Dungeons and Dragons, Not Chess and Go: Why AI Needs Roleplay

Everyone had died--not that you'd know it, from how they were laughing about their poor choices and bad rolls of the dice. As a social anthropologist, I study how people understand artificial intelligence (AI) and our efforts towards attaining it; I'm also a life-long fan of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), the inventive fantasy roleplaying game. During a recent quest, when I was playing an elf ranger, the trainee paladin (or holy knight) acted according to his noble character, and announced our presence at the mouth of a dragon's lair. But while success in D&D means "beating the bad guy," the game is also a creative sandbox, where failure can count as collective triumph so long as you tell a great tale. What does this have to do with AI?