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This is actually why I think it's viable. The mistake is that crpgs try to tell a very particular story, and procedural generation stops at creation. But that's

by setr 7y ago

This is actually why I think it's viable. The mistake is that crpgs try to tell a very particular story, and procedural generation stops at creation. But that's not the GM's job. The GM's role is to create and simulate the universe, and to fudge the simulation (and the players) a little to keep it entertaining. And (sufficient) simulation is definitely something we can hope to do -- though few games really try. But the automation has a slightly different role than your GM.. it's goal is not to "move the story forward", but rather to craft a universe so interesting the players will move forward on their own! The automation should not be rolling to find out whether something is behind the door.. it should simply be checking if the simulated creature has wandered there. The drudgery of true simulation then must be mitigated, and the tools for mitigation are the job of the game designer and the hueristics of the simulation. That is, you need not simulate the atom, nor the food & lifecycles; just enough of the system to allow it to change and adapt on its own (and ideally be self-stabilizing to a degree; probably best done by acknowledging the players only explore a single dungeon, but it's affected by a world outside of it; this is the opportunity to inject whatever corrections are necessary to stabilize the environment, avoiding the problems of Ultima Online)

citizenkeen 7y ago
I disagree - the current RPG trend is away from simulating a world and towards crafting a narrative. > The automation should not be rolling to find out whether something is behind the door.. it should simply be checking if the simulated creature has wandered there. The better example is the GM deciding if there's anything interesting that could be behind the door. If yes, then you're rolling to find out the terms of the engagement. If no, if it's not interesting, then you're done. There's nothing behind the door. To automate that, an AI would need to be able to gauge how "narratively interesting or emotionally meaningful" something is. I think we're a little way off from that.
- setr 7y ago
  >the current RPG trend is away from simulating a world and towards crafting a narrative. Yes, making the mistake of the mediocre GM -- trying to lead the player(s) into following your story, instead of enabling them to create their own. The ideal GM (at least, for me, someone who strongly prefers ADnD to DnD5) maximizes player agency, while constraining it by the rules of the universe (and also operating as a manager, because you're dealing with meatbags where one guy will happily try to spend 5 hours dicking around in the bar when the rest of the party wants to go to the dungeon, and another idiot will be trying to "troll" the group, in the most uninteresting fashion). The core narrative (and every GM inherently brings with him a narrative he wants to tell) is incentivized, in much the same way any open world videog-game RPG has a main questline, but the ideal GM allows for departure from it as long as its interesting. The narrative-focused GM, and RPG, will only allow such a deviation so far as it doesn't detract from the main narrative, because there is only one narrative the GM has interest in telling. Narrative-focused RPGs may be the current trend, but that doesn't make it a good trend. >To automate that, an AI would need to be able to gauge how "narratively interesting or emotionally meaningful" something is. I think we're a little way off from that. You're correct, but my point is that we don't actually need, or even really want that, for our imaginary automaton. Humans, by their nature, will bring the emotional impact, and fill in the details of the narrative, entirely on their own, if they are enabled to do so. They will assign personalities to blank-slate NPCs, they will craft their own reasons for doing whatever they do, they will spin their own tale, so long as the system will allow it (and as long as its sufficiently limited; for whatever reason, limitations breed creativity). You just need to provide an environment that reacts to the players, and sufficiently interesting ways for the player to interact with the environment. Give them a gravity/portal gun and players will come up with all kinds of stories.. In a tabletop, the GM enables the reactive behaviors of what would otherwise be a static map. In a cRPG, lacking the GM, you get a static map (except for very specifically defined reactions, usually determined by narrative events). In most open world rpgs, you get a large map and multiple narratives, but still rather static. In a simulation, you get the reactive environment; the closer the RPG approximates a simulation, the closer we get to the GM's role -- to react to player input (rather than prescribe it) This is in much the same way that any game can be fun if you toss in multiplayer, and give players sufficient controls -- the players will do all the hard work of setting goals, spinning tales, emotionally attaching themselves to arbitrary constructs. Games don't need narratives, they need agency. Then the narratives come for free.
  - citizenkeen 7y ago
    You conflate "narrative" and "GM-controlled narrative". These are not the same thing. The current trend enables player agency because the table as a group decides the narrative, not just the GM. It's about the table as a whole deciding what it most narratively interesting to happen right now.

by setr 7y ago

citizenkeen 7y ago

I disagree - the current RPG trend is away from simulating a world and towards crafting a narrative. > The automation should not be rolling to find out whether something is behind the door.. it should simply be checking if the simulated creature has wandered there. The better example is the GM deciding if there's anything interesting that could be behind the door. If yes, then you're rolling to find out the terms of the engagement. If no, if it's not interesting, then you're done. There's nothing behind the door. To automate that, an AI would need to be able to gauge how "narratively interesting or emotionally meaningful" something is. I think we're a little way off from that.

setr 7y ago
>the current RPG trend is away from simulating a world and towards crafting a narrative. Yes, making the mistake of the mediocre GM -- trying to lead the player(s) into following your story, instead of enabling them to create their own. The ideal GM (at least, for me, someone who strongly prefers ADnD to DnD5) maximizes player agency, while constraining it by the rules of the universe (and also operating as a manager, because you're dealing with meatbags where one guy will happily try to spend 5 hours dicking around in the bar when the rest of the party wants to go to the dungeon, and another idiot will be trying to "troll" the group, in the most uninteresting fashion). The core narrative (and every GM inherently brings with him a narrative he wants to tell) is incentivized, in much the same way any open world videog-game RPG has a main questline, but the ideal GM allows for departure from it as long as its interesting. The narrative-focused GM, and RPG, will only allow such a deviation so far as it doesn't detract from the main narrative, because there is only one narrative the GM has interest in telling. Narrative-focused RPGs may be the current trend, but that doesn't make it a good trend. >To automate that, an AI would need to be able to gauge how "narratively interesting or emotionally meaningful" something is. I think we're a little way off from that. You're correct, but my point is that we don't actually need, or even really want that, for our imaginary automaton. Humans, by their nature, will bring the emotional impact, and fill in the details of the narrative, entirely on their own, if they are enabled to do so. They will assign personalities to blank-slate NPCs, they will craft their own reasons for doing whatever they do, they will spin their own tale, so long as the system will allow it (and as long as its sufficiently limited; for whatever reason, limitations breed creativity). You just need to provide an environment that reacts to the players, and sufficiently interesting ways for the player to interact with the environment. Give them a gravity/portal gun and players will come up with all kinds of stories.. In a tabletop, the GM enables the reactive behaviors of what would otherwise be a static map. In a cRPG, lacking the GM, you get a static map (except for very specifically defined reactions, usually determined by narrative events). In most open world rpgs, you get a large map and multiple narratives, but still rather static. In a simulation, you get the reactive environment; the closer the RPG approximates a simulation, the closer we get to the GM's role -- to react to player input (rather than prescribe it) This is in much the same way that any game can be fun if you toss in multiplayer, and give players sufficient controls -- the players will do all the hard work of setting goals, spinning tales, emotionally attaching themselves to arbitrary constructs. Games don't need narratives, they need agency. Then the narratives come for free.
- citizenkeen 7y ago
  You conflate "narrative" and "GM-controlled narrative". These are not the same thing. The current trend enables player agency because the table as a group decides the narrative, not just the GM. It's about the table as a whole deciding what it most narratively interesting to happen right now.