[MUD-Dev] A footnote to Procedural Storytelling

[Travis Nixon]

-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Axon <mysticranger at earthlink.net>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Monday, May 15, 2000 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] A footnote to Procedural Storytelling


>The final conclusions:
>A totally automated system is impossible and impractical because of chaotic
>player actions that a computer cannot understand in its decisions. However,
>a totally human controlled system is not preferable because the variety in
>stories and plots would be limited because the man in charge simply
wouldn't
>have time to create nearly as many interesting stories and quests as the
>computer would be able to.
>So, a guided dynamic world theoretically allows for and supports fair
>storytelling and experiences for all types of players, including those that
>just want to kill stuff, without taking away from the amount of stories to
>get involved in, the sense of uniqueness in each story and place, or the
>sense of accomplishment in affecting that story or place.
>
>Please do, someone, point out my errors in thinking. ;)


Well, there's no such thing as an error in thought, only errors in action,
but here are my thoughts. ;)

I wholeheartedly disagree that a totally automated system is impossible, but
I agree that for right now, it's impractical.  For large scale
world-changing events, human intervention is absolutely necessary.  Your
example of the slaying of the lich would be something I would classify as
hugely world-changing, so that would fall under the scope of being directed
by a GM.

This whole goblin tribes thing I brought up though isn't meant to be
anything even remotely like that.  I'd put it more akin to your love-letter
delivering quest, in terms of global impact.  I mean, we are talking about
three insignificant goblin tribes on an otherwise insignificant
mountainside.  The potential impact on the players interacting with the
goblins (be it by talking to them or killing them) is fairly large,
especially if they try to figure out what's going on before going in with
guns blazing (which happens to be something I would like to strongly
encourage...figuring out what's going on first, I mean, not going in with
guns blazing), but the impact on the world as a whole is practically nil.
Well, ok, that's not quite true.  Compared to the player's ability to impact
the world at all in the massive persistent games of today, even the ability
to become a "village hero" seems huge, but compared with some of the other
things I envision going on at the same time, this encounter truly is
insignificant, no matter how it turns out.  :)

Here is my goal, stated as simply as I can:  to create a system that can
automatically create stories/events/things to do that players will find
interesting, and to create enough of them that the world does not stagnate.
Now, that is not to say that this system would make up the entirety of the
world.  This is one part, one that would take the writers and designers away
from creating thousands of small scale events, and get them where they
belong, working on the large scale ones, the ones where even *I* won't argue
that a computer is capable of creating everything that is necessary without
at least some human input.




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