§6.8. Taking, Dropping, Inserting and Putting

We may want to change the default refusal message when the player tries to pick up scenery: Replanting demonstrates this case simply.

Removal modifies responses to successful TAKE commands, with the effect that when the player picks up an item, he gets a response such as "You take the book from the shelf."

Croft modifies the DROP command, so that objects dropped on specific surfaces get reported in a special way. Celadon allows the player to drop even objects he is carrying indirectly, for instance on a tray or in a sack.

Morning After introduces a simple rule that changes the behavior of the whole story: whenever the player takes an item he hasn't already looked at, he automatically examines it. This picks up the pace of exploration passages where the player is likely to be collecting a large number of objects.

By default, when the player tries to put or insert an item that he isn't holding, Inform prints a refusal message; Democratic Process and Sand offer ways instead to have the player first pick up the relevant items. (The former applies to single items the player is trying to place; the latter expands coverage to work even if the player uses a command affecting multiple objects.)

Taking also happens as a result of other commands. Such takes can be made unnecessary by turning off the "carrying requirements rule" under particular circumstances, or presented differently using the implicitly taking activity.


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By default, "TAKE OAK" in the example above will produce the response "That's hardly portable." This is fine under many circumstances, but also a bit generic, so we might want to override it for a specific game.

paste.png "Replanting"

The Orchard is a room. "Within this quadrille of pear trees, a single gnarled old oak remains as a memory of centuries past." The gnarled old oak tree is scenery in the Orchard.

Instead of taking some scenery: say "You lack the hulk-like strength."

Test me with "take oak".

Here we've used an "instead" rule; we will learn more about these in the section on actions. This allows us to define our own results for taking an object.

Note: "scenery" is a property of an object (about which we will hear more later). So when we use it in rules, we can talk about "some scenery", "something that is scenery", or even "a scenery thing" -- the last one doesn't sound much like English, but is a more plausible construction with other adjectives.

*ExampleReplanting
Changing the response when the player tries to take something that is scenery.

By default, "TAKE OAK" in the example above will produce the response "That's hardly portable." This is fine under many circumstances, but also a bit generic, so we might want to override it for a specific game.

paste.png "Replanting"

The Orchard is a room. "Within this quadrille of pear trees, a single gnarled old oak remains as a memory of centuries past." The gnarled old oak tree is scenery in the Orchard.

Instead of taking some scenery: say "You lack the hulk-like strength."

Test me with "take oak".

Here we've used an "instead" rule; we will learn more about these in the section on actions. This allows us to define our own results for taking an object.

Note: "scenery" is a property of an object (about which we will hear more later). So when we use it in rules, we can talk about "some scenery", "something that is scenery", or even "a scenery thing" -- the last one doesn't sound much like English, but is a more plausible construction with other adjectives.

*ExampleMorning After
When the player picks something up which he hasn't already examined, the object is described.

*ExampleRemoval
TAKE expanded to give responses such as "You take the book from the shelf." or "You pick up the toy from the ground."

*ExampleCeladon
Using the enclosure relation to let the player drop things which he only indirectly carries.

***ExampleDemocratic Process
Make PUT and INSERT commands automatically take objects if the player is not holding them.

***ExampleCroft
Adding special reporting and handling for objects dropped when the player is on a supporter, and special entering rules for moving from one supporter to another.

***ExampleLollipop Guild
Overriding the rules to allow the player to show something to another character without first taking it.

****ExampleSand
Extend PUT and INSERT handling to cases where multiple objects are intended at once.