ThirdParty

Especially after the party is in the destination town, the best way to lead them to the next part of the story is with dialogue. Allowing the adventurers to ask people "say, I'm looking for a secret staircase, have you seen anything like that?" and making sure a few people know the answer is a good way to let the party find its own way down. (It doesn't have to be just in a town, though. Letting the party ask people "hey, I'm supposed to find a remote fishing village, am I close?" works for outdoor navigation too. After all, this is what we do in real life when we get lost: we ask for directions.)

No.

My understanding is that weapon damage is computed as follows: ( it_bonus + level of it_weapon_skill_used + (strength for weapons or 1/2 dexterity for missiles) ) dice of size it_damage_per_level It is reported in game as: "[ it_bonus]-[ it_bonus * it_damage_per_level ] + it_damage_per_level Levels damage"

I think the main point to take from the disagreement here is that town exploration should be optional. Make essential services easy to find and easy to return to (exception: players dependent on lockpicks should be used to scrounging around a little to find a store). If you're going to put in plot-vital NPC's, make sure the player knows who he's looking for and will be able to find him easily. However, there's nothing wrong with hiding extra things for players with the patience to look. Maybe there's a secret passage that leads to a supply cache for the player to steal. Maybe one of the storekeepers, if chatted with carefully enough, will offer to show off his "special" stock. Maybe if you buy a drink for the guy at the bar, he'll offer you a side-quest. If the player's interested in the history of the region, the official version can be found in the library or town hall, while the old retired fellah will tell the real story. Evil high priests and their disciples need places to sleep just like everyone else does, and may be inclined to sacrifice the adventurers to Maloch first and ask questions later when said adventurers enter their home without permission. Etc.

The PDF's are not up to date. See, for example, the mis-description of "give_ter_script_message" in the PDF but not in the DOC.

The manual is completely clear, but I'll spell it out for you. First. The only thing that matters is which (outdoor) square the party steps on, not which direction it's moving when it does so. Stepping on a square on the southern border of the town result in entering from the south. Thus, 1x1's, 3x1's, and any other single-space-high town shapes will have only one entrance. Stepping on a square that's on the western but not southern border results in entering from the west. Stepping on a square that's on the northern but not western results in entering from the north. Stepping on a square that's not on the southern, western, or northern border results in entering from the east. What you want to do is make the town entrance 2x2, including the row of trees just south of the actual town. That way, entering from the west will be treated as entering from the west. Entering from the east will be treated as entering from the north.

Actually, it might be possible to code it to behave properly, using the calls that we have. Isn't there a call for checking whether something is within line-of-sight and x range from something else?

I rather agree with Jeff here. Hey, I like stories as much as the next guy; I spend probably ten times as much time reading novels as I do playing computer games. But when I want a novel, I read a novel. When caught up in a great plot, turning a page to get to the next scene takes a lot less time than maneuvering through a dark maze or sneaking into the rebel fort. Although scenarios should certainly have plots to help the player figure out what to do next, the plot is not the main thing. If I'm playing a computer game, I'm interested in strategy: give me puzzles to figure out how to pass, tough battles to figure out how to win, and decisions about how to improve my party so they'll win future battles as well. My favorite of the built-in BoA scenarios is not ASR, but DwtD: there's great stuff for sale, but getting the fancy armor or the excellent weapon will come at the expense of learning top-level spells, or of acquiring knowledge brews and training from the countryside. And nothing beats the fun of finding the Black Dress of Speed and then realizing that my character will have almost no armor while wearing it. I also agree with Jeff that everyone should make the kinds of scenarios he likes; that way there will be something for everybody. For me, drop me in a detailed world with choices to make and tasks to do (real tasks, not boring courier missions with no combat that just waste time in between telling the story), and I don't really care if there's anything tying it all together or not. My characters are adventurers. They explore for exploration's sake (and the loot, of course), not because such-and-such threatens the destruction of so-and-so.

See "Determining Town Entry Direction", in the Editor Docs pages 34-35.