Anticipatory Guidance of Plot
  An anticipatory system for guiding plot development in interactive narratives
is described. The executable model is a finite automaton that provides the
implemented system with a look-ahead. The identification of undesirable future
states in the model is used to guide the player, in a transparent manner. In
this way, too radical twists of the plot can be avoided. Since the player
participates in the development of the plot, such guidance can have many forms,
depending on the environment of the player, on the behavior of the other
players, and on the means of player interaction. We present a design method for
interactive narratives which produces designs suitable for the implementation
of anticipatory mechanisms. Use of the method is illustrated by application to
our interactive computer game Kaktus.
