[MUD-Dev] narrative

[Dave Rickey]

From: "Bruce Mitchener" <bruce at cubik.org>
> From: "Joe Andrieu" <kestral at dinar.ugcs.caltech.edu>

>      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.

We use an in-house tool we call "Lancelot" to create our quests
(along with a lot of other things).  A "quest" is a series of steps,
with an arbitrary number of beginning and ending points, and a
potentially arbitrary number of paths.  I say "potentially" because
in most cases when the bulk of the quest does not involve the same
series of events regardless of who performs it, the players get
confused, so we rarely use that capability in ways the player can
see.  Each step of a quest has certain things associated with it,
basicly text that is used to tell the player where they are and what
they are supposed to do next.

In pursuit of that, each mob can have what is called a "Talk Index",
which is basicly a set of triggers that can be associated with
requirements and actions.  There are a large number of triggers,
such as a player entering within a certain radius of the NPC,
entering combat with the NPC, saying something to the NPC, or the
expiration of a timer.  Requirements are basicly the boolean logic
of the system, an IF/AND/OR test of various properties about the
player, the NPC, and the area, that need to be satisfied to perform
the associated action, they can be arbitrarily complex because a
requirement listing can include another requirement listing to be
true.  Actions are also flexible, the mob can talk to the player,
attack the player, trigger another mob's talk index, activate a
spawn generator, cast a spell, etc.  It can even assign itself or
another mob a different Talk index.

There's a simplified subset of this functionality called an "Action
List" that is used for specialized combat AI, the main difference is
that it uses a different set of triggers (such as going under a
certain amount of health, or the player using a combat style) and
has some combat-specific actions available to it.  Action lists can
contain action lists, allowing combat AI to be arbitrarily complex,
but that capability is used only for really major NPC's (such as the
dragons), as the main purpose of the action list is to reduce
computational overhead (combat triggers are polled more frequently,
in both absolute and relative terms).

The main distinction between this and systems used in other major
games is that the player character record includes information on
what quests the player has been given, what step they are on, and
how many times they have completed it.

--Dave



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