Re: Describing climax
Risk is part of the concept that explains the origin of the model. In a story, you know that the hero will not take the risk unless it is close to the climax. To create a climax in the player is similar to driving the player to take a risk. The amount of risk that the player is willing to take is proportional to the intensity of the situation. The intensity of the situation can be quantified by the distance to resource ratio. If the system can measure the current intensity, then the system can generate the appropriate operations. Therefore, the design becomes a design of variables and their dynamics, such that the distance, resource, direction of movement, and operation can be well-defined and understood by the system in terms of their effects on the intensity of the story.
Re: Episodic design
Based on this quantitative intensity model, an episode design naturally follows by periodically limit the resource the player may accumulate.
[Edit: removed the examples and shortened the post]
[Edited by - Estok on July 23, 2005 11:59:32 PM]
Automated storytelling and interactive plot in games
For action in story, watch all of the Die Hard movies back-to-back, then come back and explain that 'risk factor' again! ;)
@ Trapper Zoid -
I completely agree with what you're refering to about what the audience expects in terms of story. The hero is supposed to win. Games, on the other hand, account for when the hero isn't winning, as well as when there are multiple heros.
But, there is a type of story which mixes both of these elements, that's an epic. RPGs follow the guidelines set by epics. A good example comes in the form of Romeo And Juliet. The hero isn't exactly destined to win, it's the outcome of the story which makes for the dramatic climax.
Examples like the one above are where the audience's expectations are challenged the most. After all, the hero is only the hero when s/he is fully willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for that which they fight for.
Define "compelling" within your story structure and I shall tell you I have in mine, compelling enough for billions!
- Ronixus
"Ronixus - To know what thou doust not know."
@ Trapper Zoid -
I completely agree with what you're refering to about what the audience expects in terms of story. The hero is supposed to win. Games, on the other hand, account for when the hero isn't winning, as well as when there are multiple heros.
But, there is a type of story which mixes both of these elements, that's an epic. RPGs follow the guidelines set by epics. A good example comes in the form of Romeo And Juliet. The hero isn't exactly destined to win, it's the outcome of the story which makes for the dramatic climax.
Examples like the one above are where the audience's expectations are challenged the most. After all, the hero is only the hero when s/he is fully willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for that which they fight for.
Define "compelling" within your story structure and I shall tell you I have in mine, compelling enough for billions!
- Ronixus
"Ronixus - To know what thou doust not know."
Author
Quote:Original post by Ronixus
I completely agree with what you're refering to about what the audience expects in terms of story. The hero is supposed to win. Games, on the other hand, account for when the hero isn't winning, as well as when there are multiple heros.
Well, most games deal with losing by ending the game with a "Game Over" screen, not by having the hero lose in a story sense. I don't really consider just having the heroes being defeated and forcing the player to reload as "losing" from a story sense; if losing were to be incorporated in a story sense then the story would still go on.
Quote:
But, there is a type of story which mixes both of these elements, that's an epic. RPGs follow the guidelines set by epics. A good example comes in the form of Romeo And Juliet. The hero isn't exactly destined to win, it's the outcome of the story which makes for the dramatic climax.
Examples like the one above are where the audience's expectations are challenged the most. After all, the hero is only the hero when s/he is fully willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for that which they fight for.
This is true. The epic is the model that best fits the RPG structure, and it is possible in epics for the hero to die as part of story (in fact, don't most of the heroes die in epics, mainly because the epic stories consist of an entire chronicle of the hero's life? I suppose that could be considered a series of stories based on a particular hero, however).
I'm not sure if Romeo and Juliet is the best example of this, as it is a Shakepearean tragedy (and in those I expect the hero to die at the end), but a powerful story can definitely be created by deliberately "breaking the rules" (such as that bit in The Princess Bride where Wesley "dies"). I'm thinking that this might be a bit advanced for a first attempt at a story generator, however, as it involves deep understanding as to which rules it is best to break. However, even epics and tragedies follow familiar enough patterns for their emulation in a story grammar to be possible, suggesting that these story types can be used in a story generator.
Quote:
Define "compelling" within your story structure and I shall tell you I have in mine, compelling enough for billions!
A good question, and one which I find difficult to answer! I guess I define "compelling" to mean interesting enough to me to consider it a good story. Most good story-based games have a compelling enough story to me, but most of the generated stuff is too weak to be considered compelling. I guess if I care about the characters and their goals and situations then I would consdier the story "compelling".
I disagree, the epic is not the best story type for building RPGs around, it's just the one which has been used the most often. Assuming there is a best story type for RPGs, it would probably be that of the first-person wish-fulfillment/escapism Mary Sue/Marty Stu fanfiction. And most players would be seriously upset if you ended the game with a failure to achieve the major goal - the main character's death is only acceptable if it happens after the goal is achieved, or as a necessary sacrifice to enable the goal to be achieved.
Author
Quote:Original post by sunandshadow
I disagree, the epic is not the best story type for building RPGs around, it's just the one which has been used the most often. Assuming there is a best story type for RPGs, it would probably be that of the first-person wish-fulfillment/escapism Mary Sue/Marty Stu fanfiction. And most players would be seriously upset if you ended the game with a failure to achieve the major goal - the main character's death is only acceptable if it happens after the goal is achieved, or as a necessary sacrifice to enable the goal to be achieved.
I was thinking that the epic was the best match due to (as you've said) it's present use, but also due to it's length and capability to be broken down into several substories. But I suppose that any model will be capable of being presented as an RPG if I think about it. However since automated storytelling systems are generally fine-tuned only represent one story type it would be best to decide on which type we wish to have in our games in order to build our systems accordingly.
I'm a bit unfamiliar with the scope of fanfiction; I thought that most would generally follow the same literary style as the fiction they were based on. Wouldn't an RPG style fanfiction also follow an epic type?
However I do agree that the audience would be very annoyed if the main goal of the story was not achieved; the death of the main character is only acceptable if it is a sacrifice or if there is a secondary character to take up the mantle of the main character to accomplish the goal.
Actually no, the plot type of a fanfiction bears little to no relation to the original fiction it is based on. They are almost never epics. They (talking about Mary Sue ones in particular now) are generally first person (whereas epics are always third person). Mary Sue fanfictions generally have the main character (player) giving other characters advice and helping solve their personal problems, as well as kicking ass in both combat and mental challenges. Although they don't start out kicking ass, they usually start out dropped cluelessly into a new world they must explore, suddenly gaining a new special ability they must learn to use, and/or presented with a new group of people they must form relationships with. The main character's personality is presented as being the key to solving the major problem of the story.
The purpose of this type of story is theraputic and affirming: The player gets an opportunity to be an idealized version of themselves, fulfill various wishes, and feel powerful, clever, attractive, heroic. Gameplay generally includes giving oneself a customized stylish appearance and posessions, being flatteringly begged for help, benevolently helping (via wise advice and heroic deed), receiving slavish gratitude for helping, seducing one or more NPCs, kicking annoying NPCs' asses, getting admired for kicking ass, solving puzzles, getting rewarded for being smart, and exploring some interesting worldbuilding aspect such as transforming into an animal or learning to use a new magic power.
This type of story is much superior to the epic for the purpose of interactive storytelling because it is more essentially interactive - the main action is allowing the player to explore, experience, and play with the objects in the world, rather than focusing heavily on making a journey and defeating a big bad guy, which impose a stereotypical heroic personality on the player rather than letting them be themselves.
The purpose of this type of story is theraputic and affirming: The player gets an opportunity to be an idealized version of themselves, fulfill various wishes, and feel powerful, clever, attractive, heroic. Gameplay generally includes giving oneself a customized stylish appearance and posessions, being flatteringly begged for help, benevolently helping (via wise advice and heroic deed), receiving slavish gratitude for helping, seducing one or more NPCs, kicking annoying NPCs' asses, getting admired for kicking ass, solving puzzles, getting rewarded for being smart, and exploring some interesting worldbuilding aspect such as transforming into an animal or learning to use a new magic power.
This type of story is much superior to the epic for the purpose of interactive storytelling because it is more essentially interactive - the main action is allowing the player to explore, experience, and play with the objects in the world, rather than focusing heavily on making a journey and defeating a big bad guy, which impose a stereotypical heroic personality on the player rather than letting them be themselves.
@ sunshadow -
Here is the difference I see:
In an epic, the audience percieves the role(s) in question and the story focuses on what happens to that/those role(s).
In what you've described, the role is a jack-of-all-trades, which is still not allowing the audience to "be themselves" as you've stated, just that they can enforce specifics about the role. It also seems to have an "I win" feel to it, which I guess is satisfactory for the most part, but it makes for a rather cheesy story without any actual consequences, IMHO (the role will win, rather than can win).
Some things that led me to the conclusions for story generation using DDS:
- Locations may consist of objects.
- Objects are always located somewhere.
- Characters use both locations and objects through the use of actions.
- Everything has details (locations, objects, and characters).
- Specific details pertain to specific locations, the objects there, and the characters there who may use or posses the objects.
- Details may be modified by characters.
- Information, pertaining to details about anything, may be used by characters or placed by characters in/on objects.
- Characters have and may display emotions.
- Emotions can effect a character's actions.
- Emotions have details.
- Emotions of one character can effect any amount of others.
- Emotional details may be applied to the physical details of anything.
The list can go on, but these things are what led me to derivitive data structures and the throughput of them into interaction and story generation. ;)
Thoughts?
- Ronixus
Here is the difference I see:
In an epic, the audience percieves the role(s) in question and the story focuses on what happens to that/those role(s).
In what you've described, the role is a jack-of-all-trades, which is still not allowing the audience to "be themselves" as you've stated, just that they can enforce specifics about the role. It also seems to have an "I win" feel to it, which I guess is satisfactory for the most part, but it makes for a rather cheesy story without any actual consequences, IMHO (the role will win, rather than can win).
Some things that led me to the conclusions for story generation using DDS:
- Locations may consist of objects.
- Objects are always located somewhere.
- Characters use both locations and objects through the use of actions.
- Everything has details (locations, objects, and characters).
- Specific details pertain to specific locations, the objects there, and the characters there who may use or posses the objects.
- Details may be modified by characters.
- Information, pertaining to details about anything, may be used by characters or placed by characters in/on objects.
- Characters have and may display emotions.
- Emotions can effect a character's actions.
- Emotions have details.
- Emotions of one character can effect any amount of others.
- Emotional details may be applied to the physical details of anything.
The list can go on, but these things are what led me to derivitive data structures and the throughput of them into interaction and story generation. ;)
Thoughts?
- Ronixus
Hi all,
I did that thesis (OPIATE etc.) you mentioned earlier, and am chuffed to see my work mentioned in such an enlightened discussion. Alfred(Vanquish) gave me a link to this thread.
One thing I wanted to do in my work was to defend Propp's theory from the many criticisms it gets from people, so his *other* book comes highly reccommended.
All of your own projects do indeed seem to have grown out of the same collectively perceived need for interactive stories. I think we all just want to play one of these things!
The challenges inherent in MMOGs make it all the more challenging, but I do think that some kind of a client-side AI-story-manager-thing that handles each player's personal hero's journey would be kinda cool. This fits in with the Epic style of storytelling, where there are numerous heroes (at least, that's what I thought the Epic was about).
I believe stories are about escapism, but only to the extent that we can return to reality having learnt something. It's this bit that is really challenging to me. I have no idea how to translate that indefinable soul and meaningful essence of a story to a computer-readable grammar. It's this sense that the job will never really be done, that attracted me to this problem in the first place. I'd hate to see someone just announce 'Okay, that's the interactive story problem solved, everybody go home...'
I did that thesis (OPIATE etc.) you mentioned earlier, and am chuffed to see my work mentioned in such an enlightened discussion. Alfred(Vanquish) gave me a link to this thread.
One thing I wanted to do in my work was to defend Propp's theory from the many criticisms it gets from people, so his *other* book comes highly reccommended.
All of your own projects do indeed seem to have grown out of the same collectively perceived need for interactive stories. I think we all just want to play one of these things!
The challenges inherent in MMOGs make it all the more challenging, but I do think that some kind of a client-side AI-story-manager-thing that handles each player's personal hero's journey would be kinda cool. This fits in with the Epic style of storytelling, where there are numerous heroes (at least, that's what I thought the Epic was about).
I believe stories are about escapism, but only to the extent that we can return to reality having learnt something. It's this bit that is really challenging to me. I have no idea how to translate that indefinable soul and meaningful essence of a story to a computer-readable grammar. It's this sense that the job will never really be done, that attracted me to this problem in the first place. I'd hate to see someone just announce 'Okay, that's the interactive story problem solved, everybody go home...'
Author
sunandshadow:
Ah, I see what you mean about fanfiction; I have read a few of those types of stories before and I do see the parallel between them and potential RPG stories. However, I do think these stories are closely related to the epic, or specially the hero tales that were popular from the classic oral storytellers of old (the tales of Greek heroes, Gilgamesh, Siegfried, Robin Hood etc.), although the hero tales also usually offer character flaws and setbacks for the hero, something which is rarely present in fanfiction (which is its major failing as a literature genre, in my opinion).
However, I still think that in theory, it should be possible to emulate any story structure as a basis for a story generation system. It is just that because we are used to the epic "quest" structure as the basis of game stories that it is easier to conceptualise what is required for that type of story in our present systems. Also, because of its roots in oral storytelling, there is a well defined strucure present that was needed for the memorisation of the story type that makes it easier to define for computer systems.
Chris Fairclough (anonymous poster above):
Nice to see you in this thread! I agree with your defence of Propp; beside he wasn't really advocating a story generation system at all, really a classification system for Russian folktales (which share so many similarities to each other I can see the desire for such a system).
And I also agree that deep down we all really just want to see one of the storytelling systems exist! Also I agree that that it will never be a "solved" problem. Much as a human writer will get better with more experience, so will any compuer based storytelling system. I'm just hoping I can make one of these things myself up to a standard that I'm proud of!
Ah, I see what you mean about fanfiction; I have read a few of those types of stories before and I do see the parallel between them and potential RPG stories. However, I do think these stories are closely related to the epic, or specially the hero tales that were popular from the classic oral storytellers of old (the tales of Greek heroes, Gilgamesh, Siegfried, Robin Hood etc.), although the hero tales also usually offer character flaws and setbacks for the hero, something which is rarely present in fanfiction (which is its major failing as a literature genre, in my opinion).
However, I still think that in theory, it should be possible to emulate any story structure as a basis for a story generation system. It is just that because we are used to the epic "quest" structure as the basis of game stories that it is easier to conceptualise what is required for that type of story in our present systems. Also, because of its roots in oral storytelling, there is a well defined strucure present that was needed for the memorisation of the story type that makes it easier to define for computer systems.
Chris Fairclough (anonymous poster above):
Nice to see you in this thread! I agree with your defence of Propp; beside he wasn't really advocating a story generation system at all, really a classification system for Russian folktales (which share so many similarities to each other I can see the desire for such a system).
And I also agree that deep down we all really just want to see one of the storytelling systems exist! Also I agree that that it will never be a "solved" problem. Much as a human writer will get better with more experience, so will any compuer based storytelling system. I'm just hoping I can make one of these things myself up to a standard that I'm proud of!
Re: meaningful designs
You can imagine that the system is trying to dynamically convince the player.
[Edited by - Estok on July 27, 2005 4:31:25 AM]
Quote:Original post by Anonymous PosterThis is quantitative semantic composition, where the terrain is the exploration of the message, the distance is gap between the semantic states of the player and the goal, the resource is questions that the game and the player prompts, and the movements (operations) are situations that allow the player to answer, to move on the semantic terrain.
I believe stories are about escapism, but only to the extent that we can return to reality having learnt something. It's this bit that is really challenging to me. I have no idea how to translate that indefinable soul and meaningful essence of a story to a computer-readable grammar.
You can imagine that the system is trying to dynamically convince the player.
[Edited by - Estok on July 27, 2005 4:31:25 AM]
This topic is closed to new replies.
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