On dynamic construction of narrative

Some time ago I read about structuralist's approach to narrative. Although I am a bit sceptic about how much art forms could be formalized, there is something that Roland Barthes has introduced and I liked very much. It is the distinction between kernel and satellite events in a story. As the name tells, kernel are the ones that must necessarily be in a story and their absence would disrupt it. Whereas satellite events are things that only decorate the main story.

There has been an argument that in role-playing games game masters are responsible for kernel events, and the events generated by players are only satellite.

At the International Conference of Interactive Digital Storytelling 2009 there was a presentation of Thespian. It is a character-driven platform for interactive storytelling developed at the leading Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. Thespian can be experienced at Mei Si's page, dedicated to the Little Red Riding Hood non-deterministic story.

I was impressed by the generated stories. Maybe one open question remains whether Mei Si's selection of kernel elements is representative for the story, as you have examples, where the story ends just after Wolf eats Granny.

A great example of a persuasive game

A nice illustration how games could be a very successful media, much more persuasive than traditional media.
http://spritarikatite.newpromo.net/ (name translates to something like "stop the dodgers").
This is a game about Bulgarian parliamentary elections. The goal is to stop sheep-minded people to become members of parliament. Thugs are driving and protecting them, whereas somewhere in between also normal candidates show up. A simple and realistic message, conveyed in the classical duck hunt game design shell.