Elastic Worlds

In participatory transmedia experiences a wide range of player agency is desirable but can be problematic if the game and storyworld boundaries are unknown or ignored. Players breaking the world boundaries can mean an experience must be aborted or stops being fun. Yet breaking the rules is fun and in learning & development experiences like wargaming it might even be part of the goal. How then can authors of participatory experiences that play out in the real world allow players to break the rules but not break the world? How can we design an experience for the greatest player agency and the broadest scope of emergent stories yet prevent the world from travelling so far from the author’s intended state that it becomes unrecognisable, unplayable or unsuitable? This paper introduces the concept of an elastic storyworld as an alternative to a persistent storyworld: a world that stretches to accommodate unexpected player actions and yet restores itself over time. Drawing on definitions of elasticity from physics, the paper suggests ways in which authors might classify and detect player-enacted distortions and how participatory experiences might be designed to be more resilient to the stresses and strains of player agency.