beat glue

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@3DProgrammer.com>]

> However, if the beats are cleverly designed the AI can
> re-use them in a variety of different places, reducing the amount of
> required authoring.  The system can potentially play beats and
> beat-clusters in different orders, leave things out, etc.

And what if your AI system doesn't do a particularly good job of "glueing"
these beats together?  Then your human authors are going to backpedal,
trying to indirectly control the complex system components to get some
result that's beyond their precise control.  It would be rather much like
fiddling Bezier curves in 3D graphics systems: one darned point moves up,
another darned point moves down.  In 3D modeling systems, there's always the
issue of local vs. global control.  Similarly, as authors struggle to
achieve authorial control by indirect means, you may create more work for
them than they could have done manually in the first place.

One could certainly codify IF approaches according to their politics of
administration.  Let 1.0 = Socialist.  Let 0.0 = Libertarian!


Cheers,                                     www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every                           Seattle, WA

For plot and pace, writers use words; game designers use numbers.
Anything understood over time has plot and pace.