Welcome to INTERACTIVE DRAMAS, a repository of information, scenarios, critical discussion, and resources related to the scenario-based theatre-style freeform live action roleplaying game and related fields of inquire and performance.

While we've started small here, we hope to eventually have a pretty comprehensive collection of links and the like for introductory information (stored locally and linked from cyberspace) and we'd like to become the major clearing house for publicly available scenarios and games (for use by hobbyists and in the language classroom). By publicly available I do not mean public domain. All rights of original authors apply here. These scenarios are available for folks to use but the authors do not waive their rights or ownership and the like.

These pages are maintained by Brian David Phillips, Ph.D., C.H., an Associate Professor in the English Department at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. I am also a Certified Hypnotherapist and Board Certified Hypnotist as well as an ordained pastor. I also am the organizer of the Taiwan Virtual Reality Meetup and more. Whew! If you want to know more about this rather engaging and interesting person, just click here! And, if you don't want to know anything about this Meiguo Langren Zai Taibei (An American Werewolf in Taipei), don't click here.

I founded the Interactive Dramas Archive webpage in its original incarnation in 1996 as a labor of love. As an educator I have found Interactive Drama activities to be one of the most successful language learning and practice techniques I've ever used in a classroom and have presented numerous academic papers on the subject to various conferences over the past couple of decades and have taught a course on roleplays of this type at the undergraduate level at the university and use interactive dramas in a number of my other courses as learning tools. As a hobbyist, I love the fun of the activities (that's true for both table top Role Playing Games and the Freeform Live Action type). In fact I love the games so much that at one time I was asked to write a regular column about them for a local magazine. The column was published in Chinese for a major gaming magazine in Taiwan. Also, as someone with a heavy "serious" background in drama and literature, I find Interactive Drama to be interesting in terms of how it redefines theatre. I have a B.A. in Speech and Drama from Kansas Wesleyan Univeristy, earned an M.A. in Communication and Theatre from Pittsburg State University, and a Ph.D. in English/Comparative Literature at National Taiwan University where I completed my doctoral dissertation in 1998 specifically on interactive drama: titled Interactive Drama: Critical Perspectives on Freeform Role Plays as Drama (a critical approach to the theatre-style freeform live action roleplaying game as theatrical game form). I founded the Journal of Interactive Drama as part of the major site here in 2005, providing a home to peer-reviewed discourse on live roleplaying within a multi-disciplinary context. I am no longer an editor or member of the editorial board for the journal but I do still strongly support the project and provide hosting for the journal and its archive here. Finally, and most importantly, another very major reason for me to put all the work I put into this beastie is . . . simply . . . I love interactive dramas . . . period . . . I just find this sort of thing to be inherently interesting in and of itself.

I'm very interested in this site being the most extensive online repository for interactive drama scenarios. With that in mind I've put up some of my own scenarios as well as those contributed by others.

As I am very interested in the use of roleplay and games in an educational context, particularly the use of interactive dramas as an approach to scenario-based learning, I have also created a special section to house scenarios written by my students - as part of our language learning and practice activities. These pages are showcase pages for student work. Some of the scenarios are HTMLized others are still in text format - eventually they'll all be Webized. Please remember while reading these, they have been written by English as a FOREIGN Language students in Taiwan. Most files have only undergone a small amount of editing so may need major tinkering before play. If you would like to put any of these through a major edit, feel free to email me at brian@briandavidphillips.com and I'll most assuredly get back to you as quickly as possible.

These student-written Interactive Drama Freeforms, of a variety of types including fantasy piecies and Murder Mystery Minigame Varieties, were written as part of class assignments in my English Conversation One (Freshman) and English Composition Two (Junior) English as a Foreign Language classes at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan. The scenarios here have undergone a bit of cleaning up and editing by me before being posted here but are essentially intact. The scenarios were originally written by students for their classmates to play but may be played by those reading these pages. Feel free to use these as you like as long as the original author and copyright notices are left in place and no fee is charged or monies exchanged when you run the game. All rights are held by the authors.

Each student in my participating classes was asked to use the Freeform Evaluation Form and review three Freeforms (students evaluated their own Freeform and two by their classmates). The authors supplied copies to the members of the class for purposes of review. The reviews were then given to the authors as soon as was possible - but no later than a preset due date. Students then used the feedback to change and modify their games - they also had feedback from their playtesters. It works out very well in terms of allowing students a chance to practice their English conversation skills and it's a lot of fun!

If you are an academic or interactive dramatist interested in formal critique and exploration of scenario-based theatre style interactive drama freeform roleplaying games, you may also wish to explore the Journal of Interactive Drama. If you have graduate-level degree qualifications, feel free to contact me about serving on the editorial board. Otherwise, you may wish to contribute a critical paper or a scenario.

I am also the founding editor of the Journal of Experiential Trance where I have published papers on the use of experiential hypnosis with interactive drama. However, I am no longer involved with the editing of that journal.

This Interactive Dramas archive is open to submissions from anyone as long as the material is original and fits the charter of the archive.

When submitting scenarios to this site, please provide materials in at least one format that directors may edit. Often casting considerations require some slight editing of a piece for gender or player number so it is helpful if the files are in text, rtf, or Word formats that allow editing. Original authors should always receive credit for performance literature.

Enjoy,
Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH
brian@briandavidphillips.com