I have been unusually lazy for the last week. It can’t be the heat — my office is well air-conditioned. But something is making me slow and stupid. I flit from task to task, seldom completely finishing them. I repaired some plumbing in my well, but I have yet to clean up the wiring so that it’s nice and neat and the well enclosure is closed.
But I did manage to squeeze out one decent idea: battle encounters. I don’t need to use the Encounter Technology that I wasted so much time on. I can accomplish all the same features with the standard engine, plus I’ll be able to get some better tuning with the standard engine.
The basic idea is to write lots of one-off verbs that present scenes from the battle. Instances of heroism, cowardice, tragedy, courage, etc. Arthur is merely a witness to these. He won’t have many responses available to him — usually it will be just a verbal response along the lines of “Attaboy!” or “Curse you!” I do want to give Arthur the opportunity to ride to the site of an event so as to encourage the men there should that be helpful.
The cast
The time has come for me to figure out the cast:
Fate
Arthur
Merlin
Mordred
Lancelot
Kaye
Gwenevere
Morgana
Percival
Galahad
Ector
Iseult
Nimue
Uriens
Ywaine
Bedivere
Bors
Gawain
Tristram
This cast has 12 males and only 4 females. That won’t be good for romantic stuff. I could certainly cut down on the males; this cast has a total of 18 characters. If I assign four of the males as knights for the women, that cuts it down to 8 males and 4 females. Clearly I must add some more females. But I’ll also need to assign battle knights to the lords; that would end up with 4 males, 4 females, and 8 battle knights. So I need to add 3 males for every female. This won’t be difficult; I’ll just grab one of my Arthurian references.