Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!jvnc.net!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!pasteur!web-2d.berkeley.edu!c60c-2gf
From: c60c-2gf@web-2d.berkeley.edu ()
Subject: NPC's in text based adventures
Message-ID: <1992Nov25.024654.14030@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1992 02:46:54 GMT
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Has anyone ever played the game "Knight Orc"?  I think it was published
by Timescape (or Mindscape... something like that).  I never played it,
and though I read somewhere it was only average as far as text adventures
went, something on the back of the box really sparked my interest.

Besides the fact you play the role of an orc (which seemed fairly clever),
it said you had to spend time organizing a party of adventurers.  I don't
quite know how it went about doing this, since I never played the game, but
it seems like a great idea.

In non-interactive fiction I especially enjoy entertaining
interaction between characters.  Could this be implemented in an
interactive fiction game.  Of course, MUDs are multi-player
games, but this isn't what I am looking for.

Could you have a int-fict. game based like the standard computer 
role-playing game (i.e. instead of moving about by yourself, actually
have a party of, say, two other comrades).  Of course, you couldn't have
converstations with these NPCs (unless AI has rapidly progressed in the
past few weeks :) )  But they could add character to gameplay if
text descriptions are given throughout the game which would develop their
personalities.  Of course you could tell them to do certain specific
(puzzle related) tasks, but generally they would react and act on 
their own in normal situations.

Sound interesting?

-David Simpson
