It has always been my contention there are three perspectives to interactive storytelling experience:
- First Person, immersive, totally interactive
- Second Person, semi-interactive
- Third Person, passive
With the new developments with AR/VR these days, most of the audience attention has been placed on the first and third perspectives. Today, I have just become aware of a new avenue for the second person perspective.
The folks from Sword Coast Legends and Wizards of the Coast are working on a Dungeons and Dragons RPG game experience on the computer. As the role players experience the dungeon in real time, a dungeon master (DM) is also manipulating the game experience concurrently with the players. Reminding that the DM does not necessarily want to destroy the gaming party, just make sure they are challenged sufficiently. Similarly, it is often the DM’s responsibility to deliver a fun playing experience for the players.
Within the interactive storytelling experience, A contributed second person perspective can really help to push the game and prevent it from getting stale along with upholding the fun factor of the experience. While the interactive storyworld experience is not exactly an RPG game, it can borrow some some of the same interactive components. It seems all that is in place with this RPG system is dungeon crawling and fighting. While this is fun for certain purists. Others will be seeking the interactive characters and dynamic experiences. An involved second person perspective can really help avoid the interactive storytelling experience prof devolving into porn.
