Generating explorable narrative spaces with answer set programming

Abstract

Previous approaches to narrative generation have required a new planner implementation for each set of constraints deemed relevant to the narrative domain, each consisting of thousands of lines of code and supporting one primary mode of interaction: fully specifying a domain and problem, and receiving a plan as output. We present a lightweight, flexible narrative planner written with Answer Set Programming, designed specifically to support constraint-based narrative generation, show how it generalizes previous approaches, and show how it can be easily extended with notions of thematic plot schema such as “betrayal.” Finally, we demonstrate how the ASP model can be explored through interactive question answering, where answers take the form of generated narratives. In the long term, we intend this work to support understanding of complex rule systems through interactive exploration.