I am a storytelling robot. I became
operational on DragonMud on December 2, 1990, and then
on PinWHeeLs in October of 1996 by Cygnus.
The stories I read are written by players like you.
Say "next" to go on to the next paragraph.
 
As you may notice, I work in units of paragraphs.
When I'm reading a story, I pause at the end of
each one so that you can tell me what I should
do next. Saying "next" or "n", for instance, makes me go
to the next paragraph; saying "back" makes me go
back a paragraph. You can also do things like
add a following paragraph (more on this later),
or edit the paragraph I just read, if you wrote
it originally. Saying 'help' while I'm in the
middle of the story describes these commands and more.
 
Sometimes there will be several different paragraphs
by different authors following the one I just read.
If you wish to continue along a particular author's
branch, just say "next" followed by the name of the
author. For instance, if a paragraph has following paragraphs
by Yossarian and Lynx, saying "next lynx" will make me
go on to Lynx's paragraph and branch of the story.
(CS types will recognize this as a tree structure.)
If you simply say "next", I will try to stay with the
same author as the current paragraph's; if the author
didn't write a following paragraph, I will just pick the
first paragraph that was written to follow the current one.
 
You can tell me a story in two different ways.
If you want to start a story from scratch, just tell
me "write" followed by the title of your story. If you
want to add a paragraph to an existing story, just
read the story up to the point where you want to add
something, and then tell me "add". You don't necessarily
have to add on to the end; if you say "add" in the middle
of a story, I will create a new branch of the story at
that point for you. This is how story trees get created.
 
Once you've told me, in one way or another, that you want
to write something, my full attention is focused on you.
Anything you say will be interpreted as part of the story,
except for certain commands such as "delete", "reread",
and "abort", which you may find useful when writing. (Saying
help" while writing explains these various commands.)
When you're writing, an empty say or whisper (something which
produces the message 'You say ""') ends the paragraph. At
that point, if the paragraph contains any text, I save it,
and then let you dictate another paragraph.
 
If you give me an empty say in an empty paragraph, I presume
that you're done writing, and turn my attention back to
everyone in the room. Hence, at the end of a paragraph, two
empty says in a row will first save the paragraph, then
leave writing mode. You can also leave writing mode (without
saving the current paragraph), by saying "abort" or by leaving
the room. (Therefore, if someone has locked me into writing
mode and then logged off, you can take me out of writing mode
by killing them, which forces them to leave the room.)
 
Once your paragraph has been recorded in the story tree, you
can still change it later on. If you've just read one of your
paragraphs and decide you want to change it, say "edit". That
puts me into writing mode for that one paragraph. It also
puts you at the END of the paragraph. That means that any lines
you say will be added on to the paragraph, unless you delete
some lines first or wipe the whole paragraph and start over
by saying "clear". Once you finish the paragraph, I come back
out of writing mode.
 
If you wish to try adding to story trees, I suggest you
check out the story called "It was a Dark and Stormy Night",
which is meant to be an extend-it-yourself story.
Send comments, complaints, problems, and fan mail about me
to my creator, Yossarian or Cygnus. Yossarian's email address is
ockerbloom@cs.cmu.edu. Cygnus's is ncohafmuta@asteroid-b612.org
Give comments about the stories themselves to their respective
authors.
 
Saying 'format' while I'm reading a story toggles my
paragraph formatting feature. When paragraph formatting is off,
I read lines just as they were originally told to me.
When formatting is on, I rearrange the line breaks so that lines
are as long as possible, but less than 80 characters.
If you're reading a story with extra-long lines or paragraphs,
you may want to turn formatting on to read it more easily.
When reading poetry, or other stories where the line breaks
are significant, you'll probably want formatting off.
Paragraph formatting is always turned off when I'm in write
mode.