[MUD-Dev] A footnote to Procedural Storytelling

[Lee Sheldon]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Travis Nixon
> Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2000 3:22 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] A footnote to Procedural Storytelling

> A typical TV show involves a handful of characters, and a
> single sequence of
> events.  Take a thousand TV shows every week, and you still
> haven't involved
> more than a small handful of the players.  That's a bad thing
> in my opinion.
> :)  And we won't even get into the issue of a tv series being
> hopelessly
> non-interactive.

Sigh.  My point has nothing to do with the number of characters, or how
television shows are constructed.  Sorry, we seem to be talking at
cross-purposes again.  And please, how did what I say get a response of TV
shows being non-interactive?  I mean, no kidding?  I'm simply trying to
point out that small groups of writers who write for a living manage to turn
out hundreds of pages per month.  What you hire them to put on those pages
is up to you.  You can try and claim that it's HARDER to write that amount
of volume for a persistent world, and I'd agree for one major reason:

People don't do it very much while TV writing is understood by many.  There
will be an ongoing educational effort to ramp up writers.

But impossible?  Nonsense.

> "quests" or, more
> broadly, "interesting things to do" of about that same
> complexity can, and
> should, come from some sort of dynamic, automated generation process.

There was an EA game a decade or more ago that generated quests for you.  I
think it had "Adventure" in the title, but was more RPG style.  Several
years ago the "Indiana Jones Table-Top Adventures" did a very similar thing.

It was Chinese menu time (shamelessly elaborated here):  The [monk] in
[Potsdam] needs a [clean child] to give to [Marlon Brando] so that he may
receive a [Porsche] in return.  Clean children may be found in [middle class
neighborhoods] of [First World Countries].  To find one you must [rescue] a
[puppy from the pound] and place it in a [robe of many colors], then
[advertise in the Village Voice].  When a [clean child] responds, IF the
[clean child] is [+3 in cleanliness], offer it [M&Ms] to go with you to the
[monk].  In return he will give you a [+5 Order of french fries] and a
[hearty handclasp].

Perfectly vaild for -some- "interesting things to do."  But by itself a
boring exercise that falls into its own repetitive rhythms.

> When I say a story per second, though, I'm not talking about
> giving all of
> those stories to one player, or even one group of players.
> But if you give
> one group of players something interesting to do, then you
> really ought to
> make it available to everyone else as well.

Or at least to enough to justify the effort.

>And since I want
> the stories to
> originate from the state of the world, and have the stories
> affect the state
> of the world as they progress, it's not really appropriate to
> give the same
> "story" to two groups of players.  (what's that you say?  You
> rescued the
> fair maiden from the dragon just yesterday?  er, well then
> what's she doing
> there now?)

One of the problems of those static spawns, too. :)  Don't the frogloks ever
worry that before their leaders can do anything constructive, like lead them
out of that stupid dungeon, they're offed be another group of hearty
adventurers?  I'd think the ritual to choose a new King must be akin to
finding a bride for Kong.  Hey!  Maybe that explains the long waits between
spawns?  And say, wasn't a princess recently kidnapped and hustled off to
Kunark?

I think I'm agreeing with you here. :)

> While it would be nice to think we could simply plant a few
> seeds and the
> players would take it from there, I honestly think that's an
> unrealistic
> goal when approaching the mass market.  As disturbing as it
> sounds (to me at
> least), the majority of the populace doesn't want to be given ways to
> entertain themselves.  They want to be entertained.

I absolutely agree.  Which is why I deplore the "sandbox" approach.  But
give many humans a chance to play charades (and something to seed their
role) and they manage to entertain themselves and others just fine.

> Ok, so just how much would a writing staff capable of
> generating a thousand
> TV shows a week, or even a month, cost me?

You don't need that many, and you know it.  And a TV show is far more
elaborately constructed that an A/B UPS quest.  Just relate the quest to a
larger story, like a B story in "Rumpole of the Bailey."  How many to
generate several dozen a month?  3. (At least that's what we had.) Cost?
Less than 3 programmers.  And since most stories/quests/interesting things
to do ARE repeatable, and only an important few alter the world either
locally or globally, you fast build up a backlog of adventures ANYONE can
experience.

And how much
> would the players
> have to pay to play this game, assuming a conventional flat charge per
> month?

$9.95 a month.

>Not to say that's the only financial model available,
> but for at
> least a little while yet, it's going to be expected.

Agreed.

>> It's essential.  I simply think it's death to
>> rely on it alone.

Just requoting myself, since I think this point got lost somewhere in
transmission.

> Here I absolutely agree.  There has to be a human touch.  I'm not yet
> deluded enough to think that any sort of story/event
> generating system is
> going to be able to come up with the large, world-shattering types of
> stories that players are going to expect, or if not expect, at least
> strongly desire. :)  But I do strongly believe that it is not
> only possible,
> but necessary, to have a system capable of generating "lesser"
> events/stories/things to do.

THAT was MY point!  You can't have it!  I own it!  Get your own point!  And
I'll try to better communicate mine!

Brian responded to the the next section of your post, so I'll SNIP BIG TIME.

> Have you truly grasped the scope of the game I want to make
> here?  If so,
> think I'm completely, hopelessly insane yet?  Well, rest
> assured, I am quite
> mad, but a little madness never hurt anybody, very much
> anyway.  I'm just
> mad enough to think it's possible, but sane enough to think
> that it won't be
> easy by any means, but that it's possible. :)

Yes, I think I have grasped it.  And because of where I come from, and what
I can do, it sounds far harder to pull off.  But that's just me:

Lee




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