A Force Dynamic Model of Narrative Agents

Abstract

Emergent narratives are dependent on the behaviour modelling of agents in the storyworld. Typical approaches to behaviour modelling, however, overly encourage individual goals and needs, ignoring the dynamic interpersonal relations needed to create rising and falling conflicts. In this paper, we present a force dynamic agent model, in which relations and goals are modelled as forces, with the state of an agent treated as a physical object within an abstract space representing narrative tension. Building off previous work, we implement a test-bed and scenario in the Unity Game Engine. We show, through experimentation, that the dynamic force-based model causes the emergence of conflict curves mirroring traditional narrative perspectives. We conclude that an abstract physical modelling of narrative agents is able to embed several desirable properties for emergent narratives, namely, continuous conflict, dynamic interpersonal relations and temporal and strength modelling of the impact of individual actions.