*i

What are the things you want to do, perhaps we can help?

I do not believe so.

Having random, unimportant monsters be a bit on the easy side is okay, especially for inexperienced players. I suggest saving the challenges for the more important fights.

It's upstairs in the northern part of town. In a quite dark barracks in a box or something that might be easy to miss. I suggest turning the brightness of your monitor up.

I would say add it to the list of bugs.

Perhaps that do_attack_tactic() is broken? I haven't used it extensively, but I have not noticed much effect toward items with it. Your other option is to simulate using an item with scripting. Not as realistic, but plausible.

Nephilian does not sound right for the name of Nephil speak as it sounds like a Latin based language. I don't know, I just don't see the Nephil language of having Latin roots. It has too much European flow. Perhaps you should invent a word for the preposition 'of' that sounds Nephil like and make that in some order. A suggestion could be Nephirar where the -rar suffix means of. The literal translation would be 'of Nephilim'. That's what I've been using in Chill Factor at least, my scenario that centers around Nephilim.

Rather than putting the code to prefer item use in an attack state, just have it be at the beginning of the START_STATE. See if that works.

Quote: As for an rpg with a deep interactive world with non-static characters and so on, that is a really tough nut. I need to be convinced that the payoff is worth the huge amount of work. When I'm planning Geneforge 4, I think my energy will be much better spent planning cool, badass (albeit static) dungeons to go through. It does not have to be that deeply interactive really. Even simple things like, you help out a fort. The fort sneds help to you later on. Or, you do something to offend Jack. Jill, who is friends with Jack, decides to make things inconvenient for you later on. We see some of this minor stuff already, but it would make things more interesting and really be only a little bit of code. The other more detailed part comes from a very few characters who take more of an active role. Bob was just an example. Gretta and Alwan are characters who sort of do this, but never really develop beyond being poster childs for each extreme. They have a few lines here and there, but otherwise they do not do anything other than following the main character. The way things are written it works decently well. However, they could have played more active of a role, actually influencing the storyline in some way. A possible suggestion are a few recurring characters who have their own agendas (related to the plot in some at least tangential way) that sometimes either coincides with or against that of the party. In cases where the needs coincides, the character offers assistance, and in cases where it is against they may work to stop them. Again, not a lot of coding, but goes a long way to make the world more interactive. Unexpected things could happen that change the dynamics of the situation. An example is the death of Houghton. As far as I can tell, this should have been a major event in Avernum but was regarded as little more than a hiccup because King Starrus was able to jump in right away and act as a new Bob as if nothing happened. Suppose there is no clear leader, we get a vacuum. This could have very interesting implications. This would take a bit more coding and plot modification, but if planned, it can be done well. I'm not sure I see a whole lot of effort needed here. Have the main villain not sit in his tower all day cackling and thinking up evil schemes. Have him do stuff in the execution of these plots and be an active character rather than just rely on lieutenants. Have other characters have their own stories that have intersections with the main plot. Make us know them as actual people with likes, interests, and ambitons. Quote: By the way, I've been reading D-Day by Stephen Ambrose. At first, I thought it was really exciting, but now I know that it is not. Eisenhower was such a "Bob" character. All he did was sit in the back and give orders. I had no idea that World War II was so uninterestingly plotted. I respectfully call this a strawman argument for several reasons: 1) WWII is a real event. RPGs bear a semblance to the real world, but are ultimately fantasy. We can draw parallels, but making direct comparisons is untenable. 2) Eisenhower was a fairly interesting character that I'm sure D-Day develops quite well. We get a lot of backstory on him; he becomes someone the reader can relate to. For example, someone like Lord Rahul gets little backstory other than that he is a big, powerful shaper. Had we known more about him, his personality, etc. Rahul would certainly have been interesting and crticism far less. 3) The face of war has changed in the modern era. Used to be the big guy like Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, etc. would go on the battlefield with their men. Sure, these guys did Bob like things, but they were more than just barkers of orders. I would put the RPG worlds of Avernum and Geneforge closer to those commanders. 4) On that note, Eisenhower is really just an old man who probably would not last long on a real world battlefield. Lord Rahul is very powerful, more powerful than virtually anyone on the isle, especially the main character. Why doesn't he take on Akari Blaze himself? Why does he need the party other than the fact that its a game and it would be uniteresting if Lord Rahul just won the game for them. Thanks for participation in this discussion.

Quote: I would have to agree with the fact that the world of Spiderweb games are static, and that it is an issue. How could the games rather be done? Well, I'll use an example of my scenario A Perfect Forest. Although it is very short in comparison, I purposely tried to avoid the Jeff Vogel method. I warn that there be spoilers ahead. The identity of Bob is not fixed and sometimes not a person at all. I will also look at the villains: Initially Bob is the Empire sending you out to survey a remote isle. I could have just used the you were wandering a forest excuse, but I felt this to be more coherent. Upon discovering the village, you are interrogated by Arivan (one of the villains) and then you continue to investigate and find Klinger (who takes the role of Bob). You help Bob escape and complete his mission to go to Asmur. Asmur gets quashed, you pick up Valzier (who sort of serves as a Bob accessory). Get to Rebel lair, the role of Bob transfer to the rebel leader, Suvar. Rebel lair gets attacked by Arivan (who takes an active role). You rush to escape to get to Lost City, smack Valzier who turns out be an imposter and agent for Arivan. Suvar gets killed and the rebellion crushed, thus leaving the party Bobless (although the player knows, the party does not, to be fair). Klinger sacrifices himself to kill Arivan and her followers. Go though Lost City, meet Perfect Spirit (the main villain) in the Lost Mine. At this point, the player is motivated by the fact of uncovering the mystery. The party does not necessarily know that Bob is dead, so he remains as the party's motivation. However, for the player, Bob is now the abstract mystery itself. The Perfect Spirit is a static villain and one that is not really developed that much. This is on purpose because of the mystery atmosphere. If I had it "active" in the party's adventures, it would have diminished the mystery. To justify the Perfect Spirit staying inactive, I made him trapped in the mine by magical machinery. You destroy machinery, Perfect Spirit leaves island. Return to rebel lair, talk to Arivan before she dies. Speak to last remaining Rebels, learn of their future plans, leave. Meet the Empire (your original Bob), tell your story. In this, Bob does not just sit in his office. We have the Empire who sort of does, but only serves to get the party to the action, not facilitate it. Bob, as Klinger joins the party, fights along side them and plays an active role. Bob transfers to a less interesting character who is immediately killed and replaced by an abstract concept of intrigue and perhaps wanted to report results to the Empire. The villains Arivan, Valzier (who is really the imposter), and the Perfect Spirit each have varying degrees of involvment. The party meets Arivan before meeting Bob (Klinger), which is somewhat of a reverse. Arivan also takes an active role by crushing the rebellion. In addition, you never fight her, you only speak to her just before she dies. Valzier joins the party, pretends to be a friend, leads Arivan to the rebels unknowing to everyone else including the player, and eventually betrays the party. The Pefect Spirit I have already discussed. The difference in this from Jeff's is that Bob is actually an important and active character in the story. The villains (except for the Perfect Spirit) do not just sit on some throne and laugh meniacally until the party sets them straight. That's the difference, it shares commanility, but is different. Quote: The part of Bob just sitting in his office, dispening missions, is another easily fixable thing. Just have him change location, or aid you in battle now and then. That's exactly what I am saying. The characters would be more realistic if they actually did stuff other than act important. To take it further, the more interaction of other characters with the story, the better the characters, and the better the story, generally speaking.

Sounds pretty good. I agree with Kel, make it something simple. Maybe even kill a "gremlin" infiltrator for them. Quote: That night, party has dream of a shadowy figure casting a spell on them, and of a huge wall that they want to get past but can't. This might be a bit too obvious. I wouldn't just chalk this up to a normal dream as it gives way too much away about the motives of the Gremlins and what happened. Perhaps the party sort of comes out of it in a daze, dreamlike state (the party thinks they are dreaming) where they are wandering around a Gremlin Grove, perhaps even killing some Gremlins. A gremlin sees them and casts a spell on them and they "wake up" back in their beds. They conclude that they must be dreaming about the oncoming attack. Convine the player that the "dream" is what will be rather than what "was". Quote: You awake in the cell with by grim determination to get to the center and avenge your comrades. Revenge is a strong motive, especially for a nameless, faceless party that is undeveloped. Personally it would make me a bit uneasy to just be told I should take revenge for people that I (the player now) have never even met. Perhaps keep some of the soldiers still alive. Gremlins are hedonistic folk and would probably keep some captives to jeer and torture. Rescue is a lot easier to swallow as it goes to the premise that the party is noble and generally good, which is almost universally accepted as the alignment of a nameless party.

You misunderstand me Alorael, I'm saying that the formula of: build levels, find Bob, do missions for Bob, win game is old and tired. The problem is, as I said, is not that Bob exists, it's that largely he just sits there and dispenses missions. Lord Rahul, Anaximander, the GF2 Bobs merely sit on their thrones and give out missions and rewards and that's it as far as the story is concerned. Of course, Bob is just one example I was using. Villains in Jeff's games tend to be the same way. They sit in their tower/castle/whatever until the party comes to smite them. This applies to virtually every character in Jeff's games. They are largely inactive in Jeff's world. The only people that have real active roles are those that are in the party. Now the party should have a very active role and the world should respond to them; however, as part of the reaction to the party's actions the characters should react in more interesting ways. Let's take An Apology from Blades of Exile. We had Bob, who is calling himself Xenophon and we have the villain who is Kriken. Xenophon does send the party on missions, but he also partakes in the action. Kriken also does not just sit in his tower. He does things to bug the party, he reacts to the actions. Am I saying Jeff should make something like An Apology? No. Am I saying his characters are shallow and largely inactive? Absolutely. EDIT: I'll add this as I was going to write this but forgot: I don't mind if Jeff uses the above formula once in a while. One or two games, that would be great. However, when all games start following the same basic pattern it forces me to conclude that Jeff is stuck in a design modality. Is the modality bad? Not intrinsically so. Is the modality bad when used over and over again? To that I answer any modality is bad when used over and over again.

My main complaint is that Jeff has not really done a whole lot original in a long time. Yeah, Exile was great because it was new. Nethergate was pretty neat, although I have one complaint on that which I will discuss later. Avernum was just a rehashing of Exile, no new ideas there. GF1 was actually pretty cool in premise, but somewhat klunky. GF2 and GF3 started out being interesting, but quickly devolved. A4 is pushed by the plot which is quite unoriginal and is a departure from the explore mode. My main problem is that Jeff's games do not really have what authors would call characters. Sure, they have constructs in the story, but there are not a whole lot of people who stand out very much. The commonality in this is we have the premise of, find Bob (the generic guy who gives out the major missions throughout Jeff's games), do them, and get loot. A1/A2 didn't really have a central Bob character in them and neither did GF1. In A3 it was Anaximander. In Nethergate and GF2 it was the leader of whichever side you picked (do these X missions to win the game). In GF3 it was Lord Rahul (if you choose the Shapers) or Akari Blaze and Litalia (for the rebels). In A4 it was Houghton and King Starrus. Is Bob needed? Probably so. However, the person that gives the missions is a generic construct. Now Litalia changes this somewhat in GF3, but otherwise all of the characters I mentioned above could be interchanged with any other personality and it would work just fine. Why is this so important? Well, it leads to the patented Jeff Vogel formula of game design: 1) Start game, kill stuff, collect loot and direction to Bob. 2) Locate Bob and do X missions for him. 3) You win. Look at A4, everything up to the Castle is pretty much (1). Everything else before that exists for the purpose of leveling up and making the game longer. Sure we have the Alien Marking, but that's the justification to see Bob. So we find Bob (err...Houghton) and we do his missions three. Jeff does something potentially really cool here and kills off Bob, I mean Houghton. Now with Houghton dead, there could be something interesting here. However, Bob is quickly resurrected and jumps into the guise of King Starrus, pretty much the same person with a different name and office. We do two more missions and win. Look at the Shaper side of GF3. Greenwood and Harmony Isle are leveling up distractions. I suppose this is not quite fair as it does develop the "enemy" better than in A4. You get to Bob who now calls himself Lord Rahul, you do his missions three and you win. The Rebel side is a little more interesting as we do not meet the real Bob, now dressed in a Drakon costume and named Akari Blaze, until near the end. But even still, Litalia gives us our missions until replaced by Akari Blaze at the end. This is better because at least Bob is a little more active this game. Let's look at GF2. The game starts out as an interesting mystery until we discover the verdant areas. Well, we journey on until we find Bob (in this case Zakary, Barzahl, Learned Pinner, or Eaaas), we do whichever Bob incarnation's missions three and we win. Look at Nethergate. We meet Bob from the very beginning, we do the six missions or whatever and win. A3 is similar in that we always have Anaximander to report to (who just sits in his cramped office), but at least is not so direct in do these x things for me. So here's the deal: Jeff's games are formulaic. The names may change and a eye raising ripple may appear here and there (Houghton dying or the mystery with Shanti thing), but Jeff never capitalizes on it. If that's what you like, more power to you. However, I would like to see some new spark, some new charm, a break from the old formula where I have characters and motivations. What's the answer? I don't know, I'm not the one getting money to think up these things. This is not to say what Jeff has done is bad, it's actually decent. What troubles me is that it is the same game over and over again with different graphics, names, and text, but fundamentally the same.

This it the test of magic right? You can only damage it with magic, and one particular type at a time. Watch the text screen to see what color it flashes and hit it with that type. Your fighters should only act as a shield for it, but should never actually strike the creature.

Yes, this comes from the canisters. You really shouldn't use to many of those if you are concerned about such effects.

For the record, in my last post, I was just saying use "we need to get food" as the motivation for your minor quest you want to do. I don't want to discourage your ideas, just want to challenge them and make you make sure that they make sense in addition to offering suggestions as to alternate methods of a approaching a similar situation. Your idea has a lot of potential, I just couldn't entirely make sense of it after reading it a few times the way you had written it; that's the main reason why I wrote up a alternate idea, because I couldn't fully understand it. I'd recommend you do something you want to do and has your own ideas, but that you really clearly work them out so other people can understand them. In somewhat response to Drakey's assertion: Hunger would serve as a hook or motivation to begin the plotline, a logical reason everyone can relate to. The charming would still be the focus of the story, the hunger just something to give the player a sense of urgency and direness. Then you have the choice of making the player aware he is slaughtering his fellow soldiers or not. Both are intriguing: Suppose as you suggest, everything changes so the player thinks he is slaughtering gremlins. The value you get is the "Oh, crap!" moment when the party wakes up. The other one is to make the player fully aware of his charmed state. Emulations sort of explores this concept. Both can be really good and effective. I'm leaning toward the first one becasue (1) it has not been explored as much and (2) it has shock value. I hope I've made you aware of a couple design choices you have in creating a storyline. Oh and, Drakefyre, when are we going to see that great scenario you intend to release?

I'm not sure I fully understand. At first you say the party gets charmed, then it is not, and then it is. I am not sure I know exactly when the party is charmed and when it is not and what is "real" and what is not. A few questions you should answer: 1) Why does the Empire want a remote, small, swampy, and otherwise seemingly unextraordinary island? What can they gain by a settlement? 2) The gremlins. Does the Empire know about them before hand? If so, why doesn't the Empire just do a full assault on them? 3) The first mission. What does it have to do with the main plotline? Why does the party need to do the mission other than to make the game longer? I would suggest doing the hunger thing I stated above as it makes a dire survival need. 4) When exactly does the charming go on? Who is the "wrong side" that you mention in your original post? 5) So the party wakes up. Why do they fight the fort captain? 6) How is the party going to get off this remote island after they sneak out?

Quote: Originally written by Glafna: I'm optomistic about all of the Spiderweb games. Apparently you have not been around Spiderweb very long.

Okay, sounds interesting; just offering suggestions. Keep in mind this is NOT a topic for just posting scenario ideas that you have no intention of putting to scrutiny or even seeking advice on. So my question is, what sort of advice do you want with respect to design?

I believe there was one, sort of a diplomat.

A few hints of suggestion: Skip the "first few minor missions". It would be interesting to have the fort be completely out of food from the beginning. The soldiers are starving and are getting desperate. I'd make the gremlins just very mischievous and always stay in hiding making stealthy kills; the powerful magical race is old hat. On a side note, for a longer BoA scenario, you could make food a usable item linked to a special node, if you do not eat for one day, you suffer consequences (like reduced endurance or something until you eat). Although I would keep it short enough that it probably would not matter. Have the party go out and find food. It's risky, but the situation is dire. Party finds orchard of fruit or something. Gets 'charmed' by Gremlins. Have eating the fruit make you feel a strange care-free sensation or something. Not knowing you have been charmed, you return to the fort with fruit, but the soldiers "attack you" once you are past the main gate. Actually, this is part of your perception. The party is told that they have to escape by opening the main gate (allowing the gremlins to enter). Wake up, return to gremlin fort, find gremlins engaged in huge party at fallen fort. Soldiers are kept for jeers and the such. You have to free the soldiers and defeat the gremlin leader. With their leader gone, the gremlins flee. This scenario is probably pretty short and simple. Probably only requires 3 towns (fort, the orchard, and the ruined fort) and 1 outdoor section, but still has enough plot twist to be interesting.

The demon you need to kill is in the section just west of the other one, the one directly under the tower, near the center.

That might be it. Every working file I see has a .cmg tag, not a .cmg.rscr tag. Try removing the .rscr part and see it works. If not, create a new .cmg file in ResFool and copy a couple images from an existing, working .cmg file for another scenario and try that one with your scenario. If it works, then try copying your original image in; it not, then we'll get to that if it comes up.

Those doors will not open until you defeat Rentar-Ihrno. I take it you have made it to the lower level? If so, look for a lever north of the shrine, it is difficult to see.

I doubt there will be a character editor. You can always cheat by modifying the scripts, however.