TLDR version: Completely new to chatbots. Know Python and PhP. Need to get a chatbot running, interacting with python scripts, and then responding to instant messages. Help?
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Nice to meet you all! I’m new here~

I’ve got this grand vision in my head with limited experience/knowledge to run on, but I’m definitely willing to learn whatever I need to to pull it off!

Here’s my situation:
I have plenty of online friends who like tabletop RPGs (such as DnD.) We like to run campaigns via AIM. I’m the DM for my group, and though I’ve been running online campaigns for a few years now, it’s a LOT of information to keep track of (largely) on my own. Every character has a sheet, there’s a thousand rolls and modifiers to keep track of, and it’s all too much for me to handle AND keep the story-line running smoothly. DnD is really meant to be played around a table in person, but since we’re a nation apart, it really slows down the game when we can’t properly coordinate looking up rules and stats.

This brings me to my idea:
I’m relatively proficient in Python. At first, I figured I could create a battle calculator to help speed things up. I wanted to script something that could keep track of character stats, currently activated spells and their affects on those stats, and a whole range of other modifiers (terrain, etc) that affect rolls. But I realized that it might take some of the fun out of the game for the players if they don’t get any kind of interaction with the tool (because let’s face it, rolling dice- even if it’s a click of a button- is half the fun.) Then it occurred to me that I could make a chatbot to interact with us over AIM! I started to research into this idea, got super excited about the prospect of giving my bot some personality and basic conversational skills and… well, one thing lead to another and now I’m here, turning this project into something very exciting but also very big.

So here’s my question:
Does anyone here know a good place to start? (haha) I’ve downloaded chatScript to use as a basic interactive personality, but I’ll need my bot to run python scripts and give me feedback, and once I get that functioning, I’ll need to figure out how the heck to get it running online somewhere so that my friends and I can use it. I’ve got Python and PhP down pretty well, so right now I’m focusing on trying to understand chatScript syntax.

Can anyone with more experience give a recommendation/confirmation of program/language choices and point me in the right direction for this project?

Thanks in advance! ~Jill

Hi Jill, welcome!

I’m a fellow python enthusiast, building a bot from scratch. Recently Noah Petherbridge, creator of RiveScript, announced a version for python: http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/876/ I’m not familiar with RiveScript myself, but it might be worth checking out.

Good luck on your bot, and please do keep the forum informed as your project develops!

I believe the Python NLTK tool kit has an implementation of the Eliza bot that may be a foundation for you.

I’ve spent all day looking at RiveScript and NLTK both.

RiveScript python looks like it’s relatively new, so I haven’t been able to find any tutorials to help me dig into it. I’m not familiar with Perl (though I did install it on my computer to take a peek) but I wasn’t able to grasp it. I’ve hit a wall with RS python at this point. Do you know of any good beginner’s resources, CR?

Python NLTK looks really fun. I only just now got it running with Python 2.7 (jeez, that was more of a pain than it should have been) so now I can start poking around and see what it’s all about. I’m starting to go through the NLTK handbook. Thanks for the recommendation Merlin!

Like I said, I’ve never used RiveScript, so I’m not sure what resources are out there. Maybe ask in Noah’s thread?

One cool package I’ve been playing around with lately is the Nodebox Linguistics library. You might find it a useful augmentation to NLTK: http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Linguistics

I was working on a RiveScript tutorial a while ago. It’s not complete yet but hopefully it should be enough to get started. You can also try looking at the example RS code that comes with the perl and python modules to get an idea how to write RS code.

http://www.rivescript.com/learn/