Proposal: Logical Antecedent
s-killed
adminned by cayvie
Adminned at 16 Dec 2005 12:04:50 UTC
First a quick meta-statement: The goal of this Rule is to let us get to the fun part: writing colaborative fiction, playing a text adventure, whatever; coming up with awesome game mechanics that lead to interesting story lines and funny anecdotes without getting bogged down in the details of “But what Command was entered to _cause_ the exploding sword to get stuck in the rock? There’s no mechanic for that have even occured!”. In essence it’s a default mechanic. If something is stated to occur by a Rule, and a Protagonist can’t show whether it is occuring or not, then it does occur.
Add a new rule called “Prerequisite†that reads as follows:
If there is an action that is required to be performed in the game world, but there currently is no Rule indicating how such an action is to be officially shown to have been performed, it is assumed to have been performed. All subsequent statements that rely on this action to have be performed will be carried out.
In order to demonstrate what effect this Rule would have, I am going to walk through a couple Example Situations. Each of these have a setup in terms of a set of outstanding Proposals that it assumes enacted (which may or may not be enacted, that isn’t the point: the goal is to just have some game going in the Example Situation so there is something to demonstrate with) and whatever other game state information is required to completely understand what is occuring. I then show how it plays out with this Rule in effect.
Example Situation #1: Location, Location, Location and Disco Inferno were to pass, there was some way for Protagonists to move between Locations, and Maximum Occupancy was violated. Accourding to Location, Location, Location, a Fire Marshal is Summoned. The English definition of Summon is “call in an official matter, such as to attend court”. There is no way in this game world to send the message to show that this Summoning took place. The Fire Marshal is then _assumed_ to have been Summoned. Accourding to Disco Inferno he must then go to this location, which would be showable (as he would have to travel to that location, and I assumed in the setup Protagonists can move between Locations) and give his speech. When he gets there, there is no way to show that he gave his speech, so it is assumed that he gave his speech, and he may continue to the question and answer session, as indicated in the Rule text. If, at some later time, a mechanic is added that allows Protagonists to speak to each other, and the same set of events were to occur, then the Fire Marshal _would_ have to type out his speech, as now there is a way to show that he did it, and thereby a way to prove that he didn’t.
Example Situation #2: Grue Tag (draft II) were to pass, there was some way for Protagonists to move between Locations, another Rule was inserted that stated: if a Protagonist with Role other than Grue enters a Location where there already exists a Grue, the entering Protagonist slays that Grue, Angry Grasshopper (the Grue) is Located at The Ominous Forest, Cayvie has a Role other than Grue, and Cayvie were to enter this Location. As he has entered this Location where there is a Grue, the aforementioned Rule indicates that he slays said Grue. Currently, there is no way to show that Caylie is slaying the Grue. Therefor, we should assume that it has occured, and perform any actions that were reliant on that event. Namely, Caylie’s Role becomes Grue, Angry Grasshopper’s Role becomes Unemployed, Angry Grasshopper’s Location is set to “The Ruins of the Fortress of Cheese”, and further, he must stay there until he obtains a new Role.
Example Situation #2 Addendum: It should be noted that the logical _consequences_ of such an action have not occured. If there’s nothing in the game play that indicates that Protaganists that are slain are unable to, for instance, move around the game world, the fact that Angry Grasshopper is now slain _doesn’t_ itself imply that. This information can only be used for Prerequisites on other rule texts. Angry Grasshopper was slain. It _is_ true that this will never not be the case unless another Rule, for example, indicates that after a Protagonist has been in the state of having been slain for some period of time is then considered to no longer have been slain (kind of a Respawn, if you will). I consider it a feature that such situations might be interesting, and we might have Protagonists who are, for all rights and considerations, dead, walking around the world talking to other Protagonists, and only later does some new Rule indicate that Protagonists who have been slain are unable to enter The Holy Temple or something, and Protagonists then start scrambling to Propose Rules to remove these Prerequisites.
the fence!
this if Quazie were idle, but since he is here I have to vote 
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the explotation that this will lead to on my part will make everyone sad, including myself, simply because i wont be able to exploit it to the fullest as i don’t have the time to do so.
Saurik:
And with that, I _finally_ go to bed, hehe. (And given Moonwryn’s comment on “Death shouldn’t be drawn out.” I don’t neccessarily expect anyone to bother reading that, but I’m actually used to that and don’t mind in the slightest. ;P)