Quote:Original post by Jotaf

Well, I'd just use some common sense when tuning those values. But you're right, it should be different for different people. Maybe just like there's a "difficulty" setting, there could be an "action" setting, where these values are scaled towards a more calm game flow, or an action-packed experience with all hell breaking lose and things blowing up all the time.

Tied with a system that tracks down what the player likes to do the most, the things that are thrown at the player would be what he finds the most interesting and thus, would make the game less boring.

Yep, that's pretty much how I'd design the system, as a series of sliding values for the different gameplay components of the system (stuff like 'action', 'puzzles' etc., this would be heavily dependant on the type of game).

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This reminds me of another issue, what if the player is really bad at fixing his ship's engine, so he has to keep fixing it all the time, and the game thinks that this is what he likes to do?

A very good point. I think the best way around this is to always present the player at least two ways of dealing with every problem. In this case, I'd give the player the option of hiring a mechanic to do all the engine fixing for you, to allow the alternatives for the player to prepare their battle plans, or play Gin Rummy with the first mate, or whatever.

My gut feeling is that, theoretically, you could make an entire game using plots created by the types of interactions described so far. Realistically, the resources required to create such a system aren't attainable, especially in independent game development. I think these interactions can be used much better.

However, these types of character interactions would make an absolutely fantastic subplot/mini-game running throughout a larger plot. Consider all the billion RPGs where you either A) are given party members who share a common goal or B) can acquire party members who have nothing to do with your goal. What if, instead, you have a running mini-game throughout the entire larger game consisting of trying to recruit people? This could both include specfic people (playable characters and important NPCs) and generic helpers.

Suppose that the game universe is composed of a large number of NPCs who could potentially join your cause. Every NPC in the game has a threshold for when they will join any given cause (a measurement of how active and engaged this person is). This includes your cause and any other cause. As the game goes on, your actions, the actions of other characters, and pre-planned events cause NPCs to change their interest in your cause and other causes. When the NPC's interest level passes the threshold, it will take some action (a key point here; that action can be any number of things, not just joining/not joing your party; many things could happen if you design situations where different NPCs can be simultaneously persuaded to commit to different causes).

An action changing their interest could be anything from you bravely defying the evil empire, to thier parents being killed, to you behaving well or badly, or to them being paid by you or another party. To get people to join you, you'd have to figure out what motivates that person and then perform that action. (For example, if you're trying to get some crusader for justice to join you, paying him/her might actually make him not want to join you). If you kill too many innocents during an attack, some NPCs might be inclined to start fighting against you and not help you.

Characters who must be on your team would simply be weighted to have a very high interest in your cause; the villain would have an equally high interest in his cause.

A system like this would include sub-alliances, backstabbing, etc. (characters could belong to more than one cause at once, and could also pretend to belong to a cause they actually oppose).

There are all sorts of variants - some characters could be mutually exclusive (e.g. some NPCs hate each other, so if A joins you, B never will, no matter what). During the denouement, when you get to see how you've helped the world, you can see what specifically happened with the people who joined you.


I suppose my thoughts aren't tremendously different from what other people have put, but I think this strategy is more easily implemented than creating complex, autonomous behavior. There wouldn't be a lot of complex programming; just decisions to be made about weights for the various characters and potential events and scripting for what the characters should do if they pass a given threshold.

Blargh, what you've described was done in one of my favourite RPG series, Baldur's Gate and its sequel (although not quite to the level you proposed). Although not strictly required, NPCs all have their own agendas which you have to fulfil to keep them in your group, and sometimes they'd clash (occasionally violently). Also there were pairs of NPCs whose personalities were so diametrically opposed that they wouldn't stay in the same group for long. One of the best RPGs ever, that was.

But even the approach of heavily scripted characters will start to break down once you throw interactivity with respect to major plot changes into the mix. Unless you have some generic notion of character, heavily scripted NPCs become exponentially more difficult to write dependant on the number of NPCs and the length of the game.

I'm still all for generating the entire plot through these interactions. This makes it a much more powerful representation for interactively manipulating the story.

Quote:Original post by Wavinator
But wait a second: Baldur's Gate was limited to alignment checks that generated comments like "I'm leaving if he stays" or "I knew there was something I liked about you," wasn't it? There was no low level interaction between characters. You never had, for instance, one character declaring that another stole something back in town, or take you aside and confide that another character's acting strange, right?

In the sequel, Baldur's Gate II, there was some discussion between the characters, they'd chip in at various points in the quests, and there was a lot of bickering between the various choices of love interests, but for what I remember; there wasn't anything quite that deep. That's why I think it's not to the level we are talking about here.

However, if the characters are acting from scripts, it will be very hard to get something of epic length that has a huge amount of interaction between the characters.

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What about using basic logic mixed with very short scripts? Combat AI is often driven this way. There is some notion of sensing and assessment, often real-time but sometimes planning (harder to do).

Combat has associated action verbs: Dodge, close, retreat, attack. Often, AI in FPS games makes some assessment and then runs short scripts which corresponds to these actions.

It might be possible to ask what plot verbs would be, and then ask how you would recognize the state of affairs in order to do an assessment of which script to run.

Yes, this is exactly what I think needs to be done. Short scripts, with basic AI logic controlling what happen with the characters, can be fed into a more complex system of interactivity quite well (at least that's what I think!)

But as you say, it's about working out the representation require to model plot in such a way that these characters will work.

There's also the problem of 'cookie cutter characters' which arises when short scripts are used with multiple characters (kind of like the NPCs in Morrowind, for those who've played it). I'm not sure on the best way around that.

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I'm still all for generating the entire plot through these interactions. This makes it a much more powerful representation for interactively manipulating the story.

I'm more for generating the plot through scripted plot fragments, and then fitting the characters around that. But I guess that's more a plot-focused approach to story than the character-focused one, and both have produced great works of literature, so I think both could theoretically work.

I think we need to try to define the terms we are using, such as plot, what does it mean (in the context of traditional media) so we know what it means in games

Quote:Original post by Wavinator
At least, when I think minigame, I'm still thinking closer to the OP, where the characters are capable of generating actions which, when taken as a whole, we normally think of as plot-- maybe not a good plot, but at least a series of coherent events with a driving motivation and conflict (as Ketcheval pointed out in a post awhile back).

Some randomly chosen definitions
Definitions are taken from
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&q=define:plot


http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_p.htm
Plot: In literary criticism, this term refers to the pattern of events in a narrative or drama. In its simplest sense, the plot guides the author in composing the work and helps the reader follow the work. Typically, plots exhibit causality and unity and have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Sometimes, however, a plot may consist of a series of disconnected events, in which case it is known as an "episodic plot."
In his Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster distinguishes between a story, defined as a "narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence," and plot, which organizes the events to a "sense of causality." This definition closely mirrors Aristotle's discussion of plot in his Poetics.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/terms/2terms.html#Plot
The structure of a story. Or the sequence in which the author arranges events in a story. The structure of a five-act play often includes the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. The plot may have a protagonist who is opposed by antagonist, creating what is called, conflict. A plot may include flashback or it may include a subplot which is a mirror image of the main plot. For example, in Shakespeare's, "King Lear," the relation ship between the Earl of Gloucester and his sons mirrors the relationship between Lear and his daughters

http://www.scriptsales.com/DDFundTerms.html

plot - the events that drive a story forwards towards its conclusion.

plot point - a key turning point in the events of a story.

1) Any list of cues for effects used in the play. 2) The fundamental thread that runs through a story, providing the reason for the actions of the characters.
www.dramatic.com.au/glossary/glossaryp_z.htm


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From this we can see that story is the events arranged in chronological order,plot points are key turning points in a story, plot is typically arranged around the *motivations of characters*.

In a game, the player is active, and can interact with other characters so may be able to deform thread to an extent. *Within the bounds that the game allows* -the designer can limit the interactions within reasonable bounds, ie. stop the player randomly killing off NPCs (because this causes lots of logistical and narrative problems).

(Oh yeah, and I'd like to see games where you can interact with the plot as seamlessly as you fight in Prince of Persia, ie. you can interact in small ways every few seconds and take the experience in a different direction via gameplay. However, this is a pipe-dream for the moment. Ie. as leader of an expedition, you would be able to decide how to approach the task at hand, from the direction you take to get to the treasure, to how you deal with quarrels, maybe you could resign and let an NPC lead you, but suggest a different way to do things if they don't see it> no lets climb down these ropes and go in through the windows, the direct approach is too dangerous! Ah but is this actually plot- does it correspond with motivation?)

[Edited by - Ketchaval on July 7, 2005 8:58:47 AM]

Quote:Original post by Ketchaval

From this we can see that story is the events arranged in chronological order,plot points are key turning points in a story, plot is typically arranged around the *motivations of characters*.

I've always thought 'events arranged in chronological order' was too dry a depicition of story; a chronicle of events, rather than something deeper. Although I can agree with plot being the key turning points in a story. I'd put story as more the whole thing in it's entirety, as a more nebulous term. But I'm happy to agree to your definitions if it makes the ensuring discussion more understandable to all parties at large [grin].

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In a game, the player is active, and can interact with other characters so may be able to deform thread to an extent. *Within the bounds that the game allows* -the designer can limit the interactions within reasonable bounds, ie. stop the player randomly killing off NPCs (because this causes lots of logistical and narrative problems).

I especially like your addition to the discussion of the inherent limitations that must be imposed by the designer. This is pretty fundamentals to the nature of game design; defining what you can and can't do in the world, and then being consistent about it. I think if designing an interactive plot game is to be feasible, then defining an appropriate subset of all possible plot interactions to be implemented in the game would be the backbone of such a design.

Oh, and I'd like to play (and ultimately create) seamless plot interactive games too. It's just they're a total bastard to design and build.

I'll tell you if it's a story when I play the game, alright?