Fyora Toast With Roamer Butter

How would one create the illusion of control in a linear scenario? I think it is with simple breaks in play where minor decisions can be made that may or may not effect the outcome of the whole scenario. This satisfies me that I have some direction in the game. Do I pull the red lever or the green lever? Do I decide to learn a bit of Vahnati Lore or destroy the Vahnati tome? One of the problems of pure linearity is that it assumes that there is no unpredictability in what is happening to the characters-- One maxim of the military is that "NO BATTLE PLAN SURVIVES CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY" -- there should be instances where decisions need to be made by the characters which are not completely foreseen. In a totalitarian setting it would be part of the characters job to sweep these things under the rug and deny them as a way to protect themselves. The characters are essentially problem solvers in Avernum.

1) Character stagnancy is not a good idea in my opinion. If everything is the same you get a technical puzzle not a scenario. It is like a tour bus trip where you look at things but do not go anywhere on foot in the city. This can be fine for a while, but then you want to get off the bus and decide what sights you want to see. 2)The problem with very controlled scenarios is that they lose my sense of suspension of disbelief (immersion) because in a way I am not a direct participant. Everything follows a set rigid pattern led by a totalitarian hand that never makes mistakes. Giving a breaking point where a decision can be made -- reconnects the story and allows the party to get back on the bus.

It seems that the karma flag could be used for something else entirely. It would be useful for a mercenary scenario based on actions to create opportunities. Your party is hired to do various missions-- certain actions increase your available missions. This is neither good nor bad-- just there. The actions would have to be searched out. Thus the more side quests done, the more that is available in the main quest. You could eliminate the negative side of the equation entirely. An example-- Knights Quest-- you are going to a tourney-- there are side quests for archer, mage, cleric, fighter, etc. Each side quest determines the events you are able to compete in in the the final tournmanet.

Control exists for getting a party to reach a specific objective. If it is focused and clear what will happen is not as much of an issue. Linear focus is not an issue if it is clear from the beginning they are going from a to b to c in a clear cut fashion. Initially, you are supposed to take the princess to the temple where she is supposed to perform the ritual. Then you are take her to the palace unharmed. Princess gets kidnapped. You must rescue her and get her to the temple in time to perform the ritual. Lost Bahssikava is a good example of control. However, if the player is suddenly taken control of and forced to do something which they do not like it ceases being fun to play. This happened in Canopy at times and could be annoying. A little forewarning can take care of this problem. A scenario which is completely controlled can be no fun sometimes. At least some sidequests, or decisions should be available which can change the ending. I think there should be a great deal of freedom for the player in sidequests. At some point there should be a pivotal decision which determines what is going to happen or the scenarios get boring. one of Emerald Mountains and Canopy's failings was that there was no optional ending. Plot is essentially about character development-- for most character development to occur the character at some point in a novel (not necessarily a scenario) a character has to make an essential decision which will determine the outcome of the novel. Join the rebels, or join the empire. Learn the Slith language or ignore it. Acknowledge Legare or pretend he does not exist. (Even in a controlled scenario-- there should be some pivotal decision that effects the ending.)

I think it will require different things to get to different islands. For the easier ones it might be boats. Maybe an undersea tunnel to get to one of the harder to reach islands. Maybe a teleporter to get into one protected by magic barriers. You may have to finish quests to find the way to reach some of them. Don't know.

I think it will require different things to get to different islands. For the easier ones it might be boats. Maybe an undersea tunnel to get to one of the harder to reach islands. Maybe a teleporter to get into one protected by magic barriers. You may have to finish quests to find the way to reach some of them. Don't know.

I can think of several reasons: 1) More nifty items. 2) Better cut scenes with lots of praise-- they talk about your great contributions, etc. 3) More opportunity to kill things. There are more good guys to kill. 4) An opportunity to prove you are superior to the monsters. 5) You get to enslave or execute your enemies. 6) Nobody has done a pure raiding type of scenario in Blades of Avernum where the objective is piracy, looting, stealing religious artifacts, and enslaving enemies. You could be paid to do this against the enemies of the empire. Basically, the characters would initially act as mercenaries without morals until they find themselves in a morally ambiguous situation... 6) Also a bounty hunter type scenario could provide a wonderfully morally ambiguous start...

I can think of several uses of Nature Lore for scenarios. 1) Increased chance of finding alchemical ingredients. 2) A chance to find food. 3) A way to avoid wandering monsters. 4) Some dungeons should be hidden and only findable with nature lore. Dense overgrowth etc. 5) Some encounters should not be available unless you have nature lore. You are asked to track down a fugitive.-- Can function as a tracking skill. 6) Eventually allows pathfinder.

oh where, oh where has my scenario gone I've chopped and I've hacked Oh where, oh where has my scenario gone I've edited and and programmed My tools lie around They grow out of bounds A million abound In masses and rounds Oh how I despair to see tools everywhere But not a single scenario is there. Stop this tools nonsense people and give me something to play.

I think there should be another way to become really powerful that doesn't come from the geneforge. It would be neat if you could learn the meditation techniques of the insane taker cultists and become very strong magically. A kind of enlightened wackyness.

It would be very interesting. You could also be a complete and total traitor and be an Obeyer from Geneforge 1. Also being a taker would be interesting. Some of the other serviles might be afraid of you. Even better you could be one of the insane servile magic using cultists in the taker compound.

That was interesting. The bitmap ran about 1 MB. It took five minutes to upload using a 56k modem. I just sent it off. Thanks all. Drew a circle around the problem using paint.

Okay you have pressed print screen. Where is this saved to so I can manipulate the image. Know I am being a little bit picky.

I was hoping to avoid that. There is a second part of the question. Lets say that you get your screenshot for XP of the game. I've noticed that some people have drawn red circles around the questionable sections of the screenshots with commentary. Did you export the screenshot to paint then draw the circles. Not sure about this as well.

Hello all, This may sound like a goofy question. I can't seem to get screenshots from the game. I have shrunk down the size of the window for the game so it is manageable. I think it would be helpful for betatesters to know how to do this properly. I am using Windows XP. Looked in the help files for Windows XP, but all they had was how to print the screen. Kind of ridiculous. Used to be able to save the current screen as wallpaper or file in earlier editions of Windows.

You can give some items a ridiculous number of charges-- I don't think there is a charge limit for wands. A wand of light or light crystal would work well. It would save a lot of weight for the characters. So you could have a wand of light lvl 50 with 200 charges and you would not need to purchase/find torches or lamps for quite a while. It would be very lite -- 1 pound. I don't think you could make a light helmet. Another item which would lighten the load for characters would be a magical dinner plate usable once per day that gave eight food items every time it was used-- 2 loaves of broad, 2 pieces of fish, 2 apples, and 2 greens. No more carrying around food.

It would become tedious after a while if not done very well. The reason you don't describe everything is that you want to cut out the mundane to speed up the scenario so it is more interesting. The only way to counter this is if you hid a lot of extra stuff in some of the encounters. Also, too much explanation sounds like lecturing. You don't need to explain most things unless they are unique-- a fort is a fort, a dark wyrm crystal spiral might use some explanation.

Could you do a child nephilim, a shopkeeper nephilim, a watch cat (like a watch dog) and a lady nephilim. It would help makes the towns a little better.

Its all worth a try. email: wehireu@yahoo.co experience: betatesting -- A Perfect Forest, and Undead Valley (hmm....)

Morog's Scepter is cursed and it is a great item. A very powerful item that is cursed has a mind of its own and won't let you give it up. Stormbringer is a perfect example of a cursed item that has positive effects.

Make some of the items cursed. Not necessarily negatively cursed. Cursed items are not identifiable unless you bring them to a store.

Just did some followup with posters who said they were interested in starting dungeons for contest. Should have done this about three days before contest ended. Going to leave idents alone. One said started scenario designing for contest-- had outline, start of town, and beginning of structure. Also reading through the posts, both here and on The Blades of Avernum got a couple comments about not having scripting ability yet. Another two are holding off on scenario development until later. Haven't heard back about adding other two scenarios in development Edge of Ciprius or Xerch'De. Looking at the timing involved, I realize now that initially didn't factor in betatesting and programing together. Should have run 4 weeks to allow for new programmers. This leaves Emerald Mountain and "Death at Chapman's" as the two entered scenarios. Both are excellent scenarios. We are running through them to get a feel for the scenarios right now. Just a note. Both Terrors Martyr and Erik Westra are excellent scripters. Terrors Martyr wrote the first scenario for Blades of Avernum and Erik Westra wrote the Blades of Avernum Editor Cookbook.

I am okay with you announcing it in the morning. It is good to see new scenarios out for people to play. Thanks.

I received an entry today from Erik Westra -- Death at Chapman's in the morning. So far there are two scenarios that are definitely part of the contest Death at Chapman's and Emerald Mountain. I am hoping that Edge of Cipirus and (Xerch'de-- Johnny Zolohani's scenario) will be entered. I think that I may allow enough time for these to be finished and entered. Please give me feedback on what you think. Is this enough to have a complete contest? I am not sure about adding any new entries.

Oops. Sorry about that. I should have said Terrors Martyr. I was a little bit tired when I posted this. I was saying ten days because. It took 5 days to finish the scenario-- then it took another couple of days for the beta test-- 2 days I think to receive the comments and then another 1-2 days to finish updating the fixes for the scenario so 9-10 days to have it ready to be posted. Then there was talk about doing a next version-- 1.1, 1.2, etc. I was looking at the whole process to complete a scenario and submit it for publication in the spiderweb scenarios section. I think that it might be good for someone more experienced than me like Kelandon, Terrors Martyr, Eldiran, or someone else to give some hints on how to do betatesting and updates for scenarios if you are the designer. The point at which the scenario is finished and it sent up for beta. Go over some of the mistakes or hints to make the process easy for someone doing their first scenario. It may be helpful for the regular upcoming Spiderweb scenario contest.