Ignore definite article when looking up conversation topic table

Authoring Inform 7
1

I know I ought to use an extension but for now I’m just using a table…

Understand "x/y/z" as "[x]".

Instead of asking A about a topic listed in the Table of A:
	say "[reply entry][paragraph break]";

Table of A
topic     reply
"[x]"       "Reply."

How can I get it to understand “ASK A ABOUT Z” and also “ASK A ABOUT THE Z”, without having to add Understand "x/y/z" or "the x" or "the y" or "the z" as "[x]".

Some of the topics happen to be things that exist in the world, and some are just other text (e.g the weather).

2

In your table, instead of “[x]”, I think you can say “a/the/-- [x]”. This is similar to a format that I used in one of my early games. But, quite frankly, you are right, you might want to use one or more of Eric Eve’s extensions with regard to conversation, plus his Epistemology (so that you can refer to objects that have been ‘seen’ but are not in the room). Especially if your game contains a number of characters with whom the player is bound to converse.

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3

I’ll try that, thanks!

Maybe for the next game! This one is short and ambiguity should paper over the cracks. I’m hoping to enter it in the ParserComp and can’t face another learning curve right now.

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4

A good approach that I learned here is creating a new querying it about action, that applies to 2 things (instead of a thing and a topic).

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5

Yeah, I was going to mention this approach too! In case it’s useful in addition to the linked thread, you can also check out the Nameless example in the documentation.

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6

Thanks all.

I used EpicIFer’s solution, which worked perfectly (I generaly used the/-- as I didn’t need to include the indefinite article, though for one noun I used the/my/--).

But I will definitely look into the other methods as soon as possible.

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