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# How to make commands timeless?

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asked Apr 1 in Authoring by anonymous

My game contains a lot of events that are scheduled to occur on certain turns (game doesn't use time). How can I make a new action, such as "help", not advance a turn?

- inform7

## 2 Answers

+2 votes
answered Apr 1 by Ryan Veeder (290 points)
Best answer

"Out of world actions" are covered in §12.15 of the documentation. All you really have to do is define your new action with a sentence like "Asking for help is an action out of world." The documentation warns, however, that this should only be applied to actions that really do take place outside the world of the game.

+3 votes
answered Apr 1 by Joseph Geipel (207 points)

Aside from making actions out of world, you may also note that you can make an in-world action take up no time using an adaptation of the process described by the "Timeless" example in the documentation under §19.15 to make EXAMINE and LOOK not take up any time:

    Examining something is acting fast.
    Looking is acting fast.

    The take visual actions out of world rule is listed before the every turn stage rule in the turn sequence rules.

    This is the take visual actions out of world rule: if acting fast, rule succeeds.

A proper adaptation can make a new or old action take up no time or even take up no time only in certain situations. Using the Rules section of the Index can help give a rough idea of what parts of the turn sequence process are skipped using this process.

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