non-linear storytelling, analogue vs digital

The reason that I prefer analogue forms of role-playing / interactive storytelling games to their digital counterparts is the possibility of choice. To explain:

Linear story

 The above image depicts a simple, linear story. Most forms of storytelling are linear; examples include books, films and games. These stories depict a series of events that follow one of many karmic formula. No matter what the reader, watcher of player does, the events of the story are set to occur in the same order with the same outcomes every time the player plays the game/ reads the book / watches the film. The alternate to this is a branching story path, the idea being that at certain points in the story the player may progress in multiple ways - each of which opens up to a new path. This looks very different when compared to the linear story-line:

Branching story layout

This interactive story allowed the player to make meaningful decisions that will influence the story one way or another. effectively giving the player the freedom of choice that the protagonist would have. The branching story path has been around in analogue and digital forms for more than 20 years, however the digital and analogue forms of this are very different. Mostly because there is an obvious problem with this type of story:

The problem with a branching story

What you effectively do every time you branch a path is you double the effort the game requires. For example, if you wanted a player to make 10 choices in the entire game, but each choice would only present two outcomes you would end up with a game with exactly 1024 separate endings! This is far beyond the capabilities of any analogue or digital format, more importantly it defies purpose - nobody would ever play a game or read a book over 1000 times just to see each ending and you should not expect them to!

Obviously choice (or the illusion of choice) is still a very emotionally valuable asset for a story or a game, so what is the most common fix for a digital system?

Parallel story structure

A story parallel! One that allows multiple choice to a certain extent but then falls back into a linear story structure. This is a common and rather popular system used in the games industry, because it allows all the illusion of choice that a player would desire without the astronomical amount of extra effort and waste of assets that would inevitably destroy the games company that attempted it. As you can clearly see there are 'Gate' events, no matter what the player has chosen the center event is inevitable and universal to each game.
So, if that is the solution devised in digital formats, what is the analogue equivalent?

An examination of the CYOA book Journey under the sea

Well, the first noteworthy medium is the Choose your own adventure story! The real difference between the novel and tabletop game medium when compared to the digital game is the ease of content creation. A computer game must limit the optional story outcomes because the process of creating the event or area in the game is very taxing and expensive. With a novel or tabletop game the content requirement is very minimal; In a CYOA book a player must choose a page to read, that page had to be written before he made the choice. For a detailed examination of the choose your own adventure story book, please see:

http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/

In a tabletop role-playing game the player must sit down, make a choice, express the choice to another individual (a DM) who must simple reply to him - informing him of the outcomes of his choice. Unfortunately that is where we loose the ability to gain more choices by lowering the required output; that individual will still need a story that he expects the players to follow, he will - if he is worth his salt - modify the story according to every session and choice the player makes. However, the intended story is still fixed.

What separates the tabletop game from the choose your own adventure book? Mostly it is the inclusion of probability in the form of dice rolls to determine the success of the choices a player takes.

So, what if we included probability into a CYOA style of game? The plot would still be a parallel story but the outcomes of it would be much more varied! Probability is handled batter by computers than by dice, maybe some form of more interactive CYOA could be achieved.

(source of images: http://mycours.es/gamedesign2012/48-2/branching-narrative-from-borges-to-the-hypertext/)