Give a character a personality and limits

Personality

One sentence in plain English becomes temperament and an archetype: guard, owner, elder, child, drifter. The archetype sets defaults for what they reach for; the sentence is written once and never re-read by a model.

"characters": { "Hulda": { "persona": "Innkeeper of the Bannered Mare. Proud of her prices, quick to bar a thief." } }

What they can do: can

A narrowing of the level's verbs. Anything not listed is impossible for that character, permanently: not under fear, not under an order, not inside a plan, not from a scene.

"verbs": [ { "name": "greet" }, { "name": "serve" }, { "name": "report" }, { "name": "refuse_service" }, { "name": "confront" }, { "name": "watch" }, { "name": "say" } ],
"characters": { "Hulda": { "can": ["greet", "serve", "report", "refuse_service", "watch", "say"] } }

Hulda cannot confront, ever, because it is not in her list. A can that names a verb the level does not have is a load error, not a silent grant. No can at all means the archetype's default, and the load report says what was assumed.

What they must never do: never

Rules over four namespaces: self., target., place., slice.. Grammar: and, or, not, parentheses, comparisons. A field your feed does not supply makes the rule false; a rule can never fire on a guess.

"never": [
  { "verb": "confront",   "when": "target.isChild",              "name": "no-confronting-children" },
  { "verb": "draw",       "when": "place.temple",                "name": "no-steel-in-the-temple" },
  { "verb": "leave_post", "when": "slice.morning or slice.noon", "name": "shop-hours" }
]

Places, by type

"places": { "temple": { "loctypes": ["temple"] }, "street": { "default": true } }

loctypes matches every temple in the game in one line. interior and exterior are built in. The full field list is in Manifest.

Check it

lw dev --mock loads the manifest and prints the load report. python -m pipeline.verb_manifest --check lw.manifest.json does the same without starting anything.

Next: Tell characters what happened.