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Post by carlosalmarcha on Aug 23, 2016 7:41:02 GMT -8
I'm curious to know your opinions. Have you already thought about a particular setting would you like to see recreated in a storyworld?. Maybe you'd like to play a storyworld about the characters of a novel/movie you especially like. Perhaps you haven't thought about anything specific yet but you know you prefer some themes the most (fantasy, sci-fi, etc). In my case I'd love to see a storyworld about "A Song of Ice and Fire" setting. The novels have lots of interesting characters with very different personalities. The fantasy setting of the books is also great. Another setting that I think could be very interesting is one about diplomats on the 18th century dealing with politic affairs.
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Post by chriscrawford on Sept 3, 2016 7:10:49 GMT -8
Sorry for the delayed response; I have been attending to so many other things that I forgot to check in here.
I have designed the storytelling engine at a level of abstraction that permits any dramatic setting. There's nothing in it that favors any particular setting. However, there is a big limitation in the complexity of the dramatic relationships that can be represented in any storytelling environment. Few people realize just how complicated stories are! There are a zillion variables that have to be taken into consideration. Let's take Game of Thrones as an example. I have not watched the entire series, but I can talk in general terms about it. Consider the crucial decision that Miss Dragon Lady makes to free slaves. What motivates that? You need to have a variable that captures that motivation. And what about the motivations of the Fat Spy Guy? How do you model his personality in a way that can replicate his actions? How do you model the sadism of First Kid King? Or the decision of the minor character to poison him? Or the motivations of the Big Androgynous Lady Soldier? It goes on and on. What makes the series so interesting is that there are SO MANY variables at work. Try capturing all that complexity in a computer model. I'm having difficulties with a much, much simpler storyworld (Siboot).
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Post by carlosalmarcha on Sept 19, 2016 0:19:36 GMT -8
I myself am beginning to learn to code, and I realize that often even seemingly simple tasks are difficult to implement. I can barely imagine how to code complex motivations for characters. Yet, I like to think that when the engine is finished people will want to create their own storyworlds with interesting settings. Even if they are very simplified stories.
Since not all of us can talk about technical issues, I thought this thread could be a good place where everyone could share their opinions.
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Post by Chris Conley on Sept 21, 2016 6:30:36 GMT -8
On the forum for Storytron, the previous iteration of this engine, someone posted an idea I really liked. I don't believe it ever got made. The concept was you were a member of a band an hour before they played what might be their last show, with tensions running high, one member missing and others threatening to walk.
I think, especially as we're starting out, it's best to cast a storyworld like it was a small-scale dramatic play. A setup like that, with a few strongly-defined characters, a constrained setting, and a scenario ripe to go off in a hundred different directions, is much more manageable than one that's expansive in space and time with a hundred characters.
My first storyworld in the Storytron tech only had two characters. I released it after a few weeks of work and yet I still didn't think it really had a satisfying conclusion.
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Post by chriscrawford on Sept 21, 2016 10:41:34 GMT -8
I definitely want to keep the whole thing very, very simple. It is far too complex now.
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