Monday 16 February 2015

Storytelling and Immersion, or We Are Ahead of the Curve

Digging my way back through old Econtalk episodes I came across this old interview with Frank Rose on "Storytelling and the Art of Immersion". Rose's thesis is essentially that the storytelling possibilities of the internet have not yet really been tapped: between the invention of the film camera and the invention of a "grammar of cinema" there was a gap of decades, as with TV and so forth, and it's likely that were are still in the early years of the creation of a "grammar of internet storytelling". What this boils down to, for Rose, is interactivity or immersion: where TV, radio and cinema are one-way, the internet facilitates audience participation in ways that could never have existed 30 years ago. We don't know what will evolve, but we can be sure it will be something new.

He cites fan fiction communities, cosplay, Lost fandom, people tweeting as Mad Men characters, fantasy football, and so on as early examples of this. As somebody who basically only watches sport and old episodes of Frasier on TV, I generally have to take the word of people who talk about these things, but I am prepared to accept the general proposition that these phenomena are real. What amuses and intrigues me is that role playing games are completely ignored in the conversation. Indeed, when Rose said the following:

I think ultimately where it's going to go is some kind of fusion of story and game, which has not really been accomplished yet. I think that is, however, what's implied in this kind of immersive, participatory kind of story-telling...So, in any case, I think where it's going is some form that really hasn't been invented yet that very convincingly combines the very participatory aspect of games with the narrative absorption of storytelling.

It had me muttering to myself like a crazy person something along the lines of, "Duh, it was invented in nineteen fucking seventy four."

People who play D&D are ahead of the curve. We may have neckbeards and stink of cat piss but we have seen the future. We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams. We've seen things they wouldn't believe: d20s rolling on the kitchen table, pencils glittering in the dark near piles of squared paper... Today is only one gaming session in all the gaming sessions that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other gaming sessions that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this campaign. It's been that way so many times. All of games are that way.

The future is already here, in other words; it's just not very evenly distributed.

12 comments:

  1. >>We may have neckbeards and stink of cat piss

    Who the hell are you gaming with?! :P

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    1. Seriously. That shit don't fly in NYC my brother.

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  2. "So, in any case, I think where it's going is some form that really hasn't been invented yet that very convincingly combines the very participatory aspect of games with the narrative absorption of storytelling."

    Dear Mr. Rose,

    First, may I suggest, perhaps, looking up the work 'research'. Then, perhaps, might I suggest doing some.

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    1. RPGs are near the bottom of respectability when it comes to nerd activities - I'm guessing it would just never have occurred to him. Or maybe it says something about the decline in popularity of the hobby that it doesn't even show up on the radar of somebody writing a book explicitly about storytelling and immersion.

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    2. Hmmm. I don't know. That smacks of hoisting up the sloppy, and self important.

      RPGs have been around since the mid-1970s. Outside of their own, direct, pop culture impact, they've been part of episodes of Futurama, Community, the film E.T., and many other entertainment venues.

      This man never saw, or heard of Tom Hanks in Mazes and Monsters, never heard of MMORPGs, or Final Fantasy, and didn't know where they came from?

      Not familiar with RPGs as a means of helping kids learn, helping those with mental disorders, or any of the other variant uses of the medium that have been covered more in recent years than ever before?

      Perhaps we are at the bottom of respectability to those who think they already know it all, and don't show others respect. Joss Whedon, Wil Wheaton, Patton Oswalt, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, Vin Diesal, and many more wouldn't have missed a 40+ year phenomenon.

      Guess they're just not big enough for Frank Rose.

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  3. There are already signs that RPG style play has evolved in the digital space without benefit of dice or graph paper.

    MUD's and MUCK's and other anagrams of Multi User have been around for over 20 years. (Although those hew to their pen and paper forebears very closely, as well as to the text based adventure games of the 80's)

    Some more recent developments include audience driven webcomics like MSPaint adventures (that "Homestuck" thing all the whippersnappers seem to be painting themselves grey over) and tumblr ask blogs, as well as tg chan "quests", many of which show a very strong tabletop RPG lineage, if you can look past the anime/creepypasta veneer.

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    1. Thanks for introducing me to the concept of a tumblr ask blog...

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    2. I'm a bit trepidatious about your response...
      does it merit a "your welcome" or an "I'm sorry"?

      Depending on the ask blog, it could be either, both, or neither. :-/

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    3. I'm mainly astounded at how strange the world is sometimes.

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    4. In an alternate universe William Gibson is writing a novel about somebody who runs a just ask tumblr for a living.

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    5. In an even more alternate universe the missing robot simulacra of Philip K. Dick is running an ask blog of one of the characters from that novel to practice for his Turing Test.

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  4. Great post, noisms. I've blogged about it (and extended the Blade Runner homage/punnage) here:

    http://servitorludi.blogspot.com/2015/02/time-to-play.html

    :-)

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