Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!ddsw1!chinet!jorn
From: jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger)
Subject: TADS romance project?
Message-ID: <C3sq0M.70s@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 21:50:45 GMT
Lines: 72

I'm still planning to write a few more chapters on ILS, but first I want 
to try the experiment of *collectively* designing a simple romance 
adventure, using TADS for starters... (It's taken me till now to ftp and 
unCompact it ;^)

So to grease the wheels, here's the chapter-headings of my anthology of 
'human romance histories'.  (This is boiled down from 200 pages of 
chronologically-sorted quotations from, mostly, love poetry.  I'll try to 
drop in appropriate quotes, from time to time, see below.)

wishing (passive)
searching (active)
hoping (having focussed on target)
planning (how to catch and keep)
weighing (the economics of commitment)
courting
being courted
losing (the answer is no)
loving ( ...yes)
testing (relationship problems)
trying (strategies for resolving problems)
fading
bereavement
ricorso (the cycle turns)


So broadly, our characters will start lonely, and try to find a good 
mate.  (Romance novels fade after that 'yes', usually, I think?)

In the coarsest approximation, each character might have an 
attractiveness rating, and if hers is higher than yours, she'll turn you 
down, so you keep asking till you meet a 'soul-mate', who's been pre-
destined for you (or anyone else just like you in attractiveness ;^).  
(This may seem unromantic in the extreme, but it's the clearest starting 
point I can think of.)

In TADS, let's figure we're at a party, and there are two rooms: the 
livingroom, and the makeout-room.  The livingroom is full of variously-
attractive people, who are either moveableActors (giving a new meaning to 
"pickup" ;^), or follower pseudo-objects. (I don't have any docs on these 
yet, I don't think.)

So, can't acquiescence be symbolized by mixing 'followerness' into an 
Actor, or by switching on the follow-property of a follower?

Stories:

1- attractive approaches same-attractive
2- attractive approaches more-attractive
3- attractive approaches less-attractive

Stories 1 and 3 will always result in an acceptance, story 2 will always 
result in a rejection.

========================================================================

The book that follows explains simply, rationally, and, as it were, 
mathematically the various feelings which succeed each other to become, 
in their entirety, the passion called love.
        Stendhal "Love" (28)

"... on Thursday nights, we are to have a psycho-colloquy upon the Tender 
Passion"
        Edmond Rostand (French 1868-1918) "Cyrano de Bergerac"

Let it not be forgotten: we are about to enter the age of Romanticism: 
the heart is going to the head.
        Jose Ortega y Gasset (Spanish 1883-1955) On Love

------------------------------------------------------------------------
jorn@chinet.chi.il.us   (Jorn Barger)

