Chapter 12 Drama Managers

A MAJOR MENTAL LEAP REQUIRED to understand interactive storytelling is the realization that it concerns storytelling, not story. The most common mistake of beginners is to think in terms of “story plus interactivity.” As I have explained earlier, a story is a data structure, and you cannot interact with data; you can only interact with a process. Story is data but storytelling is process. Therefore, we must always think in terms of storytelling, not story.

Storytelling implies a storyteller; interactive storytelling presumes the existence of some kind of algorithmic storyteller built into the software. That storyteller might be called an engine, a system, or an agent, but the term most commonly used is drama manager. ...

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