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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Interactive Fiction versus Role-Playing Games (Was: Caves...)
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In article <a18pd3$sl0$1@news.fsf.net>, Adam Thornton <adam@fsf.net> wrote:
>Of course, the joy of face-to-face roleplaying is largely that it's
>freeform acting, and the players *can* surprise you.  Until the AI
>problem is solved, CRPGs simply cannot compare.

Well, yes, until the AI problem is solved, we probably can't
write the game where you play dungeonmaster and the players
are controlled by AIs, and they surprise you. (Well, actually
I've had computer players find surprisingly optimal solutions,
but they weren't a surprise in terms of being an entirely
different direction of solution than expected.)

If you just want the human player of a CRPG to surprise the
authors, it's been done already, plenty of times; simulation
allows for a fair amount of improvisation and unexpected
solutions. (E.g. see Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief.)
In the right setup this CAN be a surprise of kind, not just
quantity; e.g. three-card-combinations in Magic the Gathering.

SeanB
