Minds, Personality and Emotion

This service shows how an AI makes decisions. It logs the steps that led to a choice. The service does not change or control the choice. It helps explain why something happened.

This service chooses what ambient NPCs say. It selects speech based on what the NPC knows and feels. The speech may be wrong or misleading. It never becomes truth just because it is said.

Learned skills and remembered events are separate forms of character state. Death, wipe transitions, or lifecycle changes may affect them differently. This policy only applies to how these states behave during such events. It does not allow one state to replace or override the other. The policy defines clear boundaries for each type of memory. A character cannot lose all knowledge if only one form is affected.

ADK lets a plugin describe what it wants NPCs to accomplish without programming every footstep, equipment check, route change, and combat reaction. The plugin may give only an outcome, or it may lock the details that genuinely matter and leave the rest to the framework.

For example, a developer could write the equivalent of “secure the outpost” and require that the operation happens at night under a named commander. The commander can then assess current intelligence, send a scout when useful, estimate personnel and equipment, recruit available help, choose a route, and adapt when something goes wrong. If the developer instead specifies four particular soldiers and the north gate, those instructions become constraints rather than suggestions.

The result comes from many small, bounded decisions using ordinary NPC skills, knowledge, personality, authority, and available resources. ADK does the difficult composition work, potentially replacing hundreds or thousands of lines of rigid mission scripting, but it does not conjure an army or make an NPC understand something beyond their reasoning ability.

Commanders may refuse, delay, reduce, or propose an alternative when the outcome is impossible or unacceptable. Unless the requester supplies explicit limits for risk, cost, delay, collateral damage, or uncertainty, the authorized NPC commander uses their own judgement within faction, server, safety, and character policy.

NPCs normally focus on one main thing, loosely monitor a few secondary concerns, and retain limited background alert channels. A loud sound behind a guard may make them turn or investigate, but it does not reveal who caused it or guarantee that the guard reacts at all.

This helps NPCs behave more like real people. They don’t notice everything happening around them, which makes their actions feel more natural and less predictable.

ADK may let a server make NPC opposition slightly more forgiving for inexperienced players or more coordinated for very capable groups. The adjustment is deliberately modest: a dangerous veteran does not suddenly forget how to fight merely because a new player appears.

For example, a struggling group might encounter slower coordination or receive a little more room to recover. The same soldier still has the skills, senses, personality, equipment, and imperfect knowledge that belong to that character.

Persistent NPCs do not work and train around the clock. They have configurable shifts, private time, and rest. During private time they may garden, gather supplies, socialize, roam, or buy food from vendors and player shops.

Essential jobs use rotations so one NPC does not remain on duty indefinitely. Credible danger can wake sleeping personnel, but it does not give them instant, perfect knowledge of the situation.

Some stories benefit from traders bluffing, soldiers sending false signals, or frightened witnesses leaving out part of the truth. Other servers may want NPCs to remain completely honest. ADK therefore treats deception as a controlled capability instead of assuming every NPC may lie.

Administrators can allow or disable specific kinds of deception for the whole server or for narrower groups. If trader bluffing is disabled, negotiation logic simply stops considering bluffs; every plugin does not need its own nervous little honesty check.

The NPC Decision Governor controls how non-player characters process information. It limits what an NPC can consider, how deeply it may plan, and which methods are believable for that particular character. A farmer does not become a master thief merely because stealing is the fastest way to obtain a tool.

Plugins can supply NPC behaviour policies; ADK controls when those policies run and what changes they may request.

NPC personalities change slowly over time. Plugins cannot rewrite identity directly. The system reviews personality updates in batches. Changes happen after evidence is accepted.

This system ensures that personality changes occur gradually and based on observed behavior, not arbitrary plugin input.

The same danger can mean different things to different NPCs. One may believe escape is easy, another may feel trapped, and a proud leader may wrongly believe a failing defense can still be saved. These interpretations influence choices without becoming objective truth.

Each NPC interprets the situation based on their own perspective and experience, which affects how they choose to act.

This system changes an NPC’s long-term traits and skills into short-term changes for the current situation. It keeps NPCs acting based on their personality. It does not change who they really are or give them hidden knowledge.

This helps keep gameplay fair and consistent by ensuring that NPC behavior reflects their core identity while remaining responsive to context.

NPCs may react quickly to immediate danger while taking longer to understand a confusing situation or form a plan. Their current plan normally sticks for a while instead of changing every game tick. A prepared choice is discarded when the world facts it used are no longer current.

This system tracks how NPCs feel about each other. It uses events they experience or hear about. Emotions include anger, fear, trust, and others. These feelings change behavior but do not show hidden facts. The system keeps emotions bounded and clear. It does not make NPCs omniscient or prove truth. Emotion state only reflects known events. This system does not share private data. Only authorized NPC consumers may read emotion results. Emotions decay over time. The system handles updates safely and in order. Duplicate events do not cause errors. Concurrent updates resolve correctly.

This model uses the same terms for character abilities whether it's a player or NPC. It helps everyone understand what someone can do, keeping things clear and consistent.

This service points out events that might be worth remembering or reacting to. It gives a sense of how significant an event is but doesn’t decide what happens next.