Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!world!tob
From: tob@world.std.com (Tom O Breton)
Subject: Re: Help on designing a game (LONG)
Message-ID: <CJI1FB.D5t@world.std.com>
Reply-To: tob@world.std.com
Organization: BREnterprises
References: <2gtk5j$5qv@hebron.connected.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 04:21:10 GMT
X-Posted-By: My own casual posting program
Lines: 42

cohort@hebron.connected.com (James Mann) writes:
> I, for one, never said anything about writing up a plotline.  But, take this
> (backwards-written) example as to why plotlines exist in IF:
>   I have a planet, and on this planet is a wrecked ship.  How do I get players
>   to find what I have waiting for them onboard?

First, why? This isn't rhetorical.

Is it the only location-complex in the game? Obviously start on or near
it.

Are you trying to make sure the players experience this particular part
of your creation? Make it accessible and known, and required to complete
the game. (Under whatever completion condition you have set up)

Or is it an optional part of the game? As above but drop it as a
requirement to complete the game.

If one thinks in terms of plot, one is tempted to "solve" it as a string
of now-they-do-this, now-they-do-that scenes. I think that's working
against the medium.

>     Okay, they have to know where this planet is, right?  And how do I get them
>   to want to find out where the planet is?
>     I plant a rumor seed on board the station that the crashed vessel
>   originated from.

The only problem is if that is the only way to get there. Or what's
almost the same thing, to know there is such a place to go to.

It's suitable for a book-protagonist, 'cause the inflexible medium only
needs, and only allows, one way of doing a thing (That's one way
*per time the thing is done*.)

An IF story is more flexible, and could have any number of hints, from 0
(for a throwaway location of marginal interest) on up.

        Tom

-- 
Having finished it's [sic] evil speech, the Tom spreads it's scaly
wings and soars away...  (tob@world.std.com, TomBreton@delphi.com)
