea of describing
>it as happening to *you* seems to me to be the whole premise
>of role-playing.
Yes, but while formalized role-playing *games* may be a new invention,
role-playing itself is probably as old as humanity.
One could use examples of a director at a theatre instructing the
actors; I suppose the natural thing to do would be to use second
person, present tense. But closer to IF would be the kind of "role-playing"
you see in teaching or examination situations. For example, a hypothetical flight instructor talking to a trainee pilot:
Instructor: "OK, you're established on final [the glide path that will
tkae the aircraft down on the runway] when suddenly you see a deer
standing on the runway. What do you do?"
Student: "I apply full throttle, climb, and go around [for a new
landing attempt]"
Instructor: "Nothing happens when you push the throttle. Now what?"
The instructor could have used the conditional "What would you do if you
saw a deer on the runway?" but that would have made the whole exercise more abstract, less immediate. And I think it would be *very* unnatural to use
the third-person, past tense:
"Bob was established on final when he saw a deer on the runway. What
did he do?"
But, you say, this isn't narrative! These people aren't telling a story!
Well, I say, my point is that in that case, neither is the GM in an
RPG, or the computer in ADVENT. In those cases, the narrative is more
of an epiphenomenon; something that arises out of the
player-GM/computer dialogue and the player's actions.
What confuses the matter is modern "story-telling" IF like Photopia,
where the game text tells a story to a much higher degree than in
early IF. Photopia is much more interactive storytelling than it is a
computerized RPG session. In cases such as this, it is a good question
to ask why the stroy isn't told like stories usually are - i.e. in the
third person, and either past tense or historical present (and some
story-telling IF is indeed told that way). In cases such as ADVENT, I
think that would not be the right question to ask; the computer-player
interaction is that of a simulation, not a story being told. (Yes,
there is a story in ADVENT, but it is not being told by the game text
the way the story in "Photopia" is).
J.D. Berry
"Dennis G. Jerz" <Jer...@uwec.edu> wrote:
>
> (By the way, regarding the IF scholarship, I saw some very interesting
> submissions, and am waiting for the editors of _Text Technology_ to
make
> their decisions.)
>
I dread the word "interesting" from anyone, but especially from teacher-
types. The meaning from them often being, "A FEW ideas on the whole
were of merit, if embarrassingly raw, but I don't want to be
discouraging."
Also see: "your new hairstyle is unique and interesting."
Jim
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Sean T Barrett
>Sean T Barrett <buz...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>So storytelling is the only possibility for any possible
>>previous use.
>But, you say, this isn't narrative! These people aren't telling a story!
>
>Well, I say, my point is that in that case, neither is the GM in an
>RPG, or the computer in ADVENT.
>What confuses the matter is modern "story-telling" IF like Photopia,
>where the game text tells a story to a much higher degree than in
>early IF.
Thing one: I only brought up storytelling because I couldn't
think up an alternative scenario; the role-playing of a trainer
and a trainee is a really good example, thanks. (Photopia and
Photopia-esque games weren't even crossing my mind.)
Thing two: To me, a GM and a player *are* interactively constructing
a story, the same way as when a friend of mine and I took turns
adding three words to a story, the same as when I don't take turns
with anyone else while writing a story. This may simply get into
a difference of semantics over "story" and be a dead-end, though.
SeanB
Thing three: I agree that simulating a GM "right" would require solving
AI; but I don't think that changes the fact that both the hack-n-slash
chain of games (Baldur's Gate - nethack - Temple of Apshai) and the
adventure chain of games (Grim Fandango - Myst - Adventure) have their
origins in trying to implement "D&D" as best they could on computers
without solving the AI problem--which is the only extent of my claim.
Magnus Olsson
Sean T Barrett <buz...@world.std.com> wrote:
>In article <94h1os$if9$1...@news.lth.se>, Magnus Olsson <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>But, you say, this isn't narrative! These people aren't telling a story!
>>
>>Well, I say, my point is that in that case, neither is the GM in an
>>RPG, or the computer in ADVENT.
>Thing two: To me, a GM and a player *are* interactively constructing
>a story,
They definitely are, no disagreement on that. But what I meant is that
when the GM is describing what the players see, the consequences of
their actions, etc, he really isn't doing storytelling in the sense
that a person reading from a book of fairytales is telling a story. He
(or she) can of course tell a story as a part of the game (when a
player says, "OK, I ask the prisoner about how he ended up in jail,"
and the GM responds with a five-minute soliloquy). But what is
normally done in the second-person-present-tense dialogue between the
GM and the players is the *construction* of the story, not the actual
telling.
(The closest most roleplayers get to actually telling their story is
the account afterwards, be it on www.dicetales.com or over lunch with
friends, when they'll probably use first-person-past-tense. "And then
I asked him how he ended up in jail, and he said...").
>This may simply get into
>a difference of semantics over "story" and be a dead-end, though.
I think it's actually a difference over the semantics of "telling".
And what I'm really targeting is the notion that ordinary fiction is
written in the third person, past tense, so naturally interactive
fiction should be written that way, too. Which is probably not at all
what you're advocating :-).
>Thing three: I agree that simulating a GM "right" would require solving
>AI; but I don't think that changes the fact that both the hack-n-slash
>chain of games (Baldur's Gate - nethack - Temple of Apshai) and the
>adventure chain of games (Grim Fandango - Myst - Adventure) have their
>origins in trying to implement "D&D" as best they could on computers
>without solving the AI problem--which is the only extent of my claim.
I never meant to say anything else - my remark was just a comment on
your statement that it was difficult to do DnD right on a
computer. BTW, Baldur's Gate II is the closest I've come so far to
re-creating the feel of a "real" RPG on a computer - but of course it
still lacks the social dimension...
Dennis G. Jerz
news:94htfm$uo1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <94a7ig$dok$1...@wiscnews.wiscnet.net>,
> "Dennis G. Jerz" <Jer...@uwec.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> > (By the way, regarding the IF scholarship, I saw some very interesting
> > submissions, and am waiting for the editors of _Text Technology_ to
> make
> > their decisions.)
> >
>
> I dread the word "interesting" from anyone, but especially from teacher-
> types. The meaning from them often being, "A FEW ideas on the whole
> were of merit, if embarrassingly raw, but I don't want to be
> discouraging."
An interesting observation.
IIRC, the old Sierra games would call something onscreen "interesting" if it
had something to do with a puzzle (and hence, was important to the plot),
and "uninteresting" if it was just eye candy.
Yes, early in the process I did see a few raw submissions, but I extended
the deadline to give those people a chance to revise. I didn't see their
revisions, but have high hopes.
Also, I didn't see all of the submissions -- some went directly to the _Text
Technology_ editors, so perhaps I should have said "I saw some of the
submissions, all of which were very interesting, and am waiting..."
David Thornley
>>Were there even pencil-and-paper RPG's back in 1972? IIRC, D&D didn't
>>appear until the late 70's.
>
>as the date the original Adventure was authored, though. So either
>there was some D&D going on before the official release,
FWIW, there was some D&D going on before the official release,
particularly in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and the Minneapolis-
St. Paul area in Minnesota. There was some D&D going on in
some science-fiction conventions before the release, also, since
some SF fans I knew saw it and wrote their own rules before
the official release.
Most of the role-playing before then in the wargaming community
had been in Britain, and was not so much a referee-player thing
as a collective effort based on fighting battles with miniature
figures. (On the other hand, I probably still have a mimeograph
of a play-by-mail role-playing game that predates D&D somewhere.
It was not impressive as a role-playing system.)
>Well, there was definitely serious activity to try to capture
>the feel of D&D in computer games, but people found it hard;
>the commercial successes were mostly relatively mindless
>hack-'n-slash; the earliest I can recall is Temple of Apshai
>by Epyx/Automated Simulations, 1979;
My mind is trying to tell me that there was something like that
before Temple of Apshai, but I'm not coming up with any details.
Something about Apshai being the third Epyx game I bought.
Sorry about that.
If I remember correctly, I was playing Scott Adams adventures
before Temple of Apshai.
>I've always interpreted there as being two strains of
>"D&D"-inspired computer games--the CRPG and the adventure game;
>the CRPG building mostly on a pure simulation of the combat
>mechanics of the RPGs, and the adventure games trying to
>capture the free-wheeling "overcome arbitrary obstacles and
>choose what you're going to do to get out of the situation"
>feeling.
>
It seems to me to be more of a range than a dichotomy. On one
end we have games like Rogue and Angband, which have no actual
puzzles (except what to do about that dracolich). Nethack is
a bit farther over, as shown by the existence of walkthroughs,
which would be pointless in Rogue. There are games modelled
as RPGs that involve a set-up world and combat. There is IF
with elements of combat rules, including a TADS module that
roughly emulates D&D.
>Well, my point is, before there were RPGs, I don't think
>there were any other games where the question would even make
>sense. So storytelling is the only possibility for any possible
>previous use.
There was a passage in Forester's "Midshipman Hornblower"
where Hornblower is being examined for promotion to lieutenant.
Immediately he walks into the room, one of the examining
captains tells him he's in some sort of ship in the English
channel, has just failed to tack properly, and is in irons.
(There was a real-time aspect - by the time Hornblower caught
his wits he was told his ship was dismasted.) I don't know
if this is actually how the examinations proceeded in the
French Revolutionary wars, but Forester was assiduous in his
research. In any case, Forester's books predate interactive
fiction.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Magnus Olsson
David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote:
>There was a passage in Forester's "Midshipman Hornblower"
>where Hornblower is being examined for promotion to lieutenant.
>Immediately he walks into the room, one of the examining
>captains tells him he's in some sort of ship in the English
>channel, has just failed to tack properly, and is in irons.
Actually this was the example I had in mind when I wrote my post on
the same topic; only I didn't remember any details, so I made up an
example with a trainee aviator instead.
Gene Wirchenko
>In article <G7F8G...@world.std.com>,
>Sean T Barrett <buz...@world.std.com> wrote:
[snip]
>>Well, there was definitely serious activity to try to capture
>>the feel of D&D in computer games, but people found it hard;
>>the commercial successes were mostly relatively mindless
>>hack-'n-slash; the earliest I can recall is Temple of Apshai
>>by Epyx/Automated Simulations, 1979;
Not all hack and slash.
>My mind is trying to tell me that there was something like that
>before Temple of Apshai, but I'm not coming up with any details.
>Something about Apshai being the third Epyx game I bought.
>Sorry about that.
"Datestones of Ryn" was the first I knew of. It was small and I
think a test of concept for "Temple of Apshai" which was second. ToA
was similar in concept though much bigger.
In "Rescue at Rigel", you had to rescue ten prisoners.
Later, there was one set in a wizard's tower (?"Warlock's Tower")
with some treasure manipulation.
>If I remember correctly, I was playing Scott Adams adventures
>before Temple of Apshai.
Yes, though they were in the same timeframe. SA just got started
a bit sooner.
[snip]
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.