Chapter: Using Tailored Room Description

Section: Overview of Tailored Room Description's Process

The behavior of Tailored Room Description is to go through the list of Seen Things prepared by Room Description Control and follow this protocol:

    (a) if the item in question has an initial appearance and has not been moved, print the initial appearance; otherwise, if it has a flexible appearance (see below), print the flexible appearance; otherwise, say that you see the item.

    (b) if the item is on or in something other than the location, mention the holder of the item and any other objects also in the holder of the item.

    (c) if the paragraph so generated has mentioned any containers or supporters that themselves hold unmentioned items, generate sentences mentioning the contents of those things, until everything referenced by the paragraph has been adequately revealed.

    (d) as an exceptional case, if the item is considered "deeply dull", a sentence will instead be printed listing the item together with all other "deeply dull" objects in a single sentence, as in "You also see here the wrench, the monkey, and the weasel." Items are only deeply dull if they share in having the lowest possible description-rank; according to the ranking rules of this extension, that means that they neither contain nor support anything, have no initial appearance, and have not been rendered interesting by any other ranking rule. It is possible to add further definitions to affect whether specific kinds of things are considered deeply dull; see the "Doors and doors" example below.