Explaining and Predicting the Behavior of BDI-Based Agents in Role-Playing Games

Virtual characters in games operate in a social context involving other characters and possibly human players as well. If such socially situated virtual characters are to be considered believable to players, they should appear to adjust their behavior based on their (presumed) beliefs about the mental states of other characters. Autonomous BDI-based agents are suitable for modeling characters that base their actions on mental states attributed to other agents. In this paper, it is illustrated how agent-based characters can infer the mental state of other virtual characters by observing others' actions in the context of some scene in a role-playing game. Contextual information can be utilized in explanation and prediction of agents' behavior, and as such can form the basis for developing characters that appear to be socially aware.