Re: How about "situations" as a plot abstraction?

[Chris Crawford <chriscrawford@wave.net>]

Walt, the second version of the Erasmatron has a new construct that I
originally called "clusters", but lately I've been calling it "scenes". They
are remarkably similar to the concept you describe here. A cluster is a
collection of verbs defined by the author. Each cluster has its own special
set of variables. Usually a cluster would consist of all verbs closely
connected with a single situation. All the verbs in a fistfight, for
example, or the borrowing and return of a lawn mower. The artist can then
use those cluster variables in the scripts. However, the system is not yet
fully implemented -- you can't yet access those cluster variables in the
scripts.

Chris