arXiv subjects

Marc Ravaine

Publications and source records attributed to Marc Ravaine.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Analysing the Narrative Paradox through Formal Models and Properties in Interactive Narrative

Interactive narratives aim to let players influence the unfolding of a story while preserving a coherent and satisfying narrative progression. This creates a central tension, commonly described as the narrative paradox, between player autonomy and narrative control. Experience Managers (EMs) manage the story by determining how the narrative progresses in response to player behaviour. Although this paradox is widely discussed, it is rarely modelled in a way that supports systematic analysis, simulation, and comparison across management strategies. This paper proposes a formal framework for modelling and analysing the narrative paradox as a trade-off between interdependent properties shaped by EM decisions. We represent interactive narrative behaviour through an extended state-transition system in which world states are connected by player actions and system events. From this model, we formalize key properties involved in the paradox such as the player agency, EM controllability, author intent, and robustness, and define quantitative indicators derived from simulated plans. These indicators make it possible to compare EM strategies according to their ability to balance freedom, control, and narrative satisfaction. A case study compares different EM policies, showing how simulations can reveal correlations and conflicts between properties and identify compromise zones in the design space. This work contributes a reusable modelling and analysis framework for studying the narrative paradox and evaluating heterogeneous interactive narratives on shared formal grounds, with a focus on supporting the comparison and testing of EM strategies.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2026

Creating Hybrid Interactive Narrative Systems with LLM: From Formal Description to Evaluation

Interactive narratives let users shape a story while an Experience Manager (EM) keeps it coherent, balancing player freedom against authorial control. Large Language Models now enable a new generation of hybrid EMs, which combine run-time generation from free-text input with symbolic narrative control. However, their heterogeneity makes them hard to compare: A manager's behaviour is generally tied to the unique and specific scenario in which it operates, and much of its decision-making takes place outside of any explicit and verifiable structure. We address this with an LLM-based narrative platform whose managers are interchangeable modules operating over a shared symbolic world model of facts, operations, and goals. Because every applied operation carries explicit preconditions and effects, each session can be analysed as a plan through a common state-transition representation and evaluated, independently of how the manager works internally, with shared indicators of four properties: player agency, EM controllability, author intent, and robustness. We implement three contrasting managers, based respectively on open generation, Monte Carlo repair, and autonomous characters, and compare them through functional analysis on an interactive Little Red Riding Hood scenario. The results show that no manager dominates on every property, giving authors and EM designers a concrete basis to select a manager according to their priorities.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2025

Modeling Interactive Narrative Systems: A Formal Approach

Interactive Narrative Systems (INS) have revolutionized digital experiences by empowering users to actively shape their stories, diverging from traditional passive storytelling. However, the field faces challenges due to fragmented research efforts and diverse system representations. This paper introduces a formal representation framework for INS, inspired by diverse approaches from the state of the art. By providing a consistent vocabulary and modeling structure, the framework facilitates the analysis, the description and comparison of INS properties. Experimental validations on the "Little Red Riding Hood" scenario highlight the usefulness of the proposed formalism and its impact on improving the evaluation of INS. This work aims to foster collaboration and coherence within the INS research community by proposing a methodology for formally representing these systems.

cs.HC↗