[MUD-Dev] narrative

[Christopher Kohnert]

On Fri, 2002-08-16 at 02:18, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Joe Andrieu wrote:

>> It's not about the text. How much text is there in a non-text
>> MPOG?  Oh... NPC dialogue! Sure, if you want to say that language
>> generation is an unsolved problem, I would agree with you.  But
>> the essence of a visual story need not be dependent on text.
 
> You wanna talk screenplays?  We can talk screenplays.  None of my
> points change, in fact they are amplified.  It is *more* difficult
> to write a good screenplay because you have to say so much about
> character with so few words.  You have no access to a character's
> internal mental state, you can only show.  I can't apologize for
> the fact that 99.999% of NPC character writing in games is
> absolutely atrocious.

I don't think anyone here was talking about screenplays. Frankly,
it's almost impossible to see what point you're trying to make when
you jump around like you do.


>> I think you are underestimating the "explosion of endings"
>> problem. If I had writers write all the possible endings to all
>> the possible storylines in a MUD for a mere 2000 players playing
>> over 40 hours of gameplay, it would very quickly take more talent
>> and time than is available in any reasonable budget.
 
> Drop the 2000 out of the equation.  People are way, way, *WAY* too
> hung up on this idea that the story has to be about all 2000
> people.

When you're looking to entertain 2000 people by involving them in a
story, then yes, that's exactly what you have to do.

It's not a story with 2000 heros or 2000 super-villans or anything
like that. It's an epic, it's dynamic, and it reacts with a life of
its own.  We either want to direct the participants in a general
direction or to create an environment rich enough that the story
develops on its own with perhaps only a bit of help from external
sources to highten the excitement (arguably, a more interesting
approach). Actually, we probably want a bit of both. *grin*

> A story about 2000 people is not a story.  It is a war.

A pretty arbitrary definition of a 2000-person-story.

>> The goal here is to get a writer to distill the essence of a good
>> story and use AI to interpret it given the context and actions of
>> the player so that the resulting experience is a coherent
>> dramatic arc built around the natural self-motivated actions of
>> the player.

> It is a foolish goal.  You can do this job much better and much
> quicker manually. Provided you're not trying to jump over the moon
> thinking you're supposed to be writing about 2000 protagonists at
> once.

I haven't really seen anyone trying to claim that writing isn't an
interesting (and valuable) method. What people here are trying to do
is broaden the concept of narrative into a more computation-friendly
definition. You can claim that it can't be done of course, or that
in doing so, you rob that narrative of some necessary element. I
don't believe either of those cases. We're not trying to replace a
good writer with narrative-generating algorithms. We're trying to
create an environment conducive to experiencing a story that reacts
according to a player.

For an analogy, look at a session (or series of sessions) of a pen &
paper rpg game. When done properly (personal bias here *G*), I'd say
the story experienced by a few players with a good GM is quite
fulfilling.  It's dynamic. The GM reacts to the players, and nudges
them where they need to go. They aren't reading a book or script
about what's happening to them, they are actively partaking in and
effecting the outcomes. The system caters to them. Now take this
example of a GM, and give it access to a virtual world. Create a
whole slew of them perhaps. What we want is a GM (system) that is
capable of reacting and generating exciting stories based on the
participants. There's no reason, really, why that sort of system
shouldn't be able to serve 2000 people.

My advice, Brandon, is to take a step back and realize people aren't
doubting the power of narrative in the traditional sense. They just
want explore new ways to apply that same sort of entertainment using
an artificial system.

Chris




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