Nick Mason

A Preliminary Poetics for Interactive Drama and Games

By Michael Mateas

An Analysis

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Overview

• Plot-based interactive experiences (adventure games) are nothing new, yet few approach the status of interactive drama

• Penny proposes a theory of interactive drama based on Aristotle’s dramatic theory, modified to address interactivity added by player agency (Janet Murray’s definition)

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Steps taken…

• Definition of interactive drama motivating this theory• Murray’s 3 categories of immersion, agency, and

transformation• Aristotle’s categories related in terms of formal and

material causation• Use these results to clarify issues involved in building

interactive dramas

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Defining Interactive Drama

• Focus explicitly on Laurel’s notion of interactive drama - the player assumes the role of a first-person character in a dramatic story. Does NOT sit above the story - is immersed within it (whatever that means).

(the opposite being, for example, a Final Fantasy game where one does sit above)

• Narratives tend to do one of two things:- “Explode” incidents by offering many interpretations, perspectives, or expanding time- Employ episodic structure and are a compilation of

causally unrelated events

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Defining Interactive Drama(continued)

• Most interactive experiences to date are episodic or have focused on story not as a structured experience created by an author, but rather as a shared social construction facilitating human communication

- MUDs/MOOs

- Avatar spaces

- MMORPGs

- The Sims(so we won’t discuss these kinds of games)

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Murray’s Aesthetic CategoriesImmersion, Agency, and Transformation

• Immersion - The feeling of being present in another place and engaged in the action. The “willing suspension of disbelief”(Think Doom… Quake…)

• Agency - The feeling of empowerment that comes from being able to take actions in the world whose effects relate to the player’s intentions. (Think Star Fox… Top Gun…)

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Murray’s Aesthetic Categories(continued)

• Transformation- As masquerade - transform oneself into someone else for the duration of the experience (Think Bond, James Bond)

- As variety - the experience offers a multitude of variations on the theme. (Interactive board games)

- As personal - the experiences take the player on a journey of personal transformation (Uh..Myst?)

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Integrating Agency into Aristotle

• Murray’s categories describe what it feels like to participate in the interactive story

• Aristotle’s categories are structural, describing what parts a dramatic story is made of.

The primacy of Agency

Immersion and Transformation are already implied by the Aristotelian model. The audience’s sense of having agency is a genuinely new experience enabled by interactivity.

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Aristotelian Drama• Material cause: the material

out of which the thing is created.

• Formal cause: the abstract plan, goal, or ideal towards which something is heading.

• In drama, the formal cause is the authorial view of the play. The material cause is the audience’s view of the play.

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Interactive Drama

• The player’s intentions become a new source of formal causation.

• By taking action, the player’s intentions become the formal cause happening at the levels from language down to spectacle.

• This ability is constrained from below by material resources and from above by authorial formal causation from the level of plot.

• The only actions available are the actions supported by the material resources present in the game. These resources not only limit that actions that can be taken (the negative form of constraint) but also cry out to make certain actions obvious (the positive form)

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Interactive DramaInteractive Drama(continued)

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Interactive Drama(continued)

• Resources for this action• Dialogue spoken/opportunities for players to engage in dialogue• Objects available in the experience• Mechanics of interaction provide the interface conventions for

taking action

• Key differences• Interactive Drama - the formal chain of causation from level of plot to

level of character helps the player understand what to do

• Non-Interactive Drama - the formal chain of causation allows the audience to appreciate how all action stems from the plot andtheme

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Interactive Drama(continued)

• By understanding what actions are dramatically probable, the player understands what actions are worth considering.

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Agency

• Main point: A player will experience agency when there is a balance between the material and formal constraints.

• Many puzzle-based adventures suffer from providing more material affordances than formal affordances- Too many things to do- Too many places to go- Too many objects to fiddle with- Little sense of why any one action would be preferable over another

• Agency is affected: The player can take action, but this action is not tied to high-level playerintention

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Agency(continued)

• Quake is a good example of where the material affordances perfectly balance the formal affordances.

The formal affordances (dramatic probabilities) would be: - Everything that moves will try to kill you

- You should try to kill everything.

- You should try to move through as many levels as possible.

The material affordances balance this:- The player can run swiftly through the space

- The player can pick up a wide array of lethal weapons

- The player can fire these weapons producing gory deaths

Everything a player would want to try and do, given the formal constraints is doable.

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Agency(continued)

• To reiterate: Interactive experiences must strike a balance between the material and formal constraints.

The experience that invokes a sense of agency inhabits a ‘sweet spot’ in design space.

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Agency’s Relationship to Immersion

• Immersion in 3 ways:- Structuring participation with a mask (avatar)

- Structuring participation as a visit

- Making the interactions (the interface mechanics) seamless

• An avatar can provide both material and formal constraints (Traits, physical mannerisms, speech patterns, etc.)

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Agency’s Relationship to Transformation

• Transformation (as variety):- Agency requires that plot be present to provide formal constraints. Disrupt the plot too much -- disrupt agency

- On subsequent replays of the world, the player and the observer become one. The total interactive experience consists of both first-person engagement within the dramatic world and third-person reflection across multiple experiences in the world.

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The Type of Experience Informed by the Model(aka How to Build A Kick-Ass RPG)

• The essential experiential property of interactivity is agency.

- The experience should be structured in such a way as to maximize a player’s sense of agency.

• To maintain a sense of agency, the material and formal constraints must be balanced.

• Believable agents (computer controlled characters) are necessary.• Language is necessary to communicate plot.• Menu selection systems and hotspot clicking have the effect of

diminishing agency by unbalancing material and formal constraints• The interactive drama system must communicate dramatic probability.• Multiple characters must be coordinated in such a way that their

joint activity communicates both formal and material(plot and character level) affordances.

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Questions?