Reformatting of editor documentation for better diffs, and correcting typos
This commit is contained in:
@@ -9,25 +9,92 @@
|
||||
<script src="nav.js"></script>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
|
||||
<h1>Section 1: About the Blades of Exile Scenario Editor</h1>
|
||||
<p>OK. Youve played Blades of Exile (and maybe other Exile games), and you have your own ideas for adventures. Youd like to come up with your own twisted ideas, and inflict them upon the general public. Well, now you can! Blades of Exile comes with a powerful elaborate scenario design kit.</p>
|
||||
<p>How powerful? Well, the three scenarios that came with Blades of Exile were created using the scenario editor and only the scenario editor. It can create fully detailed adventures, including weird special encounters, people to talk to, and a world that changes as time goes by.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are other great things. You can also include customized graphics. You can distribute scenarios you make over the Internet, so that all sorts of people can play them. Scenarios you make on a Macintosh will work on a PC running Windows, and vise versa. And, best of all, you can make basic scenarios with very little work. If you dont want to learn all the complicated nitty gritty, you dont have to!</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>OK. You've played Blades of Exile (and maybe other Exile games), and you have your own
|
||||
ideas for adventures. You'd like to come up with your own twisted ideas, and inflict them
|
||||
upon the general public. Well, now you can! Blades of Exile comes with a powerful
|
||||
elaborate scenario design kit.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>How powerful? Well, the three scenarios that came with Blades of Exile were created
|
||||
using the scenario editor and only the scenario editor. It can create fully detailed
|
||||
adventures, including weird special encounters, people to talk to, and a world that
|
||||
changes as time goes by.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There are other great things. You can also include customized graphics. You can
|
||||
distribute scenarios you make over the Internet, so that all sorts of people can play
|
||||
them. Scenarios you make on a Macintosh will work on a PC running Windows, and vice versa.
|
||||
And, best of all, you can make basic scenarios with very little work. If you don't want to
|
||||
learn all the complicated nitty gritty, you don't have to!</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>How to Get Started</h2>
|
||||
<p>If you want to make scenarios, the first thing to do is play Blades of Exile. A lot. Much of what follows wont be the least bit clear if you arent familiar with how the game works.</p>
|
||||
<p>When youre familiar with what Blades of Exile is like, read the next chapter. It gives a detailed, step by step description of how to make a scenario, make a new town, and populate it with monsters and treasure. It will tell you all you need to know to make a basic, fun scenario with lots of chopping and hacking.</p>
|
||||
<p>Once you have the basics down, the other chapters in this section go into a bit more detail on scenario basics. You will learn how to make multiple towns, create wandering encounters, and do other, more elaborate things.</p>
|
||||
<p>Finally, when you have a grasp of all the basics, if you are strong of heart you can move on to the next section: Advanced Scenario Design. There you will learn how to make special encounters and write dialogue, the heart of any truly good scenario.</p>
|
||||
<p>Unfortunately, while you can play all the way through Blades of Exile without ever cracking open the documentation, the Scenario Editor is very different. Scenario design is a tricky business, and printing out the documentation and keeping it handy is strongly recommended. Alternately, you can get editor documentation (in loose-leaf form) from Spiderweb Software, Inc. Call us at (206) 789-4438.</p>
|
||||
<p>In this section, you will often see (Advanced). This indicates something related to the advanced stuff described in the next section. Feel free to ignore these things for now.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>If you want to make scenarios, the first thing to do is play Blades of Exile. A lot.
|
||||
Much of what follows won't be the least bit clear if you aren't familiar with how the game
|
||||
works.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you're familiar with what Blades of Exile is like, read the next chapter. It gives
|
||||
a detailed, step by step description of how to make a scenario, make a new town, and
|
||||
populate it with monsters and treasure. It will tell you all you need to know to make a
|
||||
basic, fun scenario with lots of chopping and hacking.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Once you have the basics down, the other chapters in this section go into a bit more
|
||||
detail on scenario basics. You will learn how to make multiple towns, create wandering
|
||||
encounters, and do other, more elaborate things.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Finally, when you have a grasp of all the basics, if you are strong of heart you can
|
||||
move on to the next section: Advanced Scenario Design. There you will learn how to make
|
||||
special encounters and write dialogue, the heart of any truly good scenario.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Unfortunately, while you can play all the way through Blades of Exile without ever
|
||||
cracking open the documentation, the Scenario Editor is very different. Scenario design is
|
||||
a tricky business, and printing out the documentation and keeping it handy is strongly
|
||||
recommended. Alternately, you can get editor documentation (in loose-leaf form) from
|
||||
Spiderweb Software, Inc. Call us at (206) 789-4438.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>In this section, you will often see (Advanced). This indicates something related to the
|
||||
advanced stuff described in the next section. Feel free to ignore these things for
|
||||
now.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>The Basic Basics</h2>
|
||||
<p>Any Blades of Exile scenario is divided into two parts: the outdoors and the towns (and dungeons - theres no difference). The outdoors is a rectangle of sections, each 48 x 48 spaces (for example, Valley of Dying Things is 4 sections wide and 3 sections high, each section a 48 x 48 grid of spots of terrain). You can have up to 100 outdoor sections (although 10-20 is usually plenty).</p>
|
||||
<p>Towns have 3 sizes: 32 x 32, 48 x 48, and 64 x 64. You can have at most 200 towns (although 20-22 is already quite a few).</p>
|
||||
<p>When a player starts your scenario, his or her party will start in one of your towns. From there he or she can leave the town to explore the outdoors. To design a scenario, you will edit towns and outdoor sections, and them make town entrances in the outdoors and link them with towns (this isnt hard, and is well explained in the next section). Populate the towns with critters, traps and puzzles, and you have a scenario!</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Any Blades of Exile scenario is divided into two parts: the outdoors and the towns (and
|
||||
dungeons - there's no difference). The outdoors is a rectangle of sections, each 48 x 48
|
||||
spaces (for example, Valley of Dying Things is 4 sections wide and 3 sections high, each
|
||||
section a 48 x 48 grid of spots of terrain). You can have up to 100 outdoor sections
|
||||
(although 10-20 is usually plenty).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Towns have 3 sizes: 32 x 32, 48 x 48, and 64 x 64. You can have at most 200 towns
|
||||
(although 20-22 is already quite a few).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When a player starts your scenario, his or her party will start in one of your towns.
|
||||
From there he or she can leave the town to explore the outdoors. To design a scenario, you
|
||||
will edit towns and outdoor sections, and then make town entrances in the outdoors and
|
||||
link them with towns (this isn't hard, and is well explained in the next section). Populate
|
||||
the towns with critters, traps and puzzles, and you have a scenario!</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Three Final Warnings:</h2>
|
||||
<p>Good scenario design is a time consuming thing. Each of the Blades of Exile scenarios involved a month of full-time work. Start small at first, such as with a small outdoors and 4 or 5 towns. Put the massive Exile-sized epic off for a little while, or you risk putting a month of work into a scenario you will never finish, and which nobody will ever see. There is little more satisfying than getting an E-mail saying how much fun someone had playing your scenario. Alas, you never get such an E-mail until your scenario is done.</p>
|
||||
<p>Also, ALWAYS test your scenarios. Debugging is critically important. Play through them yourself, and, if possible, get someone else to play them too. If you design a scenario which cant be finished because of a bug, nobody will appreciate it.</p>
|
||||
<p>Finally, back up your scenario file. Frequently. The designer of Blades of Exile does it hourly. Put a copy on a floppy, and hide the floppy in your car. Copy it onto a friend's computer. Put a copy in your safety deposit box. Remember, one hard drive crash can wipe out a month (or more) of work in a moment.</p>
|
||||
<p>But enough preamble ... lets make a scenario!</p>
|
||||
</div></body>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Good scenario design is a time consuming thing. Each of the Blades of Exile scenarios
|
||||
involved a month of full-time work. Start small at first, such as with a small outdoors
|
||||
and 4 or 5 towns. Put the massive Exile-sized epic off for a little while, or you risk
|
||||
putting a month of work into a scenario you will never finish, and which nobody will ever
|
||||
see. There is little more satisfying than getting an E-mail saying how much fun someone
|
||||
had playing your scenario. Alas, you never get such an E-mail until your scenario is
|
||||
done.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Also, ALWAYS test your scenarios. Debugging is critically important. Play through them
|
||||
yourself, and, if possible, get someone else to play them too. If you design a scenario
|
||||
which can't be finished because of a bug, nobody will appreciate it.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Finally, back up your scenario file. Frequently. The designer of Blades of Exile does
|
||||
it hourly. Put a copy on a floppy, and hide the floppy in your car. Copy it onto a
|
||||
friend's computer. Put a copy in your safety deposit box. Remember, one hard drive crash
|
||||
can wipe out a month (or more) of work in a moment.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>But enough preamble ... let's make a scenario!</p>
|
||||
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -5,43 +5,113 @@
|
||||
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body>
|
||||
<p class="p1"><b>Section 9: Advanced Topics Introduction</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>As fun as making exciting dungeons filled with nasty monsters can be, often the scenario designers ambitions encompass larger goals. Many designers want to create a plot, with interesting characters and challenging special encounters. This section describes how to move on into these challenging and satisfying realms.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Before progressing too far, it is best to read this chapter in its entirety. The basics here will be necessary to master, if you are to move on.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Counting and Coordinates</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>As described earlier, all counting begins with 0. The first town is town 0, and 2nd town is town 1, and so on. The coordinate system for Blades of Exile towns and dungeons starts with X = 0, Y = 0 (also written (0,0) ) in the upper left.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Stuff Done Flags</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The single most important concept to master in scenario design is the Stuff Done Flag. The Stuff Done Flags are numbers the game keeps track of, which are used by the game to remember what the party has done in the scenario so far.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>For example, suppose you have a treasure hidden somewhere, like, say, a shield. You only want the party to be able to get that shield once, so the game needs a way to remember that the party has gotten it.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>This is done with a Stuff Done Flag. It is a number that starts at 0, and is matched up with getting the shield. When the shield is reached, the game sees if the Stuff Done Flag is 0. If it is, the shield hasnt been taken yet, so the game gives the party the shield, and the Stuff Done Flag is set to 1. The Stuff Done Flag being 1 tells the game in the future that the shield has been taken.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Stuff Done Flags - the Specifics</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>But what are the Stuff Done Flags? Picture a grid of numbers, 300 wide and 10 high, all of which start at 0. These 3000 numbers are your Stuff Done Flags, and they are all set to 0 when the party starts a scenario (and are saved in the save file, which is how the game remembers what youve done already when the save file is opened).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Stuff Done Flag are described by coordinates. Much as the coordinates of a spot of terrain are given by an X and Y value, a Stuff Done Flag has coordinates too. The first coordinate of a Stuff Done Flag is the column it is in (out of 300 columns, a number from 0 to 9), and the second coordinate of a Stuff Done Flag is the row it is in (out of 10 rows, a number from 0 to 299). For example, the taking of a shield may be attached to Stuff Done Flag X = 112, Y = 3, also written (112,3). Later chapters often refer to the two parts of a Stuff Done Flag (the X coordinate is the first part and the Y coordinate is the second part). In the example, 112 is the first part, and 3 is the second part.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>All Stuff Done Flags start as 0 when the scenario is started. For every event or thing that must be remembered, you will need to assign a Stuff Done Flag to it. When the party completes some mission, you may decide that (91,9) will become 1, and when a demon is killed, (94,2) will become 1. Later, you can have special encounters check a Stuff Done Flag, and do different things depending on what the value of the Stuff Done Flag is. For this reason, you will want to keep careful notes on your scenario, to make sure that no two events are linked to the same Stuff Done Flag.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Keeping Notes</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>One thing all of the Exile games have had in common is that, when they were done, dozens of pages of careful, intricate notes had been taken about them. For example, in the first Blades of Exile scenario, Valley of Dying Things, when you take the opening stone in Avizos shop, the Stuff Done Flag (1,2) is set to 250. Later, when the player tries to take the stone, the program will see that the Stuff Done Flag (1,2) is not 0, and will know that stone has been taken and should not be given again.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>In the same scenario, when you kill the evil spirit in Blinlock, Stuff Done Flag (2,3) is set to 1. Suppose, however, that the designer has made a mistake and made the Stuff Done Flag (1,2) set to 1 when the spirit was slain. In this case, if the party killed the spirit first (causing (1,2) to be set to 1), and then went to get the opening stone, it wouldnt be there! (because (1,2) has been set to 1, making the game think that the item has been taken, even if it hasnt) Then the party wouldnt be able to finish the game. This is bad. However, careful notes reminded the designer that the Stuff Done Flag (1,2) had already been used, and thus it wasnt used in Blinlock.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>One useful tip for making sure Stuff Done Flags dont get reused: in town 0, only use Stuff Done Flags with first part 0 ((0,0), (0,1), etc.). It town 1, only use Stuff Done Flags with first part 1, and so on. For outdoor sections, use the Stuff Done Flags with first part 200, 201, 202, and so on. This way, you can be sure when designing town 8, you wont use a Stuff Done Flag already needed for town 4.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Of course, in some towns you will need to use more than 10 Stuff Done Flags. When this happens, you can consult your notes to find Stuff Done Flags that arent being used for anything yet.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Text Length</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When writing text messages or dialogue, the maximum message length is 256 characters. If the message is too long, it will be chopped off at 256 letters.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Editing Text</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The scenario, each town, and each outdoor section has a list of pieces of text. The scenario has 260 pieces of text, each town has 140 pieces of text, and each outdoor section has 108 pieces. Selecting Edit Text from the Scenario, Outdoor, and Town menus will bring up the lists of text. To edit a piece of text, click on it. Each piece of text in each list has a specific purpose. The meanings of the text are listed in the appendices.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>At this point, its time to tackle the most complicated, most powerful thing in the Blades of Exile editor, the tool that makes the differences between a bland adventure and a masterpiece: special encounters.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<div class="navbar">
|
||||
<script src="nav.js"></script>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class='content'>
|
||||
|
||||
<h1>Section 9: Advanced Topics Introduction</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>As fun as making exciting dungeons filled with nasty monsters can be, often the
|
||||
scenario designers ambitions encompass larger goals. Many designers want to create a plot,
|
||||
with interesting characters and challenging special encounters. This section describes how
|
||||
to move on into these challenging and satisfying realms.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Before progressing too far, it is best to read this chapter in its entirety. The basics
|
||||
here will be necessary to master, if you are to move on.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Counting and Coordinates</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>As described earlier, all counting begins with 0. The first town is town 0, and 2nd
|
||||
town is town 1, and so on. The coordinate system for Blades of Exile towns and dungeons
|
||||
starts with X = 0, Y = 0 (also written (0,0) ) in the upper left.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Stuff Done Flags</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The single most important concept to master in scenario design is the Stuff Done Flag.
|
||||
The Stuff Done Flags are numbers the game keeps track of, which are used by the game to
|
||||
remember what the party has done in the scenario so far.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>For example, suppose you have a treasure hidden somewhere, like, say, a shield. You
|
||||
only want the party to be able to get that shield once, so the game needs a way to
|
||||
remember that the party has gotten it.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>This is done with a Stuff Done Flag. It is a number that starts at 0, and is matched up
|
||||
with getting the shield. When the shield is reached, the game sees if the Stuff Done Flag
|
||||
is 0. If it is, the shield hasn't been taken yet, so the game gives the party the shield,
|
||||
and the Stuff Done Flag is set to 1. The Stuff Done Flag being 1 tells the game in the
|
||||
future that the shield has been taken.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Stuff Done Flags - the Specifics</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>But what are the Stuff Done Flags? Picture a grid of numbers, 300 wide and 10 high, all
|
||||
of which start at 0. These 3000 numbers are your Stuff Done Flags, and they are all set to
|
||||
0 when the party starts a scenario (and are saved in the save file, which is how the game
|
||||
remembers what you've done already when the save file is opened).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Stuff Done Flag are described by coordinates. Much as the coordinates of a spot of
|
||||
terrain are given by an X and Y value, a Stuff Done Flag has coordinates too. The first
|
||||
coordinate of a Stuff Done Flag is the column it is in (out of 300 columns, a number from
|
||||
0 to 9), and the second coordinate of a Stuff Done Flag is the row it is in (out of 10
|
||||
rows, a number from 0 to 299). For example, the taking of a shield may be attached to
|
||||
Stuff Done Flag X = 112, Y = 3, also written (112,3). Later chapters often refer to the
|
||||
two parts of a Stuff Done Flag (the X coordinate is the first part and the Y coordinate is
|
||||
the second part). In the example, 112 is the first part, and 3 is the second part.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>All Stuff Done Flags start as 0 when the scenario is started. For every event or thing
|
||||
that must be remembered, you will need to assign a Stuff Done Flag to it. When the party
|
||||
completes some mission, you may decide that (91,9) will become 1, and when a demon is
|
||||
killed, (94,2) will become 1. Later, you can have special encounters check a Stuff Done
|
||||
Flag, and do different things depending on what the value of the Stuff Done Flag is. For
|
||||
this reason, you will want to keep careful notes on your scenario, to make sure that no
|
||||
two events are linked to the same Stuff Done Flag.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Keeping Notes</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>One thing all of the Exile games have had in common is that, when they were done,
|
||||
dozens of pages of careful, intricate notes had been taken about them. For example, in the
|
||||
first Blades of Exile scenario, Valley of Dying Things, when you take the opening stone in
|
||||
Avizo's shop, the Stuff Done Flag (1,2) is set to 250. Later, when the player tries to take
|
||||
the stone, the program will see that the Stuff Done Flag (1,2) is not 0, and will know
|
||||
that stone has been taken and should not be given again.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>In the same scenario, when you kill the evil spirit in Blinlock, Stuff Done Flag (2,3)
|
||||
is set to 1. Suppose, however, that the designer has made a mistake and made the Stuff
|
||||
Done Flag (1,2) set to 1 when the spirit was slain. In this case, if the party killed the
|
||||
spirit first (causing (1,2) to be set to 1), and then went to get the opening stone, it
|
||||
wouldn't be there! (because (1,2) has been set to 1, making the game think that the item
|
||||
has been taken, even if it hasn't) Then the party wouldn't be able to finish the game. This
|
||||
is bad. However, careful notes reminded the designer that the Stuff Done Flag (1,2) had
|
||||
already been used, and thus it wasn't used in Blinlock.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>One useful tip for making sure Stuff Done Flags don't get reused: in town 0, only use
|
||||
Stuff Done Flags with first part 0 ((0,0), (0,1), etc.). In town 1, only use Stuff Done
|
||||
Flags with first part 1, and so on. For outdoor sections, use the Stuff Done Flags with
|
||||
first part 200, 201, 202, and so on. This way, you can be sure when designing town 8, you
|
||||
wont use a Stuff Done Flag already needed for town 4.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of course, in some towns you will need to use more than 10 Stuff Done Flags. When this
|
||||
happens, you can consult your notes to find Stuff Done Flags that aren't being used for
|
||||
anything yet.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Text Length</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When writing text messages or dialogue, the maximum message length is 256 characters.
|
||||
If the message is too long, it will be chopped off at 256 letters.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Editing Text</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The scenario, each town, and each outdoor section has a list of pieces of text. The
|
||||
scenario has 260 pieces of text, each town has 140 pieces of text, and each outdoor
|
||||
section has 108 pieces. Selecting Edit Text from the Scenario, Outdoor, and Town menus
|
||||
will bring up the lists of text. To edit a piece of text, click on it. Each piece of text
|
||||
in each list has a specific purpose. The meanings of the text are listed in the
|
||||
appendices.</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>At this point, it's time to tackle the most complicated, most powerful thing in the
|
||||
Blades of Exile editor, the tool that makes the differences between a bland adventure and
|
||||
a masterpiece: special encounters.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -9,41 +9,152 @@
|
||||
<script src="nav.js"></script>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
|
||||
<h1>Section 2: Scenario Building: A Step By Step Guide</h1>
|
||||
<p>As promised, this chapter contains a detailed, step-by-step description of how to make a scenario, create a dungeon, and populate it with monsters and loot. Everything you need to know to make a basic scenario is in here.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>As promised, this chapter contains a detailed, step-by-step description of how to make
|
||||
a scenario, create a dungeon, and populate it with monsters and loot. Everything you need
|
||||
to know to make a basic scenario is in here.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Getting started</h2>
|
||||
<p>First, go into the Blades of Exile Editor directory. Run the Blades of Exile Editor (or, if using Windows, BLADESED.EXE). You will now see the introductory screen. Press Make New Scenario (if using Windows, always use the left button, unless otherwise specified). A dialog box will come up asking you a few important questions (These gray windows are called dialog boxes. Remember this term - it will be used later).</p>
|
||||
<p>The first text box is for the name of your scenario. This is the real name, like Quest For the Sword, or Guys Running Around Lost. Make up some sort of name.</p>
|
||||
<p>The second box is for your scenarios file name, the name of the actual file the program will create. This must be all letters, and can be at most 8 characters long <!-- todo: check this -->, like questsrd, or lostguys. Make up a file name.</p>
|
||||
<p>Finally, the button at the bottom determines whether the outdoors the scenario will start with will be caves or grass. Click on this button. Then press OK.</p>
|
||||
<p>Another dialog box will come up. This is where you decide how large you want your scenario to be. In the upper section, enter the number of sections wide and high you want the outdoors to be. In the middle section, enter how many large, medium, and small towns you want the scenario to start with.</p>
|
||||
<p>The number of towns you select now is not important - you can always add more towns later. On the other hand, you cant make or remove outdoor sections later on, so the size of the outdoors is an important question. For this basic scenario, however, you can leave all of these values alone.</p>
|
||||
<p>The button at the bottom, however, is important. If pressed, the first town in your scenario will be a town called Warriors Grove, where adventurers can rest, buy weapons, and get training. Every scenario should have a place like this, but such towns can be time-consuming and difficult to make. Fortunately, Warriors Grove is provided for you. Press the Include Starter Town button, and then OK.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>First, go into the Blades of Exile Editor directory. Run the Blades of Exile Editor (or, if using Windows, BLADESED.EXE).
|
||||
You will now see the introductory screen. Press Make New Scenario (if using Windows, always
|
||||
use the left button, unless otherwise specified). A dialog box will come up asking you a few
|
||||
important questions (These gray windows are called dialog boxes. Remember this term - it
|
||||
will be used later).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The first text box is for the name of your scenario. This is the real name, like Quest
|
||||
For the Sword, or Guys Running Around Lost. Make up some sort of name.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The second box is for your scenario's file name, the name of the actual file the
|
||||
program will create. This must be all letters, and can be at most 8 characters long <!--
|
||||
todo: check this -->, like questsrd, or lostguys. Make up a file name.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Finally, the button at the bottom determines whether the outdoors the scenario will
|
||||
start with will be caves or grass. Click on this button. Then press OK.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Another dialog box will come up. This is where you decide how large you want your
|
||||
scenario to be. In the upper section, enter the number of sections wide and high you want
|
||||
the outdoors to be. In the middle section, enter how many large, medium, and small towns
|
||||
you want the scenario to start with.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The number of towns you select now is not important - you can always add more towns
|
||||
later. On the other hand, you can't make or remove outdoor sections later on, so the size
|
||||
of the outdoors is an important question. For this basic scenario, however, you can leave
|
||||
all of these values alone.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The button at the bottom, however, is important. If pressed, the first town in your
|
||||
scenario will be a town called Warrior's Grove, where adventurers can rest, buy weapons,
|
||||
and get training. Every scenario should have a place like this, but such towns can be
|
||||
time-consuming and difficult to make. Fortunately, Warrior's Grove is provided for you.
|
||||
Press the Include Starter Town button, and then OK.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Editing Your Scenario</h2>
|
||||
<p>You will now be facing the Blades of Exile main screen. First, lets look at our default town and maybe edit it a little. Press the Edit Town Terrain button.</p>
|
||||
<p>You are now looking at Warriors Grove. Look around it for a little bit. To scroll the view around, click on the white border around the terrain (or use the keypad). Now take a more panoramic view. There is a grid of buttons in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Press the first button in the second row. You will see an overall view of the town. You could edit terrain from this view, but its often better to use the other view. Press the button again to zoom back in.</p>
|
||||
<p>Scroll the terrain back to the center of the town, by the dog. Lets place a tree. Drawing terrain works much like a painting program. Each of the spots of terrain to the upper right represents a different terrain type (many of them have small symbols - ignore these for now). Look for the trees (in the middle of the seventh row). Click on a tree. Then click on the pencil button (in the upper left hand corner of the grid of buttons). Finally, click on the spot of grass to the right of the dog.</p>
|
||||
<p>There should be a tree there! Now click on the tree again. It should disappear. Now position the cursor to the right of the dog, press the mouse button, and hold it down. Move the cursor to the right. Youll draw a line of trees. Click on a different tree icon, and try drawing a tree somewhere else.</p>
|
||||
<p>Editing the outdoor terrain works the same way. Press Back to Main Menu (in the lower left corner), and then press Edit Outdoor Terrain. You will be viewing the middle of your single outdoor section, with Warriors Grove in the middle. Click on the Sign on Grass terrain (in the eighth row) and then click on the grass just northwest of town. This is a sign, so you will immediately be asked what the sign says. Type Warriors Grove, and press OK.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now that you know how to change terrain, its time to make a dungeon.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>You will now be facing the Blades of Exile main screen. First, let's look at our default
|
||||
town and maybe edit it a little. Press the Edit Town Terrain button.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>You are now looking at Warrior's Grove. Look around it for a little bit. To scroll the
|
||||
view around, click on the white border around the terrain (or use the keypad). Now take a
|
||||
more panoramic view. There is a grid of buttons in the lower right hand corner of the
|
||||
screen. Press the first button in the second row. You will see an overall view
|
||||
of the town. You could edit terrain from this view, but it's often better to use the other
|
||||
view. Press the button again to zoom back in.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Scroll the terrain back to the center of the town, by the dog. Let's place a tree.
|
||||
Drawing terrain works much like a painting program. Each of the spots of terrain to the
|
||||
upper right represents a different terrain type (many of them have small symbols - ignore
|
||||
these for now). Look for the trees (in the middle of the seventh row). Click on a tree.
|
||||
Then click on the pencil button (in the upper left hand corner of the grid of buttons).
|
||||
Finally, click on the spot of grass to the right of the dog.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There should be a tree there! Now click on the tree again. It should disappear. Now
|
||||
position the cursor to the right of the dog, press the mouse button, and hold it down.
|
||||
Move the cursor to the right. You'll draw a line of trees. Click on a different tree icon,
|
||||
and try drawing a tree somewhere else.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Editing the outdoor terrain works the same way. Press Back to Main Menu (in the lower
|
||||
left corner), and then press Edit Outdoor Terrain. You will be viewing the middle of your
|
||||
single outdoor section, with Warrior's Grove in the middle. Click on the Sign on Grass
|
||||
terrain (in the eighth row) and then click on the grass just northwest of town. This is a
|
||||
sign, so you will immediately be asked what the sign says. Type Warrior's Grove, and press
|
||||
OK.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Now that you know how to change terrain, it's time to make a dungeon.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Making a Dungeon</h2>
|
||||
<p>Press Back to Main Menu, and select Save from the File menu. This records all the changes youve made so far. Now press Create New Town. Were going to make a second town to put in our adventure.</p>
|
||||
<p>Put a name for your new town in the text area (such as Goblin Pit). The other buttons determine the size of the town and the sort of terrain the town will start with. Press the button by Grass With Flowers and the press OK. Your new town, town 1, is now loaded into memory.</p>
|
||||
<p>It may seem peculiar that Warriors Grove was described as town number 0, and your second town is described at town 1. Similarly, your outdoor section is described as X = 0, Y = 0. This is because in Blades of Exile, everything is counted beginning with 0 (this is something computer programmers will be very used to, but may take some getting used to for others). Also, the Blades of Exile Editor can only hold one town and outdoor section in memory at the same time. If you want to go back to editing Warriors Grove, you will need to press the Load Another Town button on the main screen and enter town 0 to load it.</p>
|
||||
<p>But for now, its time to make an adventure. Press Edit Town Terrain, and you will be looking at your new town. You will be looking at a blank slate. Theres nothing here but grass and a few rocks. First, lets make a building.</p>
|
||||
<p>Click on the basic wall terrain, the fourth terrain in the eighth row. Dont click on any of the walls with little symbols on them - these symbols indicate that the terrain has some sort of special property. What these symbols mean is explained later.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now that youre drawing walls, draw a large rectangle in the terrain area. It can be whatever size youd like, but make it be around seven high and seven wide. This will be the walls of a building. Then select the floor terrain (first terrain in the 11th row). Paint a floor inside the walls. Finally, click on the first door icon (7th terrain in the 8th row). Place a door somewhere in your wall. You will now have a building.</p>
|
||||
<p>By now, you are probably confused by the huge number of terrain types available to you. Fortunately, there is a list of all the default terrain types in the appendices, in the online help. Also, the meaning of the little symbols is described in the chapter on editing terrain types.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now that you have a building, lets make a hill a little to the north of it. As you played Blades of Exile, you probably noticed that the cave walls and mountains curved around, which is why there are so many different graphics for cave walls and mountains. Fortunately, when you draw cave walls, hills, water, or mountains, the editor will automatically change them so that they curve around and match each other at the edges.</p>
|
||||
<p>To see this, scroll the terrain view a little to the north of your building, and select the hill terrain (third terrain in the third row). Draw a 3x3 square of hill on the grass. Notice how the editor automatically shifts it around so it all lines up into a nice square! This will save you a huge amount of time.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, we can make some monsters to fight. Scroll back down to your building. Were going to place a few goblins into it. Go up to the M1 menu, and select Goblin. Then click inside the building. Theres now a goblin there. Do it a few more times.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the player enters this room, the goblins will attack. That is because goblins are set to be always hostile. You can find out later how to make the goblins friendly, but for now, they might as well fight.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, you can give the goblins some loot to steal. Go up to the I1 menu, and select a weapon. Then click inside the building. There is now a weapon there for the player to find. Now select Gold from the I1 menu and click inside the building. There is some gold there.</p>
|
||||
<p>You may, however, want to choose how much gold to find. Fortunately, this is easy. Press the Edit Item button (first button in the third row), and click on the gold. Enter a new value in the Amount area, and press OK.</p>
|
||||
<p>There. You have a short adventure. A building to enter, monsters to fight, and treasure to find. If you want a larger adventure, all you need to do is repeat what youve done so far, with gradually larger monsters and larger treasures. Finally, all you need to know is how to make it possible for the party to enter your towns.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Press Back to Main Menu, and select Save from the File menu. This records all the
|
||||
changes you've made so far. Now press Create New Town. We're going to make a second town to
|
||||
put in our adventure.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Put a name for your new town in the text area (such as Goblin Pit). The other buttons
|
||||
determine the size of the town and the sort of terrain the town will start with. Press the
|
||||
button by Grass With Flowers and the press OK. Your new town, town 1, is now loaded into memory.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>It may seem peculiar that Warrior's Grove was described as town number 0, and your
|
||||
second town is described at town 1. Similarly, your outdoor section is described as X = 0,
|
||||
Y = 0. This is because in Blades of Exile, everything is counted beginning with 0 (this is
|
||||
something computer programmers will be very used to, but may take some getting used to for
|
||||
others). Also, the Blades of Exile Editor can only hold one town and outdoor section in
|
||||
memory at the same time. If you want to go back to editing Warrior's Grove, you will need
|
||||
to press the Load Another Town button on the main screen and enter town 0 to load it.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>But for now, it's time to make an adventure. Press Edit Town Terrain, and you will be
|
||||
looking at your new town. You will be looking at a blank slate. There's nothing here but
|
||||
grass and a few rocks. First, lets make a building.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Click on the basic wall terrain, the fourth terrain in the eighth row. Don't click on
|
||||
any of the walls with little symbols on them - these symbols indicate that the terrain has
|
||||
some sort of special property. What these symbols mean is explained later.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Now that you're drawing walls, draw a large rectangle in the terrain area. It can be
|
||||
whatever size you'd like, but make it be around seven high and seven wide. This will be the
|
||||
walls of a building. Then select the floor terrain (first terrain in the 11th row). Paint
|
||||
a floor inside the walls. Finally, click on the first door icon (7th terrain in the 8th
|
||||
row). Place a door somewhere in your wall. You will now have a building.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>By now, you are probably confused by the huge number of terrain types available to you.
|
||||
Fortunately, there is a list of all the default terrain types in the appendices, in the
|
||||
online help. Also, the meaning of the little symbols is described in the chapter on
|
||||
editing terrain types.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Now that you have a building, let's make a hill a little to the north of it. As you
|
||||
played Blades of Exile, you probably noticed that the cave walls and mountains curved
|
||||
around, which is why there are so many different graphics for cave walls and mountains.
|
||||
Fortunately, when you draw cave walls, hills, water, or mountains, the editor will
|
||||
automatically change them so that they curve around and match each other at the edges.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>To see this, scroll the terrain view a little to the north of your building, and select
|
||||
the hill terrain (third terrain in the third row). Draw a 3x3 square of hill on the grass.
|
||||
Notice how the editor automatically shifts it around so it all lines up into a nice
|
||||
square! This will save you a huge amount of time.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Now, we can make some monsters to fight. Scroll back down to your building. We're going
|
||||
to place a few goblins into it. Go up to the M1 menu, and select Goblin. Then click inside
|
||||
the building. There's now a goblin there. Do it a few more times.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When the player enters this room, the goblins will attack. That is because goblins are
|
||||
set to be always hostile. You can find out later how to make the goblins friendly, but for
|
||||
now, they might as well fight.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Now, you can give the goblins some loot to steal. Go up to the I1 menu, and select a
|
||||
weapon. Then click inside the building. There is now a weapon there for the player to
|
||||
find. Now select Gold from the I1 menu and click inside the building. There is some gold
|
||||
there.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>You may, however, want to choose how much gold to find. Fortunately, this is easy.
|
||||
Press the Edit Item button (first button in the third row), and click on the gold. Enter a
|
||||
new value in the Amount area, and press OK.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There. You have a short adventure. A building to enter, monsters to fight, and treasure
|
||||
to find. If you want a larger adventure, all you need to do is repeat what you've done so
|
||||
far, with gradually larger monsters and larger treasures. Finally, all you need to know is
|
||||
how to make it possible for the party to enter your towns.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Entering Towns</h2>
|
||||
<p>Press Back To Main Menu, and then press Edit Outdoor Terrain. Scroll the terrain view a few spaces north of Warriors Grove. Select the Outdoor Building terrain (in the lower right hand corner) and place it somewhere. Theres your town. Finally, you need to link it to your dungeon. The last button in the second row is the Set Town Entrance button. Press it, and then click on your town. You will be asked what town is here. Enter 1 in the text area (for town 1, your new town), and press OK. When the party moves onto this town, they will find themselves in your new town.</p>
|
||||
<p>This is all it takes! You have now created a new scenario! To run it, copy it into the Blades of Exile Scenarios folder, run Blades of Exile, and play away!
|
||||
<p>You might want to play with what youve learned so far before reading further. Or, you can just dive in! The next few chapters flesh out what youve read so far.</p>
|
||||
</div></body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -5,132 +5,316 @@
|
||||
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body>
|
||||
<p class="p1"><b>Section 11: Dialogue<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Along with special encounters, character dialogue is a key way to give your scenario a plot and depth. Writing good dialogue is difficult and time consuming, but there is no better way to get a player involved.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Each character has a personality number. This number determines what the character the party talks to says. Only characters in towns can be given personalities.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Each town has 10 personalities stored in it. Town 0 has personalities 0-9. Town 1 has personalities 10-19, town 2 has 20-29, and so on. A character from any town can<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>have a personality from any town. To enable the party to talk to a character, place the creature, press Select Monster, click on the monster, and put the personality number in the Personality area. Now that the personality is there, you just need to write the dialogue.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Writing Dialogue</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Press Edit Town Dialogue to edit a towns 10 personalities. A character always responds to name, look, and job, and has a response for when the party asks about something weird. The first 10 entries in the dialogue lists are where these responses are written. Entries for name, look, and job must be given. The Dont Understand Response can be left blank (a generic response will be given).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Dialogue has nodes, like special encounters. Each town has 60 dialogue nodes. Each dialogue nodes represents one thing the party can ask about. The 60 dialogue nodes are listed when you press Edit Town Dialogue. Click on a dialogue node to edit it. The dialogue nodes editing window will come up. It has these options:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Personality -</b> This starts at -1, which means that the node is unused. The number of the personality to whom this node belongs. If this is changed to -2, any of the 10 personalities in this town respond to this.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Response to #1, Response to #2 - </b>The key word (or key words) the player must ask about to get this node as a response. Each node can have two different words that activate it. These words must consist only of letters and numbers.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The game only looks at the first 4 letters of these fields, and a word that the player can ask about must be at least 4 letters/numbers long. You can have a character respond to insect, but not to bug.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The default value for these fields is xxxx. If you only want a certain response to be given for one key word (as opposed to two) you can leave one of the fields set to xxxx.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>If one character has redundant talking nodes (i.e. two nodes which respond to asking about fish) the earlier one is used.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>If the talking node is for a store of some sort (buying or selling) and the player presses the Buy or Sell button, this node will be used as a response. Again, if one character sells two sorts of things, the earlier one will be used should the player hit the Buy button.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: You set the first<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>field to swor and the second to demo. Then this talking node will be used as a response when the player asks this character about sword, demon, demonstration, Sworgenov.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node type - </b>Click the light for the appropriate talking node type. These types are described below.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>A,B,C,D - </b>These four fields define certain things for the node type (such as how much an item costs, or what items are sold in the store). In the descriptions below, the value of Field A is referred to by simply A, as in The cost for identification is A.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Text 1, Text 2 -</b> The text the character actually says. For some node types, the character responds with the text in both boxes, one before the other. For some node types, however, the character will only respond one bit of text or the other, depending on the node type.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Create New - To edit a fresh dialogue node, press this. To return to an earlier node, press Go Back.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When writing character responses, remember that while the two halves of the response text can each be 256 characters long, there isnt room for more than 400 characters on the talking screen. Test your dialogue to make sure it is all fitting.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Special Node Types</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The talking node types (and the meanings of the A, B, C, and D fields) are:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Basic Conversation Talking Nodes -</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>These are the basic talking node types, the talking nodes you will use the most often.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 0 - Regular Talking</b> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The character responds with the text in the Text 1 and Text 2 fields. All other fields are ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 1 - Depends on Flag<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> The response depends on a given Stuff Done flag, specified in the A, B, and C fields. If the stuff done flag (A,B) is less than or equal to the value in C, the character responds with the text in Text 1. Otherwise,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the character responds with the text in Text 2.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: Suppose A is 58, B is 3, and C is 2. If the Stuff Done flag (58,3) is 1, the response is Text 1. If Stuff Done flag (58,3) is 5, the response is Text 2.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 2 - Set to One <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>The character responds with the text in the Text 1 and Text 2 fields. In addition, the Stuff Done flag (A,B) is set to 1.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: You want Stuff Done flag (100,2) to be set to 1 when the party knows that theres a treasure hidden in a tree. Old Man McGee tells them that its there when asked about tree. When Old Man McGee is asked about tree use a talking node of this type as a response, with A set to 100 and B set to 2.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 3 - Inn<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> If the party can afford it, conversation ends, and the party is moved to a different place and healed. Field A is the cost of the inn, and field B is the quality of the inn (Range 0 ... 3). If the party can afford it, the character says Text 1, and the party is moved to (C,D). Otherwise, they are told Text 2 and conversation continues.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>If-Then Talking Nodes -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>What the character says when one of these talking nodes is called depends on circumstances, such as what town the party is in or whether a certain Stuff Done flag has been changed.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 4 - Depend on Time</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Response depends on what day it is. If it is after day A, the character responds Text 2. Otherwise, the character responds Text 1. (For more information on this, see the section on passing time).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 5 - Depend on Time w. Event <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Response depends on what day it is. If it is after day A and event B did not happen before day A, the character responds Text 1. Otherwise, the character responds Text 2. (For more information on this, see the section on passing time).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 6 - Depends On Town</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Response depends on what town the party is in. If the party is in town A, the response is Text 1. Otherwise, its Text 2.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Shopping Talking Nodes -</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When one of these nodes is a response, conversation temporarily ends, and a shopping screen appears. When the party is done shopping (and the player hits the done button) talking resumes. Most of these require you to specify a cost adjust, which is one of the following:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">0 - Extremely Cheap</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">1 - Very Reasonable</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">2 - Pretty Average</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">3 - Somewhat Pricey</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">4 - Expensive</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">5 - Exorbitant</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">6 - Utterly Ridiculous</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 7 - Buy Items<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Shop where the party can buy items. A is the cost adjustment (Range 0 ... 6, see above). B is the number of the first item in the shop (from the scenarios item list). C is the total number of items in the shop, taken in order from the scenario item list starting with B (press the Choose button to select). Text 1 is the name of the shop.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: If A is 1, B is 193, C is 15, and Text 1 is Freds Fish, and this talking node is the response, the player gets to shop in a store called Freds Fish. The prices are quite cheap, and the player can buy items 193-207.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 8 - Training</b> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The training window immediately comes up. Text 1 & 2 are<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">ignored.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 9 - Mage Spell Shop<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Shop where the party can buy mage spells. A is the cost adjustment (Range 0 ... 6, see above). B is the number of the first spell sold in the shop (press the Choose button to select). C is the total number of spells sold in the shop, taken from the list of spells in the game, starting with B. Text 1 is the name of the shop.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 10 - Priest Spell Shop</b> Exactly like Mage Spell Shop (above) but with Priest spells. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 11 - Alchemy Shop </b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Shop where the party can buy alchemy recipes. A is the cost adjustment (Range 0 ... 6, see above. B is the number of the first recipe sold in the shop (press the Choose button to select). C is the total number of recipes sold in the shop, taken from the list of recipes in the game, starting with B. Text 1 is the name of the shop.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 12 - Healer <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Brings up the healing screen. A is the cost adjustment (Range 0 ... 6, see above) and Text 1 is the name of the healer.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Item Button Talking Nodes -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Each of these talking node types makes a button appear by certain items in the PC Inventory Screen. Pressing these buttons does something with the item, such as sell it or identify it. When two of these nodes are used in a row, the buttons created by the second node replace the buttons created by the first.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 13 - Sell Weapons</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The text in Text 1 is the response, and the party can sell all their identified weapons.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 14 - Sell Armor </b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The text in Text 1 is the response, and the party can sell all their identified armor.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 15 - Sell All </b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The text in Text 1 is the response, and the party can sell all their identified items.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 16 - Identify </b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The text in Text 1 is the response, and the party can identify all their items. A is the cost to identify.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 17 - Enchant Weapons</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Enables the part to spend money to have their weapons augmented. The character responds Text 1, and Enchant buttons (with costs) appear by all of the characters identified, non-magical weapons. A is the sort of enchantment the party can buy (0 - +1, 1 - +2, 2 - +3, 3 - shoot flame spells,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>4- flaming weapon, 5 - +5, 6 - blessed)</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Buying Talking Nodes -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>All of these talking nodes try to sell the party something (such as the location of a town) but are not regular shops, and dont bring up a shopping screen.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 18 - Buy Response <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> The party is charged A gold. If they have it, the text in Text 1 is the response. Otherwise, the text in Text 2 is the response.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: If the inn sells drinks with a cost of 5, use this talking node type. Set A to 5, and have Text 1 be what happens when the party buys the drink.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 19 - Buy Response, Change flag</b> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The party can spend money to get a response and have one of their Stuff Done flags changed. The party is charged A gold. If they have it, the text in Text 1 is the response, and the value of Stuff Done flag (B,C) is set to D. Otherwise, the text in Text 2 is the response.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: You want Stuff Done flag (100,2) to be set to 1 when the party knows that theres a treasure hidden in a tree. Old Man McGee tells them that its there when asked about tree, but he charges 50 gold for the knowledge. When Old Man McGee is asked about tree use a talking node of this type as a response, with A set to 50, B set to 100, C set to 2, and D set to 1. Write in Text 2 Old Man McGees acerbic response if the party doesnt have 50 gold.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 20 - Ship Shop</b> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Sells the party a boat. A is the cost of the boat. B is the number of the first boat sold in the shop (from the scenarios boat list). C is the total number of boats sold in the shop, taken from the list of boats in the game, starting with B. If the party buys a boat, one boat in the given range becomes their property. Text 1 is the response if the party buys a boat. Text 2 is the response if the party doesnt have enough gold. If all boats in the given range are already owned by the party, the characters response is There are no boats left.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: If A is 100, B is 5,C is 1, and the party has 100 gold, if the party doesnt already own boat 5, it becomes their property and theyre out 100 gold.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 21 - Horse Shop <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Sells the party a horse. A is the cost of the horse. B is the number of the first horse sold in the shop (from the scenarios horse list). C is the total number of horses sold in the shop, taken from the list of horses in the game, starting with B. If the party buys a horse, one horse in the given range becomes their property. Text 1 is the response if the party buys a horse. Text 2 is the response if the party doesnt have enough gold. If all horses in the given range are already owned by the party, the characters response is There are no horses left.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 22 - Buy Special Item <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Sells the party a scenario special item. A is the number of the special item being sold. If they already have it, they are told You already have that. Otherwise, the cost of the item is B gold. If the party can afford it, they are told Text 1. Otherwise, they are told Text 2.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Note: If you set the cost to 0, the party is always given the item.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 23 - Special Item Shop</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This brings up a shop window where the party can buy up to 10 randomly chosen items. These items are changed every 3000 moves, and are often magical. There are 5 different, independently maintained lists of items the shop can give. A is the cost adjustment of the shop (Range 0 ... 6, see above) and B is list of items to sell from (0 .. 4).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 24 - Reveal Town Location </b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Charges the party money, and enables them to enter a hidden town. The cost is A gold. If the party can afford it, they are told Text 1, and they will be able to see and enter town/dungeon number B. Otherwise, they are told Text 2. If the party already knows where this town is, no gold is taken.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Note: If you set the cost to 0, the party is always told where the town is.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>End Conversation Talking Nodes -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When one of these node types is the response to something the player asks, the conversation ends immediately. Only the Record and Bye buttons at the bottom will be active, and the player can ask about nothing else.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 25 - Force Conversation End <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Responds the text on Text 1 and Text 2 normally, but then the conversation ends.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 26 - Hostile Conversation End</b> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Responds the text on Text 1 and Text 2 normally, but then the conversation ends, and the character attacks the party.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 27 - Town Hostile Conv. End</b> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Responds the text on Text 1 and Text 2 normally, but then the conversation ends, and the entire town becomes hostile.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 28 - Eliminate Creature</b> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Responds the text on Text 1 and Text 2 normally, but then the conversation ends, and the character will disappear. If the character has a Go Away Permanently Stuff Done flag chosen for it, that flag is set to 1 and the character will disappear permanently.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Uses: A dying character who tells the party one last thing and expires.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Special Encounter Talking Nodes -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>These highly important node types provide the way to have elaborate special encounters embedded in conversations. When a talking node of one of these types is the response, a town (or scenario) special node is called, which can give the party gold or items, set Stuff Done flags, or do most anything else a special node can do.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When a special encounter is called inside a conversation, the big question generally is what the character will say (be it Heres some gold, or This is where the hidden treasure is.). What the character says in response to the players question is determined using the Mess 1 and Mess 2 fields in the special nodes called. How this works is described below.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 29 -</b> Call Town Special <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Calls Town Special Node A, and does what it says. This special encounter can do anything but damage the party or other monsters or move the party.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Displaying messages in special encounters works differently in talking special encounters. If the special node(s) called bring up a dialog box, it is displayed normally (over the talking screen). However, if one or two messages are selected in one of the special nodes, they are not displayed in a dialog box (as they would be if the special encounter wasnt called while talking). Instead, the one or two messages selected in the special node will become the characters response while talking. If no messages are ever selected in the special nodes, the character says the text in Text 1 and Text 2.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>There is one serious limitation to using talking nodes of this type. The special encounter will only work correctly if the personality is one of the current towns 10 personalities. For example, the 10 personalities for town 5 are 50-59. A talking special encounter for personality 55 will only work correctly when the party is in town 5. If you placed personality 55 in town 6 and the party triggered a special encounter while talking to it, it wouldnt work. If you want to have a personality special encounter work no matter what town the party triggers it in, use a Call Scenario Special talking node (type 30, described below).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To create the talking special encounter, first select Edit Special Nodes from the town menu, select the first node of the special encounter (a node you havent used yet), and create the special encounter. Then, on the dialogue node editing sceen, enter the number of the first node of the encounter in A.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: Suppose Text 1 is He casts a spell, and the special node selected heals the party, and is the only special node called. If, in Mess 1 and Mess 2 of that special node, no messages are chosen, the character will say He casts a spell. If messages are chosen in Mess 1 and Mess 2, that will be what the character says in the talk area. The player can then ask about things mentioned in those messages in the normal way (clicking on words to ask about them).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Node Type 30 - Call Scenario Special </b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Calls Scenario Special Node A. Except for calling a Scenario special node instead of a Town Special Node, this is exactly the same as Call Town Special, above. The main difference is that you create the special encounter in the Scenario special node list instead of the Town special node list.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Note: If a town special is called, only a town message will be shown. If a scenario node is called, a scenario message will be shown.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>The Buy and Sell Buttons</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When the game is in talk mode, there are Buy and Sell buttons at the bottom of the talking area. The player will expect that, when the former is pressed, the game will go into shopping mode (if the character has anything to sell), and when the latter is pressed the character will offer to buy items (if he or she is so inclined).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When the Buy button is pressed, that is equivalent to the player asking about purchase. Thus, you should have every shopkeeper respond to this word. Similarly, pressing the Sell button is equivalent to asking about sell. Any character who buys things should respond to this word.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Item Order in Shops</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Items can only be sold in shops in the order they appear in your scenario's item list. A shop can only sell, say, items 117-125 from the item list, not items 117, 121, and 131. If you want to customize the items in a shop (so that it only sells strong poison, steel chain mail, and rings of protection), edit the items in the item list so that those items appear next to each other.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<div class="navbar">
|
||||
<script src="nav.js"></script>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class='content'>
|
||||
<h1>Section 11: Dialogue</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Along with special encounters, character dialogue is a key way to give your scenario a
|
||||
plot and depth. Writing good dialogue is difficult and time consuming, but there is no
|
||||
better way to get a player involved.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Each character has a personality number. This number determines what the character the
|
||||
party talks to says. Only characters in towns can be given personalities.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Each town has 10 personalities stored in it. Town 0 has personalities 0-9. Town 1 has
|
||||
personalities 10-19, town 2 has 20-29, and so on. A character from any town can have a
|
||||
personality from any town. To enable the party to talk to a character, place the creature,
|
||||
press Select Monster, click on the monster, and put the personality number in the
|
||||
Personality area. Now that the personality is there, you just need to write the
|
||||
dialogue.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Writing Dialogue</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Press Edit Town Dialogue to edit a town's 10 personalities. A character always responds
|
||||
to name, look, and job, and has a response for when the party asks about something weird.
|
||||
The first 10 entries in the dialogue lists are where these responses are written. Entries
|
||||
for name, look, and job must be given. The Don't Understand Response can be left blank (a
|
||||
generic response will be given).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Dialogue has nodes, like special encounters. Each town has 60 dialogue nodes. Each
|
||||
dialogue nodes represents one thing the party can ask about. The 60 dialogue nodes are
|
||||
listed when you press Edit Town Dialogue. Click on a dialogue node to edit it. The
|
||||
dialogue nodes editing window will come up. It has these options:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Personality -</b> This starts at -1, which means that the node is unused. The number
|
||||
of the personality to whom this node belongs. If this is changed to -2, any of the 10
|
||||
personalities in this town respond to this.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Response to #1, Response to #2 - </b>The key word (or key words) the player must ask
|
||||
about to get this node as a response. Each node can have two different words that activate
|
||||
it. These words must consist only of letters and numbers.</p>
|
||||
<p>The game only looks at the first 4 letters of these fields, and a word that the player
|
||||
can ask about must be at least 4 letters/numbers long. You can have a character respond to
|
||||
insect, but not to bug.</p>
|
||||
<p>The default value for these fields is xxxx. If you only want a certain response to be
|
||||
given for one key word (as opposed to two) you can leave one of the fields set to
|
||||
xxxx.</p>
|
||||
<p>If one character has redundant talking nodes (i.e. two nodes which respond to asking
|
||||
about fish) the earlier one is used.</p>
|
||||
<p>If the talking node is for a store of some sort (buying or selling) and the player
|
||||
presses the Buy or Sell button, this node will be used as a response. Again, if one
|
||||
character sells two sorts of things, the earlier one will be used should the player hit
|
||||
the Buy button.</p>
|
||||
<p>Example: You set the first field to swor and the second to demo. Then this talking node
|
||||
will be used as a response when the player asks this character about sword, demon,
|
||||
demonstration, Sworgenov.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node type - </b>Click the light for the appropriate talking node type. These types
|
||||
are described below.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>A,B,C,D - </b>These four fields define certain things for the node type (such as how
|
||||
much an item costs, or what items are sold in the store). In the descriptions below, the
|
||||
value of Field A is referred to by simply A, as in "The cost for identification is A".</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Text 1, Text 2 -</b> The text the character actually says. For some node types, the
|
||||
character responds with the text in both boxes, one before the other. For some node types,
|
||||
however, the character will only respond one bit of text or the other, depending on the
|
||||
node type.</p>
|
||||
<p>Create New - To edit a fresh dialogue node, press this. To return to an earlier node,
|
||||
press Go Back.</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
<p>When writing character responses, remember that while the two halves of the response
|
||||
text can each be 256 characters long, there isn't room for more than 400 characters on the
|
||||
talking screen. Test your dialogue to make sure it is all fitting.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Special Node Types</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The talking node types (and the meanings of the A, B, C, and D fields) are:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Basic Conversation Talking Nodes</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>These are the basic talking node types, the talking nodes you will use the most
|
||||
often.</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 0 - Regular Talking</b> The character responds with the text in the Text 1
|
||||
and Text 2 fields. All other fields are ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 1 - Depends on Flag</b> The response depends on a given Stuff Done flag,
|
||||
specified in the A, B, and C fields. If the stuff done flag (A,B) is less than or equal to
|
||||
the value in C, the character responds with the text in Text 1. Otherwise,the character
|
||||
responds with the text in Text 2.</p>
|
||||
<p>Example: Suppose A is 58, B is 3, and C is 2. If the Stuff Done flag (58,3) is 1, the
|
||||
response is Text 1. If Stuff Done flag (58,3) is 5, the response is Text 2.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 2 - Set to One </b>The character responds with the text in the Text 1 and
|
||||
Text 2 fields. In addition, the Stuff Done flag (A,B) is set to 1.</p>
|
||||
<p>Example: You want Stuff Done flag (100,2) to be set to 1 when the party knows that
|
||||
theres a treasure hidden in a tree. Old Man McGee tells them that its there when asked
|
||||
about tree. When Old Man McGee is asked about tree use a talking node of this type as a
|
||||
response, with A set to 100 and B set to 2.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 3 - Inn</b> If the party can afford it, conversation ends, and the party
|
||||
is moved to a different place and healed. Field A is the cost of the inn, and field B is
|
||||
the quality of the inn (Range 0 ... 3). If the party can afford it, the character says
|
||||
Text 1, and the party is moved to (C,D). Otherwise, they are told Text 2 and conversation
|
||||
continues.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>If-Then Talking Nodes</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>What the character says when one of these talking nodes is called depends on
|
||||
circumstances, such as what town the party is in or whether a certain Stuff Done flag has
|
||||
been changed.</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 4 - Depend on Time</b> Response depends on what day it is. If it is after
|
||||
day A, the character responds Text 2. Otherwise, the character responds Text 1. (For more
|
||||
information on this, see the section on passing time).</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 5 - Depend on Time w. Event</b> Response depends on what day it is. If it
|
||||
is after day A and event B did not happen before day A, the character responds Text 1.
|
||||
Otherwise, the character responds Text 2. (For more information on this, see the section
|
||||
on passing time).</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 6 - Depends On Town</b> Response depends on what town the party is in. If
|
||||
the party is in town A, the response is Text 1. Otherwise, its Text 2.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Shopping Talking Nodes</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When one of these nodes is a response, conversation temporarily ends, and a shopping
|
||||
screen appears. When the party is done shopping (and the player hits the done button)
|
||||
talking resumes. Most of these require you to specify a cost adjust, which is one of the
|
||||
following:</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li>0 - Extremely Cheap</li>
|
||||
<li>1 - Very Reasonable</li>
|
||||
<li>2 - Pretty Average</li>
|
||||
<li>3 - Somewhat Pricey</li>
|
||||
<li>4 - Expensive</li>
|
||||
<li>5 - Exorbitant</li>
|
||||
<li>6 - Utterly Ridiculous</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 7 - Buy Items</b> Shop where the party can buy items. A is the cost
|
||||
adjustment (Range 0 ... 6, see above). B is the number of the first item in the shop (from
|
||||
the scenarios item list). C is the total number of items in the shop, taken in order from
|
||||
the scenario item list starting with B (press the Choose button to select). Text 1 is the
|
||||
name of the shop.</p>
|
||||
<p>Example: If A is 1, B is 193, C is 15, and Text 1 is Fred's Fish, and this talking node
|
||||
is the response, the player gets to shop in a store called Fred's Fish. The prices are
|
||||
quite cheap, and the player can buy items 193-207.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 8 - Training</b> The training window immediately comes up. Text 1 & 2
|
||||
are ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 9 - Mage Spell Shop</b> Shop where the party can buy mage spells. A is the
|
||||
cost adjustment (Range 0 ... 6, see above). B is the number of the first spell sold in the
|
||||
shop (press the Choose button to select). C is the total number of spells sold in the
|
||||
shop, taken from the list of spells in the game, starting with B. Text 1 is the name of
|
||||
the shop.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 10 - Priest Spell Shop</b> Exactly like Mage Spell Shop (above) but with
|
||||
Priest spells.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 11 - Alchemy Shop </b>Shop where the party can buy alchemy recipes. A is
|
||||
the cost adjustment (Range 0 ... 6, see above. B is the number of the first recipe sold in
|
||||
the shop (press the Choose button to select). C is the total number of recipes sold in the
|
||||
shop, taken from the list of recipes in the game, starting with B. Text 1 is the name of
|
||||
the shop.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 12 - Healer </b> Brings up the healing screen. A is the cost adjustment
|
||||
(Range 0 ... 6, see above) and Text 1 is the name of the healer.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Item Button Talking Nodes</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Each of these talking node types makes a button appear by certain items in the PC
|
||||
Inventory Screen. Pressing these buttons does something with the item, such as sell it or
|
||||
identify it. When two of these nodes are used in a row, the buttons created by the second
|
||||
node replace the buttons created by the first.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 13 - Sell Weapons</b>The text in Text 1 is the response, and the party can
|
||||
sell all their identified weapons.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 14 - Sell Armor </b>The text in Text 1 is the response, and the party can
|
||||
sell all their identified armor.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 15 - Sell All </b>The text in Text 1 is the response, and the party can
|
||||
sell all their identified items.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 16 - Identify </b>The text in Text 1 is the response, and the party can
|
||||
identify all their items. A is the cost to identify.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 17 - Enchant Weapons</b> Enables the part to spend money to have their
|
||||
weapons augmented. The character responds Text 1, and Enchant buttons (with costs) appear
|
||||
by all of the characters identified, non-magical weapons. A is the sort of enchantment the
|
||||
party can buy (0 - +1, 1 - +2, 2 - +3, 3 - shoot flame spells, 4 - flaming weapon, 5 - +5,
|
||||
6 - blessed)</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Buying Talking Nodes</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>All of these talking nodes try to sell the party something (such as the location of a
|
||||
town) but are not regular shops, and don't bring up a shopping screen.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 18 - Buy Response </b> The party is charged A gold. If they have it, the
|
||||
text in Text 1 is the response. Otherwise, the text in Text 2 is the response.</p>
|
||||
<p>Example: If the inn sells drinks with a cost of 5, use this talking node type. Set A to
|
||||
5, and have Text 1 be what happens when the party buys the drink.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 19 - Buy Response, Change flag</b> The party can spend money to get a
|
||||
response and have one of their Stuff Done flags changed. The party is charged A gold. If
|
||||
they have it, the text in Text 1 is the response, and the value of Stuff Done flag (B,C)
|
||||
is set to D. Otherwise, the text in Text 2 is the response.</p>
|
||||
<p>Example: You want Stuff Done flag (100,2) to be set to 1 when the party knows that
|
||||
there's a treasure hidden in a tree. Old Man McGee tells them that it's there when asked
|
||||
about tree, but he charges 50 gold for the knowledge. When Old Man McGee is asked about
|
||||
tree, use a talking node of this type as a response, with A set to 50, B set to 100, C set
|
||||
to 2, and D set to 1. Write in Text 2 Old Man McGee's acerbic response if the party doesn't
|
||||
have 50 gold.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 20 - Ship Shop</b> Sells the party a boat. A is the cost of the boat. B is
|
||||
the number of the first boat sold in the shop (from the scenario's boat list). C is the
|
||||
total number of boats sold in the shop, taken from the list of boats in the game, starting
|
||||
with B. If the party buys a boat, one boat in the given range becomes their property. Text
|
||||
1 is the response if the party buys a boat. Text 2 is the response if the party doesn't
|
||||
have enough gold. If all boats in the given range are already owned by the party, the
|
||||
character's response is "There are no boats left".</p>
|
||||
<p>Example: If A is 100, B is 5,C is 1, and the party has 100 gold, if the party doesn't
|
||||
already own boat 5, it becomes their property and they're out 100 gold.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 21 - Horse Shop </b> Sells the party a horse. A is the cost of the horse.
|
||||
B is the number of the first horse sold in the shop (from the scenarios horse list). C is
|
||||
the total number of horses sold in the shop, taken from the list of horses in the game,
|
||||
starting with B. If the party buys a horse, one horse in the given range becomes their
|
||||
property. Text 1 is the response if the party buys a horse. Text 2 is the response if the
|
||||
party doesn't have enough gold. If all horses in the given range are already owned by the
|
||||
party, the character's response is "There are no horses left".</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 22 - Buy Special Item </b> Sells the party a scenario special item. A is
|
||||
the number of the special item being sold. If they already have it, they are told "You
|
||||
already have that". Otherwise, the cost of the item is B gold. If the party can afford it,
|
||||
they are told Text 1. Otherwise, they are told Text 2.</p>
|
||||
<p>Note: If you set the cost to 0, the party is always given the item.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 23 - Special Item Shop</b> This brings up a shop window where the party
|
||||
can buy up to 10 randomly chosen items. These items are changed every 3000 moves, and are
|
||||
often magical. There are 5 different, independently maintained lists of items the shop can
|
||||
give. A is the cost adjustment of the shop (Range 0 ... 6, see above) and B is list of
|
||||
items to sell from (0 .. 4).</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 24 - Reveal Town Location</b> Charges the party money, and enables them to
|
||||
enter a hidden town. The cost is A gold. If the party can afford it, they are told Text 1,
|
||||
and they will be able to see and enter town/dungeon number B. Otherwise, they are told
|
||||
Text 2. If the party already knows where this town is, no gold is taken.</p>
|
||||
<p>Note: If you set the cost to 0, the party is always told where the town is.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>End Conversation Talking Nodes</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When one of these node types is the response to something the player asks, the
|
||||
conversation ends immediately. Only the Record and Bye buttons at the bottom will be
|
||||
active, and the player can ask about nothing else.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 25 - Force Conversation End</b> Responds the text on Text 1 and Text 2
|
||||
normally, but then the conversation ends.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 26 - Hostile Conversation End</b> Responds the text on Text 1 and Text 2
|
||||
normally, but then the conversation ends, and the character attacks the party.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 27 - Town Hostile Conv. End</b> Responds the text on Text 1 and Text 2
|
||||
normally, but then the conversation ends, and the entire town becomes hostile.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 28 - Eliminate Creature</b> Responds the text on Text 1 and Text 2
|
||||
normally, but then the conversation ends, and the character will disappear. If the
|
||||
character has a Go Away Permanently Stuff Done flag chosen for it, that flag is set to 1
|
||||
and the character will disappear permanently.</p>
|
||||
<p>Uses: A dying character who tells the party one last thing and expires.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Special Encounter Talking Nodes</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>These highly important node types provide the way to have elaborate special encounters
|
||||
embedded in conversations. When a talking node of one of these types is the response, a
|
||||
town (or scenario) special node is called, which can give the party gold or items, set
|
||||
Stuff Done flags, or do most anything else a special node can do.</p>
|
||||
<p>When a special encounter is called inside a conversation, the big question generally is
|
||||
what the character will say (be it "Here's some gold", or "This is where the hidden treasure
|
||||
is".). What the character says in response to the player's question is determined using the
|
||||
Mess 1 and Mess 2 fields in the special nodes called. How this works is described
|
||||
below.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 29 - Call Town Special</b> Calls Town Special Node A, and does what it says. This special encounter can do anything but damage the party or other monsters or move the party.</p>
|
||||
<p>Displaying messages in special encounters works differently in talking special
|
||||
encounters. If the special node(s) called bring up a dialog box, it is displayed normally
|
||||
(over the talking screen). However, if one or two messages are selected in one of the
|
||||
special nodes, they are not displayed in a dialog box (as they would be if the special
|
||||
encounter wasn't called while talking). Instead, the one or two messages selected in the
|
||||
special node will become the character's response while talking. If no messages are ever
|
||||
selected in the special nodes, the character says the text in Text 1 and Text 2.</p>
|
||||
<p>There is one serious limitation to using talking nodes of this type. The special
|
||||
encounter will only work correctly if the personality is one of the current towns 10
|
||||
personalities. For example, the 10 personalities for town 5 are 50-59. A talking special
|
||||
encounter for personality 55 will only work correctly when the party is in town 5. If you
|
||||
placed personality 55 in town 6 and the party triggered a special encounter while talking
|
||||
to it, it wouldn't work. If you want to have a personality special encounter work no matter
|
||||
what town the party triggers it in, use a Call Scenario Special talking node (type 30,
|
||||
described below).</p>
|
||||
<p>To create the talking special encounter, first select Edit Special Nodes from the town
|
||||
menu, select the first node of the special encounter (a node you haven't used yet), and
|
||||
create the special encounter. Then, on the dialogue node editing sceen, enter the number
|
||||
of the first node of the encounter in A.</p>
|
||||
<p>Example: Suppose Text 1 is "He casts a spell", and the special node selected heals the
|
||||
party, and is the only special node called. If, in Mess 1 and Mess 2 of that special node,
|
||||
no messages are chosen, the character will say "He casts a spell". If messages are chosen in
|
||||
Mess 1 and Mess 2, that will be what the character says in the talk area. The player can
|
||||
then ask about things mentioned in those messages in the normal way (clicking on words to
|
||||
ask about them).</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Node Type 30 - Call Scenario Special</b> Calls Scenario Special Node A. Except for
|
||||
calling a Scenario special node instead of a Town Special Node, this is exactly the same
|
||||
as Call Town Special, above. The main difference is that you create the special encounter
|
||||
in the Scenario special node list instead of the Town special node list.</p>
|
||||
<p>Note: If a town special is called, only a town message will be shown. If a scenario
|
||||
node is called, a scenario message will be shown.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>The Buy and Sell Buttons</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When the game is in talk mode, there are Buy and Sell buttons at the bottom of the
|
||||
talking area. The player will expect that, when the former is pressed, the game will go
|
||||
into shopping mode (if the character has anything to sell), and when the latter is pressed
|
||||
the character will offer to buy items (if he or she is so inclined).</p>
|
||||
<p>When the Buy button is pressed, that is equivalent to the player asking about purchase.
|
||||
Thus, you should have every shopkeeper respond to this word. Similarly, pressing the Sell
|
||||
button is equivalent to asking about sell. Any character who buys things should respond to
|
||||
this word.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Item Order in Shops</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Items can only be sold in shops in the order they appear in your scenario's item list.
|
||||
A shop can only sell, say, items 117-125 from the item list, not items 117, 121, and 131.
|
||||
If you want to customize the items in a shop (so that it only sells strong poison, steel
|
||||
chain mail, and rings of protection), edit the items in the item list so that those items
|
||||
appear next to each other.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -10,8 +10,12 @@
|
||||
<noscript>Javascript required for the navbar.</noscript>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
|
||||
<h1>Section 3: Making and Editing Scenarios</h1>
|
||||
<p>This chapter describes how to create a scenario, and how to edit the general scenario properties. As mentioned before, something marked (Advanced) can be ignored by people who arent interested in making more complicated scenarios.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>This chapter describes how to create a scenario, and how to edit the general scenario
|
||||
properties. As mentioned before, something marked (Advanced) can be ignored by people who
|
||||
aren't interested in making more complicated scenarios.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>The File Menu</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -20,22 +24,35 @@
|
||||
<li><em>Open...</em> - Select this option to load in a new scenario.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Save</em> - This saves your changes.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>New Scenario...</em> - This makes a new scenario.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Quit</em> - This closes the program. If youve made any changes, you will be asked if you would like to save first.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Quit</em> - This closes the program. If you've made any changes, you will be asked
|
||||
if you would like to save first.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
<p>Scenarios made in Macintosh and Windows are interchangeable. A scenario edited on the Mac can be run on a Windows machine, and vise versa.</p><!-- todo: check this -->
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Scenarios made in Macintosh and Windows are interchangeable. A scenario edited on the
|
||||
Mac can be run on a Windows machine, and vice versa.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Creating a scenario</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you make a new scenario, three dialog boxes will come up, asking you for information about the scenario to make:</p>
|
||||
<p>When you make a new scenario, two dialog boxes will come up, asking you for
|
||||
information about the scenario to make:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>First Dialog</b>: Enter the name of your scenario and the file name of the scenario (which must be at most eight characters long, all letters). To make the terrain for the surface be grass and mountains (as opposed to cave), press the small button. When done, press OK, or Cancel to stop the process.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>First Dialog</b>: Enter the name of your scenario and the file name of the scenario
|
||||
(which must be at most eight characters long, all letters). To make the terrain for the
|
||||
surface be grass and mountains (as opposed to cave), press the small button. When done,
|
||||
press OK, or Cancel to stop the process.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Second Dialog</b>: Enter the width and height, in 48 x 48 sections, of the outdoors. This cant be changed later, so choose carefully (outdoor sections are small, so you may want to make it a little large than you think you will need).</p>
|
||||
<p>In the second section, enter the number of towns the scenario will start with, of the three different sizes. The large towns will be placed first, followed by the medium towns followed by the small towns (so if you select 3 large towns and 3 small towns, towns 0 - 2 will be large, and 3 - 5 will be small). The exception to this is that if you want your scenario to be Warriors Grove, this will always be town 0.</p>
|
||||
<p>Finally, select Include Starter Town to have one of your Medium Towns (town 0) be Warriors Grove, a pre-made town.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Second Dialog</b>: Enter the width and height, in 48 x 48 sections, of the outdoors.
|
||||
This can't be changed later, so choose carefully (outdoor sections are small, so you may
|
||||
want to make it a little larger than you think you will need).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Third Dialog</b>: Enter a number from 0 to 30000. This will be the scenarios password, which must be entered before it can be edited. Leave at 0 to have no password. The password for the three scenarios that come with Blades of Exile are 100.</p>
|
||||
<p>Be sure to write this down. If you forget it, you wont be able to edit your scenario. You may want to set it to 0 ... you can always change it later.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the second section, enter the number of towns the scenario will start with, of the
|
||||
three different sizes. The large towns will be placed first, followed by the medium towns
|
||||
followed by the small towns (so if you select 3 large towns and 3 small towns, towns 0 - 2
|
||||
will be large, and 3 - 5 will be small). The exception to this is that if you want your
|
||||
scenario to have Warrior's Grove, this will always be town 0.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Finally, select Include Starter Town to have one of your Medium Towns (town 0) be
|
||||
Warrior's Grove, a pre-made town.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Finally, you will be asked for a final go-ahead, and your scenario will be built.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -44,54 +61,153 @@
|
||||
<p>A lot of things for your scenario are set using the Scenario menu.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Create New Town</em> - This tacks a new town onto the end of your scenarios town list. If you currently have 8 towns, for example, the new town will be town number 8 (your 9th town). Creating a new town is described later in this section.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Scenario Details</em> - This dialog sets the information the player will see when theyre choosing your scenario in the Custom Scenario Window in the game. You can set your scenarios version (it starts at 1.0.0), a brief description (each bit of text can be at most 60 characters long), contact information for you (such as an E-mail address), your scenarios rating (G to NC-17), and a guideline for how experienced the players party should be before they do your scenario. Note that you can't control the level of adventurers the player takes into your scenario. They are free to take as weak or powerful a party through as they want. All you can do is warn them how tough your scenario is in advance.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Scenario Intro Text</em> - Select this to edit the text the player will see when first entering your scenario, Press the Select Icon button to pick the graphic the player will see by your scenario when in the Custom Scenario Window.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Starting Location</em> - The scenario must have two starting locations. The first is the town the party will start in. The second is the location in the outdoors the party will be in with they leave that town. Select this to set the first location, the starting location in a town. Enter the number of the town to start in, and the starting location in that town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Special Nodes (Advanced)</em> - This moves you to the main screen, where all of the scenarios special nodes are listed to the right. Click on a node to edit it.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Scenario Text (Advanced)</em> - This moves you to the main screen, where all of the scenarios text messages are listed to the right. Click on a message to edit it, or command click (right click in Windows) to clear it.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Import Town (Advanced)</em> - You can import a town from another scenario (or the same scenario). The town pulled in will be copied over the current town in memory. Aster selecting this option, you will be asked the number of the town to import, and then to select the scenario to import it from (you can select the scenario you are working on). Finally, you need to put in the password of the scenario you are opening. The scenario will be loaded in, and the selected town will be copied over your current town. the town selected must be of the same size (small, medium, large) as the current town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Saved Item Rectangle (Advanced)</em> - You can set three rectangles in towns where the partys items can be stored (i.e. they wont disappear when they leave town). Enter the number of the town, and the top, left, bottom, and right of the rectangle where the items will be remembered. To have no rectangle, leave the town number at -1. The three towns must be different.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Horses (Advanced)</em> - The scenario can have up to 30 horses, which must all start in towns. Enter the number of the town the horse is in, and the horses location. If the horse isnt owned by the party, click on the button to the right. Press the arrows to edit other horses. When you place a boat in a scenario your party is already in, the boat does not actually appear in the scenario until the party enters a town. If the party is in a town, it won't appear until they leave the town and reenter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Boats (Advanced)</em> - The scenario can have up to 30 boats, which must all start in towns. They are edited the same way as the horses (above), and new boats don't appear until the party enters a town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Variable Town Entry (Advanced)</em> - When they party enters a town, you can have the town they enter change, depending on the value of a Stuff Done Flag. Enter the number of the town, and the two parts of the Stuff Done flag to add to the town number when town 8 is entered. Example: Town 8 may be destroyed. When this happens, set Stuff Done Flag <tt>(3,4)</tt> to 1, have this flag added to town 8, and make the destroyed version of the town be town number 9.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Scenario Event Timers (Advanced)</em> - You can have a special node called every so many moves while the party is playing the scenario. Enter the interval between node calls on the left, and the number of the scenario special node to call on the right. Press the Create/Edit button to assign or edit the special node. Leave the time at -1 for no node to be called. Note that calling a special node takes some time. Dont set the interval too small, or your scenario wont play as well. The interval between calling a special node must be a multiple of 10 (such as 30, or 100, but not 55). Example: If the time is set to 100, and the node is set to 15, scenario special node 15 is called every 100 moves, no matter where the party is.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Item Placement Shortcuts (Advanced)</em> - You can create 10 item placement shortcuts. This can enable you to place preset items in towns much more quickly. When Add Random Items is picked from the Town menu, the editor sorts through these shortcuts, and places random items on the terrain types you select. When editing a shortcut, first select a terrain type (press Choose to the upper right), and press the button to the left if you want the preset items to not be the partys property. Then select the items to place on a terrain type of this sort. Press one of the 10 Choose buttons below to pick an item, and then enter the percentage change (0 - 100) of the item being placed. Example: Suppose you want a pair of pants to appear in 25 percent of the dressers in a city. Press the Choose button by the terrain space and select Dresser. press one of the Choose buttons below, and select pants. Finally, enter a 25 in the chance spot.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Delete Last Town (Advanced)</em> - This deletes the last town in the scenarios town list. You cant delete the last town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Write Data To Text File (Advanced)</em> - It is often convenient to have a list of all your scenarios terrain types and monsters. Select this, and lists of your terrain types, items, and monsters will be dumped into a text file titled Scenario data.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Do Full Text Dump (Advanced)</em> - It is also often very convenient to have a complete printout of all the text in a scenario, especially for proofreading. Select this, and all of the scenarios special messages will be dumped into a file titles Scenario Text. This will take a while - be patient.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Create New Town</em> - This tacks a new town onto the end of your scenario's town
|
||||
list. If you currently have 8 towns, for example, the new town will be town number 8 (your
|
||||
9th town). Creating a new town is described later in this section.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Scenario Details</em> - This dialog sets the information the player will see when
|
||||
they're choosing your scenario in the Custom Scenario Window in the game. You can set your
|
||||
scenario's version (it starts at 1.0.0), a brief description (each bit of text can be at
|
||||
most 60 characters long), contact information for you (such as an E-mail address), your
|
||||
scenario's rating (G to NC-17), and a guideline for how experienced the player's party
|
||||
should be before they do your scenario. Note that you can't control the level of
|
||||
adventurers the player takes into your scenario. They are free to take as weak or powerful
|
||||
a party through as they want. All you can do is warn them how tough your scenario is in
|
||||
advance.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Scenario Intro Text</em> - Select this to edit the text the player will see when
|
||||
first entering your scenario, Press the Select Icon button to pick the graphic the player
|
||||
will see by your scenario when in the Custom Scenario Window.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Starting Location</em> - The scenario must have two starting locations. The
|
||||
first is the town the party will start in. The second is the location in the outdoors the
|
||||
party will be in with they leave that town. Select this to set the first location, the
|
||||
starting location in a town. Enter the number of the town to start in, and the starting
|
||||
location in that town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Special Nodes (Advanced)</em> - This moves you to the main screen, where all
|
||||
of the scenario's special nodes are listed to the right. Click on a node to edit it.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Scenario Text (Advanced)</em> - This moves you to the main screen, where all
|
||||
of the scenario's text messages are listed to the right. Click on a message to edit it, or
|
||||
command click (right click in Windows) to clear it.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Import Town (Advanced)</em> - You can import a town from another scenario (or the
|
||||
same scenario). The town pulled in will be copied over the current town in memory. After
|
||||
selecting this option, you will be asked the number of the town to import, and then to
|
||||
select the scenario to import it from (you can select the scenario you are working on).
|
||||
Finally, you need to put in the password of the scenario you are opening. The scenario
|
||||
will be loaded in, and the selected town will be copied over your current town. The town
|
||||
selected must be of the same size (small, medium, large) as the current town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Saved Item Rectangle (Advanced)</em> - You can set three rectangles in towns
|
||||
where the party's items can be stored (i.e. they won't disappear when they leave town).
|
||||
Enter the number of the town, and the top, left, bottom, and right of the rectangle where
|
||||
the items will be remembered. To have no rectangle, leave the town number at -1. The three
|
||||
towns must be different.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Horses (Advanced)</em> - The scenario can have up to 30 horses, which must
|
||||
all start in towns. Enter the number of the town the horse is in, and the horse's location.
|
||||
If the horse isn't owned by the party, click on the button to the right. Press the arrows
|
||||
to edit other horses. When you place a horse in a scenario your party is already in, the
|
||||
horse does not actually appear in the scenario until the party enters a town. If the party
|
||||
is in a town, it won't appear until they leave the town and re-enter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Boats (Advanced)</em> - The scenario can have up to 30 boats, which must all
|
||||
start in towns. They are edited the same way as the horses (above), and new boats don't
|
||||
appear until the party enters a town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Variable Town Entry (Advanced)</em> - When they party enters a town, you can
|
||||
have the town they enter change, depending on the value of a Stuff Done Flag. Enter the
|
||||
number of the town, and the two parts of the Stuff Done flag to add to the town number
|
||||
when town 8 is entered. Example: Town 8 may be destroyed. When this happens, set Stuff
|
||||
Done Flag <tt>(3,4)</tt> to 1, have this flag added to town 8, and make the destroyed
|
||||
version of the town be town number 9.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Scenario Event Timers (Advanced)</em> - You can have a special node called
|
||||
every so many moves while the party is playing the scenario. Enter the interval between
|
||||
node calls on the left, and the number of the scenario special node to call on the right.
|
||||
Press the Create/Edit button to assign or edit the special node. Leave the time at -1 for
|
||||
no node to be called. Note that calling a special node takes some time. Don't set the
|
||||
interval too small, or your scenario won't play as well. The interval between calling a
|
||||
special node must be a multiple of 10 (such as 30, or 100, but not 55). Example: If the
|
||||
time is set to 100, and the node is set to 15, scenario special node 15 is called every
|
||||
100 moves, no matter where the party is.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Item Placement Shortcuts (Advanced)</em> - You can create 10 item placement
|
||||
shortcuts. This can enable you to place preset items in towns much more quickly. When Add
|
||||
Random Items is picked from the Town menu, the editor sorts through these shortcuts, and
|
||||
places random items on the terrain types you select. When editing a shortcut, first select
|
||||
a terrain type (press Choose to the upper right), and press the button to the left if you
|
||||
want the preset items to not be the partys property. Then select the items to place on a
|
||||
terrain type of this sort. Press one of the 10 Choose buttons below to pick an item, and
|
||||
then enter the percentage change (0 - 100) of the item being placed. Example: Suppose you
|
||||
want a pair of pants to appear in 25 percent of the dressers in a city. Press the Choose
|
||||
button by the terrain space and select Dresser. press one of the Choose buttons below, and
|
||||
select pants. Finally, enter a 25 in the chance spot.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Delete Last Town (Advanced)</em> - This deletes the last town in the scenario's
|
||||
town list. You can't delete the last town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Write Data To Text File (Advanced)</em> - It is often convenient to have a list of
|
||||
all your scenario's terrain types and monsters. Select this, and lists of your terrain
|
||||
types, items, and monsters will be dumped into a text file titled Scenario data.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Do Full Text Dump (Advanced)</em> - It is also often very convenient to have a
|
||||
complete printout of all the text in a scenario, especially for proof-reading. Select this,
|
||||
and all of the scenario's special messages will be dumped into a file titled Scenario Text.
|
||||
This will take a while - be patient.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Making a New Town</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you select Create New Town, a dialog box will come up asking for information on the town to create, which will then be added to the end of the current town list. The text area at the top is where you enter the name of the new town.</p>
|
||||
<p>Click the button by the town size to select that size, and the button by the default terrain type to select the terrain the town will start with.</p>
|
||||
<p>You will automatically be editing the new town. The scenario must be saved before you can create a new town.</p>
|
||||
<p>When you select Create New Town, a dialog box will come up asking for information on
|
||||
the town to create, which will then be added to the end of the current town list. The text
|
||||
area at the top is where you enter the name of the new town.</p>
|
||||
<p>Click the button by the town size to select that size, and the button by the default
|
||||
terrain type to select the terrain the town will start with.</p>
|
||||
<p>You will automatically be editing the new town. The scenario must be saved before you
|
||||
can create a new town.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>The Main Menu</h2>
|
||||
<div class="figure">
|
||||
<img src="../img/editormainmenu.gif" alt="The Main Menu"></p>
|
||||
<p>Figure 1: The Main Menu</p>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<p>The main menu is the first screen that comes up when you load or create a new scenario, and is where you load new towns and outdoor sections.</p>
|
||||
<p>The main menu is the first screen that comes up when you load or create a new scenario,
|
||||
and is where you load new towns and outdoor sections.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Terrain Types - </em>When pressed, all of the terrain types appear in the right hand side of the screen. Click on a terrain type to edit it. For more information, see the chapter on Editing Terrain.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Monsters -</em> When pressed, all of the monster types appear in the right hand side of the screen. Click on a monster type to edit it. For more information, see the chapter on Editing Monsters.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Items -</em> When pressed, all of the item types appear in the right hand side of the screen. Click on an item type to edit it. For more information, see the chapter on Editing Items.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Create New Town -</em> This is the same as the Create New Town option in the Scenario menu.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Scenario Text -</em> This is the same as the Edit Scenario Text option in the Scenario menu.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Special Items (Advanced) -</em> When pressed, all of the special items appear in the right hand side of the screen. Click on a special item to edit it. For more information on special items, see below.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Load New Section -</em> At any given time, the scenario editor will only have one outdoor section and one town in memory. To load another outdoor section for editing, press this button.</li>
|
||||
<li>A dialog box will come up, asking you to select an outdoor section to edit. The upper left section is considered to be X = 0, Y = 0. The sections to the right have a higher X, and the sections below have a higher Y.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Outdoor Terrain</em> - When pressed, you will start editing the current outdoor section.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Load Another Town</em> - To load another town into memory for editing, press this button, followed by the number of the town to edit.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Town Terrain</em> - When pressed, you will start editing the current town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Town Dialogue (Advanced)</em> - When pressed, all of the dialogue nodes will appear to the right. For more information on how to edit dialogue, see the chapter in the next section on dialogue.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Terrain Types - </em>When pressed, all of the terrain types appear in the
|
||||
right hand side of the screen. Click on a terrain type to edit it. For more information,
|
||||
see the chapter on Editing Terrain.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Monsters -</em> When pressed, all of the monster types appear in the right
|
||||
hand side of the screen. Click on a monster type to edit it. For more information, see the
|
||||
chapter on Editing Monsters.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Items -</em> When pressed, all of the item types appear in the right hand
|
||||
side of the screen. Click on an item type to edit it. For more information, see the
|
||||
chapter on Editing Items.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Create New Town -</em> This is the same as the Create New Town option in the
|
||||
Scenario menu.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Scenario Text -</em> This is the same as the Edit Scenario Text option in the
|
||||
Scenario menu.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Special Items (Advanced) -</em> When pressed, all of the special items appear
|
||||
in the right hand side of the screen. Click on a special item to edit it. For more
|
||||
information on special items, see below.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Load New Section -</em> At any given time, the scenario editor will only have one
|
||||
outdoor section and one town in memory. To load another outdoor section for editing, press
|
||||
this button.<br>
|
||||
A dialog box will come up, asking you to select an outdoor section to edit. The upper
|
||||
left section is considered to be X = 0, Y = 0. The sections to the right have a higher X,
|
||||
and the sections below have a higher Y.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Outdoor Terrain</em> - When pressed, you will start editing the current
|
||||
outdoor section.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Load Another Town</em> - To load another town into memory for editing, press this
|
||||
button, followed by the number of the town to edit.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Town Terrain</em> - When pressed, you will start editing the current
|
||||
town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Town Dialogue (Advanced)</em> - When pressed, all of the dialogue nodes will
|
||||
appear to the right. For more information on how to edit dialogue, see the chapter in the
|
||||
next section on dialogue.</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<li><em>Special Items (Advanced):</em> - Each scenario can have up to 50 special items. These are given to the party during special encounters, and other special encounters can check for their presence. A key to a locked door might be a special item, and when the door is reached, the party will only be let through if they have that item. To edit a special item, click on Edit Special Items on the main screen, and click on one of the 50 special items to the right. A dialog box will come up, in which you can edit the items information. The first two text areas are for the items name and description (the description appears when the payer uses the Special Item screen). If you want the party to start with the item, click the first button. If you want them to be able to use it, click the second button. When a special item is used, the game will call a given Scenario special node. To create or edit this special node, press the Create/Edit button. Special encounters are described in great depth in the next section.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Special Items (Advanced):</em> - Each scenario can have up to 50 special items.
|
||||
These are given to the party during special encounters, and other special encounters can
|
||||
check for their presence. A key to a locked door might be a special item, and when the
|
||||
door is reached, the party will only be let through if they have that item. To edit a
|
||||
special item, click on Edit Special Items on the main screen, and click on one of the 50
|
||||
special items to the right. A dialog box will come up, in which you can edit the items
|
||||
information. The first two text areas are for the items name and description (the
|
||||
description appears when the payer uses the Special Item screen). If you want the party to
|
||||
start with the item, click the first button. If you want them to be able to use it, click
|
||||
the second button. When a special item is used, the game will call a given Scenario
|
||||
special node. To create or edit this special node, press the Create/Edit button. Special
|
||||
encounters are described in great depth in the next section.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
<!-- Removed 'changing Scenario Name section...because it didn't make sense to have it in the section on the main menu -->
|
||||
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -10,42 +10,125 @@
|
||||
<noscript>Javascript required for the navbar.</noscript>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<p class="p1"><b>Section 12: Customizing Graphics</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>One of the best ways to put your own personal spin on your scenario is to give it your own graphics. You can provide your own graphics for monsters, items, terrain (animated or not), and dialog pictures (36 x 36).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To create your own graphics, you need to use a painting program. The basic dimension of customized graphics is 28 x 36. The custom graphics must be arranged in a one single PICT (Macintosh) or .BMP file (Windows) which is 280 wide (wide enough for 10 graphics and some multiple of 36 (36,72, 108, etc.) high. This single graphic containing all your custom graphics is called the custom sheet.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The custom graphics are arranged on the custom sheet in rows, 10 to each row. Each row is considered to have 10 slots. The first ten slots are in the top row, the next 10 slots are in the next row, and so on. The upper left graphic is considered slot 0. The top row contains slots 0 to 9 (numbered left to right), the second row contains slots 11 to 20, and so on.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>How to Make Your Custom Sheet (Macintosh)</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Make your graphic in a painting program. Make it in the standard Macintosh 256 color palette. Find a copy of the freeware Apple utility ResEdit (available online, or at the Spiderweb Software web site, www.spidweb.com). Run it and make a new resource file. Give the file the same name as your scenario file, but with .meg at the end instead of .exs (for example, if your scenario is called swords.exs, title the graphics resource file swords.meg).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Select the custom sheet in your painting program, and copy it. Move to ResEdit, and select paste to paste your graphic into the resource file as a PICT. Double click on the PICT icon in the ResEdit window, and you will see your custom graphic. Click on it, hit Command-I, and give the PICT resource number 1. Save the file, and copy it into the Blades of Exile Scenario folder.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>How to Make Your Custom Sheet (Windows)</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>You must make your graphic in a painting program. However, you need to use a palette similar to the Blades of Exile palette. Create a copy of one of the Blades of Exile graphics files. Give the file the same name as your scenario file, but with .bmp at the end instead of .exs (for example, if your scenario is called swords.exs, title the bitmap file swords.bmp).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Open it with your painting program, and change its size to the size of your custom sheet. Draw your graphic here, so that you can be sure to be using the same palette as Blades of Exile. Place your bitmap file in the BLDSSCEN folder to use it.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Note that Macintosh and Windows custom graphics are not compatible. If you dont know how to translate a custom graphics file, submit your full scenario at www.spidweb.com (or mail a copy on disk to us) and well translate your graphics file when we put your adventure on our web site (more on this in the next chapter).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Custon graphics can be drawn in the scenario editor. To see your custom graphics, place your custom graphics file in the same folder/directory as your scenario. If your graphics file isn't there, the custom graphics won't be known. THis is a good way to test to make sure your custom graphics file is valid.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Placing and Using Your Custom Graphics</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When you use custom graphics, you must arrange them pr operly on your custom sheet, and then tell the editor to use them. These are the graphics you can customize, and how to use them:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Terrain (not animated) - </b>Place the 28 x 36 custom terrain graphic in one of the custom sheets slots. To give a terrain type this graphic, add 1000 to the number of the slot the graphic is in, and put that number in the Terrain Picture field on the editing terrain window.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To use this graphic as the dialog picture in a dialog (created by a special node), select Display Dialog (Terrain pic) as the special node type. Add 1000 to the slot the graphic is in, and put that number in the Pict spot.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Terrain (animated) -</b> Animated terrain has four different graphics. Put the 4 graphics in 4 consecutive custom sheet slots. To give a terrain type this graphic, add 2000 to the number of the slot the first of the four graphics is in, and put that number in the Terrain Picture field on the editing terrain window.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Monster (1 x 1) - </b>There are 4 graphics needed: monster facing right, monster facing left, monster attacking facing right, and monster attacking facing left. Put these 4 graphics in 4 consecutive custom sheet slots. To give a monster type this graphic, add 1000 to the number of the slot the first of the four graphics is in, and put that number in the Monster Picture field on the editing monster window.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To use this graphic as the dialog picture in a dialog (created by a special node), select Display Dialog (Monster pic) as the special node type. Add 1000 to the slot the first of the 4 graphics is in, and put that number in the Pict spot.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Monster (2 x 1) -</b> There are 8 graphics needed: the left half and then the right half of the monster facing right, the left half and then the right half of the monster facing left, the 2 parts of the monster attacking facing right, and the 2 parts of the monster attacking facing left. Put these 8 graphics in 8 consecutive custom sheet slots. To give a monster type this graphic (and make is a 2 x 1 monster), add 2000 to the number of the slot the first of the four graphics is in, and put that number in the Monster Picture field on the editing monster window.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Monster (1 x 2), Monster (2 x 2) -</b> These 2 graphics require 8 and 16 custom sheet slots. Put the parts of the monster facing right, then facing left, then attacking right, then attacking left, with the parts arranged left to right and top to bottom. To give a monster type this graphic, add 3000 (if 1 x 2) or 4000 (if 2 x 2)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to the number of the slot the first of the four graphics is in, and put that number in the Monster Picture field on the editing monster window.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Dialog Picture -</b> You can put a custom 36 x 36 graphic in the upper left corner of a dialog box. Split the graphic into 2 18 x 36 halves, and put the 2 graphics in 2 consecutive custom sheet slots (pushed into the upper left corner).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To use this graphic as the dialog picture in a dialog (created by a special node), select Display Dialog (Dialog pic) as the special node type. Add 1000 to the slot the left half is in, and put that number in the Pict spot.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Item - </b>An item graphic takes up one 28 x 36 slot.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Add 150 to the slot the graphic is in, and put that number in the Item Picture field on the editing items window. You can only put new item graphics in the first 105 slots (the highest item graphic number Blades can handle is 255).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Face in Dialogue - </b>You can customize the face of a character the party is talking to. A dialogue face is a 32x32 graphic. Split the graphic into 2 16x32 halves, and put them in two adjacent slots (left half in one slot, and then the right half in the next slot). Add 1000 to the slot the left half is in, and put that number in the Facial Graphic space in the Editing a Townsperson/Monster window.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>For examples of using custom graphics, look at the scenarios that came with Blades of Exile. The three Blades of Exile scenarios, between them, contain examples of Custom Sheets with all of the different sorts of custom graphics.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h1>Section 12: Customizing Graphics</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>One of the best ways to put your own personal spin on your scenario is to give it your
|
||||
own graphics. You can provide your own graphics for monsters, items, terrain (animated or
|
||||
not), and dialog pictures (36 x 36).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>To create your own graphics, you need to use a painting program. The basic dimension of
|
||||
customized graphics is 28 x 36. The custom graphics must be arranged in a one single PICT
|
||||
(Macintosh) or .BMP file (Windows) which is 280 wide (wide enough for 10 graphics and some
|
||||
multiple of 36 (36,72, 108, etc.) high. This single graphic containing all your custom
|
||||
graphics is called the custom sheet.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The custom graphics are arranged on the custom sheet in rows, 10 to each row. Each row
|
||||
is considered to have 10 slots. The first ten slots are in the top row, the next 10 slots
|
||||
are in the next row, and so on. The upper left graphic is considered slot 0. The top row
|
||||
contains slots 0 to 9 (numbered left to right), the second row contains slots 11 to 20,
|
||||
and so on.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>How to Make Your Custom Sheet (Macintosh)</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Make your graphic in a painting program. Make it in the standard Macintosh 256 color
|
||||
palette. Find a copy of the freeware Apple utility ResEdit (available online, or at the
|
||||
Spiderweb Software web site, www.spidweb.com). Run it and make a new resource file. Give
|
||||
the file the same name as your scenario file, but with .meg at the end instead of .exs
|
||||
(for example, if your scenario is called swords.exs, title the graphics resource file
|
||||
swords.meg).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Select the custom sheet in your painting program, and copy it. Move to ResEdit, and
|
||||
select paste to paste your graphic into the resource file as a PICT. Double click on the
|
||||
PICT icon in the ResEdit window, and you will see your custom graphic. Click on it, hit
|
||||
Command-I, and give the PICT resource number 1. Save the file, and copy it into the Blades
|
||||
of Exile Scenario folder.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>How to Make Your Custom Sheet (Windows)</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>You must make your graphic in a painting program. However, you need to use a palette
|
||||
similar to the Blades of Exile palette. Create a copy of one of the Blades of Exile
|
||||
graphics files. Give the file the same name as your scenario file, but with .bmp at the
|
||||
end instead of .exs (for example, if your scenario is called swords.exs, title the bitmap
|
||||
file swords.bmp).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Open it with your painting program, and change its size to the size of your custom
|
||||
sheet. Draw your graphic here, so that you can be sure to be using the same palette as
|
||||
Blades of Exile. Place your bitmap file in the BLDSSCEN folder to use it.</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
<p>Note that Macintosh and Windows custom graphics are not compatible. If you don't know
|
||||
how to translate a custom graphics file, submit your full scenario at www.spidweb.com (or
|
||||
mail a copy on disk to us) and we'll translate your graphics file when we put your
|
||||
adventure on our web site (more on this in the next chapter).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Custom graphics can be drawn in the scenario editor. To see your custom graphics, place
|
||||
your custom graphics file in the same folder/directory as your scenario. If your graphics
|
||||
file isn't there, the custom graphics won't be known. This is a good way to test to make
|
||||
sure your custom graphics file is valid.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Placing and Using Your Custom Graphics</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you use custom graphics, you must arrange them properly on your custom sheet, and
|
||||
then tell the editor to use them. These are the graphics you can customize, and how to use
|
||||
them:</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
<p><b>Terrain (not animated) - </b>Place the 28 x 36 custom terrain graphic in one of the
|
||||
custom sheets slots. To give a terrain type this graphic, add 1000 to the number of the
|
||||
slot the graphic is in, and put that number in the Terrain Picture field on the editing
|
||||
terrain window.</p>
|
||||
<p>To use this graphic as the dialog picture in a dialog (created by a special node),
|
||||
select Display Dialog (Terrain pic) as the special node type. Add 1000 to the slot the
|
||||
graphic is in, and put that number in the Pict spot.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Terrain (animated) -</b> Animated terrain has four different graphics. Put the 4
|
||||
graphics in 4 consecutive custom sheet slots. To give a terrain type this graphic, add
|
||||
2000 to the number of the slot the first of the four graphics is in, and put that number
|
||||
in the Terrain Picture field on the editing terrain window.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Monster (1 x 1) - </b>There are 4 graphics needed: monster facing right, monster
|
||||
facing left, monster attacking facing right, and monster attacking facing left. Put these
|
||||
4 graphics in 4 consecutive custom sheet slots. To give a monster type this graphic, add
|
||||
1000 to the number of the slot the first of the four graphics is in, and put that number
|
||||
in the Monster Picture field on the editing monster window.</p>
|
||||
<p>To use this graphic as the dialog picture in a dialog (created by a special node),
|
||||
select Display Dialog (Monster pic) as the special node type. Add 1000 to the slot the
|
||||
first of the 4 graphics is in, and put that number in the Pict spot.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Monster (2 x 1) -</b> There are 8 graphics needed: the left half and then the right
|
||||
half of the monster facing right, the left half and then the right half of the monster
|
||||
facing left, the 2 parts of the monster attacking facing right, and the 2 parts of the
|
||||
monster attacking facing left. Put these 8 graphics in 8 consecutive custom sheet slots.
|
||||
To give a monster type this graphic (and make it a 2 x 1 monster), add 2000 to the number
|
||||
of the slot the first of the four graphics is in, and put that number in the Monster
|
||||
Picture field on the editing monster window.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Monster (1 x 2), Monster (2 x 2) -</b> These 2 graphics require 8 and 16 custom
|
||||
sheet slots. Put the parts of the monster facing right, then facing left, then attacking
|
||||
right, then attacking left, with the parts arranged left to right and top to bottom. To
|
||||
give a monster type this graphic, add 3000 (if 1 x 2) or 4000 (if 2 x 2) to the number of
|
||||
the slot the first of the four graphics is in, and put that number in the Monster Picture
|
||||
field on the editing monster window.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Dialog Picture -</b> You can put a custom 36 x 36 graphic in the upper left corner
|
||||
of a dialog box. Split the graphic into 2 18 x 36 halves, and put the 2 graphics in 2
|
||||
consecutive custom sheet slots (pushed into the upper left corner).</p>
|
||||
<p>To use this graphic as the dialog picture in a dialog (created by a special node),
|
||||
select Display Dialog (Dialog pic) as the special node type. Add 1000 to the slot the left
|
||||
half is in, and put that number in the Pict spot.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Item - </b>An item graphic takes up one 28 x 36 slot. Add 150 to the slot the
|
||||
graphic is in, and put that number in the Item Picture field on the editing items window.
|
||||
You can only put new item graphics in the first 105 slots (the highest item graphic number
|
||||
Blades can handle is 255).</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Face in Dialogue - </b>You can customize the face of a character the party is
|
||||
talking to. A dialogue face is a 32x32 graphic. Split the graphic into 2 16x32 halves, and
|
||||
put them in two adjacent slots (left half in one slot, and then the right half in the next
|
||||
slot). Add 1000 to the slot the left half is in, and put that number in the Facial Graphic
|
||||
space in the Editing a Townsperson/Monster window.</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
<p>For examples of using custom graphics, look at the scenarios that came with Blades of
|
||||
Exile. The three Blades of Exile scenarios, between them, contain examples of Custom
|
||||
Sheets with all of the different sorts of custom graphics.</p>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -12,51 +12,132 @@
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<h1>Section 8 - Editing Item Types</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Your default scenario comes with 383 premade item types, number 0 to 382, and you can have 400 item types overall. Like terrain types, you can customize the item types to suit your scenario. Click on Edit Item Types to bring up a list of items, and click on an item type to bring up the item editing window. This window has these options:</p>
|
||||
<p>Your default scenario comes with 383 premade item types, number 0 to 382, and you can
|
||||
have 400 item types overall. Like terrain types, you can customize the item types to suit
|
||||
your scenario. Click on Edit Item Types to bring up a list of items, and click on an item
|
||||
type to bring up the item editing window. This window has these options:</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li>Full Name, Unidentified Name: The names of the item the party sees when the item is identified (or unidentified).</li>
|
||||
<li>Item Picture: Press the Choose button to select an item icon.</li>
|
||||
<li>Item Type: The item's types are generally self-explanatory. The item types determine how many of each item can be equipped, and what affect each type has (armor protects, weapons can be used to attack, etc.). The item type determines which special abilities each item can have. For more on this, read about special abilities, farther on.</li>
|
||||
<li>Item level: Determines the strength of armor or weapons. The higher the number, the more damage the weapon does, or the more damage the armor prevents. It has no meaning for items that arent armor or weapons.</li>
|
||||
<li>Awkwardness: Determines how much the item interferes with performance in combat when equipped. The higher value, the more the interference.</li>
|
||||
<li>Bonus: Gives extra strength to armor and weapons. The higher the number, the more extra damage the weapon does, or the more extra damage the armor prevents. It has no meaning for items that arent armor or weapons.</li>
|
||||
<li>Protection: When the item is equipped, if it has a protection value, the item reduces damage in combat. The higher the number, the greater the reduction.</li>
|
||||
<li>Charges: The number of times the item can be used. Only has an effect for magical items (like potions) or missiles.</li>
|
||||
<li>Type Flag (Advanced): When a character gets several items of the same type (like darts or arrows), they will all be combined into one item. This happens when the items have the same type flag. You can have items have the same type flag, and thus be combined. Only give an item a type flag greater than 100 ... smaller type flags are reserved for the preset items.</li>
|
||||
<li>Value: The value of the item in gold.</li>
|
||||
<li>Weight: The weight of the item.</li>
|
||||
<li>Special Class (Advanced): Some special nodes (like Have Item With Class?) check to see if the party has a special item. Set an items special class here (0 for no special class).</li>
|
||||
<li><li>For example, an item Boat Ticket can have special class 1, and a special node which checks if the party has a ticket can check for special class 1. Note that items with a non-zero special class are taken away from the party when they leave the scenario.</li></li>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>An item can also have special abilities, like providing resistance to fire, or being a demon slaying weapon. To set an items special ability, press the Abilities button.</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<li>Setting Item Abilities (Advanced)</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you press the Abilities button, you will see the item ability dialog. Each item type can have a special ability. The types of abilities available range from shooting fireballs to weapons doing special damage to dragons to items being ingredients for alchemical recipes.</li>
|
||||
<p>There are two types of item abilities: usable and inherent.</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<li>Usable abilities: Usable item abilities are only activated by pressing the items use button on the PC inventory screen. Otherwise, the ability has no effect. Examples are a wand that shoots fireballs or a healing potion.</li>
|
||||
<p>Usable abilities are always linked to the items charges. Whenever an item with a usable ability is actually used, the items amount of charges goes down by 1. When the items charge level goes down to 0, the item disappears. An item with a usable ability must have at least 1 charge.</li>
|
||||
<p> The cash value of an item with a usable ability is calculated differently from normal items. The items actual cost is its value multiplied by the number of its charges. (Example: Suppose a Potion of Healing has a value of 100 and 2 charges. This potion would cost 200 gold and sell for half that.)</li>
|
||||
<p">Inherent Abilities: Inherent abilities are abilities that are always present and are activated automatically, as opposed to being activated by pressing the Use button on the PC Inventory screen. Examples are a shield with fire protection (which is activated automatically when the character takes fire damage) or comfrey root (whose ability is that it can be used as an alchemical ingredient, and which is used automatically when the party tries to make a potion with it).</li>
|
||||
<p>Some inherent abilities have charges (such as alchemical ingredients). When used, the amount of charges goes down by one. When there are no charges left, the item disappears. The name of inherent ability types that require charges have a (c) after them.The value of these items is calculated the same way as for Usable abilities.</li>
|
||||
<p>There are six different classes of item ability type, each with its own properties and varieties of items that can possess it. These are listed below, along with whether they are classes of Usable or Inherent abilities:</li>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li>Weapon Abilities (Inherent): Abilities of this type can be given to one and two handed weapons, weapon ammunition (darts, arrows, etc.) and non-ammunition missiles (like slings). None of these items have charges.</li>
|
||||
<li>General Abilities (Inherent): Abilities of this type can be given to non-missile items which can be equipped (e.g. rings, armor, sword, but not arrows) but not to items that cant (e.g. wands, potions). Only a few of these ability types require that the items having them have charges.</li>
|
||||
<li>Non-Spell Usable (Usable): Abilities of this type change the status of the party or individual character in some way, such as making them more or less poisoned, or raising or lowering health. Abilities of these types can be given to any item thats not a missile (e.g. arrows, bolts). Being usable item abilities, any item having one of these abilities must have charges.</li>
|
||||
<li>Spell Usable (Usable): Abilities of this type cast some sort of a spell, such as firing a fireball or summoning monsters. Abilities of these types can be given to any item thats not a missile (e.g. arrows, bolts). Being usable item abilities, any item having one of these abilities must have charges.</li>
|
||||
<li>Reagents (Inherent): Items with these abilities are alchemical ingredients, spell reagents (e.g. smoky crystals, sapphires), or similar substances. All items with an ability of this type must have charges, and must be of variety Non-use Object.</li>
|
||||
<li>Missiles (Inherent): These abilities can only be given to missiles (e.g. arrows, bolts, darts). Each ability is activated when the missile is fired (such as exploding a fireball on the target space).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Full Name, Unidentified Name:</b> The names of the item the party sees when the
|
||||
item is identified (or unidentified).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Item Picture:</b> Press the Choose button to select an item icon.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Item Type:</b> The item's types are generally self-explanatory. The item types
|
||||
determine how many of each item can be equipped, and what affect each type has (armor
|
||||
protects, weapons can be used to attack, etc.). The item type determines which special
|
||||
abilities each item can have. For more on this, read about special abilities, farther
|
||||
on.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Item level:</b> Determines the strength of armor or weapons. The higher the number,
|
||||
the more damage the weapon does, or the more damage the armor prevents. It has no meaning
|
||||
for items that aren't armor or weapons.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Awkwardness:</b> Determines how much the item interferes with performance in combat
|
||||
when equipped. The higher value, the more the interference.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Bonus:</b> Gives extra strength to armor and weapons. The higher the number, the more
|
||||
extra damage the weapon does, or the more extra damage the armor prevents. It has no
|
||||
meaning for items that aren't armor or weapons.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Protection:</b> When the item is equipped, if it has a protection value, the item
|
||||
reduces damage in combat. The higher the number, the greater the reduction.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Charges:</b> The number of times the item can be used. Only has an effect for magical
|
||||
items (like potions) or missiles.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Type Flag (Advanced):</b> When a character gets several items of the same type
|
||||
(like darts or arrows), they will all be combined into one item. This happens when the
|
||||
items have the same type flag. You can have items have the same type flag, and thus be
|
||||
combined. Only give an item a type flag greater than 100 ... smaller type flags are
|
||||
reserved for the preset items.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Value:</b> The value of the item in gold.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Weight:</b> The weight of the item.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Special Class (Advanced):<b> Some special nodes (like Have Item With Class?) check
|
||||
to see if the party has a special item. Set an item's special class here (0 for no special
|
||||
class).
|
||||
<p>For example, an item Boat Ticket can have special class 1, and a special node
|
||||
which checks if the party has a ticket can check for special class 1. Note that items with
|
||||
a non-zero special class are taken away from the party when they leave the
|
||||
scenario.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
<p>There are a wide variety of special abilities. The abilities (and the meaning of the Ability Strength field) are listed in the one of the Appendices.</li>
|
||||
<p> To select an ability, press one of the six buttons to the upper right. Each button brings up a menu with one of the six classes of special item. The items ability strength (a number from 0 - 10, 10 is strongest) can be entered in the text area just below. The other buttons set other item properties:</li>
|
||||
<li>Item Use Properties: For items that affect the party (like healing, or curing/causing poison), you can have use of the item help only the using person, help the entire party, hurt the using PC, or hurt the entire party. For example, if the ability is Slow/Haste, and hurt the entire party is selected, then the item slows the entire party when it is used.</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>An item can also have special abilities, like providing resistance to fire, or being a
|
||||
demon slaying weapon. To set an item's special ability, press the Abilities button.</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Setting Item Abilities (Advanced)</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you press the Abilities button, you will see the item ability dialog. Each item
|
||||
type can have a special ability. The types of abilities available range from shooting
|
||||
fireballs to weapons doing special damage to dragons to items being ingredients for
|
||||
alchemical recipes.</li>
|
||||
<p>There are two types of item abilities: usable and inherent.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li>Usable abilities: Usable item abilities are only activated by pressing the item's use
|
||||
button on the PC inventory screen. Otherwise, the ability has no effect. Examples are a
|
||||
wand that shoots fireballs or a healing potion.
|
||||
<p>Usable abilities are always linked to the item's charges. Whenever an item with a usable
|
||||
ability is actually used, the items amount of charges goes down by 1. When the items
|
||||
charge level goes down to 0, the item disappears. An item with a usable ability must have
|
||||
at least 1 charge.</p>
|
||||
<p>The cash value of an item with a usable ability is calculated differently from normal
|
||||
items. The item's actual cost is its value multiplied by the number of its charges.
|
||||
(Example: Suppose a Potion of Healing has a value of 100 and 2 charges. This potion would
|
||||
cost 200 gold and sell for half that.)</li>
|
||||
<li>Inherent Abilities: Inherent abilities are abilities that are always present and are
|
||||
activated automatically, as opposed to being activated by pressing the Use button on the
|
||||
PC Inventory screen. Examples are a shield with fire protection (which is activated
|
||||
automatically when the character takes fire damage) or comfrey root (whose ability is that
|
||||
it can be used as an alchemical ingredient, and which is used automatically when the party
|
||||
tries to make a potion with it).
|
||||
<p>Some inherent abilities have charges (such as alchemical ingredients). When used, the
|
||||
amount of charges goes down by one. When there are no charges left, the item disappears.
|
||||
The name of inherent ability types that require charges have a (c) after them. The value of
|
||||
these items is calculated the same way as for Usable abilities.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are six different classes of item ability type, each with its own properties and
|
||||
varieties of items that can possess it. These are listed below, along with whether they
|
||||
are classes of Usable or Inherent abilities:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li>Weapon Abilities (Inherent): Abilities of this type can be given to one and two handed
|
||||
weapons, weapon ammunition (darts, arrows, etc.) and non-ammunition missiles (like
|
||||
slings). None of these items have charges.</li>
|
||||
<li>General Abilities (Inherent): Abilities of this type can be given to non-missile items
|
||||
which can be equipped (e.g. rings, armor, sword, but not arrows) but not to items that
|
||||
can't (e.g. wands, potions). Only a few of these ability types require that the items
|
||||
having them have charges.</li>
|
||||
<li>Non-Spell Usable (Usable): Abilities of this type change the status of the party or
|
||||
individual character in some way, such as making them more or less poisoned, or raising or
|
||||
lowering health. Abilities of these types can be given to any item that's not a missile
|
||||
(e.g. arrows, bolts). Being usable item abilities, any item having one of these abilities
|
||||
must have charges.</li>
|
||||
<li>Spell Usable (Usable): Abilities of this type cast some sort of a spell, such as
|
||||
firing a fireball or summoning monsters. Abilities of these types can be given to any item
|
||||
that's not a missile (e.g. arrows, bolts). Being usable item abilities, any item having one
|
||||
of these abilities must have charges.</li>
|
||||
<li>Reagents (Inherent): Items with these abilities are alchemical ingredients, spell
|
||||
reagents (e.g. smoky crystals, sapphires), or similar substances. All items with an
|
||||
ability of this type must have charges, and must be of variety Non-use Object.</li>
|
||||
<li>Missiles (Inherent): These abilities can only be given to missiles (e.g. arrows,
|
||||
bolts, darts). Each ability is activated when the missile is fired (such as exploding a
|
||||
fireball on the target space).</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There are a wide variety of special abilities. The abilities (and the meaning of the
|
||||
Ability Strength field) are listed in the one of the Appendices.</li>
|
||||
<p> To select an ability, press one of the six buttons to the upper right. Each button
|
||||
brings up a menu with one of the six classes of special item. The item's ability strength
|
||||
(a number from 0 - 10, 10 is strongest) can be entered in the text area just below. The
|
||||
other buttons set other item properties:</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li>Item Use Properties: For items that affect the party (like healing, or curing/causing
|
||||
poison), you can have use of the item help only the using person, help the entire party,
|
||||
hurt the using PC, or hurt the entire party. For example, if the ability is Slow/Haste,
|
||||
and hurt the entire party is selected, then the item slows the entire party when it is
|
||||
used.</li>
|
||||
<li>Always Identified: If selected, whenever the item is found, it will be identified.</li>
|
||||
<li>Magical: The item is magical, and thus cant be augmented by people in towns.</li>
|
||||
<li>Cursed: The item is cursed, and a PC equips it, it cant be removed until the curse is removed.</li>
|
||||
<li>Conceal Ability: When item info is selected for the item, the player wont be told what the special ability is.</li>
|
||||
<li>Item Treasure Class: Determines how often the item is left as a treasure by slain monsters. The higher the class the less often it is left. If Junk, not left is selected, the item will never be found on dead monsters.</li>
|
||||
<li>Magical: The item is magical, and thus can't be augmented by people in towns.</li>
|
||||
<li>Cursed: The item is cursed, and a PC equips it, it can't be removed until the curse is
|
||||
removed.</li>
|
||||
<li>Conceal Ability: When item info is selected for the item, the player won't be told what
|
||||
the special ability is.</li>
|
||||
<li>Item Treasure Class: Determines how often the item is left as a treasure by slain
|
||||
monsters. The higher the class the less often it is left. If Junk, not left is selected,
|
||||
the item will never be found on dead monsters.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -10,80 +10,135 @@
|
||||
<noscript>Javascript required for the navbar.</noscript>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<p class="p1"><b>Section 7 - Editing Monster Types</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Your default scenario comes with 187 premade monster types, number 1 to 187, and you can have 256 monster types overall. Like terrain types, you can customize the monster types to suit your scenario. Click on Edit Monster Types to bring up a list of creatures, and click on a monster type to bring up the monster editing window. This window has these options:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Monster Name:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The name of the creature.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Level:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Determines how much morale and skill the creature has. You should make this at least 1.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Health:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Number of health points.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Armor:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The damage from each weapon blow is reduced by a random amount from 1 to this number.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Skill:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Determines chance of hitting and gives an extra damage bonus.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Speed:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Number of action points monster gets each turn.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Mage Spells, Priest Spells:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Strength of spells creature casts. This is from 0 - 7, 0 meaning no spells and 7 meaning the strongest spells.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Attack Damage Number of Dice and Sides:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> The amount of damage the monster does when it hits. For example, if a blow does eight dice of damage, each of which has 11 sides, the program generates 8 random numbers from 1 to 11, adds them up, and does that much damage. A monster can have up to 3 different attacks.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Monster Type:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Press Choose to pick a monster type (e.g. human, insect, demon, etc.).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Attack 1 Type, Attack 2-3 Type:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Press Choose to select an attack type (e.g. bite, claw, etc.)</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Treasure:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Determines how much treasure the monster leaves when killed (0 - none, to 4 - lots). Dont have common creatures leave treasure of type 3 or 4.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Default Talking Picture:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Press Choose to select the default picture the player sees when talking to this character. This can be changed for individual creatures when editing towns.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Default Attitude:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b> Select the attitude the monster has when first placed (which can be changed when the monster is placed, using the Edit Monster button).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The monster type can also have a wide variety of special abilities. To edit them, press the Abilities button.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><b></b><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Editing Monster Abilities</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The monster abilities screen has a wide variety of options.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Monster Poison -</b> A number from 0 to 8 (0 - none, 8 - powerful).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Breath Weapon, Breath Weapon Type -</b> The weapon is a number from 0 to 40 (0 - none, 40 - strong). This is the number of random numbers from 1 to 8 to sum to generate the breath damage. The type is the damage type of the breath (e.g. fire, cold, etc.).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Special Ability - </b>Press choose to pick the monsters special ability. These are listed in the Monster Abilities section, later in this chapter.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Summon Type -</b> Determines whether the monster can be summoned by the mages summoning spells. Type 1 monsters are easy to summon, while Type 3 monsters require much more powerful spells. If No Summon is selected, spells never summon the monster.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Create Monsters/Fields -</b> Press choose to pick the monsters ability to summon aid or radiate magical fields. Several of these require giving an extra value in the text area just below. The abilities and values needed are listed in the Monster Abilities section, later in this chapter.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Item To Drop When Killed, Chance of Dropping -</b> The number of an item to place when the monster is killed (like a spider fang when a spider is killed in Exile), and the chance to place it (0 - 100).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Monster Resistances -</b> You can have the monster take half or no damage from fire, cold, magic, and poison.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><b></b><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Monster Abilities:</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>There are two different classes of monster abilities: regular special abilities and fields/summoning abilities. The regular abilities are:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>No Ability -</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>No special ability.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Missile abilities (Throw darts, Shoot arrows, etc.) - </b>Monster fires missiles.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Petrification Ray -</b> Monster fires ray which has chance of turning victim to stone.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Spell Point Drain Ray - </b>Monster fires ray which drains spell points.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Heat Ray -</b> Monster fires ray which does fire damage.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Invisible -</b> Monster cant be seen. You can select a graphic for this creature, but its only seen when editing the town, not playing the scenario.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Splits When Hit -</b> When hit, monster splits into two weaker creatures. Dont give creatures like this too many health points.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Mindless -</b> Creature is immune to fear.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Breathes Stinking Clouds -</b> Monster fires clouds of stinking cloud.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Icy Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim takes cold damage.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Experience Draining Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim loses experience.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Icy and Draining Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim loses experience and takes cold damage.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Slowing Touch - </b>When hitting in combat, victim is slowed.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Shoots Webs -</b> Monster fires globs of web.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Steals Food -</b> When hitting in combat, victim loses food.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Permanent Martyrs Shield - </b>Anyone hitting creature in combat takes damage.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Paralysis Ray -</b> Monster fires ray which paralyzes target.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Dumbfounding Touch - </b>When hitting in combat, victim is dumbfounded.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Disease Touch - </b>When hitting in combat, victim is diseased.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Paralysis Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim has chance of being paralyzed.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Petrification Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim has chance of being turned to stone.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Acid Touch - </b>When hitting in combat, victim is covered with acid.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Breathe Sleep Clouds - </b>Monster fires sleep clouds.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Acid Spit - </b>Monster spits globs of acidic spittle.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Death Touch - </b>When hitting in combat, victim has chance of dying.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Invulnerable - </b>Creature practically immune to damage.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Guard -</b> Creature is a guard. When the party commits a crime and makes the town hostile, it becomes stronger and will immediately seek out the party to kill them (even if it started out immobile).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Each monster can also radiate dangerous fields, or summon monsters to its aid. Press the Choose button to select one of these abilities. You will then need to input an extra value into the text area just below:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Radiate Fire Fields (or ice, shock, antimagic, sleep, or stink fields): </b>The monster occasionally surrounds itself with a field of the selected sort. The extra value is the chance of the creature doing so on any given turn.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>If a creature radiates fire fields, you probably shouldnt put it near creatures who arent immune to fire.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Summon (%5, %20, %50 chance):<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>The extra value is the number of the creature this creature occasionally summons. The chance is the chance each turn of the creature appearing.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Death Triggers Scenario Special (Advanced) :</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The extra value is the number of a scenario special node, which is called when a creature of this type is killed.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Some Monsters Should be Left Alone</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Certain monster types are summoned by mage spells, and should be left alone. These monster types are Guardian, Demon, Snake, Asp, Shade, and Deva.</p>
|
||||
<h1>Section 7 - Editing Monster Types</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Your default scenario comes with 187 premade monster types, number 1 to 187, and you
|
||||
can have 256 monster types overall. Like terrain types, you can customize the monster
|
||||
types to suit your scenario. Click on Edit Monster Types to bring up a list of creatures,
|
||||
and click on a monster type to bring up the monster editing window. This window has these
|
||||
options:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>Monster Name:</b> The name of the creature.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Level:</b> Determines how much morale and skill the creature has. You should make
|
||||
this at least 1.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Health:</b> Number of health points.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Armor:</b> The damage from each weapon blow is reduced by a random amount from 1 to
|
||||
this number.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Skill:</b> Determines chance of hitting and gives an extra damage bonus.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Speed:</b> Number of action points monster gets each turn.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Mage Spells, Priest Spells:</b> Strength of spells creature casts. This is from 0 -
|
||||
7, 0 meaning no spells and 7 meaning the strongest spells.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Attack Damage Number of Dice and Sides:</b> The amount of damage the monster does
|
||||
when it hits. For example, if a blow does eight dice of damage, each of which has 11
|
||||
sides, the program generates 8 random numbers from 1 to 11, adds them up, and does that
|
||||
much damage. A monster can have up to 3 different attacks.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Monster Type:</b> Press Choose to pick a monster type (e.g. human, insect, demon,
|
||||
etc.).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Attack 1 Type, Attack 2-3 Type:</b> Press Choose to select an attack type (e.g. bite,
|
||||
claw, etc.)</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Treasure:</b> Determines how much treasure the monster leaves when killed (0 - none,
|
||||
to 4 - lots). Don't have common creatures leave treasure of type 3 or 4.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Default Talking Picture:</b> Press Choose to select the default picture the player
|
||||
sees when talking to this character. This can be changed for individual creatures when
|
||||
editing towns.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Default Attitude:</b> Select the attitude the monster has when first placed (which
|
||||
can be changed when the monster is placed, using the Edit Monster button).</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The monster type can also have a wide variety of special abilities. To edit them, press
|
||||
the Abilities button.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Editing Monster Abilities</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The monster abilities screen has a wide variety of options.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>Monster Poison -</b> A number from 0 to 8 (0 - none, 8 - powerful).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Breath Weapon, Breath Weapon Type -</b> The weapon is a number from 0 to 40 (0 -
|
||||
none, 40 - strong). This is the number of random numbers from 1 to 8 to sum to generate
|
||||
the breath damage. The type is the damage type of the breath (e.g. fire, cold, etc.).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Special Ability - </b> Press choose to pick the monster's special ability. These are
|
||||
listed in the Monster Abilities section, later in this chapter.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Summon Type -</b> Determines whether the monster can be summoned by the mages
|
||||
summoning spells. Type 1 monsters are easy to summon, while Type 3 monsters require much
|
||||
more powerful spells. If No Summon is selected, spells never summon the monster.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Create Monsters/Fields -</b> Press choose to pick the monster's ability to summon aid
|
||||
or radiate magical fields. Several of these require giving an extra value in the text area
|
||||
just below. The abilities and values needed are listed in the Monster Abilities section,
|
||||
later in this chapter.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Item To Drop When Killed, Chance of Dropping -</b> The number of an item to place
|
||||
when the monster is killed (like a spider fang when a spider is killed in Exile), and the
|
||||
chance to place it (0 - 100).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Monster Resistances -</b> You can have the monster take half or no damage from fire,
|
||||
cold, magic, and poison.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Monster Abilities:</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There are two different classes of monster abilities: regular special abilities and
|
||||
fields/summoning abilities. The regular abilities are:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>No Ability -</b> No special ability.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Missile abilities (Throw darts, Shoot arrows, etc.) - </b>Monster fires
|
||||
missiles.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Petrification Ray -</b> Monster fires ray which has chance of turning victim to
|
||||
stone.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Spell Point Drain Ray - </b> Monster fires ray which drains spell points.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Heat Ray -</b> Monster fires ray which does fire damage.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Invisible -</b> Monster can't be seen. You can select a graphic for this creature,
|
||||
but it's only seen when editing the town, not playing the scenario.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Splits When Hit -</b> When hit, monster splits into two weaker creatures. Don't give
|
||||
creatures like this too many health points.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Mindless -</b> Creature is immune to fear.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Breathes Stinking Clouds -</b> Monster fires clouds of stinking cloud.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Icy Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim takes cold damage.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Experience Draining Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim loses experience.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Icy and Draining Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim loses experience and
|
||||
takes cold damage.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Slowing Touch - </b> When hitting in combat, victim is slowed.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Shoots Webs -</b> Monster fires globs of web.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Steals Food -</b> When hitting in combat, victim loses food.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Permanent Martyrs Shield - </b> Anyone hitting creature in combat takes damage.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Paralysis Ray -</b> Monster fires ray which paralyzes target.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Dumbfounding Touch - </b> When hitting in combat, victim is dumbfounded.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Disease Touch - </b> When hitting in combat, victim is diseased.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Paralysis Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim has chance of being
|
||||
paralyzed.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Petrification Touch -</b> When hitting in combat, victim has chance of being turned
|
||||
to stone.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Acid Touch - </b> When hitting in combat, victim is covered with acid.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Breathe Sleep Clouds - </b>Monster fires sleep clouds.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Acid Spit - </b> Monster spits globs of acidic spittle.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Death Touch - </b> When hitting in combat, victim has chance of dying.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Invulnerable - </b> Creature practically immune to damage.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Guard -</b> Creature is a guard. When the party commits a crime and makes the town
|
||||
hostile, it becomes stronger and will immediately seek out the party to kill them (even if
|
||||
it started out immobile).</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Each monster can also radiate dangerous fields, or summon monsters to its aid. Press
|
||||
the Choose button to select one of these abilities. You will then need to input an extra
|
||||
value into the text area just below:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>Radiate Fire Fields (or ice, shock, antimagic, sleep, or stink fields): </b>The
|
||||
monster occasionally surrounds itself with a field of the selected sort. The extra value
|
||||
is the chance of the creature doing so on any given turn.</li>
|
||||
<li>If a creature radiates fire fields, you probably shouldn't put it near creatures who
|
||||
aren't immune to fire.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Summon (%5, %20, %50 chance):</b> The extra value is the number of the creature this
|
||||
creature occasionally summons. The chance is the chance each turn of the creature
|
||||
appearing.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Death Triggers Scenario Special (Advanced):</b> The extra value is the number of a
|
||||
scenario special node, which is called when a creature of this type is killed.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Some Monsters Should be Left Alone</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Certain monster types are summoned by mage spells, and should be left alone. These
|
||||
monster types are Guardian, Demon, Snake, Asp, Shade, and Deva.</p>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -11,30 +11,71 @@
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<h1>Section 4 - Editing the Outdoors</h1>
|
||||
<p>When you press Edit Outdoor Section at the main menu, you will find yourself in the outdoor editing screen. Here, you can edit your outdoor sections terrain, special encounters, wandering monsters, etc.</p>
|
||||
<p>When you press Edit Outdoor Section at the main menu, you will find yourself in the
|
||||
outdoor editing screen. Here, you can edit your outdoor sections terrain, special
|
||||
encounters, wandering monsters, etc.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>The Outdoor Editing Screen</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The areas of the outdoor editing screen are as follows:</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Terrain Editing Area</em> - This is where you view the terrain, items, and monsters you have placed, and place new things. To shift the view in the terrain area around, click on its border (click on the top border to shift the view up, etc.) or use the keypad. When placing a monster, item, etc., click on the appropriate space in the terrain area. To draw a spot of terrain, do the same thing. For more discussion of drawing terrain, read the Drawing Terrain section later in this chapter. One useful shortcut for moving around: Control clicking (or right clicking for Windows users) on the terrain border (or control pressing a keypad key) moves the terrain view as far as it can go in that direction.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Terrain Selection Area</em> - To draw a certain sort of terrain, click on that terrains icon in the upper right hand corner. For a list of all the default terrain types and what they do, look in the appendices. Many of the terrain types have small icons, each of which represents special property. These are described in the Special Icons section, later in this chapter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Current Location</em> - Each space in an outdoor section or town has a coordinate, a pair of numbers that uniquely identifies it. These numbers are the X coordinate, which is the column the space is in (0 the leftmost column, 47 the rightmost), and the Y coordinate, which represents the row the space is in (0 the top, 47 the bottom). For example, the upper left space is X = 0, Y = 0, and the lower left space is Y = 0, Y = 47. This Current Location area tells you the current location of the center space in the terrain view.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Editing Buttons</em> - These buttons activate the many useful features the scenario editor has. To find out what they do, read the section Editing Buttons.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Current Terrain</em> - The terrain type currently being drawn is shown to the right of the editing buttons.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Terrain Editing Area</em> - This is where you view the terrain, items, and
|
||||
monsters you have placed, and place new things. To shift the view in the terrain area
|
||||
around, click on its border (click on the top border to shift the view up, etc.) or use
|
||||
the keypad. When placing a monster, item, etc., click on the appropriate space in the
|
||||
terrain area. To draw a spot of terrain, do the same thing. For more discussion of drawing
|
||||
terrain, read the Drawing Terrain section later in this chapter. One useful shortcut for
|
||||
moving around: Control clicking (or right clicking for Windows users) on the terrain
|
||||
border (or control pressing a keypad key) moves the terrain view as far as it can go in
|
||||
that direction.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Terrain Selection Area</em> - To draw a certain sort of terrain, click on that
|
||||
terrain's icon in the upper right hand corner. For a list of all the default terrain types
|
||||
and what they do, look in the appendices. Many of the terrain types have small icons, each
|
||||
of which represents special property. These are described in the Special Icons section,
|
||||
later in this chapter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Current Location</em> - Each space in an outdoor section or town has a coordinate,
|
||||
a pair of numbers that uniquely identifies it. These numbers are the X coordinate, which
|
||||
is the column the space is in (0 the leftmost column, 47 the rightmost), and the Y
|
||||
coordinate, which represents the row the space is in (0 the top, 47 the bottom). For
|
||||
example, the upper left space is X = 0, Y = 0, and the lower left space is Y = 0, Y = 47.
|
||||
This Current Location area tells you the current location of the center space in the
|
||||
terrain view.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Editing Buttons</em> - These buttons activate the many useful features the
|
||||
scenario editor has. To find out what they do, read the section Editing Buttons.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Current Terrain</em> - The terrain type currently being drawn is shown to the
|
||||
right of the editing buttons.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Editing Terrain</h2>
|
||||
<p>In all probability, the bulk of your scenario editing time will be spent painting the terrain onto the empty canvas of a blank town or outdoor section. While this can often be painful, tedious work, there are a number of shortcuts available to aid in the task.</p>
|
||||
<p>Painting terrain works much like in any sort of painting program. To draw a line of walls, click on the wall icon to the right, move the cursor onto the terrain area, press the mouse button, and hold it down. Move the cursor in the shape of the desired wall, and release the button when done.</p>
|
||||
<p>if you click onto a spot of terrain which is the same as the terrain you are painting, the spot will be erased, and replaced with a spot of ground. This spot of ground will be either cave floor or grass (whichever one you last placed).</p>
|
||||
<p>There are two very important shortcuts available when drawing terrain, which make the job much less painful. First, the Blades of Exile editor will automatically adjust cave walls, mountains, hills, and water so that the edges line up properly (for example, if you draw a 3 x 3 square of cave wall, the editor will automatically place cave wall corner terrain in the corners of the square). Along similar lines, because mountains must be edged by hills to look right, when you draw mountains, ground around the mountains will be replaced by hills. Also, when you draw one half of a two space pile of rubble, the editor will automatically fill in the other half.</p>
|
||||
<p>The second shortcut is the customizable keyboard shortcuts available for the terrain types. For example, when you press w repeatedly, the currently drawn terrain will cycle through the 3 different sorts of basic walls. See the chapter on Editing Terrain Types to find out how to change these shortcuts. The shortcuts for the default scenario are:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>In all probability, the bulk of your scenario editing time will be spent painting the
|
||||
terrain onto the empty canvas of a blank town or outdoor section. While this can often be
|
||||
painful, tedious work, there are a number of shortcuts available to aid in the task.</p>
|
||||
<p>Painting terrain works much like in any sort of painting program. To draw a line of
|
||||
walls, click on the wall icon to the right, move the cursor onto the terrain area, press
|
||||
the mouse button, and hold it down. Move the cursor in the shape of the desired wall, and
|
||||
release the button when done.</p>
|
||||
<p>if you click onto a spot of terrain which is the same as the terrain you are painting,
|
||||
the spot will be erased, and replaced with a spot of ground. This spot of ground will be
|
||||
either cave floor or grass (whichever one you last placed).</p>
|
||||
<p>There are two very important shortcuts available when drawing terrain, which make the
|
||||
job much less painful. First, the Blades of Exile editor will automatically adjust cave
|
||||
walls, mountains, hills, and water so that the edges line up properly (for example, if you
|
||||
draw a 3 x 3 square of cave wall, the editor will automatically place cave wall corner
|
||||
terrain in the corners of the square). Along similar lines, because mountains must be
|
||||
edged by hills to look right, when you draw mountains, ground around the mountains will be
|
||||
replaced by hills. Also, when you draw one half of a two space pile of rubble, the editor
|
||||
will automatically fill in the other half.</p>
|
||||
<p>The second shortcut is the customizable keyboard shortcuts available for the terrain
|
||||
types. For example, when you press w repeatedly, the currently drawn terrain will cycle
|
||||
through the 3 different sorts of basic walls. See the chapter on Editing Terrain Types to
|
||||
find out how to change these shortcuts. The shortcuts for the default scenario are:</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">a</span> - Cave Wall</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">b</span> - Bed</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">c</span> - Cave Floor</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">d</span> - Doors (3 sorts, press <span class="key">d</span> repeatedly to cycle through them)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">d</span> - Doors (3 sorts, press <span class="key">d</span>
|
||||
repeatedly to cycle through them)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">e</span> - Dresser</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">f</span> - Floors (3 sorts)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">g</span> - Grass</li>
|
||||
@@ -42,85 +83,178 @@
|
||||
<li><span class="key">l</span> - Water, Dark Blue Water, Lava</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">m</span> - Mountain</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">p</span> - Pillars (2 sorts)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">r</span> - Rubble (4 sorts: cave, cave 2 x 1, grass, grass 2 x 1)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">s</span> - Cave Stuff (4 sorts: 2 types of mushrooms, small stalagmites, large stalagmites)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">r</span> - Rubble (4 sorts: cave, cave 2 x 1, grass, grass 2 x
|
||||
1)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">s</span> - Cave Stuff (4 sorts: 2 types of mushrooms, small
|
||||
stalagmites, large stalagmites)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">t</span> - Trees (5 types)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">w</span> - Walls (3 types)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">x</span> - Windows (3 types)</li>
|
||||
<li><span class="key">y</span> - Chairs (4 types)</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you place a sign, you will immediately be asked what the sign will say when someone looks at it.</p>
|
||||
<p>When you scroll to the edge of the outdoor section, you will be able to see one space of the next section. For example, if you scroll to the top of the view, you will see the bottom row of terrain spots in the next outdoor section to the north. You cant edit this row - its just there to help you line the terrain up.</p>
|
||||
<p>Rectangles with special descriptions are marked in the terrain screen as red rectangles.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two terrain types that requires special care are grass and cave walkways (near the end of the fifth row). The corners of walkways are rounded off when the game draws them. When cave walkways (the first of the two, marked with a C) are rounded off, it is with cave floor. When grass walkways (the second of the two, marked with a G) are rounded off, grass if drawn. Make sure to only use cave walkways around cave floor, and grass walkways around grass floor.</p> <!-- TODO: Didn't this get redone? -->
|
||||
<p>When you place a sign, you will immediately be asked what the sign will say when
|
||||
someone looks at it.</p>
|
||||
<p>When you scroll to the edge of the outdoor section, you will be able to see one space
|
||||
of the next section. For example, if you scroll to the top of the view, you will see the
|
||||
bottom row of terrain spots in the next outdoor section to the north. You can't edit this
|
||||
row - it's just there to help you line the terrain up.</p>
|
||||
<p>Rectangles with special descriptions are marked in the terrain screen as red
|
||||
rectangles.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two terrain types that require special care are grass and cave walkways (near the end
|
||||
of the fifth row). The corners of walkways are rounded off when the game draws them. When
|
||||
cave walkways (the first of the two, marked with a C) are rounded off, it is with cave
|
||||
floor. When grass walkways (the second of the two, marked with a G) are rounded off, grass
|
||||
is drawn. Make sure to only use cave walkways around cave floor, and grass walkways around
|
||||
grass floor.</p> <!-- TODO: Didn't this get redone? -->
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Editing Buttons</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<div class="figure">
|
||||
<img src="../img/edoutbtns.gif" alt="Terrain Editing Buttons">
|
||||
<p>Figure 1: Terrain Editing Buttons</p>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<p>There are 23 different buttons for use while editing the outdoors (see figure above for a diagram of button positions).</p>
|
||||
<p>There are 23 different buttons for use while editing the outdoors (see figure above for
|
||||
a diagram of button positions).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ol>
|
||||
<li>Draw Terrain: Press to draw terrain normally.</li>
|
||||
<li>Big Paintbrush: Draw a circle of terrain (9 wide).</li>
|
||||
<li>Small Paintbrush: Draw a small circle of terrain (3 wide).</li>
|
||||
<li>Large Spraycan: Spray a random sprinkling of terrain (area to spray on is a 9 diameter circle). The spray can will only place the terrain on ground. it wont spray onto walls, floor, etc.</li>
|
||||
<li>Small Spraycan: Spray a random sprinkling of terrain (area to spray on is a 3 diameter circle).</li>
|
||||
<li>Large Spraycan: Spray a random sprinkling of terrain (area to spray on is a 9 diameter
|
||||
circle). The spray can will only place the terrain on ground. It won't spray onto walls,
|
||||
floor, etc.</li>
|
||||
<li>Small Spraycan: Spray a random sprinkling of terrain (area to spray on is a 3 diameter
|
||||
circle).</li>
|
||||
<li>Eyedropper: Click on a terrain spot to make that spot the current terrain.</li>
|
||||
<li>Empty Rectangle: Create a rectangle of the current terrain. Only the edges of the rectangle are drawn with that terrain. The inside is left alone. To place a rectangle, press this button, select the upper left corner of the rectangle (on the terrain area), and then select the lower right corner.</li>
|
||||
<li>Full Rectangle: Like Empty Rectangle, except that the rectangle selected is filled with the current terrain.</li>
|
||||
<li>Change View: Change the terrain view from zoomed in to zoomed out, and back again. When zoomed out, you cant see monsters or items, but you can get an overall look at your work. Also, you probably only want to use the large paintbrush in this view.</li>
|
||||
<li>Eraser: Replace a 3x3 square around the area selected with the current ground (cave floor or grass, depending on which you last drew).</li>
|
||||
<li>Edit Sign Text: Change the text on a sign. Press this button, and then click on the sign to edit.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set Area Description: Each outdoor section can have up to eight rectangles with brief area descriptions, which appear on the text bar in the game when the party enters the rectangle. To place a description, press this button, click on the upper left corner of the rectangle to place, and finally click on the lower right corner. You will be asked for the areas description. To change the description or delete an area, select Edit Area Descriptions in the Outdoor menu.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Wandering Monster Location: There are always four spaces in an outdoor section where wandering monsters can appear. To set these locations, press this button, and click on the four spots in your terrain. Be careful not to place these spaces in water, mountains, or other inaccessible spots.</li>
|
||||
<li>Replace Terrain: You can have the program go through your terrain and randomly chance spots of one terrain type to another (for example, to make a forest, you can change grass to trees). To do so, press this button.</li>
|
||||
<li> When you do, a dialog box will come up. Enter the number of the terrain to change in the first box (to select a terrain type, press the Choose button), the terrain to change it to in the second box, and the chance of any given spot being changed in the third box (0-100, 0 being never and 100 being always). Press OK to do the replacement.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set Town Entry: Set the town that is entered when the party walks into a town/dungeon/tower space in the outdoors. To place a town, draw a town spot in your outdoor section, press this button, click on the town, and enter the number of the town to be entered.</li>
|
||||
<li>Empty Rectangle: Create a rectangle of the current terrain. Only the edges of the
|
||||
rectangle are drawn with that terrain. The inside is left alone. To place a rectangle,
|
||||
press this button, select the upper left corner of the rectangle (on the terrain area),
|
||||
and then select the lower right corner.</li>
|
||||
<li>Full Rectangle: Like Empty Rectangle, except that the rectangle selected is filled
|
||||
with the current terrain.</li>
|
||||
<li>Change View: Change the terrain view from zoomed in to zoomed out, and back again.
|
||||
When zoomed out, you can't see monsters or items, but you can get an overall look at your
|
||||
work. Also, you probably only want to use the large paintbrush in this view.</li>
|
||||
<li>Eraser: Replace a 3x3 square around the area selected with the current ground (cave
|
||||
floor or grass, depending on which you last drew).</li>
|
||||
<li>Edit Sign Text: Change the text on a sign. Press this button, and then click on the
|
||||
sign to edit.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set Area Description: Each outdoor section can have up to eight rectangles with brief
|
||||
area descriptions, which appear on the text bar in the game when the party enters the
|
||||
rectangle. To place a description, press this button, click on the upper left corner of
|
||||
the rectangle to place, and finally click on the lower right corner. You will be asked for
|
||||
the area's description. To change the description or delete an area, select Edit Area
|
||||
Descriptions in the Outdoor menu.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Wandering Monster Location: There are always four spaces in an outdoor section
|
||||
where wandering monsters can appear. To set these locations, press this button, and click
|
||||
on the four spots in your terrain. Be careful not to place these spaces in water,
|
||||
mountains, or other inaccessible spots.</li>
|
||||
<li>Replace Terrain: You can have the program go through your terrain and randomly change
|
||||
spots of one terrain type to another (for example, to make a forest, you can change grass
|
||||
to trees). To do so, press this button.</li>
|
||||
<li> When you do, a dialog box will come up. Enter the number of the terrain to change in
|
||||
the first box (to select a terrain type, press the Choose button), the terrain to change
|
||||
it to in the second box, and the chance of any given spot being changed in the third box
|
||||
(0-100, 0 being never and 100 being always). Press OK to do the replacement.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set Town Entry: Set the town that is entered when the party walks into a
|
||||
town/dungeon/tower space in the outdoors. To place a town, draw a town spot in your
|
||||
outdoor section, press this button, click on the town, and enter the number of the town to
|
||||
be entered.</li>
|
||||
<li>Edit Item: Not used in outdoor editing.</li>
|
||||
<li>Duplicate Item: Not used in outdoor editing.</li>
|
||||
<li>Erase Item: Not used in outdoor editing.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place/Edit Special Encounter (Advanced) : To place a special encounter on a space, press this button and click on the space. To edit a special encounter, press this button, and click on the special encounter. To find out about special encounters, read the Special Encounters chapter in the next section.</li>
|
||||
<li>Copy Special (Advanced) : If you want several copies of the same special encounter in your outdoor section, you can copy and paste it. To copy a special, press this button, and click on the space with the special encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li>Paste Special (Advanced) : To paste a special encounter youve copied, press this button and click on the new location for the encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li>Erase Special (Advanced) : Removes a special encounter. Note that this doesnt delete the special nodes the special encounter called. It simply removes the encounter from the terrain, so that the nodes arent called when the party steps there.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set Special (Advanced) : Selects the outdoor special node called when the party steps on a space. When you press this button and click on a space, you will be asked for the number of an outdoor special node. The node you give will be called when the party steps on this space.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place/Edit Special Encounter (Advanced) : To place a special encounter on a space,
|
||||
press this button and click on the space. To edit a special encounter, press this button,
|
||||
and click on the special encounter. To find out about special encounters, read the Special
|
||||
Encounters chapter in the next section.</li>
|
||||
<li>Copy Special (Advanced) : If you want several copies of the same special encounter in
|
||||
your outdoor section, you can copy and paste it. To copy a special, press this button, and
|
||||
click on the space with the special encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li>Paste Special (Advanced) : To paste a special encounter you've copied, press this
|
||||
button and click on the new location for the encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li>Erase Special (Advanced) : Removes a special encounter. Note that this doesn't delete
|
||||
the special nodes the special encounter called. It simply removes the encounter from the
|
||||
terrain, so that the nodes aren't called when the party steps there.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set Special (Advanced) : Selects the outdoor special node called when the party steps
|
||||
on a space. When you press this button and click on a space, you will be asked for the
|
||||
number of an outdoor special node. The node you give will be called when the party steps
|
||||
on this space.</li>
|
||||
</ol>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>The Outdoor Menu</b></p>
|
||||
<h2>The Outdoor Menu</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p> The Outdoor menu also has a number of important features.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Outdoor Details - </b>Select this to set the name of your outdoor section.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Outdoor Wandering Monsters -</b> You can have four different outdoor wandering encounters created when the party walks through this section. For more on outdoor wandering encounters, read the section later in this chapter.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Outdoor Special Encounters (Advanced) - </b>You can also have 4 outdoor special encounters, which are created by special encounters. These are edited in the same way as wandering encounters.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Frill Up Terrain -</b> This randomly changes some grass spaces to grass with rocks or grass with flowers and some cave floor spaces to cave floor with small mushrooms, to give the terrain a little more varied appearance.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Remove Terrain Frills - </b>This changes grass with rocks or grass with flowers back into ordinary grass, and cave floor with small mushrooms back to cave floor.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Edit Area Descriptions -</b> Select this to edit the eight rectangles with brief area descriptions (to find out how to place these, read Set Area Description, above). Press the Delete buttons to remove rectangles, or edit the text in the text areas.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Set Starting Location - </b>You need to set a location in the outdoors for the party to be at when they leave the town they start in. To set this, select this option, and click on the appropriate space in the outdoors.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Edit Special Nodes (Advanced) -</b> This moves you to the main screen, where all of the outdoor sections special nodes are listed to the right. Click on a node to edit it.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Edit Outdoor Text (Advanced) -</b> This moves you to the main screen, where all of the outdoor sections text messages are listed to the right. Click on a message to edit it, or command click (right click in Windows) to clear it.</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>Outdoor Details - </b>Select this to set the name of your outdoor section.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Outdoor Wandering Monsters -</b> You can have four different outdoor wandering
|
||||
encounters created when the party walks through this section. For more on outdoor
|
||||
wandering encounters, read the section later in this chapter.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Outdoor Special Encounters (Advanced) - </b>You can also have 4 outdoor special
|
||||
encounters, which are created by special encounters. These are edited in the same way as
|
||||
wandering encounters.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Frill Up Terrain -</b> This randomly changes some grass spaces to grass with rocks
|
||||
or grass with flowers and some cave floor spaces to cave floor with small mushrooms, to
|
||||
give the terrain a little more varied appearance.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Remove Terrain Frills - </b>This changes grass with rocks or grass with flowers back
|
||||
into ordinary grass, and cave floor with small mushrooms back to cave floor.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Edit Area Descriptions -</b> Select this to edit the eight rectangles with brief
|
||||
area descriptions (to find out how to place these, read Set Area Description, above).
|
||||
Press the Delete buttons to remove rectangles, or edit the text in the text areas.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Set Starting Location - </b>You need to set a location in the outdoors for the party
|
||||
to be at when they leave the town they start in. To set this, select this option, and
|
||||
click on the appropriate space in the outdoors.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Edit Special Nodes (Advanced) -</b> This moves you to the main screen, where all of
|
||||
the outdoor sections special nodes are listed to the right. Click on a node to edit
|
||||
it.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Edit Outdoor Text (Advanced) -</b> This moves you to the main screen, where all of
|
||||
the outdoor section's text messages are listed to the right. Click on a message to edit it,
|
||||
or command click (right click in Windows) to clear it.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Outdoor Wandering Encounters</b></p>
|
||||
<h2>Outdoor Wandering Encounters</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p> No outdoor travel would be complete without a few fights. Your main tool for providing
|
||||
action outdoors is the outdoor encounter editing windows (accessed by selecting Outdoor
|
||||
Wandering Encounters or Outdoor Special Encounters from the Outdoor menu). You can have 4
|
||||
wandering and 4 special encounters.</p>
|
||||
<p> When you select these options from the Outdoor menu, the encounter editing window will
|
||||
come up. Use the arrow keys to select different encounters to edit. An outdoor encounter
|
||||
can have 7 sorts of hostile creatures and 3 sorts of friendly ones. Press the Choose
|
||||
button to pick a monster. Note that an encounter must have at least 1 hostile monster
|
||||
before it appears. Each slot has a different number of monsters that appear, listed to the
|
||||
left.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p> No outdoor travel would be complete without a few fights. Your main tool for providing action outdoors is the outdoor encounter editing windows (accessed by selecting Outdoor Wandering Encounters or Outdoor Special Encounters from the Outdoor menu). You can have 4 wandering and 4 special encounters.</p>
|
||||
<p> When you select these options from the Outdoor menu, the encounter editing window will come up. Use the arrow keys to select different encounters to edit. An outdoor encounter can have 7 sorts of hostile creatures and 3 sorts of friendly ones. Press the Choose button to pick a monster. Note that an encounter must have at least 1 hostile monster before it appears. Each slot has a different number of monsters that appear, listed to the left.</p>
|
||||
<p> Other options:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p><b>Monster Cant Flee Party:</b> If selected, the encounter will not flee, no matter how strong the party is. This should always be set for special encounters.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Encounter Is Forced:</b> The party will fight the encounter as soon as it appears, even if it isnt anywhere near the party. This should always be set for special encounters, but almost never for wandering encounters.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Special Called When Encounter Starts (Advanced) :</b> The number of an outdoor special node to be called when the encounter begins. Press Create/Edit to set and edit the special. One warning: if this encounter follows the party into a different outdoor section, the special node in the new section, not the old section will be called, probably causing a problem. To get around this, only use this for monsters with Encounter Is Forced set, or with encounters that can only be fought in the outdoor section theyre placed in (like in a 1x1 outdoors).</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Special Called When Party Wins (Advanced) :</b> The number of an outdoor special node to be called when the party defeats the encounter.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Special Called When Party Flees (Advanced) :</b> The number of an outdoor special node to be called when the party escapes the encounter.</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>Monster Can't Flee Party:</b> If selected, the encounter will not flee, no matter how
|
||||
strong the party is. This should always be set for special encounters.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Encounter Is Forced:</b> The party will fight the encounter as soon as it appears,
|
||||
even if it isn't anywhere near the party. This should always be set for special encounters,
|
||||
but almost never for wandering encounters.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Special Called When Encounter Starts (Advanced):</b> The number of an outdoor
|
||||
special node to be called when the encounter begins. Press Create/Edit to set and edit the
|
||||
special. One warning: if this encounter follows the party into a different outdoor
|
||||
section, the special node in the new section, not the old section will be called, probably
|
||||
causing a problem. To get around this, only use this for monsters with Encounter Is Forced
|
||||
set, or with encounters that can only be fought in the outdoor section they're placed in
|
||||
(like in a 1x1 outdoors).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Special Called When Party Wins (Advanced):</b> The number of an outdoor special
|
||||
node to be called when the party defeats the encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Special Called When Party Flees (Advanced):</b> The number of an outdoor special
|
||||
node to be called when the party escapes the encounter.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Special Icons</h2>
|
||||
<div class="figure">
|
||||
<img src='../img/editorsymbols.gif' alt="Display Symbols">
|
||||
<p>Figure 2: Meanings of the Display Symbols</p>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<p> The terrain icons to the right and the terrain spaces in the terrain editing area often have small icons, which represent special properties of the spaces/terrain types:</p>
|
||||
<p> The terrain icons to the right and the terrain spaces in the terrain editing area
|
||||
often have small icons, which represent special properties of the spaces/terrain
|
||||
types:</p>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -10,96 +10,302 @@
|
||||
<noscript>Javascript required for the navbar.</noscript>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<p class="p1"><b>Section 10: Special Encounters<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When you walk into a room and a description comes up, that was a special encounter (called a special, for short). When you enter a valley and monsters appear to attack you, that was a special too. When you reach a locked door, and its unlocked if you have the right key, that is a special. In general, anything strange or out of the ordinary that happens is a special encounter.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>You can create special encounters yourself, and can make them very simple or very elaborate. It can be as straightforward as a text description, or getting an item, or taking damage, or as complicated as a huge branching tree of results, which depends on what missions the party has completed so far (and thus what Stuff Done Flags have been set so far).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When a special encounter is run by the game (by, for example, the party stepping on a certain space) we say Blades of Exile has called the special. You can have Blades of Exile call a special in a variety of ways. It can happen when the party looks at a space, or steps on a space, or meets wandering monsters outdoors, or kills a certain monster, or even casts Ritual of Sanctification on an evil altar. No matter when or how the special is called, they are all created in the same way, and Blades of Exile runs through them in the same way. Before this will make much sense, though, there needs to be some background on how exactly special encounters work.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Special Nodes</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The basic ingredient of a special encounter is called a special node. Each town and outdoor section has a list of special nodes, and the scenario itself has a bunch of them too. A special node is the basic building block of a special encounter.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>What a special node is is an instruction. One sort of special node is Display Message, which flashes up some sort of text. Another special node is Damage Party, which does damage. There is a special node for poisoning the party, and another for giving the party an item.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When a special encounter is called, what happens is that Blades of Exile looks at a special node you create, and does the instruction in it (when this happens, we say Blades of Exile calls the special node). One thing that a special node can do is say do something, and then call another special node. This is called chaining. You can chain several special nodes together, to make a long, complicated special encounter. For example, suppose you want the party to be told theyve been sprayed with poison gas, and then damage and poison all of them. In this case, you would have Blades of Exile call a special node which flashes up the message saying Youve been gassed! and then calls another special node. This next special node will damage the party and then call a third special node. This third node will poison the party, and not specify any more nodes to be called. In this case, you have created a special encounter which is a chain of special nodes, three long.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Each town has 100 special nodes. Each outdoor section has 70. The scenario itself has 256. This multitude of special nodes will be the clay with which you can sculpt a wild, elaborate adventure.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Simple Examples</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Confused yet? Understandable. Creating a special encounter is a lot like writing a short computer program. Writing computer programs is not incredibly difficult, but it does take time to learn how to do it. Time and practice. Making special encounters is not something you can learn to do overnight, but once you can do it, there is nothing that can stop you from creating a truly great scenario.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>And it really isnt that difficult. Here are three simple, step by step examples (and there are several more examples in the appendices), which will show you much of the process. Load up a scenario, such as the very basic scenario you created in the introductory chapter. Select Edit Outdoor Terrain.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Example 1:</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>First, were going to create a simple text message, which will appear when a party steps on a space. The fourth button in the third row is the Create/Edit special encounter button. Press it, and then click on a spot of ordinary grass.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Wow. A pretty complicated dialog box just came up. This is the special encountering editing box. Its not as bad as it look. For now, were just creating a text message. Press General (a list of special node types will come up), select Display Message, and then press OK. There. You are now editing a node of type Display Message. Now you need to write the message. Notice that two of the fields below that buttons have changed to First Part of Message and Second Part of Message, and that there is a button to the right marked Create/Edit. Press it. This is where you edit the text that will come up. Type something, like You feel very weak and tired. and press return. You will be back on the special editing window. Press OK.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>That was it! Now, whenever a party steps on that space, they will see your text message. If they step on it again, they will see it again. Notice the space is marked with a small S icon. You can edit the encounter if you want. Press the same button (Create/Edit Special) you pressed to create the encounter, and then click on the space with the S icon. You will be editing the encounter again.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Example 2:</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Unfortunately, you probably dont want a message to keep reappearing every time they step on a space. It gets annoying. Fortunately, you can have a message only appear once, the very first time you step on it, and then never appear again. The way you do this is to use a Stuff Done Flag. Pick a Stuff Done Flag to be attached to your text message, such as, say, (3,4). This assumes you havent used (3,4) already.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>You are going to create a special encounter which when it is first stepped on displays the text message and sets the Stuff Done Flag (3,4) to 250. The Stuff Done Flag being set to 250 tells Blades of Exile that this special encounter is dead and done and never comes back again.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To create the encounter, first click on the grass with white spot terrain (second row from bottom, fifth from right), and then place this terrain type on some grass. The white spot marks a special encounter. Press the Create/Edit Special button, and click on this spot.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Special encounters that only happen once are listed under One Shots, so press the One Shots button. Select One-Time Text Message and press OK.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>This looks very similar to the earlier special editing window, with one addition: it now says Stuff Done Flag, First Part and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Stuff Done Flag, Second Part by the top two text areas. This is where you enter the Stuff Done Flag this encounter will be linked to. Enter 3 in the first box and 4 in the second to indicate Stuff Done Flag (3,4). Then press Create/Edit to edit the message text, and finally press OK to finish editing the special.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>You may want to run the game now to see what happens. Step on the encounter, and youll see the text. After the encounter, notice that the white spot has disappeared. When you put a One Shot special on a space with a white spot, Blades of Exile will make the spot disappear after the special has been visited.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Third Example:</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Finally, we will create the earlier example of a chain of specials. This encounter will put up a text message, damage the party, and poison them as well.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Press Create/Edit Special again, and click on a spot of grass. Press General, select Display Message, press OK, and press Create/Edit to write some text. Write You get hurt, or whatever. That was the first node in the chain.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Now, we want this special encounter to do several things. We want several encounters chained together. To do this, we need to tell this special node to call another node once it is done. That is what Jump To means, at the bottom of the window. The Jump To special is the special a node calls when it is done.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To make a special to be jumped to, press Create/Edit to the right of Jump To. The special editing window will reset itself. You are now editing a different special node. This special node will damage the party. Press Affect PCs, and select Do Damage. Now all of the text areas on the special editing dialog have labels, waiting for you to provide values.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>For now, type 3 in Number of Dice, and 5 in Number of Sides on Dice. Put 2 in Extra Damage and 1 in Type of Damage. This node will add up 3 random numbers from 1 to 5, add 2, and do that amount of damage to each PC. The 1 indicates that the damage is fire damage (damage types are described later on).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Note that there is a Create/Edit button to the right of the text message area. You can press it to create another text message, which is displayed while the damage is being done. Many of the special nodes have a button of this sort, so that you can accompany the calling of the special node with text.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Now we need one more special node. To make the third node in the chain, we need to use the Jump To field again. Press the Create/Edit button to the right of Jump To. You will now be editing a third special node. Press Affect PCs again, and select Affect Poison. New messages have appeared by the text areas, asking for different values. Put a 2 in the Amount (0 .. 8) field (for a small amount of poison), and 1 in the 0 - cure, 1 - inflict area (since we want to cause poison, not cure it). Press OK. Our special encounter is now complete.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Run the scenario again, and trigger this encounter. Your party will be damaged and poisoned, as promised.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>This is only scratching the surface of special encounters and what they can do. There are If-Thens specials, which can call one of 2 or 3 different special nodes, depending on some sort of condition (such as whether a Stuff Done Flag is a certain value, or whether the party has enough gold). There are Town Specs: town specials, which can act as stairways to move the party from one level to another, or fill areas with fire barriers or ice walls. Read on, to find out the basics of special nodes, and how to work with them.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>The Editing Dialog</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>There are almost 200 different sorts of special nodes. These nodes, their effects, and the values you need to give to determine exactly what they do are listed in the Special Nodes section in the appendices. Reading through these is a great way to determine how special encounters work and get ideas for things your scenario can do.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The special editing dialog has a number of fields and buttons on it, each of which determine the traits of your special encounter.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>For all of the nodes in the fields below, if you place a -1 or leave a -1, that means that there is no effect. If you leave -1s in the message areas for example, no message will be displayed.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Type Selection Buttons - </b>These six buttons each bring up a list of one of the different classes of special encounters. These classes, when they can be used (town nodes have no effect outdoors, for example), and what they do are described in the Appendix on special nodes.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Stuff Done flags - </b>Many special nodes either change or examine a Stuff Done flag. Put the two parts of the required stuff done flag in these two text areas.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Message 1, Message 2, Pict -</b> Some special nodes display a piece of text on the screen. Other special nodes display a dialog box, with text in the middle and a picture in the upper left corner. The numbers for these messages and the number of the picture to display can be put in these text fields.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Each picture and each text message has a number associated with it (for example, every town has 100 text messages, numbered from 0 to 99). Most of the time, you really dont want to have to worry about these. Fortunately, there is an easier way to deal with this. Press the Create/Edit button to create and edit text messages, and press Choose to the right of the picture test area to select a picture. These buttons only appear if you need to specify a value.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Extra 1a and Extra 1b, Extra 2a and Extra 2b -</b> Many special nodes require you to provide different values, such as the amount of health to heal or the value to set a Stuff Done Flag to or the number of an item to give. When you select a special node type, text will appear to the left of these text fields prompting you to enter a value.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Extra 1a and Extra 2a often require you to choose an item, terrain, or monster type. For most special nodes, when this happens, you can press the Choose button to select the appropriate thing.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Similarly, Extra 1b and Extra 2b often require you to special a special node to call. When this happens, a Create/Edit button appears to the right of the text area. Press it to edit the special node to be called.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Jump To -</b> Some special nodes call a different special node which is specified in the Extra 1b or Extra 2b fields. If this doesnt happen, and a special node is given in Jump To (in other words, if the value there isnt -1), that special node will be called when this special node is through.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>These meanings for the fields are not without exceptions. Some fields sometimes mean different things, and some nodes prevent the Jump To node from being called. These exceptions are detailed in the descriptions of the individual nodes in the node list in the appendices.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Inserting Special Nodes into a Chain - </b>Suppose you create a chain of 3 special nodes, and then realize that you forgot something. Suppose you want to bring up a text message, damage the party, and give them experience. You create special node 16 to bring up a message, click on the Create/Edit button by the Jump To: slot to assign a new node (you get node 17), make node 17 give experience, and then realize that you forgot to include the Damage the Party node.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The Create/Edit button is to the right of a text field, in which you can enter the number of the next special node to be called. When you press the Create/Edit button to get a new special node, if the number in the text field is -1, you are assigned a new node. If the number is 0 or larger, you will start editing that node.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>For the example above, you can place a new special node inbetween 16 and 17 to damage the party. Go to node 16 (of type Text Message). The Jump To is set to 17. Instead, set it to -1 (enter -1 in the Jump To text field). Then press the Create/Edit button, and you will be assigned a new node. Make that node the desired type (in this case, Damage the Party), and set the Jump To field in the new node to 17. Voila! The chain is now 3 nodes long.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Other Ways to Edit Specials</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When you select Edit Special Nodes from the Scenario, Town, or Outdoor menus, you will see a list of all of the scenario, current town, or current outdoor section nodes. Click on a node to edit it. For some dialog boxes in which a special node is asked for (like Advanced Town Properties), there is not a Create/Edit button. To create a special encounter for these features, make a special encounter in the Edit Special Nodes window, remember the number of the first special node in the chain, and enter it into the appropriate place (such as Special To Call When Town Entered in the Advanced Town Properties window).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>The Limits</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>You can only have so many special nodes, and so much text in them. Each town can have at most 100 special nodes, which can use at most 100 text messages (each dialog box uses 6 text messages, so these can be eaten up quickly if you arent careful). Each outdoor can have at most 60 special nodes, which can use at most 90 text messages. Finally, the scenario itself has 256 special nodes, which have access to only 100 text messages.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>What Nodes are Called When</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>If you put a special encounter on the ground in town, it is called when the party walks onto it. If you put a special encounter on a space the party cant walk onto, it is called when the party searches that space (such as a Trap special node on a chest). If the special node is triggered in town, a town special node is called. If the special node is triggered while walking or searching outdoors, a special node from that outdoor section is called.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Most of your special encounters will be called when the party walks onto a specified space outdoors or in town. In addition, when the party is outdoors and sails a boat onto a special encounter on the water, that encounter will be called. However, special encounters on the water won't be called while in town.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Scenario special nodes are only called in a few different ways. You can use the General type special node Call Global Special to call a scenario special node. Also, when a special item is used, a Scenario special node is called.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>You can specify a town special node to be called every so many turns while the party is in a town (select Set Town Event Timers from the Town menu). You can also specify a scenario special node to be called every so many moves no matter where the party is in the scenario (select Set Scenario Event Timers from the Scenario menu).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Very importantly, you can have special nodes called during conversation. This is described in more detail in the chapter on dialogue.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Time Passing</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When a party begins a scenario, the scenario will be set on day 1, and they won't have done anything or completed any quests. As time passes and the party does things, you might want the world and events to change in response to what the party does.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Every 3700 moves, the Day counter goes up by one. You can have If-Then special nodes call different nodes based on whether a day has been reached. You can also have characters appear or disappear based on what day it is. You set this on the Advanced Monster Settings Dialog, described in the chapter on Editing Towns.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>You may not always want things to change based on just what day it is, however. You may want things to happen based on what the party actually does. In this case, you can use Events. In each scenario, you can have up to 20 events (number 1 .. 20). An even can be something like a town being reached, or a treasure being stolen, or a major creature being killed. When something happens you want to be an Event, call a special node of type Major Event Has Occured. For example, if you want the killing of the Goblin Chief to be Event 4, have a special node called when that creature is killed. That node should, of course, be of type Major Event Has Occured, set to Event 4.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The purpose of Events is determine whenther things should happen in the scenario or not. The occurance of an Event can prevent bad things from happening. For example, suppose you want the goblin tribe to attack a town on day 90 and kill Fred, one of the characters in the town. This will be prevented if the Goblin Chief is killed before day 90 (killing the chief is Event 4).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>When you place Fred in the town, bring up the Advanced Monster Settings Dialog, and set When Is Creature Here to Appear On Given Day. In the Day Creature Disappears field, enter 90 (for Day 90), and for the Event Code which prevents the disappearance (the second field), enter 4. This character will disappear on day 90 unless Event 4 happens to prevent it.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Similarly, when talking to characters, you can have their responses depend on whether events have happened or not. Suppose, Sue, in the same town, talks about Fred. Before Fred dies, she says something nice about him. After he dies, she says he died. When writing Sue's dialog, give her a dialogue node of type Depends On Time (and event). Set the day the response changes (the first field) to 90, and the Event which prevents the change (the second field) to 4. If Fred was killed (i.e. if the Goblin Chief was not killed before Day 90), she will respond with the second text field. Otherwise, she will respond with the first.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Finally, you can use the If-Then Special Node Type 150: Special Thing happened?, which calls different special nodes depending on whether a day has been reached and whether an Event has happened before that day or not.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Using Events is a good way to spice up your scenario. By picking things that will disappear and people that can die and Events to prevent those occurances, you can create the feeling of the passing of time. This can create a real feeling of urgency in the player!</p>
|
||||
<h1>Section 10: Special Encounters</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you walk into a room and a description comes up, that was a special encounter
|
||||
(called a special, for short). When you enter a valley and monsters appear to attack you,
|
||||
that was a special too. When you reach a locked door, and it's unlocked if you have the
|
||||
right key, that is a special. In general, anything strange or out of the ordinary that
|
||||
happens is a special encounter.</p>
|
||||
<p>You can create special encounters yourself, and can make them very simple or very
|
||||
elaborate. It can be as straightforward as a text description, or getting an item, or
|
||||
taking damage, or as complicated as a huge branching tree of results, which depends on
|
||||
what missions the party has completed so far (and thus what Stuff Done Flags have been set
|
||||
so far).</p>
|
||||
<p>When a special encounter is run by the game (by, for example, the party stepping on a
|
||||
certain space) we say Blades of Exile has called the special. You can have Blades of Exile
|
||||
call a special in a variety of ways. It can happen when the party looks at a space, or
|
||||
steps on a space, or meets wandering monsters outdoors, or kills a certain monster, or
|
||||
even casts Ritual of Sanctification on an evil altar. No matter when or how the special is
|
||||
called, they are all created in the same way, and Blades of Exile runs through them in the
|
||||
same way. Before this will make much sense, though, there needs to be some background on
|
||||
how exactly special encounters work.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Special Nodes</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>The basic ingredient of a special encounter is called a special node. Each town and
|
||||
outdoor section has a list of special nodes, and the scenario itself has a bunch of them
|
||||
too. A special node is the basic building block of a special encounter.</p>
|
||||
<p>What a special node is is an instruction. One sort of special node is Display Message,
|
||||
which flashes up some sort of text. Another special node is Damage Party, which does
|
||||
damage. There is a special node for poisoning the party, and another for giving the party
|
||||
an item.</p>
|
||||
<p>When a special encounter is called, what happens is that Blades of Exile looks at a
|
||||
special node you create, and does the instruction in it (when this happens, we say Blades
|
||||
of Exile calls the special node). One thing that a special node can do is say do
|
||||
something, and then call another special node. This is called chaining. You can chain
|
||||
several special nodes together, to make a long, complicated special encounter. For
|
||||
example, suppose you want the party to be told they've been sprayed with poison gas, and
|
||||
then damage and poison all of them. In this case, you would have Blades of Exile call a
|
||||
special node which flashes up the message saying "You've been gassed!" and then calls another
|
||||
special node. This next special node will damage the party and then call a third special
|
||||
node. This third node will poison the party, and not specify any more nodes to be called.
|
||||
In this case, you have created a special encounter which is a chain of special nodes,
|
||||
three long.</p>
|
||||
<p>Each town has 100 special nodes. Each outdoor section has 70. The scenario itself has
|
||||
256. This multitude of special nodes will be the clay with which you can sculpt a wild,
|
||||
elaborate adventure.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Simple Examples</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Confused yet? Understandable. Creating a special encounter is a lot like writing a
|
||||
short computer program. Writing computer programs is not incredibly difficult, but it does
|
||||
take time to learn how to do it. Time and practice. Making special encounters is not
|
||||
something you can learn to do overnight, but once you can do it, there is nothing that can
|
||||
stop you from creating a truly great scenario.</p>
|
||||
<p>And it really isn't that difficult. Here are three simple, step by step examples (and
|
||||
there are several more examples in the appendices), which will show you much of the
|
||||
process. Load up a scenario, such as the very basic scenario you created in the
|
||||
introductory chapter. Select Edit Outdoor Terrain.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Example 1</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>First, we're going to create a simple text message, which will appear when a party steps
|
||||
on a space. The fourth button in the third row is the Create/Edit special encounter
|
||||
button. Press it, and then click on a spot of ordinary grass.</p>
|
||||
<p>Wow. A pretty complicated dialog box just came up. This is the special encountering
|
||||
editing box. It's not as bad as it look. For now, we're just creating a text message. Press
|
||||
General (a list of special node types will come up), select Display Message, and then
|
||||
press OK. There. You are now editing a node of type Display Message. Now you need to write
|
||||
the message. Notice that two of the fields below that buttons have changed to First Part
|
||||
of Message and Second Part of Message, and that there is a button to the right marked
|
||||
Create/Edit. Press it. This is where you edit the text that will come up. Type something,
|
||||
like "You feel very weak and tired". and press return. You will be back on the special
|
||||
editing window. Press OK.</p>
|
||||
<p>That was it! Now, whenever a party steps on that space, they will see your text
|
||||
message. If they step on it again, they will see it again. Notice the space is marked with
|
||||
a small S icon. You can edit the encounter if you want. Press the same button (Create/Edit
|
||||
Special) you pressed to create the encounter, and then click on the space with the S icon.
|
||||
You will be editing the encounter again.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Example 2</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Unfortunately, you probably don't want a message to keep reappearing every time they
|
||||
step on a space. It gets annoying. Fortunately, you can have a message only appear once,
|
||||
the very first time you step on it, and then never appear again. The way you do this is to
|
||||
use a Stuff Done Flag. Pick a Stuff Done Flag to be attached to your text message, such
|
||||
as, say, (3,4). This assumes you havent used (3,4) already.</p>
|
||||
<p>You are going to create a special encounter which when it is first stepped on displays
|
||||
the text message and sets the Stuff Done Flag (3,4) to 250. The Stuff Done Flag being set
|
||||
to 250 tells Blades of Exile that this special encounter is dead and done and never comes
|
||||
back again.</p>
|
||||
<p>To create the encounter, first click on the grass with white spot terrain (second row
|
||||
from bottom, fifth from right), and then place this terrain type on some grass. The white
|
||||
spot marks a special encounter. Press the Create/Edit Special button, and click on this
|
||||
spot.</p>
|
||||
<p>Special encounters that only happen once are listed under One Shots, so press the One
|
||||
Shots button. Select One-Time Text Message and press OK.</p>
|
||||
<p>This looks very similar to the earlier special editing window, with one addition: it
|
||||
now says Stuff Done Flag, First Part and Stuff Done Flag, Second Part by the top two text
|
||||
areas. This is where you enter the Stuff Done Flag this encounter will be linked to. Enter
|
||||
3 in the first box and 4 in the second to indicate Stuff Done Flag (3,4). Then press
|
||||
Create/Edit to edit the message text, and finally press OK to finish editing the
|
||||
special.</p>
|
||||
<p>You may want to run the game now to see what happens. Step on the encounter, and you'll
|
||||
see the text. After the encounter, notice that the white spot has disappeared. When you
|
||||
put a One Shot special on a space with a white spot, Blades of Exile will make the spot
|
||||
disappear after the special has been visited.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Third Example:</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Finally, we will create the earlier example of a chain of specials. This encounter will
|
||||
put up a text message, damage the party, and poison them as well.</p>
|
||||
<p>Press Create/Edit Special again, and click on a spot of grass. Press General, select
|
||||
Display Message, press OK, and press Create/Edit to write some text. Write "You get hurt",
|
||||
or whatever. That was the first node in the chain.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, we want this special encounter to do several things. We want several encounters
|
||||
chained together. To do this, we need to tell this special node to call another node once
|
||||
it is done. That is what Jump To means, at the bottom of the window. The Jump To special
|
||||
is the special a node calls when it is done.</p>
|
||||
<p>To make a special to be jumped to, press Create/Edit to the right of Jump To. The
|
||||
special editing window will reset itself. You are now editing a different special node.
|
||||
This special node will damage the party. Press Affect PCs, and select Do Damage. Now all
|
||||
of the text areas on the special editing dialog have labels, waiting for you to provide
|
||||
values.</p>
|
||||
<p>For now, type 3 in Number of Dice, and 5 in Number of Sides on Dice. Put 2 in Extra
|
||||
Damage and 1 in Type of Damage. This node will add up 3 random numbers from 1 to 5, add 2,
|
||||
and do that amount of damage to each PC. The 1 indicates that the damage is fire damage
|
||||
(damage types are described later on).</p>
|
||||
<p>Note that there is a Create/Edit button to the right of the text message area. You can
|
||||
press it to create another text message, which is displayed while the damage is being
|
||||
done. Many of the special nodes have a button of this sort, so that you can accompany the
|
||||
calling of the special node with text.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now we need one more special node. To make the third node in the chain, we need to use
|
||||
the Jump To field again. Press the Create/Edit button to the right of Jump To. You will
|
||||
now be editing a third special node. Press Affect PCs again, and select Affect Poison. New
|
||||
messages have appeared by the text areas, asking for different values. Put a 2 in the
|
||||
Amount (0 .. 8) field (for a small amount of poison), and 1 in the 0 - cure, 1 - inflict
|
||||
area (since we want to cause poison, not cure it). Press OK. Our special encounter is now
|
||||
complete.</p>
|
||||
<p>Run the scenario again, and trigger this encounter. Your party will be damaged and
|
||||
poisoned, as promised.</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
<p>This is only scratching the surface of special encounters and what they can do. There
|
||||
are If-Thens specials, which can call one of 2 or 3 different special nodes, depending on
|
||||
some sort of condition (such as whether a Stuff Done Flag is a certain value, or whether
|
||||
the party has enough gold). There are Town Specs: town specials, which can act as
|
||||
stairways to move the party from one level to another, or fill areas with fire barriers or
|
||||
ice walls. Read on, to find out the basics of special nodes, and how to work with
|
||||
them.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>The Editing Dialog</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There are almost 200 different sorts of special nodes. These nodes, their effects, and
|
||||
the values you need to give to determine exactly what they do are listed in the Special
|
||||
Nodes section in the appendices. Reading through these is a great way to determine how
|
||||
special encounters work and get ideas for things your scenario can do.</p>
|
||||
<p>The special editing dialog has a number of fields and buttons on it, each of which
|
||||
determine the traits of your special encounter.</p>
|
||||
<p>For all of the nodes in the fields below, if you place a -1 or leave a -1, that means
|
||||
that there is no effect. If you leave -1s in the message areas for example, no message
|
||||
will be displayed.</p>
|
||||
<p><br></p>
|
||||
<p><b>Type Selection Buttons - </b>These six buttons each bring up a list of one of the
|
||||
different classes of special encounters. These classes, when they can be used (town nodes
|
||||
have no effect outdoors, for example), and what they do are described in the Appendix on
|
||||
special nodes.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Stuff Done flags - </b>Many special nodes either change or examine a Stuff Done
|
||||
flag. Put the two parts of the required stuff done flag in these two text areas.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Message 1, Message 2, Pict -</b> Some special nodes display a piece of text on the
|
||||
screen. Other special nodes display a dialog box, with text in the middle and a picture in
|
||||
the upper left corner. The numbers for these messages and the number of the picture to
|
||||
display can be put in these text fields.</p>
|
||||
<p>Each picture and each text message has a number associated with it (for example, every
|
||||
town has 100 text messages, numbered from 0 to 99). Most of the time, you really dont want
|
||||
to have to worry about these. Fortunately, there is an easier way to deal with this. Press
|
||||
the Create/Edit button to create and edit text messages, and press Choose to the right of
|
||||
the picture test area to select a picture. These buttons only appear if you need to
|
||||
specify a value.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Extra 1a and Extra 1b, Extra 2a and Extra 2b -</b> Many special nodes require you to
|
||||
provide different values, such as the amount of health to heal or the value to set a Stuff
|
||||
Done Flag to or the number of an item to give. When you select a special node type, text
|
||||
will appear to the left of these text fields prompting you to enter a value.</p>
|
||||
<p>Extra 1a and Extra 2a often require you to choose an item, terrain, or monster type.
|
||||
For most special nodes, when this happens, you can press the Choose button to select the
|
||||
appropriate thing.</p>
|
||||
<p>Similarly, Extra 1b and Extra 2b often require you to special a special node to call.
|
||||
When this happens, a Create/Edit button appears to the right of the text area. Press it to
|
||||
edit the special node to be called.</p>
|
||||
<p><b>Jump To -</b> Some special nodes call a different special node which is specified in
|
||||
the Extra 1b or Extra 2b fields. If this doesn't happen, and a special node is given in
|
||||
Jump To (in other words, if the value there isn't -1), that special node will be called
|
||||
when this special node is through.</p>
|
||||
<p><br></p>
|
||||
<p>These meanings for the fields are not without exceptions. Some fields sometimes mean
|
||||
different things, and some nodes prevent the Jump To node from being called. These
|
||||
exceptions are detailed in the descriptions of the individual nodes in the node list in
|
||||
the appendices.</p>
|
||||
<p></p>
|
||||
<p><b>Inserting Special Nodes into a Chain - </b>Suppose you create a chain of 3 special
|
||||
nodes, and then realize that you forgot something. Suppose you want to bring up a text
|
||||
message, damage the party, and give them experience. You create special node 16 to bring
|
||||
up a message, click on the Create/Edit button by the Jump To: slot to assign a new node
|
||||
(you get node 17), make node 17 give experience, and then realize that you forgot to
|
||||
include the Damage the Party node.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Create/Edit button is to the right of a text field, in which you can enter the
|
||||
number of the next special node to be called. When you press the Create/Edit button to get
|
||||
a new special node, if the number in the text field is -1, you are assigned a new node. If
|
||||
the number is 0 or larger, you will start editing that node.</p>
|
||||
<p>For the example above, you can place a new special node inbetween 16 and 17 to damage
|
||||
the party. Go to node 16 (of type Text Message). The Jump To is set to 17. Instead, set it
|
||||
to -1 (enter -1 in the Jump To text field). Then press the Create/Edit button, and you
|
||||
will be assigned a new node. Make that node the desired type (in this case, Damage the
|
||||
Party), and set the Jump To field in the new node to 17. Voila! The chain is now 3 nodes
|
||||
long.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Other Ways to Edit Specials</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When you select Edit Special Nodes from the Scenario, Town, or Outdoor menus, you will
|
||||
see a list of all of the scenario, current town, or current outdoor section nodes. Click
|
||||
on a node to edit it. For some dialog boxes in which a special node is asked for (like
|
||||
Advanced Town Properties), there is not a Create/Edit button. To create a special
|
||||
encounter for these features, make a special encounter in the Edit Special Nodes window,
|
||||
remember the number of the first special node in the chain, and enter it into the
|
||||
appropriate place (such as Special To Call When Town Entered in the Advanced Town
|
||||
Properties window).</p>
|
||||
<p><br></p>
|
||||
<p><b>The Limits</b></p>
|
||||
<p><br></p>
|
||||
<p>You can only have so many special nodes, and so much text in them. Each town can have
|
||||
at most 100 special nodes, which can use at most 100 text messages (each dialog box uses 6
|
||||
text messages, so these can be eaten up quickly if you aren't careful). Each outdoor can
|
||||
have at most 60 special nodes, which can use at most 90 text messages. Finally, the
|
||||
scenario itself has 256 special nodes, which have access to only 100 text messages.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>What Nodes are Called When</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>If you put a special encounter on the ground in town, it is called when the party walks
|
||||
onto it. If you put a special encounter on a space the party can't walk onto, it is called
|
||||
when the party searches that space (such as a Trap special node on a chest). If the
|
||||
special node is triggered in town, a town special node is called. If the special node is
|
||||
triggered while walking or searching outdoors, a special node from that outdoor section is
|
||||
called.</p>
|
||||
<p>Most of your special encounters will be called when the party walks onto a specified
|
||||
space outdoors or in town. In addition, when the party is outdoors and sails a boat onto a
|
||||
special encounter on the water, that encounter will be called. However, special encounters
|
||||
on the water won't be called while in town.</p>
|
||||
<p>Scenario special nodes are only called in a few different ways. You can use the General
|
||||
type special node Call Global Special to call a scenario special node. Also, when a
|
||||
special item is used, a Scenario special node is called.</p>
|
||||
<p>You can specify a town special node to be called every so many turns while the party is
|
||||
in a town (select Set Town Event Timers from the Town menu). You can also specify a
|
||||
scenario special node to be called every so many moves no matter where the party is in the
|
||||
scenario (select Set Scenario Event Timers from the Scenario menu).</p>
|
||||
<p>Very importantly, you can have special nodes called during conversation. This is
|
||||
described in more detail in the chapter on dialogue.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Time Passing</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>When a party begins a scenario, the scenario will be set on day 1, and they won't have
|
||||
done anything or completed any quests. As time passes and the party does things, you might
|
||||
want the world and events to change in response to what the party does.</p>
|
||||
<p>Every 3700 moves, the Day counter goes up by one. You can have If-Then special nodes
|
||||
call different nodes based on whether a day has been reached. You can also have characters
|
||||
appear or disappear based on what day it is. You set this on the Advanced Monster Settings
|
||||
Dialog, described in the chapter on Editing Towns.</p>
|
||||
<p>You may not always want things to change based on just what day it is, however. You may
|
||||
want things to happen based on what the party actually does. In this case, you can use
|
||||
Events. In each scenario, you can have up to 20 events (number 1 .. 20). An even can be
|
||||
something like a town being reached, or a treasure being stolen, or a major creature being
|
||||
killed. When something happens you want to be an Event, call a special node of type Major
|
||||
Event Has Occured. For example, if you want the killing of the Goblin Chief to be Event 4,
|
||||
have a special node called when that creature is killed. That node should, of course, be
|
||||
of type Major Event Has Occured, set to Event 4.</p>
|
||||
<p>The purpose of Events is determine whenther things should happen in the scenario or
|
||||
not. The occurance of an Event can prevent bad things from happening. For example, suppose
|
||||
you want the goblin tribe to attack a town on day 90 and kill Fred, one of the characters
|
||||
in the town. This will be prevented if the Goblin Chief is killed before day 90 (killing
|
||||
the chief is Event 4).</p>
|
||||
<p>When you place Fred in the town, bring up the Advanced Monster Settings Dialog, and set
|
||||
When Is Creature Here to Appear On Given Day. In the Day Creature Disappears field, enter
|
||||
90 (for Day 90), and for the Event Code which prevents the disappearance (the second
|
||||
field), enter 4. This character will disappear on day 90 unless Event 4 happens to prevent
|
||||
it.</p>
|
||||
<p>Similarly, when talking to characters, you can have their responses depend on whether
|
||||
events have happened or not. Suppose, Sue, in the same town, talks about Fred. Before Fred
|
||||
dies, she says something nice about him. After he dies, she says he died. When writing
|
||||
Sue's dialog, give her a dialogue node of type Depends On Time (and event). Set the day
|
||||
the response changes (the first field) to 90, and the Event which prevents the change (the
|
||||
second field) to 4. If Fred was killed (i.e. if the Goblin Chief was not killed before Day
|
||||
90), she will respond with the second text field. Otherwise, she will respond with the
|
||||
first.</p>
|
||||
<p>Finally, you can use the If-Then Special Node Type 150: Special Thing happened?, which
|
||||
calls different special nodes depending on whether a day has been reached and whether an
|
||||
Event has happened before that day or not.</p>
|
||||
<p>Using Events is a good way to spice up your scenario. By picking things that will
|
||||
disappear and people that can die and Events to prevent those occurances, you can create
|
||||
the feeling of the passing of time. This can create a real feeling of urgency in the
|
||||
player!</p>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -10,63 +10,153 @@
|
||||
<noscript>Javascript required for the navbar.</noscript>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<p class="p1"><b>Section 6 - Editing Terrain Types</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Your default scenario comes with 256 premade terrain types, number 0 to 255 (which are listed in the Appendices). However, you can also customize the terrain types to suit your scenario. Click on Edit Terrain Types to bring up all of the terrain icons, and click on a terrain type to bring up the terrain editing window.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The first 90 terrain types (0 to 89) are fixed by the game. The only thing you can change in these is the picture. You can do what you want with terrain types 91 - 255.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Defining Terrain Types</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>To define a new terrain type, you need to enter several values, which determine whether the party can walk through it, what it looks like, and similar properties. What each value means is described below:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Picture:</b> Simply, what the terrain looks like. To select a picture, click the Pick Picture button (if you dont want the terrain graphic to be animated) or the Animated button (if you do). If you want to use a customized terrain graphic, see the chapter Customized Graphics.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Name: </b>The name of the terrain, which is given when the party looks at it. This can be at most 30 characters long.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Blockage:</b> Whether the party can see through and walk through it. Click on the button by the desired blockage. The blockage values are:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Clear - Party can see through and walk through terrain unobstructed. (Example: floor, grass)</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Walk through, opaque - Party can walk through this terrain, but cant see through it. (Example: secret passage)</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Clear, special - Party can see through and walk through terrain unobstructed, but monsters will not walk through it. (Example: Special encounter, lava)</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Clear, blocked - Party can see through, but not walk through. (Example: Pits, water)</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Clear, blocked, obstructed - Party can see through, but not walk through. Also, this terrain partially obstructs missile weapons passing through it. (Example: Pillar, window)</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Blocked, opaque - Cannot see through or walk through. Total obstruction. (Example: Walls)</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Can Fly Over -</b> Click on this button to turn on/off the light. If this light is lit, a flying party can pass over this terrain.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Can Boat Over - </b>If this light is lit, a party in a boat can pass over this terrain.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Block Horses -</b> If this light is lit, horses will not walk on this terrain.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Step Sound -</b> The sound that plays when something steps on this terrain. Current options are a regular stepping sound, a squish, a crunch, or nothing.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Shortcut Key -</b> This is a shortcut for you when editing your towns and dungeons. Enter a single key in this field, and when editing outdoor or town terrain, this terrain type will be selected. If you give more than one terrain type the same key, typing that key cycles among all the different terrain types that have it (for example, you may want to give all your basic walls the key w).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Light Radius - </b>A number from 0 to 10. This determines whether the terrain type casts light, and how far out that light extends. For example, a torch has a light radius of 4, so all spots in town within 4 spaces of a torch space are always lit.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Transform to what - </b>This field is used in conjunction with certain types of special nodes (see Special Encounters). If this is a terrain type that you often want to change to something else (such as a closed portcullis, which you may often want to change to an open portcullis), enter the number of the terrain type to change it to here. Then, to change the terrain type, use a Transform Terrain special node.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Special Properties, Extra 1, Extra 2 -</b> These fields are where you give the terrain types the really interesting properties. All of the properties are listed on the terrain type editing window. To select a property, click on the button by it.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Many of the special properties need more information to work, which you enter in the two fields (Extra 1, and Extra 2) at the bottom of the terrain type editing window. The window will prompt you with what information needs to be given.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The special property types, and what you need to enter in Extra 1, and Extra 2 are as follows:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>No Property -</b> The default. The terrain is ordinary. Extra 1 and Extra 2 are ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Change When Walk -</b> The terrain type changes to another when the party tries to walk into it. This happens even if the terrain is blocked to travel. Extra 1 is the number of the terrain type the terrain changes into. Extra 2 is the number of the sound that plays when this happens (for a list of sounds, look in the Appendices). If Extra 2 is left at 200, no sound plays.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Does Fire Damage -</b> When someone walks on this space, fire damage is inflicted. Damaged inflicted is a random number from 1 to Extra 1, times Extra 2. Only monsters with fire resistance will walk through this space.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Does Cold Damage - </b>Exactly like Fire Damage, but cold damage is inflicted.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Does Magical Damage - </b>Exactly like Fire Damage, but magical damage is inflicted.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Poison Land -</b> Poisons people walking on it. Extra 1 is the intensity of the poison (a number from 1 to 8, with anything above 4 being pretty lethal). Extra 2 is the percentage chance of being affected, a number from 0 to 100 (0 meaning never, and 100 meaning always).</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Diseased Land -</b> Exactly like Poisoned Land, but spreads disease instead of poison.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Crumbling - When Move Mountains or Crumble is cast on this space, it turns into the terrain in Extra 1a.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Lockable Terrain -</b> Indicates a terrain type that can be locked. This only comes into play when a special node which locks a terrain type is used on the space (see the chapter on Special Encounters for more information). When that happens, Extra 1 is the terrain type the space changes to. Extra 2 is ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Unlockable Terrain -</b> This terrain type can be unlocked, by picking locks, an Unlock spell, or a special encounter which unlocks terrain (though not by bashing). Extra 1 is the number of the terrain type the space becomes when unlocked. Extra 2 is the difficulty of unlocking the door. This is a number from 0 to 10. The higher the number, the harder the door is to unlock. If the difficulty is 5 or above, picking locks always fails (the door is magically locked and requires an Unlock spell). If the difficulty is 10, the lock cant be picked and unlock spells dont work. In this case, the only way this space can become unlocked is if a special encounter unlocks it.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Unlockable/bashable - </b>This is exactly like Unlockable, except that the party can also try to unlock it by bashing.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Is a Sign -</b> This terrain type is a sign. When a space is given this terrain type, you will be asked what the sign says. When the party looks at that space, that will be the text that is displayed.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Call Local Special -</b> When stepped on, this space calls a town special encounter. The number in Extra 1 is the number of the town special encounter node to call.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Note: If stepped on outside, no special encounter is called.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Warning: If you create a terrain type with this special property, using it in more than one town can have unpredictable effects. If you, for example, have a terrain type with this property that calls town special encounter 29, make sure every town you use that terrain type in has a sensible special encounter in slot 29.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Call Scenario Special -</b> When stepped on, this space calls a scenario special encounter. The number in Extra 1 is the number of the scenario special encounter node to call. Terrain with this special property can be used outdoors.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Is a Container - </b>This terrain type can contain items. In the town editor, when you place an item on terrain with this property, the item is automatically considered to be inside it. Extra 1 and Extra 2 are ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">Example: A dresser, chest, or body.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Waterfall -</b> If the party, while outdoors (not in town), moves in a boat to the space just north of a spot of terrain with this property, they are sucked through to the space south of it. There is a screaming noise and they lose some food. Extra 1 and Extra 2 are ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Conveyor belt (north), Conveyor belt (east), Conveyor belt (south), Conveyor belt (west) -</b> This space is a conveyor belt, which moves everything on it in the indicated direction. Extra 1 and Extra 2 are ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Blocked to Monsters -</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Monsters will never walk into a space of this type. Extra 1 and Extra 2 are ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Town Entrance -</b> For use when outdoors. This is the entrance to a town. Stepping on a space of this type has no effect when indoors. When you place a space of this type while editing the outdoors, you need to click on the Edit Town Entrance button and then click on the town entrance to attach it to a town or dungeon.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>If the town in question is hidden, when the party sees it it will look like the terrain type in Extra 1a.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Usable Space -</b> When the player clicks the Use button and selects this space, it will change to a different terrain type (an example being an open door, which closes). Extra 1 is the number of the terrain type it changes to. Extra 2 is the number of the sound that plays when this happens (for a list of sounds, look in the Appendices). If Extra 2 is left at 200, no sound plays.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Call Scenario Special when used- </b>When used (using the Use button in town mode), this space calls a scenario special encounter. The number in Extra 1 is the number of the scenario special encounter node to call.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<h1>Section 6 - Editing Terrain Types</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Your default scenario comes with 256 premade terrain types, number 0 to 255 (which are
|
||||
listed in the Appendices). However, you can also customize the terrain types to suit your
|
||||
scenario. Click on Edit Terrain Types to bring up all of the terrain icons, and click on a
|
||||
terrain type to bring up the terrain editing window.</p>
|
||||
<p>The first 90 terrain types (0 to 89) are fixed by the game. The only thing you can
|
||||
change in these is the picture. You can do what you want with terrain types 91 - 255.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Defining Terrain Types</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>To define a new terrain type, you need to enter several values, which determine whether
|
||||
the party can walk through it, what it looks like, and similar properties. What each value
|
||||
means is described below:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>Picture:</b> Simply, what the terrain looks like. To select a picture, click the
|
||||
Pick Picture button (if you dont want the terrain graphic to be animated) or the Animated
|
||||
button (if you do). If you want to use a customized terrain graphic, see the chapter
|
||||
Customized Graphics.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Name: </b>The name of the terrain, which is given when the party looks at it. This
|
||||
can be at most 30 characters long.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Blockage:</b> Whether the party can see through and walk through it. Click on the
|
||||
button by the desired blockage. The blockage values are:
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li>Clear - Party can see through and walk through terrain unobstructed. (Example: floor,
|
||||
grass)</li>
|
||||
<li>Walk through, opaque - Party can walk through this terrain, but cant see through it.
|
||||
(Example: secret passage)</li>
|
||||
<li>Clear, special - Party can see through and walk through terrain unobstructed, but
|
||||
monsters will not walk through it. (Example: Special encounter, lava)</li>
|
||||
<li>Clear, blocked - Party can see through, but not walk through. (Example: Pits,
|
||||
water)</li>
|
||||
<li>Clear, blocked, obstructed - Party can see through, but not walk through. Also, this
|
||||
terrain partially obstructs missile weapons passing through it. (Example: Pillar,
|
||||
window)</li>
|
||||
<li>Blocked, opaque - Cannot see through or walk through. Total obstruction. (Example:
|
||||
Walls)</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
<li><b>Can Fly Over -</b> Click on this button to turn on/off the light. If this light is
|
||||
lit, a flying party can pass over this terrain.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Can Boat Over - </b>If this light is lit, a party in a boat can pass over this
|
||||
terrain.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Block Horses -</b> If this light is lit, horses will not walk on this terrain.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Step Sound -</b> The sound that plays when something steps on this terrain. Current
|
||||
options are a regular stepping sound, a squish, a crunch, or nothing.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Shortcut Key -</b> This is a shortcut for you when editing your towns and dungeons.
|
||||
Enter a single key in this field, and when editing outdoor or town terrain, this terrain
|
||||
type will be selected. If you give more than one terrain type the same key, typing that
|
||||
key cycles among all the different terrain types that have it (for example, you may want
|
||||
to give all your basic walls the key w).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Light Radius - </b>A number from 0 to 10. This determines whether the terrain type
|
||||
casts light, and how far out that light extends. For example, a torch has a light radius
|
||||
of 4, so all spots in town within 4 spaces of a torch space are always lit.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Transform to what - </b>This field is used in conjunction with certain types of
|
||||
special nodes (see Special Encounters). If this is a terrain type that you often want to
|
||||
change to something else (such as a closed portcullis, which you may often want to change
|
||||
to an open portcullis), enter the number of the terrain type to change it to here. Then,
|
||||
to change the terrain type, use a Transform Terrain special node.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Special Properties, Extra 1, Extra 2 -</b> These fields are where you give the
|
||||
terrain types the really interesting properties. All of the properties are listed on the
|
||||
terrain type editing window. To select a property, click on the button by it.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Many of the special properties need more information to work, which you enter in the
|
||||
two fields (Extra 1, and Extra 2) at the bottom of the terrain type editing window. The
|
||||
window will prompt you with what information needs to be given.</p>
|
||||
<p>The special property types, and what you need to enter in Extra 1, and Extra 2 are as
|
||||
follows:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>No Property -</b> The default. The terrain is ordinary. Extra 1 and Extra 2 are
|
||||
ignored.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Change When Walk -</b> The terrain type changes to another when the party tries to
|
||||
walk into it. This happens even if the terrain is blocked to travel. Extra 1 is the number
|
||||
of the terrain type the terrain changes into. Extra 2 is the number of the sound that
|
||||
plays when this happens (for a list of sounds, look in the Appendices). If Extra 2 is left
|
||||
at 200, no sound plays.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Does Fire Damage -</b> When someone walks on this space, fire damage is inflicted.
|
||||
Damaged inflicted is a random number from 1 to Extra 1, times Extra 2. Only monsters with
|
||||
fire resistance will walk through this space.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Does Cold Damage - </b>Exactly like Fire Damage, but cold damage is inflicted.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Does Magical Damage - </b>Exactly like Fire Damage, but magical damage is
|
||||
inflicted.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Poison Land -</b> Poisons people walking on it. Extra 1 is the intensity of the
|
||||
poison (a number from 1 to 8, with anything above 4 being pretty lethal). Extra 2 is the
|
||||
percentage chance of being affected, a number from 0 to 100 (0 meaning never, and 100
|
||||
meaning always).</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Diseased Land -</b> Exactly like Poisoned Land, but spreads disease instead of
|
||||
poison.</li>
|
||||
<li>Crumbling - When Move Mountains or Crumble is cast on this space, it turns into the
|
||||
terrain in Extra 1a.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Lockable Terrain -</b> Indicates a terrain type that can be locked. This only comes
|
||||
into play when a special node which locks a terrain type is used on the space (see the
|
||||
chapter on Special Encounters for more information). When that happens, Extra 1 is the
|
||||
terrain type the space changes to. Extra 2 is ignored.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Unlockable Terrain -</b> This terrain type can be unlocked, by picking locks, an
|
||||
Unlock spell, or a special encounter which unlocks terrain (though not by bashing). Extra
|
||||
1 is the number of the terrain type the space becomes when unlocked. Extra 2 is the
|
||||
difficulty of unlocking the door. This is a number from 0 to 10. The higher the number,
|
||||
the harder the door is to unlock. If the difficulty is 5 or above, picking locks always
|
||||
fails (the door is magically locked and requires an Unlock spell). If the difficulty is
|
||||
10, the lock can't be picked and unlock spells don't work. In this case, the only way this
|
||||
space can become unlocked is if a special encounter unlocks it.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Unlockable/bashable - </b>This is exactly like Unlockable, except that the party
|
||||
can also try to unlock it by bashing.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Is a Sign -</b> This terrain type is a sign. When a space is given this terrain
|
||||
type, you will be asked what the sign says. When the party looks at that space, that will
|
||||
be the text that is displayed.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Call Local Special -</b> When stepped on, this space calls a town special
|
||||
encounter. The number in Extra 1 is the number of the town special encounter node to call.
|
||||
<br>Note: If stepped on outside, no special encounter is called.</li>
|
||||
<li>Warning: If you create a terrain type with this special property, using it in more
|
||||
than one town can have unpredictable effects. If you, for example, have a terrain type
|
||||
with this property that calls town special encounter 29, make sure every town you use that
|
||||
terrain type in has a sensible special encounter in slot 29.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Call Scenario Special -</b> When stepped on, this space calls a scenario special
|
||||
encounter. The number in Extra 1 is the number of the scenario special encounter node to
|
||||
call. Terrain with this special property can be used outdoors.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Is a Container - </b>This terrain type can contain items. In the town editor, when
|
||||
you place an item on terrain with this property, the item is automatically considered to
|
||||
be inside it. Extra 1 and Extra 2 are ignored.
|
||||
<br>Example: A dresser, chest, or body.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Waterfall -</b> If the party, while outdoors (not in town), moves in a boat to the
|
||||
space just north of a spot of terrain with this property, they are sucked through to the
|
||||
space south of it. There is a screaming noise and they lose some food. Extra 1 and Extra 2
|
||||
are ignored.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Conveyor belt (north), Conveyor belt (east), Conveyor belt (south), Conveyor belt
|
||||
(west) -</b> This space is a conveyor belt, which moves everything on it in the indicated
|
||||
direction. Extra 1 and Extra 2 are ignored.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Blocked to Monsters -</b>Monsters will never walk into a space of this type. Extra
|
||||
1 and Extra 2 are ignored.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Town Entrance -</b> For use when outdoors. This is the entrance to a town. Stepping
|
||||
on a space of this type has no effect when indoors. When you place a space of this type
|
||||
while editing the outdoors, you need to click on the Edit Town Entrance button and then
|
||||
click on the town entrance to attach it to a town or dungeon.
|
||||
<br>If the town in question is hidden, when the party sees it it will look like the
|
||||
terrain type in Extra 1a.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Usable Space -</b> When the player clicks the Use button and selects this space, it
|
||||
will change to a different terrain type (an example being an open door, which closes).
|
||||
Extra 1 is the number of the terrain type it changes to. Extra 2 is the number of the
|
||||
sound that plays when this happens (for a list of sounds, look in the Appendices). If
|
||||
Extra 2 is left at 200, no sound plays.</li>
|
||||
<li><b>Call Scenario Special when used- </b>When used (using the Use button in town mode),
|
||||
this space calls a scenario special encounter. The number in Extra 1 is the number of the
|
||||
scenario special encounter node to call.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -10,32 +10,83 @@
|
||||
<noscript>Javascript required for the navbar.</noscript>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<p class="p1"><b>Section 13: Testing and Distributing Your Scenario</b></p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>So youve spent many hours learning to write your scenario, and even more of them writing one. Its almost done, and you want to share it with the world. First, however, you need to test it.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Getting More Information -</b> Spiderweb Software will be keeping a scenario editor information clearing house on our web site at www.spidweb.com, in the Blades of Exile section. If at all possible, go there often. You'll find hints, FAQs, articles with tipe, and bug reports (so you'll learn what features don't work right), as well as the very latest version of the scenario editor.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Your feedback is welcome! If you have a neat article on how to do something cool, have found a nasty bug or have a question that should be answered on our page, send it to blades@spidweb.com.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>However, please don't send general questions to us and expect an answer. While we can help with bugs, we don't have the time to personally teach you how to use the editor. You'll have to rely on our web page, this documentation, and the help of people on the net.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Scenario Contests! -</b> Spiderweb Software will be holding scenario design contests, with big cash prizes! For information, look in the Blades of Exile folder for the Scenario Design Contest file, or visit us at www.spidweb.com.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Playtesting -</b> There are few tasks less welcome, and more important. Without testing, you are almost destined to release a scenario with serious bugs, which may not even be finishable at all.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The best way around this is to play it. And give it to friends and let them play it. With time and careful play, the problems will become clear, and you can fix them.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>One debugging aid has been provided for you. When playing your scenario, if you type the D key and enter the scenarios password, you will enter debug mode. The monsters will no longer move and any blow will kill them, so that you can fight through combats quickly. Press D again to exit debug mode. Note, however, that you can only test your scenario in the registered version of Blades of Exile.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>You can edit a scenario while playing through it. It is often convenient to keep the editor open while playing through a new town, so you can make fixes immediately. However, when you save the scenario, it may scramble the data in your game. Whenever you save the scenario, upon returning to the game you should immediately load a new save file to keep the game from falling apart.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Even more importantly, Blades of Exile remembers the state of special encounters in towns you have visited. If you enter a town in the game and then place or change a special encounter in that town in the editor, the change will not be recognized in the game until the town is reset. To reset a town or dungeon level in the game, go to a different town or outdoors, and press the > key. This will reset the towns, and your changes will be visible.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><b>Distributing - </b>Once you are sure your scenario works, you can place it onto the Internet and let people all over the world play it. To distribute a scenario, place it and its custom graphics files (if any) into a folder, and go to www.spidweb.com. There is a scenario uploading area there. Alternately, you can mail the scenario on disk to Spiderweb Software, Inc. (the address is in the order form).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Before sending your scenario out, you may want to take a look at the scenario legal stuff, elsewhere in this documentation. A few guidelines when writing your scenario:</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">i. Overt racism and other sorts of prejudice, as well as obscenity and explicit sexuality, are bad ideas. Such scenarios will probably not be kept on software sites, such as Spiderweb Softwares.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Use common sense here. If a character says that the Nephilim are evil and should be wiped out, that's all right. That is just that character's viewpoint, not an editorialization on the part of the game. On the other hand, a scenario where the party was expected to keep and capture slaves would be very questionable.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">ii. Play balance is important. Dont give low level scenarios too much gold, too much treasure, or too much magic.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p3">iii. Dont make things too difficult. Keep the monsters not too tough, and make sure the puzzles are solvable and give at least a few hints. Its always better to be a little too easy than a lot too hard.</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<p class="p3"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>And with that, good luck! Tell everyone a story, and share the results of your imagination! After all, there is very little that is more satisfying than creating something truly great, and having it get the appreciation it deserves!</p>
|
||||
<p class="p2"><br></p>
|
||||
<h1>Section 13: Testing and Distributing Your Scenario</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>So you've spent many hours learning to write your scenario, and even more of them
|
||||
writing one. It's almost done, and you want to share it with the world. First, however,
|
||||
you need to test it.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><b>Getting More Information -</b> Spiderweb Software will be keeping a scenario editor
|
||||
information clearing house on our web site at www.spidweb.com, in the Blades of Exile
|
||||
section. If at all possible, go there often. You'll find hints, FAQs, articles with tips,
|
||||
and bug reports (so you'll learn what features don't work right), as well as the very
|
||||
latest version of the scenario editor.
|
||||
<p>Your feedback is welcome! If you have a neat article on how to do something cool, have
|
||||
found a nasty bug or have a question that should be answered on our page, send it to
|
||||
blades@spidweb.com.</p>
|
||||
<p>However, please don't send general questions to us and expect an answer. While we can
|
||||
help with bugs, we don't have the time to personally teach you how to use the editor.
|
||||
You'll have to rely on our web page, this documentation, and the help of people on the
|
||||
net.</p>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<li><b>Scenario Contests! -</b> Spiderweb Software will be holding scenario design
|
||||
contests, with big cash prizes! For information, look in the Blades of Exile folder for
|
||||
the Scenario Design Contest file, or visit us at www.spidweb.com.</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<li><b>Playtesting -</b> There are few tasks less welcome, and more important. Without
|
||||
testing, you are almost destined to release a scenario with serious bugs, which may not
|
||||
even be finishable at all.
|
||||
<p>The best way around this is to play it. And give it to friends and let them play it.
|
||||
With time and careful play, the problems will become clear, and you can fix them.</p>
|
||||
<p>One debugging aid has been provided for you. When playing your scenario, if you type
|
||||
the <span class='key'>D</span> key and enter the scenario's password, you will enter debug
|
||||
mode. The monsters will no longer move and any blow will kill them, so that you can fight
|
||||
through combats quickly. Press <span class='key'>D</span> again to exit debug mode. Note,
|
||||
however, that you can only test your scenario in the registered version of Blades of
|
||||
Exile.</p>
|
||||
<p>You can edit a scenario while playing through it. It is often convenient to keep the
|
||||
editor open while playing through a new town, so you can make fixes immediately. However,
|
||||
when you save the scenario, it may scramble the data in your game. Whenever you save the
|
||||
scenario, upon returning to the game you should immediately load a new save file to keep
|
||||
the game from falling apart.</p>
|
||||
<p>Even more importantly, Blades of Exile remembers the state of special encounters in
|
||||
towns you have visited. If you enter a town in the game and then place or change a special
|
||||
encounter in that town in the editor, the change will not be recognized in the game until
|
||||
the town is reset. To reset a town or dungeon level in the game, go to a different town or
|
||||
outdoors, and press the <span class='key'>></span> key. (Note: You need to be in Debug
|
||||
mode for this to work.) This will
|
||||
reset the towns, and your changes will be visible.</p>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
|
||||
<li><b>Distributing - </b>Once you are sure your scenario works, you can place it onto the
|
||||
Internet and let people all over the world play it. To distribute a scenario, place it and
|
||||
its custom graphics files (if any) into a folder, and go to www.spidweb.com. There is a
|
||||
scenario uploading area there. Alternately, you can mail the scenario on disk to Spiderweb
|
||||
Software, Inc. (the address is in the order form).
|
||||
<p>Before sending your scenario out, you may want to take a look at the scenario legal
|
||||
stuff, elsewhere in this documentation. A few guidelines when writing your scenario:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ol style='list-style-type:lower-roman'>
|
||||
<li>Overt racism and other sorts of prejudice, as well as obscenity and explicit
|
||||
sexuality, are bad ideas. Such scenarios will probably not be kept on software sites, such
|
||||
as Spiderweb Softwares.
|
||||
<p>Use common sense here. If a character says that the Nephilim are evil and should be
|
||||
wiped out, that's all right. That is just that character's viewpoint, not an
|
||||
editorialization on the part of the game. On the other hand, a scenario where the party
|
||||
was expected to keep and capture slaves would be very questionable.</p>
|
||||
<li>Play balance is important. Don't give low level scenarios too much gold, too much
|
||||
treasure, or too much magic.</li>
|
||||
<li>Don't make things too difficult. Keep the monsters not too tough, and make sure the
|
||||
puzzles are solvable and give at least a few hints. Its always better to be a little too
|
||||
easy than a lot too hard.</li>
|
||||
</ul></ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>And with that, good luck! Tell everyone a story, and share the results of your
|
||||
imagination! After all, there is very little that is more satisfying than creating
|
||||
something truly great, and having it get the appreciation it deserves!</p>
|
||||
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -11,25 +11,50 @@
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div class="content">
|
||||
<h1>Section 5 - Editing Towns</h1>
|
||||
<p>Editing a town is very similar to editing an outdoor section. The basic mechanics are the same. There are simply more options.</p>
|
||||
<p>Editing a town is very similar to editing an outdoor section. The basic mechanics are
|
||||
the same. There are simply more options.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Editing Buttons</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There are 45 buttons for use while editing the towns (see the figure in the previous chapter for a diagram of button positions). Most of these buttons have the same effect as they do when editing outdoors. The buttons which work differently are described to the right.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are 45 buttons for use while editing the towns (see the figure in the previous
|
||||
chapter for a diagram of button positions). Most of these buttons have the same effect as
|
||||
they do when editing outdoors. The buttons which work differently are described to the
|
||||
right.</p>
|
||||
<div class="figure">
|
||||
<img src='../img/edtownbtns.gif' alt="Outdoor Editing Buttons">
|
||||
<p>Figure 1: Outdoor Editing Buttons</p>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<ol start="12">
|
||||
<li>Set Area Description: Works like in outdoor sections, except that you now get 16 rectangles to edit.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Wandering Monster Location: Towns, like outdoor sections, have 4 wandering monster arrival points, which can be chosen here. Make sure to choose places with open area around them, so that theres room for the monsters to appear.</li>
|
||||
<li value="16">Edit Item: Edit an item youve already placed. Press this button and then click on the item to edit. A dialog will come up. To change the item, press the Choose button. If the item is gold, food, or has charges, you can use the text area to set the amount of gold or food, or the number of charges (leave at -1 for it to be ignored). If Always Here is selected, the item will always be there when the party enters the town, even if theyve grabbed it before. If Someones Property is selected and the party takes the item when a townsperson is watching, the town becomes hostile. Finally, if Contained is selected, the item is considered to be in a barrel, crate, dresser, etc. The <span class="key">.</span> key is a shortcut for this button.</li>
|
||||
<li>Duplicate Item: When this button is pressed and a spot of terrain is selected, an exact duplicate of the last item placed/edited is placed. The <span class="key">/</span> key is a shortcut for this button.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set Area Description: Works like in outdoor sections, except that you now get 16
|
||||
rectangles to edit.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Wandering Monster Location: Towns, like outdoor sections, have 4 wandering
|
||||
monster arrival points, which can be chosen here. Make sure to choose places with open
|
||||
area around them, so that theres room for the monsters to appear.</li>
|
||||
<li value="16">Edit Item: Edit an item you've already placed. Press this button and then
|
||||
click on the item to edit. A dialog will come up. To change the item, press the Choose
|
||||
button. If the item is gold, food, or has charges, you can use the text area to set the
|
||||
amount of gold or food, or the number of charges (leave at -1 for it to be ignored). If
|
||||
Always Here is selected, the item will always be there when the party enters the town,
|
||||
even if they've grabbed it before. If Someone's Property is selected and the party takes the
|
||||
item when a townsperson is watching, the town becomes hostile. Finally, if Contained is
|
||||
selected, the item is considered to be in a barrel, crate, dresser, etc. The
|
||||
<span class="key">.</span> key is a shortcut for this button.</li>
|
||||
<li>Duplicate Item: When this button is pressed and a spot of terrain is selected, an
|
||||
exact duplicate of the last item placed/edited is placed. The <span class="key">/</span>
|
||||
key is a shortcut for this button.</li>
|
||||
<li>Erase Item: Use to erase all items in a space.</li>
|
||||
<li value="24">Edit Monster: Press this and click on a monster to change its properties. For more information, read Placing and Editing Monsters, later in the chapter. The , key is a keyboard shortcut.</li>
|
||||
<li>Duplicate Monster: Press and click a terrain space to place an exact duplicate of the last placed/edited monster. The <span class="key">`</span> key is a keyboard shortcut.</li>
|
||||
<li value="24">Edit Monster: Press this and click on a monster to change its properties.
|
||||
For more information, read Placing and Editing Monsters, later in the chapter. The
|
||||
<span class='key'>,</span> key is a keyboard shortcut.</li>
|
||||
<li>Duplicate Monster: Press and click a terrain space to place an exact duplicate of the
|
||||
last placed/edited monster. The <span class="key">`</span> key is a keyboard
|
||||
shortcut.</li>
|
||||
<li>Erase Monster: Erase a placed monster.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set North Entry: Use these to set the space the party starts in when they enter the town from the outdoors. When the party enters the town from due north or due south, they start at the north and south entry spaces. If they enter from the east, northeast, or southeast, the start at the east entry space. If they enter from the west, northwest, or southwest, the start at the west entry space.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set North Entry: Use these to set the space the party starts in when they enter the
|
||||
town from the outdoors. When the party enters the town from due north or due south, they
|
||||
start at the north and south entry spaces. If they enter from the east, northeast, or
|
||||
southeast, the start at the east entry space. If they enter from the west, northwest, or
|
||||
southwest, the start at the west entry space.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set West Entry: See above.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set South Entry: See above.</li>
|
||||
<li>Set East Entry: See above.</li>
|
||||
@@ -38,8 +63,10 @@
|
||||
<li>Place Barrel</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Fire Barrier</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Force Barrier</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Quickfire: Places these objects/fields in the selected space. Each town can have at most 50 of these items or special effects (see below).</li>
|
||||
<li>Clear Space: Clear all fields, webs, barrels, crates, and special effects from a space.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Quickfire: Places these objects/fields in the selected space. Each town can have
|
||||
at most 50 of these items or special effects (see below).</li>
|
||||
<li>Clear Space: Clear all fields, webs, barrels, crates, and special effects from a
|
||||
space.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Small Blood Stain</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Medium Blood Stain</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Large Blood Stain</li>
|
||||
@@ -47,88 +74,183 @@
|
||||
<li>Place Large Slime Pool</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Dust</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Bones</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Rubble:These are the eight special effects, things that have no game purpose but enhance the atmosphere of the level.</li>
|
||||
<li>Place Rubble:These are the eight special effects, things that have no game purpose but
|
||||
enhance the atmosphere of the level.</li>
|
||||
</ol>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Town Menu</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Town Details</em>: These are described below.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Town Wandering Monsters</em>: You can have four different groups of monsters appear in the town. Each group can have 4 different types of monsters. One monster of each of the first 3 types will appear, and 1-2 of the 4th type will appear. Selecting this option brings up a dialog box, in which you can enter the sorts of monsters in each group. To choose the monsters in a group, press the Choose button below it. You will be asked to pick each of the 4 monsters.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Town Boundaries</em>: Every town has a boundary. When the party reaches the boundary, they leave the town. This boundary is marked by a white rectangle, which always starts 4 spaces from the edge of the town. In any town the party can walk out of, the boundary should stay 4 spaces from the edge of the dungeon. Otherwise, the party will be able to get closer to the edge of the town and look off the edge, which you probably dont want. However, if the town can only be left by a stairway (which is a special encounter), you might want to make the active area in the town larger, to give you more room for stuff. To change the town boundary, select this option, click on the upper left corner of the town boundary, and then click on the lower right hand corner of the town boundary.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Frill Up Terrain, Remove Terrain Frills, Edit Area Descriptions</em>: Works like the similar option in the Outdoor menu.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Add Random Items (Advanced)</em>: This places the random items you set in Edit Item Placement Shortcuts in the town. See the chapter on scenarios for a description of this feature.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set All Items Not Property</em>: All items in the town that are marked as someone elses property become safe for the party to get.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Town Wandering Monsters</em>: You can have four different groups of monsters
|
||||
appear in the town. Each group can have 4 different types of monsters. One monster of each
|
||||
of the first 3 types will appear, and 1-2 of the 4th type will appear. Selecting this
|
||||
option brings up a dialog box, in which you can enter the sorts of monsters in each group.
|
||||
To choose the monsters in a group, press the Choose button below it. You will be asked to
|
||||
pick each of the 4 monsters.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Town Boundaries</em>: Every town has a boundary. When the party reaches the
|
||||
boundary, they leave the town. This boundary is marked by a white rectangle, which always
|
||||
starts 4 spaces from the edge of the town. In any town the party can walk out of, the
|
||||
boundary should stay 4 spaces from the edge of the dungeon. Otherwise, the party will be
|
||||
able to get closer to the edge of the town and look off the edge, which you probably dont
|
||||
want. However, if the town can only be left by a stairway (which is a special encounter),
|
||||
you might want to make the active area in the town larger, to give you more room for
|
||||
stuff. To change the town boundary, select this option, click on the upper left corner of
|
||||
the town boundary, and then click on the lower right hand corner of the town
|
||||
boundary.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Frill Up Terrain, Remove Terrain Frills, Edit Area Descriptions</em>: Works like
|
||||
the similar option in the Outdoor menu.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Add Random Items (Advanced)</em>: This places the random items you set in Edit
|
||||
Item Placement Shortcuts in the town. See the chapter on scenarios for a description of
|
||||
this feature.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set All Items Not Property</em>: All items in the town that are marked as someone
|
||||
elses property become safe for the party to get.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Clear All Items</em>: Erase all items in the town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Special Nodes, Edit Town Text (Advanced)</em>: Takes you to the main screen, where you can directly edit the special nodes and the town text respectively.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Edit Special Nodes, Edit Town Text (Advanced)</em>: Takes you to the main screen,
|
||||
where you can directly edit the special nodes and the town text respectively.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Advanced Town Details (Advanced)</em>: These are described below.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Town Event Times (Advanced)</em>: You can have special nodes called at regular time intervals while the party is in the town. Select this option, and a dialog box will come up. Enter the time between calling the node in the left column, and the special node to call to the right. Press Create/Edit to create the special. Dont make the interval between calling specials too low ... special encounters slow the game down.<!-- That was the '90s. Does this still apply, given our new code and new machines? ---></li>
|
||||
<li><em>Set Town Event Times (Advanced)</em>: You can have special nodes called at regular
|
||||
time intervals while the party is in the town. Select this option, and a dialog box will
|
||||
come up. Enter the time between calling the node in the left column, and the special node
|
||||
to call to the right. Press Create/Edit to create the special. Dont make the interval
|
||||
between calling specials too low ... special encounters slow the game down.<!-- That was
|
||||
the '90s. Does this still apply, given our new code and new machines? ---></li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Town Details, Advanced Town Details</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There are two dialog boxes to edit the town details and advanced town details, which are accessed through the Town menu.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are two dialog boxes to edit the town details and advanced town details, which
|
||||
are accessed through the Town menu.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Town Details Window</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>This window can be used to edit the basic details about the town, which influence what it will be like to play through.</p>
|
||||
<p>This window can be used to edit the basic details about the town, which influence what
|
||||
it will be like to play through.</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Town name</em>: The name of the town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Day When Town Dies, Event Which Prevents Town Death (Advanced)</em>: After the given day, you can have the town be abandoned (i.e. empty of creatures). If the given day is left at -1, this doesnt happen. You can also have an event which prevents the town from being emptied at the given day. To have an event prevent this, enter the events number (1 .. 9) in the second text area. For more on this, read the section on Time Passing in the Special Encounters Chapter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Lighting</em>: A town can be fully lit, dark, very dark (torches burn down faster), or totally dark (light sources go out immediately).</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Maximum Number of Monsters</em>: When the given number of monsters in the dungeon is killed, the dungeon is considered abandoned, and will be completely empty from now on. Note that this will remove friendly monsters as well.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Difficulty</em>: This is a number from 0 to 10. The higher the number, the harder the town is, i.e. the faster wandering monsters appear and the more challenging locks and traps are.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Day When Town Dies, Event Which Prevents Town Death (Advanced)</em>: After the
|
||||
given day, you can have the town be abandoned (i.e. empty of creatures). If the given day
|
||||
is left at -1, this doesnt happen. You can also have an event which prevents the town from
|
||||
being emptied at the given day. To have an event prevent this, enter the events number (1
|
||||
.. 9) in the second text area. For more on this, read the section on Time Passing in the
|
||||
Special Encounters Chapter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Lighting</em>: A town can be fully lit, dark, very dark (torches burn down
|
||||
faster), or totally dark (light sources go out immediately).</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Maximum Number of Monsters</em>: When the given number of monsters in the dungeon
|
||||
is killed, the dungeon is considered abandoned, and will be completely empty from now on.
|
||||
Note that this will remove friendly monsters as well.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Difficulty</em>: This is a number from 0 to 10. The higher the number, the harder
|
||||
the town is, i.e. the faster wandering monsters appear and the more challenging locks and
|
||||
traps are.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
<h3>Advanced Town Details Window</h3>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>You can also edit more complicated features of the town in this window. All of these are advanced topics. For all of these fields, if the value is left at -1, it is ignored.</p>
|
||||
<p>You can also edit more complicated features of the town in this window. All of these
|
||||
are advanced topics. For all of these fields, if the value is left at -1, it is
|
||||
ignored.</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Exit Town Specials</em>: When the party leaves town while heading in a certain direction, you can have a town special node called. Enter the number of the node to call. You can use the Edit Special Nodes option in the Town menu to create the special encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Town Entry Special Node</em>: You can also set town special nodes to be called when the town is entered while abandoned or not abandoned.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Exit Town Location</em>: When the party leaves the town, you may want the party to end up in different areas in the current outdoor section. Enter the locations in the outdoor section for the party to arrive at when leaving town in that direction.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Town Hidden</em>: You can have a town be invisible when the party enters the scenario, only to be made visible by a special encounter (for example, the Show/Hide Town node type). To do this, press this button. Note that towns are only hidden when the party enters a scenario. If you add a town to a scenario and set it has hidden while a party is in the scenario, that party will still be able to see the town. If that party leaves the scenario and then reenters, the town will be properly hidden.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Exit Town Specials</em>: When the party leaves town while heading in a certain
|
||||
direction, you can have a town special node called. Enter the number of the node to call.
|
||||
You can use the Edit Special Nodes option in the Town menu to create the special
|
||||
encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Town Entry Special Node</em>: You can also set town special nodes to be called
|
||||
when the town is entered while abandoned or not abandoned.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Exit Town Location</em>: When the party leaves the town, you may want the party to
|
||||
end up in different areas in the current outdoor section. Enter the locations in the
|
||||
outdoor section for the party to arrive at when leaving town in that direction.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Town Hidden</em>: You can have a town be invisible when the party enters the
|
||||
scenario, only to be made visible by a special encounter (for example, the Show/Hide Town
|
||||
node type). To do this, press this button. Note that towns are only hidden when the party
|
||||
enters a scenario. If you add a town to a scenario and set it has hidden while a party is
|
||||
in the scenario, that party will still be able to see the town. If that party leaves the
|
||||
scenario and then reenters, the town will be properly hidden.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Placing Items</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>You can place preset items in towns for the party to find. To place an item, select one from the I1 - I5 menus, and click on the space to place it on. To edit a placed item, press the Edit Item button (in the lower right hand corner) and click on the item to edit.</p>
|
||||
<p>When you select an item to edit, the Editing Preset Item window will come up. You can change which item is here by pressing the Choose button. If you want to set the amount of gold or food here or the number of charges the item has (it it's a wand, set of arrows, or other item with charges) enter the new amount in the Amount or Charges Text field. Finally, there are three options at the bottom of this window:</p>
|
||||
<p>You can place preset items in towns for the party to find. To place an item, select one
|
||||
from the I1 - I5 menus, and click on the space to place it on. To edit a placed item,
|
||||
press the Edit Item button (in the lower right hand corner) and click on the item to
|
||||
edit.</p>
|
||||
<p>When you select an item to edit, the Editing Preset Item window will come up. You can
|
||||
change which item is here by pressing the Choose button. If you want to set the amount of
|
||||
gold or food here or the number of charges the item has (it it's a wand, set of arrows, or
|
||||
other item with charges) enter the new amount in the Amount or Charges Text field.
|
||||
Finally, there are three options at the bottom of this window:</p>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Always Here</em>: Normally,when the party takes an item,it won't be there the next time they enter the town. If this option is selected, the item will be there every time they enter the town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Someone's Property</em>: If the party takes this item and a friendly person sees them do it, the town will become hostile.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Contained In Something</em>: This item is contained inside a barrel, dresser, etc. and can't be taken until the party looks inside. When an item is placed onto a contained, this option is automatically selected for you. If you select this option and the item is not inside a container, the party won't be able to see or get it.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Always Here</em>: Normally,when the party takes an item,it won't be there the next
|
||||
time they enter the town. If this option is selected, the item will be there every time
|
||||
they enter the town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Someone's Property</em>: If the party takes this item and a friendly person sees
|
||||
them do it, the town will become hostile.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Contained In Something</em>: This item is contained inside a barrel, dresser, etc.
|
||||
and can't be taken until the party looks inside. When an item is placed onto a contained,
|
||||
this option is automatically selected for you. If you select this option and the item is
|
||||
not inside a container, the party won't be able to see or get it.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Placing And Editing Monsters</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Placing and editing monsters works like editing items. Select a monster, from the M1 - M4 menus, and click on the spot for it to appear in. Each monster has a default attitude (friendly, hostile, etc.), which is set in the monster type editing screen. The monster has this attitude when it appears.</p>
|
||||
<p>To edit a monster, press the Edit Monster button (in the lower right hand corner) and click on the monster. The monster dialog window has several options:</p>
|
||||
<p>Placing and editing monsters works like editing items. Select a monster, from the M1 -
|
||||
M4 menus, and click on the spot for it to appear in. Each monster has a default attitude
|
||||
(friendly, hostile, etc.), which is set in the monster type editing screen. The monster
|
||||
has this attitude when it appears.</p>
|
||||
<p>To edit a monster, press the Edit Monster button (in the lower right hand corner) and
|
||||
click on the monster. The monster dialog window has several options:</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Creature Type</em>: Press to select a new monster type.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Creature Starting Attitude</em>: Select Friendly (wont attack), Friendly, Will Fight (wont fight party, and will fight bad monsters), Hostile, Type A (will attack the party, and monsters of type Hostile Type B), and Hostile, Type B (will attack the party, and monsters of type Hostile Type A).</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Creature Starting Attitude</em>: Select Friendly (wont attack), Friendly, Will
|
||||
Fight (wont fight party, and will fight bad monsters), Hostile, Type A (will attack the
|
||||
party, and monsters of type Hostile Type B), and Hostile, Type B (will attack the party,
|
||||
and monsters of type Hostile Type A).</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Creature Can Move</em>: If no, monster cant move.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Personality</em>: If left at -1, the creature cant be talked to. Otherwise, see chapter on Dialogue.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Facial Graphic</em>: Press Choose to select the picture the player sees when talking to this character. If this is left at -1 and the character can be talked to, the player will see the creatures graphic on the talking screen.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Personality</em>: If left at -1, the creature cant be talked to. Otherwise, see
|
||||
chapter on Dialogue.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Facial Graphic</em>: Press Choose to select the picture the player sees when
|
||||
talking to this character. If this is left at -1 and the character can be talked to, the
|
||||
player will see the creatures graphic on the talking screen.</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>There are also more advanced settings for any placed creature. Press the Advanced button to set them.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are also more advanced settings for any placed creature. Press the Advanced
|
||||
button to set them.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h3>Advanced Monster Settings Dialog</h3>
|
||||
<p>You are allowed to set a variety of settings which determine when this creature will appear in the town. These mainly depend on what day it is, and what special events have occurred. For a more detailed description of how time works, read the chapter on Passing Time.</p>
|
||||
<p>You are allowed to set a variety of settings which determine when this creature will
|
||||
appear in the town. These mainly depend on what day it is, and what special events have
|
||||
occurred. For a more detailed description of how time works, read the chapter on Passing
|
||||
Time.</p>
|
||||
<p>Note that, if the town has been abandoned, creatures never appear.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are two text editing areas after these buttons, where you will enter the days the creatures appear/disappear and the events theyre linked to. The first area will always get a day, and the second area will get the number of a special event (0 - 9, with 0 meaning no event).</p>
|
||||
<p>There are two text editing areas after these buttons, where you will enter the days the
|
||||
creatures appear/disappear and the events theyre linked to. The first area will always get
|
||||
a day, and the second area will get the number of a special event (0 - 9, with 0 meaning
|
||||
no event).</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><em>Always Here</em>: Always here, no matter what.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Appear on Given Day</em>: Here after day in first text area, unless Event in second box has occurred (if 0 is put in second box, the creature is always there after given day).</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Disappear on Given Day</em>: Disappears day in first text area, unless Event in second box has occurred.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Sometimes Here A-C</em>: Creature is present every third day. If Sometimes Here A is selected, creature is there on days 1, 4, 7, etc. If Sometimes Here B is select, creature is here on days 2,5,8, etc.If Sometimes Here B is select, creature is here on days 3,6,9, etc. This can be used for a character which travels from town to town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Appear When Event</em>: After event in second box has occurred, creature is here.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Disappear When Event</em>: Once event in second box has occurred, creature disappears.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Special Encounter Group (Advanced)</em>: You can specify that a creature in a town will not be there at first, but will be brought into being by a special encounter. You can have 10 different groups of these creatures, who will be brought into being by calling a special node of the type One-Time Place Town Encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Special Node to Call When Killed (Advanced)</em>: Give the number of a town special node to call when the creature is killed (or -1 for none).</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Linked Stuff Done Flag (Advanced)</em>: Give the two parts of a Stuff Done flag. If this flag is non-zero, the creature wont be here. If it is 0, the creature will be here, but, should the creature die, the flag will be set to 1. This can be used for a monster you only want the party to be able to kill once.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Appear on Given Day</em>: Here after day in first text area, unless Event in
|
||||
second box has occurred (if 0 is put in second box, the creature is always there after
|
||||
given day).</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Disappear on Given Day</em>: Disappears day in first text area, unless Event in
|
||||
second box has occurred.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Sometimes Here A-C</em>: Creature is present every third day. If Sometimes Here A
|
||||
is selected, creature is there on days 1, 4, 7, etc. If Sometimes Here B is select,
|
||||
creature is here on days 2,5,8, etc.If Sometimes Here B is select, creature is here on
|
||||
days 3,6,9, etc. This can be used for a character which travels from town to town.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Appear When Event</em>: After event in second box has occurred, creature is
|
||||
here.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Disappear When Event</em>: Once event in second box has occurred, creature
|
||||
disappears.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Special Encounter Group (Advanced)</em>: You can specify that a creature in a town
|
||||
will not be there at first, but will be brought into being by a special encounter. You can
|
||||
have 10 different groups of these creatures, who will be brought into being by calling a
|
||||
special node of the type One-Time Place Town Encounter.</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Special Node to Call When Killed (Advanced)</em>: Give the number of a town
|
||||
special node to call when the creature is killed (or -1 for none).</li>
|
||||
<li><em>Linked Stuff Done Flag (Advanced)</em>: Give the two parts of a Stuff Done flag.
|
||||
If this flag is non-zero, the creature wont be here. If it is 0, the creature will be
|
||||
here, but, should the creature die, the flag will be set to 1. This can be used for a
|
||||
monster you only want the party to be able to kill once.</li>
|
||||
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -3,28 +3,14 @@ body {
|
||||
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
p.p1 {
|
||||
margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;
|
||||
font: 10.0px Geneva;
|
||||
min-height: 14.0px
|
||||
p {
|
||||
text-indent: 20px;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
p.p2, p.p4 {
|
||||
margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;
|
||||
font: 12.0px Geneva}
|
||||
|
||||
p.p3, p.p5 {
|
||||
margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;
|
||||
font: 10.0px Geneva}
|
||||
|
||||
span.s1 {
|
||||
text-decoration: underline
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
span.Apple-tab-span {
|
||||
white-space:pre
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
img {
|
||||
border: 0px;
|
||||
}
|
||||
@@ -38,6 +24,7 @@ span.key { /* Just to make things easier to read */
|
||||
padding:0 2px;
|
||||
clear:none;
|
||||
font-family:monospace;
|
||||
border-radius: 3px;
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
.figure {
|
||||
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user