Believable Agents and Intelligent Story Adaptation for Interactive Storytelling

Interactive Narrative is an approach to interactive entertainment that enables the player to make decisions that directly affect the direction and/or outcome of the narrative experience being delivered by the computer system. Interactive narrative requires two seemingly conflicting requirements: coherent narrative and user agency. We present an interactive narrative system that uses a combination of narrative control and autonomous believable character agents to augment a story world simulation in which the user has a high degree of agency with narrative plot control. A drama manager called the Automated Story Director gives plot-based guidance to believable agents. The believable agents are endowed with the autonomy necessary to carry out directives in the most believable fashion possible. Agents also handle interaction with the user. When the user performs actions that change the world in such a way that the Automated Story Director can no longer drive the intended narrative forward, it is able to adapt the plot to incorporate the user’s changes and still achieve dramatic goals.