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From: Rob Moser <moser@cse.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Plot in interactive works (was Re: Attitudes to playing (longish))
Message-ID: <1994Oct19.040400.16454@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU>
Summary: On the debate between deterministic and non-deterministic plots: 
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References: <JAMIE.94Oct4115217@akeake.its.vuw.ac.nz> <371q8nINNpav@life.ai.mit.edu> <JAMIE.94Oct10122927@akeake.its.vuw.ac.nz>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 04:04:00 GMT
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On the debate between deterministic and non-deterministic plots:

It seems to me as if there is room for a happy medium between the "lead `em
by the nose" school of step-by-step plots (like several of the later Sierra
games, where there is a nice plot that I feel like I have no effect
whatsoever on) and the "random chaos" school of plots (like the original
Adventure, where you can do what you like when you like and there is no
real plot to speak of...).  If we are to craft an adventure for the user,
rather than just build a simulation world for them to play in, then we need
to give them some inkling of a plot to work with.  But rather than looking
at plot from a novelists or dramatists' point of view in which we have a
linear buildup of tension, why not build a 3d mountain for them to climb;
we build towards a specific climax (or climaxes.  You can allow for several
possible) but allow them to choose their own path to reach that peak.
Initial events, any of which can be pursued at any time, lead to events at
a higher level which can be pursued at any point where all of the necessary
"foundation events" have been completed.  

While this all sounds horrible theoretical, there's no reason why we can't
implement it easily enough.  I suspect that a graph of events and their
predecessors would come in quite handy.  The difficulty arises in
anticipating enough of the user's possible choices without making the thing
completely unbounded (and therefore HUGE), in making the boundaries on the
user's possible actions seem to be natural (instead of just saying "You
can't do that"), and in realizing that a very large part of your code in a
system like this MAY NEVER BE USED.  As programmers you have to realize
that if you're not going to lead them about, they might not go everywhere,
so its going to take a lot of work and a large program to deal with a
relatively small event in a non-deterministic fashion.  (unless you do
force them to do everything, and just leave the ordering non-determined
which gives them a lesser degree of control without making your overhead so
wicked.)  

Comments?

(By the by, i liked the mention earlier about objects/characters in the
story having stories of their own, which might or might not resolve
themselves without the player.  I like my players to feel like they are in
a world, not the center of one.)

	- Rob.
