[MUD-Dev] narrative

[Bruce Mitchener]

Dave Rickey wrote:
> From: "Joe Andrieu" <kestral at dinar.ugcs.caltech.edu>

>> I would go further and suggest it is an undesirable state for
>> most players.  I expect that as a writer, Brandon, you crave
>> other talented writers. Yet the fact remains that most people are
>> not talented writers, nor do they want to spend all their time
>> and energy writing. People want to enjoy a well-written story;
>> rarely do they have the talent or tenacity to write such a story
>> themselves.
 
> When people want to enjoy a well-written story, they go to a
> bookstore, or pull an old favorite down from their shelves.
> People don't want a well-written story, they want to experience an
> adventure.  That's not at all the same thing, and that's a *good*
> thing, because we couldn't give them a well-written story by any
> reasonable programmatic method.
 
> What we (try to) do is create interesting situations for the
> player, and let them resolve them.  When it works, the result
> *feels* like an adventure.

I think that this is part of the confusion that has lead to a lack
of discourse with Brandon on this topic.

While Joe did certainly talk about story in that sense in the part
quoted above, what I've been referring to has not been in that
sense.  I view the tools that I'd originally wanted to discuss as
being a potentially nice way of handling quest/mission creation and
similar sorts of content for the players where some planning is done
and a progression of actions/events (I won't call it a narrative any
longer) is provided for the player.

I think that looking at a different part of Joe's mail shows
something similar to that point of view:

     There is also great work being done using AI to drive an
     interactive narrative thread where the user's actions
     actually drive the plot. So, instead of UPS-style quests
     or interactive levels between fixed narrative outtakes,
     the player's moment-to-moment action drives an unfolding
     story; preferably with all the freedom of a typical MUD
     while at the same time assuring synthesis of the dramatic
     arc.

Are you able to talk about what sorts of tools you use or systems you 
use for creating missions/quests?  Any one else that is happy and 
willing to talk about the tools that they use for that is welcome to 
chime in as well.

  - Bruce


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