"This state of affairs won't change unless a number of key challenges are conquered; and conquering them will require some seminal advances in the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and narrative. (E.g., since interactive digital narrative will need to be crafted and massaged as the story is unfolding, computers, not slow-by-comparison humans, will need to be enlisted as at least decent dramatists -- but getting a computer to be a dramatist requires remarkable AI.) In this paper, I discuss one of these challenges for the start of the new millennium: the problem of building dramatically compelling virtual characters. Within this challenge I focus upon one property such characters presumably must have: viz., autonomy."