Prompting Destiny: Negotiating Socialization and Growth in an LLM-Mediated Speculative Gameworld

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yang, Mandi, Gao, Zhiqi, Meng, Yibo, Pan, Dongyijie Primo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914308342939648
author Yang, Mandi
Gao, Zhiqi
Meng, Yibo
Pan, Dongyijie Primo
author_facet Yang, Mandi
Gao, Zhiqi
Meng, Yibo
Pan, Dongyijie Primo
contents We present an LLM-mediated role-playing game that supports reflection on socialization, moral responsibility, and educational role positioning. Grounded in socialization theory, the game follows a four-season structure in which players guide a child prince through morally charged situations and compare the LLM-mediated NPC's differentiated responses across stages, helping them reason about how educational guidance shifts with socialization. To approximate real educational contexts and reduce score-chasing, the system hides real-time evaluative scores and provides delayed, end-of-stage growth feedback as reflective prompts. We conducted a user study (N=12) with gameplay logs and post-game interviews, analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis. Findings show how players negotiated responsibility and role positioning, and reveal an entry-load tension between open-ended expression and sustained engagement. We contribute design knowledge on translating sociological models of socialization into reflective AI-mediated game systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_05864
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Prompting Destiny: Negotiating Socialization and Growth in an LLM-Mediated Speculative Gameworld
Yang, Mandi
Gao, Zhiqi
Meng, Yibo
Pan, Dongyijie Primo
Human-Computer Interaction
We present an LLM-mediated role-playing game that supports reflection on socialization, moral responsibility, and educational role positioning. Grounded in socialization theory, the game follows a four-season structure in which players guide a child prince through morally charged situations and compare the LLM-mediated NPC's differentiated responses across stages, helping them reason about how educational guidance shifts with socialization. To approximate real educational contexts and reduce score-chasing, the system hides real-time evaluative scores and provides delayed, end-of-stage growth feedback as reflective prompts. We conducted a user study (N=12) with gameplay logs and post-game interviews, analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis. Findings show how players negotiated responsibility and role positioning, and reveal an entry-load tension between open-ended expression and sustained engagement. We contribute design knowledge on translating sociological models of socialization into reflective AI-mediated game systems.
title Prompting Destiny: Negotiating Socialization and Growth in an LLM-Mediated Speculative Gameworld
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05864