Robin Woods, "Call and Response: Storytelling in the Neverwinter Vault"

(In Digital Gameplay)

- New forms allow us to reconfigure old theories, vice versa (rather than the imperialism argument)
- Narrative emerges between player and designer (not gamer and game)
- All choices made by the player are circumscribed by the designer
- Online forum discussions, fan communities are a channel of communication between players and designers - this is where interactivity is really located, and nowhere else, Woods claims
- "Patching" games as analogous to oral texts, emergent from dialogue, interaction
- Importance of audience to both games and oral performaces
- Neverwinter Nights modding community, feedback between players and designers
- No fixed/final text, always under revision
- Designers cede some authority to players through different versions of the game
- Woods makes an interesting point, but the Neverwinter Vault is hardly emblematic of player/designer interaction more generally