I have been having endless problems with the handling of P2 and P3 values for auragon counts. When Subject tells DirObject that 3Actor has 6Quantifier ± 7Quantifier auragons of type 5ActorTrait, DirObject must update his own P3 and P2 values. But I realized that this imposes a problem: how are the P2 and P3 values initialized?
Currently the P3Values are initialized at the beginning of the game, and are then updated as a direct consequence of the verb ‘tell auragon’. This is all wrong. While contemplating this, I came up with a better idea.
Earlier I had thought that actors would be stocked with new P2 values for auragon counts each morning, based on the ‘closest approach’ between each pair of actors, with ‘closest approach’ being determined randomly during each actor’s peregrinations through dream space. But my new idea is to give each actor the ability to sense auragons during dream time — and that ability is variable. I see two ways to implement this. First, the player’s intrinsic katsin trait (honesty) confers some of this ability. In other words, the more honest you are with others, the greater your power to correctly perceive auragons. The second factor would be possession of relic beads, which enhance your perceptive power. This creates an economy for relic beads, which could be traded for information. However, I must carefully balance the value of a relic bead against the value of information. At first glance, it seems foolish to give up a relic bead for a single piece of information. Perhaps a relic bead requires more information than a single auragon count.
This raises once again the possibility of the ‘promise not to attack’ verb. It also raises the possibility of debt. In other words, you don’t trade the relic bead explicitly — it’s too holy a thing to be the subject of barter. Instead, you simply give it to another person, which in turn creates a debt. They must now be nice to you, giving your information and refraining from attacking you. Of course, the degree to which they do so depends upon their personality, and a failure to discharge that debt permits an accusation of betrayal — which in turn is another maneuver.
