Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Proposal: Location, Location, Location

10-6, Rechead Quorum. BTW, You don’t have to explicitly vote on your own Proposals.—Chronos

Adminned at 15 Dec 2005 11:38:37 UTC

Add a new rule called “Locations” that reads as follows:

Each subsection of this Rule defines a Location. A Location has at least the following: Name, Description, Current Occupancy, Maximum Occupancy, and Exits. Current Occupancy is calculated and need not be included in the text of a Location’s subsection. A Location subsection must have a Name, Description, Maximum Occupancy, and Exits OR only a Name and include the text “=Not Yet Defined=”. A Location that contains the text “=Not Yet Defined=” should please be avoided by all players until it is defined.

A Location’s Name and Description should in some way inspire the imagination of those Protaganists that read it.

A Location’s Current Occupancy is the number of Protaganists that occupy that Location. A Location’s Current Occupancy must never exceed its Maximum Occupancy, or a Fire Marshall will be Summoned.

A Location’s Exits is an unordered list of Locations.

The use of these lists will, hopefully, be defined in later rules.

Locations may be occupied by Protagonists. A Protagonist may occupy a maximum of one Location at any time. Protagonists’ Locations are denoted in the GNDT field “Location”. New Protagonists have the location “The Ruins of the Fortress of Cheese”.

Add a new subsection named “The Ruins of the Fortress of Cheese” to the rule “Locations” that reads as follows:

Maximum Occupancy: 100
Exits: The Ancient Game Room, The Ominous Forest.
Description: A rotting heap of what was, undoubtedly, once some of the finest and awesomest cheese. At the center, the outline of a room, walled with “$$$$“s, is visible underneath a pile of rotting camembert.

Add a new subsection named “The Ancient Game Room” to the rule “Locations” that reads as follows:

=Not Yet Defined=

Add a new subsection named “The Ominous Forest” to the rule “Locations” that reads as follows:

=Not Yet Defined=

Add a new subsection named “The Floating Castle” to the rule “Locations” that reads as follows:

=Not Yet Defined=

Add the “Location” field to the GNDT. Place all players at “The Ruins of the Fortress of Cheese”.

The Protaganist Saurik is considered to be “co-author” of this proposal, for his help with tightening up the language and his helpful editing.

Comments

Salamander:

14-12-2005 14:42:59 UTC

for Can’t wait ‘til we get started

Saurik:

14-12-2005 14:51:28 UTC

I vote for. (But I’m biased ;P.)

Angry Grasshopper:

14-12-2005 15:08:07 UTC

Purplebeard:

14-12-2005 15:09:19 UTC

for

Rodney:

14-12-2005 16:21:38 UTC

for

ChronosPhaenon:

14-12-2005 17:30:50 UTC

against I still don’t like the wording.

Quazie:

14-12-2005 17:42:02 UTC

imperial i like it, but a not yet defined room shouldn’t be able to be entered under any circumstances.  Also we can’t move from room to room it seems.

Saurik:

14-12-2005 18:59:50 UTC

There’s no need to define the ability to move from room to room here, as that can be left to other proposals. We don’t even have a well accepted system for entering commands yet. ;P

Elias IX:

14-12-2005 20:04:11 UTC

imperial Good job on “Place all players at “The Ruins of the Fortress of Cheese”.” It took me a while to get that right.

But the word “please” is begging to be exploited.

AgentHH:

14-12-2005 20:09:41 UTC

for

AgentHH:

14-12-2005 20:10:55 UTC

Although, what happens if no Fire Marshall exists?

notafraud:

14-12-2005 20:25:33 UTC

for

notafraud:

14-12-2005 20:37:44 UTC

If a player were to enter a not yet defined room, they wouldn’t be able to leave it.

danopato:

14-12-2005 20:53:31 UTC

wherever you go,  for there you are

Cayvie:

14-12-2005 21:41:40 UTC

for  if no fire marshall exists, the summons gets nobody

Seventy-Fifth Trombone:

14-12-2005 21:58:56 UTC

against

1) Stuff like inspiring imagination, and other advice to players, should be in italicized flavor text.
2) Rules should make definite allowances and restrictions, not make requests.
3) I think maybe we need to abstract some of this stuff out into other Rules.  For instance, have all Command verbs in a separate Rule.  When the “look” verb is defined, say that it yields the Description of the player’s current Location.

Hix:

14-12-2005 23:56:17 UTC

imperial

Saurik:

15-12-2005 02:06:19 UTC

75th: this Rule doesn’t even mention Command verbs. It does abstract “look” to a separate verb… That was one of the things that is much better about this Rule than Location or Location, Location.

Also, I think us computer programmers are used to dealing with Rules (specifications) that contain “should"s that are (even explicitely, as there’s a spec somewhere that goes to the detail of formally defining the difference between should and must, although it really just maps directly to the English definitions, and thereby should still apply in this setting) informative to the implementation of a system based on that specification.

If you think about it, isn’t it already flavor text? You are stating that the contents of a field “should” be something… that’s like saying that right now I “should” be doing work. (I’m obviously not ;P.) It’s a true statement, but it doesn’t need to be italicized to indicate the fact that it only set meta-state and not state.

It wouldn’t really have any meaning unless later on someone proposed a rule that stated something like “Everything must be done as it should be.”, or “If a Rule says ‘please’, you must do what it says (and say ‘Thank you.’ in response).”.

It would, in essence, be no different than a rule that later stated “All flavor text is now considered normative.”.

Moonwryn:

15-12-2005 09:36:25 UTC

against

The Lone Amigo:

15-12-2005 12:05:42 UTC

imperial

ChronosPhaenon:

15-12-2005 19:37:20 UTC

for CoV. Reaches Quorum