So if I try to restrict the list of possible actions, like so:
Instead of doing something other than looking, asking, or telling:
say "That action is not needed."
Looking works. Telling someone about works. But asking doesn’t work. Why does this code block asking, but not telling?
I guess it’s because there are two “asking” actions in the Standard Rules (asking it about and asking it for).
Anyway, this seems to work:
Instead of doing something other than looking, asking it about, or telling:
say "That action is not needed."
That gives me the same problem.
Actually, I see now that even your original code works fine for me. (I’m on build 5Z71 on this particular computer though.)
I’m using 6F95. It looks like “asking it about” doesn’t work, but “asking something about” does work. I’m a little surprised: I didn’t think I’d get away with putting “looking” and “asking something about” in the same rule preamble, since they have different arities. But at least in 6F95, using “other than,” that’s okay.
[code]Test is a room.
Instead of doing something other than looking, asking something about, or telling:
say “That action is not needed.”
test me with “l/ask me for a cookie/ask me about cookies/tell me about cookies/smell”[/code]
Also, it’s worth noting that parser errors will fire before the Instead rule fires, so “smell cookies” prompts the response “You can’t see any such thing.”
Awesome, that works. (I too didn’t think it would work because of the arities.)