Cotillion

Emily Short and Richard Evans– Little Text People

Cotillion Project• Interactive comedy of

manners• Set in the world of

Austen

Gameplay• Model social practices• Allow players to experiment with appropriate

and inappropriate behavior• Sims-like freedom within a narrative structure

Interaction Features• Real-time• Multiplayer• PC / NPC Agnostic

Conversation Model• Challenges:– Anyone can speak at any time– Any character can be an NPC– Character knowledge and attitude can change– Content generation needs to be manageable

Information Structure• Beliefs and Questions• Emotional Responses• Membership Categorization• Turn-taking

Beliefs• Propositions about the world• Discovered through conversation or world

model

• Default way of saying a particular belief• Character-specific overrides• Can include standard responses for if the

listener accepts or rejects the statement

Questions• Template for information the character wants

to have• Can only be asked if another character present

has a belief that fits the template

• Generated by conversation and contact with the world model

• Aid to conversation continuity and transitions between topics

Emotional Responses• Beliefs are also tagged with emotional effects– Expressing a negative belief about someone could lead

to them feeling insulted– Mentioning that you’re very rich could lead to

someone…• envying you• thinking you’re bragging• deciding you’d be a good marriage prospect

Emotional Reaction Library• Large library of possible reactions• Layers of specificity– “being a host reacting to someone insulting the wine

you served”– “responding to someone insulting your friend in your

presence”– “responding to someone being unpleasant”

Fine-Grained CharacterizationMiss Bates• Talks constantly• Likes to talk about her niece

Mr Collins• Likes to give advice• Name-dropper, always

mentioning rich patroness

Fine-Grained CharacterizationMiss Bates• Talks constantly

– Positively score spoken beliefs

• Likes to talk about her niece– Positively score beliefs on the

topic of her niece

Mr Collins• Likes to give advice

– Positively score beliefs that are tagged as “correcting”

• Name-dropper– Positively score actions that

result in characters having questions about his patroness

Interface of Information & Emotion• Informational content tied to narrative context• Emotional content tied to relationship

between characters• Emotional content generates dramatic payoffs

Smalltalk

Smalltalk

Smalltalk

Other types of scene…

Other types of scene…

Other types of scene…

Other types of scene…

Other types of scene…

Harvey Sacks on Conversation• Membership Categorization Devices• Turn-Taking• Tying structure• Pre-sequences• Preferred sequences

Membership Categorization Devices• A character is playing many roles at once

Many roles at once: Mr Darcy

• A member of the gentry• A friend of Bingley• A brother to Georgiana• A participant at the ball

Membership Categorization Devices• A character is playing many roles at once• For each role, we can ask: is he good at

performing that role?

Is he good at performing these roles?

• A member of the gentry: noble• A friend of Bingley: loyal• A brother to Georgiana: kind• A participant at the ball: aloof

Choosing How to Evaluate• Miss Bates’ sycophantic remark…– Polite– Low-breeding– (Ignore)

• Individual personality determines autonomous choice

Multiple Roles• Breeding• Constitution• Propriety• Accomplishments• Spouse• Intelligence• Politeness• Attraction• Sensibility• …

Compare with Other Games

Role Evaluation• Agents can remember justifications for their

role evaluations• Agents can communicate role evaluations to

others• Role evaluations can affect subsequent

autonomous behavior

Communicating Role Evaluations

Turn-Taking• If the last utterance has selected a next-

speaker, that speaker should speak next• Otherwise, the floor is open

Planning with Conditional Effects

Planning• In most planning systems, the agent’s

estimation of the consequences of the action is much simpler than the actual consequences of the action

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Going to the Toilet• Execution: – route into bathroom– if nobody else around

• play animation• satisfy Bladder motive

• Planning: – satisfy Bladder motive

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Going to the Toilet

Problems• It is error-prone• It misses conditional-effects

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Planning with Conditional Effects• Our planner uses the actual future world state

– not an approximation• We return to the previous world-state by

UNDOing the postconditions• We can do this because we are working in a

custom DSL which supports UNDO

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Conditional-Effects Planning

Planning with Conditional Effects

Planning with Conditional Effects