From: sharp@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Maurice Sharp) Subject: Re: APPS: Game Design Date: Sun, 15 Mar 92 20:05:25 GMT Message-ID: <1992Mar15.200525.12243@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> Organization: U. of Calgary Computer Science In article <1992Mar15.192233.17091@u.washington.edu> Jayson Raymond writes: >Bruce ending his message in a quote from Laurels "Computers as Theatre". > > In this book, her originating thesis, and the work of Joe Bates >at CMU on Oz - the consensus appears to be that in the future, when we >have very fast systems, an interactive fiction system will be able to >quickly explore the probable event space for a participant and present >the event which best imparts the emotional impact that will create the >dramatic dynamics typical of a good story/theatre/movie. (Forgive me, >it's been sometime since I read "CaT", and don't recall the exact >terminology Laurel or Bates used). > > Unfortunately, I believe the flaw in this theory occurs when >multiple participants join in. The implied requirement of world >coherence between partipants in a V-W would seem to rapidly reduce this >"probability space" to nothing in common within a very few number of >additional participants. Hiya, What the probability space contains depends on what point of view it is using. If it is filled with interpretations of the VW qua the participants, then yes I agree with you. But if the interpretation is qua the observer using the probability space (the Director), then there will always be something in the space. There are two ways to show this. The first is pragmatic. There is a type of improvisational theatre called TheatreSports. It evidences two kinds of commonality of probability space. First, an improvised scene with 2 or more improvisors (actors), almost always has narrative coherance. That is, it has a commonality that the actors are orienting to (NOTE: there is NO preconcieved plan, nor is it possible for each actor to follow automat style tapes, the nature of the scene continually changes, it is the overall result that has order). The second is more theoretical, however it requires a fair bit of background to show it. Suffice to say that you can use Situated Actions (plus some Don Norman, and others) to show that a probability space qua the observer will always contain at least one next course of action. In other words, the addition of participants only adds complexity inasmuch as each participant has their own explanation of what is going on. However, these views are not critical to directing the action. It can be done by some observer using their own explanation of what is going on. The participants will orient to the new situation of action. Or if they do not, there will be detectable inconsistancies that can be used to change the action to something that works. maurice Maurice Sharp MSc. Student (403) 220 7690 University of Calgary Computer Science Department 2500 University Drive N.W. sharp@cpsc.UCalgary.CA Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 AOL FSAMaurice -- Maurice Sharp MSc. Student (403) 220 7690 University of Calgary Computer Science Department 2500 University Drive N.W. sharp@cpsc.UCalgary.CA Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 AOL FSAMaurice