UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Grail Framework: Making Stories Playable on Three Levels in CRPGs Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/004129jn Author Sullivan, Anne Margaret Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ THE GRAIL FRAMEWORK: MAKING STORIES PLAYABLE ON THREE LEVELS IN CRPGS A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in COMPUTER SCIENCE by Anne Margaret Sullivan June 2012 The Dissertation of Anne Margaret Sullivan is approved: _______________________________ Associate Professor Michael Mateas, Chair _______________________________ Associate Professor Noah Wardrip-Fruin _______________________________ Professor Jim Whitehead _______________________________ Associate Professor R. Michael Young _____________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Anne Margaret Sullivan 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ xi ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... xvii Acknowledgments................................................................................................................... xix Chapter 1: Introduction.............................................................................................................. 1 1 Playable Stories .................................................................................................................. 2 1.1 Table-Top Role-Playing Games ........................................................................................ 3 1.2 Game Master ................................................................................................................... 4 2 Computer Role-Playing Games ........................................................................................... 5 3 Introducing Choice in Story ................................................................................................ 7 3.1 Agency ............................................................................................................................. 8 3.2 Grail Framework and Mismanor ................................................................................... 10 4 Research Contributions .................................................................................................... 11 5 Dissertation Outline ......................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 2: The future of role-playing games ........................................................................... 15 1 Tabletop Role-Playing Games ........................................................................................... 15 2 Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games .......................................................... 17 3 Single-Player Computer Role-Playing Games ................................................................... 20 iii 4 Interactive Storytelling ..................................................................................................... 23 4.1 Narrative Generation .................................................................................................... 23 4.2 Scene-Based Storytelling ............................................................................................... 24 4.3 Character-based Storytelling ......................................................................................... 25 5 Quest Generation ............................................................................................................. 26 6 Conclusion - The Grail Framework ................................................................................... 27 Chapter 3: Levels Of Storytelling .............................................................................................. 29 1 Player level ....................................................................................................................... 30 1.1.1 Social Mechanics ..................................................................................................... 34 1.2 Visual Novels and Social Sims ........................................................................................ 35 2 Quest Level ....................................................................................................................... 38 2.1.1 Quests ..................................................................................................................... 41 2.1.2 Task-Based vs. Goal-Based Quests .......................................................................... 46 3 Game level Stories ............................................................................................................ 49 3.1.1 Dynamic Story ......................................................................................................... 51 4 World Level Stories........................................................................................................... 53 5 Level Interconnectivity ..................................................................................................... 54 6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 55 iv Chapter 4: CiF-RPG at the player level ..................................................................................... 56 1 Social state representation .............................................................................................. 57 1.1 Game Objects ................................................................................................................ 58 1.1.1 Characters ............................................................................................................... 61 1.1.2 Items ....................................................................................................................... 62 1.1.3 Knowledge .............................................................................................................. 64 1.2 Traits .............................................................................................................................. 66 1.3 Statuses ......................................................................................................................... 67 1.4 Social networks ............................................................................................................. 68 1.5 Social Facts Database .................................................................................................... 70 1.6 Cultural Knowledgebase ................................................................................................ 70 2 Social Actions .................................................................................................................... 71 2.1 Intent ............................................................................................................................. 75 2.2 Preconditions................................................................................................................. 75 2.3 Influence Rules .............................................................................................................. 76 2.4 Instantiations ................................................................................................................. 77 2.5 Effects ............................................................................................................................ 78 3 Micro-theories .................................................................................................................. 78 v 3.1 Choosing a social move ................................................................................................. 79 3.2 Accepting or Rejecting a move ...................................................................................... 80 4 Player-System Interaction ................................................................................................ 81 5 CiF-RPG and Player Level Stories ...................................................................................... 83 Chapter 5: GrailGM at the Quest and Game level ................................................................... 85 1 Quests ............................................................................................................................... 85 1.1 Name, Quest Giver, and Quest Finisher ........................................................................ 87 1.2 Intent ............................................................................................................................. 89 1.3 Preconditions................................................................................................................. 90 1.4 Mentioned Locations and Mentioned Characters ........................................................ 90 1.5 Goal States..................................................................................................................... 91 1.6 Completion States ......................................................................................................... 93 1.6.1