Structure, Agency, and Improvisation in Human-Led Digital Interactive Narrative Exercises
Open accessAbstract
Supporting high-agency player experiences without compromising narrative control is one of the major challenges in digital interactive narrative design. Humans, on the other hand, frequently meet this challenge when cooperating to improvise a narrative. We present a study examining how humans improvise narratives when paired together as the player and game master of a digital interactive narrative. We collected gameplay logs from these experiences, as well as participants’ reported perceptions of narrative structure, personal agency, and the reasons for both their choices and their partners’. We found a strong link between perceptions of structure and of agency. We also found a tendency for participants to better identify the goals of their partner’s actions following sessions where game masters expressed higher agency. Finally, we characterize the experiences using principles of improv theatre, drawing from the data to analyze negative experiences of agency as failures in the improv partnership.
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- Authors
- Fisher, M., Siler, M., & Ware, S. G.
- Affiliations
- University of Kentucky (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment
- Published
- 2025-11-07
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 237-246
- ISSN
- 2326-909X (ISSN-L)
- 2334-0924
- OpenAlex
- W4416013679
- Cited by
- 0
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (2145153)
- Army Research Office (W911NF)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence in Games
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
- Keywords
- player agency, narrative structure, game master, player experience, narrative control
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