Giving item to character in play

Authoring Inform 7
1

I am trying to give an object called “tiny giant” to a character called “Giant ogre” but it will not let me give it to him. It just says “Giant ogre is not interested”.

2

If you’re confused about why something is happening, there are some useful debugging commands to try. >RULES and >ACTIONS are among the most helpful. Let’s see what output we get with RULES (use the RULES command, then play your game as normal):

[Rule "can't give what you haven't got rule" applies.] [Rule "can't give to yourself rule" applies.] [Rule "can't give to a non-person rule" applies.] [Rule "can't give clothes being worn rule" applies.] [Rule "block giving rule" applies.] Giant ogre doesn't seem interested.
So everything was going smoothly until the ‘block giving’ rule. Let’s take a look in the Standard Rules:

Check an actor giving something to (this is the block giving rule): stop the action with library message giving it to action number 3 for the second noun.
That sounds fiddly, but the important part of it is ‘stop the action’. That is, by default Inform will stop you from giving away your stuff willy-nilly - you might need it later, after all.

But you can always change or eliminate that rule. (See the Rulebooks section of the documentation for more about how rules work.) The simplest thing is to get rid of it, like so:

The block giving rule is not listed in any rulebook.

But that would allow you to give anything to anyone - that’s pretty dangerous. Replacing the rule instead of eliminating it gives you more flexibility:

This is the replacement block giving rule:
if the noun is not tiny giant or the second noun is not Giant Ogre, stop the action with library message giving it to action number 3 for the
		second noun.

The replacement block giving rule is listed instead of the block giving rule in the check giving rules.

That’ll allow that specific act of giving, while still blocking others.

3

That’s functional, but just a little bit ugly. Here’s a nicer way:

This is the replacement block giving rule:
    If the noun is not tiny giant or the second noun is not Giant Ogre, abide by the block giving rule.
The replacement block giving rule is listed instead of the block giving rule in the check giving rules.

It’s still possible to abide by a rule that has been unlisted.

4

Thank you very much!