Since I've read this, I have been feeling a lot more comfortable with the idea of plot-less stories, or even non-stories and only situations. So please excuse me if I sound a bit radical. 
Jeroen, what you are saying sounds to me like a film director feeling sorry that he can't have live actors in his work, or photographer who wants brush strokes, etc. It feels like you're holding on to the certain joys of old media and perhaps neglecting the potential of the new. I see the procedural/interactive media as a way to finally escape the Iron Grip Of The Plot, to finally create artistic universes where we can simply
be.
I am not against plot in any way - quite the contrary, I think narratives are a completely rational way to understand the universe. We simply have insufficient narratives and treat them wrong. A movement against narratives seems difficult to rationalize intellectually. Shedding light on 'the way things are' is the power of art, and for some forms of understanding a story is the most comprehensive way. Before I read
Atlas Shrugged I missed an essential narrative to describe myself that I otherwise would still lack now. But removing narrative would not have made my life any more comprehensive, at all. I have no desire to 'just be'. I want to figure out and understand relations, take pleasure in the enjoyable elements. An item of beauty is an item which gracefully explains itself. It is not just graceful (which is enjoyment without meaning).
A film such as
2046 has a lot of subtle small narratives that are very short and subtle - but somehow with me resonate greatly. The film depresses me every time I see it, but the minor characters, the
vignettes, entertain me: I feel happy seeing their relations and lives.
Furthermore, I would say I am more like a theatre director forbidding his actors to do too much improvisation. I have done and seen improvisation and it can never interest me. There is no coherent narrative designed by someone who 'knows what he is doing'. Especially open interpretation, abstraction and such I find merely on
occasion inspiring. But mostly I feel a lack of someone who is telling me something clever in his way.
I do not disapprove of any of your games, naturally. But I want to illustrate an opposing view, very opposed to you specifically, Michael, being anti-narrative. I am hugely pro-narrative. I think our flaw is we listen to little to new narratives, show too little good versions of daily narratives. Me going to work is a narrative, I cannot just 'be' while going to work (whether that is personal or human), but my narrative can be a man 'just doing his thing to make a living' or that of a Randian 'heroic being striving for happiness'. The two are hugely different. I think, again, that the
flaw is that (different instances of) media rarely presents more than one story. And you can give me a game, book or film and that can be 'read' (in the case of text) or 'experienced' (in the case of hypertext) in a billion different ways, but in the end what you show me is your image of causality on the street: yes, I am
absolutely free in synthesizing my own story. But if it is open interpretation it becomes 'just a street'. Anything you
add is what I care about.
In effect, the poem that becomes your own is your own because it gives you a narrative that is more
meaningful than the ones you had. It expresses something you also feel
or wish to feel. Show me a street
your way. But that is comprised of different narratives, I would say.
So now that I have come back on this subject a bit fierce (I fear)...
Jeroen:
In short, I am wondering how you can apply this theory to far more interconnected events, such as picnicking with miniature bottles of wine
I am not sure what you are after here, but I guess you mean using situation and fragment based story telling on more limited "sets"? The type of story telling I rant about works pretty well in large scale stories like "lost in the woods" or "trapped in house" and I kind of see a problem to smaller scenarios. Perhaps it is just a matter of designing the mechanics correctly, but when the player needs to do fine tuned actions things get problematic. For example, a scene where the protagonist is eating is much harder to do than wandering about in at a party. When at the party the player can chose to interact with many different people, take a snack, etc. It is easy to fill the world with interaction. But when sitting at a table the protagonist needs to be stuck and cannot do much except eat and drink. Of course one could talk to various characters as well, but this would be done in a much more constrained and static matter (since all are at their seats unless something "major" happens).
I have not given this that much thought though, so sorry for the rantish structure
This is exactly what I mean, also in relation to 'anti-narrative'. The openness of some stories works well interactively - "lost in the woods" and "trapped in the house". My example of walking down the street could be synthetic that way again, I suppose, being somewhat open.
But perhaps I am far more interested in narratives about people who
do sit down and what you can do in such situations. And make that work interactively. When you add too much choice the player becomes more himself and less the character he portrays - because he is fully aware of being able to go back and do things differently. He plays the character 'on the screen' rather than being 'in the screen' as Laurie Taylor writes about. By walking about I can 'enter' interesting situations... but sitting down and being
part of something interesting is far more important to me.
I think my game (I expect the alpha this week, the final one end of May btw.) makes a feeble attempt at going towards this - the player just... eats and drinks. As you say. But somehow it works - that is, it works on some people. Someone was really interested and found it a combination of audiobook and game, which I think is a very interesting suggestion. I think there is a lot to go on beyond 'just eating and drinking'. But... it is hard to explain what I truly mean. There are a lot of subtle actions, a lot of liberties you can take with camera - combinations of first and 3rd-person to create body awareness... small memories superimposed... a loss of precision in control as one drinks more... bursts of laughter uncontrollable...
I am also doing a bit of a rant (but it is all so exploratory!) here, but I think in some way the subtle actions we
all desire here (it seems) can be explored in a far tighter way. But I need to find ways to remove control from the player where I wish him to have none - but grant it to him elsewhere. A way to give him experiences we normally have but are difficult in games. Body-awareness, memories... A balance between 'locked in syndrome' and actual agency. I am doing research into psychology of self which is fascinating but rarely geared towards games... and the games research is sometimes really 8 words repeated
ad nausium. It is a bit of a primordial soup in my head. But I definitely foresee ways of bringing the player fare more interesting experiences.
I just need more time and a budget, really.
Anyway, I think we need not only look at how to remove narrative or how to move parts of it around. I think we also should keep an open mind about making interactive the simplest and smallest of moments. Because that is what I care about in art - when I finish a function and my C++ compiler gives 0 errors at 3am in the morning I think of Howard Roark and Rand's 'heroic being'. When I see two people snuggling up on a bench on the beach I think of the portrayals of close understanding friendships I have seen. When at times I wonder whether my talents are worth showing I think of Dr. Manhattan and smile bleakly.
Which leads me to the point on which I end this post (truly rantish by now): we need ways of getting those close experiences into games. Not to remove narrative, but help us
feel new narratives that can make us see the world in a more constructive way. And that is are more related to structured narratives (that explore situations) than loose situations. Just like we must not be afraid of the new, we must also not be afraid to
have structure. The fear of structure seems embedded deep in contemporary art, really.
