Interaction and narration. Tearing Tolkien apart - CiteSeerX

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18 guity has disappeared, since he now supports the destruction of the Ring, and thus lines up with the good guys. The program is very primitive, it only distinguishes between three values, and resolves value conflicts simply by letting later values overwrite earlier ones, but it shows that the simple idea of dissonance removal may be “good enough” for game design. It does of course not qualify as a psychological theory, but may be acceptable as a way to create believable consistency the attitudes of game agents. rule the world destroy the ring hide the ring Promotes Is promoted by Obstructs Is obstructed by claim the ring, sauron find the ring, saruman throw ring into borodin Frodo, fangorn,gollum,sam frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam throw ring into borodin destroy the ring frodo, fangorn, gollum,, sam claim the ring rule the world find the ring sauron, saruman find the ring sauron claim the ring rule the world rule the world claim the ring, find the ring, cut down trees sauron, saruman, sauron, saruman sauron, saruman claim the ring rule the world find the ring rule the world , claim the ring rule the world, claim the ring destroy the ring, hide the ring, throw ring into borodin, Frodo, fangorn,gollum, sam destroy the ring, hide the ring, throw ring into borodin, Frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam Sauron,, saruman sauron, saruman sauron, saruman destroy the ring hide the ring, throw ring into borodin, frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam hide the ring frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam frodo destroy the ring hide the ring, throw ring into borodin, Frodo, fangorn,gollum, sam frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam rule the world, claim the ring, find the ring, cut down trees sauron, saruman, sauron, saruman sam Frodo destroy the ring, hide the ring throw ring into borodin, fangorn, gollum, sam frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam rule the world, claim the ring, find the ring, cut down trees sauron, saruman, sauron, saruman saruman Fangorn gollum Sauron, cut down trees rule the world, claim the ring, find the ring saruman destroy the ring, hide the ring, throw ring into borodin, Frodo, fangorn,gollum, sam destroy the ring, hide the ring, throw ring into borodin, Frodo, fangorn,gollum, sam sauron, saruman frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam destroy the ring, hide the ring, throw ring into borodin, Frodo, fangorn,gollum, sam cut down trees rule the world, claim the ring, find the ring, sauron, saruman claim the ring destroy the ring rule the world find the ring, cut down trees sauron, saruman, frodo, fangorn, gollum, sam sauron, saruman sauron,saruman Cut down trees sauron, saruman frodo,fangorn, gollum, sam Fig. 5.4. Normal font: the initial relations. Bold: inferred relations. Strikethrough: initial relation that are change to the opposite.
19 In addition it gives rise to a number of interesting questions that may enhance game design: • Are there configurations that will never become stable? Such configurations will be very interesting for game design, since they can make the game keep developing in a believable way without the player having to do everything. This means an end to the boring hours where everything has stopped because you cannot find the required pot of gold. • Are there configurations where a single small change will change most of the network? If they exist, then we will be able to add “the dramatic turn” to game design: a situation where the story changes dramatically but in a motivated and believable way. • How should the propagation of value be administered? In the test-program, the actants are omniscient, but in a game their attitudes should only change when they get information about other actants and their actions. One cannot like or dislike what one does not know. Some of the rules should be optional and used for characterizing personalities. For example, the rule of reflexivity and symmetry should probably be optional: Gollum shifts between liking and hating himself, which is prohibited by the rule of reflexivity. Also, symmetry is often not upheld for certain characters: Jesus, for one, consciously broke the rule. I have a suspicion, although I have no proof, that the rules as they stand will always end in equilibrium. For example, the situation where Frodo likes both Gollum and Sam that hate one another will first turn into an unstable one where everybody hate everybody, and then into a stable situation where everybody like one another. This is not what happens in the book: here Frodo maintains mixed feelings to the two, trying to avoid hostility. The fault is easy to discover: Frodo’s bonds to Sam are much more stable than his tentative compassion for Gollum. Thus, his positive attitude towards Sam ought to be more difficult to give up than his fragile likeness for Gollum. Thus, we need a concept of emotional entrenchment similar to the epistemic entrenchment analyzed by Gärdenfors 1988: 75 ff. We can now add rule (9): (9) Remove Dissonance. Update all emotional values according to a refined version of Algorithm of dissonance removal. We should notice that the user too will enter into this emotional calculus on a par with the fictive characters. In order for a narrative to be effective, we need some sympathetic character to identify with and to use as a basis for distributing our sympathies towards the other characters. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo is clearly the reader’s identification point. 6 Knowledge A major problem in formalizing a narrative is that the actants act from their own knowledge of the state of affairs. If the actants had not separate minds (cf. the knowledge world of Ryan 1991), plot elements, such as deceit and scheming, would be impossible to implement, since, in these cases, one character intends another character to believe something the former knows is false.
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Page 3 and 4: 3 As my running example, I shall ta
Page 5 and 6: 5 One of the benefits of this repre
Page 7 and 8: 7 Since we need to represent modal
Page 9 and 10: 9 In principle the modality of an e
Page 11 and 12: 11 can be so strict as to only allo
Page 13 and 14: 13 symbol for creation, we may as w
Page 15 and 16: [z] [y] [-] [-] 15 tree-herd that d
Page 17: 17 • Event 1 -Event 2 : if Event
Page 21 and 22: 21 ‘I do not know what they [the
Page 23 and 24: 23 Prophecy: Part: the sword that w
Page 25 and 26: 25 7 Updating and maintaining knowl
Page 27 and 28: 27 The decision which beliefs to gi
Page 29 and 30: 29 I may have started with guesses
Page 31 and 32: 31 Event/ Actant [+/-/0] Event/ Act

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