I was watching a video of a Zork I playthrough, with disk-drive sound effects. Anyway. I loved the bit with the troll where after a swipe with the sword, the game’s reply is “The troll jumps nimbly aside.”* I have never thought of a troll that was even able to register on the nimble-o-meter.
Y’all can check me on if it’s true that the troll in Zork I ever “jumps nimbly”.
If true, however. I’d like to just brainstorm what a nimble troll might be like. Assume an NPC the Epistemology module of TADS-3. This NPC, this Nimble Troll. Backstory in footnotes.
To me, nimbleness doesn’t have to mean raw speed—in fencing, having your body and your blade in exactly the position where you want them is more important than how long it takes to get there. (Speed matters too, but not if it’s uncontrolled and haphazard.) I can imagine a burly troll having really good control of his movements and positioning, knowing exactly what distance an axe can cover but a sword can’t, and not building up any momentum unless there’s a specific reason for it.
It’s one of six possible responses for when a player attack has a MISSED result:
<LTABLE "Your " F-WEP " misses the " F-DEF " by an inch.">
<LTABLE "A good slash, but it misses the " F-DEF " by a mile.">
<LTABLE "You charge, but the " F-DEF " jumps nimbly aside.">
<LTABLE "Clang! Crash! The " F-DEF " parries.">
<LTABLE "A quick stroke, but the " F-DEF " is on guard.">
<LTABLE "A good stroke, but it's too slow; the " F-DEF " dodges.">>
The same response messages are used for the thief. F-DEF in the message gets replaced as appropriate.
I thought of a few ideas of what to do with the title/ concept “The Nimble Troll.”
I thought of a far-flung IF branching adventure where this Troll adeptly dodges the player, doesn’t get his head cut off, and has his own adventure. This idea was charming but came with a lot of “ok what then?” that basically involves inventing a whole game from scratch.
Somewhat in that direction, I thought of an old 2D arcade game about a troll that had nimble dodging skills that you had to use until you could acquire troll weapons. But you would remain nimble.
I then remembered my idea for an IF text game for the right speed-if, where it would be the IF version of a stealth videogame, and that somehow the nimble troll would be an excellent PC.
Does the thought of a Nimble Troll bring to mind the tapestry of a wizard trying to teach ballet to trolls that marks the location of the Room of Requirement in Harry Potter for anyone else?