@GILBERT Timmy
Well. It might work in some scenarios.
But how to generalize this?
You have some very interesting point who made me wonder, I don't know if I can respond completely to those but they help uncovering new problem.
For example. I want to generate side quest for a fantasy based roguelike game.
And by 'quest' I mean 'QUEST', not 'TASK'.
Word 'quest' somehow degraded in crpg genre over time.
'Quest' in crpg 15 years ago was something completely different than 'quest' in modern games.
So... I want to generate a side quest. Little story initiated by some hints, rumors or something like this.
But how to make non-obvious when player will encounter similar initiation for the second time?
1. Tangentially it made think about "stake" as involvement in a story. Where is the stake in common quest and "task" in common video games?
a. Generally the hero is just a tool, is not involve in the stake of the quest. It allow the player to stay free and he would see quests just like more source (power, money, items), which they are. The stake is shallow and devoid of pressure (power climbing) and it does not relate much to the world (aside from being able to pass more difficult obstacle easier). No amount of "forewarning" solve that (rumor, hint, etc...), the quality may increase but the function remain. When author translate this trope in proper storytelling, they use the "money broked" adventurer trope that allow any random event to happens and pad the length of the series with self contain plot.
b. Sometimes there is sometimes a personal stake to the hero that makes the resource gathering meaningful and engaging. "Happiness" adventure game use that a lot, the hero must solve quest in order to raise some gauge that would solve his own stake and escape his fate. The quest as the exact same function than in point "a". They can remain self contain and be loosely or not at all link to the hero. It's useful from a production perspective it allow for a lot of flexibility in how the story is handle, a lot of subplot and only major plot a some gauge level.
c. Another approach would be to link the individual local quest link or "generate" by a higher world stake (for example preventing the end of world stake)(or many level of local to global stake). For example, not only the stake bring rewards but tangible consequence, not in an unfocused simulationist but by balancing the overall push and pull that affect everything. The closest to that is game with moral system, but moral system usually does not change the world but the access of source (functionally the same). If the world stake close back to influence the hero's stake it became much more interesting, doing quest became part of managing the world and yourself, and it became a slow puzzle like game, "forewarning" became then much more meaningful than sugar "immersion" coating. It also makes naturally chained quests. I thinks the simpler approach to this is to build a "world state machine" that shift local state according to his global state. JRPG use this kind of relation but in a "baked" way (you do not have choice), the heroes personal stake always relate to the world stakes and "quest" (story section actually) impact both, good example: latter part of chrono trigger.
2. If by quest you mean story the player can engage in, well it depends on the design really. What's the difference between a "task" and a "quest" but the quality of the execution? A task is straight forward IMO, do that get that, a quest is more nuance (backstory, empathy, evolution). It's how much of a story it is over the function. Simple quest at least state the why to differentiate from a task. The more immersion tools you use the better it is. From that point of view the best quest should be involving quest full of empathy, twisted, immersive, meaningful and interactive, they should not be necessarily obvious (you may stumble on it without knowing it by engaging in some event), and they may be dynamic (they are influence by external or prior event). It's should be also a matter of messing with the quest giving (maybe it's through information puzzle) and the obtainment of the rewards (natural consequence of the plot evolution instead of the quest giver simply holding it back).
How to avoid using templates?
But should we avoid using template?
If templates are used, player (who is playing for Nth time) will work toward recognition
of templates used instead of solving the quest iteself.
Partially this can be solved by making templates base really big.
But this is awkward solution.
IMO template are simply shallow syntax, we just need to deepen them by layering abstraction until it turn into a language. Then we create a system that can speak that language to create situation, but that's where we need meaning ... to have something to say. Basically template are shallow syntax with already embedded meaning, we need to separate the syntax from the meaning (and there I understand what I actually mean in my OP without even realizing it
THANKS
). TO be more precise we need to separate the meaning (the why) from the lexical element (who and what) and the structure (the syntax).
Regarding variety, we are already abusing template when it came to human creation. "Roguelike" is a template, some element are strongly specified (alea), some are weakly specified (fantasy theme). If you have a deep enough system you can change some variable and keep the experience fresh (like all rogue like are not the same, or any game in any genre). The other way is to change the context, the same event in different context can mean vastly different things, if I use the "I love you" template with a girl I just met, it would not have the same impact as if I'm dying in the hand of my long time friends who I know love me, but to who I never display any feeling.
Generating the rest of the plot based on player's decisions sounds good, but how you are going to evaluate player's decisions? When there is X-nary choice of possible answers, it is easy. But when you have some kind of sandbox word, it's going to be the problem of it's own.
It depend on how you design your quest and your game, how much focus action can be versus how loose the interaction are. I don't think you can make a tack-on plot generation over a generic world without thinking about how to implement tools in that world that would support the story function.
The quality of the identification of those function and how to pass them through the world is equally important as the quality of the generative data. For example, if you want forewarning, how do have information flow working in your world?
In general it's a good things to create the world and the story generation around resource source and sink, wether is in world resource (exemple, money, health, monster spawn, npc, place, etc...) or just story resource (informations, emotion, tone, etc).
The more channel you identify from the world, the stronger the generation data can be link back to that world. You may have also channel in the other way (from the world to the generative system), it's only design and where you define constrain that will help you here, I think.
It's about generating/electing and setting the right element for the right task. We need to think in term of functions!
I'm very interested in procedural quests and plot. But so far I haven't found anything acceptable in this field.
I'm afraid that in order to make this, one need to create huge database of what is logical and have sense and what is not.
If you want to make street full of strangers, each busy with his own business, and only one stands out, such a database is a must.
As well as database of 'cause-effect relationship' information.
But isn't game already such a database by definition? IMO The database does no need to be huge, it need to be flexible so we can manipulate element in different ways. We need to think of generation as language rather than database.