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ify each character's proclivity to appear at each stage. Characters move among
stages under the control of the engine, based on their territorialities and their
need to encounter other characters in order to execute plans.
Each character knows (and can therefore react to) only those events that
s/he witnesses or is told about. The engine provides a detailed
gossip
system for
moving information through the cast. Characters can spike the gossip system
with deliberate lies, which can then be transmitted through the cast in the same
manner as actual events, and can also be traced back to their source. Characters
can also reveal information about events that they were asked to keep secret,
and can be tracked down after doing so.
In accordance with standard dramatic practice the Erasmatron engine
permits characters to spy successfully upon each other with the flimsi-
est of camouflage. It supports a large number of props as well as various
object-manipulation capabilities such as possession, trade, transportation, and
concealment.
Assumption #2: Division of labor through indirection
It would not be difficult to devise a storytelling engine granting detailed artis-
tic control over every aspect of the storytelling process; such an engine already
exists in the form of any general-purpose programming language. To be of any
utility, a storytelling engine must make assumptions, impose constraints, and
perform mechanical tasks, thereby minimizing the amount of detailed specifi-
cation required of the artist. This creates a dilemma, for artists demand detailed
control of the storytelling process but need to have tedious details handled by
the software. My solution to this dilemma was to grant the artist varying de-
grees of indirection of control. Some tasks, such as the specifics of how a char-
acter chooses between various options, require detailed specification from the
artist; others, such as each character's gossiping behavior, require only the spec-
ification of the value of a single variable,
Loquacity
; the engine handles all the
mechanics of gossip.
Such indirection is only obtained by means of metaphors readily grasped
by the storybuilder; this constraint renders the use of such indirection rather
opportunistic. Thus, I was fortunate to be able to use Loquacity as a variable
indirectly controlling the propensity of actors to share gossip. Concepts such
as roles, stages, and props, have been easy to integrate into the overall design,
but many other elements of the storytelling engine are still much too close
to their programming roots. In particular I have been unsuccessful in finding
