The campfire storytelling system – automatic creation and modification of a narrative

摘要

This paper presents and evaluates a method for automatically generating a narrative that includes initial input from the listener, without forcing him/her to become an actual character in the story. More importantly, the story can be modified by the listener during the course of the story being narrated. This latter feature works without pre-defining alternative paths, thereby permitting the changes to take place at any time throughout the course of the story. This system, called the Campfire Storytelling System, employs a contextual approach to narrative generation called the Cooperating Context Method (CCM). Campfire STS was assessed for its functionality and its user acceptance. Thirty-eight human test subjects evaluated stories generated by Campfire STS. They responded to a survey stating their opinions about the generated stories, their entertainment value for adults, their creativity, and other similar issues. Furthermore, 20 of these subjects who self-reported non-trivial experience with children were additionally asked to evaluate the generated stories with respect to how much children would enjoy them. The results of these evaluations suggest that Campfire STS is able to create interesting and novel stories, as well as change them seamlessly in mid-stream while still maintaining interesting and entertaining stories.