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§12.12. Check rules for actions by other people
If we want to impose the restriction about carrying the camera on other people, we need a rule like the following:
Check someone photographing: if the person asked does not carry the camera, stop the action.
Implicitly, that "someone" excludes the player. Note that we say nothing in this rule, stopping the action without a word: after all, Clark might well be out of sight when trying this. If he is within sight, then we read:
We saw before that Inform's built-in rules all have handy names (the "can't drop what's already dropped rule", and such), and that these are useful when writing better "unable to..." messages. So for a deluxe version, we end up with:
Check someone trying photographing (this is the other people can't photograph without the camera rule): if the person asked does not carry the camera, stop the action.
And now, with ACTIONS on, we find that:
>clark, photograph me
[asking Clark Gable to try photographing yourself]
[(1) Clark Gable photographing yourself]
[(1) Clark Gable photographing yourself - failed the other people can't photograph without the camera rule]
Clark Gable is unable to do that.
[asking Clark Gable to try photographing yourself - succeeded]
which means that we could have, say,
Unsuccessful attempt by Clark photographing:
if the reason the action failed is the other people can't photograph without the camera rule, say "Clark is too suave to be embarrassed. 'Frankly, my dear, I don't have a camera.'";
otherwise say "Clark tries, and fails, to take a photograph."
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