Argax Project

Dissertation Outline

  1. Theory: A Poetics of Interactive Narrative
    1. General Poetics
      1. Intro

        Narrative (narratologists) vs. Interaction (ludologists) strain. Know it's some new beast, more than either, but what kind?

      2. Aristotle, Smiley, Laurel and Mateas's models. Rehashed.

        See (shortened) AAAI paper.

      3. Manner, which is discourse.

        Basic discourse/narratology overview. Seymour Chatman, Jonathan Culler, etc.

      4. The place of user interaction.

        Now possible at many levels for different INs. Ludologist arguments against narrative.

      5. Other factors

        A place for these? Satisfaction, meta-narrative issues, etc.

      6. Relation to common 4-part design of many IN systems: Action, World, Characters, Presentation.
    2. Structuring the Action
      1. Freytag's Triangle.
      2. Story form and structures (Propp, Levi-Strauss, etc)
      3. What is plot and what is story here? How/why does it matter?
    3. Producing the Action -- Various Approaches
      1. (Defunct systems: hypertext/branching plots, etc.)
      2. Emergent (modeling characters)
      3. Drama manager (modeling author?)
      4. Rule-based (modeling story? grammar?)
      5. Verbs
    4. Other Practical Considerations
      1. Improv rules (reincorporation, etc.)
      2. GMing/table-top RPGs (fudging rules for story, etc.)
  2. Design
    1. Relevant existing ID system
      1. Mateas' Facade

        Successful, scene-like beats.

      2. Grasbon's GEIST

        Proppian.

      3. Fairclough's OPIATE

        Proppian, character casting, etc.

      4. Other influences

        Other Proppian approaches in director systems, story generation, etc.

    2. The Arcitecture: Proppian Eudaemon
      1. Propp functions (original, tho simplified subset)
      2. DM features/operations
      3. Character casting
      4. Decouplable from world (replacable story)
      5. Relation to Poetics as describe above.
    3. The Game: Wharf
      1. Scenes
      2. Characters
      3. Location
  3. Experiment
    1. Claims about new system [Still evolving]
      • As described as Features?
    2. Setup [Still evolving]
      • Running with no DM
      • Running with single storyline DM
      • Running with full DM
    3. Results
Argax Project : Dissertation : Outline
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ztomasze/argax
 Argax Logo Last Edited: 04 May 2006
©2006 by Z. Tomaszewski.