Section: Sorting

(2) Sorting of objects. Next we are allowed to determine the order in which we would like items in a room description to appear in the Table of Seen Things. Room Description Control calls an object-based rulebook called the ranking rules to determine how items should be ranked. The higher an item's rank, the higher it will be sorted in the Table of Seen Things and the sooner in the room description it will appear. So for instance we might encourage Inform to mention people sooner than everyone else:

    A ranking rule for a person (called special-target):
        increase the description-rank of the special-target by 10.

or to prefer items with initial appearance properties:
    
    Definition: a thing is initially-described if it provides the property initial appearance.

    A ranking rule for an initially-described thing (called special-target):
        increase description-rank of the special-target by 5.

All the ranking rules are considered in sequence unless a rule explicitly succeeds or fails, so if we have multiple ranking rules applying to a single item, they will all be observed; description-ranks can thus be determined cumulatively.