[MUD-Dev] believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation)

[John Buehler]

J C Lawrence writes:
> John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:
>> J C Lawrence writes:

>>> From the player perspective in terms of the actual goals that
>>> player can be _seen_ to pursue (social, cultural, in-game, etc),
>>> what is the actual function of an NPC?

>>> If form follows function, then NPCs should be defined by the
>>> value systems they satisfy for players.  Not the value systems
>>> we think players have, or the value systems that we think are
>>> cute, fuzzy, attractive, neat etc, but the ones that actually
>>> generate and maintain player value and interest.

>> The actual function of an NPC is to provide a motive reason for
>> doing anything in the game.

> That defines all NPCs as vendors.

> Without attempting a formal taxonomy I tend to view NPCs as
> filling one of the following roles (in no particular order):

>   1) Cannon fodder.

>   2) Lemmings.

>   3) Infrastructure

>   4) Vendors

>   5) Scenery.

> Outside of the scenery case, the common aspect seems to be that
> they have an identity, and can thus be (uniquely) identified (not
> necessarily repetitively).  In the simplest form this means that
> they bear a name, even if the name is implicit rather than
> explicit (cf Big Boss).  Identities are important as they allow
> the causes/sources of effects to be, well, identified, and they
> thus provide anchors for emotional relations and investments.
> Without identities you can't get that.

I'm unclear on your advanced definition of vendor versus your other
roles for NPCs, but I won't belabor the point.  In the end,
everything in the game exists in order to provide entertainment,
either directly or indirectly to the players.  The NPCs are an
important means by which the gamemasters can initiate actions
towards the player characters to invite them into some kind of
entertaining game activity.  Pick a fight, help them out, whatever.

Which segues into the remainder of your post.

>> The steps beyond that are to have progressively smarter NPCs.

> Here's a point where we part.  Supporting thought process:

>   The basic motivation and interest of any person is to create an
>   effect.

>   Creating an effect on self is better than creating no effect.

>   Creating an effect on an object is Okay.

>   Creating an effect on someone else is good.

>   Exchanging created effects with another is best.

> Effects of course can be of any type.  They don't have to be
> griefers.

Having a gamemaster-defined dynamic context in which to be
exchanging created effects is even better still.  Today we have
static contexts.  They are environments in which the player must
decide what to do and then go do it.

The exceptions to this are PvP, where a player presents opposition,
and guilds and such, where the organization encourages its members
to join in on certain activities (which is just transferrence to
another player's ideas).  But those activities are again based in a
static context.

The next push seems to be player-run worlds, which is a continuation
of the guild and PvP direction.  These offer the opportunity for a
more dynamic context in which to interact with each other.

I'm a detractor of them for two reasons:

1. Players have to make the game a career.  Just running a player
guild can be a full-time job if the guild leader wants to do a good
job.  I shudder to think what demands a player-run world would make
on the lead players.

2. Quality of service.  When a player burns out, they walk away.
Some players will understand and thank them, some will be annoyed.
Some will just be confused because they can't tell if the game is
fun or not.  They never know what's going on because different
player-run organizations pursue different ends.  It's all pretty
haphazard, and it'll get worse as the number of options in a game
expands.

I want to move most of this stuff to gamemasters so that players can
play, and they can rely on the game to operate as advertised.  If
the game publishers understand what they're doing, that advertising
can describe the experience that the players will actually
encounter.

The player organizations will remain, of course.  The real fun of
the games for most is the fact that they're in a multiplayer
environment.  The use of smart NPCs just makes the environment that
much more entertaining.  They empower the gamemasters.

>> As allies, they become the social context in which the players
>> operate. They decide to build a town here, dig a well there,
>> clear this land, war on that guild, put out that forest fire,
>> etc. And they need help.  The players have a purpose, a meaning,
>> for their gameplay.

> This rankles me with the question:

>   Why are they necessarily NPCs?  Why aren't they other players?

> Is there some special quality to NPCs that make them more
> attractive or in fact more functional for such operations than
> other humans (players, GMs, or human-driven NPCs)?  This isn't to
> say that every possible role that could be occupied by a human
> must be occupied by a human, but rather in observance of the fact
> that if NPCs doing XYZ are interesting, then humans doing XYZ are
> inherently more interesting.

The value of NPCs is threefold, but is predicated on service.

1. They are controlled by the storytellers.

This means that when the NPCs act, they do so by sticking to the
fiction of the game, and they advance it according to the needs of
the storytellers.  It permits the overarching story to move along.
There is cohesion to the story.

2. They are always playing

This is simply an issue of practicality.  Players play when they
want to - or are compelled to.  As a result, the services or
challenges that they provide come and go as they are online or not.
In Dark Age of Camelot, fort attacks would take place at difficult
off-hours.  Such attacks could be planned, but they could rarely be
defended against.  The defenders would have to be online all the
time.  And that's a compulsion to play, not an opportunity.  NPCs
are online 24x7, doing the gamemaster's bidding.  Gamemasters remain
people, so they'd have to work in shifts.

3. They will sacrifice their own interests for the entertainment of
the players

Players are playing the games for their own entertainment.
Sometimes that means entertaining other players, which is wonderful
for the overall game, but there are too few altruistic or
service-minded players out there.  And I'm sure we've all seen
burnout from doing that sort of thing for too long (which is an
indication of how much players want to be entertained, not originate
their own ideas.)  NPCs do what the storytellers tell them to do.
They will fall back on salad forks if they have to in order to
provide entertainment for the players.

All of these things become more viable as NPCs are capable of
following progressively larger scale orders.  Having to tell an
idiot NPC to walk to this point, do this, walk to that point, do
that, etc. is very time-consuming.  The concurrent discussion of
live actors on MUD-Dev is debating the labor intensity of that sort
of thing.  Smart NPCs provide the opportunity for a single actor to
manage many NPCs according to the dictates of some kind of overall
story director.

The net result is that smart NPCs become a force multiplier.  We
start to get back to gamemaster versus players, but in a less
specific way.  As a storyteller, I don't actually know whether or
not Boffo or Bob is going to make it into the battle.  But I'm going
to know that there are normally 80 to 100 players with combat-based
characters in the vicinity of where I plan the next phase of my
invasion plan in the Quest for Zuzu's Petals.

>> It fits into the social context of the game.

> Especially given the relationship between "other humans" and
> "social context".

"Social context" as in literally the context in which the players
socialize.  It is very much a secondary goal to provide a true
social context in which the player characters can operate.  For
example, political games of intrigue that involve the ruling NPCs.

As an aside, at no point am I interested in talking NPCs.  I think
they should shut up and do stuff.  It might be a smile and a wave or
grumbling unhappily, but they don't articulate speech.

>> As enemies, they become more difficult to predict.  They make
>> plans of conquest.  Intelligence suggests planning.  That
>> planning can be spotted and interpreted by the players, providing
>> them with more complex scenarios for combat.  Instead of
>> 'pulling' a steady stream of monsters, players can manage and
>> react to what the NPC monsters are doing.  It gives purpose and
>> meaning to gameplay.

> Absolutely, but again, is this an improvement over other
> humans/players, and if not, are in fact NPCs the most efficient
> and effective way of accomplishing this end or are they simply the
> more familiar?

To repeat a phrase, they are a force multiplier for the gamemaster.
Either players do the job of entertaining other players through PvP
and player-run worlds or gamemasters do the job.  Smart NPCs are a
tool that gamemasters can use to tell a story and provide an
entertaining context in which to play.  They need not supplant PvP
or any other player-player interaction.  They should be used to
supply motive reasons for the things that players do.

I certainly believe that they are an efficient and effective way of
providing entertainment to the players because only the gamemasters
are interested in entertaining the players.

I don't favor the use of actors because the technique only scales so
far.  I want there to be a 20 to one ratio between NPCs and PCs.  Or
a hundred to one.  The player base is almost a cult or a club within
that world.  That might even be fictionalized right into the game:
all players are a slightly different race from a distant land who
are acting within the NPC world.  And that would explain lots of
dichotomies between NPCs and PCs.

But I digress as usual.

>> The value of NPCs is orthogonal to the fundamental pursuit of a
>> goal.  NPCs provide the goals, and they make them more
>> interesting.

> I'd insert a bunch of "can" and "may" qualifiers in there.

Absolutely.  None of that is a given.

> Not so long ago the big cry was to simulate a "real world" with
> "real behaviour" and "real physics" with everything simulated
> "just the way it would happen if it were REALLY REAL!".  It was
> going to be great.  Then we found out we were producing games not
> simulations.  My sense is that we are heading into a similar
> dichotomy with NPCs.  The great cry is that "NPCs need to be more
> real!", "NPCs need to be believable!" , "NPCs should have Real
> People Personalities(tm) and Simulated Real Emotions(tm)!"  We
> have similar sounding supporting logic statements being made for
> why such RealPeopleNPCs(tm) are such a Good Idea, heavily salted
> with personal belief and (excuse me) arm waving claims of, "It
> will be great!"  I don't buy it.

Nor do I.  The goal here is not believable, real, talkative or warm
and fuzzy.  The goal here is 'better able to do what the gamemaster
needs'.  The purpose of NPCs is to provide a social context that
gives the players reasons to do things in the game.  Or at least
give them ideas about things to do. They do it all at the direction
of the gamemasters.  I refer to them as NPC wranglers.

I see lots of NPCs running around, doing their thing - according to
the dictates of the gamemasters.  No NPC takes it into his head to
rob the bank just because his AI says that would be right.  If it
doesn't match the plans of the gamemasters, it doesn't happen.  But
we're stuck with brain-dead NPCs that not only can't do their own
thing, they can't do the gamemaster's thing either.  As I see it,
that's the problem.  So I want smarter NPCs to permit the gamemaster
to get the world operating 24x7 for the entertainment of the
players.

JB
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