Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!uunet!ddsw1!chinet!jorn
From: jorn@chinet.chinet.com (Jorn Barger)
Subject: Motivation and *exchange*
Message-ID: <C7zCvK.M7w@chinet.chinet.com>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 06:04:31 GMT
Lines: 30

[sometimes i find a topic is so complex that nothing i write about it
stands up even well enough to deserve a re-working!  so i'm gonna try
just rattling something off on-line, and hope for the best...]

I've been turning over the problem of implementing 'jerks' who you mainly
steer by 'blowing hot and cold' towards them.  But I really wanted some
slight degree of generality, and I've suspected that it might be implemented
in terms of a new branch on the TADS object-tree, for 'motives'.

And the verbs that take motive-objects as DO's and IO's (direct and indirect
objects) will include satisfy-other's-motive, ask-other-to-satisfy-own-motive,
offer-motive-exchange, and accept/reject-exchange-offer.

So jerks (in this interactive romance novel) will come seeking to get their
egos stroked, and the MeActress steers them by 'stroking' hot, warm, cool, or
cold.  But other motives might also be handled similarly, offering and 
giving various sorts of motive gratification, including esteem, hunger,
and sex.

And if you have this semantic element, aren't there a zillion sorts of
story-puzzles you can build with it?

(I'll just post this off, and maybe come back later with afterthoughts...)

jorn

(btw, topnotch stuff on this group, all year!  did everybody meet at the
gam-dev conference?  what'd i miss?)


