Scope Control by Ron Newcomb

Version 2

Allows us to ask why the Deciding the Scope For Something activity is running, so we can modify the scope only when we absolutely need to. Highly useful for giving NPCs commands over telephones or while in darkness, creating 'can hear' relations, or modifying how Inform parses the command line.

Deciding what a character can interact with at any given moment is determined by her senses and the physical reality of her universe. The complicated reasoning to enforce all this is collectively called "scope". Chapter 12 of Writing with Inform talks of this at length under the rubrics of reachability and visibility.

However, both technology and magic can overcome such obstacles. Clairvoyance and cell phones exist in many universes, so player commands such as BOB, REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE should be possible without undue difficulty.

While the Deciding the Scope of Something activity can naïvely modify scope this way:

After deciding the scope of the player while the player calls someone:
     place the other party of the player in scope.

... it causes certain problems, such as the player being able to see, hear, and touch what he should only be able to hear:

> JESSE, LOOK
"I'm still across town. I'll call you back when I get close."

> EXAMINE JESSE
She looks exhausted from the confusing drive.

This extension allows four conditions that can be attached to rules in the Deciding the Scope of Something activity. They are:

while parsing the nouns
while parsing for persuasion
while looping over scope
while testing scope

Hence, we can modify scope correctly:

After deciding the scope of the player while parsing for persuasion and while the player calls someone:
     place the other party of the player in scope.

A	Example "Asking for Directions" A new internet acquaintance needs our help.