Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger)
Subject: Romance IF thoughts (2nd try)
Message-ID: <C2Io9u.55z@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 01:03:29 GMT
Lines: 91

I'm real happy to see all the cogitation on romance IF.... My 2cents:

David Whitten:
> I haven't found anyone who is thinking about what it means to define
> computer simulated people with parameters like goals, plans, or roles they
> play in the story.  Notice I am NOT NOT talking about trying to solve the
> hard AI problem.  I'm just trying to talk about what we could do as writers
> to have characters in our stories that are up to the one-dimensional
> stereotypes available in other writing methods.

That *is* the hard AI problem!  What our brains can do with *no* 
thought, our software still can't do at all.  But I don't think it's 
*that* hard...!

> Within the two dimensional system I'm envisioning, the first dimension would
> be this same physical map.  The second dimension is one where the circles
> correspond to plot goals, and the lines correspond to actions that the
> player can do to 'move the plot' along.

In this context, the Frame Problem could be stated as: how do you keep 
the number of distinct 2nd-D 'circles' from combinatorically exploding 
to an uncountable quantity, given that each state of the 
universe/character needs a room-circle of its own?

If you allow only enough circles that you can spell them all out by 
hand, then the story will be boring, necessarily.  We need *algorithms* 
that can pick out from a complex universe-state, just the most-relevant 
features, and a 2nd-D map that allows different subparts of the universe 
to change piecemeal...

David H. Thornley:
> Frankly, I don't see what would be the NPC equivalent of rooms and objects.
> The nature of most objects is to do certain things when manipulated properly
> - that is, to be predictable and simple.  The nature of NPCs is to be
> unpredictable and complex.
> [...] Another possibility might be to swap NPC versions
> in and out - say, have a Lisa class, with startLisa, scornedLisa, lovingLisa,
> etc., as instantiations.  This would do the same thing as the state approach,
> but might be easier to work with.  (Then again, I haven't tried it.)

I don't understand the TADS-type conventions well enough to translate 
this into data structures I understand...   What sort of classes does 
TADS allow?  Are you saying that scornedLisa is like cursedScroll, and 
will have certain special behaviors you have to discover?

Can you give the scornedLisa class the ability to remember who scorned 
her?  Can you make it a specialization of scornedWoman?

James Jennings:
>  Suppose you had a "fall in love with" command. 
> The goal of the game might be to fall in love with the *right* person
> and live happily ever after.
>
> > fall in love with Carmen
> You can't do that! You're in love with Sarah Jane!
> > forget Sarah
> With an effort, you manage to forget Sarah Jane.
> > fall in love with Carmen
> You fall madly in love with Carmen. Her raven black hair reminds you of
> moon lit nights. Her red lips remind you of the most perfect rose. Her
> dark brown eyes remind you of Sarah Jane. (It's not that easy to forget
> Sarah Jane.)

This captures nicely the whole thorny problem of *what is love?*  Is it 
an act that can be 'executed'?  I'd say Sarah has some right to call 
Player a cad, for treating it so!

Dave Whitten:
> ...I was thinking about the game being like
> a regular adventure game, but with the 'twist' of being able to date one of
> several characters but then love kind of sneaks up on you and you fall in
> love with one of them.  And you can't just 'forget' falling in love with
> one of them....

Yeah, like Carmen comes flirting, and instead of giving her the cold 
shoulder, you open up.  But to simulate the non-actlikeness of falling, 
you'd want to discover *later* that she'd won your heart. (Like Sarah 
invites sexual attention, and your 'excitement level' stays zero, and 
you see Carmen and it shoots up to 100...)

But how can you imagine that you'll get this sort of output without your 
program 'knowing' the sorts of courses love can follow?  So task #1 is 
to map them out.  Part of this is what-then? links (if-wink-then-hug), 
but another part has to integrate the part into the whole (if secret-
message and others-present then turn-back-to-others) based on 
*generalizations* of the current state of the world.

You just can't get anywhere without some *analysis* of the elements...

Jorn Barger
jorn@chinet.chi.il.us
