Alright, kids. It looks like mommy's going to have to get her Scary Spoon.
A trigger reacts when it detects matching information from the MUD. Your character can perform actions without your consent nor direction.
All triggers that send data to the MUD are forbidden.
An alias sends data from your client when you tell it to.
These situations are very scalable depending on your skill and interest. For example, you could have created a trigger that only butchered corpses of creatures with names longer than four words, guaranteeing that you would never butcher a PC. You could create a trigger for specific monsters you know you're grinding on. These all increase the benign nature of your automated action, but your action would still be automated and against the rules.
You take your fate into your own hands when you use black magic.
I will not teach you black magic.
You want to be using
gray magic.
I will teach you how to use it.
My best advice is to create aliases that function on input gathered automatically. How do you do this?
Behold my example for butchering.
pseudocode wrote:
Me: "When you see the words '[VARIABLE] is DEAD!!,' client, I want you to store the last word in the VARIABLE string for later."
Me: "When I type the 'k' command, client, I am going to try to kill something. I want you to send the kill command, but BEFORE THAT, I want you to send a butcher corpse command IF you noticed I killed, oh I don't know, an acolyte."
Client: BEEP BEEP, ACKNOWLEDGED.
MUD: A BLACK-HAIRED MALE HUMAN IS DEAD!!
Client: I HAVE STORED "HUMAN" INTO MY MEMORY BANKS, USER.
Me: Wonderful. Turon had it coming. Let's get back to training, kill the acolyte.
Client: VERY WELL. WE WILL LEAVE THE HUMAN'S CORPSE ALONE.
MUD: A dwarven acolyte is DEAD!!
Client: I HAVE STORED "ACOLYTE" INTO MY MEMORY BANKS, USER.
Me: *yawn* whatever, kill kill kill.
Client: OH, HEY, WE KILLED AN ACOLYTE. One second, let's make sure you butcher it first.
Me: Sure, whatever, god, I'm so bored...
There. No rules broken, and you've made your behavior a little less prone to mistakes.
The trick is to use triggers
that do not send data back to the mud to let your client maintain an awareness of the
state of your character, then slip in the opportunity for you to respond to these states through your aliases.
You're welcome. Don't abuse gray magic. I'm trusting you guys a lot by sharing its secrets with you, but I'd rather see you learn gray magic than get burned with the black.
PS: Viltrax, you're allowed to move this post into a Gameplay sticky if you want.