6 ms·

No! This is a terrible, terrible idea. At best you can have the LLM generate minor variations of the nothings they say. 1) you need to be able to ensure that t

No! This is a terrible, terrible idea. At best you can have the LLM generate minor variations of the nothings they say. 1) you need to be able to ensure that the characters don’t hallucinate new details. No big deal. 2) you need to be able to ensure that the characters don’t suggest they can or will do anything that they can’t do. For NPCs, this is typically literally nothing. They can’t do anything. It’s actually way worse for realism and immersion if every character has a unique reason why they can’t do anything than every single guard citing their arrow to the knee and leaving it at that. 3) NPCs for story reasons often should know something but don’t tell you it. It’s very difficult to execute any sort of story flow if your characters are suddenly free agents. At best they merely lack self consistency. Stories are not going to become better if you can meta game them as genre savvy speculators. 4) NPCs with irrelevant backstories are very dull. They are absolutely annoying to talk to. We have these in DND. And you may say “hey, I loved my DND NPC”, but that character probably started to become very important as consistent because of the DM’s attention. Which is cool for DND, but it’s not cool for a structured game. Like, would Harry Potter be a better experience if you could personally grill dumbledore for information in the middle of the first book? I think 100% no. Dumb NPCs are an aspect of the suspension of disbelief of game writing. And it largely works. Asking for LLM agents is like asking to remove the need for the suspension of disbelief. But most narratives are too fragile for this to happen. Narratives generally follow a flow that ultimately concludes after a climax. If you give players more agency the most likely outcome is that they follow a path that does not hit the climax.

martindbp 2y ago
LLMs need to either be extremely good with insane context or LLM output has to be conditioned by and translated into formal logic, like Prolog or Datalog to make sure it's compatible with the rules and state of the world, and determine which effect player and NPC actions have on the world.
- mattbee 2y ago
  "Ahoy there, one-armed pirate captain, couldst thou tell me how to implement the sieve of Eratosthenes in Python?"
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  Logical conversation trees driving the LLM context seem way more reasonable to me than the other way around. But then you are adding a component of "how can I interrogate the NPC?" to the game. Anything you add to a game makes it a different game, and not necessarily a better one.
- gaganyaan 2y ago
  Longer context lengths will massively help, but game engines will also provide structure to the LLM. If you instruct an NPC to pick up a weapon and there isn't any, the engine will return an error to the LLM saying there's no weapon, and the LLM will write the character saying "What do you mean? There's no weapon."
  - squigz 2y ago
    Another reason extremely long context lengths may not be fully necessary is that engines can store information in a database, update it based on further interactions, etc
Hugsun 2y ago
This seems very pessimistic to me. For a linear storyline, highly dynamic NPCs are likely not going to add to the experience, that is correct. There are however other ways of creating interesting narratives. A good example is dwarf fortress where the narratives are created very dynamically and the player is free to interact with them as they want. LLMs could add immensely to these types of games.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  Still no. Your dwarves fundamentally have nothing interesting to say. It might be minority amusing that a bot can say “hey I just caused a lava flow and I feel bad about it”. But it’s not better. Dwarf fortress creates great stories because YOU are filling in the blanks. It would be MUCH WORSE if you could no longer fill in the blanks because some ai keeps breaking your head canon.
  - squigz 2y ago
    > Your dwarves fundamentally have nothing interesting to say. This can be said about all NPCs, yet we bother to script them, and I would hope nobody would suggest we just remove NPC dialogue.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      I disagree that scripted NPCs have nothing to say. You have a few basic types: * NPCs that don’t want to speak and usually offer a dismissive comment or a single repeating phrase. Fine candidates to LLM so long as this pattern doesn’t change. But also, who really cares? * important NPCs with specific written dialogue. Don’t even THINK about gambling with your story’s self consistency by giving these guys agency * the limited townsfolk type that has a small bit of something say. Like a typical Baldurs gate NPC. These people are fun to talk to because they “might” have something relevant or fun to say. Usually you don’t have to say anything. They just want to share things with you. It would be very tedious to chat with these people if they were infinite wells of lore and nothingness to be probed with written language.
YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
That's all as true as the fact there's a gun over the mantelpiece, at least if you're making Murder on the Orient Express or, you know, Horror on the Orient Express, and I'm all for some good old railroading with Victorian lampshades but I suspect that the designers interested in LLMs-as-NPCs are interested in some kind of open-world, immersive experience where PCs get to poke and prod every inch of the game world. The truth is that most people are used to games as these formulaic simulations with rigid rules. That's partly making a virtue out of necessity (very hard to play a game without rules; and some of us just like rules), and partly habit. Maybe LLMs can act as something new in that sense. Bang bang.
gaganyaan 2y ago
Odd comment. NPCs inventing details for themselves is the draw. NPCs will be limited by the game requiring the LLM to generate an action ("Move 5 units forward"), and then the game checks that it's a valid action, and rejects invalid ones. If you don't like metagaming LLMs, don't do that, and enjoy a regular roleplaying experience NPCs won't have irrelevant backstories. The backstories generated on the fly for them by an LLM will be incorporated into the overall story. The overall story climax will happen based on player actions, indicating they're ready for the climax, based on the world created by the player's actions and specific instructions. I think you're trying to cram the square peg of limitless, custom narration into the round hole of a premade story. You can experience a decent roleplaying session already with an LLM you can run on your computer. Compute is only going to get cheaper, and LLM capabilities will only increase.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  > The overall story climax will happen based on player actions, indicating they're ready for the climax, based on the world created by the player's actions and specific instructions. Which means it’ll be a shit story because the world will not be robust enough to capture the infinite edge cases you’re pursuing. Current LLM DMing is rancid garbage. I’m assuming it gets several iterations better than the current state for us to even begin having this conversation
  - gaganyaan 2y ago
    potato/potato. It'll be a great story because it builds on your actual gameplay. It's not infinite edge cases, it's infinite ways to have your actions matter, instead of suffering through some hack writer's idea of a good story. > I’m assuming it gets several iterations better than the current state Yeah, that's the thing. LLMs are only going to improve at this. If you hate all LLM roleplaying everywhere, just wait a few years. Other people will have their own fun with them in the meantime
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      Guess we’ll see. But I’m pretty sure you’re hugely incorrect.
dragonwriter 2y ago
Games with substantial roles for LLMs may be more like human GMed TTRPGs and less like traditional static-structured computer games, with less fixed narratives.

martindbp 2y ago

LLMs need to either be extremely good with insane context or LLM output has to be conditioned by and translated into formal logic, like Prolog or Datalog to make sure it's compatible with the rules and state of the world, and determine which effect player and NPC actions have on the world.

mattbee 2y ago
"Ahoy there, one-armed pirate captain, couldst thou tell me how to implement the sieve of Eratosthenes in Python?"
marcosdumay 2y ago
Logical conversation trees driving the LLM context seem way more reasonable to me than the other way around. But then you are adding a component of "how can I interrogate the NPC?" to the game. Anything you add to a game makes it a different game, and not necessarily a better one.
gaganyaan 2y ago
Longer context lengths will massively help, but game engines will also provide structure to the LLM. If you instruct an NPC to pick up a weapon and there isn't any, the engine will return an error to the LLM saying there's no weapon, and the LLM will write the character saying "What do you mean? There's no weapon."
- squigz 2y ago
  Another reason extremely long context lengths may not be fully necessary is that engines can store information in a database, update it based on further interactions, etc

Hugsun 2y ago

This seems very pessimistic to me. For a linear storyline, highly dynamic NPCs are likely not going to add to the experience, that is correct. There are however other ways of creating interesting narratives. A good example is dwarf fortress where the narratives are created very dynamically and the player is free to interact with them as they want. LLMs could add immensely to these types of games.

jncfhnb 2y ago
Still no. Your dwarves fundamentally have nothing interesting to say. It might be minority amusing that a bot can say “hey I just caused a lava flow and I feel bad about it”. But it’s not better. Dwarf fortress creates great stories because YOU are filling in the blanks. It would be MUCH WORSE if you could no longer fill in the blanks because some ai keeps breaking your head canon.
- squigz 2y ago
  > Your dwarves fundamentally have nothing interesting to say. This can be said about all NPCs, yet we bother to script them, and I would hope nobody would suggest we just remove NPC dialogue.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    I disagree that scripted NPCs have nothing to say. You have a few basic types: * NPCs that don’t want to speak and usually offer a dismissive comment or a single repeating phrase. Fine candidates to LLM so long as this pattern doesn’t change. But also, who really cares? * important NPCs with specific written dialogue. Don’t even THINK about gambling with your story’s self consistency by giving these guys agency * the limited townsfolk type that has a small bit of something say. Like a typical Baldurs gate NPC. These people are fun to talk to because they “might” have something relevant or fun to say. Usually you don’t have to say anything. They just want to share things with you. It would be very tedious to chat with these people if they were infinite wells of lore and nothingness to be probed with written language.

YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago

That's all as true as the fact there's a gun over the mantelpiece, at least if you're making Murder on the Orient Express or, you know, Horror on the Orient Express, and I'm all for some good old railroading with Victorian lampshades but I suspect that the designers interested in LLMs-as-NPCs are interested in some kind of open-world, immersive experience where PCs get to poke and prod every inch of the game world. The truth is that most people are used to games as these formulaic simulations with rigid rules. That's partly making a virtue out of necessity (very hard to play a game without rules; and some of us just like rules), and partly habit. Maybe LLMs can act as something new in that sense. Bang bang.

gaganyaan 2y ago

Odd comment. NPCs inventing details for themselves is the draw. NPCs will be limited by the game requiring the LLM to generate an action ("Move 5 units forward"), and then the game checks that it's a valid action, and rejects invalid ones. If you don't like metagaming LLMs, don't do that, and enjoy a regular roleplaying experience NPCs won't have irrelevant backstories. The backstories generated on the fly for them by an LLM will be incorporated into the overall story. The overall story climax will happen based on player actions, indicating they're ready for the climax, based on the world created by the player's actions and specific instructions. I think you're trying to cram the square peg of limitless, custom narration into the round hole of a premade story. You can experience a decent roleplaying session already with an LLM you can run on your computer. Compute is only going to get cheaper, and LLM capabilities will only increase.

jncfhnb 2y ago
> The overall story climax will happen based on player actions, indicating they're ready for the climax, based on the world created by the player's actions and specific instructions. Which means it’ll be a shit story because the world will not be robust enough to capture the infinite edge cases you’re pursuing. Current LLM DMing is rancid garbage. I’m assuming it gets several iterations better than the current state for us to even begin having this conversation
- gaganyaan 2y ago
  potato/potato. It'll be a great story because it builds on your actual gameplay. It's not infinite edge cases, it's infinite ways to have your actions matter, instead of suffering through some hack writer's idea of a good story. > I’m assuming it gets several iterations better than the current state Yeah, that's the thing. LLMs are only going to improve at this. If you hate all LLM roleplaying everywhere, just wait a few years. Other people will have their own fun with them in the meantime
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Guess we’ll see. But I’m pretty sure you’re hugely incorrect.

dragonwriter 2y ago

Games with substantial roles for LLMs may be more like human GMed TTRPGs and less like traditional static-structured computer games, with less fixed narratives.