I’ve been doing this thing with a gun and that’s working.
Stunning and killing people, and that’s working.
Waking people who are stunned, and being unable to wake those who have been killed (duh), and that’s working…
But after I 187 someone, I’d like to get to keep what I kill. At least the valuable bits. Jewelry, money, phones, even the clothes off their back.
including when I stun someone.
now this by itself is just the first hurdle.
I should also be able to check if anyone is watching me. Can’t have witnesses, you see.
and I’m thinking of adding a setting to my gun, called “VAPORIZE” to leave no traces. none that would stand up in court, anyway.
so in short:
-the ability to loot corpses of everything they have, clothes and all.
-the ability to loot corpses of common possessions (but not things like clothes or gold teeth or their scalp or tattoos or their soul) when they’re asleep.
-adding a VAPORIZE setting to the gun. I just thought of this while writing this post and this seems simple enough so … yeah. I’ll just move them (and anything they’re still holding/wearing) to an unreachable room, i take it? leave an ash mark in their place. spray “scent of burnt bacon” around the room. classy.
-the ability to have events play out different from when i’m being watched to when i’m not being watched.
any help here would be madly appreciated. by a madman. with a gun.
Thank you.
Also i’m just now getting the hang of conversations. o.o i’m either really stupid or overthinking things way too much.
Do you actually want the player to have to type >LOOT CORPSE, or are you going for >SEARCH CORPSE then >TAKE MAGIC SWORD?
For the former, add a new action.
A thing can be thievable or unthievable. A thing is usually thievable.
Looting is an action applying to one thing. Understand "loot [something]" as looting.
The looting action has a list of objects called the possessions looted.
Setting action variables for looting:
now the possessions looted is empty.
Check looting something which is not a person:
say "How exactly do you intend to loot [the noun]?" instead.
Check looting a person when the noun is awake:
say "[The noun] wouldn't take kindly to that." instead.
Carry out looting a person:
repeat with the item running through thievable things carried by the noun:
add the noun to the things looted;
now the item is carried by the player.
Report looting a person:
say "You rifle through [the noun]'s belongings and find [the things looted with indefinite articles]."
For the latter (sparser implementation but you can fill it in with some of the code above):
Instead of searching a person:
say "[The noun] [are] carrying [a list of things carried by the noun]."
The can't take people's possessions rule does nothing when the noun is dead or the noun is asleep.
For your vaporizing gun:
There is a small pile of ash. The description of the ash is "Most things tend to look quite similar after being hit with a vaporizing gun."
Carry out shooting something with the gun when the setting of the gun is vaporize:
remove the noun from play;
move the small pile of ash to the location.
Report shooting something with the gun when the setting of the gun is vaporize:
say "There is a loud zap, a sizzling sound, and suddenly all that remains of [the noun] is a small pile of ash."
To see if you’re being watched:
Instead of looting a person when in the presence of the Captain of the Guard:
say "The Captain notices your action. 'Hold it! What do you think you're doing?'"
wow what a reply o.o THANKS! uh… will the ash work for several targets? or only once?
and the last bit, can the captain of the guard be replaced with “anyone”? literally, the word ‘anyone’. or ‘anyone besides the player’. something like that?
that
The can't take people's possessions rule does nothing when the noun is dead or the noun is asleep.
thing (if i don’t fuck it up) should work wonders!
I don’t know if “anyone” works. But you can use “in the presence of a person”, or “in the presence of a hostile person”, etc.
There is only one ash object, which is repurposed the next time something gets disintegrated. Add something like this…
The pile of ash is undescribed.
Instead of doing anything except examining with the ash:
say "The last remnants crumble away at your touch.";
remove the ash from play.
…and the player is unlikely to notice. (Now it won’t be shown in the room description if you leave and come back, and doing anything to it destroys it so you can’t get it into your inventory.)
You don’t really want to fill your world with a whole bunch of ash objects. You can use Dynamic Objects by Jesse McGrew to make more at runtime and have as many as you need, but they’ll just get cumbersome after a while and the player isn’t really going to do much with them.
If you want more than one, though not an infinite number, see RB10.3 “Dispensers and Supplies of Small Objects”.
An idea to keep the ash limit down, just so you have a snack for thought, is to make it so that when you leave the room a message like “Your footsteps disturb the ashen remains of your foul deed, which scatter your murderous sin to the wind” (but a bit less purple, maybe) and remove the ash object from play. That way you can keep using the same ash object over and over (or the same group of ash objects, if you expect more than one corpse at any one location. Although you could easily have the same ash object for more than one victim, and even change the description if you want to - if the ash is in the room when you vaporise someone, change its description accordingly).
Honestly I think it’d be better to just remove the ash silently (unless it’s really important, in which case you need a way to handle it). Giving a message about the ash disappearing draws attention to it, possibly makes the player think they need to do something about it, and reading that message every time you leave a room where you’ve disintegrated someone is a one-way ticket to ragesville. (Or maybe a subtle hint that you shouldn’t be disintegrating so many people, you homicidal maniac? Dunno.)
In fact, having the ash pile as a thing that the player can’t do anything with is probably going to be a red herring. If you don’t have big plans for the ash try this:
There is a small pile of ash. The description of the ash is "Most things tend to look quite similar after being hit with a vaporizing gun."
Carry out shooting something with the gun when the setting of the gun is vaporize:
remove the noun from play;
move the small pile of ash to the location.
Report shooting something with the gun when the setting of the gun is vaporize:
say "There is a loud zap, a sizzling sound, and suddenly all that remains of [the noun] is a small pile of ash, blowing away on the breeze."
The pile of ash is undescribed. Understand "ashes" as the pile of ash.
Instead of doing anything with the ash:
say "The ashes have blown away on the breeze." [This means the player can "x ash" after getting the previous message, and they'll get this message instead of "You can't see any such thing."]
Every turn when the location of the player is not the location of the pile of ash: remove the pile of ash from play. [And when the player leaves they can't do anything with the pile of ash anymore.]
i tried stunning a dude to take his clothes, boots, and motorcycle, using
The can't take people's possessions rule does nothing when the noun is dead or the noun is asleep.
but it won’t let me rob his corpse. And by corpse i mean i’m gonna set to kill and end the son of a bitch and bury him in his stupid clothes if he’s not gonna hand them over. And by bury i mean vaporize, read earlier posts.
HORRIBLE REALIZATION
if i kill someone i should make the ability to “search corpse” available. but only then.
BAMM!
[code]Instead of searching a person:
if the noun is awake:
if the noun is alive:
say “[one of]It would be weird to start rifling through their pockets right now.[or]Maybe it’s not weird to just check other people’s pockets where you come from, but here it’s considered inappropriate.[in random order]”;
otherwise:
say “[The noun] [are] carrying [a list of things carried by the noun][if the noun is wearing anything] and wearing [a list of things worn by the noun][end if].”;
otherwise if the noun is asleep:
say “[The noun] [are] carrying [a list of things carried by the noun][if the noun is wearing anything] and wearing [a list of things worn by the noun][end if].”
The can’t take people’s possessions rule does nothing when the noun is dead or the noun is asleep.
The new can’t take people’s possessions rule is listed instead of the can’t take people’s possessions rule in the check taking rulebook.
This is the new can’t take people’s possessions rule:
if someone (called the owner) carries the noun:
if the owner is awake:
if the owner is alive:
say “[the owner] won’t like that.”;
reject the player’s command;
otherwise:
say “You take [the noun] off [the owner][’]s corpse.”;
otherwise if the noun is asleep:
say “You take [the noun] while [the owner] is unconcious.”[/code]
Seems like it’s working to me, in a minimum implementation. Here’s what I ran, under the spoiler:
[spoiler][code]A person can be alive or dead. A person can be awake or asleep. A person is usually alive. A person is usually awake.
The block attacking rule is not listed in any rulebook.
Check attacking a dead person: say “Already dead.” instead.
Carry out attacking a person: now the noun is dead.
Report attacking a person: say “You kill [the noun] swiftly.”
Instead of searching a person:
if the noun is awake:
if the noun is alive:
say “[one of]It would be weird to start rifling through their pockets right now.[or]Maybe it’s not weird to just check other people’s pockets where you come from, but here it’s considered inappropriate.[in random order]”;
otherwise:
say “[The noun] [are] carrying [a list of things carried by the noun][if the noun is wearing anything] and wearing [a list of things worn by the noun][end if].”;
otherwise if the noun is asleep:
say “[The noun] [are] carrying [a list of things carried by the noun][if the noun is wearing anything] and wearing [a list of things worn by the noun][end if].”
The can’t take people’s possessions rule does nothing when the noun is dead or the noun is asleep.
The new can’t take people’s possessions rule is listed instead of the can’t take people’s possessions rule in the check taking rulebook.
This is the new can’t take people’s possessions rule:
if someone (called the owner) carries the noun:
if the owner is awake:
if the owner is alive:
say “[The owner] won’t like that.”;
reject the player’s command;
otherwise:
say “You take [the noun] off [the owner][']s corpse.”;
otherwise if the noun is asleep:
say “You take [the noun] while [the owner] is unconcious.”
Arena is a room. A hapless victim is a man in the Arena. The hapless victim is carrying a piece of string.
Understand “corpse” as a person when the item described is dead.
[/code][/spoiler]
And here’s the result:
Now if you want “hapless victim’s corpse” to be understood that’ll be a bit more work, because you have to do something to break up the apostrophe-s so that “hapless victim” can be understood on its own.
Oops–I see now the mistake I made in the code I gave you. Change “…does nothing when the noun is dead or the noun is asleep” to “…does nothing when the holder of the noun is dead or the holder of the noun is asleep”. Or replace the rule entirely, as Matt did.
To add on to what Matt said about understanding “victim’s corpse”: you might try the extension Possession and Ownership by Shadow Wolf. It deals with aprostrophe-S constructions automatically.
