Psst �� Wanna Do a Phrontisterion?

Last March I received an email asking if I wanted to "do a phrontisterion." I stopped for a bit and checked to see if the door to my campus office was closed. I assumed this was sort of like one of those "Do you want an inflatable doll?" messages that seem to come through once a day, often with some wild photos attached. I have this nightmare of getting caught in my office with an inflatable doll on my screen, and since I didn't have any idea what a phrontisterion was, I assumed it must be Greek for "inflatable doll." I was wrong.

"Phrontisterion" actually refers to "a thinking-place" and is associated with Socrates' school in the 423 B.C. play The Clouds by Aristophanes. OK, no doll -- and I can open my office door -- but why would anyone be doing a phrontisterion in 1999?

Turned out the original message came from a fellow name Chris Crawford, author of The Art of Computer Game Design, who lives in southern Oregon just north of Ashland in some of the most drop-dead gorgeous country south of Mt. Denali in Alaska. We had met a few years earlier at Dana Atchley's second dStory.com get-together in Crested Butte, Colorado, where Chris had presented a very early version of his Erasmatron technology for interactive storytelling. At that conference, he had rambled on about the continuing "Two Cultures" problem, ala C.P. Snow's scientific-cultural divide, which from his point of view would wreak havoc in our fast-evolving multimedia world. The obvious result of the Two Cultures problem, he said, would be one group with the cultural understanding of what should be said but not having the ability to say anything, plus another group with the technical skills to write multimedia but having nothing worth saying.

According to legend, Chris invited a bunch of folks to a barbecue in his backyard about 10 years ago when he lived in San Jose. At the time, the "thinking school" was thinking about computer games and how to advance the industry. Out of this backyard thinking emerged what is today one of the largest and most lucrative game development events yearly, the Computer Game Developer's Conference (www.gdconf.com). So, if anyone can attempt a phrontisterion in 1999, it probably is Chris, since he actually has a track record for phrontisterion-like events. And, when Chris asks if you want to come to southern Oregon and do a phrontisterion, the smart thing to do is to say yes first, find out what a "phrontisterion" is second, and figure out what we are going to think and talk about third.

Which is what I did.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

The phrontisterion had attracted a group of 22 people from Canada, Germany, Scandinavia, and the United States (me, for one). There were CEOs from software companies, folks who announced that they had recently quit Microsoft, and folks who hoped to eventually quit other very high-profile corporations and make their livings designing interactive fictions. There were academics like myself and producers from L.A. There were science-fiction writers interested in romance and computer programmers interested in emergent behaviors and artificial personalities. There were a couple of business folks there because they thought something "cool" might emerge.

The rules were simple: the phrontisterion would last for two days; participants would discuss a series of 12 questions for as long as at least 12 folks were in the discussion circle; if the topic was of no interest, we could get up and leave.

The Two Cultures discussion was a true eye-opener because as soon as the issue was raised, the most technical folks in the group just up and left the circle. No discussion. There were about 15 folks left in the circle, most of whom felt that most children today do not suffer this divide. Kids are as comfortable with programming and 3D modeling as they are with storytelling. For most in the group, the university was blamed as a major contributor to the Two Cultures problem by its time-honored arts, humanities, and science colleges and departments which compartmentalize students into almost self-selecting groups. Another big issue was economic: writers are paid little compared to programmers. No way around that one.

ONCE UPON A TIME ...

So why is interactive storytelling important?

Interactive storytelling is definitely first cousin to the computer game, but it is also first cousin to film and TV and more important to the book and reading in general. It is just human storytelling being filtered through yet one more medium designed by human beings to communicate with other human beings.

It is an unmistakable fact that reading is not popular among young people. According to the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 40 percent of high school seniors read at or above their grade level; 27 percent of all high school seniors never read on their own or for pleasure (37 percent for boys). Every day three million books are checked out of libraries at the same time that six million videos are rented. Like it or not, we seem to be becoming an aliterate culture. I say "seem" because it is also an unmistakable fact that the Internet is probably the greatest literary machine ever invented -- and that includes books. It is impossible to actually use the Internet without reading.

So, considering that the younger generation averages nine hours a week surfing the Web, nearly 38 percent longer than the average adult Internet user ("The Net-Powered Generation," Forrester Research), you have to see that the future of reading is online, which is inherently interactive, which leads me back Chris Crawford's phrontisterion on interactive storytelling.

If you want kids to read, you must give them the content they want to read in the form they want, which is going to be a highly interactive format. We make the medium, and the medium remakes us: McLuhan. In the Sixties, music and television remade the boomer generation into a generation their parents didn't recognize. Today there is another remake going on, and it is our new interactive media that are remaking the kids. Kids are being remade to expect to interact, to lean in and make a difference. They do not want to read or watch passively. I haven't had to tell my son to turn off the TV in years, but I have had to get him off line. Given the chance, he will sit there all night reading and writing ... just like the old days!

I cannot imagine a single area of human thought or activity that cannot be embodied in a print-based book or magazine, and I cannot imagine a single area of human thought or activity that cannot be embodied in an interactive storytelling medium. I can imagine many areas that could be better embodied in interactive storytelling than in paper-based print -- such as science, math, art, and music.

Is Chris Crawford's phrontisterion on interactive storytelling important? You make the call. For my part, I'll just say: Duh!

CAFE technos

Usually when I go to conferences these days, I do a workshop in interactive storytelling, game design, or immersive history -- but this wasn't going to be one of those types of events. This was not going to be a normal conference, because it was going to be a phrontisterion, and it was going to take place halfway between San Francisco and Portland, which meant it was going to be either real expensive to get to from the Midwest or a nice, long drive from the San Francisco airport. Not having a lot of money but having a lot of time -- remember, I'm a professor in real life -- I opted for the long drive. We are talking northern California, southern Oregon, Mount Shasta, beauty the likes of which I never see in the Midwest. [Editor's Note: Thom teaches digital entertainment technologies at Indiana University in Bloomington.] For me, a long drive in beautiful country is actually a short drive. Well, it did become a little longer once I got north of Redding, California, and Mount Shasta loomed and I realized I had forgotten my camera. I immediately pulled into the nearest Target store and purchased a cheap camera to take pictures, allegedly of the phrontisterion (for tax purposes) but in reality to take about 75 pictures of the 15,000-foot Mount Shasta from every angle imaginable, which added at least 3 hours to my drive.

When night fell, my cheap camera was useless in the dark, so I crossed the border into Oregon and eventually found my way past Ashland and through the Jacksonville Historical District before I became hopelessly lost. A friendly officer of the law directed me to Cantrall-Buckley Park on the Applegate River; no RVs allowed -- it was heaven, and it beat the Hilton by a mile. The next morning, I rose late (because I also had not brought an alarm clock), went for a swim, and then drove to the phrontisterion on Chris Crawford's 40 acres in the hills.

We began by munching donuts and drinking coffee as our 22 chairs were set up in a circle below the enormous Ponderosa pines. Chris began the introductions with an open-ended story describing himself as the fairest of all dwarfs among this motley crew and segued to his right as the introductions continued and the story developed. Then he gave us our topics and rules for thought and discussion.

Most of the early discussion had to do with the possible relationship the interactive fiction industry has/should have/should not have with the computer game industry. Remember, most of the folks in that circle either are or were game developers. The question is obvious but there was no consensus. Some folks felt as if it was obvious that computer games are interactive fictions so the discussion was moot. Others felt that the two areas were completely different but the audience was the same. Still others felt as if interactive fictions are very different from games and should have no connection to the game industry because the association would create expectations which interactive fiction cannot and should not meet. Since interactive fiction is a literary reference, there was discussion of how this new medium can be best distributed. The Net is obvious, but what about bookstores, which are open late into the evening with patrons interested in fiction and stories? Again, no consensus.

The hot area of discussion began with talk about technologies such as Chris's Erazzmaton, the Oz project, Improv and VRML -- but it quickly became obvious that there was some dissent from the "real" writers in the circle. Laura Mixon, the sci-fi writer who had worked with Chris's technology, pointed out that writing "Shatter Town" (an interactive fiction) took almost 17 months due to technical problems and her lack of understanding of the tool. The fact that the software was still evolving didn't help. For a writer, it is much easier to just write a book than it is to write anything interactive. She wrote "Shatter Town" for the experience, but there is a major problem for writers when their words are entombed in software that may not exist in a year or two. Other writers in the group also voiced a desire for tools that will allow their words and work to flow through technology rather than being entombed. HTML is an obvious choice but it is very inadequate for truly interactive writing. The problem is that the pencil for interactivity does not exist yet. Big problem for writers!

The idea of online worlds such as Ultima, EverQuest and Furry MUDs were discussed. These are worlds where hundreds of thousands of folks go to "role play" a story, to make believe they are in King Arthur's Court, that they are Lancelot and Guinevere. These are worlds where they, the interactors, create totally new and original characters. But, traditional dramatic tension creates its own tension if it is your character that must die in order to maintain the tension. [See Thom's discussion of the Two Cultures problem on page 35.]

Eventually we reached the end of the second day. Many questions had been raised and few answered. But that was okay. Interactive storytelling is new, and like all media before it, it will take some time to come into its own. McLuhan pointed out that the content of every new medium is an old medium: film munched on theater; photography on painting; television on film, and so it goes. Interactive fiction seems to be munching both the computer game and storytelling at the same time. Eventually, the form of the new media reveals itself, and it will be unlike anything we ever imagined. Remember, the original purpose of the phone was to deliver music into the home.

Chris was right: there is a divide, but not necessarily C.P. Snow's divide. There are chasms between the game and the story, between the market and the artist, between the writer and the programmer, between space and narration, between interactivity and drama, between the desires of men and women. Chasm after chasm, conflict after conflict. In Aristophanes' The Clouds, the Phrontisterion did not have a happy ending. Socrates and his pupils were ridiculed, and at the end of it, their school was burned to the ground. Chris's phrontisterion looks to have a much happier ending. Each person at this year's gathering is allowed to invite two others for next year, which will probably bring attendance to more than 50. Next year there will be even less agreement. Camps will form. Media will be designed. Markets will be created. Money will be made, and a new industry will emerge.

As an aside, shortly after Oregon I went to the Canadian Film Center in Toronto to teach game design to a roomful of high school boys. On day two, we were discussing ideas, trying to figure out what game ideas would work and what wouldn't, trying to figure out what was worth spending three weeks developing. Just into the discussion that day, an idea popped up that no one could deal with. A 13-year-old boy raised his hand and said, "I don't know -- it just doesn't work for me. The story isn't there; I need a good storyline."

Some things never change.

Join me in the online Cafe TECHNOS for the long version of my travels and experiences at the phrontisterion, at www.technos.net/cafe. Dessert and java are waiting! -- Thom, your maitre d'

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