Response to Laura, Wally, Brandon, Chris

[WFreitag@aol.com]

Laura wrote:

>To put it another way, I guess I'd say that I see characters as the data and
>plot as the process.  I guess that means you're trying to come up with plot
>algorithms, and I think that's a good idea -- definitely -- but trying to
>slice plots up by kinds of "large-scale" conflict or theme, I think, cuts
>the pieces too big to be effectively re-used.

Yes, you're exactly right about what I'm trying to do and about the main 
problem I face in doing so. My approach at a solution is to make the "pieces" 
chronologically noncontiguous. Each piece contains plot events or rules for 
generating plot events, separated by gaps. The gaps have tags that say 
"insert such and such type of subplot here, with the following role 
assignments...". The pieces are not strung together in a chain, but rather 
stuffed inside each other. A "major plot" piece has the same amount of 
content as a "minor plot" piece; it just gets more layers of subordinate 
pieces stuffed into its gaps. As you surmised, each piece defines the po
ssible courses of a specific conflict or theme.

BTW, Laura, in the last round of discussion you mentioned that you found it 
fascinating to read the discussions and ponderings we indulge in here. I 
didn't get a chance to mention then that I find it a privilege to have your 
insights into those issues.

Wally wrote:

>> Is it not obvious that creating the Erasmatron required
>> Chris to analyze the nature of character interaction in stories with
>> far more clarity and detail than any academic literature course would
>> ever attempt?

>Allow me to point out that (as much as I love chest-thumping) you're wrong
>on this point... Losing faith in literary criticism because of a bad
>experience reading The New Criticism in college is like being turned off
>of contemporary fiction because of Stephen King.

Sorry, I seem to keep hitting targets I wasn't aiming at. I was not knocking 
literary criticism. In fact, I was defending it, against the assertion that 
it's unnecessary or inappropriate for the development of interactive 
storytelling. My point was simply that the Erasmatron, which the person 
denouncing critical analysis appeared to approve of, could not have been 
created without considerable analysis, much of it of the oft-maligned 
reductionistic variety.

>...and you want the suppleness and textual richness of great prose
>works (barely 1% of Good Old-Fashioned Novelists produce anything that's
>not shit in their lifetime, and you want computer science students to do it)?

I'm certainly not foolish enough to suggest that computer science students 
might be as capable of excellent artistic expression as real human beings 
are. Everyone knows we no write good.

No, I don't want computer science students to do it. I want _me_ to do it. 
You've way underestimated my arrogance. (Though see Chris' comment re the 
need to equal great prose works.) As Jason correctly surmised (curses!), I 
stir up discussion in forums like this one only to shake loose those 
carefully guarded tidbits of new insight I need to make progress.

>Computational structures for creating *fairy tales* are unsatisfying...

I'm not assuming the answer lies in pure computational structures such as the 
world simulations you go on to describe. (Others disagree with me on that.) 
My current opinion is that a new type of data-rich prose structure (think of 
it metaphorically as the logarithm of a story, if that's not too alien to 
grasp), developed in concert with computational methods for manipulating that 
structure, is the most promising approach. The structure may turn out to be 
the conflict-centered plot pieces I described above, but there are some other 
possibilities too. This approach also meshes pretty well with Jason's 
prescription: "We will build systems that empower individual humans as 
story-tellers. We will wrap them in increasingly clever algorithms..."

Brandon wrote:

>>I'm trying to achieve
>> interactive plot and narrative quality simultaneously without the runtime
>> involvement of a human storyteller. No one has done this.

>I don't agree with this.  I do think there are specific works in the RAIF
>community that do a decent interactive plot and narrative for a particular
>audience, or at least particular kinds of readers.
>...
>I hate to disappoint you, but the problem you are defining doesn't have to
>be soluable.  The universe isn't necessarily rewarding. Material existence
>may have its limits.

What? First you say it's already been done, then you doubt that it's possible 
to do it at all. I'm used to arguing against each of those viewpoints, but 
not both at the same time! They kinda cancel each other out, don't they?

Perhaps we could split the difference and agree that the problem I've defined 
is extraordinarily difficult, and that the existing corpus contains good 
creative work that skirts that very difficult problem in clever ways but has 
not shown any tendency to converge on a solution to it. Which was my point in 
the first place.

I've always gone out of my way to acknowledge the possibility that the 
problem I've defined may not be solveable. There are some strong arguments 
for that position, and some strong people who make them, including some of my 
favorite authors. But there's also the evidence that if you take away the 
"without a human storyteller" clause, it's known by example to be possible. 
Humans can do it. So either material existence _does_ allow it, or human 
minds have resources extending outside of material existence. I doubt the 
latter, though it's a common enough belief.

>Are you sure you're not setting yourself up for a goal that is beyond human
>life experience?  Just how interactive do you think the story of human life
>is anyways?  

It's extremely interactive. What it lacks is consistent narrative quality.

>IMO human life is pretty random, so I fail to see the merit in
>looking for spontaneous story constructions that are vastly better than
>our frail human existences. Rather, I think a story is necessarily a
>structuralization, condensation, and idealization of life processes. By
>losing the freedom, that's where the Art comes from.  With complete freedom,
>all you have is boredom.

This appears to lead to the conclusion that you find life boring. I hope 
that's not really so.

I'm not attempting any sort of representation of human life with complete 
freedom. I agree that this would not yield the qualities I'm looking for in 
an interactive story system, which is why I've never suggested such a thing.

>I rather liked "Photopia" by Adam Cadre. http://www.adamcadre.ac/games.html

Thanks. I'll check it out.

>> Telling us to stop analyzing at this stage is
>> equivalent to telling us to stop working on the problem.

>Or it might be equivalent to telling you to start writing, so as to properly
>work on the problem. 

Since you seem to understand my point that the problem I've defined 
_requires_ analyzing, I think what you really mean is, work on a proper 
problem. One that you deem acceptable to work on, because it doesn't require 
any analyzing, which for some reason you seem to object to anyone (or at 
least, me) doing. Why you feel this way, I still cannot fathom. Would it be 
OK with you if I only analyze inside my own home when no children are present?

Chris wrote:

>it would seem that my observations in the
>Phrontisterion 2001 invitation are applicable here. I refer to the comments
>about the battle between the evolutionists and the revolutionaries. Some of
>that same bad blood seems to be showing up here. I still don't understand
>it, but it certainly seems that the sharpest comments arise from this
>dichotomy of viewpoint. I fear that one of the two contending factions will
>"win" this confrontation, inducing the losing side to suspend participation
>in this list. I very much hope that this outcome does not ensue.

I'll try to do my part by arguing the center against all sides. In the last 
thread I recall arguing in favor of the value of data-oriented approaches 
(which certainly include most IF) against Chris's position that all such 
approaches are dead ends. And now I'm arguing against Brandon's position that 
such approaches have been so fruitful that any goal beyond their reach is not 
even "proper" to pursue. Am I being centrist, or just contrary? I'll let 
others judge.

Here's what I think goes on. There are standard models for interactive 
storytelling. These standard models are islands of design feasibility where 
the technical demands are not too high and the parts fit together and achieve 
good, if far from perfect, impressions on the audience. These models don't 
just propagate by imitation. (Nor, contrary to belief, do they arise from 
hidebound game design conventions.) They are attractors, implicit in the 
nature of stories, storytelling, and interactivity. Projects tend to drift 
into those configurations unless deliberately forced away from them. And 
projects forced away from them tend to encounter severe difficulties.

Some of us find that those standard models allow us to meet our creative 
goals. Because our creative goals differ, others of us find that they do not. 
This splits discussion of interactive storytelling into two camps: those 
seeking to get the most, technically and artistically, out of standard-model 
techniques, and those seeking to develop new better techniques. 

There's absolutely no need for any conflict between the two camps, since both 
are clearly worthwhile creative endeavors. And yet, at the very least, 
neither side has much patience with the other. Most likely it starts with 
simple boredom when we all share a forum. Someone wants to discuss some 
issues in adventure game plot development, and the revolutionists' eyes roll. 
This isn't getting them any closer to plot-interactivity. Someone wants to 
discuss how the sixteen character archetypes of some ancient Greek 
classification schema might be applied to character interaction models, and 
the evolutionists' eyes glaze over. This isn't solving their problems with 
getting scenes written, animated, and coded for their next project. Someone 
says, or implies, "This subject is a waste of my time," which is a little 
rude but regrettably sometimes true. But it comes out instead as " _You_ are 
wasting _your_ time on that stuff" which is likely to be an affront to any 
craftsman or artist. That, I suspect, is where real resentment begins.

Eventually, putting the two sides in each other's worst light, we find that 
one camp complacently (and often mercenarily, since part of this camp is 
associated with the game business) rehashes the same old inadequate dead-end 
techniques and dishonestly palms the results off as interactive when they 
aren't really, while the other, grasping for new methods because they're not 
sufficiently talented at the existing ones, burns resources on experiments 
that usually fail and wastes time fecklessly theorizing about better ways 
that may not even exist. Are we all offended yet?

I don't know any way of pointing out the absurdity of this other than, well, 
pointing out the absurdity of this. (Not that those libelous 
characterizations don't contain some irritating little grains of truth. In 
fact, most on both sides are aware of genuine shortcomings in their 
approaches and want -- short of being advised to give up and do something 
else -- ideas for improving them.) 

But at the same time, I'm not sure whether anything can or should be done 
about it. What use is a forum where we're all tiptoeing around avoiding 
offense? When Chris recently said he thought the data-intensiveness of an 
approach I proposed makes it an evolutionary dead end, it wasn't what I 
wanted to hear, but I certainly wanted and received his honest opinion. I 
hope others want mine, because they've certainly been getting it. 
Furthermore, some correspondents really do think that others are wasting 
their time on unrewarding approaches, and have said so. Should that be 
forbidden?

I think boredom may be more of a danger than active bad blood. In my own case 
I suspect I annoy people more with the length of my posts than with anything 
I actually say. What would really drive people away is not disputes, but a 
perceived general lack of interest in issues important to that side.

Just out o' curiosity, can anyone tell me how many addresses are on the list?

- Walt