The Role of Assertiveness in a Storytelling Game with Persuasive Robotic Non-Player Characters Raul Paradeda Maria José Ferreira Raquel Oliveira Instituto Superior Técnico Instituto Superior Técnico Instituto Universitário de University of Lisbon & University of Lisbon & Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) INESC-ID & State University INESC-ID CIS-IUL & INESC-ID of Rio Grande do Norte Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon, Portugal [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Carlos Martinho Ana Paiva Instituto Superior Técnico Instituto Superior Técnico University of Lisbon & University of Lisbon & INESC-ID INESC-ID Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon, Portugal [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT CCS Concepts Can social agents be assertive and persuade users? To what •Human-centered computing ! User centered design; extent do the persuasion abilities of robots depend on the users’ Scenario-based design; Empirical studies in collaborative own traits? In this paper, we describe the results of a study in and social computing; which participants interacted with robotic Non-Player Charac- ters (NPC) displaying different levels of assertiveness (high and low), in a storytelling scenario. We sought to understand INTRODUCTION how the level of assertiveness displayed by the robots impacted In the context of virtual games, Non-Player Characters (NPC) the participants’ decision-making process and game experi- are computer controlled characters with which the player can ence. Our results suggest that NPCs displaying lower levels interact with [33, 39]. In this context, the NPCs (often seen as of assertiveness evoke more positive emotional responses but virtual or social agents [55]) are usually guided by Artificial are not more effective at influencing players’ decisions when Intelligence (AI) techniques, acting in a predetermined way or executing a specific set of game-related functions. For exam- compared to NPCs displaying higher levels of this trait. How- 1 ever, NPCs displaying a personality trait are more effective ple, in the game Red Dead Redemption 2 , the NPCs mostly persuaders than NPCs not displaying this feature. Overall, this interact with the player by posing questions and providing paper highlights the importance of considering the player’s hints about where to go next depending on the answer given personality and its relation to task-specific attributes during by the player. In that game, NPCs are used to direct the player the process of game design. to different storylines according to each answer s/he gives. In other games, such as in the series GTA2, the NPCs are used to provide missions to the player, and thus, serve the goal of opening new areas in the game environment or direct the path that a player takes throughout the game. Author Keywords In general, NPCs have an essential role in the game flow, Non-Player Character; Personality Trait; Interactive Digital mainly leading the players to where the game designer in- Storytelling; Assertiveness; Social Robotics; Persuasion. tended and often giving them the feeling that the game does not have a linear storyline. However, those agents are pro- grammed to follow specific predefined rules that often are equal for all players. In other words, in most cases, the NPC Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed does not consider the player’s preferences, personality traits or for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM 1 must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, Rockstar Games, Rockstar North and Rockstar San Diego. 2018. to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a Red Dead Redemption. Game [PlayStation 4, Xbox One]. Released: fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. 26 October 2018. Rock Star Game. CHI PLAY ’19, October 22–25, 2019, Barcelona, Spain. 2 Rockstar North, Digital Eclipse and Rockstar Leeds. 1997. Grand Copyright © 2019 Association of Computing Machinery. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6688-5/19/10 ...$15.00. Theft Auto. First release: 21 October 1997. Rock Star Game. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3311350.3347162 emotions. Nonetheless, research has shown that by consider- the participants’ choice to follow the suggestions presented ing these features it is possible to improve the game experience, by the NPC; and (c) analyse if an NPC displaying different increasing the level of immersion [39], enjoyment [19] and the levels of assertiveness (high, low or neutral) can influence par- commercial success of the game [3]. Having mechanisms to ticipants’ decision-making process by influencing their choice obtain and analyse the player’s preferences during the game, to alter their decisions. In this way, our work contributes to can help game developers to create more immersive games the literature in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and Human- by allowing them to develop NPCs that can engage in person- Agent Interaction (HAI) by presenting a novel scenario with alised persuasion and interaction strategies [3]. In particular, embodied NPCs with varying levels of assertiveness that can previous research has suggested that personalised persuasion be used to develop and deploy personalised persuasion tech- strategies are more effective than non-personalised strategies niques in gaming contexts. This can be particularly attractive in communicating a message or influencing the player to take for those developing games in which the agent needs to con- a particular decision [28,6,8] and thus, are of great value for vince a person to perform an action or change its behaviour, game developers. such as in serious games. However, creating an NPC that is capable of employing per- sonalised persuasion strategies is not an easy task. To achieve PERSUASION AND PERSONALIZATION OF NPCS IN this end, the game mechanics and NPC’s intelligence needs GAMING ENVIRONMENTS to be able to collect, identify and create a player’s profile of Researchers have been discussing the importance of creating preferences, and act accordingly. This way the persuasion robots and virtual agents that can display human-like emo- techniques implemented can suit each player profile without tions and responses for a long time. Part of the discussion has becoming too invasive or aggressive. The persuader must been oriented towards answering the essential question, first present the right balance between passivity (not intervening) formulated by Picard, of whether computers and virtual agents and aggression (pushover behaviour). One way for the per- should display emotions and behaviours “(...) as closely as suader to be successful is to employ assertive behaviour, that is possible to what we know about human emotions, or should “... the skill to seek, maintain or enhance reinforcement in an they be designed differently; and if the latter, then how?”[52], interpersonal relationship through an expression of feelings (p. 132). One argument in favour of the implementation of or wants...” , even if that results in risks or punishment for the human-like behaviours and characteristics in agents comes author of the behaviour ([38], p. 127). Hence, to engineer the from the line of research developed by Nass and Moon [43]. appropriate level of assertiveness in an NPC one also needs Those authors suggest that given that people often translate to consider the level of assertiveness of the player, as the two their perceptions and stereotypes of Human-Human Interac- go hand in hand, and thus this interconnection becomes in- tion (HHI) to the domain of HRI, these types of interaction dispensable as we attempt to model personalised persuasive should follow some of the social rules of HHI. For example, interactions in-game contexts. studies have suggested that robots displaying personality traits can positively influence the participants’ perception and en- To that end, an experimental study was conducted in which joyment of the HRI experience as well as the evaluation of the participants had to interact with two robotic NPCs in a sto- robots’ intelligence, social attraction and others skills [35, 61, rytelling scenario. We have chosen to use embodied NPCs 26, 39, 30]. because research has shown that the use of physical agents can increase engagement as players spend more time with In addition, several authors have also proposed that the use the physical robot compared to its virtual counterpart [54]. of personalised interaction strategies can also improve game Moreover, we chose to use social robots because there is still enjoyment and the participants’ evaluation of the virtual char- a gap in the literature regarding the level of effectiveness per- acters. For instance, in the work of Chowanda et al. [13], suasion attempts by these agents, specially in game scenarios. the authors applied a framework named ERiSA to the Skyrim This is of particular importance if we consider that (a) there Creation Kit to make the players participate in a quest with is a growing number of games being developed in HRI (e.g. two NPCs with unique personality traits. They observed that Enercities) [56, 32]; (b) a number of these games (and in par- players noticed the NPCs’ characteristics and responded differ- ticular, serious games) require some kind of decision-making ently according to the personality traits implemented in each [32]; (c) although there is plenty of research about virtual one. According to the authors, the scenario provided a new NPCs, it is unclear if those findings translate into embodied game-playing experience, mainly in regards to the emotional NPCs and d) the interaction with physical robots can boost attachment to the NPCs and how they built a social relationship the positive emotions felt by the players during the interaction with them.