Why Chris Crawford Says Interactive Storytelling Is So Difficult

Updated

Chris Crawford argues that interactive storytelling is difficult because the core design problem—letting a player make meaningful choices while the story still holds together—has no settled solution, and because the industry and audience were not ready for it. On erasmatazz.com he treats this as a long-running design problem rather than a technical one: the site lists an essay titled "Why interactive storytelling is so difficult" (November 1) alongside "The world just isn't ready for interactive storytelling" (January 29) and a library piece, "Plan B for interactive storytelling." The site presents these as his own ongoing arguments, not as a finished method you can copy.

What the site actually claims

The page evidence supports a few concrete points:

  • It is framed as a hard, unsolved problem. The essay title itself is a claim, and the site pairs it with a later note that "the world just isn't ready for interactive storytelling." That is a judgment about readiness, not a claim that no tools exist.
  • The site is a working writer's notebook, not a product manual. The homepage describes "Interactive Storytelling Tools for Writers" and links to a Library, a Personal section, a Site Map, and a Contact Form. The arguments live in dated essays, so the reasoning is spread across posts rather than one definitive statement.
  • There is a playable artifact. Crawford says his "magnum opus, Le Morte D'Arthur, is now available to play," and adds that it "is not finished — it never will be finished. But it is playable." That is the clearest evidence of his position: interactive storytelling is something you build and keep revising, not something you ship complete.
  • A "Plan B" exists. The library page "Plan B for interactive storytelling" signals that he has proposed an alternative approach when the main path stalls. The site does not, in the supplied material, spell out that plan's mechanics.

The design challenges behind the claim

The site's framing points to a few general difficulties that anyone building interactive narrative will recognize. These are general design observations, not quotes from the essays:

  1. Player agency versus authorial control. A story needs shape; a player needs real influence. Every branch you allow costs authoring effort, and every branch you forbid weakens the sense of choice.
  2. Combinatorial growth. Branching structures multiply. A small number of meaningful decisions produces a large number of states to write, test, and keep consistent.
  3. Character behavior that stays believable. If characters react to player input, they must react in ways that feel motivated rather than mechanical—hard to specify and harder to debug.
  4. The "not finished" problem. Crawford's own description of Le Morte D'Arthur as permanently unfinished suggests the difficulty is partly that interactive stories resist closure: the space of player behavior is never fully covered.

A concrete example of the tension: a scene where the player can either warn a character or stay silent. Warning requires a follow-up scene, a changed relationship, and revised later dialogue; silence requires a different set. Two choices, and the author now maintains parallel versions of everything downstream. That is the practical shape of the difficulty.

What this means for a writer using the site

If you arrive wanting a tool that solves interactive storytelling, the site sets a different expectation. Use it as a source of design argument and example:

  • Read the dated essays in order—"Why interactive storytelling is so difficult," then "The world just isn't ready for interactive storytelling," then the "Plan B" library page—to follow how the argument develops.
  • Treat Le Morte D'Arthur as a case study in an unfinished, playable work rather than a template.
  • Expect opinion and reflection, not step-by-step tutorials or specifications. The supplied page evidence contains no pricing, download, or installation details, so do not assume the tools are free or that a login is not required.

Bottom line

Crawford's answer, as the site presents it, is that interactive storytelling is difficult at the level of design—reconciling player choice with narrative coherence—and that the surrounding culture was not ready for it. The site backs this with essays, a "Plan B" proposal, and a playable but deliberately unfinished work. Read it for the argument and the example, not for a ready-made solution.