ABSTRACT
Highly simulation-focused systems such as The Sims can produce emergent stories when characters with conflicting personalities are put in the same household, for instance. This chapter focuses primarily on realization and creation techniques. Versu modeled characters who had their own unique dialogue around certain topics and ideas. Versu's conversation rules then controlled transitions from one piece of dialogue to another, encouraging characters to stay more or less on topic. Versu treated its world model more like a stage than like a fully detailed simulation. Realization and creation are not independent of one another. Players fill in gaps in the narrative with their own explanations of character motive. In Versu, if the player did something that caused a character to change their opinion of the protagonist, the system would not only register a numerical change in the character's reaction, but also record a string of text describing why the NPC had changed their opinion.
