Modeling interactive storytelling genres as application domains

In this paper, we introduce a formalism to specify interactive storytelling genres in the context of digital entertainment, adopting an information systems approach. We view a genre as a set of plots, where a plot is a partially ordered sequence of events, taken from a fixed repertoire. In general, the specification of a genre should allow to determine whether a plot is a legitimate representative of the genre, and also to generate all plots belonging to the genre. The formalism divides the specification of a genre into static, dynamic and behavioral schemas, that reflect a plan recognition/plan generation paradigm. It leads to executable specifications, supported by LOGTELL, a prototype tool that helps users generate, modify and reuse plots that follow a genre specification. To illustrate the use of the formalism, we specify a simple Swords & Dragons genre and show plots generated by the tool.

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