The meeting and the birth
Why are we interested in interactive fiction and roleplaying games as new forms of art? Presumably not simply because they are new and relatively unexplored, but because of the interactive aspect in its modes of creativity, complicity, judgement. (Thinking about the artistic modes of interactivity should be one of highest priorities.) Traditionally, a work of art is created by a writer, is the responsibility of the writer and expresses the judgements of the author.. Sessions of playing an RPG or reading a work of interactive fiction may transfer one or more of these wholly or partially to the players and/or readers. Why is this a good thing? What can a work of art that is interactive in this sense do that a non-interactive work can not? But perhaps this is already the wrong way of thinking, if we wish to arrive at a critique of IF and RPGs. First, there may not be a work of art. Is the program or the game book a work of art? It is certainly not the work of art we are looking for. Is t