RE: First draft Phrontisterion Report

["Todd Gemmell" <todd@coyotegrits.com>]

OK below is the draft I plan on submitting to Chris Thursday(tomorrow).
The first time I wrote a response it seemed very negative and so I
started from scratch so it's a hasty attempt at feed back but hopefully
more constructive. I posted it here first in hopes of feedback and
discussion starting again on this list and to encourage any of you to
send comments to Chris. My comments are prefaced by "#2 TG"



#2 TG	I find myself in a quandary of how to best be helpful to my
friends in the Interactive Story Community. The Phrontisterion Report
should be useful to people interested in the subject and it should be an
accurate snapshot of the state of the art.  I find myself disagreeing
with the report, the report I helped create with my input and my
silence. Perhaps this is one of the dangers of  report by committee or
perhaps it  tries to cover too wide a field  we don’t understand well
enough but from my current frame of perspective it has the wrong
questions or the answers are too nebulous to be useful.  Post conference
I am engendered with belief the best approach is to start with a classic
game framework and make iterative improvements in storytelling
capability. I plan on exploring this. I think the most valuable insight
I gained was the art of being vague and allowing the player’s
imagination fill in the gaps. I think the primary problem with the
report is that it tries to encompass too many possible approaches which
has lead the group into the malaise, lack of focus doldrums the
community seems trapped in currently. My minority comments are based my
personal belief what will be successful in the near term.   

on 6/16/02 12:59 PM, Chris Crawford at chriscrawford@wave.net wrote:
Folks, here is the first draft of the Phrontisterion report. I submit it
to your tender mercies, expecting two classes of feedback from you:

1 Corrections and additions: these should be limited to factual material
taken from your notes. If you are confident that I’ve gotten it wrong,
or left something out, by all means notify me. I may have trade off your
memory against somebody else’s.

2. Minority comments. Should you wish to voice your personal opinions on
statements with which you take issue, by all means submit them. I shall
include them in italics after your initials in the final report. 

Please label your contributions clearly as #1 or #2. 

I shall be adding material to this draft explaining the material that we
heard in the presentations, so that readers will know that Propp is
about  and what we mean by character-based methods.

Lastly, this draft is not going to Larry Vaughn or Chris Perkins because
I have no email addresses for them.

Here’s the draft:

Report on Phrontisterion IV

Phrontisterion IV was held June 8-9 at the Crawford place outside of
Jacksonville, Oregon. 22 people attended. The weather was uncooperative;
temperatures in the low 50s prevailed all day Saturday and Sunday
morning. On the week before and the week after Phrontisterion, high
temperatures in the 80s were recorded. The gods were telling us
something.

On Saturday, the group heard reports on various strategies for
interactive storytelling; on Sunday, the group deliberated and prepared
a joint report. Here are the group's conclusions:

1. Textual input systems: Command-line interfaces are undesirable as
primary input systems, but are acceptable as hidden alternatives.
Inverse parsers are desirable input systems for interactive
storytelling. Systems in which all accessible words are directly visible
are best; systems in which accessible words are available through menus
are second best. When combined with speech recognition systems, inverse
parsers become especially attractive. Ability to handle nested clauses
is desirable. Inverse parsers should not require any particular word
entry order.

#2 TG I believe that textual or any language based input systems are
doomed to fail for 2 main reasons. 
     A. general users(mainstream public) will NOT learn a new language
to be entertained. 
	B. general AI language processing is not even close to being
solved. People have been trying to solve this for decades and continue
to put their hand back on the hot stove. I have no doubt this problem
will one day be solved but do not wish to hold my breath till then.

2. Non-textual input systems: Adjusting dials for tonality expression as
a supplement to other input systems is both viable and desirable. The
problem of clash between the explicit content of the statement made and
the tonality with which it is expressed can be resolved by several
means. Dials can have limits imposed upon them by the nature of the
explicit statement being made. Alternatively, the computer can respond
to such a clash by asking, "Huh?" Lastly, there might be buttons
available to indicate that the user is deliberately expressing irony,
sarcasm, humor, etc.

Speech recognition technology is not yet adequate for use in interactive
storytelling because it lacks tonality recognition and full language
processing. However, when used in conjunction with an inverse parser, it
is immediately beneficial. 

Facial recognition technology has some interesting possibilities, but it
is hampered by the demands it places on the user, possible problems with
privacy, and insufficient emotional resolution.

Speech generation is frigorific, but it will not be of general utility
to interactive storytelling until it has the ability to express
emotional tonality.

#2 TG I don’t think time allowed us to explore this subject enough but I
think a major point that was lost or not brought up was that this type
of input is user limiting. This is a good thing in that the engine that
receives this input can be much more robust and less likely to get into
unsolvable problems. 




3. The role of spatial computations in interactive storytelling: Spatial
computations are desirable only as directly demanded by the dramatic
situation.

#2 TG I was puzzled when this was brought up as a topic (Space Sucks?)
and find myself even more confused by the conclusion. What are we saying
here? This is only important when it’s important?
	


4. Simulation techniques for interactive storytelling have these
strengths:

Well-understood technology.
Appropriate for the medium.
Immersive
Scalable
Intrinsically interactive
Offers the possibility of emergent behavior
There are many development tools for simulation techniques

On the other hand, these disadvantages apply:

Lacks dramatic weight.
Mechanical.
Dramatically unstructured.
The tools are not structured for interactive storytelling.
Simulation: sandbox vs directed play style drama
Easy to get lost in the details
Potential for the fetish of accuracy.
No dramatic themes.

#2 TG it would seem for the most part the disadvantages of simulations
are areas that are potentially possible but not proven. My definition of
a simulation is pretty broad and I have to wonder if we are talking
about Graphical Language Design vs Textual Language Design?

5. Dramatic sublanguages

Strengths:
Potential for universality
Takes advantage of powerful human linguistic processing
Plausibly computable
Plausibly localizable
Well-matched to interactive storytelling because of its expressive
richness
creole grammars would work well

Weaknesses:
If you rely on existing vocabulary, then its ambiguity will intrude into
the sublanguage.
Tough trade-off between expressive richness and computability.
Unfamiliar phraseology
Difficult learning curve

#2 TG I believe players/users will not be willing to learn a new
language to be entertained. I am aware that people have done so for text
adventure games but my gut tells me those days are gone.


6. Character-driven approaches

Strengths:
We relate to characters
These are similar to simulations
These are similar to existing agent-based technology

Weaknesses:
No plot
No point of view
Requires very rich characters to work

#2 TG I believe you are ultimately going to need some form of plot to
render an interesting story. Perhaps a plot could be divined from a
characters needs/goals etc etc but without a plot you will end up with a
simulation without a story. 

7. methods based on the Aarne-Thompson index of folktale motifs

Strengths:
large existing source of information about stories

Weaknesses:
no empirical evidence of theoretical soundness
just doesn't look workable
doesn't seem easy to produce dialog


8. methods based on Vladimir Propp's analysis of folktales
Strengths:
a good model for stories
more structure than Aarne-Thompson
usable as a high-level plot generation system

Weaknesses:
Propp's expressions are too vague to be directly useful

9. The Erasmatron
Strengths:
scene based
includes moods, attributes, and relationships
the technology has been built
focuses on verbs (others focus on objects)
architecture is that of stories
data = characters
process = dramatic indentations (huh?)
NPCs have lots of intelligence

Weaknesses:
no front end
overly complex process for building verbs
Mac only
poor documentation
time flow problems -- can't get the right information to the right
people
lacks critical mass of software
needs templates for interactions and verbs
no demo storyworld
built-in assumptions can be limiting
data formats are too closed
no viral sampling -- need to publicise more

10. Will Wright's bizarre and brilliant ideas
Strengths:
players create story in sandboxes
open ended potential
successful in the marketplace
expandible
interactive
accessible
iconic content drives the drama

Weaknesses:
no authorial direction
hard to create drama
simplistic relationships and character models
missing many storytelling tools
needs a bigger sandbox

#1 TG  Gordon talked about how the SIMs players were Iconic and people
could identify with them which triggered the “Eureka” of Less is More.
Knowing which details to leave out or make vague could make a lot of
unsolvable problems go away.

11. Higher-order plot approaches

Strengths:
emphasis on recombination

Weaknesses:
difficult to understand
shortage of details

#2 TG I did not fully understand the differences in this approach from
the typical Erasmatron approach but generally agree with the philosophy
of object reuse and recombination. 


11a methods based on Georges Polti's 31 Dramatic Situations

Strengths:
possibly useful for initialization
possibly useful in conjunction with character-driven methods

Weaknesses:
too high-level
doesn't address the internals of stories

12. Story-driven games

Strengths:
already existing marketplace
well-understood methods


Weaknesses:
a well-defined marketplace that doesn't really appreciate stories

The group was divided on whether story-driven games can evolve into true
interactive storytelling. It is not architecturally set up to support
drama.

#2 TG I believe this is the logical starting point. An iterative
approach will be rewarded with the commercial sucess of Story-Game++
which allows the developer to continue with an open ended problem. 

Overall Conclusions:

Character-based and simulation methods are most likely to yield
short-term results.

Purely plot-based methods are not in themselves adequate to support
interactive storytelling; they would have more potential if we could
translate them into computable terms.

Simulation-based platforms offer the strongest starting foundation for
development, but the group has serious reservations about the potential
of this strategy to yield good results for interactive storytelling. The
biggest challenge is to shift focus toward dramatic considerations.

Dramatic sublanguages brilliantly solve the toughest problems of
interactive storytelling, but do not begin to address plot issues.

The Erasmatron is the most-developed tool that directly addresses
interactive storytelling. It is the ONLY tool that directly addresses
interactive storytelling, It is impossible to fairly compare the
Erasmatron with other strategies because they haven't been built yet.

The Aarne-Thompson index of folktale motifs is a useful resource, but
not an adequate design strategy.

Will Wright's methods are not interactive storytelling; they stimulate
and nurture the player's storytelling imagination.

#2 TG I think the dream of Interactive Storytelling is still sometime
off but I believe it will be achieved one baby step at a time. Darwin
will prevail here and future history will record storytelling as part of
the new breed of entertainment and this now impossible task with be a
component in the entertainment software just like a graphic engine or
physics engine There will be a story engine to keep the game interesting
and 12 year olds around the world will toggle the checkbox off because
it’s so annoying when widow of the monster you just killed comes
knocking on your castle crying because she has little ones to feed

-T