Things you say now stick

You could talk an innkeeper down. They would answer in character, agree a figure, and then you had to break off, walk to the counter and press a button there, which charged the full price anyway. A keeper who said “for you, ten” was saying words that cost nothing.

Three changes on 19 September closed gaps of that shape: something you said, or were told, that the game then ignored.

The price they agreed

The offer of a room is now in the conversation itself, as a button labelled with the price it charges, and the button is checked again after every reply, because the keeper can agree a price halfway through. The agreement is saved, so it survives the walk from the conversation to the counter. It is for one night, not a standing rate: taking the room clears it.

In one playtest, Lyra Glimmer at the inn in Ironridge Outpost had quoted 140 gold. The player asked for a discount for tonight, and she settled: “Fifty-six gold, [player]. That is the lowest I go for a stranger.” The button then read “Take the room (56 g)”.

A reversal about numbers

When we first built the counter, we kept the model away from it entirely. The lines there are fixed text, because they exist to carry a price, and repeating a number faithfully is something a model cannot be trusted with.

Now a keeper can move the price, both ways: one who likes you charges less, one who has taken against you charges more. We decided that with the risk on the table, and the guards are what make it safe.

A price agreed in conversation is clamped by code to between 0.4 and 2 times the quote. Fifty-six is exactly 0.4 of 140, the bottom of the band. A rise only ever follows a line the keeper has just spoken in front of you.

But the band is not the real guard. The offer is put together once and read twice, by the button that shows the price and by the call that spends it, so the game cannot charge a number the button did not display. If a keeper ever names a silly figure, the button says exactly that figure, and you can say no.

An offer in your own words

Giving someone something used to be two steps, who and what, after which the game spoke for you in one stock sentence whatever you meant. There is now a third step: the line that goes with it. Press straight through and it behaves as before.

Offering also reaches into a fight now. It had been missing there by an accident of how the fight looked up who you were talking to, not by any decision. A give mid-fight asks the model nothing, spends no turn and leaves the initiative order alone, and a test compares the battle before and after to prove it. It is still recorded like any other hand-over. You still cannot hand a potion to somebody lying face down.

Name your pet by saying so

A creature’s name was written once, when it was created, and nothing could change it. Tame a dog and it was “a grey stray” for the rest of the run.

Now you tell it: “I’ll call you” and a name. The chat notes that the old name now responds to the new one, and the pet’s very next reply already uses it. A name runs to four words and 32 characters.

None of this asks the model. It reads what you typed, which is a deliberate act aimed at the game, so there is nothing to judge. A rename that waited on a model could fail exactly when the model was busy. Renaming people stays out of scope.