Example: * Beethoven - A deaf NPC who responds only to commands written in the conversation book.

    "Beethoven"

    Include Notepad by Jim Aikin.

    Section 1 - The Room & Objects

    The Messy Front Parlor is a room. "A handsome Broadwood piano dominates this small, cluttered room. Stuff is scattered everywhere. There's even a half-eaten sandwich under the piano."

    A musical instrument is a kind of thing.

    The Broadwood piano is scenery in the Messy Front Parlor. The description is "The piano is handsomely inlaid with fleur-de-lis." Understand "handsome", "inlay", and "fleur-de-lis" as the Broadwood piano. The Broadwood piano is a musical instrument.

    The player carries a conversation book and a quill pen. The conversation book is a notepad. The allowed-pens of the conversation book is {quill pen}. The description of the conversation book is "The deaf composer often used a book of this sort to hold conversations with his friends. They would write whatever they wanted to say to him in the book and then show him the book."

    Section 2 - Beethoven

    Beethoven is a man in the Messy Front Parlor. "Beethoven is standing here, scowling at you." The description is "His hair hasn't been combed in days, and his waistcoat is mis-buttoned." Beethoven has some text called the non-response. The non-response of Beethoven is "Beethoven doesn't seem to have heard you."

    Beethoven-willing is a truth state that varies. Beethoven-willing is false.

    Instead of asking Beethoven to try playing the piano:
        if Beethoven-willing is false:
            say "[non-response of Beethoven][paragraph break]";
        otherwise:
            say "Beethoven says, 'Oh, perhaps.' He sits down at the piano and plays a rapid flurry of notes. Unfortunately, the piano hasn't been tuned in years, and some of the strings seem to be broken. Beethoven seems blissfully unaware of the awful racket."

    Instead of asking Beethoven to try doing something:
        if Beethoven-willing is true:
            say "Beethoven frowns and shakes his head. Perhaps he can't understand what '[memo of the conversation book]' means.";
        otherwise:
            say "[non-response of Beethoven][paragraph break]".

    Persuasion rule for asking Beethoven to try doing something:
        if Beethoven-willing is true:
            persuasion succeeds;
        otherwise:
            persuasion fails.

    Section 3 - Letting Beethoven Respond to Written Commands

    The queued command is indexed text that varies.

    Rule for reading a command:
        if the queued command is empty:
            now Beethoven-willing is false;
            make no decision;
        otherwise:
            now Beethoven-willing is true;
            change the text of the player's command to the queued command;
            now the queued command is "".

    Instead of showing the conversation book to Beethoven:
        if the memo of the conversation book is empty, say "Beethoven frowns at the empty page. 'You have an odd sense of humor,' he says gruffly.";
        otherwise now the queued command is "beethoven, [memo of the conversation book]".
    
    Section 4 - The Playing Action

    Playing is an action applying to one thing. Understand "play [something]" as playing.

    Check playing:
        if the noun is not a musical instrument:
            say "You can't make music on [the noun]!" instead.

    Carry out playing:
        say "You try a few tentative notes on [the noun], but it's in such poor condition that you desist almost before you start."

    Test me with "show book to beethoven / write play the piano in the book / show book to beethoven / beethoven, play the piano / write go north in conversation book / show book to beethoven".