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Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 11:35:05 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: [CONTENT] Puzzle fairness
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Mike Roberts wrote:
> "John Colagioia" <JColagioia@csi.com> wrote:
>>I mean, one thing that shouts, "this is a game," to me very
>>loudly is a response to an action like, "you would never do
>>that!"  Err... Obviously, I would.
> What if the message were "Christabel would never do that!"?  To me, that
> wouldn't be at all troubling, as long as that claim isn't inconsistent with
> Christabel's character as I understand it so far - and even if it is
> inconsistent, it could be an illuminating inconsistency that further
> develops the character.
> If it's cast in the second person, and there's a defined player character,
> it's not clear to me that "You would never do that!" is any different.  What
> you-the-player would do is not relevant to what you-the-PC would do.

My concern about such things is that we have all these high-flying
ideas about how Interactive Fiction is about the author and player
"writing the story together."  You wouldn't collaborate with someone
on a novel, and declare, "Bob would never do that, for reasons that
we've never laid out in the book, and which--honestly--I've never
bothered to tell you."  Or, rather, you might, but that strains the
collaboration.

> All that said, more often than not, "you would never" probably does end up
> being a weak and transparent device for limiting the player's range of
> choices, and only serves to call attention to the limits.  In this sense,
> it's probably a good rule of thumb for authors to avoid using it.  But I
> don't think a blanket prohibition is called for, because I think it's a
> perfectly good device in some cases.

As I said, if you're good, you can get away with it for particular
situations.  In fact, there are times where I've seen it, and I
didn't even notice it.

But, then, there are also perfectly good uses for blinking HTML text,
lime green housepaint, and glow-in-the-dark ties with hula dancers on
them...

