Integrating story-centric and character-centric processes for authoring interactive drama

Abstract

Computer aided interactive drama has been widely applied for entertainment and pedagogy. Most existing approaches for authoring interactive drama use either story-centric or character-centric processes. In this work, we present a new framework that integrates both types of processes to support authoring. This framework uses a multi-Agent system to control virtual characters in a story. The characters' motivations are encoded as the agents' goals, and are configured based on well-structured story paths generated using a partial order planner. This framework allows the use of a planner that models the story at a more abstract level than the multi-Agent system, and thus avoids the effort of building equivalent models of the story using both the planner and the multi-Agent system. We explore the use of this new framework for authoring interactive dramas. Preliminary examples of application are presented. Copyright © 2008, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.