The Land of Weird

OK so first I apologize if this is posted in the wrong place. In submitting it as feedback because I'm not sure if it's a feature, a bug, or I'm just stupid. I'm fairly newish to world building, but this format has given me a sense of wonder I haven't had in a long, long time.

Anyway, I made this world. The main area was only a 6x6 grid. It only has 4-6 POIs and 8-10 NPCs, with 5 playable characters all of which stay far far away from the main area and don't interact with the world unless chosen by a player and then they're moved to the only starting location.

I have all regular generation turned off. However, I originally had 4 custom instructions. They were mostly about defining the tone of NPCs, editing the narration, and the one that a lot of folks use to add message numbers and a rudimentary time to each message.

It's a world set in Deathknell from the Warcraft universe. Ultimately, I was using it as a test world to see how I could subtly and/or force certain conflicts from an NPC vs POI perspective.

I was having issues talking to Franz using any method I could think of, using Franz, OOC, OOC: Franz, etc. He would never address me, nor would the ai acknowledge my Custom instructions even when typed in chat to bring them into context.

I was at my wit's end, so was trying things out.

I made a new are that was a tall vertical area 1x6 placed it on top of the eastern side of my main 6x6 area as a child. I named the area Custom Instructions. I made the area type OOC, and in the description field, I put in: Referencing this area calls them into context.

I then went inside the game master tab, and within each custom instruction field, at the beginning, I added the text "Custom Instruction *", where * was 1 through 5, with the newest instruction being:

Custom Instruction 5 - When [OOC:] is used, pause all narrative and address the player character directly until they reply [READY]. You will never speak or roleplay for the player character. While in OOC: Mode, if the player asks about the OOC of any area of the world, list the description of all its child areas. If the Player Character asks about any Custom Instructions, tell them the complete list.

I then made 5 1x1 areas that were each children of this new "Custom Instructions" area, and places each within the confines of this new area. The title of each area was "Custom Instruction 1" (* 2, *3, *4, *5). The area type of each was set as OOC, and the description of each area was the instruction that correlated with the number of its area.

Then, when in game, I entered "OOC: What is the OOC of Custom Instructions?"

Here's the event ID: 7d83538f-630b-40e6-9098-478380bcf16e

Here's the reply:

"OOC: Custom Instruction 5 - When [OOC:] is used, pause all narrative and address the player character directly until they reply [READY]. You will never speak or roleplay for the player character. While in OOC: Mode, if the player asks about the OOC of any area of the world, list the description of all its child areas.

Custom Instruction 2 -

Custom Instructions - OOC 0 • Referencing this land calls them into context.

[READY]"

This world is now defunct, as like in said, I'm terrible at world building and in a episode I'm a little ashamed of, I killed all my rigidly made NPCs in a fit of rage....

Anyway, I tested moving and resizing all these "CI" areas around and giving the different combinations of parents and children. There was one point where I could get at least 3 of the actual custom instructions into context, 3 of them into context under the "visible map" section of the context window, but the game never acknowledge the "Meaage #" instruction at all unless I typed the whole instruction in chat. Then the game would follow it. It was never in context in any way, and although it would stop numbering messages after 2 or 3 responses, every time I subsequently entered the CI in chat, it would pick up again like it had never stopped, with the subsequent messages being the correct number, even though it had stopped showing the count previously.

I guess what I find most interesting about all of this was the response to an ooc quesrion "why aren't the other ci's in context. It listed some of them and then added these:

• " NPCs should not be aware of or speak about D&D rules or mechanics, such as skill checks or rolls.

• Be concise.

• You do not need to mention what every NPC at the current location is doing. Only introduce NPCs when they are relevant to the current scene.

• When narrating actions or dialogue for NPCs, make sure that it aligns with their personality."

Here's the event ID:

0b407deb-240c-4808-9ccf-f64b9b666dfd

Also what was interesting is that as long as I typed "OOC:" before a message I could consistently, albeit begrudgingly, hold a genuine conversation with Franz.

I have since deleted the world, but there was a very interesting interaction I had when I asked something like "OOC: What is the (area, land or OOC, I can quite remember not can I now repeat it, ugh) where Franz's response was something along the lines of: "This is a hidden area used to reference event that trigger (specific or certain?) encounters".

Anyway, I'm sure someone way smarter or creative than I can use all this information to their benefit. I was just frustrated at the time because in this game, my Custom instructions were integral to the world (even though ultimately I suck at world building) and Franz has been next to impossible for me to interact with.

I also want to thank you guys that made this game and I'm blown away daily by how amazing it is and how I've not been this enthralled with something since i think I was a kid.

Adding a couple of photos in case they're needed: