Killing Mister Cavern?

[Username17]

The thing many of you guys don't seem to be getting is that Computers are incredibly shitty at procedurally generated content. They can barely handle random monster encounter charts, having conversation options that are relevant to a flexible situation is basically beyond them. A human brain can easily handle "[Random Enemy] wants [Random Treasure] in [Random Location]." without problem. For a computer, it's difficult for an enemy's evil speech to even reference the player characters by name without being grammatically incorrect.

Computers can only do what they are told to do. They only have possibilities that are programmed into them. To do a branching plot, they actually have to have each branch programmed in separately. That's why even games like Fable and Fallout only have one final boss and only have a small set of endings. Compare to games like Arkham Horror and Tales of the Arabian Nights, where the final adventure could be any of two dozen different things and there are many endings.

Cards or charts pus human minds are simply able to handle much more branching than a computer game ever could. Every computer game ever written gives you at most a set of quests that you have maybe a couple ways to handle (including "ignore") and then maybe a running tally that keeps track of some sort of aggregate score of choices leading up to a final end scenario that again has maybe a couple of choices. No one has made something like Arkham Horror or Tales of the Arabian Nights into a computer game because that's really fucking hard. Even though both games can be picked up and played by non-gamers in the evening of first exposure. No one has made a computer game that handles "Dungeons & Dragons", they've always pussied out and made a single D&D adventure, with or without some sidequests.

Running even a small pile of tables, such as ten tables with ten options on them, still gives you more to program than has ever been programmed. Seriously, that's ten billion possible plot lines, and would be more to program than has been programmed in all of human history. Even though of course human beings can look at the output of those charts and start roleplaying around the table immediately.

So those of you who are saying that killing the MC is "like playing a computer game" - what the fuck are you talking about? Such a computer program is, while not impossible, certainly unprecedented. You're seriously treading into Theory of Mind shit where you are predicting that every human experience is duplicated precisely by some computer simulation available in the indeterminate future.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

... I think Frank has not played Diablo yet.

[virgil]

There's a slight difference between plot/conversation and room layout.

[Archmage]

... I think Frank has not played Diablo yet.

Clearly, he has. Diablo I chose random quests for you to do, but there wasn't any choice involved. The game just threw X out of Y possible quests at you each time you played and generated dungeon layouts randomly. Diablo II didn't even have quest randomization, but of course the maps are still random.

But either way, Diablo is always the same. You go through the dungeons and kill Diablo. You fight the same bosses at the same time every Diablo II playthrough. There is no dialogue option in Diablo that can make you fight Dureel before you fight Andariel. There's no way of making choices that allow you to beat the narrator to Tal Rasha's tomb and prevent him from fucking with Mephisto's soulstone. You can't open the portal to Tristram earlier and prevent its destruction.

Video games are linear because to do otherwise is absurdly difficult since computers can't do anything they aren't explicitly told to do via some algorithm. Even "procedurally-generated" content has to adhere to some set of preset rules.

You can pull stuff out of your ass and make up an entertaining story to explain the results of rolls on a random table--and indeed, doing so is a game in itself. The fact that you get to go do that adventure now is even better. Hell, random tables full of one-sentence plot hooks have given me plenty of inspiration for games. The idea that you might create a game where that was the primary means of generating adventures sounds interesting.

[Username17]

There's a slight difference between plot/conversation and room layout.

Yes, a computer game can deal cards just fine. They can lay down room tiles or fill a room with random monsters, or do anything else that is a one-time event where random garbage is thrown out. But to actually make coherent connections between the two is beyond a computer. You have to program in a potential connection between each possible thing that could be connected.

So a computer can flip a coin as to whether the couch is on the East or West side of the room same as any MC or MC-less game can. But it can't come up with a plot meaningful reason why the couch was on one side or the other unless that was programmed in ahead of time. And it damn sure can't reorient the plot to take place in a desert instead of the swamp.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

Oh, okay, Frank's referring purely to the computer's inability to create a plot. Gotcha. Nothing wrong there then, because even real people have difficulty putting a plot together.

I was getting a little confused because he's saying you can't program Arkham Horror into a computer game, when I think that it's actually very doable - because all the computer has to do is to hand out the pre-generated challenges from the cards in the tabletop version. Sure, it's totally not gonna make sense (i.e. You get paralyzed by a ghoul in one round so you can't move, but then draw an event card where you step on a pressure plate and activate a fire trap), but most randomly pre-generated stuff will be like that without human intervention.

If we're talking plot like K though, then yeah, we're not gonna be seeing computer games that give us ten different plots to resolve anytime soon unless you count those Japanese RPGs with 100 characters and the ending is different depending on how many characters survive.

[Koumei]

Yeah, the best I've seen from computers would be stuff like the ending to Dynasty Warriors Empires, where it randomly picks out some of the best people on your side and puts them in randomly selected scenes in the post game.

I mean, there is at least one D&D 3E dungeon generator (if there are many, I'm thinking the old "official" one). It will make you a floor layout and fill it with treasure, traps (treasure that hits you first), secret doors (hidden treasure), decorations (heavy treasure) and monsters (treasure waiting to happen). It can probably make a reasonable dungeoncrawl for you to give a plot to.

But the things in that dungeon won't actually make any sense, and won't have any reason for being there. So you'll get an iron spike trap in the same room as the rust monsters, friendly fire giants in one room with hostile ones in the very next room and so on.

[Zinegata]

Well... some computer games have tried to make random dungeon creation a bit more sensible.

For instance, in the OOO mod for Oblivion, the random dungeon generator will generally put "allied" monsters together in one dungeon, so you will no longer see mindless meat-eating zombies sharing a cavern with some wolves. You'll just have a dungeon full of zombies, or a dungeon full of wolves.

Torchlight also apparently attempts to make dungeons a bit more sensible... but personally it still felt a lot like Diablo to me.

But really, without extra attention to detail, even a human DM may end up having inconsistent dungeons. How many dungeons have had goblins living in it, yet there are numerous locked doors while none of the goblins have any keys?

[RobbyPants]

I like the idea of having various intelligence-based tags on monsters to dictate their AI. I suppose equipment and magic could also help dictate it. For example, if the location is robust enough to differentiate between melee and ranged combat, a ranged monster should behave differently than a melee monster. Depending on the types of spells, the monster will likely either try to engage or retreat.

It would probably be prudent to make all random monster abilities either ranged or melee, because you don't want to have the creature randomly engaging and retreating based on the ability you roll. Although, if you get rid of stuff like AoOs, maybe it doesn't matter.

[hogarth]

The thing many of you guys don't seem to be getting is that Computers are incredibly shitty at procedurally generated content. They can barely handle random monster encounter charts, having conversation options that are relevant to a flexible situation is basically beyond them. A human brain can easily handle "[Random Enemy] wants [Random Treasure] in [Random Location]." without problem.

Huh? I can easily play a randomly picked game (e.g. Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, whatever) of Unreal Championship on a randomly picked map against a randomly picked set of bots, which sounds basically like what K is talking about.

If you want to layer some more plot on top of that, you're right that it requires human intervention, i.e. a GM.

So, to summarize:

• A plot requires one or more plot-writers.
• The plot-writers must be human.
• We call this human plot-writer (or writers) a "game master" or "computer RPG writer" or "novelist" or whatever the fuck you want.

[mean_liar]

I reviewed Mythic this morning. It works on a few levels.

A fundamental one that comes up often is the binary decision tree, and reading its description does not make for a compelling sell of the mechanic involved. Basically, you can ask the universe a yes/no question with odds determined by a Chaos factor (starting at a medium value and increasing with failures and decreasing with successes) modified by group fiat.

Random Events also pop up, based on the result of the binary question-related dieroll - they're more likely with more Chaos. This leads to a focus (new NPC appears, surprise movement towards/away from goal, positive and negative events, etc), an action (a d100 list of verbs) and a subject (a d100 list of nouns). The group interprets the results like a Rorschach test and implements them. This part seems interesting, in that you're interactively taking random crap and trying to make it maintain some kind of logic, which to me feels like what a good Mr Cavern does anyway.

There are some neat ways of maintaining some semblance of order: maintaining lists of NPCs so that you can hit the memory banks as Random Events or the plot imply, and Threads, which is the game's method of keeping track of plots. There's the character Threads (find my father) as well as the plot threads (recover the MacGuffin).

Plots and games move ahead expressly by Scenes - the Scene is set by previous events and character decisions (or if the 1st scene and no one has any great ideas, something from the Random Events results), but then possibly modified by being Interrupted or Altered in unexpected ways (the possibility of which is determined by the Chaos).

I'd have to see it in play, but I don't think its that bad a shot at pushing Mr Cavern aside.

It still doesn't answer basic stuff though: what opposition shows up and how to run them (Mythic itself plays like The Window, so concrete numbers are only really window dressing on narrative descriptions), for example.

[souran]

So those of you who are saying that killing the MC is "like playing a computer game" - what the fuck are you talking about? Such a computer program is, while not impossible, certainly unprecedented. You're seriously treading into Theory of Mind shit where you are predicting that every human experience is duplicated precisely by some computer simulation available in the indeterminate future.

-Username17

Without mister cavern the players will be forced to play pretty much by the rules as written. That will be the only arbiter for disputes: whatever the rules say.

This is like a computer: A computer running a computerized D&D game is totally inflexible. It plays be EXACTLY the rules as programmed, all the time. It never concedes to to logic, or improvises, or cheats, or gives up before the monsters are all well and truely dead. The computer plays by exactly the rules as written.

Which is the ONLY option without a MC. Monopoly has no MC and the only way to play is as written. Lots of games even some cooperative games don't have MCs. However, if the players disagree over the rules their only options in these games is to not play them togther.

You want to know why nobody has made a "D&D: Tabletop" computer game? Because you can't make a computer act like a human game master.

However, you can make games with random dungeon creators, random adventure creators, random every freaking thing you have been talking about has been done. The problem is that playing an rpg on the computer is still unsatifying exactly because its missing an MC.


Some of the people here have been discussing systems where the MC is rotated through the players. While that is an interesting idea it has at least as many pitfalls as having one MC.

Some players will have very different ideas about how challenging they want the game to be, others will use there turn to push the story in directions antithetical to the group just because they like distressing group dynamics. Finally, there are some people would would rather never be the MC under any circumstances.

The end result is that a pass the story stick MC styled game is NOT a clear advantage over a single MC. However, a game without any kind of MC is a computer game, its a game without flexibilty.


Also: Frank is totally wrong on computers and branching. Computers love tables. Computers could generate every result from franks 10 by 10 table matrix in an afternoon. They will branch infinently, and can literally recall every step of every branch proccessed in amounts of time barely perceptable to humans.

Deep Blue beat Kasparov EXACTLY because computers are better at straightforward branch analysis than humans. Give a computer a million choices it will examine them all and then act based on whatever you have told it to.

What humans are actually better at is a hueristic analysis. Humans can look at a a million branches and immediatly discard the 999,990 that are obviously false. Also in general people can guess better than computers.

[Sashi]

Computers are great at creating random sentences from sets of rules like "The Gauntlet of Truth is guarded by a Salamander riding a Bullette", but they are 100% incapable of taking that randomly generated sentence and then telling us what the Gauntlet of Truth is, why the Salamander is guarding it, or even how he came to be riding a Bullette.

[name_here]

Ahem


Computer games either assume the background doesn't matter or generate the background before constructing the sentences.

[Endovior]

The point isn't 'Computers can't roll dice and remember the results', the point is 'Computers can't produce a coherent narrative based on random results'.

In something really straightforward like Chess, computers can easily have all of the necessary information on hand, and calculate the efficiency of any given move, for some pretty impressive results. On the other hand, computers are explicitly NOT good at something too much more complicated then that... they've yet to produce a computer that can play Go at anything near a competitive level, for example. The more pieces are involved, the higher the probability tree grows, and the more possibilities exist, the more trouble a computer has calculating it all... and that's explicitly NOT a problem that can be solved by just throwing lots more expensive hardware at it, as the computer can't see the Why behind one course of action or another.

For exactly the same reason, computers are totally useless for procedurally generating a story. You might have a table that can generate results like "the <artifact> has been stolen by <monster>, who has taken it to <location> because of <evil plot>", and though a computer might have the proper lookups to insert the appropriate terms in mad libs style, the result won't necessarily make any sense... and furthermore, it's not something that the computer can explain at all. And don't even get started on trying to constrain the computer into exclusively combinations that make sense to begin with; anything of that sort has to be explicitly programmed in beforehand.

Essentially, the branching power of computers means precisely nothing, here. Computers have precisely no creativity, and that's why they fail here. The background DOES matter, as actual players will want to know Why. Computers can't tell you Why, though. They can just roll more dice.

[PoliteNewb]

The point isn't 'Computers can't roll dice and remember the results', the point is 'Computers can't produce a coherent narrative based on random results'.

A significant portion of the time, neither can people.

[LR]

Essentially, the branching power of computers means precisely nothing, here. Computers have precisely no creativity, and that's why they fail here. The background DOES matter, as actual players will want to know Why. Computers can't tell you Why, though. They can just roll more dice.

You couldn't check the post right before yours?

[Vebyast]

Modern artificial intelligence algorithms may not have "creativity", but with proper setup they can generate results which are indistinguishable from human creativity. Check out the Wikipedia page for "Computational Creativity" for a better overview. The page also includes a number of examples of computers creating things that are novel and interesting.


A computer can write and run a game with an interesting plot, and if properly programmed it can also construct coherent explanations when the players demand them. Unfortunately, writing the program to do it would be a suitable PhD thesis and good for a few years of postdoc.

[K]

I think people are vastly overestimating the quality of RPG plots. They literally do read as mad-libs with the loosest justification stringing together the murder and looting.

I'm serious. I've been reading though the several hundred Dungeon adventures, Pathfinder Adventure Paths. and setting book sandboxes, and if those are any indication of the adventures people are playing, then you can create them randomly.

Now, this does cut out the really detailed adventures that some people do. A really well-designed dungeon with coherent and meaningful design populated with memorable features, dynamic responses, and treasure that will serve as a constant reminder of your victories is awesome. Also, super rare.

I mean, Mister Cavern can make a simple werewolf attack into a encounter full of dramatic tension and powerful emotional overtones that resonate throughout the adventure and even the campaign, but for most people it's a CR 3 roadbump that might net you a Amulet of Slightly Increasing Your AC and temporarily sates the Smash Brothers urges and keeps them from taking over the group during the talky parts of the adventure.

That being said, automating the bulk of the MC duties just makes sense.

[Sashi]

[Zinegata]

I like K's "But most adventure writers have inconsistent plots anyway" angle.

Because if people can be forgiving of this, then they probably won't mind a mindless automated DM doing really inconsistent stuff once in a while.

[PeterBB]

Brief list of Mister Cavern-less games I've heard of:

Fiasco
Polaris
Grey Ranks
Universalis
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach
Capes
Shock: Social Science Fiction
A Penny For My Thoughts
Montsegur 1244
Archipelago II

These are pretty much all "Story Games" of one form of another, and the amount of crunch varies widely. I've only ever played Fiasco and Universalis, but they were both excellent, and I've heard good things about all the rest.

Also, see question 8 of this interview for an interesting taxonomy of MC-less games.

[Username17]

Without mister cavern the players will be forced to play pretty much by the rules as written. That will be the only arbiter for disputes: whatever the rules say.

This is like a computer: A computer running a computerized D&D game is totally inflexible. It plays be EXACTLY the rules as programmed, all the time. It never concedes to to logic, or improvises, or cheats, or gives up before the monsters are all well and truely dead. The computer plays by exactly the rules as written.

That doesn't make any sense. Your claim makes anti-sense. The computer can't even read the rules as written. It just does shit. There is no discussion, no explanation, no interpretation. It simply resolves things however it is programmed to. And if that matches the documentation, great. And if it doesn't, sucks to be you. The computer is wholly arbitrary, cannot be reasoned with, and has no idea whether it is following the rules as written or not.

In a game with no MC, the players interpret the rules as written to the best of their ability. And if something is unclear or "feels wrong" in a particular instance, they can change it on the fly with a simple show of hands. Those two states of being are completely on the opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one hand, we have a computer who is more implacable and incorrigible than any human MC since Hargrave that hasn't even read the rules the players are looking at, and on the other hand we have a mob democracy of player understanding with no secret rules at all.

You couldn't be more wrong. You just equated negative and positive 1.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

This is like a computer: A computer running a computerized D&D game is totally inflexible. It plays be EXACTLY the rules as programmed, all the time. It never concedes to to logic, or improvises, or cheats, or gives up before the monsters are all well and truely dead. The computer plays by exactly the rules as written.

It simply resolves things however it is programmed to. And if that matches the documentation, great. And if it doesn't, sucks to be you. The computer is wholly arbitrary, cannot be reasoned with

Editted for emphasis.

Aren't you both talking about the same thing?

In a game with no MC, the players interpret the rules as written to the best of their ability. And if something is unclear or "feels wrong" in a particular instance, they can change it on the fly with a simple show of hands.

That's not exactly what happens when people are playing boardgames. Often people do in fact defer to the rules if there is no final arbiter, unless the rules state you can change rules via voting.

[Endovior]

Essentially, the branching power of computers means precisely nothing, here. Computers have precisely no creativity, and that's why they fail here. The background DOES matter, as actual players will want to know Why. Computers can't tell you Why, though. They can just roll more dice.

You couldn't check the post right before yours?

Um, fuck you?

I've played Dwarf Fortress. It's actually a great example of my point, specifically. There's a lot of dice being rolled, but actually being an adventurer wandering around through it feels totally arbitrary and random. There are towns and villages scattered around, full of people with random names, and random quests to go to random place and do random thing... but none of that feels at all related or sensical. There's not an actual plot happening, just a lot of random event. If you go wandering around, you might find random monster and have random fight. If you ask around for quests, you might find random quest, and good luck actually finding the random monster specified, and getting back to random npc that specified it.

Now, Dwarf Fortress is more complex then it appears to an adventurer wandering through. The 'random quest' you get issued isn't actually random; that hydra you've been hired to kill is an actual monster that has a history of roaming the world that spans back centuries, and when it gets hungry or bored, it comes into town and eats dozens of people. That's all totally irrelevant, though... since that's not explicitly information the players have access to as an adventurer.

Sure, you being the guy playing Dwarf Fortress can go through Legends mode and look up every single instance of all this stuff happening, but the computer's not actually smart enough to connect the events. It'll generate a random quest 'kill that hydra that's been terrorizing the town', but it won't tell you why, even though it knows why and has generated a reason why. Even if the hydra has personally killed and eaten half the quest-giver's family over the past month, it won't tell you that. It might give you a dry statistic like 'the hydra has killed 37 men so far!', but it won't... can't... go so far as to say 'that horrible monster killed my family'.

Sure, DF is impressive... but the point remains. A computer has no creativity. Even if its random tables are elaborate enough to generate a full background for everything over thousands of years, it can't actually connect the dots. Nobody has actual motivations, there's just a sea of random things that unfold based on programmed data, which generate a bunch more points of data, that remain unrelated in all respects except where specified. The interpretations of these points of data that are trivially obvious to a human observer are completely opaque to a computer.

This is fundamentally a problem that cannot be solved with existing technology. Computers cannot go outside the strict procedures they've been given. Until and unless actual artificial intelligence is developed, this will absolutely remain the case.