Role-playing in Interactive Fiction
by Magnus Olsson (mol@pobox.com)
version 1.0 - approx. 3000 words
<P>
Ever since the beginning of the genre, it has been a convention in
text adventure games to address the player in the second person,
present tense:
<P>
"You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building.
around you is a forest.  A small stream flows out of the building and
down a gully." [adv350]
<P>
At the time _Advent_ was written, this may have been a natural
choice: this was long before the advent of graphical user interfaces,
and many programs, especially games, used a "conversational"
interface that addressed the user in a similar way (for example,
several of the games in [Ahl], which predate _Advent_ by several
years, use such an interface).
<P>
However, when adventure games are viewed as a branch of literature (or
potential literature), as _interactive fiction_, the convention seems
rather odd. The text in all except the most rudimentary adventure
games is not just part of a computer interface, but contains actual
narrative, sometimes continuous "cut scenes" several pages long, and
usually conforming to the second-person, present-tense convention. But
while present-tense narrative is common in "static" fiction, the use
of the second person certainly isn't -- in fact, most style guides and
writing manuals discourage second-person narrative as unnatural and
likely to alienate the reader.
<P>
Why is the textual narrative of interactive fiction (at least
in the sense of text adventure games) different from that of static
fiction in this aspect, while it is so similar in many other ways? Is
the use of the second person just a convention, an historic accident,
that has survived due to the power of example and the intertia of the
IF community? Or is there some more fundamental reason for this?
<P>
One answer -- at least a partial answer -- to this question is given by
the following observation: while second-person, present-tense
narrative may not be the natural choice for telling a story, it feels
quite natural in role-playing situations. In fact, the interaction
between _Advent_ and its player is quite similar to that between
player and game master (GM) in a role-playing game such as _Dungeons
and Dragons_ (_D&D_ [ref]) -- more about that below. This
interpretation is supported by the fact that one of _Advent's_
authors, Will Crowther, cites _D&D_ as a source of inspiration for
_Advent_ [interview].
<P>
### footnote
It should be noted that this form of interactive role-playing is not
limited to RPGs, and predates them by many years, occuring in many
cases where one person is asked to put himself in somebody else's
shoes, for example in examination situations:
<P>
"'You are close-hauled on the port tack, Mr. Hornblower, beating up
channel with a nor-easterly wind blowin hard, with Dover bearing
north two miles. Is that clear?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Now the wind veers four points and takes you flat aback. What do you
do, sir? What do you do?'" [Forester, C.S., _Mr. Midshipman Hornblower]
<P>
This is of course a fictional account, not an actual transcript of an
18th-century Royal Navy examination, but it predates RPGs with 00
decades, and the interaction between examiners and examinee quite
naturally takes a form very similar to the interaction between
_Advent_ and its player.
### end footnote
<P>
Of course, even if we accept that the convention of second-person,
present-tense narrative originates in role-playing, there may not be
any deeper significance to it than the fact that Crowther modeled the
interaction on _D&D_; perhaps other IF authors simply followed his
example, establishing a convention which is simply followed by
tradition. However, there may also be deeper connections: perhaps
most IF uses conventions derived from role-playing because
role-playing aspects are somehow essential for the genre.
<P>
In the following, we will work from this assumption, exploring some
aspects of role-playing in IF.
<P>
***
<P>
Some notes on terminology
<P>
Above, we used the term "text adventure game" to describe games such as 
_Advent_. This term is often considered too narrow to discuss works that 
may not be very game-like at all,
<P>
### Footnote:
This depends, of course, on the definition of "game" (a point to which
we will return later). It is a fact, however, that non-gamers tend to
dismiss games as of no literary value. "How can it be interative
_fiction_ if it's just a game?"
### End footnote
<P>
and whose subject may not be very "adventurous". We may also want to
include works that are generally not considered to be adventure games
(such as "Choose your own adventure" books (CYOAs) or computer
role-playing games (CRPGs) in our discussion.
<P>
On the other hand, the term "Interactive fiction" is too general for
the purposes of this essay, including any kind of fiction where the
reader can in some way influence the content. It also apparently
meaning quite different things to different people, as witness the
sometimes quite heated discussions on rec.arts.int-fiction about which
topics are appropiate for the newsgroup.
<P>
We will therefore propose a new term, "First-person Interactive
Fiction", or FIF for short. The term does not refer to the fact that
the narrative are written in the first person -- as mentioned above, the
second person is most common -- but that, as in "first-person shooter"
games, the player sees the story world through the eyes of a
character in the story, and controls the actions of that character.
<P>
The category of FIF includes almost all text adventure games, as well
as other IF which uses a similar interface (but where the "game" label
is not considered appropriate), as well as CYOAs, works that mix text
adventure interface with arcade-game elements (such as _TextFire Golf_
[ref]) and, possibly, some computer RPGs (CRPGs). It excludes
graphical adventure games, as well as "Z-machine abuses" such as zlife
[ref].
<P>
As a convention, the terms "game" and "player" will be used for works of
FIF and their audience, even when gamelike elements such as score and
puzzles are absent or toned-down. The term "static fiction" is used for 
fictional texts that are not interactive, i.e. novels, short stories
etc.
<P>
The term role-playing game (RPG) will be used primarily to denote
around-the-table role-playing games such as D&D, as opposed to
CRPGs or live RPGs.
<P>
***
<P>
The narrator as gamemaster -- interaction in FIF
<P>
### This section undergoing revision
<P>
***
<P>
Role-playing in FIF
<P>
So far, we have seen that the interaction in FIF is modeled on, or at
least similar to, that in an RPG. This raises the question if this
similarity is more than skin deep: is the player of an adventure game
actually role-playing? 
<P>
For some works of FIF, the answer seems to be an obvious yes: in these
games, there is a very well-defined player character (PC) and all the
player's actions are required to conform to this character's
personality; the player is required not only to solve puzzles (unless,
of course, the game is of the "puzzleless" variety), but to solve them
in the manner the PC would solve them.
<P>
In most FIF, however, the situation is not so clear-cut.  While most
modern works tend to define the PC's personality in some way, they are
generally not very strict about forcing the player's action to conform
to that personality. And in many cases, most notably early adventure
games such as _Advent_ and _Zork_ [ref], leave the PC as a total
blank, the notorious "nameless adventurer".
<P>
But even in these cases, the player is playing a role. Even if the
game does not explicitly tell the player to assume a different
personality, it puts her in a different situation, with different
abilities and responsibilities than in real life. In the Lieutenant's
examination, Mr. Hornblower is not role-playing a different person,
but himself in command of a ship in a certain situation. Similarly,
the CS freshman playing a game of _Zork_ may think of the PC as
herself -- but it is probably a rather different "self" than her
everyday personality, capable of taking on murderous trolls and
cyclopes in hand-to-hand combat, picking up everything that is not
nailed down with no qualms about other's property, and -- not least -
being physically able of tirelessly carrying all this loot around in
a huge cave.
<P>
A work of FIF creates a model world and asks the player to put herself
in the place of a character in that world. In well-written FIF, the
player is not just controlling the player character (as in many other
types of games), and not just identifying with her (as in static
fiction), she is playing the role of that character; within the game,
she _is_ that character.
<P>
This means that FIF has at least the potential to grip the reader in
a way that static fiction has not: the readers of a novel, or the
audience of a play, may have witnessed a tragic hero make a disastrous
decision, seen a knight vanquish a dragon, or watched a detective
solve a crime; the player of a piece of FIF has actually made the fateful
decision, defeated the dragon, or arrested the murderer herself. This
has been called "catharsis by complicity"; in a sense, the author
makes the player his accomplice in making the protagonist's choices. 
<P>
A powerful example is the initial scene in _Photopia_ [ref], where the
impact of the inevitable catastrophe is made so much stronger but the
player's futile attempts to avert it.
<P>
***
<P>
Characterization and role-playing 
<P>
The role-playing in FIF is unusual in one aspect: usually, the role
is defined in advance, and one tries to play the role accordingly. In
FIF, however, the role is usually defined only partially, if at all,
at the start of the game, and one learns about the role while playing
- as in static fiction, the protagonist is characterized by his
actions, by what he says and thinks, by his interactions with other
people. In static fiction, the reader is basically a spectator,
however much she identifies with the protagonist, and even if the
story is written from the protagonist's point of view. In FIF,
however, the reader is actually playing the part of the protagonist
and is not just a witness to the categorizing events or actions; they
happen to _her_. The role-playing aspect means that FIF has the
potential to make identification with the protagonist a deeper, more
active process than in static fiction; the player not only has to
feel _with_ the protagonist, but _as_ him.
<P>
Provided, of course, that it is done well. Any characterization
introduced after the very start of the game has a risk of colliding
with the player's perception of the role she is playing. Players
dislike being told what they (or their character) feel or think -
especially when it doesn't match their perception of the character -
ideally, the player should be _made_ to feel or think a certain way;
the interactive equivalent of "show, don't tell". Forcing or
prohibiting a certain action has a risk of making the player feel
railroaded, and in extreme cases reduces the interactivity to the
point that the player could just as well just be pressing PageDown
to scroll through a static text.
<P>
When they work, however, these techniques are very effective. The
player can be made to feel the same way as the character by letting
the text describe the character's perceptions. (An interesting
example is _Heroes_ [ref], where each of the multiple PCs sees the
world in different ways, notices different things, and has different
methods of problem solving.)
<P>
Restricting the actions available will not be a problem if the player
already feels that the restriction is natural for the character. And
the player will not have to be forced to perform a certain action if
she feels that this action is the only natural thing to do for the
character. (As an example, Adam Cadre's _Varicella_ [ref] makes a good
job of turning even normally peaceful players into scheming,
Machiavellian murderers, and the fact that many actions are blocked by
the PC's sense of aesthetics -- "That would be unseemly" -- feel
entirely in character.)
<P>
The player doesn't necessarily have to be made to _want_ to do a
forced action, or to not want to do a forbidden one. In _Rameses_
[ref], the neurotic protagonist's hang-ups prevent him from doing the
things both he and the player would want to do; but these hang-ups
are entirely in character, and the resulting frustration of the player
effectively conveys the protagonist's sense of frustration.
<P>
It should be noted that the above applies not only those works of FIF
that have well-characterized PCs, but also -- although to a lesser
extent -- to those which leave the PC a blank, or put all the
character definition in an infodump at the beginning. All FIF puts
some limitations on what the PC can do, for example blocking actions
as out of character -- "Violence is not the answer". In fact, it can
be harder to restrict actions in such FIF: if the protagonist is not
defined, why suddenly forbid the player to do something by referring
to the PC's ethics?
<P>
One can of course ask the question whether a piece of FIF should try
to force the player to play in character, according to the author's
conception of the PC. Perhaps the player would prefer to role-play
a different character? In a sense, a game that makes no attempt at
characterization of the PC could give the player such freedom -
assuming that the player really had freedom of choice; trying to play
_Zork_ as a pacifist who refuses to kill would not be very rewarding,
since the player would never progress beyond the troll room. As
mentioned before, there is also the problem of writing a good story
where the protagonist has no personality.
<P>
An interesting possibility would be to allow the player some freedom
in role-playing the PC, and use the player's choices to define the
character in the story. If the player lets the PC act heroically at
one occasion, the PC will not only be treated as a hero by NPCs, but
the game will expect the player to play the role in a heroic style in
the future as well -- non-heroic actions will be disallowed, for
instance. To some extent, this can be done by allowing the storyline
to branch, depending on key actions, but as the number of branching
points increases the complexity of the game will grow exponentially.
<P>
Adam Cadre's _I-0_ [ref] does a similar thing on a smaller scale:
the game allows the player to role-play the PC, Tracy Valencia, in
different ways, corresponding to alternative solutions to
character-interaction puzzles, but the choices influence only a
sub-plot in the game, not the entire story; it is possible to be
inconsequent and display different personalities in different
situations. Which, after all, is perhaps more realistic than
consistency. 
<P>
****
<P>
Role-playing as the essence of FIF
<P>
Given that it is the role-playing aspect of FIF that allows both
catharsis through complicity and characterization through
role-playing, it seems as it is essential to FIF, both as an art form
and as a game
<P>
### Footnote: 
Perhaps this is a fundamental reason for why certain types of 
puzzles -- such as the _Towers of Hanoi_ and chess problems -- are
generally considered to fit badly in adventure games: they bypass the
simulation, and appear aimed at the player rather than at the player
character. When solving the babelfish puzzle in _HHGTG_ [ref], I am
role-playing Arthur Dent solving the puzzle, because all the puzzle
elements work through the simulation, not around it. On the other
hand, unless it is very well integrated in the game, a chess problem,
cryptogram, or weighing puzzle will force me to cease roleplaying, and
spend some time on the puzzle rather than on the adventure game.  It
not merely breaks mimesis ("Why on earth do I have to solve a chess
problem to open the safe?") but it breaks immersion in a much more
fundamental way.
### End footnote
<P>
and it is this that sets FIF apart from other forms of interactive
fiction. (It is of course possible to create interactive
fiction without role-playing elements.  For example, one could write
a story about a seafaring explorer in the age of sail, where the
reader controls the weather, and the story changes depending on how
the winds carry the explorer across the map; such a story would be
fiction, and it would be interactive, but it would not be
role-playing.)
<P>
Together with the discussion of game-player interaction above, this
indicates that regarding IIF, and perhaps IF in general, as a
generalization of static literature is missing important aspects of
the medium. Prose is an important part of IIF; it is used to convey
information, moods, emotions. Character development, dramaturgy,
plot, structure can be analyzed and developed using techniques from
static fiction, as well as from drama and film. But concentrating on
the text, regarding a work of IIF as a story generator, carries the
risk of ignoring the dynamics of interaction between the player, the
model world and the player character; aspects that are perhaps better
described in terms of gaming. 
<P>
A problem is, of course, the associations of games with frivolity, and
with competition; "this is just a game, how could it be art?"  Perhaps
a new terminology of serious, non-competitive "games" is needed. Or
perhaps what is needed is an acceptance among non-gamers that the
concept of game is wider than generally thought; that games can in
fact be serious, non-competitive and aim at catharsis rather than a
place on the high-score list. This author's personal view is that the
evolution of modern IIF shows precisely this: rather than IIF moving
away from its origin in adventure games towards art, it is the games
that have become an art form.
<P>
## End article