Narrative interpolation

I''ve actually spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I find the concept very intersting. The fact that your school is offering a course is sweet!

The biggest problem is, of course, finding a way to define "interesting" so that your AI can understand it. Do we define it on the basis of how many active plot elements there are, or how well they interact? And how can we determine from the actions of the user if they are actively interested?
Other problems arise from needing to know the course of the story in advance, like if you intend to use foreshadowing at all.

Where I think this can be really neat, however, is allowing a player to customize their character''s goals within a game. For example, in all of the recent Final Fantasy games the main goals of the character are heroism and love. I would love to play a game with as rich a story, but maybe decide that power or fame were my goal, and tell the cute little anime chick to bug off.

BTW, what school are we talking about? This sounds like a really intersting class.

"So crucify the ego, before it''s far too late. To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical, and you will come to find that we are all one mind. Capable of all that''s imagined and all conceivable."
- Tool
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Original post by WayfarerX
I''ve actually spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I find the concept very intersting. The fact that your school is offering a course is sweet!

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Yeah, the course is an outcome of a lecture/discussion series called the Ashby Dialogs.

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The biggest problem is, of course, finding a way to define "interesting" so that your AI can understand it.

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I''m actually not interested in defining "interesting". The user can wander in the wilderness for 40 years for all I care (and never make it to the promised land to boot). I''m interested in the AI being able to recognize the user''s progression and generate a "storyline" of sorts based on previous actions (and inactions). In the preceding example, the story should/could be "And our hero - who wasn''t a hero at all - wandered aimlessly in the desert for 40 years, accomplishing nothing."

You might want to search for references to Author (the AI bot I referred to above - I don''t have the links right now) to see how a narrative could be generated. It was built by people at North Carolina State University.

Being able to tell cute anime chicks to bug off, among other things, is one of the objectives of this technology - to enable the user fulfill thier own objectives within the given game world (wrt games) or the realm described in the interactive narrative.

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BTW, what school are we talking about? This sounds like a really intersting class.

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UNC Greensboro. (Go Spartans! Or whatever)

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

Here''s another approach. Rather than trying to come up with clever ways for an AI to auto-generate a story, why not come up with better mechanisms through which real storytellers (I mean, professional writers and not just people who think they have a good story idea) can tell stories in games.

That isn''t meant to sound snarky. I just think part of the problem is we have such archaic and clumsy methods for telling stories in games, especially with dialogue. There is a lot of research being done in communications theory around this idea. If you want to find ways to tell stories in games, look into some of this work, a lot of which is being done at MIT.

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Original post by Tacit
Here''s another approach. Rather than trying to come up with clever ways for an AI to auto-generate a story, why not come up with better mechanisms through which real storytellers (I mean, professional writers and not just people who think they have a good story idea) can tell stories in games.

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Well, our focus isn''t specifically games (and the course title does have the term Artificial Intelligence in it). However, I agree. The problem is that human storytelling is inherently linear and therefore restricts the level of interactivity. Writers will of course be needed to create scenarios for the various plot nodes/points, but stringing them together coherently is where the AI would come into play. If you had just 16 plot nodes, which you could revisit, and no limit to sequence length then you''d have an infinite number of potential stories - all created from the same basic elements. Sure, some of them would be absolutely "boring" (if the user kept revisiting the same nodes, for example) but could have the environmental "drama" of a National Geographic article series.

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That isn''t meant to sound snarky. I just think part of the problem is we have such archaic and clumsy methods for telling stories in games, especially with dialogue. There is a lot of research being done in communications theory around this idea. If you want to find ways to tell stories in games, look into some of this work, a lot of which is being done at MIT.

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Again, the focus isn''t specifically games. As per the dialog issue, however, the inherent limitation I see is the fact that the dialog is pre-written, the objectives are predetermined, the characters are preconceived and their potential relationships predestined. With this system, should it ever be implemented, the user would be presented with an environment and a basic premise (say, Middle Earth and there is a new dark menace). The user may choose to seek out more information on this menace - or run for the mountains and spend his/her lifetime exploring them and cultivating the forests there. Absolute flexibility.

Say the user then has a change of heart and decides to go find out what the menace had come to. Well, the world would have advanced without him/her - landscapes may have changed, horrors may have transpired, rebellions and resistances may have been forged and crushed depending on how long we dallied in the mountains. Just a short while ago a classmate and I were discussing a model for inter-personal relationships in interactive media that would tie in strongly with this.

As you can see, the objective is divergent from the current trend in games, which is why I continually stress that this is not about games. The methods and technology being developed may not be applicable to consumer entertainment/media for a good while yet.

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

Have you read anything about Chris Crawford''s Erasmotron ? It''s something of an inverse/analogue approach to the problem of interactive fiction.

Just my gut-level response,
ld

Anybody got any links to any of this stuff? Sounds very useful for what I''m doing...

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Oluseyi, my comments were not related to your course specifically, but the subject in general.

You raise some good points, but if you take your concept of story nodes and expand the scope to the extent where a node becomes a level of a game, you have a lot more possibilities for what you can do with storytelling. Add to that a simple but effective system for dynamic behaviour-driven dialogue (through trees, not strictly AI -- no chatterbots), and you''ve got something entirely different.

This is the system I''m exploring. It works in theory, but has yet to be proven in practice.

R.

Erasmatron

HTH,
ld

Tacit, I realized that you were speaking more of games. I like your ideas.

As for the nodes as levels, I''m thinking more of event nodes to signify what happened, when and where (and who was involved). A level is a geographical location, and is unimportant in and of itself; it is what transpires at that location that creates story/drama/tension/etc. Locations could (should!) be dynamic, responding to events. By this I mean, the installment of a despotic tyrant would probably lead to widespread poverty, so buildings would begin to fall into disrepair and people would look more gaunt, etc. See Black & White''s implementation of responsive environment wrt how you rule/reign/govern your world.

As yet, there aren''t too many course materials (this being the first offering), but I plan to continuously update this thread with more information and references as they evolve in class. The existing tools (being developed and used at other institutions, notably MIT and CMU) are Alice, Unreal Tournament and Quake. What I find rather displeasing is the overemphasis on graphics, as though too many of the "researchers" in this field are really hobbyist game developers. My programming partner suggested building an application that turned out dynamic screenplays per user input rather than bothering with graphics, focusing more on content right now but the professor wasn''t too enthusiastic. Alice sucks, IMO, so UT it is...

I''ll keep y''all posted.

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

I understand the directed graph and the feedback but are u saying the feedback is used to keep the reader interested in the main plot (the linearity u spoke of) or to dynamically generate a plot for the main character/s that is to the readers liking?

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Original post by Infinisearch
I understand the directed graph and the feedback but are u saying the feedback is used to keep the reader interested in the main plot (the linearity u spoke of) or to dynamically generate a plot for the main character/s that is to the readers liking?

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The second option. The objective is to dismiss the need for prewritten plots.

What is a plot? A sequence of occurences with some form of correlation, and preferrably some dramatic drive. The tools of plot are setting (location, time, witnesses, etc) and interaction (who did/said what to whom). If we can create environments that supply the first, and the user supplies the second, then why can''t we develop coherent and powerful plots from that? That''s the objective here. I''m trying to define a system that allows you to throw in a bunch of "plot nodes" and then "smooth" them together into a dramatic arc (kinda like how control points define a bezier spline).

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

Interesting, but in the context of single player games, i guess u would still need a overall goal. i.e. kill the evil overlord... In massive multiplayer i think this would be perfect, assuming u could still inject static nodes to start new plots sub-plots. It is similar to an idea I had about a dynamic history tree.

Where one database of event information is shared for all characters. But access is regulated by character AI, where the data is also modified through modifiers. Not the original data of course, remember the game telephone think of it as each step being a function. The modifiers distort data and can be composited and inherited. For example if person A witnessed an event, depending on that persons knowlege of related topics (the modifier for firsthand interpretation) would interpret that event a certain way. ("The Drought killed my crops the water god is angry", versus "The boss must''ve shut down the water supply again because the peasants were gettin a little to confident) Then second hand information could be a weighted balance between the a relationship modifier, and personal knowlege, and previous knowlege of that event if present.

I think this would really contribute to gameplay. I never really believed in "NPC''s". Any character around could and should become involved in plots/sub-plots if touched by an event/the main character. Just like in real life that doesn''t mean most people will go crazy but this would lend to things like a shopkeeper smuggling weapons to rebels in a occupied village... And following your train of thought could be weaved into a greater plot, based on which plot/sub-plot characters the player takes interest in.

-potential energy is easily made kinetic-

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Original post by Infinisearch
Interesting, but in the context of single player games, i guess u would still need a overall goal. i.e. kill the evil overlord...

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Why?

Why should I kill the evil overlord? What if I don''t want to? What if I just want to live quietly in the valley, ekeing a living out of the land? What if I''m too scared to "fulfill my destiny"? Why should I not be able to explore this exquisite virtual world because some fool designer thought I absolutely had to go off murdering goblins and freeing the world?

That''s the real fun part. Yes, there will be a basic motive and stimulus, but we wont require the user to advance at all! If you so prefer, you can just stay right where you are and do nothing. Eat, sleep, marry, have kids, grow old and die. The universe may forever be lost to evil, or "the Ancients" may have had a contigency plan; what do I care?

Also keep in mind that these techniques are being developed within the purview of interactive drama/narrative. To be applied in games they may need to be modified. But just as a thought, I would rather have run around Liberty City exploring than taking on jobs from various people. So what if I never got (and never get) past level 1?

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Where one database of event information is shared for all characters. But access is regulated by character AI, where the data is also modified through modifiers. Not the original data of course, remember the game telephone think of it as each step being a function. The modifiers distort data and can be composited and inherited. For example if person A witnessed an event, depending on that persons knowlege of related topics (the modifier for firsthand interpretation) would interpret that event a certain way. ("The Drought killed my crops the water god is angry", versus "The boss must''ve shut down the water supply again because the peasants were gettin a little to confident) Then second hand information could be a weighted balance between the a relationship modifier, and personal knowlege, and previous knowlege of that event if present.

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I like this. I like it a lot!

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I never really believed in "NPC''s". Any character around could and should become involved in plots/sub-plots if touched by an event/the main character.

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A worthy mantra.

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

"Why?"
Well like I said, it was more in the context of single player games. But in truth it was a statement i didn't want to say. Complete freedom would great, but its not linear story i was aiming at. It was the threads that make up the fabric. While u can sit and live on the country in peace if u want, but the consequence in the game should follow real life... the evil will come to u. I'm not saying don't explore the world or admire it, i'm saying multilple plots and subplots should be presented to the player either directly or indirectly and the player should be able to choose whatever... But i also think the world should go on whether or not the player chooses to interact, and be prepared to deal with the consequences.

"But just as a thought, I would rather have run around Liberty City exploring than taking on jobs from various people. So what if I never got (and never get) past level 1?"

I'm not suggesting levels but lets say you run around exploring, and a sub-plot appears. A character u meet kid got kiddnapped, u save the kid. Mind u this hasn't nothing to do with the main plot. U make a name for yourself, trouble might come to u, or maybe people will start asking for your help. Eventually u piss off a local gang enough to declare u a problem that has to be dealt with. Kill or be killed, but damn this local gang boss reported directly to the mayor of liberty city. Now whether this was fact when u started playing the game isn't necessarily true, but it can't be proved or disproved, and voila u have magically finished "level" 1. U are also blinked into existence in the mind of the mayor who now has your description.

"I like this. I like it a lot!"

Thanks, so do I. Tell me what your teacher thinks of it too. The reason I looked at the problem like this is because a database for each character would be to big. What i'm suggesting would be pretty big too, but high order thought on this level does not need to occur on a frame by frame basis. There are some other things to my method but my post is too long as it is. In truth if combined with the idea in the annotated objects thread I really think one can provide a truely immersive world that the player can get lost in.

So when do we start coding? lol
EDIT- By the way does stuff like this and the annotated objects belong in the AI forum?

-potential energy is easily made kinetic-

Edited by - Infinisearch on January 20, 2002 10:12:32 PM

Edited by - Infinisearch on January 21, 2002 4:50:03 PM

I don''t think that invalidates the whole idea. Rather, it just alters the way you need to approach it. Perhaps the system should generate the ''ending'' first and work backwards from there.

From a technical point of view, the node-graph idea is interesting - but what about taking it a step further, and making it extensible, via the internet? Downloading new nodes...

Oh, and as for the milieu game stuff: Myst...

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates
- sleeps in a ham-mock at www.thebinaryrefinery.cjb.net

Edited by - superpig on January 21, 2002 11:22:34 AM

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Original post by Kylotan
...Perhaps the system should generate the ''ending'' first and work backwards from there.

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But wasn''t the original goal to reduce the deterministic nature of the storyline structure? It''s all very well and good to use this method to create storylines that change each time around, that is essentially no different from randomly generating maps of important places.

The problem here, as I understand it, is the lack of dynamic storyline progression, wherein the actions of those involved matter significantly. Using a method such as the one Oluseyi and Infinisearch are suggesting it is likely that an action-driven story could be produced, this to me would be a tremendous achievement. Even if the system randomly generates an ending, the player''s actions cannot fall outside the ending given. Multiple endings are still discrete summations of events that will form predefined paths. The incredible power behind the system (as I see it) is that there are no discreet finales.

It is much like the difference between the set of all integers and the set of all real numbers. One is inferior to the other for it is lacking in the way of many gaps that beg to be filled.

JSwing: To tie into what you''re saying, your points are very valid, and only time will tell which one of us is more right (if there even is such a thing), but I will contribute this as a counter-arguement:

In constructing a storyline for purposes of static, linear entertainment (such as a book or movie) it is indeed very true that a major thematic plot-arc should formulate the ''nodes'' of plot progression, however, this is (in as much as my personal experience has demonstrated) not how life works, and in creating this structure, our colleagues endeavor to move computer games more towards a reflection of what life and experience itself may offer us in terms of shaping our reality around our actions. The beauty of the system is that no-one (including the designers) really can be sure of the outcome, which, I believe, is how life progresses for all people.

What''s more, without a central theme, the players are left to form their own thoughts about what happened. To me this is paramount, because all experiences carry their own internal lesson, which varies on a per-person basis.

The only problem I percieve thus far is that the depth I speak of will be very hard to make feasible.

George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

Symphonic:

You are a genius! You have fully comprehended the objective, and you have also taken the words right out of my mouth to respond to JSwing (and probably phrased them better than I could have). Thank you!

Writers write specifically to convey a particular sequence of developments, instances that propel the reader/plot/central figure towards a specific conclusion. Their insights, while valuable in general, are virtually completely unapplicable in this arena. Here, we are trying to make all plot decisions the responsibility of the user/reader. We want the user to decide what dramatic (or not) courses of action to pursue, which environments to explore and which to breeze through. We want to give them total flexibility.

Over the course of the next 3 months, we''ll be developing our ideas constantly, and I''ll probably be working on a text-based implementation that generates scenes in the form of screenplays. I think that''s the most reasonable and efficient way to pursue this ideal at this point in time, as graphics tends to clutter the objective. Hopefully this thread will remain a source of criticism, discussion, insight and analysis.

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

Well, maybe my last post showed that I don''t really understand Does someone want to explain this in layman''s terms? I still don''t see at all how you can generate a storyline from what a player does. Are you saying it searches for some sort of correlation between past events and information seeded into the world to try and find something that resembles a story, and then elaborates on it by placing other information into the world? I think it all just seems a little too abstract to me right now

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