unforum

[Nola]

Chaotic Fiction?

[Agent Lex]

Read and be enlightened.
(for those who find it hard to see the difference, like myself sometimes, that's a link right there)

[imbri]

SpaceBass said it all better than I ever could in Undefining ARG.

I've gotta admit that I really like the term, especially when talking about multiple and very different games/experiences. Plus, it makes it easier to talk about distinguishing characteristics without hitting the ARG/NotAnARG debate. That debate isn't all that bad, but sometimes it's nice to be able to avoid it.

[konamouse]

My take on the definition:
Chaotic Fiction - an Alternate Reality in which the players interact with the characters to create the story as it goes, not about puzzle solving to find the next chapter, but more that the next chapter is based on interaction between characters and players. May not always have a pre-determined ending by the PM, or the PM may cautiously guide the players.

[rose]

Nice one Kona.

I'm not sure that the definition requires character interaction.
I have to read it again but I thought it encompasses basically anything that has a story? Like even the Pirate of the Caribbean contests? Or maybe not, as that contest is clearly labeled as a GAME on the forums.

And I am certain that everything we have already "decided" or "defined" as an ARG is included in the sphere of chaotic fiction.

This term is fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing it propagate. I predict it will spread much faster than the term Alternate Realty Game (which SpaceBass also coined) did.

[konamouse]

I agree that ARGs are CF, but not all CF are ARGs.

What I posted in 11808 thread a couple of days ago:

[sixsidedsquare]

[Mikeyj]

It would be interesting to empirically assign ARGs, AREs and other bits and bobs that have been played or followed on the forum values for coherence, authorship and ruleset (erm...CAR?) in order to see just what volume of the Sphere of Chaotic Fiction is covered by Unforum. I suspect we skew towards one side and in fact cover an Aubergine rather than a Sphere.

Could also be used by an experimental PM to deliberately make something that hasn't been made before - (at this point I was going to use something completely plotless, authored by the players with no rules whatsoever, but realised that this was in fact the PXC collaborative story).

[rose]

[Lovek]

[vpisteve]

/me dances with glee at this scrumptrillescent thread.

[danteIL]

I don't usually post in the Meta, although I think about Meta a lot.. but just free-associating in response to this thread (rose's post in particular) two different things came to mind:

John Cage's 4'33"

And Stanley Fish's reader-reponse theory of literature

Both of these are well-known attempts to dissolve the the notion of the "objective" artwork and to demonstrate how meaning can never reside 'in' the text but only emerges through the responses and interpretations of the recipients.

If you take this to heart, then almost anything that this site deals with could be "chaotic fiction," in the sense that it is the responses of the audience ('players' no longer seems appropriate with chaotic fiction, and 'audience' may be too passive. Co-participants? bleh) that matter, and that different audiences will generate different narratives.

I'm not bothered by the term 'chaotic fiction.' It certainly opens up a lot of other possibilities. I think, however, that it might be confusing to people when viewed from certain perspectives.

[GuyP]

My brain is addled to say the least, but I give Chaotic Fiction +5 awesome points. I think it excludes certain things in the way "alternate reality gaming" does - but a different set of things, mind you. So now I'll use "chaotic fiction" when I refer to innovative, interactive storytelling, "avant gaming" when I refer to innovative, interactive gaming, and, err, "ARGs" where they intersect. For the time being, anyway

[rose]

So after looking at this definition some more, I now understand that it is a four-part definition. Yes, Space even included handy-dandy graphs labeled with the elements of the definition - it just took me a while to get a handle on this.

1. Authorship - the architect (for ARGs, PMs) and the audience (for ARGs, players) the spectrum ranges between the author and the audience.

2. Ruleset - rules that the architect sets for the narrative before it is launched on the public. The range is from order to chaos.

3. Coherence - ie, plot - from no plot to lotta plot.

4. Persistence - not a graph for this one, but I think it means that the fiction isn't a one-time performance thing, which would leave out live theater, etc.


I'm still not sure I understand this correctly. What happens in games where the ruleset changes? I think that it doesn't have to be set totally in advance. I'm thinking of ilovebees where the PMs added in puzzles after we started. But the overall ruleset is in place.

In thinking of the Halo 3 game, iris, my first instinct is that the lack of the audience to have any effect on the story makes it more of a game (like the Pirates of the Caribbean contest) than chaotic fiction. I'm not sure where that line gets drawn. But, iris seems to fit within the overall construct of chaotic fiction as Space defines the term.

As I said before, the definition has nothing to do with whether the story moves forward by interaction or puzzle solving. Unlike ARGs in general ( at least my view of them) in chaotic fiction, that the audience share authorship isn't required. So Halo3 would fit in that category, way over on the architect side.

Halo3 has a ruleset. A frustrating and confusing ruleset, but a ruleset nonetheless.

Halo3 also has coherence, at least it seems like it will have some overall plot or at least some mini-bits of plot.

So what about Eldritch Errors?

Again that fits the requirements of Chaotic Fiction. It has a plot (even though I personally as a player am lost most of the time, being lost in that game may be part of the plot. ), authorship -more shared with the audience than Halo3, and a ruleset. The ruleset seems to change in that game, but I think that is in response to what the players do or don't do.

Those are the only two games I am following right now. The definition of Chaotic Fiction is very broad. I'm thinking the Pirates of the Carribbean game is a game because it lacks plot, not because it lacks audience authorship. (but so does SFzero's games, so maybe I'm wrong about this) And live performances are ephemeral not persistent.

Actually, as I write this, I am hard pressed to find examples of things that aren't chaotic fiction. So maybe I still don't understand it.

[ScarpeGrosse]

Heh, no, I think that's the point, rose

The idea of CF, as I've always understood it, was to delineate the differences between "game" and "ARG" - they're all chaotic fiction. They all have elements that sit somewhere on the 4 spectra you outlined above. Some will be more chaotic and less ruled, some will be more plot and story than game. Regardless of those small differences in characteristics (what is ARG vs what is just Game), all experiences are chaotic fiction.

It's the definition that defines everything