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Social simulation-driven emergent storytelling is an approach to storytelling in games where simulated social interactions between player and non-player characters drive all or some of the narrative experience. Games in this genre are often treated like story generators that provide players with a sandbox of various mechanics and systems for them to interact with and create engaging storyful moments. One of the core challenges of leveraging social simulation for storytelling is the complexity that comes with designing and implementing the simulation. Game makers have to consider what objects and characters exist in the simulation, how to represent character personalities, how characters should choose social actions, and how characters should respond to others' actions.
This dissertation explores questions about designing reusable software tools for building social simulations and extracting emergent narrative moments via story sifting. I discuss my work on outlining the design space of such tools, building exemplar simulation frameworks, implementing story sifting tools, and interviewing game designers working on simulation-driven emergent narrative games. My research contributes design factors that tool developers should consider to ensure their social simulation frameworks and tools foster collaboration and creativity.
