[MUD-Dev] A footnote to Procedural Storytelling

[J C Lawrence]

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On Wed, 3 May 2000 16:19:53 -0700  
Ian  <Hess> wrote:

> Automating the presentation of a variety of options seems to me
> only half the battle.  Unless the storytelling system itself is
> going to have a heuristic/AI engine of some sort, I think that the
> only way to have the game project an environment that is
> interesting to humans is to provide those humans the tools and
> opportunity to shape the environment.

There are a number of assumptions implicit in this statement that I
don't see have either been supported or recognised:

  -- That purely mechanicsl, or at least simple/predictable systems
cannot be durably entertaining or interesting.  Compare complex
systems: they have a tendency to be very interesting and yet are
comprised of simplistic and even trivial elements none of which have
any awareness of over-all state or behaviour outside of their own
sub-environment (very CA-style).

  -- That to develop a "story" a system must have some knowledge of
both itself and of the "story" it is developing, rather than the
"story", being an implict byproduct and and already explicit and
ordinary procedure.  What says that a story cannot be an accident or
incidental byproduct, or has in fact, to be produced by a system
which either has anything to do with, or knows anything about,
stories in the first place?

  -- That a purely mechanicslly produced environment is incapable of
remaining interesting to human players.  I actually agree with this
one due to my philosophic background, but I also don't see that this
is a point whose boundaries have either been well understood or
explored from this vantage.

None of these, as I understand, Selmet Bringsjord's brunt, lie
directly in the way of his argument, but they do question the
validity of his conclusion, especially once you add the elements of
audience and time into the picture.  

I'll leave the questions of audience to others, mostly since we are
assuming that this is (almost entirely) a first person affair (well, 
other than Skotos).

On time however, from my own observation, people will frequently and
extensively engage in activities (encl games) which are not much
fun, but which are very enjoyable in the recounting.  Interestingly
such activities are seemingly not as effective as the immediately
fun, BUT, they also seem to have a much greater stickiness factor in
generating repeat activity and in persuading others to also
participate (and later recount).

  I know a chap who is not particularly interested in
merry-go-rounds.  He has almost no interest in them at all.  Yet,
almost every year, for his vacation and sabatticals he treks to
various untravelled corners of the US to find, photograph, and
report on wooden horses for such devices, and once done, he comes
back, and goes and talks about them with a national fan club, writes
articles for the magazine, posts web pages, attends meetings, etc
etc etc, and much social activity and analytical work (on his part)
takes place surrounding his activities.  Yet, he really has no
interest in the horses or the merry-go-rounds in the first place.
He finds them boring.  Conversely, he loves talking about his trips,
and working over what he saw and found on those trips with the other
people in the club.  The pleasure is enough to prompt again every
year to his only vacation time and many thousands of dollars doing
something he somewhat despises on the promise or much pleasure for
the rest of the year...

  I've also had several long distance hikers comment similarly to
me: talking about the hikes afterward is much more of the fun than
the actual hike itself, and is often the reason they go: so they can
share in the recounting.

So if it is acceptable for the stories to be interesting only in
retrospective, that's a WHOLE other ballgame.  Janet Murray comments
on the live improv show only being entertaining for the
improvisationalists, and not the audience.  If our definition of
"acceptable" stories changes to enclude, "really good fun to tell
others about but boring at the time", what the heck ARE the metrics
of a "good story"?

--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...


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