Re: Interactive storytelling and me; and a challenge

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@indiegamedesign.com>]

whitncom@lynx.eaze.net wrote:

> I was just thinking about Briggs-Meyers personality profiles,
> and wondered if it could be used to derive "different" personalities
> of characters in a story, or is it too "weak" for that?
>
> also, could we say that the 16 personality profiles are sixteen
> different audiences for our stories, and we should target one
> particular personality in writing our stories?
>  
In my experience the MBTI is not as simple as this.  As an orthogonal 
typing system, it is highly inadequate.  For instance on various MBTI 
mailing lists the qualifiers x, X, and X* are used when describing type, 
indicating "slightly expressed, moderately expressed, and extremely 
expressed" respectively.  I for instance describe myself as IN*TP.  I 
score overwhelmingly high on the iNtuitive test, which shows how 
self-absorbed I am with my own ideas and formulations.  Also I don't 
think the idea of opposed types being exclusive is valid.  For instance 
I usually describe myself as 60% Perceiver / 40% Judger.  I think a 
division of 7 types along any given axis would be reasonable.  That 
would yield 7^4 = 2401 personality types, with more of a perceivable 
continuum between them than the MBTI describes.

Then you have the question of what type interactions cause conflict.  
It's not as simple as "different types conflict."  For instance, Thinker 
vs. Thinker conflict took me a long time to recognize.  Thinkers who 
share the same paradigms are highly compatible with each other.  
Thinkers who, for reasons of environment and historical accident, have 
come to operate within different paradigms will tend to kill each other 
over the differences.  Judger is an important determinant of conflict, 
probably the most important one.  Strong Judgers tell other people what 
to do, and most people fight back.

A further complication: to what degree is a person naive about their 
MBTI?  Do they just act on their raw impulses, without any knowledge 
that other people are different, and that there are frameworks available 
for describing the differences?  Or do they know that they're an IN*TP 
and likely to get into fights with any J?  So now you have questions 
about conflict potential vs. conflict avoidance.  Then there are people 
who deliberately seek out conflict, at least of a sort.  There are many 
shades of conflict one might have a taste for; I may like this much or 
this kind of conflict, but not that much / that kind.

So, I think it's probably possible to simulate these behavioral 
interactions, but the range of expression is large.  Also, you'd need an 
environment for people to have thoughts / feelings about and get into 
conflicts over.  The nature of the environment is probably as important 
a consideration as anything else.  For instance I get into tons of 
internet conflicts, and few in real life.


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.