Emergent Narratives in Games

Most of the time, stories in games are written in advance by authors to be later discovered by players as they engage with the fictional world and its challenges. But there are also stories that just happen as a result of player interactions with dynamic game worlds. Think of the surprising player stories from The Sims, Dwarf Fortress, or Crusader Kings—some of the few titles famous for affording emergent narratives. What are the secrets to designing systems that are not full of prewritten stories, but rich with story potential; engines for emergent narratives? How do players identify these stories? What makes a good emergent story? 

Concordia professor Jonathan Lessard has been investigating these questions through the Chroniqueur research-creation project for the past 5 years and is now inviting world experts both from the academic world and game industry veterans to assess the state of knowledge concerning emergent narratives. What have we learned? Do we better know how to do this or is every new project completely different? How do recent AI developments (notably large language models) challenge or augment “traditional” procedural approaches on which all emergent narrative games were founded up to now?

Join us for this roundtable with experts, going through a list of questions. After a break, the hosts will remain for an open conversation with on-site and on-line participants who will have the opportunity to ask questions and/or provide their point of view on the different topics. 

How can you participate? Join us in person or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting or watching live on YouTube.

Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca

Jonathan Lessard

Phd. Behaviour Interactive Research Chair in Game Design, director of LabLabLab. Associate Professor, Concordia.

Tanya X. Short

Game Designer, Co-founder of Kitfox Games.

Max Kreminski

Phd. Research scientist and director of the Midjourney Storytelling lab.

Quinn Kybartas

Phd. Co-founder of Studio Imugi.

Yuqian Sun

Phd candidate. Royal College of Art.

Shi Johnson-Bey

Phd Candidate. UC Santa Cruz.

Stephen Friedrich

MDes candidate. Concordia University.