Ask me anything! ANYTHING!

This seems like it should work, but it’s not:

[code]Ollie is a person in Kit Kat Club.

Asking is an action applying to a thing.

Understand “ask [anyone] for” as asking.

The money is a thing. It is undescribed.

Understand “$50” as money. Understand “fifty dollars” as money. Understand “fifty bucks” as money. Understand “50 bucks” as money.[/code]

Here’s what I7 says:

ask Ollie for money
You can’t see any such thing.

ask Ollie for $50
You can’t see any such thing.

Your action only applies to one thing, and the grammar line only has a single noun token in it. The game will understand the command “ask Ollie for”, but not “ask Ollie for [something else]” unless you tell it that that’s what you want.

By far the best thing about holmes_iv’s threads is trying to figure out what the thread might be about from his cryptic titles. I didn’t get this one, but I’ve managed a couple of the others. Has anyone done better?

Of course, he could just title the thread something clear and concise, but where would be the fun in that?

Draconis, should I add “[something else]” or “money”?

I can think of very many things to write here, but they’re all rather mean, so, meh.

Either that, or it’s a desperate cry for attention.

Almost all of your topics have been answered within an hour of posting, you know. I replied to this one in under ten minutes. Is that delay really enough to require “a desperate cry for attention”?

Anyway, Inform already has an action for this. It’s called “asking it for”, and by default is always converted into a request for the noun to give the second noun to the player. Just write a persuasion rule for “asking Ollie to try giving the money to the player”.

I think he was just making a funny. Certainly nothing about his other posts leads me to believe otherwise. Some of us are just natural-born drama queens, y’know?

In that case I apologize. For a moment there Holmes just reminded me a bit too much of a person who’d been causing difficulty on a different forum. Sorry to accuse you so hastily.

That’s OK, Draconis, we drama queens have our moments and then get over it. (Another lame attempt at being funny.)
And thanks for the help.

Still having problems, though.

[code]Ollie is a person in Kit Kat Club.

The money is a thing. It is undescribed.

Understand “$50” as money. Understand “fifty dollars” as money. Understand “fifty bucks” as money. Understand “50 bucks” as money.

Instead of asking Ollie to try giving the money to the player, say “Ollie acts as if he didn’t hear you. He continues to rehearse his band.”[/code]

And I7 says:

ask Ollie for $50
You can’t see any such thing.

You didn’t give the money a location. If the player can’t see it, they can’t refer to it.

OK, the problem there is that the player, who has no money, is trying to borrow it off of Ollie, who also has no money, at least not to lend to the player, so Ollie ignores him and continues to rehearse his band.

Doesn’t matter; what Inform sees and what the player sees are different things. Try Ollie carries the money.

Thanks.