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Stanford HPS 154 - Structural Models for Interactive Drama

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22 Structural Models for Interactive Drama Nicolas Szilas IDtension 1, rue des Trois Couronnes 75011 Paris, France +33 1 43 57 35 16 [email protected] ABSTRACT We are designing computer programs for Interactive Drama, where the audience can act to modify the story while the computer responds to these acts and maintains the narrative nature of the experience. Such computer based Interactive Drama requires narrative models able to both simulate the narrative on a deep level, and allow the user to interact with it. We discuss in this paper the extent to which structuralist models are useful for this purpose. Then, we describe our own computer model and its structuralist sources. Finally we discuss the limits of Structuralism for our model. General Terms Algorithms, Design, Human Factors. Keywords Interactive Drama, Interactive Fiction, Interactive Narratives, Structuralism, Narrativity, User Model. 1. INTRODUCTION TO INTERACTIVE DRAMA The interactive nature of computers opens the way to a new narrative genre where the audience can interact with the narrative. While several forms of such interactive experiences do exist (interactive fiction, video games, etc.), it is admitted that none of the above let the user interact deeply with the story itself. We will call Interactive Drama, a drama on computers where the user is acting as one of the characters (the protagonist), and where his/her actions modify the story itself, while maintaining the narrative aspect of the drama. Whether Interactive Drama is possible or not is controversial. We will not discuss this issue here. More practically, we are involved in the design and implementation of a software system for First published at COSIGN-2002, 02 – 04 September 2002, University of Augsburg, Lehrstuhl für Multimedia-Konzepte und Anwendungen, Germany Interactive Drama [18][19]. Our system, called IDtension, has been inspired from several structuralist theories. The goal of this paper is to discuss the following: • How and why Structuralism should be used for Interactive Drama in general? • What are the choices for the particular IDtension system? • Why Structuralism is not sufficient for the IDtension system? Before discussing Structuralism we need to present our vision of Interactive Drama. Each Interactive Drama needs a model of narrative. The challenge of Interactive Drama is to find a model suited to the interactive nature of computers. According to J. Murray[14], computers are procedural, which means that a good computer model of narrative should be an engine able to produce a narrative. However many models of narrative are descriptive rather than procedural (see for example the three act structure): they describe narrative as a given temporal succession of events. Even if it is possible to follow such temporal models to make Interactive Drama (see for example the project described in [12]), we believe that in the long run Interactive Drama should be based on a real simulation of drama. Thus our goal is to find a procedural model of narrative, and to allow the user to interact with it. 2. CONTRIBUTIONS FROM STRUCTURALISM We find in Structuralism the response to our quest for a procedural model. Indeed, structuralists have described anthropological entities like myths or narratives in terms of structure instead of a sequence of events. For example, Greimas represents the meaning as a reduced network of oppositions and contradictions, which is an abstract description that goes beyond the linearity of narrative [8]. One the other hand, his description of narrative in terms of "actants" remains at a level where structure prevails over time. The analysis of myths by C. Levi-Strauss [10] follows the same principle of reducing time to structure as stated by D. Andrew: "for Levi-Strauss the world of stories is solely a mechanism of forces and relations" [1]. Such structural and non temporal description of narrative opens the way to a procedural model of narrative simulated on computers.23 According to Levi-Strauss: "L’ordre de succession chronologique se résorbe dans une structure matricielle atemporelle" (The order of chronological sequencing is reduced in a matrix and non temporal structure) (Levi-Strauss 1960, cited in [5]). The role of the computer is to: • model such an a non temporal structure; • simulate this structure to unfold the chronological sequence of events. If we examine closely the structuralist models, two features are of particular interest for Interactive Drama: First, the structuralists have introduced the very idea of a function: an action defined from the intrigue point of view [15]. Thus Structuralism focuses directly on the meaning of actions, from the story's perspective. Applied to Interactive applications, this provides a clear distinction between realistic virtual environments, which imitate the real world (see Artificial Intelligence based characters in realistic virtual worlds), and Interactive Drama, which aims at conveying meaning through a narrative: "La passion qui peut nous enflammer à la lecture d'un roman n'est pas celle d'une vision […] mais celle du sens." (The passion that evolves at the reading of a novel is not that of a vision, but that of meaning) [3]. Current trends in Interactive Drama confirm this evolution towards a global view of Interactive Drama [13]. Second, structuralist theorists do formalise their approach, modelling transformations in narrative with predicate based logic (see in particular [8][20]). This kind of formalism is suited to a computer simulation even if the transcription from theory to computer programming is not straightforward. This will be discussed in the next sections. Figure 1. Insert caption to place caption below figure. 3. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE IDtension SYSTEM The general architecture of The IDtension system is shown on Figure 1. The "World of the story" contains all information about the current state of the story : • basic elements contained in the story : characters, goals, tasks, obstacles • states related to characters: characters's wishes, knowledge, opportunities for action, etc. • facts concerning the material situation of the world of the story (for example: a door is closed). The role of the Narrative Logic is to calculate from the data stored in the "Word of the story" the set of all possible actions of the characters at a given time in the narrative. The Narrative Logic manipulates a


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Stanford HPS 154 - Structural Models for Interactive Drama

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