The World of Althéa

Better The .... Treasure (Appraise Skill)

2012-01-13T12:41:00.022Z

This week I want to introduce one of the ways I am expanding the skills for the game. In the past, whenever I have played a game, be it from my pen and paper days through to gaming on the computer, there have always been some skills that seem a little underplayed compared to others, and they tend to be forgotten by most players ... or categorised at not very useful. I hope to redress some of the balance, and while I may not succeed, I hope some of the alterations I have made will make the game a little more entertaining at least. When I have made an alteration (or addition) to a skill usage, I have tried to keep as close to the original rules and intentions as possible. This week, I would like to talk about the Appraise skill.

Junk or Treasure?

You know what it's like ... You wonder into some "deserted room" and you happen to stumble upon a gaudy piece of artwork and you begin to wonder .... is it just junk or some priceless piece? After all, what's the point of dragging something around with you, weighing you down, if, when you eventually get to sell it, it was not worth anything like what you expected.

Knowing how much something might be worth could be the difference between carrying one piece of artwork out of a building compared to another. Having an ability to tell the worth of something is what the appraise skill gives you.

Appraising In Action

First and foremost, if you do not have at least one rank in the skill, you will not recognise a valuable piece of art from a piece of tat! Although, at the very least, you suspect it may be worth something. So, unless you are strong enough to be able to carry every potential treasure item you find with you, then you will have to be a little more discerning in your choice of carried items. Or, if weight issues are not a problem to you, then simply knowing how much something may be worth to an interested party is worth knowing in itself. NB: Using the appraise skill this way only applies to larger objects of art and miscellaneous items. It does not apply to general smaller items, such as gems or jewellery. (Unless the gem or jewellery is a unique item and considered an art piece itself.)

Appraising an item is an automatic process for anybody with the skill. The moment a PC picks up an item (where the PC is said to be examining it more closely), the weight, the general quality, and gold to Weight Value are instantly calculated (appraised) by the carrier. Accuracy of the gold to weight value is calculated by the DC of the item to appraise against the PC's appraisal skill score. If the PC makes the skill roll, then the appraised value is more accurate than if they had failed.

Within a few seconds of appraising the item, the PC will give their estimated gold value for the item, along with their level of confidence. The additional feedback at the time of appraising can be Confident, Uncertain or Unconfident, which gives the player some indication of how accurately the PC has appraised the item in question. (All calculations are based on the 3e rules.) Note, however, the item in question can then be given to another PC in the party (if they have a higher appraisal skill score) and another appraisal attempt will be made. Simply dropping the item from the current PC inventory onto another PC will give new appraised feedback about the item without having to change PC to enable it. This is useful if the second PC has a higher appraisal skill than the former and is more likely to give a more confident valuation. (See the expanded chat window in the image to see the differences in appraising between the PCs.)

In the example here, the item had originally been appraised with a gold to Weight Value of 34%, but was then passed onto another PC (with a higher appraise skill) who appraised it at a higher value, reflected in the 50% WV and their valuation was an uncertain 388 gp. The same item was then handed over to yet another PC, who had the highest appraisal skill in the party, who calculated a 37% WV value, which equates to 293 gp value, and with which the PC was confident with their appraisal. A couple of things must be noted here: 1) The first PC who picked up the item (whose appraisal skill was the lowest in the group) was actually closer to the mark with their 34% WV estimate than the PC (with a higher appraisal skill) who checked it after them. This shows that there is a degree of luck when making such valuations, although generally, someone with a better appraisal skill will be more accurate (reflected in confidence level) than one with less. 2) Recognise that a higher confidence is the preferred result for valuation accuracy.

What Is Weight Value?

One of the most important benefits of knowing how much something is worth, is whether it is worth carrying it along with you due to its weight. After all, if something is worth 20 gp, but weighs 20 lb, it may not be worth the encumbrance to carry along. Each player will decide their own criteria of whether it is worth it or not, but knowing the weight value is where this can help a player decide. Basically, the percentage value given for a Weight Value (WV) is its comparative worth in gold against a bag of 500 gold coins weighing 10 lb. E.g. If a treasure item weighed 10 lb, and was estimated to be worth 500 gp, then the WV value would be 100%, because it was "worth its weight in gold!"

There are two things worth noting here though: 1) The valuation is based upon the appraisal skill of the PC and so the WV is only as accurate as their confidence in such. 2) Not every merchant will give you its total worth in gold, even if they are interested in such items in the first place. Therefore, a truly worthwhile treasure is one that calculates to at least around 120% WV, which estimation is more likely to recover its equivalent weight worth in gold.

It should be noted, however, not to quickly dismiss a treasure simply because it scores a low WV, because it may still be worth quite a bit of gold, but will require humping around with you until you can sell it to retrieve what it's worth. And if general worth is all that interests you, a player should keep an eye open for an item's appraised quality, which can be any of the following: Poor; Mediocre; Reasonable; Good; Grand or Exceptional. It should not take too long before a player recognises what kind of reward they can expect from each category.

For ease of play, all such information about each treasure item (which shares the same in game icon for ease of recognition) will contain important information within its name that can be accessed simply by hovering over the item in the PC's inventory. At-a-glance information includes the important WV information along with the weight, so a player can instantly do a mental sum in their head to recognise its worth. I know I could have given the gold value as well, but I did not want to include this as it may be misleading. Instead, if the player examines the item in question, they can see the estimated gold value there alongside the confidence level of this estimate.

Exploit Protected

As regular readers of this blog will know, I like to include a degree of exploit protection with respect to certain items and actions to give them a degree of permanency. As these treasure items can be randomly generated, I decided to include them within this remit. What this basically means is, if a player saved a game just prior to picking up the treasure and the game handed them a poor quality item, reloading the game to try to gain a more valuable item will not help the player, as the same value item (and weight thereof) will be returned. There will be no advantage to reloading a game, except for one reason: They get to reappraise the item. If they want to reload the game for this, then so be it. :)

Your Comments

Lastly, please leave comments on your opinions about including such additions to the game, and let me know if there are other skills you have already altered, or would like to see altered to imrove the game. I am not talking about complete skill system rebuilds, but maybe some odd tweak or such that might improve the game for you.

Don't forget to vote on either/both of the two polls currently running if you have not done so already!

Atmosphere And Lighting (POLL)

2012-01-05T16:00:00.010Z

I am continuing to write material for the first module called, Better The Demon, and hope to finish this year! Last year, I had hoped that I would finish it, but this time, I feel more confident. This is because I have decided to not be so worried about some details that may easily be overlooked by some players anyway. On occasion, I play an RPG game to relax, and I have noticed that many do not have the same detail, and I do not feel it detracts that much. Now, I am going to concentrate on the remaining conversations, creatures and encounters. I will still continue to write quests, but I believe I have them all accounted for now, and all that remains is to join the dots.

True Darkness

Now, to the main point of this post: How important is atmosphere and lighting to most of you? Now, on the surface of it, the obvious answer would be "utmost", but I am asking it from the point of view of "realism". i.e. Should an eerie underground complex have "ambient" lighting to help complement the existing lighting to enhance "atmosphere" or should just the existing lighting do all the work?

Now, in my designs, I have opted for a combination of priorities, subject to my own preferences for the area in question. However, I would be interested how you might consider this aspect of game play. i.e. If I need light, then I should find it .... or .... I wish the design made it so I could see. Which best describes you?

An eerie altar looms out of the darkness ahead!

In the above example, I have removed all ambient lighting because I wanted the altar to stand within existing lighting only, but it may be better realised with additional lighting? Is the scene too dark? Yet, if the PC is using their own light source (via torch or spell), then this will contribute towards the overall lighting of the scene anyway. The point is, what do you think works best for your general gaming experience? Should I add additional lighting to areas to enable a "clearer view" or leave them to existing light only to be more true to the scene? I have started a second poll, called "Atmosphere & Lighting" for you to vote, and leave comments as required.

Readable Books (Improved Image System)

2011-12-24T14:09:00.009Z

This is just a quick post to say that I have improved the way images can be incorporated into the Readable Books system of mine. Note, I have NOT updated the Vault code because I do not want to upset other people's usage of the code to date. However, I will be incorporating images into books this way in the future, as it maintains the "image consistency" of the book and allows for text to be placed on a page next to an image, which it could not do before.

This was something I looked at doing a long while ago, but time was always against me with other priorities. However, I finally decided to do it and I am pleased with the results. For those that want a heads up on the scripting involved, I simply saved a separate background image that was the same size as the original, but with the new image on it, and then held the name of the TGA file in a global variable and updated the background GUI image whenever the page was referenced, deleting the global storage between references. It worked a treat and removes the need to rely on a rather complicated bit of scripting to reference different conversation files and keep track of various tokens. i.e It's a MUCH SIMPLER system!

However, as some people may also like the "zoomed in" feel when looking at images, I have not removed any of my original code, so that the two systems can, in theory, be used side by side. Below is a screenshot of the new book images in action.

Meanwhile,I am continuing to plug away at the conversations and scripts remaining in the mod, and while there are still a few areas left to do, I am definitely on the home straight now.

And while, personally, I do not celebrate the Xmas festivals (due to them stemming from a pagan background), I do, however, wish everybody a Happy New Year if I do not post again before then. (If anybody wants to hear more about the histories of such, or simply wants to chat, I am happy to do so via emails.)

And please, do vote on the poll and leave comments as you like!

Better The .... Gods (Manual Entry)

2011-12-12T13:22:00.011Z

This week I am continuing to talk about the Althéa Campaign in general and the Better The Demon series of mods in particular. As some of you may be aware, this campaign is the continuing adventure of my D&D days, from its original idea in 1989. Therefore much of what I have written below is simply a moving of pen and paper material into the NWN2 format. If you don't mind seeing a website that is still very much in development, then you can find additional information to what I am about to write at this site: The World of Althéa. (Click on each of the books at the top of the page to navigate to the different sections.) Please bear in mind that the site does not receive much attention compared to this blog, and so will only be updated when I have more time. The material that is currently there is mostly copied and pasted material from my pen and paper days that may need editing. However, there are one or two new bits that I have added to test that I had it working.

Without further preamble, this week I show you the manual entry relating to the gods of Althéa and how the players can expect their relationship to them to work when they enter the game world. Please leave any comments relating to this topic or any other you may read in your travels, and I will answer when I can.

The Gods of Althéa

New Gods: With a new world, comes new gods. Some gods (especially for the non-human races) may remain unchanged. (They were kept as such within the Althéa Campaign.) However, all the human gods will be different - and subject to which god your PC has when they enter the world, they may find the god changed to one appropriate to Althéa, or have their deity name labeled as “Uncertain/Searching”. If you are creating the PC from new, then you will be given a choice of valid gods from which to to choose. (See an example of some in the image below.) If the PC is imported, however, then a check is made to ensure no invalid faith enters the world. If you are playing a cleric, the game ensures you enter with a valid faith (rather than "Uncertain/Searching”) and provides you with an appropriate holy book, which is required to learn spells when resting.

MP Alignment Restrictions: If a MP game is underway, then it is possible that the current party of players has already committed themselves to either a good or evil alignment. If this is the case, then the newly entering PC will have their alignment changed to that of the party, which may mean clerics being out of favour with their god and unable to pray for spells. Therefore, make sure your PC’s alignment matches that of the party leader in a MP game to be sure of having access to spells.

POLL: Freewill v Predestination

And while we are on such a topic, why not give your vote on the latest poll; bearing in mind that some may think they had a choice, and others not. ;)

Very basically, the poll is asking whether you believe if everything follows a predestined and determined path - whether because of the laws of nature or an intelligent design or whether the universe is purely chaotic in nature where man is free to make a choice.

Better The .... Items (The Chameleon Stone)

2011-12-02T14:47:00.008Z

I thought it was about time that I started to share some information with you about the campaign play itself. From now, and in the coming weeks, I hope I may be able to talk about some of the items that you would be familiar with in the campaign world of Althéa, and some of the gaming mechanics (rules) from the manual I am trying to write. At least this way, any writing I do for the manual will act as a blog post as well, so I am not overdoing it. Subject to how much of a spoiler I determine an item (or placeable) to be, will determine how much detail I give, or whether I discuss it at all. ;)

The Chameleon Stone

For this week, I introduce to you the Chameleon Stone ... A small magikal stone that has the ability to transform into the object which it hides. Check out the description of the item as it will appear in the game, along with an example of its GUI upon its activation.
This is just one example of a new item that the players will find in the world. Hopefully, the sporadic placement of such items will help make Althéa an interesting place to explore and discover.

NEW POLL: Freewill v Predestination

As a quick aside, I wanted to take another poll on how people think/believe. It comes from some of my other blogs that talk about the nature of reality and beliefs. (Search this blog for them.) If you have a minute, just give me your response, and feel free to give your reasoning in a comment.

Very basically, the poll is asking whether you believe if everything follows a predestined and determined path - whether because of the laws of nature or an intelligent design or whether the universe is purely chaotic in nature where man is free to make a choice.

Exciting Progress

2011-11-15T14:23:00.008Z

I know some of my latest blogs have been more vague about module content than usual, but that's because I do not want to give too much away in the way of spoilers. Sometimes it's really hard not to blurt out the ideas one is having for a quest. Having gone through a period of "writer's block", I believe I have made some exciting progress since. Having some fresh areas to work with from Kamal really helped.

PC Is Confronted By A Combination Locked Door!

So, what can I say ... Well, I can say that the latest quest that I am writing at the moment is a little different from others I have done to date. It's one that some players may not even discover if they are not the curious adventuring type ... and if they do, they may wish they had not discovered it after all. ;) However, for the party of heroes that persevere, the rewards are, hopefully, worthwhile.

PC IS Confronted By A Rune Puzzle Locked Door

In this quest, I have managed to bring together a number of those pieces of puzzle coding that I have written over the last few years: rune puzzles, password puzzles, combination puzzles, visual puzzles ... etc. It also makes use of "real" secret doors, new creatures, readable books and scrolls. I also hope to introduce one or two neat ideas for new GUI concepts.

All in all, I feel that it is the first side-quest that will stand alone as a complete mini-adventure that will challenge the survival instincts and abilities of the characters more than any other I have written to date. To me, it feels like an old fashioned D&D adventure more than most, because of its requirement of emotional and intellectual input from the player. Whether that will appeal to many of today's modern NWN players, only time will tell. However, by the time this module is released, I suspect only the hardened traditional D&D players will remain to download and play it anyway. ;)

Companion Interaction

2011-11-04T11:41:00.025Z

Just a quick update to say that I am managing to open the toolset a little more this week than I have for the last few weeks. The issues I mentioned in the last post still remain, but in a lesser capacity. Even Daisy is becoming more accommodating when it comes to taking her medicine.

I had the opportunity to take a closer look at some of Kamal's area work, which was encouraging. He has been hard at work coming up with some more great interior designs, which he kindly said I could adapt to use. As there are one or two interior areas that still need doing, this has saved me some time and meant I could look at some other parts of the module that needed doing ... including adding background to potential party members.

Companion Conversations

My goal has always been to allow six main characters within the party. (Henchmen, animal companions and summoned creatures can be added to this number.) The six main characters are made from players, created PCs or companions. However, I also wanted to design a system that had created PCs or companions both react in a similar way with respect to any dialogue they may be offered throughout play. This involved writing a script or two to help determine which type of character was being played (created PC or added companion) and used in such a way that the commentary appeared normal and seamless irrespective of what type of character a player was using. This meant that while there is more flexibility for the player regarding what type of PC they chose to play with, I have to take care when writing specific dialogue for companions in particular. Last week I took my first steps at writing some character background for a companion that the players can find, called Threska.

Is Threska Somebody You Can Work With?

Threska is not the first companion I have written some background for, but is, hopefully, a sign that some of the final conversation scripts needed are coming together at last. (I needed quite a bit of the module to be written before I can start to add companion/PC commentary.) I am trying to include some interesting background for every companion that might encourage players to consider using them alongside (or instead of) any created PCs they might be using.

Player Leadership

I have also designed an influence system that monitors the player's actions against the created PC/companion's own alignment and beliefs. A clever player will be able to work around potential party conflicts, but in the end, what the player does can and will affect their relationship with other members of the party. So, if a player does not lead as they give the impression they will, then they can expect some rebuking from other party members and eventually abandonment if the player still ignores their party members' pleas.

Difficult Times

2011-10-24T18:52:00.007+01:00

Daisy When Her Eye Was Good (Only a few weeks ago.)

Every now and then, events in life mount up against you and make things more difficult or stressful than usual. When such times occur, they seem to dominate a lot of your time and thinking, and virtual worlds have to take a back seat, especially if one is not feeling that well themselves. The last few weeks have been like that!

I apologise in advance, but this post will be a little rare on news regarding the module. I have been dropping into the toolset on moments of rare respite, but will now simply explain what has kept me from doing it as much as I would have liked:-

1) First and foremost, Daisy, another one of our pet rabbits has been taken ill. I noticed a small discolouration in her eye about 10 days ago, and since taking her to the vets, I have found out that it may be to do with the Encephalitozzon Cuniculi parasite, which had also given Honey, another one of our rabbits a health problem as well (but had not affected the eye in her case). This time, however, even with treatment, there is a possibility that Daisy might have to have her eye removed, which is a dangerous operation for rabbits. Daisy is a feisty young female rabbit and administering the treatment has not been easy - and is stressful for everybody involved, even when I try to be as quick and straightforward as possible. Time will tell how well the treatment works for her.

2) Both my wife and I have been suffering from "colds". Although while she still manages to get into work, I have been restricted to laying in bed some days. (Having M.E. makes these sorts of things more difficult to cope with.) As you can imagine, trying to cope with a sick rabbit while more sick than usual yourself is not easy.

3) Personal circumstances involving a neighbour have added to the stress levels of late. To be clear, my wife and I get along with the neighbours fine, but (without going into details), their current personal situation has indirectly involved us (as neighbours) and is taking some of my attention to help resolve. Not being well at the best of times means dealing with such situations prevents me from dealing with much else, including my hobby.

4) Lastly, with everything else going on, I have had little or no time to be creative, and so instead have tried to finish reading a book entitled, "Does God Believe In Atheists?" by John Blanchard. This, in turn, added to my interests in understanding more about God's plan of Predestination and Man's Freewill. So, in the little time I have had between dealing with sickness (personal and with Daisy), my head has been spinning with that issue .... unable to think about the module due to everything else going on. Isn't it strange how your mind latches onto certain topics when you are unwell.

At the moment, I am still suffering and taking over-the-counter remedies to help bring relief. Some days are better than others, but I am still not well enough to cope with the other aspects going on in my life at the moment and so (probably) not much work will be done on the module until at least one or two of the above situations is resolved. I think if I saw definite improvements in Daisy, and my wife and I could be rid of our current infections, then coping with other issues will become easier and I should be able to get back into a slow-paced, but steady approach to continue chipping away at it again.

In brief ... I'm sicker than usual ... coping strategies are compromised ... external situations are testing those strategies to the limit ... nothing left in me to do much else ... even if I want to. :(

Monster AI: Supernatural Abilities v Item Immunities

2011-10-06T22:47:00.022+01:00

Over the past few days I have been coding some AI (artificial intelligence) for a creature that the heroes can encounter. As the creature I had in mind was not already included in the game, I decided to script the creature's special abilities myself. In the process of doing this, I realised that my own understanding of the "supernatural rule" with respect to "immunities" may be wrong.

What Is Immunity?

When referring to the 3E core rules, supernatural abilities of creatures are those magical abilities that go away in an anti-magic field, but are not subject to spell resistance. Yet, the rules are a little more vague when it comes to the meaning of "immunity" in general, with respect to either of these other two terms. For instance, according to 3E rules, an elf is immune to sleep. I understand this to mean that an elf will not be subject to any form of magic that will cause it to sleep: whether by spells or supernatural effects!

In NWN, a PC can acquire items that offer various forms of "immunity". However, I am beginning to think that using the term "immunity" in this sense is a bit of a misnomer. The reason I say this, is because when checking scripts of supernatural effects, they do NOT check for items that offer immunity against them. Therefore, this would suggest that the term "immunity" in this sense is better translated as "a 100% spell resistance to a certain spell or type of spell". e.g. Immunity to "death" means a 100% spell resistance to spells and spell-like abilities that result in instant death, as opposed to instant death caused by a supernatural gaze attack. Therefore, an item "immunity" does not mean the same thing as an elf's "immunity to sleep".

Immunities In Play

Having given this some thought, I believe I am going to change the description of an item offering "Immunity" to something like "100% Spell Resistance to xxxx" to help avoid any confusion. Or, maybe try to make it clear that supernatural effects are not counted as those effects covered by immunities.

UPDATE: I believe I have all the information regarding the way immunities handle supernatural effects and have decided to make being immune to something, immune to everything that fits the description, including supernatural sources.

My conclusions are simply that a spell (or effect or special ability) script called from an ExecuteScript function does not allow the immunity check functions to work properly if it uses them. Therefore, any scripts that require immunity checking called via ExecuteScript require their own custom immunity checks added to the code. If the same scripts are called as a "spell" using their (if added) spells.2da row number, then the OC immunity check functions appear to work fine.

Invisibility

2011-09-27T16:17:00.003+01:00

I know it was only a short while ago I spoke about the same topic of invisibility, but as I have been working on this in the toolset again, I thought I would blog about it again too. I felt this ability required special attention as it affected the way a PC could interact with the environment more than most other effects. Furthermore, as I have increased the duration of the invisibility spell to 10 minutes per level from its original 1 minute per level, there is a greater chance of its impact during play. (NB: Spells that last 10 minutes per level, like invisibility, are subject to game time warping. i.e. Time passes in game time amounts when lasting longer than ten minutes.)

The idea I have in mind is to try to allow invisibility to make more of an impact in some situations if used by the player. I imagine most players will prefer the direct approach and confrontation to problems in a game, but there may be a few who like the idea of playing more stealthily in some situations if possible. That's the idea anyway, and to this end I have set some "safety-nets" in place. These safety-nets have primarily been set in conversations, where a PC is protected from automatically becoming visible when given the choice to talk to an NPC. I have had to make some amendments to this code, such as allowing a PC to be able to talk to another player or inanimate object, but overall, the tests appear to be quite playable to date.

GetNearestCreature(NOT_MY_PC)

On a side note, I discovered that using the GetNearestCreature with the parameter to not return a PC (NOT_PC), will still return a companion. (i.e. A PC not currently controlled by the player.) I thought this was a little misleading, so mention it now. I had to make my own function in the end to ensure the nearest creature was an NPC rather than a companion. I then checked over all my other scripts that had made the same assumption and corrected those.

Playing Poll Results

The latest poll ended last week and here are the results from 25 voters:

I was most encouraged to see that 40% of the voters will be playing the module as a multi-player game. As regular readers of this blog will know, Better The Demon (and other modules I make) are designed MP from the base up. This is not a SP to MP conversion, but all systems are designed with MP in mind from the very start. I have to say that I have slipped up on occasion. However, as all testing I do involves a MP test every now and then (using two computers), any MP issues that do appear are addressed as soon as they are brought to my attention.

I am also pleased to see that 16% of players will be trying an "evil" approach to the game. It will be interesting to see if any others change their style during play - simply because the "evil" path is easier to play than the "good" path. Also, if their are players who try both "good" and "evil", I will be interested to see what options they take in each case.

Very encouraging is to see players who will play the game more than once - assuming they are pleased with the module in the first place. In these cases, I will be interested to hear if their different experiences were due to playing different alignments or during SP and MP gaming.

In all, the results were very interesting to me and I look forward to getting this beast out (at least this first part) as soon as I can to start receiving some feedback.

Focus & Return (GUIs)

2011-09-13T18:54:00.009+01:00

I continue to thrash out the story for Better The Demon, which is slowly coming along in the way of added conversations. However, I have also been looking at some minor issues to do with the new GUIs that will be available in the game. In particular, there are some GUIs that are presented to the player which require a text input. Previously, the player had to click in the text input box and then type what they wanted to say, followed by clicking on another button. This all worked well enough, but I found during testing that it was more natural for me to want to type in information the moment the GUI appeared and then simply hit the Return key to enter my input. To this end, I did a little checking over some OC files to see how it was done ...

Focus & Return In GUIs

In my searching, I discovered that to make the cursor appear in an input box the moment the GUI opened, I needed to add the following parameter to the UISCENE:

OnAdd=UIScene_OnAdd_SetFocus(TextNameInput) where TextNameInput is the name of the UIText box requiring the input.

Then to make it so the Return key worked with this textbox, I needed to ensure the following two parameters were added to the same UIText box:

multiline="false" returnrestricted="true"

Once these two parameters were added, I found I could then add a simple OnReturn section to the same UIText like this:

OnReturn=UIObject_Misc_ExecuteServerScript("gui_textinput",local:0)

This OnReturn does exactly the same thing as if the player clicks on the button which has the same command line, but uses OnLeftClick instead of OnReturn.

The good news with all this is that it makes the game flow more intuitively. And there are also some GUI text input windows where this kind of input is almost essential due to time factors involved.

And so the module continues to be written ....

From Word To Flesh (What Is Reality?)

2011-08-29T13:36:00.016+01:00

I wrote this blog some time ago, over the course of a few days. However, I have wrestled about posting it for a while, but have now decided to do so. Please read it with an open mind...

From time to time I have conversations that cross over between my gaming life and my spiritual life. I suppose it should not come as a surprise considering D&D represents "another life" where different faiths and another cosmology exists - and, if you believe like I do, that God works out His purpose in everything that we do, then I am bound to have my hobby used for His glory. In the past, I have come across the arguments disapproving of D&D among Christians, but, I believe this is due to a confusion and misunderstanding of the game. This is not always the case, however, as I strongly agree with the objections raised of mixing real world faiths with fantasy. On the whole, however, I believe the ability to communicate ideas through play is not without its merit, as long as it does not interfere with or replace biblical study and worship.

So what has stirred me to write on this topic today? The answer is a combination of watching another Horizon program called, "What Is Reality?" and being asked by a friend, "What is the point of looking into Christianity if everything is pre-destined?" (In my Christian faith, I believe in God's pre-destination over man's freewill.) Now, while I do not agree with every detail spoken in the Horizon program, I do have sympathy for some of the ideas, which reminded me of both my own cosmology design for my D&D campaign and the reality of life from a Christian perspective. In particular, the program touches upon how maths can be used to describe every aspect of reality. It shows how maths (something abstract and non-tangible) can be used to describe and demonstrate creation in everything we know about reality. If you are interested, I found that you can still watch the program on You-Tube. Here is the link to Part One (I have since discovered this link has been removed .... sorry! - I may try to post a clip from my own copy that I still have if people are interested? - I found this link that has some of the show.) if you want to watch the program for yourself. It is fascinating. The links to the other three parts can be found there without too much difficulty as well.

This blog can be considered the third instalment after the blogs I made on The Infinite & Destiny and Nothing Matters! (Dark Matter). It is my open ramblings as I try to explain how I see "reality". Although, to be clear, this post is just me thinking allowed and should not be taken out of context or as a definitive explanation of what I believe. As always, I would very much appreciate your own thoughts on this matter, be they pertaining to any real world beliefs you may have or for your own D&D cosmology.

Coding Reality

Since the coming of computers, we have been blessed with an understanding and illustration of "life" that was probably once reserved for TV and cinema, and before that, to books and the imagination. With computers, however, we have the ability to take an abstract concept (maths) and make it into something that appears "alive" and "real" in a way unlike anything we could before. Take, for example, art packages and 3d model programs. All the images that we make with them are a complex pattern of codes that have been translated into an image or working object on a computer screen. When you break it down into the simplest bits, you eventually end up with binary code, an extremely complex pattern of 1's and 0's, "on" and "off" switches. In a fashion, old black print newspapers used this concept to provide print and images on the page, which when looked at under a magnifying glass would show how they were made up from many tiny dots (1's) and blank paper (0's) on the page.

The point I am trying to make, however, is that as we have become better at understanding the maths and being able to manipulate the code on a computer, so the images and models have become more "realistic". Take this one step further, like any good sci-fi program does, such as Red Dwarf or the film, The Matrix, and what was once simply images stored in code becomes a "physical reality".

In Red Dwarf, for instance, the complete consciousness of a dead crew member (Arnold Rimmer) has been stored in the ship's computer. This extremely complex code is then made to project a holographic image of the original crew member, who then becomes conscious again as a hologram. In a later series, the crew of Red Dwarf come across a being who is able to recode the existing hologram (made of normal light) into something called "hard light", whereupon the holographic Arnold Rimmer, becomes, to all intents and purposes, a physically solid human being once more.

In the film, The Matrix, super computers have created an image of the world in a super mainframe called the Matrix. Human beings are plugged into the Matrix where their consciousness experiences a "reality" that the super computers want them to live. Although the world of the Matrix only exists as code, to all its "inhabitants", it is as real as can be. Only those outside of the Matrix can see the code for what it is.

I know these ideas have been around for some time now, but the idea that worlds and everything about them (including humans) can be made of complex mathematical code is a relatively new concept. There were comparable ideas in earlier times, such as in Shakespeare's "As You Like It", declaring "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players", but these are not used in the sense I am describing. Interestingly, however, I believe the Bible does allude to something more akin to the latest ideas, but the language is spiritual rather than mathematical. Corinthians 1 C13:v12."For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

The DM In The Game

I assume we all recognise the idea that the DM or a builder of a module as the "god" of the D&D world he or she creates; in that they design the world and cosmology (if any) in which other players explore and play. To all intents and purposes, the player playing the DM knows everything there is to know about the world they have designed and all the possible outcomes, and governs the players actions throughout a gaming session. To make this point clearer, if we take the builder's role as DM out of the game and simply refer to them as the designer of a computer module, then assuming there are no coding errors, they would know every potential outcome for the players of their module. Take this one step further and assume they also know all the dice rolls ahead of time as well as the paths and actions the players will take and you have a game designer who knows every outcome of all play of their world module ahead of time.

Returning to the film, The Matrix, there is a character in the film, called The Architect, which is the controlling super computer of the Matrix. Imagine a version of this character with the same ability to control everything, but who is also fully human, complete with human characteristics such as love, and maybe you have an idea of the God of our universe (from a Christian perspective). Unlike the film, however, the Christian God (as I believe Him to be) would also know the actions (codes) of every human who lived because He built them too. Therefore, there are no human "variable factors" in God's universe (as there were in The Matrix film) , which would mean God is fully in control and that everything is pre-destined to His will. He is sovereign.

The Great Illusion

In my own campaign, I wanted to try to reflect some ideas I had in mind about how the cosmology of my campaign came into existence. Little did I know at the time (Althéa was conceived in 1988), that the design of my own cosmology was to reflect some of the ideas I touch on above. In brief, the main "God" of my D&D cosmology initially conceives the universe in the form of images only, while in a "Conscious" state of being. There was no substance at first; not until the same God's "Unconsciousness" state used different elements (used other existing codes) on the cosmos to change the images into solid form. There is a third state to this single God, referred to as the "Subconscious" state and is called "Vol" in the game - and who acts as the perfect balance between the Conscious state, called "Adon" and the Unconscious state, called "Eki". (Vol is encountered in my NWN1 module called Soul Shaker.)

This cosmology concept is something that is only hinted at throughout the game play, and is something that will only come to light and finally be revealed in full when the game reaches a specific point in time. In the last 23 years of real time play, only now is the truth beginning to be revealed and is something that I hope to expand upon in Better The Demon.

Returning to my main discussion, however, I wanted to point out that the common theme between everything I have said so far, which is: Reality is far more than what we immediately perceive, especially if we consider reality exists of more "code" than we can currently understand. Whether looked at scientifically (Horizon), demonstrated through humour (Red Dwarf), excited through film (The Matrix), used as a D&D cosmology, or even alluded to in the Bible, we cannot avoid being caught up and being embroiled in the illusion that holds us in ignorance to the fullness of reality.

From Abstract To Reality

With the concept of designing a module in mind, humour me, and let us consider the design of our own reality like this for a moment. Any module idea has to come from somewhere, and, for obvious reasons, I will assume the whole idea is of God. (Christian's call it God's Plan.) You can perceive "God" in any manner you like for now, but for purposes of this thought process, I will take my lead from the Bible and apply some of those aspects (linguistic terms) we have used above. I cannot avoid also using some biblical terms and concepts in the following paragraphs and I hope the reader will not take offence and can appreciate them in the context of what I am trying to explain.

To start with, an "idea" is nothing more than an "image" in the mind of its creator. Note, the image does not have to be a static 2d image and can be imagined in as many dimensions as the creator desires, and can include perceiving this image as if time was passing. For example, as a module builder (or story teller), you can imagine the whole story from start to finish as well as aspects outside and beyond the story itself that may even have an impact on the story. e.g. If you experienced and understood "love", then it can be an aspect you intend to add to your story even before the story is written or fully formed. In other words, the experiences you have had and the limit of your imagination are the governing factors of your initial "image". For God, by His very nature, there is no limit to His creation because He has access to (is author of) the entire "code" (all knowledge) of everything. He is not limited to the snippets of the code that we understand, but, even as the entity behind the code itself, God can shape the image of the code into anything He desires.

I imagine such code as always having been present and to be of God. Man may discover an aspect of this code, but it is nothing new. In other words, E=MC2 existed before Einstein "discovered" it. All mathematical code exists as an abstract non-entity, much of it outside any understanding we have within our time limited existence. God exists in much the same way as the abstract notion of mathematical code, but God, knowing all code and formulae that make up everything we know, is capable of being human, with human attributes, and much more. For this reason, He is recognised as being comprised of all those attributes we consider most dear to us as human, the highest of which is love. God, being the source of all things, has access to all things, including being the personal loving God of the Bible.

Yet, as mere humans, we are incapable of understanding the complete code, the complete entity that is God who is in everything and everywhere. Yet, God can use the knowledge of the code to create something more than just an intangible image. He can manipulate the formulae to create substance and a reality with dimensions, where further creations (us) can be placed within and continue to live according to His will. Or to stick with the module analogy, God writes a program using the code to create the universe in which we live. Later, accessing the same code, He creates humans (us) to live inside the universe where He has used other code to turn the mathematically designed three dimensional objects and images into substance that we know as the elements. Note, if it was possible for a character in a cRPG module to gain consciousness and start to query its environment, how would it explain the rock formations that we (as game designers) have painted down with textures? Would it talk about a God who created the world in which it lived, or start to see patterns and form ideas about a universe that evolved through time? Furthermore, would the same "conscious computer character" understand the meaning of "substance", "pain" and "death" as we understand it in the "real" world? We, as module designers can program in "collisions", "bump states", "hit points" and "death" for these created characters, which would all be "real" for them, but are obviously only a pale imitation of what we mean by "real".

Now most of us are probably familiar with the story of Adam and Eve and The Fall - and most might probably now be arguing the point that Eve chose to eat of the apple implying the "freewill" of man as opposed to any pre-destined plan of God. Yet, we must remember that this is God's Plan, His story! His module if you don't mind me saying it like that. He knew what was going to happen and already had His module planned to play through. For me, the question I struggle with most is: If God has everything pre-destined for everybody (no freewill because He is the source and rules of everything), then how can individual men be held responsible for their sins? However, the Bible (as I read it) is clear in the doctrine of pre-destination, and as much as I struggle to understand it, I am led to believe it and am humbled by the fact that God has selected me, a sinner, to be one of His chosen. For no-one, by any merit of their own, deserves to be saved. To be clear on this point, I believe I did not choose to become a Christian, but that God chose me to be saved through Jesus Christ, His son, before I was even born.

There are clear examples of where God obviously has chosen people for glory or for hell. In Malachi C1 v3 "But Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals." In Exodus C7 v3, God "hardens" pharaoh's heart. In Matthew C25 v31-46, Christ, Himself, speaks of the sheep and the goats. There are also many verses in the Bible which speak of God's pre-destined plan for His people and of people's lives even before they have been born.

The Word Becomes Flesh

You may now be raising the same objection as my friend did that I mentioned at the start: "What is the point of looking into Christianity if everything is pre-destined?" Well, to answer this, I have to answer in much the same way as I did to people who said, "What is the point of playing D&D if there is no end to it?" At least, that was a very common question when I played the game in the early days. And, of course, the answer is similar in both situations: "Because it is a race to be run (or a game to be played)." As participants, we do not yet know the results of the "game" even if God does. The bottom line is, we are part of God's Plan, for better or worse. However, the Bible also teaches us that salvation is possible! Am I contradicting myself? No - to repeat the reason why .... we do not know the outcome of our lives, even if God does.

Ever since God revealed Himself to us, He has given those that He has chosen to believe a means to come to Him. From the giving of the Ten Commandments, through the prophecies of the Old Testament prophets, to God coming out from the abstract word of the Bible to living flesh in Jesus Christ, God has been speaking to His people. Yes, I believe God Himself came from His abstract form into His creation to demonstrate His love for us and to show His "sheep" the way of salvation. As a poor analogy, it would be like a module designer creating a character of themselves to enter the module and speak to the player's PCs directly about winning the treasure - A DM revealed! To all intents and purposes, this coded DM character has all the knowledge and power of the original game designer, as it *is* the same person, but limited to the boundaries of the computer module, in a similar way Christ was "limited" in His earthly form. (Not necessarily "limited" in a way one might be thinking though.) To quote the Bible passage I used above again, Corinthians 1 C13:v12."For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." We currently only see a small part of what is real with respect to God and reality with what we have seen through Christ, but this does not change the truth, which Christ claimed to be: John C14 v6: "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. v7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him."

In other words, if you do not believe in the Bible, or what it teaches (God revealed), then, in theory, you have nothing to fear from your own perspective, because everything I have spoken of from the Bible will mean nothing to you. You are "not chosen", but being "not chosen" will not mean anything to you either. You will not have "heard the word" as explained in the parable of the sower (Mark C4 v 1-20). Ironically, the same Bible people claim not to believe explains why they do not believe it. Such unbelief should not come as a surprise to a believer. However, if there is any inkling whatsoever that you feel there is some truth to what the Bible says, then it behoves you to look more into it and to study it further ... and if this is God's will, you will do so. The important point, however, is that if you do begin to understand the concept of sin in your life, then you are, most likely, chosen already and the only reason you struggle to come to terms with declaring your faith (that God has chosen you too) is because the same Bible teaches us that the devil also exists and tries to try to stop you from living out your salvation now. Do not misunderstand me here: It is impossible for the devil to prevent you from being "saved" by God (after all, it is pre-destined), but it is possible for you to not enjoy your salvation while on Earth. But isn't this pre-ordained too? The answer is "yes", and the only guidance I can give you as a response is to read the Book of Job from the Bible. The Book of Ecclesiastes (my favourite book of the Old Testament) is also an excellent book to read about the meaningless of life without God. And as you do not know where your life will go at any time in the future, you must not assume the worst. To do so is to fall for the devil's lies.

And, of course, there is also prayer. If there was any way for a human locked into a pre-destined path to find comfort, it is through praying a prayer that coincides with the will of God. But doesn't pre-destination mean prayer does not change anything? The answer is that it can "change" your understanding of your place in life. If you are praying for God's will to be done, which we have been taught to do by the Lord Himself in The Lord's Prayer with "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven", then your prayer will automatically be answered because it coincides with God's will, which is, ultimately, what we desire as Christians. And the change in you will be according to God's will, which will be a blessing irrespective of what you think now or after any change. The fact is, if you are praying earnestly, then you will begin to recognise God working in your life and your perspective of reality will change! In a debate I was having with a Christian friend when I first came across pre-destination I posed the point that if everything is pre-destined, then aren't we simply like automatons going along with the flow, but conscious of the fact? He answered, "Now, I can’t ‘solve’ that mystery for you, but it is true, and it is wonderful. It doesn’t make us ‘robots’.... we still act and think and feel.... yet we rejoice that God hasn’t left us in the state we were in Adam to sin unto destruction.... but has redeemed us freely in order to bring us into a wonderful salvation. If the only way you can think of that is as a sort of ‘robot’... then I’m happy to be one!! But I don’t think that term does justice to the reality of the situation." And like my friend, I concluded that I too, am happy to be such a "robot", while recognising the term does not do the situation justice.

So Many More Questions

This blog obviously cannot do justice to the huge topic I am trying to tackle here, and I am sure that such writing raises many more questions in some people than it answers. However, one question that I believe might be raised that I can answer now is that I know of no other "faith" that answers as many of life's difficult questions as the Christian faith and the Bible ... nor of one that speaks in terms that, even today, so closely touches upon modern day thinking and reminds me of some of the modern terms used. If I was not a Christian already, discoveries in modern science, and programs like Horizon, would have probably made me start looking at the Bible again anyway, because of some of the verses I recall reading at one time or another in my life. Although, the pre-destination argument I use obviously does not permit that way of thinking for myself. However, if you are of a different faith (or no faith at all), then I would like to hear your own understanding of life and reality. Where and how do you gain meaning? Is the question I just asked a meaningless one for you?

There are so many other avenues I could have gone down, such as talking about the requirement of a blood sacrifice as the reason for God hating Esau and a pointing towards the blood sacrifice of Christ to come. And how we are only saved by the grace of God and not by good works. i.e. It does not matter how "good" you are, you cannot "save" yourself through good works. And then there is the question about all the different "Christian" religions ... not all those that call themselves "Christian" are Christian. In fact, if there is one thing to take away with you from reading this blog, it is that being a Christian is as much about "searching" for the Truth about the reality of life than anything else. It is not about traditions (such as "Christmas" and "Easter" which are from pagan origin), and of which I have nothing to do with. Nor is it about being a crutch to help me through life, but more of a recognition that I am not in control of my life, but someone far greater is. And on the topic of other faiths and pagan traditions, there is a book entitled "The Two Babylons", by Alexander Hislop (1853) that helps put the many world religions into context and times with respect to the origin of the Bible. Basically, it covers how the various other old religions that may be considered "equals" to the Bible have come about with respect to the time of the first human beings, Adam and Eve.

Faith

Finally, I must agree that much of what I have said comes down to a matter of faith, which to a Christian, is another gift from God. Why should I believe that the Bible is the true word of God where other religious texts claim the same? ... Faith! Why do I believe the Bible has not lost something in its translation since it was first written? ... Faith! However, I do believe that I have spent many years searching and testing the scriptures with scripture to avoid being accused of having "blind" faith. However, when it comes to believing the Word of God over the words of men on subjects such as creation, I can only thank God for the insight and mind He has given me to help me understand how His guiding hand is at work in the universe as opposed to leaving me with an image of a chaotic cosmology with only a cold future devoid of life.

Like the character in a module who has just been told that the world in which they "live" is in fact a pale copy of the reality of things and that there was more to existence than what they already knew, the Bible has done the same for us in our world. And like a DM making themselves visible to players to lead them away from a problem, so God has done the same for our world. In our world, however, the Bible tells us that our lives are pre-destined to believe this truth or not. Do you know where you currently stand on this? Even the smallest of faith is a good starting point, as with it you can pray for more faith and, if it is God's will that you should have more (and the Bible tells us that the only reason we do not have more faith is because we have not asked for it through prayer), then it is a given that your faith will increase if prayed for in earnest. This is when the walk with God and growth in the knowledge of reality really begins.

Please ask as many questions as you like, pose theories, post your own ideas and just talk about what I have written here. All comments or objections raised politely will be appreciated.

Wrestling With The Stuffing

2011-08-08T18:25:00.009+01:00

Sometimes ... and I am sure many modders will agree with me ... as much as our hobby of writing a story to be played in a module is a joy and a pleasure to create, there are times when the story refuses to play along. Note, I'm not talking about the main path or outcome to the story, but the "smaller" details that take place in between that help flesh out the game as a whole. It's a little like being faced with a blank page to fill between each event of the main story. These pages need to be filled in and made interesting, as they act as the glue between each other, and success in their writing can be the make or break of an otherwise well-built module.

The Main Plot

Let's take The Lord of the Rings (LotR) as an example of a story. The bottom line to the main point of the story is: Frodo has to take a magic ring to "Mordor" where it must be destroyed! That's it. Yet, look at the many books that make up the complete story and it's not hard to imagine that there is much more involved in that story than a simple journey. Writing a plot for a module is a similar task, in that a player needs to be presented with challenges and choices that help flesh out their experience of the story as they uncover it through play.

Side Quests

Note, I am not talking about side quests. It is true that modules can and do provide side-quests that help to give a module longevity, but, in my opinion, these should act as incidental events rather than experiences to replace the main story, which should be the crux of the game. In other words, side quests, while briefly entertaining should be something that, if missed by the player, would not detract from the module/story as a whole. Now, why do I mention this? Simply because, I believe that a good "litmus" test for a module is to remove the side-quests and to see what is left for the player to do to complete the story. If, for example, you find that a good percentage of a module is made from side quests, then I believe the experience of the game as a whole will quickly dissolve into disappointment, especially to experienced players who have played more than their fair share of RPGs.

Main Quest Events

The answer, as I see it, is to break the story into main quest events, which the player can explore at their own pace. However, this is not easy to achieve. When writing a book, the events are predetermined and the direction the reader has to take is controlled by the author. For a module story, however, the writer has to be careful not to railroad a player along a path just to ensure plot rigidity. Many modules are built this way, of course, and to some degree some direction-pushing cannot be avoided, but it should be minimised to allow at least an appearance of choice for the player playing through it. Now, for me, managing these main quest events is where the wrestling comes in. For starters, what makes a good quest event as opposed to an orchestrated plot? Secondly, how will one main event affect another?

Referring back to LotR, we can see how the choice to travel through the "Mines of Moria" after failing to cross the "Misty Mountains" acted as a great event in the course of the main story. Of course, if the same event was written into a module, a writer may like to consider writing both paths ahead of time, to allow a resourceful player the chance to succeed in crossing the Misty Mountains where in the book they are said to fail. Such a second path would, however, take more work and require extra creativity to ensure it fitted in with the spirit of the main story and offered similar pros and cons as taking the path through the Mines of Moria.

Whether both paths are written or not, these are what I would call main quest events - and it is these types of areas that form part of the main quest that I believe require careful attention to detail to ensure the whole story is made memorable and remains cohesive irrespective of the path taken. Note, while these quest events may share similarities to side quests in that they may have their own objectives to complete, they are still part of the main quest, as the player must do these quests to finish the game.

Better The Demon

In my own module, Better The Demon, I have a number of these main quest events already outlined and set in place. From the perspective of the main story, they all link together to move the plot from point A to point B - and I do not mean just in the way of transitions, but also from a perspective of the story as a whole. However, there are one or two areas (with their own main quest events) that currently refuse to work themselves out in my mind. The logical flow of one "internal" event into the next has just not revealed itself to me yet. I could force the issue of course, and perhaps many players would not notice, but I can also be sure that some will ... and that eats away at my need to get it right and not to leave a bad taste with the player.

As a simple comparison to LotR, while travelling through Moria, the heroes had to overcome a number of obstacles, defeat some monsters, and even overcome a puzzle before they could enter in the first place. i.e. The adventure in Moria felt like a whole quest in and of itself and added to the final weight making the whole adventure/story as memorable as it was. And while I have the equivalent "Moria" sections of my adventure in place, they do not yet currently meet my own expectations and are the areas of the module I am currently wrestling with. Once I have these parts clearer in my own mind, I can then start to place the final pieces of Chapter 1 into place. Such ideas and story development cannot be rushed and I thank readers for the time and patience they have already given me. Hopefully, a few more days and night's with the particular adventure locations in mind will help unravel these elements of the story within me soon enough, while avoiding orchestrated or cliched ideas. <- Probably impossible, but I will do my best to add an interesting slant.

In the meanwhile, I continue to write conversations for the NPC's that are already well established.

The Art of Conversation (POLL: How Will You Be Playing?)

2011-07-18T13:57:00.019+01:00

How much time will a player want to spend talking to a character when playing a module? That's just one question I consider when writing a conversation for one of my characters. This question, however, soon opens into a branch of others:-

1) Should a conversation be succinct or verbose?
2) Should there be many options to choose from or only a few?
3) Is there an option to avoid conversation altogether?
4) Is a conversation even the correct response in a given situation?

Keep To The Point

My wife likes playing adventure games, and I like to join in now and then. Recently, we were playing "The Longest Journey" (which came highly recommended within the adventuring community, scoring around 90%), and I found myself disappointed with the rather wordy and often unnecessary crass comments made by the characters in this game. I suppose some people may consider the responses as "background filling" and "gritty reality", but both my wife and I found them somewhat boring and tedious to work through just to get to the piece of information we needed.

Don't misunderstand me, I enjoy some background conversations, especially if they help me to understand something about the gameplay. However, I believe there is a definite distinction between being verbose (I would even say "babbling on") as I found in The Longest Journey, and giving the player a useful background in as fewer words as possible.

In Better The Demon, background information in conversations is kept to a minimum to avoid "data overload" for the player just trying to get around the environment. However, when it has been "neccessary", I have tried to allow a player to choose options that appeal to them or allow an early exit if possible. Furthermore, I include books (using my Readable Books format) that also cover different sections of background that players can read or ignore as they choose.

Avoid Too Many Choices

Another personal misgiving that I have encountered in many games, is when a conversation starts to branch out in more directions than I can easily remember ... or really need. I know the idea is that the game is offering as much "choice" as the player wants, but there is a danger in this design. For example, many conversations are designed to help move the plot forward and set "flags" along the way to ensure the game moves along as it should. However, if a conversation is both tedious to read and has many branches and options to go down, a critical plot changing flag may be lost somewhere deep within one of the conversation's many branches and be easily missed.

In my opinion, forcing a player to take a certain conversation option to locate a critical piece of information to set a flag and move the game forward can be a real game stopper. Therefore, each option that a player is given should "go somewhere" and not require the player to have to repeat the conversation just to find the option they needed. Of course, there is a proviso here, in that a conversation line that is obviously different from another is not to be considered a "dead option". The guideline here, is to keep conversations focussed on the topic at hand and directly related to what the player is doing or really wants to know. As an example, The Longest Journey also fails in this area, as it often has options where a player can ask characters about each other, and even about themselves! I don't want to read about this sort of thing. This information should be obvious just from my interaction with them. The problem is, as a player, we are forced to follow these lines of conversation because we do not know if the game hides an important piece of information buried deeply down the many layers of conversation.

In Better The Demon, choices are kept to a minimum and cater for skills and/or different plot paths only. In other words, all choices will be relevant to what the PC needs to know, all be it approached by different paths, as opposed to different paths leading to verbose uninteresting babblings ... unless this is a personality trait of the NPC, which the player is trying to "defeat". The point being, the conversation choices will be obvious as to their effectiveness and importance to the situation, and the player will not be overloaded with choices that lead nowhere, or simply try to impart spurious information.

I Don't Want To Talk!

Sometimes, a player may feel like they know what they need to do, and talking is not even an option they want to entertain. In my opionion, if possible, a game should be able to adjust to a player's preferences. In many situations, "talking" should be the default course of interaction between player and non-player character (NPC), to allow the player to flesh out their adventure by learning more about the world in which they are adventuring. However, if during the course of their adventure they have already drawn a conclusion about an NPC and believe a fight to the death is the answer, then hopefully, a system can be included to allow the player to avoid a conversation, be it as direct combat or an option in the conversation simply to say something along the lines of "Attack Mr X". And what about players playing evil PCs, where "killing" and "taking" what they need from an NPC is easier than "talking" and "doing a task" for them?

Now, I am sure any builder worth their salt will recognise that building a module that caters for both good and evil aligned PCs is extremely difficult - especially with respect to such things as conversations and providing the player with the information they need. After all, what happens when a player playing an evil PC kills an NPC before some critical information has been imparted to the player? Regular readers of this blog will know I have touched upon this problem in the past.

In Better The Demon, I have taken as much care as possible to allow as much choice as possible, including the "total avoidance" path wherever possible. This has taken extra time and consideration, and can only be applied to around 90% of conversations. Even then, a player set out to "kill" rather than "talk" will lose out on some XP, simply because they would end up "killing the goose that laid the golden egg". However, for the remaining 10% of conversations where "talking" is required, I have tried to offer a more succinct path where possible.

How Did They Know I was Here?

The last consideration problematic for RPG's in particular, is taking into account actions made by the PC that the builder of the module may not have initially considered, such as a PC being invisible. This is a particularly awkward problem to address, but one that needs consideration if, as a game designer, we wish to ensure logical flow in the game. After all, if a player has taken the time and trouble to become invisible so as to try to sneak past an NPC, what happens if this NPC has been set to "talk" to the PC when they are within range? If the NPC suddenly runs up to the PC and begins a conversation, the logical flow of the game is spoiled.

There is not much to add to this, except to highlight it as a potential issue for all builders and that I have tried to adopt a system to cater for this within my own module, Better The Demon.

The Last Word

The final word on this, however, depends on the sort of game you are trying to build, or, as a player, want to play. However, I do believe that the above guidelines are important for all games, simply because they avoid some of the pitfalls about writing in general. Key aspects such as the following will help to keep the pace of the game flowing:

a) Write about what you know.
b) Use as few words as possible.
c) Show, don't tell.

I have read modules that boast many thousands of words in them as a sign of "depth" and as if a sign of returned hours of "enjoyment" ... which I do hope is the case. I think that as long as the number of words reflects diversion in converstion and viable choices, then the number count can only be a good thing. On the other hand, if it is meant to represent simple length of conversations, then, like The Longest Journey adventure game I describe above, I would be extremely disappointed and may find my eyes glazing over to the point where I would miss a clue at best ... or stop playing altogether.

Have Your Say!

Well, I've waffled on long enough about conversations in this post, and would now like to hear about your own experiences, whether as a player: Tell me of your worst or best experiences with game conversations. Or as a builder: How do you plan your own conversations?

Also, please take your time to answer the poll question this time around: Very simply: (Assuming you will be playing my module) How Will You Be Playing? With respect to single-player (SP), multi-player (MP) or both? And also with respect to a good aligned or an evil aligned PC?

Invisibility & Stealth

2011-07-05T14:54:00.008+01:00

A quick update again, just to say that I continue to work on conversations, but have also been trying to consider what options to offer when a PC might be under the influence of invisibility and trying to be stealthy. E.g. What if a player, playing a lone PC, goes invisible with a potion or spell and then tries to do certain actions?

I have looked at the various options where this may have an impact, including trying to speak with somebody, trying to sneak past somewhere, or even just moving around ... and came to the conclusion that many situations required a player option as to whether they wish to stay invisible or come out of their invisible state to do the action they are trying to perform.

To this end, I designed a very simple GUI offering the player a choice in these situations where they may be compromising their invisibility. In such cases, they are given the choice to come out of invisibility and continue with their actions (which may be fine if it is simply to talk to someone) or to remain invisible and forfeit the action they were trying to do. Below is a simple example of an invisible PC trying to speak to a shop keeper (Other situations are worded differently.):

Invisibility and being stealthy to sneak past someone add another level of complexity, and I have tried to be fair in my decisions where such actions may compromise a PC's visibility state, leaving it up to the player if they wish to stay invisible or not. Just the sort of thing I am dealing with as I continue to code the game.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Honey, our upstairs rabbit, has continued to improve in health since I last posted, so that is one less concern affecting my concentration to worry about. However, I have been distracted by having to deal with other issues that are taking some of my time, which may end up delaying posting in the coming weeks. No fear though, I will be trying to do more as soon as I am able to and will let you know in a blog as soon as I do.

Dealing With Complexities

2011-06-24T14:10:00.007+01:00

This is going to be a very brief post this week for two reasons:

1) Our upstairs rabbit, Honey, has not been very well again. Poor thing suffers a lot with teeth problems and now she appears to have nasal issues on top - caused either by another hidden tooth problem or some sort of sinus issue. I have had to spend some time looking after her (collecting dandelion leaves every so often - the only thing she feels comfortable eating at the moment) and sitting alongside her, trying to make sure she stays warm and content. She had a stressful last week being taken to the vets. It stressed me too (for her sake). She is still not 100%, but I am hoping she is making a gradual recovery. Time will tell.

2) I am writing conversations for the characters and the whole process is going a lot slower than I had hoped it would do; probably partly due to the above, but also due to the fact that the current conversations are quite involved with journal entries and variable settings. This is probably straight forward for most people, but I have to pace myself when dealing with this sort of thing and so only manage a very little towards it in a day. Hopefully, the end result will support multiple paths and approaches to the conversations and quests in question. Yet, once these ones are done (required as I started to design the module this way), I intend to curb my ambitions in future and greatly simplify them if possible. (See next.)

Looking Forward

There are still quite a few conversations to write, which will gradually get easier as I move away from earlier designed ideas and move toward a more "linear" style of writing. Do I here a "gasp" from you when I mention "linear"? Well, let me just clarify what I mean by "linear": The gameplay should remain "non-linear" (as good as any "non-linear" game can be), but quests will not be so intermixed as I have them at the moment. The problem at the moment, is that many of the quests revolve around a few specific NPCs (as normal), but that every NPC also potentially has an input to another NPCs quest (not normal gameplay design). Add to this items that can be found that open more conversation nodes and .... you get the picture? (It's difficult to describe exactly what I mean without giving too much away.) Future quests and conversations will be reserved to a "one on one" design. That is what I mean I will be changing to be more "linear".

Once I have these conversations out of the way, I can look at finishing the last few areas that I decided to add for greater gameplay of module 1, and then begin tying the whole thing together and look at producing a beta for testing. It's probably still a few months away yet, and really depends on how well I can deal with the conversations and design those areas. One thing I can say, however, is that I am beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel (for module 1 at least) .... Hoorah!

Problems, Problems & Puzzles

2011-06-09T21:18:00.007+01:00

It's been over a fortnight since I last blogged, but in that time I have been trying to carry on gradually chipping away at the project. There have been some distractions, including birthday's, minor operations and small hardware glitches, but between all that I have managed to do a little in the toolset.

Scripting (Animations)

On the scripting front, I have been trying to achieve a "simple" animation: make an NPC sleep and wake up when disturbed in some way. Since using NWN2 (as opposed to NWN1), I have found scripting animations more difficult. In particular, the latest animation I was attempting to create would not stop its loop after being disturbed, so an NPC would "wake up and get up", only to fall back to the floor asleep again. Thankfully, Pain (who I have mentioned in blogs before) was able to give me the answer of passing the "%" sign as an animation, which stops any current animation that may be playing. A useful tip I now share with you.

Toolset (Texture Bug)

Another incident that caused me to slow down on the creative front was the need to update my VGA drivers. After doing so, I noticed that an in-game texture (on one square only) was not looking like it did in the toolset. After some experimentation, I was able to track the problem down to disabling the "Wait For Vertical Sync" option in the graphic settings. Removing the cross from the box (which means it does not wait) allowed the texture to display as it should in the game as well as the toolset. UPDATE: DISABLE Normal Mapped Terrain will resolve this issue with more consistency. The previous method often required the game to still be restarted,whereas the latter method does not. The only problem is that the textures do not look as good using the latter method.

Custom Content (Puzzles)

The material I have managed to add in the last couple of weeks includes a new image relating to a puzzle in the game. I won't go into much detail so as not to spoil it, but it involved creating a new image that once found in the game is a clue to solving one of the main puzzles of the module. There are a few more parts to this puzzle that I still need to do, but I do have the entire puzzle outlined in my paper manual already. I am quite excited about its inclusion and look forward to seeing players reactions and responses when played.

On another front, I am continuing to write conversations for NPCs and am now finding myself having to be extra careful in doing so, as my "open ended" design has me having to consider a number of approaches the player may be coming from. As I mention in a previous post somewhere, I intend to reduce these types of scenarios to help reduce the amount of extra writing these type of open-ended approaches require.

Slowly coming along ....

Fixing The Little Things

2011-05-24T15:35:00.009+01:00

Thanks for all the feedback regarding my new area last week. I have taken on board the comments and tried to make improvements where I can. And thanks to everybody who helped me to understand some of the basics behind area design to allow me to even try to build a better area in the first place. I did not spend much more time on this, but decided to look at ensuring transitions remain stable, especially between module changeovers and from areas where having any dead PCs may be an issue.

Respawning The Dead

Unless you are considering programming for multi-player (MP), you may not have considered some of the potential pitfalls that come with the death of PCs - apart from the obvious for the player. If you have altered the way your death system works as well, like I have, then there are even more considerations you need to take into account. The bottom line, I believe I have ironed out all the potential "death" circumstances since I last posted and have employed a system that offers the player a GUI presenting an option to be respawned at the cost of an XP penalty, or to consider a different action, normally to turn around and head back from where they came from. This will normally only be an issue where a player is trying to return to a different module within the campaign and when they carry the corpses of companions or fellow players. Because of the way my system works, trying to do so would lose a lot of vital equipment. There is a similar issue when a player tries to leave an overland map encounter area, which I have dealt with in a similar manner.

Fixing Little Things

1) Visual Effects On Store Items: I recently found out that if you have an item that has a visual effect on it and it is added to a store as a "limitless" item, that when bought, the visual effect does not work. I made a workaround for this problem by replacing the bought item with an identical one upon acquisition.

2) Monster Items Reversion: Another small issue I found was that if you have copied an item to your campaign and kept the ID information the same as the original, then any such item added to a creature at build time will revert back to the original. E.g. If you copy an item to your campaign folder and alter the description to avoid any mention to Faerun and then add the campaign item to a creature, it will instantly revert back to the Faerun descriptive one. NB: Having campaign items with the same name, tag and resref is not normally a problem with respect to any other aspect of the campaign (that I have tested to date anyway). Anyway, I also worked another small piece of code to replace these "incorrect items" with the correct one upon the creature being spawned.

I mention both of these small issues, as I imagine they could be something others may have a problem with and not yet be aware of it. If anybody wants the code that I used to resolve the issues, let me know.

As Big As The Moon

This is just an excuse to post a picture I took of the moon a while ago. However, it is true that my world Althéa works out to be about the size of the moon. Anyway, here is the picture, and you can find a few more here.

Moving Onwards

Fixing the problem with the transitions between modules when the player has a dead PC in their midst was an area of coding I was not going to do for a while yet, as I obviously do not need to worry about it for only one module. However, because it impinged on another area I was working with, it had to take priority. The good news is now that I have that code sorted, I can get on with what I was trying to do in the first place. More on that later in another blog perhaps. What I can say now, however, is that Hoegbo has once again kindly offered his help with some of my work and I will be taking him up on his offer soon, which means area production should benefit greatly.

Scale (Area Screenshots)

2011-05-12T13:45:00.003+01:00

I hope you enjoyed my articles on "The Changing Face of AD&D". It gave me a chance to relax and write about something that I enjoy talking about, and I hope readers felt the same. If you still have a comment to make regarding any aspects of the game, please leave one.

This week is going to be a short post by comparison, made up mostly of screenshots of an outside area I have tried making. As regular readers will know, area design is not one of my strong points, but having looked at other peoples work, I thought I would try again. The results were better than before, and so I decided I would be using them in the module. Check out the shots below and let me know what you think. One thing I learned from looking at other peoples work is that scale, when well used, can make an area feel bigger and fuller than it really is. (I don't normally like to give area screenshots as a preview, but I would like feedback in this case as well.)

Module One Increasing

One last note before the screenshots, and also on the subject of scale, I have decided to increase the number of areas of the first module. (The screenshots below are one of the areas.) The reason is due to the decision I made to release the first of the modules before the other two in the campaign. I felt that the first module lacked any real depth without the other two modules and would leave players a little disappointed. Thankfully, however, the new additions do not require much work, compared to the amount of game play they give in return. As much of the core code is already in place, I am simply expanding on the first module with a couple of slight detours.

Anyway, here are the screenshots of one of the areas (Enclave valley) that is nearly finished now, so please do leave a comment.

The Changing Face of AD&D (Part 3)

2011-04-30T20:41:00.021+01:00

This is going to be my final blog on the series, so normal module updates will return next week, including some screenshots of an area I designed. Yes, I actually took on board all that people have shown me and been inspired to do a new area of my own. That's for next time though. This week I am talking about the 3rd and 4th edition rules of pen and paper D&D. Note that while I have kept the title as AD&D, the game itself dropped the "A" for advanced and became simply D&D after the basic version of the game was dropped prior to the release of these later editions.

In this week's blog, as well as covering the 3rd and 4th editions, I also touch upon the Neverwinter Nights (NWN) and D&D Online (DDO) versions of the game. After all, NWN is probably the prime reason you are even reading this today thanks to the great community of players that has come into existence since Bioware set up the forums for NWN. So, without more preamble, let me now discuss my recollection of playing with these various versions of the game.

Third Edition

Last week you may recall my disappointment regarding the huge expansion of supplemental material that was to quickly come with the second edition rules. For some, the extra materials may have been a great benefit, in the same way I thought of them when I first started playing D&D. However, by the year 2000, when I bought into the third edition rules, I had reached the point where I wanted to keep things "simple". Nuances and rules to the nth degree I had had my fill, and so I made a decision only to buy the core rule books from this edition onwards, which I did at this time. For the third edition rules my wife did buy the Manual of the Planes in 2001, but this was a useful addition (in the same way I felt about it in its original first edition release) and ended up helping me design the setting for my NWN1 module, Soul Shaker, which takes place on a demi-plane. That was the last book I was to acquire for this edition, although I did download and consider some of the core updates of the 3.5 edition of the rules that became freely available on the Wizards of the Coast website (WotC).

Fourth Edition

Towards the end of the 00's, the fourth edition rule set was released. To be frank, although there was a lot of hype and promise around the fourth edition rules, the main reason I bought a boxed copy of the core rules was simply to "complete" my set of the core rules available to date. Now, having glanced over the fourth edition and witnessed the amount of additional "core rules" that have become available for this edition, I believe I have definitely been left behind as a player. The boxed set is very well laid out and of excellent quality, but, in my opinion, the spirit and heart of D&D has been so changed in their coming that I can never see me using them as a means of playing the game. So much so, that I believe the fourth edition will be the last investment I make in such books. Since this edition, the D&D I knew and enjoyed playing has changed to such a degree that I feel as though the game is targeting a new breed of player. I will let you draw your own conclusions here. As you can probably tell by now, I will not be discussing the fourth edition any further in this blog.

The Pros and Cons (Third Edition)

PROS

1) The D20 System: Finally, the awkward number system surrounding the whole game was changed for a sensible one based around the twenty sided die. Attributes now ran along similar values and were no longer capped; experience tables were made fairer for all classes and armour classes improvements went into positive numbers instead of negative ones. Without doubt, this improvement alone went a long way to making D&D much more of an easier game to play without compromising its integrity. It was the "decimalisation" of D&D!

2) Skills (Also listed as a CON): Non-weapon proficiencies of the second edition had come of age by the third edition in the form of skills. I explained how this was to become a positive move in my blog on the second edition, so I won't say anything more other than in many respects it was a well thought out system covering many aspects of game play that could be easily implemented as required. However, I reserve the right to comment on it as a CON as well. (See CONS.)

3) Clearer Rule Definitions: The third edition of the rules did a lot to clarify many of the more vague rules behind such things as effects and conditions. This can be illustrated if one examines the details of creatures and their abilities of the Monster Manual. As an example, one may have once simply associated the ability to "regenerate" with trolls and vampires. However, once this ability had been described independently of the creature themselves, it was easier to recognise it as something that could be applied as an ability of an object with its own rules and definitions in play. Unfortunately, this kind of clarification can also rob us of some of the initial unique and special appeal the ability/creature had when we first encountered it, but this cannot be avoided if we want to also build worlds that work according to some sort of law or reason. There are so many other "clarifications" that fall under this PRO that I could not do justice here in the space I have, but suffice to say, many of the rules that were once inconsistent or vague from previous editions were given clearer understanding and made sensible in this edition of the rules.

CONS

1) Skills (Also listed as a PRO): The problem with the new system of skills that came with the third edition was not its overall implementation, but the way it allowed some of the more archetypal skills to become available to any class. In particular, I refer to the Open Locks and Disable Device skills. These two skills had now become available to any class who was prepared to invest some time in them, which were once the sole domain of the rogue (thief) class. A clause to the Disable Device skill made magic traps only possible to be disabled by rogues, but apart from that (and declaring these skills would be cross class to all classes but rogues) any class could still acquire these skills. In one quick swoop, the importance of the archetypal rogue/thief class had been crippled. If the "rogue" classification that was introduced in the second edition had been adhered to, we could have maintained the archetypal structure and minimised the classes who had access to the skill. e.g. Only other "rogue" classes (like the bard) may have had access to these skills and perhaps only then as cross class skills, leaving the skills as class skills for the thief only.

2) Restructured Class System (inc Prestige Classes): To be clear, I am NOT opposed to certain classes being brought back into the game, or even new ones added (within reason). However, as a game, I believe a structure or framework is required, which "new" classes should follow or fall into. After all, the problem with removing such a structure (that the second edition offered) is that you open the game up to abuse, be it official or unofficial. By abuse, I also mean as an excuse to "officiate" yet another class or sub-class to accommodate yet another style of play. The problem as I see it, is the third edition rules try to accommodate an archetypal system (like the first edition), but then also try to give reason (excuse) to allow more classes to be made or "tweaked" in various ways to satisfy a player's need to be unique in ways that role-playing once used to do instead. What used to once be a desirable style of play and interaction between player and DM forging a unique PC personality through play has turned into an exercise of character building through an ever growing set of rules to cover the many new nuances of classes coming into being.

3) Restructured Race System (inc Sub Races): Like the change in rules for allowing or building new classes, so the introduction of rules to accommodate new races has been taken further in the third edition rules. What was once a simple matter of choosing a particular race to play has now expanded into a selection of races that were once the sole domain of "monsters". Again, I do not wish to be misunderstood in what I am saying here. For instance, I can imagine a DM wanting/allowing a player to choose to play an unusual race in special circumstances (or even a special campaign), but such races should not become considered the norm to the point of being an expected consideration.

4) Magic System Complicated: Whereas the third edition made some good progress in clarifying many of the rules on conditions and abilities (see PROS), it appears to do the opposite when it comes to spell casting. Three particular rules stand out to me in particular: Counterspells, Meta-magic and Touch Attacks. Just out of curiosity, has anybody reading this blog ever played a counterspell, or played the meta-magic spells much? I know our group never did. And while I appreciate the thinking behind introducing the Touch Attack rule, was it really necessary? After all, can't we just say that armour (natural or otherwise) helps a target of a touch spell resist the effects of the magic by some sort of armour absorption? I know there are arguments about how this would make such spells less effective, but hey, guess what, so be it! The rules makes sense depending upon who we are arguing for, the wizard doing the attack, or the creature trying to protect itself! My argument is, having such a rule does more to complicate matters than actually effect any sort of game balance. Returning to counterspells and meta-magic, all I can add is that these just seem to complicate matters, period. If the third edition had just left spells to scale with level (without capping them), then we could ignore some of the power enhancing meta-magic feats straight way. As for the others, they just serve to complicate the rules anyway, and all of these meta-magic feats start to complicate which spell is available from which level. As for the counterspells rule, I do not even have the heart to counter an argument, it's that tedious!

There were, in my opinion, many great improvements with the third edition rules, from simplified combat and basic number calculations using the D20 system, to working with actions in play, through skills. However, personally, I believe the system took a backward step with respect to organising the archetypal class system. In my opinion, the second edition rules had started to lead the way for organising a system that could accommodate many styles of play and keep flexibility in the hands of the players, while being governed by a DM who knew what would or would not work for their world. By the third edition introducing rules on class and race variations, the once reasonably solid grounding for building a PC within known and accepted limits akin to a classic fantasy world environment had changed to one of an imagination that has gone too far beyond the classic and into the realms of "anything can go". While I appreciate the sentiment behind the slogan, "you are only limited by your imagination", I also believe an imagination works best within well established rules and guidelines (simple) where the practice of exercising an imagination can be fully enjoyed. Personally, I do not want yet another class and race "officially" added to the core rules (as a variant, prestige, optional choice or suggestion) just because someone built a campaign with a PC of a new race and class for it, or there was an NPC character with such abilities. The PCs should stick to the core archetypal classes and races and the monsters and NPCs should remain what they are - and "never the twain should meet" unless in conversation or combat.

Imagination Becomes Visual

Around 1988, when computers were starting to get "reasonable" soundcards and graphic cards, I remember talking to my friends at a pen and paper session about the possibility of playing D&D on them. Games like The Bard's Tale (1985) and Pool of Radiance (1988) had come and gone, but they were not capable of allowing more than one player to play at a time, and so did not appeal to us as a group of players. Imagine our excitement when, a few years later around the mid 90's, I found a very small snippet of information in a computer magazine about a game that was being built that was multi-player and AD&D second edition rules compatible, called Baldur's Gate. It was like a dream come true. However, we still had to wait a few more years before the game finally hit the shelves in 1998. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed the game, some of my players did not enjoy the change from pen and paper to computer, and, at the time, the cRPG was resigned to a SP game for me and our PnP game continued. For myself, however, I enjoyed Baldur's Gate and many of the genre that followed in those early years of the cRPG. Unlike many other games I purchased at the time, I have kept all of them and consider them a valuable part of my D&D collection.

In 2002, Bioware, the same people who had brought us Baldur's Gate, went one step further with their cRPG software and released Neverwinter Nights. This game not only delivered a D&D campaign in a three dimensional environment based upon the latest (at the time) 3rd edition rules, but also the ability to create your own campaign using a toolset that it provided with the game. Game editing software was not new at this time, but having one that came free with the game and was dedicated to D&D was. For me, this seemed like the ideal package and I was keen to start building, for a couple of reasons. 1) The thought of seeing my world "in the flesh" seemed ideal. 2) My health had declined since 2000 and I was finding it more difficult to manage "live" PnP sessions. The thought of preparing the game in advance at my own pace through using the software seemed like the ideal solution. There were complications and some objections to adapting to this format of the game from my group, but after some alterations to the game through scripting, we settled to a few years playing my campaign using this software.

In 2006, Obsidian Entertainment released Neverwinter Nights 2. This version had greatly improved graphics and its rules were based upon the 3.5 edition. While my group and I continued to play using NWN1, I started to build the next stage of the campaign with NWN2. Unfortunately, in 2007, just before I released my final module for NWN1, which was to be the last for my group before we took a break, the majority of my players left the group to prioritise other activities. Some of those that left had played from 1981. However, I still had one player who wished to continue, and I wanted to complete the campaign for my own accomplishment, so I continue to write the latest chapters of my campaign with NWN2, which I hope to release at some time in the future.

To complete the picture, I also mention Turbine's "Dungeons and Dragons Online" (DDO), based on the 3.5 edition of the rules, which was also released in 2006. Only last year, in 2010, this online version of the D&D game had areas of it that became free to play. As this version of the game chose to be based on real time play rather than turn-based actions, there are a number of differences that affects all areas of the rules. However, having taken a look (it is free after all!), I can see that while the game cannot possibly cater for the role-play aspects of D&D, it does well to cater for the feeling of PC advancement and "dungeon crawling". It has well designed areas and makes good use of a proper "z" axis, which the NWN series of games fails to deliver. A first person camera angle also allows the player to feel more immersed in their environment, which while NWN2 can come close to, the latter has other camera angles which tend to lead the player to play the game more akin to a top down perspective. This is better for managing combats designed in turn-based combat, but comes at the sacrifice of compromising immersion in the environment.

Conclusions

This month, April, marks my 30th year of playing D&D, which equates to two thirds of my life. Having played through the many versions of the rules and encountered it on the computer, I believe there are some conclusions I can draw. Please note that while I have been a player, much of my own experience has been as a DM, so my own conclusions are coloured from that perspective and may differ from players who have had more experience playing PCs than I have.

1) No Perfect Set. No one set of rules has yet accomplished the best set of rules to play by. If I was to choose one edition, it would be the third edition (plus some 3.5 updates) because of the many rules it cleared up and the inclusion of the D20 system. However, ideally, I would choose to remove the complications it adds (mentioned above) and return to a more streamlined class and spell systems of the second edition.

2) Nostalgia. We all wear "rose tinted specs" when it comes to recalling our experiences of the past. Yes, I enjoyed the first edition modules very much, but I also very much appreciate the improvements to the game that have been made over time. I suppose I could give the analogy of comparing the original series of "Star Trek" with "Star Trek: The Next Generation". How could one possibly beat the great personalities of Kirk, Spock and Bones? But, hang on a minute, I like the way the Next Generation has explained the cosmology of the Star Trek universe. In the same way, I love the experience I had playing the A, D and G series of adventures with my players, but I very much appreciate the ability to understand the cosmology of the D&D universe and experience it visually on a computer screen.

3) No Expansions. I would make the rules simpler again. By this, I mean I would do away with the many classes and associated rules, as well as peripheral supplemental rule books for every other aspect of the game. I would make systems more straight forward to allow quicker reference and learning, but without compromising their diversity. If possible, I would play with a DM who can adjudicate where need be ... and ensure players accept the ruling for the sake of the spirit of the game. If this is not possible (if designing a NWN module without a DM for example), then I would be sure to be consistent with the rules. E.g. DDO fails in this department, in that it allows its creatures to have unlimited "mana" to cast spells at the player's PC, whereas the player's own PC quickly runs out when casting spells.

There are many other things I could say, but this blog, which has already taken me a number of days to write, would take even longer. Maybe I will come back and comment in a future blog now and then, or respond to some comments (if I receive them) in more detail, but for now, this blog post ends!

The Changing Face of AD&D (Part 2)

2011-04-21T19:54:00.027+01:00

Last week I looked at my early years playing AD&D with the first edition rules in the 1980's. At the end of that decade, the second edition rules for AD&D were released, which I was to use throughout the 90's until the release of the third edition rules in 2000. With the second edition rules we learned about such things as THACO (the die roll required To Hit AC 0) and non-weapon proficiencies. How did these and other rules compare with those of the first edition from the decade before and in what way might they be helping to shape the future of D&D?

Second Edition

Before I recall my acquisition of the second edition books, I wanted to point out that there was another first edition book I had that I did not mention last time, but deserves a mention now: The DragonLance Adventures. I mention it now because, for me, this campaign setting provided the bridge between the two rule editions. I played the entire campaign using the first edition rules, but later bought the second edition Monstrous Compendium Appendix detailing the creatures of Krynn; the setting of the DragonLance campaign.

The second edition was released in 1989 and I bought copies of the core rules (DM's Guide, Player's Handbook and Monstrous Compendium) as soon as they became available in my local store. The first major difference was obvious even at this stage, as the Monstrous Compendium had been released in a ring binder format rather than a standard book. The idea was that you bought additional monster pages as they were released in different pack formats. I suppose it was a good idea for making money, but a terrible idea for the players (myself included) who found the format cumbersome and awkward to use. At the time, however, there was no other way to acquire monster information and so I continued to buy the packs and eventually ended up with two volumes, which I managed to pack into a single binder. Along with the appendix I mention above, my second edition monster collection was complete. Unfortunately, I never acquired the book version of these creatures that was eventually released and my next book for monsters would not be until the Monster Manual of the third edition.

Personally, I agree that a new edition of the rules had become necessary to help slimline an unwieldy first edition, which the second addition claimed to address. Unfortunately, however, history has shown us that from the second edition onwards, the rules were to undergo a greater bloating to cover an even greater amount of new material and rules. Check out the comparative list of rule books to each edition and you will see what I mean. The first edition had a total of 13 books to refer to (of which I had 10), whereas the second edition was to expand to well over double this number. If you check out the list of materials it is not easy to say exactly what constitutes a "book" as there are many appendices just for the Monstrous Compendium, subject to which style of campaign you played. However, from this list, I can say that I ended up buying 6 other texts that were supposed to help complement play: Four Complete Handbooks covering the Fighter (CFH), the Thief (CTH), the Wizard (CWH) and the Priest (CPH) classes and the Rules Supplement Guides for the Castle (CAS) and the Catacombs (CAT). The problem was, by the time I had bought these new rules and supplements I was already up to a similar number of books in a few of years of playing than I had the first, and there was no end to these supplements in sight. So much for making the game "less unwieldy".

Almost as soon as the core rules were released, these supplementary texts started to follow. But what did these supplementary texts offer? The bottom line, primarily, was ways of playing the game if you did not have the imagination to consider playing it that way yourself, with more rules to help complement your decision - as well as introducing new optional rules for the game as a whole. Wasn't one of the prime goals of the new second addition to avoid unwieldy rules? Each handbook would now offer over a hundred new pages of rules and information about a single class of adventurer, and cover such rules as various ways of parrying (CFH) and sample priesthoods (CPH). And while the other supplement guides were not quite so exasperating when it came to adding more rules, they did contain sections that reminded me of the first edition Wilderness and Dungeon Survival Guides with rules that appeared designed for the sake of incorporating just another rule about a topic. E.g. Chance of canon misfire rules (CAS).

From all these negative responses, you may think I do not like the second edition rules, or maybe that I should have just avoided buying these supplement texts in the first place. I would like to address the latter point first: To be frank, I believe I was lulled into a false sense of security regarding the purpose of these texts and pure gaming enthusiasm probably led me into buying them. It is only with hindsight that I can look back at these texts and recognise that I was buying into the "minutiae rules" once again. At the time, however, I thought I was buying into useful and purposeful rules that every good gamer should have access to, just to be sure everyone was playing the game fairly and with most opportunities for the players. However, having access to all these new rules came with its own problem: too many rules to refer to would once again inhibit smooth play. When the player says "Can I cut the button off his shirt?", what would once may have been a simple interaction between DM and player has now turned into a given rule (CFH) - and would require a quick rule check to be sure we had it right. Of course, some of these rules would get easier to remember and play in time, but because this kind of thing was the exception rather than the norm, play could ebb and flow according to the whims of a player's gaming style for the day rather than remain consistent with more basic rules to play by.

The Pros and Cons (Second Edition)

From the last comments, things do not look good for the second edition, mainly due to the fact that they did not end up doing what they set out to do in the first place. i.e. Make the game easier to play (by becoming less unwieldy). However, my group of players did not shy away from them and we played second edition for ten years until the release of the third edition. So, what did we like and what did we dislike about this edition of the rules?

In the following list, I have once again chosen to ignore much of the additional supplemental material that came out for this edition, so I could do a direct comparison of the core rules between editions. As it turned out, the second edition was already mirroring many of the changes we had made to the first edition rules, as well as taking some of them into areas I was already altering for my own campaign, which meant less work for me to do. This, at least, was a definite overall PRO.

PROS

1) Core Racial Integrity: Even though I list Archetypal Races as a PRO for the first edition rules, I actually prefer the further limiting in race that the second edition rules make. They lessen references to sub-race variants (and also remove the half-orc race completely), which, to me, were always one step closer to monster creatures than those that were finally chosen as playable races in this edition.

2) Class Group Recognition: Once again, even though I praised the first edition for its Archetypal Classes, I find I prefer the further streamlining of the classes that come with the second edition core rules where they emphasise the four major groups: Warrior, Wizard, Priest and Rogue. (NB: I cannot, however, say the same about the optional rule on creating a new character class, nor the expansion of classes with the various kits that became available with supplemental rules.) And while I still believe there is reasonable argument for the other first edition archetypal classes (E.g. Ranger and paladin), I believe that recognising that the other classes are mere sub-categories of the main classes was a positive step in the right direction.(*)

(*) Class progression is one of the prime attractions of AD&D. Unfortunately, however, I believe the continued desire to create a "new class" to satisfy every type of player is one of the main problems to affect the game's rules. In fact, I believe new classes are responsible for stifling player creativity from developing classes that were (in many respects) already available to them. For instance, it is quite possible to play an "illusionist" as a wizard class who has specialised in illusion spells only (by role playing it this way). This is similar to how the second edition worked, except additional rules or conditions were set to accommodate the differences in the "sub-classes" within the second edition rules, which I believe are unnecessary. As another example, a "paladin" can be viewed primarily as a fighter with the ability to cast some spells, which can be acquired if the PC was made to multi-class a fighter with a magic using class. Problems arise when new feats and skills are assigned to a new combination of classes that make it a unique class. i.e. The "paladin class" is not just a multi-classed fighter with wizard/cleric class, but a class of its own with its own unique abilities. I must quickly add that I do appreciate that a paladin is much more than how I describe them above (due to its many other abilities as a class nowadays) and is why there is still argument for some other archetypal classes. Controversially, however, if, for example, one was to reorganise the "unique" feats of a paladin into feats available to a PC that consisted both of a fighter and cleric class, then a more streamlined system could be organised. Such a system would limit a PC to only being able to multi-class with two classes, so that you could retain the uniqueness of feats and skills determined by class limitations. E.g. Only PCs multi-classing in a fighter and cleric class could acquire the "Warrior Steed" feat, which would mean a player would have to decide whether the ability to attract a "Warrior Steed" was worth the sacrifice of being able to cast wizard spells, which would have been an alternative option. In this way, an archetypal system is maintained within a flexible system.

If you read my last blog, you may now be asking yourself if I am contradicting what I said last time? The answer is "no", if you consider I respect the main four Archetypal Classes from first edition (now better defined in the second edition as a Fighter, Priest, Wizard and Rogue), and if I was allowed to include the ability to multi-class them all in a way that expands on the class options available, but without introducing new named classes that have their own unique "rules". The distinctiveness of each character build should be down to the way the player plays their PC with the feats, skills and equipment they acquire to supplement their style of play, rather than a representation of a new class altogether. Maybe you could still call the "class build" a "paladin" and role play it that way if it fits in with what the player understands a paladin to be. After all, what's in a name? The distinction can be made through choice builds, limited by a combination of the four main original archetypal determinants.

3) Non-Weapon Proficiencies: The precursor to the third edition "Skill" rules and an expansion of the first edition Secondary Skills. On the surface of things, one might have thought I would consider this a "CON". However, its covering of a number of universal and specialised skills paved the way to what would become the skill system of the third edition rules (and complemented a system I was already working on for my player's PCs). This system allowed players and DM alike to address situations throughout play via a simple system based on attributes already familiar to the player. Quick reference and easy guidelines made this a welcome addition to the AD&D rules.

4) Spell's Schools & Spheres: The second edition rules did a good job at starting to define the categories each spell would fall under. This distinction in the various types of spell would offer an alternative way to specialise in the various classes. E.g. Druids would have access to divine spells of certain spheres only. Major and minor differences between the spell levels also helped define spells available. In this way, spells across all the classes fell into two categories only: divine and arcane. This, in my opinion, is the purest form of defining magic and sub-dividing these two types into the various spell types available according to class is the best way to develop individual distinction within a smaller archetypal class structure. However, I do respect that there is argument for totally separate lists of spells for each class, which is also subject to which classes one considers archetypal. However, I believe separate lists, while appearing a simpler system on the surface of things, do not help to explain the bigger picture of magic in general. This is fine for some people and so no further explanation is required, but for some people (I include myself here), an overall system that helps explain the way something fits within the D&D cosmology and allow a way of expanding game play (but without complicating or changing the rules) is a preferred system to work with. In other words, without such a system, the development of various class nuances with respect to magic becomes subjective and open to argument as to its validity or not, whereas a defined system is objective and is more balanced. E.g. The original druid's spell list from the first edition was a list of spells with a simple background of "nature" type spells as its guiding principle. For this type of system to work, then no further expansion to the classes or magic should be made at all, as the game has been balanced for the unique existence of this class. If, however, there is a guiding system or principle that helps define which spells a "nature" type class should have (which the second edition defines), then it opens the way for both DM and players to organise potential other groupings of magic spells that would fit a different style of play. Note, the spell system does not change, but the access to the different types of spells does, in a similar fashion to the original archetypal classes from the first edition. As an example, it gives reason as to why druids have some spells similar to clerics (divine), but that also differ from one another, as they work in different spheres of the same type of magic. Neither of them have access to the arcane magic, which requires training in the wizard class.

CONS

1) Rule Unwieldiness Worsens: The second edition ended up betraying itself and us by introducing a number of supplemental rulebooks and additional material that should have been left to the remit of the interaction between the DM and player. Furthermore, it did nothing to fix the first edition cons of an unusual and limited numbering system for many mechanic devices.

2) Optional Rules: On the surface of things, the optional rules appeared harmless enough, and one was able to pick and choose which rules to play. However, their very presence could be a bone of contention as it opened up potential arguments to include them at certain times. E.g. Parrying. This rule simply adds a level of complication uncalled for in my opinion. While an argument is made that a PC is potentially open to more risk than someone parrying, it is easier to assume a PC, playing a hero, is actually defending themselves to the best of their ability all of the time and there is no need for any distinction in play. This optional rule became a standard rule in later editions, which, in my opinion, weakens the game play. (As a group, we played very few of these optional rules.)

3) Racial Level Limitations: In all fairness, this was a CON of the first edition rules as well, but I will list it here now. That is, how different classes would be limited in level according to the race played. This always appeared an arbitary and penalising rule to me, and seemed an unfair way of balancing the game where non-human races had benefits over their human counterpart. This CON would finally be eliminated by the time we reach third edition rules.

Like the first edition, there are some rules that came along with the second edition to which I feel neither hot nor cold. An example of this would be the change from the combat tables used by the DM to determine if a PC hit an opponent to the use of the THACO (To Hit AC 0) formula to determine the same. It was just a different method to do a similar task in my opinion, and playing either system was much of a muchness once one became used to it. Furthermore, while I liked the way the second edition was to combine the original spell lists into the two main categories and designate spheres according to mythoi background, I believe it (unfortunately) also led the way for the later third edition rules to exploit this joining when redistributing the spells back into lists by allowing spells that were once in sole possession of one archetypal class to be cast by another. Here follows an example of what I mean: Animal Summoning spells specifically for the druid class of the first edition rules become generic divine spells in the second edition rules, but were still reserved for "nature" type priests (which would include druid type priests). By the time they reach the third edition rules, the "nature" sphere is dropped for the cleric/Priest class, and they are now given (as standard) a Monster Summoning spell like that once reserved for the wizard only. The separate druid spell lists have returned and a Summon Nature's Ally equivalent is given to them. During the course of changes to the spell lists throughout the editions, clerics have managed to gain a monster summoning ability that was once only available to wizards via Summon Monster spells (or by druids by their equivalent Animal Summoning spells). Furthermore, in a similar manner, "spheres" once used by the second edition rules to help manage spells throughout the various mythoi and beliefs later disappear in the third edition rules and become replaced by domains for clerics, allowing them access to even more spells that were once outside of their influence altogether. In brief, in the process of passing from first, through second and into third edition rules, one could play a cleric that moved from once being "incapable" to "capable" of casting prized arcane magic spells, such as Monster Summoning (from 1st level) and Wall of Fire (from 7th level). I believe this may have been a step too far.

The End of A Second Era

The year 2000 saw the end of another era and the end of using the second edition rules. The third edition rules had been released and many aspects that player's had disliked about earlier editions had been revised and/or removed. No more confusing number systems, easier combat rules with straight forward AC values. Was this edition the one to answer all problems? A quick glance of the PHB showed what looked like a return to some of the original first edition ideas and rules ... half-orcs were back ... there was the barbarian and monk classes ... but it also talked about feats and skills that reminded us of the second edition. Was this really going to be the set of rules to end all rule debates and keep things simple? Join me next time as I try to recall the decade of the 00's and my experience with the third edition rules.

If you have any memories of your years with second edition rules, please send me a comment and reminisce with me.

The Changing Face of AD&D (Part 1)

2011-04-14T19:59:00.025+01:00

I have been playing AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) for most of my life now and there have certainly been some changes over the years. My first encounter was with the first edition AD&D in April 1981, and even back then there were three core rule books to get the game underway: The Player's Handbook (PHB); The DM's Guide (DMG) and The Monster Manual (MM). Thirty years on, I'm still playing and at this time the game has entered its fourth set of rules, as well as becoming available on the computer in the form of Neverwinter Nights (NWN/NWN2) and D&D Online (DDO) .

Throughout this time, the rules have undergone many changes and incarnations around a central theme of character development and adventures. However, I do question whether the rules have always undergone a change for the better? Furthermore, I wonder if the rules still need revising? Before attempting to answer these questions, here is some AD&D background from my own perspective. This week I will cover first edition, and hopefully, in the coming weeks, I will be able to cover the later revisions. In the final blog on this topic, I will try to answer my own questions, guided by any comments of your own. I would be very interested to know how your own background in AD&D compares to mine?

First Edition

My copies of the first edition core rulebooks are dated from the late 70's and I can still remember the first dungeon I ever ran from using these core books as my guide. The rules back then seemed "simple" - at least by comparison to what was to come. As the eighties went on, I bought a complementary magazine called "White Dwarf" (my earliest backdated copy is number 22, dated December 1979), which was filled with various gaming material, including such things as new monsters and character classes for AD&D. It was due to the popularity of some of these new creatures that the "Fiend Folio" was released. When I first bought this book, I thought it was great to have a whole menagerie of new creatures to throw at my players, but looking back now, I see only one or two creatures I would consider using today. Although this book appeared to be an honest attempt to bring more material to the players, I now consider it just a book of historical curiosity that represents the players imaginations at the time. There are one or two ideas, like the Kuo-Toans, which have survived the test of time, but I still cringe when I read about creatures like the Nilbog. (See Goblin subrace.)

Along with the "Fiend Folio", I bought a copy of "Deities and Demigods". Many players could claim they had defeated all that the DM (Dungeon Master) had throw at them in the way of normal creatures and now greatness and the gods themselves had become the targets of the PCs ambitions. This book gave the DM the guidelines on just how tough these gods should be, including giving actual statistics for them, along with more detailed backgrounds of the more common "god systems" that a DM might consider using for their own campaigns. My own copy of this book is one of the first editions that includes the later removed Cthulhu and Melnibonéan mythoi. Personally, while I found the information contained in this book interesting, I felt it also veered too far into the real world for its ideas. I ended up redefining every system and eventually even defining my own cosmology to avoid using any of the real-life comparisons. I did, however, use the nonhuman deities, which, in my opinion, is the most valuable section of the book.

A couple of years later, the Monster Manual 2 (MM2) was released. Backed by Gary Gygax, this tome of creatures definitely felt more "official" than the "Fiend Folio", and its content expanding on the original contents of the first "Monster Manual" did not disappoint. There was still the odd creature that did not sit comfortably with me, but, overall, the new manual of monsters was a welcome addition to the resources already available.

While the last three books added content to the core rules and went some way to help expand some of the existing understanding of the game, I believe it is the next book released in 1985 called "Unearthed Arcana" by Gary Gygax, that was to end up being the first book that really lead the way to complicating the game more than it needed to be. It was also the first book to give weight to new classes, such as the Barbarian and Cavalier classes and was probably the thin end of the wedge that opened up a whole raft of new content and rules in the years that followed. However, I do not blame the game or the author for what followed, as I believe it was only addressing questions that were being raised by players at the time. As the game had matured, players had started to question the rules more and more - not necessarily a bad thing, but I believe in a way that opened up the way to a whole change in attitude towards the game. If the rules on grappling had been hard enough to remember and include from the original core books, then the "Unearthed Arcana" (UA), along with the two that quickly followed it, the "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" (DSG) and the "Wilderness Survival Guide" (WSG), added complication and rule nuances to the nth degree that would probably horrify a modern cRPG player today. It is from this time that we encounter such rules as "weapon specialization" (Unearthed Arcana), a number of crafting proficiencies (DSG) and effects of temperature on a character (WSG), to name but a few. I must stress that I believe there were some good things to come from these works, although much more, in my opinion, were rule additions and complications that were simply not necessary. An example: While there may be a reason to need to know the chance of finding natural shelter in a given terrain (WSG), is there any real need to have a table guide for it? I believe many of these rules/guidelines only came about due to players arguing such points with a DM. Such rules gave all players a guideline to follow so that no-one could argue a DM was being unfair in a given situation because the rules were there to protect everyone. Basic role-playing and DM'ing would take a back seat to a rule that now tried to cover every situation.

I bought one more book for the first edition, entitled the "Manual of the Planes" (MoP). Upon reflection, while this book added its own level of complexity to the rules, I also believe this book to be one of the most useful to come from this time. For while many campaigns could probably survive quite comfortably without the other supplementary books, this book was a great resource for the DM with respect to understanding the AD&D cosmology as a whole. In previous texts, terms such as "ethereal" and "negative energy" were not very well explained. One would have a vague idea of their meaning, but the MoP help to place them firmly within the cosmology of the game, and arm the DM with information to help expand their understanding of such and thereby build worlds that made more sense.

The Pros and Cons (First Edition)

I cannot comment on the improvements or decline of the first edition AD&D to the original basic D&D, as I never had the chance to play the latter. However, with thirty years experience of the various AD&D editions, I believe I am in a position to comment on what I believe to be the pros and cons of the first edition with respect to later editions and explain why I believe such. NB: In the following list I generally ignore first edition supplementary books.

PROS

While I have a great fondness for the original edition, I believe it has fewer pros than cons compared to later editions. That said, I believe the pros it does have are significant and they have a great influence on how other rules have developed in the later editions over time. Two key pros of the first edition are, in my opinion:

1) Archetypal Races: There were only 7 races for a player to choose from, with a few variant (sub-race) forms. Variant forms have subtle alterations to the character only. (*)

2) Archetypal Classes: There were only 11 classes (including the Bard class). (*)

(*) As later editions of the rules became available, so did the idea of expanding on the existing races and classes that the player could choose to play. Allowing new races meant determining new abilities to match the race, which had originally been reserved for the "monsters" in the game. Later rules (3E) even allow a player to play what was once considered a purely monster race. In a similar fashion, classes in later editions of the rules were designed to have abilities that would be a mixture of the archetypal classes, or be an extension of a class (prestige) that would simply allow a player to have additional abilities beyond the core classes. As the new races and classes began to increase, so the line between monsters and PCs, and the different classes, would start to blur. While some effort was made to balance these new additions to the rules, knowing "you had to be a magic user to be able to cast a fireball" or "be a thief to pick a lock" would no longer be the case, as the new rules would allow overlap that damaged the archetypal system.

Furthermore, the first edition rules already allowed multi-classing, which meant a player could try to become proficient in a number of classes, but it would come at a cost. They could not, for instance, continue in their chosen class and gain the benefits of another archetypal class just because they liked that particular trait and the rules allowed them to gain it. They would have to give up on one class to be able to start learning the skills and abilities of another.

However, I do not believe every class from the first edition to be a good idea to include in the game. (I would not include the assassin and illusionist sub-classes; the former because it does not play well in a party, and the latter because it is not different enough from the magic-user class.) However, those that were formed at this time were, on the whole, reasonably distinct from one another and potentially allowed all types of role-play styles to be included. For example, just because a class might be listed as a "fighter", it is not unreasonable to suggest that one player might play their fighter like a barbarian, while another play it like a swashbuckler. They would both play the "fighter" class, and it would be left to their own style of play and interpretation as to how they were to be perceived in the game. It is the designing of new rules and additional traits for each distinction in the style of play that I believe adds a level of complexity that begins to stifle the game and adds unnecessary complications to the rules.

CONS

1) Illogical & Limiting Numbers: Examining the strength table of the first edition rules will explain both these points. Later editions removed the unusual number formats and delimited the attributes. Another example of illogical numbering is how the armour class worked, with a value of -10 being the best armour one could acquire. I also include differing XP tables for classes in this.

2) Unclear Rules: This obviously covers a number of topics, from spell use to combat, as well as interacting with the environment. However, it is probably unfair for me to pick on this to any degree, because "flexible rules" was also part of its appeal. All the while the players agreed with the DM that a certain situation would be handled a certain way, then all would go well. The problem, however, is that as a player became more attached to their character and invested more time in its creation, then the rules that govern what consequences apply or not to their character's actions become more important to the player and, as such, require clearer defining. The "success" of the first edition's more flexible rule system became its own downfall demanding more rules to help explain itself.

There also remains many aspects of the first edition which are both better in some ways and worse in others compared to later editions. The spell system is an example of this. Spells from the first edition were listed simply and plainly, and some had the ability to scale with every level the PC achieved. Later editions would limit the maximum damages possible, and add more complex metamagic rules to compensate. In my opinion, metamagic should be completely removed from the game and the spells returned to straightforward scaling spells. On the other hand, later editions have gone a long way to help clarify spells with respect to their school and divine/arcane nature. Thankfully, many of the supplementary spells that have appeared from the time of the first edition have disappeared again. However, an argument can also be raised that some spells have been hijacked by classes that would not have had such before. (E.g. Cleric Summon Creatures prayers being an obvious hijack of the magic user's Monster Summoning spell.)

The End of an Era

As the 80's drew to a close, a decade of first edition AD&D was also coming to its end. Second edition AD&D was about to be thrust upon its players, and new acronyms and rules would have to be learned anew, like THACO and priestly spheres (later to become domains). What would go and what would remain from the first edition? Were there any improvements or disasters to be found in the latest revision of the rules? Join me next time as I try to recall the decade of the 90's and my experience with the second edition rules.

If you have any memories of your years with first edition rules, please send me a comment and reminisce with me.

A Pleasure Doing Business

2011-03-29T12:59:00.016+01:00

I have been continuing to look at and work on creature AI over the last week, and believe I have reached a point where I am able to enable monsters to do a little extra if need be. Some thanks must go to Derek (Chaos Wielder of Shagret), who showed me some examples of overriding AI scripts. For those who are not aware of his work, be sure to check out his site. My thanks also goes to Pain once again, who has continued to help me understand a little more of what is going on behind the scenes. In the course of our chats, he guided me to the Common Script Library, which I have also posted a permanent link to in the left hand pane.

A More Realistic Store

After being inspired by seeing a rework of the store GUI using different textures, I decided to set aside a little time to finish off my own store GUI. Below is the result of combining the two GUIs I had already designed (first seen in this blog post) into a single new one. Personally, I much prefer the colours in the new design, and am pleased that I was able to include all the extra store information into the single GUI without compromising the information given. Furthermore, it has now been made clearer to the player which stock is new or limited in nature by showing it in a light blue font. Check out the image below, which shows two pages of "Gavin's Goods".

As regular readers of this blog will know, my aim with stores was to make them exciting places to visit by adding random elements to them. Now, not only do some stock items change from time to time, but even the cost of having items identified may change sometimes.

Henchman Game Exit Crash Fix

During my course of looking at creature AI I came across a game bug. For those who may not be aware, there is a bug in NWN2 that causes the game to crash when a player has a henchman in their party and they try to leave the game. After discussing the problem with other players, especially Matt Rieder of The Wizard's Apprentice, I set out to fix the problem. At Matt's suggestion, the problem was resolved by adding some code that removes any henchmen before the game exit calls were made. It involved editing the optionsmenu.xml and adding one script, but the end result appears to work well. I even added some code that reattaches the henchmen if the exit is abandoned. I have uploaded the Henchmen Game Crash Fix (LB) to the Vault for those interested in the fix.

Creature AI

2011-03-21T21:51:00.006Z

It's been three weeks since I last posted and during that time I have been drifting from topic to topic with respect to the module. I have spent some time writing more to the manual, some time giving older scripts a rewrite and lastly, some time investigating monster artificial intelligence (AI) related scripts. Unfortunately, I have to confess that in all this I have not been very productive, as I have been hampered by my health more than usual. I would start to look at something, but poor concentration would prevent me from doing much.

At the start of the month, I looked at scripts by Shaughn relating to oozes. I had reached a stage in my module where I wanted to start working with monsters and this seemed a good place to start. Something I did not expect, however, was to find myself wanting to rework much of the way monsters worked in NWN. The reason: I learned that creature AI in NWN2 is far from straightforward to set up. (Perhaps it's just me.) During my pondering, I ventured into new territory and had the pleasure of learning a little more about the subject from "Pain", who has provided some extensive information at the Neverwinter Citadel Project. (When I see the kind of work people like Pain do, I realise just how slow I am.) He is currently reworking the entire AI system for NWN2 (among other projects he has underway), which I am keeping an eye on for possible future use. In the meanwhile, I have learned enough to know how to tweak monster AI in ways that will be useful for my own modules without having to "reinvent the wheel". One such area I have already covered is monster auras - which may not be the most difficult of AI to work on, but is good to have sorted. As I continue to add the various monsters to the modules, I will look at a creature's individual AI as it comes along.

The Manual

Between trying to get to grips with creature AI, I have also been doing more to the manual. Thankfully, this is a much easier task as I am able to copy and paste much of its content from material I have already written somewhere else in the past. I have had to change the sentence structure and make the odd correction/update to how I finally had a system work, but the main content remains unchanged. If people are interested, I may upload a few more pages in another blog.

Scripts Rewrite

It seems to me that every now and then (normally when I try to add a new aspect to the module, like monsters this time around) that I encounter an area of code that I have not looked at for a while that raises its head in such a way that forces me to look at it again and often rewrite it. For example, while looking at some code that had NPC's react to a PC's actions, I realised I had two scripts that were similar, but had subtle differences according to whether the PC was bashing an item or casting a spell upon it. The problem was, in one, I had "fixed" an aspect that checked for certain conditions of the PC, while in the other, it remained much more generic. The problem had come about because I had obviously recognised an issue when testing one aspect of the game (bashing the object), but not another (casting a spell on the object). The bottom line is, some good has come from this, as it meant I could take the best from both scripts and amalgamate them into one function, which then made the whole thing run more efficiently. It's just annoying that I did not have them like this in the first place!

The Crafting Poll

The poll asking the player's crafting preferences came to an end and here are the results.

I was surprised at the relatively low number of votes compared to traffic reported on the site stats, but am grateful to those that did take the time to vote. I think the only real information I can take from this is that:

The majority of those that voted will craft anyway.
The new system I am working on does look like it will encourage some to try.

Even the one vote that was not so into crafting had left a comment saying that they still felt that they may be encouraged to try the new system if its results were worthwhile.

That's it for this week's post. Not too much to report really, as much of what I have done is going over old stuff, or trying to understand other stuff that I have yet to put to use. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, I will be more productive and have more to report.

The Real Life System

2011-02-28T13:07:00.019Z

After reading this post on Kamal's Blog, I was reminded of the code I have added to my own campaign regarding NPC responses to PC's actions. The following sentence by Kamal, in particular, reminded me very much of my own campaign: "No more trying to pick the lock with the merchant standing right there, at least not without potential consequences." Kamal also mentions a few other systems, from pick-pocketing to mini-game lock-pickings, which all reminded me of additions I have included to my own campaign. Therefore, as I had not yet made a dedicated post about the Real Life System I have in my campaign, I felt it deserved one now.

An Underlying System

As regular readers will know, only last week I decided to put together a manual to help explain some of the background and systems I have used for this campaign. In the process, I have already touched upon and written something about the Real Life System and so will make my life easier by cutting and pasting some of the information straight from the manual:

The “Real Life System” is actually the overall name for a group of systems that work together to provide the player with new mechanics that govern how the environment reacts to the PC’s actions (over and above the normal NWN rules) and especially how NPCs will respond to them. In essence, it is the core idea behind the “artificial intelligent DM”. These are the many mechanic systems with which the player should familiarise themselves to have the best gaming experience with this campaign.

And ...

Another aspect of this campaign (different from most others you will have played) is that the artificial intelligence (AI) is designed to respond to a PC’s actions more intelligently, as if there was a DM present who controlled the actions of nearby NPCs. E.g. If you try to damage or interfere with property that does not belong to your PC (or they do not have permission to touch) then nearby NPCs will stop you from tampering with said object until either:

A) The party are able to prevent their actions being detected.
B) Permission is gained from the object owner to interact with the object.
C) The NPC preventing the action is “removed” from the vicinity.

Subject to how the player handles such situations also plays a big part on how their party alignment develops. (See Alignment Changes.) For more information on the different aspects of the Real Life System, please see the Game Systems section of the manual.

Important to note, the Real Life System is fundamental to the design of the campaign and comprises many systems all with the same goal: to help the game respond to player's actions in an intelligent way as possible. Key elements of the this governing system are the alignment and influence systems, which help determine the PCs interaction with other characters.

There are, of course, many other considerations to take into account when creating a system like this, but I have tried to include them whenever possible; including such things as determining if a PC has taken steps to conceal specific actions, and preventing impossibilities such as invisible PCs from speaking to NPCs without choosing to become visible first. The end result is that the module feels much more responsive and alive to the player's actions. My only concern is that some players may find the result too challenging.

FEEDBACK: If you have any comments regarding this aspect of the game (real life responses), then please give me feedback. Tell me of your own experiences and what you have liked or disliked in other games when it comes to this sort of thing. Is there something you would like included or excluded?

The Campaign Manual

As I mentioned above, I have been concentrating on putting the campaign manual together this week. It is not finished and will probably take me a few more weeks yet. The core design is in place, however, and I include a few of the finished pages (also reflecting some of the above post) as images below.

The Title Page

Some Game Parameters

A Unique World

Game Systems Section

Load Material

As writing the manual took most of my time this week, I only managed a little work on the module itself, by preparing the 2da files for the load hints and load screens. I was caught off guard at first, when I discovered it was the nwn2_tips.2da rather than the loadhints.2da that required editing for the load hints, but after I realised this, all was simple enough. Both the 2da files have now been edited, updated and tested as working, but I currently have only one load screen image and a handful of tips edited in the tlk file. It should be a simple enough task to add to these at a later time.

Will You Be Crafting?

We enter the last few days for the latest poll: Will You Be Crafting? If you have not yet voted and wish to do so, then please vote before the time runs out.

An Assortment of Updates

2011-02-16T16:01:00.009Z

There is no one topic for the project to report on for the last couple of weeks, as I have been dipping in and out of various parts of the campaign that need addressing as and when I am inspired. The main reason for this is because I have been trying to give some of my time and energy in supporting people with incorporating my Mapping System into their own modules. And while this did not require a great deal of effort on my part, it did mean using some of the time I had to respond as and when I could. However, I was more than happy to oblige where possible and it gave me a chance to talk (email) others about their own projects. Furthermore, the good news from this is that there are now two modules (that I know of) that are looking at being re-released with the new mapping system incorporated. I have already had the chance to look at one these modules, Risen Hero, and can say that the "fog of war" system that comes with mapping system I devised does indeed add an extra level of intrigue during play. The other module, currently under conversion is Trinity, by E.C. Patterson. Watch out for their re-releases on the Vault.

Campaign Manual

I have also decided to put together a brief manual for the campaign to help prepare players for their gaming experience with Better The Demon. This is because there are enough differences in the normal NWN style of play to warrant some background information for the player. The "serious" gameplay approach that the game presents will be explained as well as other more common playing elements like death and crafting. All such elements have undergone changes and the player will be left somewhat bemused as to what is happening if I do not give them some sort of manual with which to refer. At the moment, however, the manual is nothing more than a few rough notes jotted down in my paper notebook.

Crafting With The Greater Essences

Talking of crafting, I did write a few more pages to the new crafting recipe book that details crafting using the greater essences. I know this book will serve little purpose in the initial module (as it requires the PC to be at least 8th level to use - which is still 4 levels lower than the OC anyway), but I did want the book to be available from module one, so that the player can start to plan their crafting of items ahead of time. I know most readers like to see screenshots, so here are a few of some of the opening pages to, hopefully, whet your appetite: (I am aware of the typo on the 4th page. There may be others that will be addressed in time.)

Area Map - Fog of War!

2011-02-03T14:04:00.017Z

How many times have you had your "desire for exploration" frustrated because of being given a whole map of an area even before you started exploring it? What ever happened to the good old "fog of war" (FOW) that represented the parts of an area we weren't familiar with yet? Well, I can at last declare that after giving it more thought, I have finally achieved this for NWN2! For the astute among you (E.g. E.C. Patterson's post on the previous Map Blog), I did indeed manage to rework the "grid" idea that I used with the Rune Puzzle into a "fog" for an area map.

The task was simple enough in the end, but something I had to keep going back to because it required the repetitive task of copying and pasting lines of data, which then needed slight alteration. My concentration only holds for short periods of time and so I had to break the task over a number of days. I am, however, most pleased with the end result. Furthermore, this new system works alongside my previous system for making the "Map Unavailable".

Area Mapping

There are some changes to the way the area map works, simply because the area map function now relates to what the PC knows about the area or has "mapped". Pressing "M" on the keyboard now brings up the map fully zoomed out and giving the maximum view. It is no longer possible to zoom in on an area map, because the map is meant to be a fixed reference that the PC has made for themselves. Note, however, the mini-map (accessed by pressing "N" on the keyboard), still has the + and - zoom buttons to focus in on the immediate area that this map provides. You will also see from the screenshots that the mini-map has been redesigned to give a slightly larger view than it did originally. (It is not subject to FOW.)

The PC starts mapping by opening the area map.

Furthermore, as the area map now represents what the PC is mapping, this map only updates when the player has the map open. If they move around an area with the map closed, then the map is not updated and the FOW is not removed. The map will also automatically close if the PC enters combat. There can be no map referencing while the PC is in combat. Mapping has been made personal to each player. Therefore, in a MP game, players will have maps with differing levels of FOW removed according to where they have explored and mapped. This information remains intact between area changes.

The Fog of War updates as the PC wanders across the area mapping.

An example of where the PC stopped mapping and moved before starting mapping again.

The Map System

The new system was designed to allow the builder to ensure a map is not immediately available to the player. However, there are circumstances when an area is either too small (only one or two rooms), or said to be known well enough by the PC to be provided with the full area details from the start. The system takes this into account, allowing the builder to enable or disable the initial FOW as required.

Current testing has shown the system to be robust and works well for both indoor and outdoor areas and even for custom size areas beyond the standard sizes. It makes only one assumption: that an exterior area has a 4 tile border, which I have not seen differently to date. However, if this is not the case, there is provision for the builder to add a couple of variables to the area in question to correct for this if need be. NB: I have NEVER seen this as a problem to date, and it may not even be possible to build an exterior area without the border in question.

Other News

I have decide that I will be releasing Module 1 prior to finishing modules 2 and 3. This is so I can start receiving feedback and make corrections I may need to make along the way. To this end, I have updated the left side pane to show the percentage completion rates for each module.

For the time being, I have placed the two other puzzles I had in mind on hold, so that I can concentrate on trying to finish the first module. I decided these puzzles and others I have in mind could be integrated at a later date if need be.

Crafting System Poll

Thanks to those who voted on the current poll. It is good to see that the alterations to the OC crafting system I have made are encouraging some to look at crafting in this module more positively. If you have not voted yet, then please do.

Mini Game Puzzles

2011-01-27T15:44:00.010Z

Do you enjoy mini-game puzzles? When playing D&D, back in the days when everything was done with a pencil and paper (and almost too far back to remember now) I used to enjoy creating puzzles for my players to try to solve. It was all part of the great gaming experience that made D&D what it was (in my opinion) and while some players might baulk at the idea of finding one, the majority would approach the puzzle with enthusiasm for the challenge. From the poll I took in August last year, it would seem about 55% of players (who read my blog) also enjoy puzzles.

When it comes to designing puzzles in a CRPG, however, a builder is limited to their knowledge of the scripting language, and XML if they want to design new interfaces for puzzle interaction. Furthermore, designing a puzzle to be included in such a way as to not appear orchestrated can be difficult to achieve. This last point, however, is also true for classic D&D. Yet, these obstacles aside, I believe there is room for a little "poetic licence" to allow the builder to be creative with their ideas and include puzzles as a minor distraction to the normal flow of events. If a player can accept the game with this premise in mind, then it can be fun all around.

Not Everyone's Idea of Fun

I do recognise, however, that some players do not like puzzles at all, or find some puzzles a frustration rather than an enjoyable distraction. With this in mind, I have tried to ensure the player does have an alternative means to bypass a puzzle and to move the game forward. Such bypassing does come at a cost (gold or Life Essence), but this should not be seen as being penalised, but as the minimum cost that would have been asked if the puzzle did not exist in the first place. E.g. I posted about my Coded Mechanism Puzzle in an earlier blog. In this puzzle, the player can choose to try to solve the puzzle to move the plot forward at no cost or use Decipher Tools to bypass it instead. If the puzzle had not existed, the same obstacle would have cost the player an amount of gold equalling the cost of the Decipher Tools that were used to bypass this puzzle. In other words, a DM or builder provides a puzzle to allow the player to get something for nothing if they take the time and effort to try to solve it.

A Little More Help?

The other problem with designing puzzles for a CRPG is that there is no immediate contact with a DM to offer hints and clues to solve the puzzle (unless playing with a DM). For the games where no DM is present (SP gaming), I have designed a new feat for the player to take for their PC, called Expert Decoder. This feat is geared towards players who enjoy puzzles, but feel they need just a little more guidance or more time to solve them where a time limit is involved. If this type of player takes the new feat during character build or when levelling, then the extra hints and time come as a reward for their PC learning choice.

The Puzzles

I have already mentioned the Coded Mechanism and have also mentioned my Combination Chest puzzle in an earlier post. There are also a few others that I touched upon, like the Chameleon Puzzle. I will now mention a few others I have been working on, with their differences relating to being bypassed or if the Expert Decoder gives any benefit:

RUNE WARD PUZZLE: Some locks are protected by dwarf rune magik. No normal lock is presented, but a magikal lock that only an agile mind and a good dexterity can overcome. Basically, the player is presented with a grid that represents the locking mechanism and its components. Once activated, the player must match the number of runes required to deactivate the mechanism within a time limit. Some locks are harder to bypass than others, but all allow the PC to sacrifice Life Essence to bypass the lock if need be. Furthermore, a PC with the Expert Decoder feat is allowed a time bonus when trying to deactivate the lock.

Player Starts A Rune Ward Puzzle (This one has four parts to solve.)

Time Ticks Away! (Found one half of a pair, but also drawn a blank!)

One Pair Found! Only Three More To Go! (And only 45 seconds left!)

CYPHER PUZZLE: Sometimes the PC will be up against an intelligent foe. Knowing their plans may be foiled by interfering adventurers, they ensure their communications with their troops are kept encoded so that only those that know the code can translate the message. However, if any of these messages do fall into the hands of the PCs, then they may spend some time looking at the text to see if they can crack the code and understand the message. There is no time limit involved when trying to decipher a text and there is currently no way to bypass this puzzle. However, the PC who has the Expert Decoder feat does get a clue if they are proceeding correctly.

Player starts a Cypher Puzzle (Instructions given.)

This was a test for my wife. (In case you interpret it.)

The yellow letters represent a correct letter if you have the Expert Decoder feat.

RIPPED SCROLL PUZZLE: A page with some useful information has been torn and thrown away. The PCs manage to gather these parts and want to see what was on the page: an important letter, a picture containing a clue, or just an old shopping invoice? This is a simple 25 piece block puzzle. The player is presented with a jumbled image comprised of 25 scrambled parts of an image. As it currently stands, there is no time limit to this puzzle, but neither is there any way to bypass it or gain an advantage with the Expert Decoder feat.

Player Is Presented With The Ripped Scroll Puzzle Instructions.

No Spoiler Text Here - But An Example of A Part Being Swapped

OTHERS (IN PLANNING STAGE)

SINGING GEMS PUZZLE: Maybe an important magikal lock or a simple tavern game, I am yet to decide. Maybe both? The player is presented with a number of gems (4 - 8) that begin to play their strange tuneful chime when the player interacts with them. The gems play a note in turn and the player has to repeat the tune; the number of notes gradually increasing. (Think of the game called "Simon".)

LOCK SPRING PUZZLE: The PCs have come across another magikal lock. This one, however, looks as though it can be overcome by careful examination of the mechanism and some luck. The player is presented with a grid that represents the hidden mechanism. The player then has to start clicking on the different pieces of the lock in an effort to understand its mechanism and work out where each lock part is. (Think of the game called "Minesweeper".)

Means To An End

With all these puzzles, however, I want the player to realise while playing them that they are more than simple games, but a means to overcome an obstacle that will move the plot forward, with the exception of the potential tavern game, which can have its own interesting twist.

Final Word & Request

In every puzzle, I have tried to give extra thought and attention as to how it will work in a MP environment as well as a SP game. For instance, I have decided that while all players may have the Cypher Puzzle open to see, only one player (the one who first discovers the puzzle) can operate the buttons. Note, however, there is nothing to stop this player from leaving the puzzle and allowing another player to act as the main player instead, leaving the first as an observer instead.

I have asked this before, but will ask it again: In the light of the current puzzles explained, do you have any thoughts or suggestions to add? Most of all, is there a puzzle or mini game concept that you would like to see if possible? I have tried to take on board comments in the past, and have greatly appreciated feedback to date. If, however, you believe I have missed an important point, then please let me know.

Of course, any general feedback is very much appreciate as well :)

Making The Area Map Unavailable

2011-01-18T14:51:00.007Z

Have you ever wanted to prevent the player from having access to the maps available? Maybe, as designer, you deem an area would be too complex for the PC to map. Or, maybe, you do not want to allow a map to be available unless they have mapping equipment? Whatever the reason, I believe there are times when disabling the in-game map can have a dramatic effect and potentially change the pace of the game. In the past, however, the methods I have seen to do this appear cumbersome to employ: needing to add blocking tiles at build time. I hope the system I now propose and am using in my own module, Better The Demon, will be more flexible and appealing to builders.

Altering The GUI

I have found that it is possible to use a very simple method of obscuring the current map with another image when the area (or mini) map displays. In the images below, I have simply overlaid a plain black image with the wording "MAP UNAVAILABLE", but there is nothing to stop the builder being more imaginative with the image to place as a map instead. For instance, some builders may like to force hand drawn maps as images rather than allow the automated ones that come with the game. Note, such images still allow Map Pins to work with them, so the builder can allow information updates with such as normal. My own Map Pin system also still works fine with this.

The beauty of this system, is that the ability to obscure or reveal the map is handled by a variable, which means the map can very easily be made available or unavailable by code. Furthermore, there is nothing to stop a builder from updating/changing the same map image with a little more script. E.g. The first map image may only be a rough sketch of the area. When the PCs find a more updated map, then the image can be swapped to represent the more accurate map they have found. I also currently have it set up so that either just the area map is made unavailable (leaving the mini-map available) or that both are made unavailable by adjusting a single variable.

More Crafting Improvements

Over the last week, I have been working on another crafting idea, which I cannot reveal at the moment, as it would be a spoiler. However, while working on this, I recognised a few changes I could make to the existing code to improve some of the things I had already done:

1) I have further reduced the costs of upgrading a scroll, potion or wand to a higher spell casting level. The same minimum cost has been kept, but I felt the player was more likely to consider upgrading an item if the cost to do so was not too great. E.g. The basic cost to create a potion of cure light wounds is 9gp for 1st level. If the caster is capable of casting higher level, the cost examples of this level potion are now 10gp for 3rd level, 12gp for 5th level, 14gp for 7th level and so on. Note, in this particular case, creating a cure light wounds of a level higher than 5th does not produce any further benefits as the spell only gives HP bonus up to 5th level. In this example, the player may prefer to pay the extra 3gp to create a 5th level potion as opposed to a 1st level one to gain the extra guaranteed 4 HPs when taken. As the cost of an empty potion bottle is 1gp, then the player can create their own cure light wound potion for a minimum of 10gp, which is cheaper than the normal cost (11gp). For the small extra cost at time of crafting (3gp), the PC will acquire a potion of cure light wounds set to cast at 5th level.

2) I have added the Spirit Shaman and Favored Soul classes to the Craft Wand creation checks to ensure they can use any wands they create. From what I could see in the official code, it looked as though these classes could craft wands, but not be able to use them. I felt this was a major hindrance to these classes ever wanting to craft wands and so made the changes necessary to allow them to use their own wands. Please note, I recognise that there may be other classes that fit this category, but they will have not been added as they will not be allowed in the campaign as they are anachronistic classes to Althéa. Furthermore, I have only included classes that cast the normal divine or arcane spells, which means warlock spells still cannot be used to craft items.

Will You Be Crafting?

First, I would like to thank the handful of people who added their vote to the current poll last week. Again, however, I am asking for your vote to help give me a bigger picture of the player's interest in this topic, based upon their current thinking, or if they have had any change of interest since following the blog and read about the alterations I have made.

Shatiel left a great post last week, which helped me to confirm some of my own observations. However, the more feedback I receive, the more I can understand other player's interests and concerns in these matters. Any and all constructive feedback is welcome. E.g. I discovered the problem with Spirit Shaman's and Favored Souls being unable to use any wands they craft. That would have frustrated my play when it came to crafting such items. However, did you already know this? Or, are there other current implementations around crafting that annoy you or simply prevent you from bothering with it. If you are a keen crafter already and/or have no reservations anyway, simply answer "Yes! Everything! I always do!" If not, however, then your feedback is valuable. More can be read about this poll from here.

Preventing Exploitation

I have also continued to ensure certain aspects of the game cannot be exploited. Some may say "why bother?", but as a number of the systems I have used work on chance or careful deduction at a cost, then there is always the temptation for a player to simply reload a game to "have another go until they succeed" or "get the answer without paying for it". When this happens, it quickly devalues the achievement and discourages the player. I know there is also the argument that "if that is the way they want to play it, then let them, as they only spoil it for themselves". However, I personally believe I would be doing them an injustice if I was not trying to make the challenge as challenging as possible. I want there to be a point to the process of solving a puzzle or making that lucky roll. Please note, I am not going berserk here and watching every move, but simply preventing potential exploitation of my own designed puzzles and games of chance. In other words, reloading won't stop a player from having another go at an enemy who defeated them last time, but will prevent a player from paying to learn of some information and then reloading prior to that knowledge to get their gold back. Also note that these type of exploitation checks are only required where variables are not set during gameplay and so are kept to a minimum. They do include, however, some puzzles that a friend who has also played the game can give the answer to and so avoid paying the gold. I do not mind this kind of co-operation between players though, as it means they are discussing the module. :)

RWS Tilesets (All In One)

2011-01-11T13:33:00.016Z

I think many will agree that The Robinson Workshop has created some great custom content for us builders to enhance the gaming experience for our players: from creatures, placeables and scripts, right through to great tilesets. Check out their Vault submissions if you have not done so already. I have already incorporated many of their creatures and had the opportunity to start work on including some of their tilesets last week. To this end, I downloaded and installed their All In One pack.

Unfortunately, I have not done much at the moment, as I discovered that some of the tiles and metatiles that I wanted to use, did not work in the toolset. At first, I thought I may have messed up the 2da's, but after reloading a toolset with the additions from scratch, I was still unable to access them. After some investigative work, I managed to track down the problem to 23 missing files and a different setting in the tiles.2da. Now, at this stage I have made the assumption that this is an error, but it may be that RWS have updated their Deep Sewers tileset to disable these particular tiles and metatiles on purpose, but I doubt it. I have contacted them already to let them know and am now posting the solution here for others who may be interested. (Although, by the time you read this, RWS will have probably already sorted the problem.)

UPDATE: RWS Response : "To be honest I'm not sure our All-in-one is really up to date, I stopped supporting it and rather we just put up links to our master 2da files here - then people can just download the various packs from their individual inks. Occasionally we do not include a tile into a set even if it appears in the hak, sometimes this is because we find the tile to not always work as intended or for whatever reason we never just finished the tile in time for release. In your case you are quite correct and it appears that the sewer set was updated after the release of the all-in one and it never got carried over for some reason - most likely laziness on my part :)"

After comparing an older ds.hak (from the Deep Environment hak) and the hak that comes with the All In One, I was able to determine that the following 23 files were absent from the newer hak. (See screenshot.) As far as being able to access the narrower passageways that were also available from the older hak and absent in the new, I was able to increase the variation count for the hallway tile from 3 to 8 in the tiles.2da, which then allowed me to access the other variants of the passageway. (See screenshot.)

In the process of my checking, I did not notice any other files missing from the other Deep Environments, and in quick testing these appeared to work as described. (I will report back if I find anything to the contrary.)

What About This Crafting?

The latest poll has not had much feedback and I am left wondering why? After all, there are options to say a person won't craft, so it's not as if a person cannot say they won't be crafting at all. Is it because I ask for suggestions in the same poll? Or have I not made myself clear in the alterations I have made that will (hopefully) enhance the experience? Maybe it's just too soon after the winter break? Whatever the reason, please let me know ... or just vote and don't give any feedback. I know there has been traffic (stats feedback), so it's not due to lack of readers.

Latest

I feel like the first module is finally coming together and that an end is in sight. Or, to put it another way: I feel like I have found all the borders of a jigsaw puzzle and have constructed the outer frame, and that now I am left with just filling in the middle bits. There are still a number of conversations to write, and some quests to put together, but these remaining ones should ... I repeat, should, be easier to do. However, having just spent some time working out a problem with a tileset, it is easy to find oneself having to resolve other issues along the way.

Islander

After an annoying incident where I lost my NWN saved games, I decided to start a new adventure rather than walk the path of those I had played again. (I will try playing them at a later time when they feel fresh again.) As I had been in touch with Eguintir Eligard (who is also in the process of designing some areas for my module), and who has just released his Islander - The Dagger Forged module, I decided to take a look. I don't get the time to play much, but this module does seem to hold up reasonably well from the amount I have played to date. There were one or two things that suggested it was not "polished" (I have already spoken with Eguintir about them), but, overall, the module leaves me with a feeling of wanting to continue to play to learn more about the story, which is a good thing! Furthermore, I was especially impressed with the music in Merchant Island (composed by Hoegbo of Demon Melody), which reminded me of the music from Monkey Island.

That's all for now .... please vote on the crafting poll. (Left pane.) Original poll post.

Casting Hostile Spells On Neutrals

2010-12-28T14:13:00.013Z

I was going to leave posting a new blog for another week in case the holiday season had kept people away and not given them time to catch up with what is already written. However, I was caught up in an interesting topic raised by Matthew Rieder (of The Wizard's Apprentice module) about an age old issue I have also looked at regarding targeting "neutrals" in a game with direct hostile spells. E.g. It is impossible to target a "neutral" NPC (considered friendly) with the Magic Missile spell. While on the surface of things this may not appear to be a huge problem, it can be argued that such a system is railroading the player into who they can or cannot consider a foe and attack if required. While there is a setting in the Campaign Options to allow a PC to physically attack neutrals, it still does not allow the PC to target them with hostile spells until after they have turned "hostile" (normally after the initial attack from the player's PC).

Therefore, this week, I decided to come up with a system that would overcome this problem. Initially, I tried to overcome the problem by directly implementing a new cursor system as proposed by 0100010 (Edward Beck), but this turned out to be rather unwieldy for my own purposes and so I decided to go about the problem a different way and came up with the following system. As usual, all your comments, questions and suggestions for improvements are welcome!

Before I go into more detail, however, I would still like to receive feedback from last week's blog and the for the current poll: Will You Be Crafting? Even if you have nothing more to say about the topic, I would be interested to see what the general consensus is regarding crafting. Please find more detail in this post about Increased Spell Power.

Know Thy Enemy

In the end, I decided that simply targeting a neutral with a hostile spell was against the spirit of the game anyway. After all, why would someone simply cast a magic missile at a neutral? OK, all chaotic evil players need not answer that. Even so, there is normally a little more reason to attack a neutral than just as something to do. In most circumstances, the player will have a little idea of who the NPC is before they attack them. At the very least they will examine them to read a bit about them (if available). With this in mind, I determined that it could be via the examine window that the player could decide whether they wanted to attack the NPC in question or not.

Goodie Or Baddie?

To this end, I added a new button to the examine GUI that allows a player to switch the hostile/neutral status of the NPC they are examining. Switching the NPC's status this way does not affect the hostile settings to other creatures in the area, as the NPC simply turns hostile to the party by using an Anti-Party faction setting. At the same time, the player's party AI is switched off to prevent any party members automatically starting to attack the new hostile NPC. Once turned hostile, the player can target the NPC with their PC's hostile spells without any further problems. If the player changes their mind about attacking this NPC, then the same toggle switch can be used to turn the NPC back to a neutral. Note, however, hostile creatures or those factions already Anti-Party by default cannot be turned to a neutral faction.

Consequences

Attacking a neutral in an area of other neutrals comes with consequences. After all, people are not going to stand around and allow one of their own to be attacked, physically or with spells, if they are close enough to witness the event and can help. Therefore, a player must use this facility with due consideration for the consequences of their actions. Using it to attack a villager in a village of people may not be such a good idea, whereas suddenly attacking an evil NPC in their home to avoid greater bloodshed later on may be a wise move.

Other Information

The new examine window has been modified to give "live" distance to target as well, updating the GUI four times every second. This can be useful if you are preparing to use a spell that is restricted to a range and you only want to release the spell when the target is within range (and to avoid your PC from running forward to cast the spell). Furthermore, the range has the category of spell range within parenthesis after it (Touch, Short, Medium, Long) to help easily work out what spell range the target is within.

Now follows some composite screenshots giving an idea of what the system will look like in action:

1) We are examining a neutral NPC villager, currently at 30 feet (short spell range).

2) Note how the villager has moved closer and the range has dropped to 7 feet, now at Touch spell range (for the campaign).

3) When choosing to turn this villager hostile to the party, all party AI is disabled to prevent unplanned assaults. Chat window gives feedback. If "Pause On Hostile Sighted" is enabled, auto-pause will also start.

4) Faction settings prevent "hostile" villagers reacting to any other creatures until actually attacked.

5) Re-examining the villager shows it now as hostile (has a red ring) and updated range.

6) Player has chosen to revert this NPC back to a neutral. The chat window is updated.

Increased Spell Power! (And More Stats) POLL: Will You Craft?

2010-12-21T13:39:00.025Z

Some of the things that I feel are most underused in the D&D game in general are disposable items such as wands, rods and staffs. Maybe this is just my own personal experience, but for the purpose of this blog, I will assume not. To some degree, I have found this surprising, especially when a spell caster can create a wand from 5th level of any fourth level spell or below (when capable) and then have that spell available while the charges last (normally 50). Then I looked into the feat a little more closely and came to the following conclusions why such items are not crafted as much as they could be. (In the following, I have discussed crafting wands, but the same argument can be used for rods and staffs if ever implemeted in any way.)

1) GOLD COST: First and foremost (and assuming the PC has the abilities in the first place), I could see that the cost of crafting a wand is considering high, even for the least of spells. In the D&D 3E rules, wands start from 375 gp for zero level spells and raise to over 20, 000 gp for a 4th level spell.

2) XP COST: Although not a factor in NWN, a spell caster was also expected to sacrifice XP when making an item. I mention it here just for completion of info.

3) DISPOSABLE: Most rules assume wands are disposable. Once the charges are used, the wand is destroyed. Therefore, a crafted wand has a limited life.

I know such items are supposed to be rare and special, but I believe the rules have made the construction of such items so unattractive that most players would simply avoid their crafting, thereby making such feats pointless to have in the first place. This is not something I want to happen in Better The Demon and so I have taken steps to encourage players with spell casters to take their crafting of such items seriously - and if they do, it will considerably increase their potential spell power. Here is how Better The Demon will handle crafting wands:

1) GOLD COST: Every spell level will have a base value at which it costs to add to a wand. A player can choose to increase the amount they pay to increase the spell level at which a spell will cast, but if it's just the basic spell they are after, it will be possible to craft at base values. (See table below.)

2) XP COST: There will never be an XP cost for crafting items in Better The Demon.

3) RECHARGEABLE: Regular readers will know there will be an item that can be acquired quite regularly according to ones abilities: The Life Essence. This item serves a number of purposes throughout the game. It will also have the ability to recharge a wand with (10 - spell level) charges as long as the wand has at least one charge, as it is still destroyed if the last charge is used.

Will This Affect Balance?

I know one of the first questions raised will be "will this affect game balance?" I believe the answer is "no". After all, crafting a wand still requires the PC to pay for its creation in the first place. The main difference is that its creation becomes a real viable option as something to spend gold on and with the ability to keep it charged, becomes a more useful item to help supplement the spell casters spell ability.

Overcome Frustrations

I actually believe that this system will also go some way to help overcome the frustrating position of a low level spell caster casting their couple of spells in an eight hour period and then being unable to do much more in the way of helping with spells. Now, they can craft wands of spells that will be of most use and have the ability to help maintain the wand with Life Essence they might find. The party's wizard could craft a wand of magic missiles and the cleric a wand of cure light wounds for only 350 gp each! No longer will the spell casters be forced to rest after the first combat of the day.

Other Items: Scrolls & Potions

This system is all well and good for spell casters of 5th level and above, but what about those of even lower levels? Well, Better The Demon wants to help encourage item creation right from the start, and to this end, has also reduced the costs of scroll scribing (and potion brewing for 3rd level casters) to help allow the party create items that will prepare them for the adventure ahead. While these remain truly disposable (as they cannot be recharged), the costs and ease of their making should help encourage their creation all the same. (See table above.)

Note, each basic crafting item has a basic cost of 1, 1 and 5 gp for scroll, potion bottle and wand in the first place (UPDATED), but thereafter, the costs above reflect the basic minimum price a PC pays for the spell placed on the item. As mentioned above, if the PC can afford it (and has the ability), they can choose to pay more at time of crafting for the spell to cast at a higher level when used from the item. Note, scrolls work in a special way in Better The Demon, in that their power scales with the PC's own ability. E.g. A scroll of Magic Missile made at first level will cast more missiles if saved and used at a higher level at a later time, or if a higher level PC picks up and uses the same scroll. However, a scroll with a power higher than the user will take priority.

As scribing scrolls requires nothing more than the feat, some gold and the ability to cast the spell in the first place, then I believe the above costs go a long way to encourage the player to prepare a collection of scrolls ahead of time, and especially knowing they scale with the PC's own ability. When the PC reaches third level, they can acquire the brew potion feat, and continue to prepare useful potions for the party as a whole at relatively low costs - and especially cheaper than any that might be available in the market.

POLL: Will You Craft?

I decided to add a poll this week, with respect to whether these "improvements" and changes will encourage you to consider crafting in your adventures. As usual, any feedback (on any article mentioned in a blog) is most welcome.

Improved Statistical Feedback

After some feedback from readers last week, I have further developed the statistical information that will be available to players in the game. The latest GUI now:

1) Sports new colours (for ease of reading).
2) Gives a PC's highest CR (Challenge Rating) kill.
3) Gives a PC's overall percentage input for the party as a whole.
4) Gives the PC a title of "competence", ranging across a number of levels.
5) Shows the party total kills and how they comprise according to type. (*)

(*) Note, I have gathered the various humanoid groups, such as orcs, goblins, etc into a single "Humanoid" group.

Statistics

2010-12-13T18:50:00.006Z

I have to admit that I love statistics ... well, especially in games. I suppose that is why I enjoy playing RPGs that allow you to change attributes that affect play. Weighing up the odds of using one weapon over another, or cogitating which attribute or skill to increase all add to the excitement (in my opinion). In recent years, I have seen how games have also introduced other statistics, like the number of kills or deaths, etc. These too, have an element of intrigue, and is something that I want to include in Better The Demon.

Knowing which kind of additional statistics to include can be a difficult thing to govern. After all, I don't want to turn an RPG into a number crunching exercise. That said, I do like the idea of keeping track of the players own number of deaths (for each PC) and the total number of kills each PC may have attained. To this end, I have included a simple statistics GUI that keeps track of exactly this. To access it, the player must use the game's Main Menu. Thereafter, the player is presented with a simple GUI for the list of PCs being played. (See composite image below.)

There are a couple of things to note regarding the new GUI:-

1) The GUI highlights the PC in the list that the player is currently controlling.
2) The death tracking is broken into the three styles of recovery that will be available in the game: Raising (via spell), Rebirth (via Life Essences) and Respawn (via the console).

Hopefully, this kind of information will appeal to other players as well. There may be other possibilities for statistical feedback for this GUI, but that is all I have done for the time being. However, if you have an idea for some feedback you would like to see included, then let me know. If it is possible to include, and does not require too much backward coding, then I will consider including it.

In other news, I have continued to write conversations and start to design another interior area. As describing any of this would be a spoiler, there is little more I can add.

The Path Is Clear

2010-12-04T17:28:00.012Z

I have just managed to put the finishing touches to a letter (report) that I need to help sort out my current situation at home. It has taken a good three weeks to do and taken pretty much most of my time to prepare, which is the reason why I have not written a blog for the last few weeks. Not that there would be much to update you with, as the report took module writing time away as well. :( As I say though, that is now done and hopefully I can resume my slow progress of creating the module.

A couple of other events have occurred in the last week as well: "Honey", my wife's (Jennifer) and my upstairs rabbit had another issue with her teeth. (She had an operation almost a year ago.) Poor thing has had ongoing issues ever since we "rescued" her from a neighbour. The neighbour's previous poor care (neglect) has left her with dental problems, which we have had to have treated ever since she came to live with us. Last week she had to have another operation and a harrowing time was had as we waited to see if she would both survive the initial operation and recover after coming home. Thankfully, she is now beginning to eat much better and looks as though she is clear for another few months (hopefully longer). When we took Honey to the vets, we had to drive through snow. Exactly the same thing happened last time she had teeth problems: It snowed heavily both times we have had to take her to the vets about her teeth. Thankfully, the vets were open, even though it took us over an hour to get there ourselves!

Talking of the snow, Jen and I went for a local walk near to where we live to take some photos of it. Just a couple of minutes from where we live there are some fields that made some great photos. Here are some, but you can find more at this link. The snow has now begun to melt and will probably be gone in the next day or so.

What About The Module?

Hopefully, now that the path is clear .... no more report writing .... no vet emergencies .... no more snow ... I will be in the position to start writing for the module again. I can say that I have had some ideas that will be making it into the module, and which I may (if all goes to plan) have some simple screenshots in the next blog. This includes:

A simple statistics feedback GUI. (Only deaths and kills.)
More side quests (using a new system).

Anyway, I will definitely include a screenshot of the statistics GUI if completed, even if I do not give any for the side quests (don't want any spoilers).

I must also mention again that Hoegbo has done some outstanding work over the last few weeks and sent me a number of areas for me to look at and use. From what I have had a chance to see, this work will be a great addition and has gone a long way to help bring this project nearer completion. He has also said that he would add some more finishing touches to these and other areas if need be nearer the time of release, subject to any final observations and requirements.

That's all for now. Sorry it has been a little more personal/vague than usual, but unavoidable circumstances have dictated.

Party Poll Results

2010-11-12T13:15:00.005Z

Personal circumstances are still affecting me at the moment, which means less time to spend on the blog. I am still doing what I can when I can for the module, and Hoegbo has been outstanding in his continued work on the areas for my module. Thanks to him, I currently have around 75% of the areas that I will need. One thing I can quickly report on is the last poll that has now finished, asking readers about their preferred party size. Here are the results:

There was a reasonable number of voters (30), and the results show a clear preference for 6 PCs making up a party, with 4 coming in second place. One of the "Other" results did vote for 5 PCs in the party, so I think it is safe to say that the standard recognised party size of between 4 to 6 PCs is the expected style of play. Regular readers will know by now that Better The Demon caters for any number of playing styles, leaving it up to the player to decide how many PCs they wish to take with them. Playing with a smaller party would be more difficult I imagine and I would be interested to hear from those players who eventually play the module with less than 4 PCs in the party.

Hopefully, in the coming weeks ahead, I will be in a better position to give a bigger update on the project. For now, however, I will sign off saying I will report back when I can - most likely in a couple of weeks.

Music

2010-10-29T14:54:00.004+01:00

It's been a difficult couple of weeks for me since I last blogged. Personal circumstances have impacted on my health and time, which means work on the module is affected. An ongoing personal issue has robbed me of being able to do much more than the occasional conversation line for the module. On a positive note, however, Hoegbo is close to completing the areas he took on board to do for me, which means quite a bit of work has been done "in my absence" as it were. Furthermore, Deflektor has kindly put together a couple of music tracks for the module for me. The first track (as it currently stands) is the main title track for the campaign, while the second is one I have reserved for an area. I won't give you its title as it would be a spoiler. He said he would like to do some more in the future. Hoegbo has also said he would like to do the tracks for the areas he has created if he gets the time between doing his own module.

I have quickly put together a simple video of a few screenshots (all previously shown in this blog) as back drops to the new music tracks. To save space, I have had to drop the quality a bit, but I hope the quality remains good enough to hear the tracks: (EDIT: Having seen the video playback, I can see that Blogger downgrades the video even further than my original upload. Fortunately, the music is still clear enough to appreciate.)

MAIN THEME:

AREA PIECE:

Subject to how my personal circumstances play out over the coming days and weeks, blog updates may affected until I am back to a more stable environment. Rest assured, I will continue to work on the module as and when I am able, but I must prioritise this current personal issue until it is resolved.

Monsters! (UPDATED)

2010-10-17T15:50:00.005+01:00

I decided to take the plunge and incorporate some elements of Pains Monster Pack this week. I already had quite a number of these creatures added to my module, but felt that it may be easier for the player if I organised the new creatures as hak packs rather than being incorporated within my campaign. In theory, this also allows for possible future updates to the haks. However, due to the size of these haks (when combined) I may rearrange it again so that I incorporate only those creatures I actually end up using. Time will tell. The important thing is that I will use Pains appearance.2da to help ensure consistency for the creatures.

UPDATE: I decided to remove this hak in the end as it did change a number of humanoid creatures (as also pointed out by Kamal). Instead, I will look through the additional creatures I may use and add them as required. This does also mean the file size drops considerably, which can only be a good thing.

Area Design Progression

In the meantime, Hoegbo, of The Demon Melody module, has been working hard to create new areas for me. He has worked incredibly fast and has managed to do more exterior areas in one month than I have done in 3 years! And they are far superior to my own! Matthew Rieder, of The Wizard's Apprentice module, has also contributed an outstanding interior area for me, and I can't wait to start writing more towards the quest that uses it. Eguintir is also working on both an interior and exterior area for me, and reports he will be updating me once his own module gets released any moment now.

With the current help, module 1 of the campaign has most of its areas completed. Hoegbo is currently working on the last external area for the module, and I have a few interiors to complete, and then all that remains is to finish writing the quest code. In theory, I may even have a working beta of the first module by the end of the year. It all depends on my own health and what the future brings.

Other Stuff

I am slowly working my way through the quests, writing conversations as required, and even adding the odd small cutscene. I am not very good at managing cutscenes, as they take me a long time to get right. I always worry whether the effect they bring to the game will be worth the time they take to do. There is even a chance that the cutscene will not be seen if the player does things differently to the way expected.

I am also adding to the Readable Books selection in the module one format or another: scrolls, placeable and item books. I feel they are a good way to give the player background and depth to the story in a way that is more appealing to the eye.

On a more humorous note, you may recall a while ago how some of my NPCs kept ending up in the tavern due to some error in the code. Well, this week I was working on my own version of the ActivetFleeToExit function and I ended up having a dog end up at the tavern as well! What is it with this tavern? Must be something in the ale. ;)

Trade Skills (More Skin Problems)

2010-10-11T19:24:00.003+01:00

A short while ago, I discovered that using a skin in a PC's creature armour slot caused problems when the PC later equipped or unequipped armour: The armour penalty figures would eventually start to miscalculate and give errors with skill scores. At the time, I thought I resolved the problem by using an adapted creature bite object instead. Unfortunately, only this week, I discovered that this adapted item also caused problems, but this time with unarmed combat: If a PC with the adapted bite item on them attacked an object with unarmed combat, then only bonus strength damage would be applied. This was obviously not going to work and I came to the conclusion that skin items did not work anymore with NWN2.

Gaining Feats With Skill Benefits

Thankfully, many of the ideas I had that involved using a skin can now be coded using new functions allowing us to directly alter attributes. One aspect that did still need consideration, however, was if a new feat altered a PC's skills in some way. The problem is that while it is possible to alter PCs skills directly, the same process leaves small icons showing the changes as spell effects, which is not wanted.

In the end, I opted to design and include a new item: The Trade Skills tome. This tome is a non-drop item that now keeps track of all skills altered by new feats. This method is also quite useful for players to be able to see how their newly acquired feats are boosting their skills, which can be helpful when determining what skill-boosting items to keep or trade. I feel it complements other feedback methods used in the module well. Here is an image of the book being examined by a PC that has acquired some such skills.

New Colour Font For Time Warped Spells

As a response to popular demand, the text colour for Time Warped Spells feedback has been changed to something more visible:

Ideal Party Size

Don't forget to vote in the poll on your ideal party size if you have not yet done so.

... And Time Again!

2010-10-01T16:34:00.017+01:00

You may recall in this post, I said this about Game Time Keeping, "In most NWN modules (my own included), time is scaled in such a way to allow it to pass quicker than in real life. For example, in 'Better The Demon', 1 minute real time equates to 15 minutes game time. However, this is not the case where combat or certain spells are involved, which can be confusing if not recognised."

Now, after giving this some more thought, I decided to come up with a system to help the player understand what is going on with respect to those spells that cause this anomaly with time due to their duration. This still requires some concentration to grasp, but I hope this helps.

Active Spell Effects

To begin with, I decided I wanted an easy way to give the player information about the spell effects that their PCs had on them. Perhaps it's just me, but I always find it frustrating not knowing exactly what spells are still active (by name) and just how much longer a spell has to last. So, to this end, I made a "Spell Effect" GUI that presents itself to a PC when targeted with a spell. It looks like a scroll that simply lists all the spell effects that are currently on the PC in question. (See screenshot below.) However, this GUI also gives further information about the duration of the spells in question. This information is presented in two formats: For short (rounds) or long (hours) duration spells I use a black font and show the time the spells have been active; and for the intermediary spells (lasting minutes), I use a yellow font and show their time remaining. It is these intermediary duration spells that cause us the problem with time and which I will now refer to as Time Warped Spells.

Let me first explain a little more about the GUI layout in the screenshot above. For ease of use (and coding), I decided to show spells that last only a few rounds or those that last for hours per caster level in a black font and how long they have currently been active. This is because for these duration spells the time element can usually be ignored. Why? Because spells that last only a few rounds (or a few minutes at best) are normally cast for the immediate effect and current situation only, and will quickly expire and drop from the list; and spells lasting hours really need only say how long they have been active in a number of hours without a need for so much accuracy. Also note, in both these situations, the existing spell code works fine with respect to time within Better The Demon, because by definition a) No short duration spell lasts longer than a game hour (15 minutes) and b) The HoursToSeconds function used in spells lasting hours already translates the time to work within the module's adjusted time frame. It is true that short duration spells could be argued to last four times longer (using Better The Demon settings) than they say due to this time shifting but, when actually playing the game, this will not be noticed, as the player's mind will interpret short duration spells as immediate timed spells. NB: There is a problem with short duration spells if a module's time settings are set to a much lower setting (which I think they are by default), as this would then mean that spells lasting a couple of minutes could, potentially, appear to last an hour of game time. Thankfully, with the time setting used in Better The Demon, the number of spells than fall into the "Time Warp" category are minimised, and with the system I am about to explain, are properly managed.

Time Warped Spells

I will now discuss those spells that cause the problem with game time, how they are managed and how their duration time remaining works. The first time a PC receives one of these spells, the module updates the in game rules to explain the nature of these spells and their working within the game. (See screenshot below.)

As this screenshot explains most of the mechanics involved (and can be viewed and read by clicking on the image), I will only add a few more details to emphasise a couple of the points here:

Varying Duration: The most significant difference between this type of spell and all others is the fact that their duration alters when looking at the GUI remaining spell time. However, this is not exactly the case. What is actually happening is that the code is altering the figure to show the relative time remaining according to the game time. Let me explain the kind of thing that is happening with a Pen and Paper D&D example of a similar thing: A player tells the DM that their 12th level cleric is casting an Aid spell on themselves. This spell lasts 12 minutes according to the rules. The player then says I walk to the centre of town and attack the mayor. The DM determines that the walk will take the PC 10 minutes, leaving 2 minutes of the spell remaining. In a sentence that takes less than 10 seconds to explain that the PC is walking to town and attacking the mayor, the spell's duration drops to 2 minutes, even though only a few seconds have passed since the player said anything to the DM. Hopefully, this next screenshot will help demonstrate some of the in game feedback:

The 30 Min Rule: To begin with, take a look at the first screenshot again, and note the remaining durations for each spell. We are only interested in the Time Warped spells now, so ignore the spells in black (apart from Resistance, which I will touch on in a minute). You will notice that prior to taking the journey along the North West Road that Threska had the following remaining spell durations: Aid 56 min; Resist Energy 60 min and Blindsight 56 min. Now, however, after taking a journey lasting approximately 30 minutes, Aid and Blindsight have dropped to only 7 minutes remaining, while Resist Energy remains at a higher value of 32 min. This is because when Time Warped spells have more than 30 minutes remaining, time is deducted in 4 minute chunks (for every 1 minute real time) to reflect the module's time setting of 15 minutes real time equating to 1 hour game time. However, once they drop below 30 minutes remaining, the GUI updates to reflect Non Warped Time, and time is now only deducted by 1 minute for every minute.

Why 30 minutes? The answer is simply because this is the smallest amount by which time will ever be jumped forward in the game. Therefore, this same time span (30 min) acts as the governing factor in how Time Warped spells react with time. You will note that even though the remaining duration values currently differ after the travelling by 25 minutes, that in either of the following circumstances this system still works because:

a) If the player does not travel any further (and does not jump forward time), then within a few more seconds, the Resist Energy spell (which was cast just a few seconds behind the other two) will "catch up" with the Aid and Blindsight spells as it drops by 4 minutes to what would have been 28 minutes, which now translates to 28/4, which is 7 minutes, to display the same as the other two spells. All three spells now have approximately 7 minutes remaining. If they did travel again (taking 30 minutes), then all spells would be removed as they only had 7 actual minutes remaining.

b) If the player quickly turned around and did the same journey back (and jumping time forward by another 30 minutes), all the spells would still end simply because of the time for travelling. The Resist Energy spell might show as less than 1 min remaining upon arrival, but would quickly end after the same amount of time it was cast after the other two had been (within seconds).

Short Duration Spells: You will note that Resistance had disappeared from the list after the first travelling. This is because it only lasts a minute and so quickly dropped off as the PC travelled. All short duration spells will only ever show ACTIVE less than 1Hr, and is merely a courtesy comment to show them as active.

Long Duration Spells: By contrast, long duration spells will remain on the GUI for as long as the spell duration, and give a rough idea of how long they have already been running. Below are a few snapshots of the GUI showing the spells active and how long they have been running. Note, the Mage Armour spell was cast a few seconds after the other two, and so shows a slightly different time remaining in the middle image. Within a few seconds though (the time difference between the castings), the GUI updates to show the new time, which is similar to the other two spells.

The Differences: The bottom line is, the players will not notice the duration differences simply because the game adjusts according to the style of play. For even if a PC stays within the same area for a period of time greater than 15 minutes, an hour game time will pass thus ending any spells that may, at first, appear to be greatly improved by the system. When all the sums are done, it is possible that some spell combinations give slightly longer durations, but on the balance of things, I believe this gives a much more accurate system than the default.

New Area Designers & Modules To Play

2010-09-24T14:19:00.006+01:00

I decided to take the plunge a couple of weeks ago and advertise for area designers to help create areas for my module, Better The Demon. Limited health and poor design skills on my part forced my hand if I wanted to bring my module's release time forward to any time in the near future. Thankfully, I was blessed with a great response from three well-known established module writers. Already, they have been at work creating both interior and exterior areas, and from the screenshots I have seen already, with some amazing results! All of them have created something in a matter of days compared to my months or even years. Furthermore, all of them have understood my requirements very well and brought life into visions I have only had on paper for some time. So, in no particular order, I will introduce you to them and point you towards other work they have already done or are doing:

To begin with, there is Hoegbo, who has just finished an exterior for the first module (of three) and has also begun work on another selection of exteriors for the second module. Find out more about him and his own work at his blog, The Demon Melody. Next is Matthew Rieder, currently working on an interior for the first module. He has recently created his own module, The Wizard's Apprentice, which can be downloaded from The Vault. Last, but not least, is Eguintir Eligard, who keeps a blog about his up and coming Islander module, which is very near completion.

All of these people are very gifted and talented at designing areas and are bringing a great deal to my own module. Their work is inspiring and has even helped me consider new side quests relating to their designs. Although I cannot go into detail about the work they have done (so as not to give spoilers), I can say that their designs are among the best I have ever seen in any module I have played. I look forward to all and any work they can continue to contribute and hope that I may be able to return the favour to each of them one day.

While they have been busy designing the areas, I have had time to continue looking over plot material, including books, monsters, conversations and that sort of thing. As a result of the added help, I have revised the current status of the module to 30% complete. I would like to point out that if the current rate of support continues at the rate it is, then this figure may continue to jump from week to week. But, I don't want to count my chickens just yet .... ;)

Time To Play?

There have been a number of NWN2 modules released over the last couple of months or so, and although I do not play much, I do like to take a look and play some when I can:

Path of Evil: Kamal released the beta version of this some time ago, and I was fortunate enough to have some time to be able to take a look. At the time, there were one or two minor bugs still to be ironed out, but even from the small part I played, I could see it was going to be a big game. You can find out more at this forum post. If you want to play this one, you will need to have lots of spare time. I have earmarked this one to play after I have finished my own module.

Risen Hero: Shaughn has recently just released the first chapter of his module, Risen Hero. I have been following his work for some time and am eager to give this one a try when I get some more time. From Vault results to date, it has already been received very well. This is one module I definitely intend to play.

Legacy of White Plume Mountain: Wyrin, who always seems very productive to me, has released his LoWPM, available at the Vault. This is one of the very few modules that supports multi-player play and so I am trying to play it with a friend when time allows. (We like to get together and play a computer game when we can.) While we have encountered one or two minor bugs, I know Wyrin is already sorting through them. If my friend and I manage to finish this one, I will write a comment and cast a vote.

The Maimed God's Saga: Tiberius recently released this cleric only adventure, which has a good air of mystery about it. It's a module I keep going back to from time to time as I like to play the cleric class. Tiberius says TMGSII is "unlikely to see the light of day", so this module is complete. If I ever finish it, I will cast my vote.

Live Forever: This module was actually released some time ago by Azenn. I have downloaded it to take a look at myself, but have not had much time to do so. It's high score on the Vault suggested that it may be a good one to play. Download from the Vault. If I do play and finish it, I will leave a comment and vote.

File Storage & Download Facility

In my recent correspondence with Matthew Rieder, he pointed out a useful website called MediaFire, which allows files to be uploaded and downloaded for free! There is a maximum file size of 200 MB for the "free" version, but if you need or want more, you can pay for it with a subscription. I find the free limit of 200 MB sufficient for my own use. I will be using this facility to manage files between area designers and myself.

Party Size Poll

Don't forget that the Party Size Poll is still up and running. (Left pane.) Please vote for your ideal size and leave a comment if need be!

The Definitive Crafting System

2010-09-16T19:01:00.029+01:00

This week, I decided to try to finish the tome Crafting With The Greater Essences that helps to describe crafting methods when using the Greater Essences. Like its predecessor, Crafting Recipes From The Past, it is a fully comprehensive guide on many recipes available in the game, all compiled into one easy reference tome. Both of these tomes use my Readable Book format with a dedicated contents guide and are designed to make crafting much simpler! As I started to work on the tome, however, I decided I needed to update the crafting system one more time, to make it much more streamlined than I had currently made it and even more user-friendly. I did this, because I believe that most of the problems and dislike from people when using a crafting system is because of the many differences and complications normally entailed. Here are the opening pages of the two tomes in question:

Cost 5gp and obtained (when available) from any good alchemist.

All Recipes Rolled Into One

The first tome, entitled Crafting Recipes From The Past, covers every crafting recipe that came with the first official campaign, with many recipes covering the lesser essences and gems. Not every recipe included in this tome requires such, but if it was a recipe that was detailed in a book from the first official campaign, then this tome has it covered. The second tome, entitled Crafting With The Greater Essences, does the same thing of amalgamating all the recipes into one book, but for those recipes that were found in the second official campaign, Mask of the Betrayer.

The beauty of this, is that the player no longer has to hunt around trying to locate the recipe they need among the many books, or struggle to recall what it is they need to have to qualify, as all the details have been carefully laid out in such a way to make finding a valid and useful recipe reasonably quickly. It is even possible to easily consider a plan of enhancement or creation ahead of time because the crafter has all the relevant details to hand.

Finally, with the introduction of Storms of Zehir, the player was introduced to a third recipe system. Thankfully, this system introduced recipe books straight away, and so the newer recipe system complements the two described here well. However, I have made one distinction of the newer recipes, and that is they act more like magikal pages that are used up when they are used to help enhance or create an item. Therefore, the modern recipe books can hold more than one copy of the same recipe, simply because you need a separate copy of the recipe for each time you wish to carry out its formula.

Crafting In Practice

The entire crafting scripts have undergone comprehensive changes to help iron out many of the differences and inconsistencies between them, which I will mention in a minute. I have also edited many cost related 2da files to ensure crafted items do not upset the economy of the world and reflect sensible values between ingredients used and final product. I have even fixed one or two broken recipes along the way.

First off, I would like to show some screenshots of some of the items, tools and recipes involved in crafting, to help demonstrate how much easier working with crafting will be in Better The Demon. The first collection of tools for the crafter involve bags, the primary one being the Crafting Satchel (cost 2gp and readily available from any good alchemist):

This bag is invaluable for anybody who wants to keep their crafting items in order. Any crafting items found are automatically moved into this bag if carried, making searching for specific crafting items much easier when required. (See description.) The next screenshot shows us examining a couple of the items inside the Crafting Satchel:

Notice creature items that can be distilled into essences say as much in their description and even tell you what skill rank is required to recover the essence from the creature part. Notice also, how the mold name makes it clear what minimum Craft Weapon skill is required to work with it. The next screenshot shows a closer examination of the essences within the bag:

Notice how the essence description is not the source of the information for what it can do. To find this information, you simply look up the recipe you wish to follow within the Crafting With The Greater Essences tome. The logic is you look for and plan what you want to create from reading the tome (or any tome) and then look out for the ingredients required. You decide what to make rather than see what can be made from the essence. As an important aside, you must carry a copy of these tomes to be able to use any of the recipes within them. In other words, you cannot meta-game the recipes by referring to them outside of the game and then playing them out in the game.

As well as the Crafter's Satchel, there are a couple more satchels that a crafter may find useful to have in their inventory. That is the Alchemist's Satchel and the Enchanter's Satchel. Take a look at their descriptions in the images below:

The Alchemists' Satchel (cost 2gp and readily available from any good alchemist) is more useful to PC's who have the skill to determine creature parts that can be used in modern recipes (as opposed to creature distillable parts used to create the lesser essences). If the PC has taken the time to increase their alchemy skill, then any creature parts they find that can be used in modern recipes will be instantly recognised and placed into this satchel if carried. These parts are automatically used if and when a PC uses a modern style recipe.

The second bag is the more expensive Enchanter's Satchel, costing 100 gp and obtained (when available) from any good Alchemist. Once the crafter has established themselves and gold becomes less of an issue, then purchasing an Enchanter's Satchel is the way to go to avoid having to go back to a known bench location whenever they need to do some crafting involving a magician's workbench. It does require the power of Life Essences though to help enable its magik in the field.

Next up are the Mortar & Pestle and the Smith's Hammer: two very useful tools of the trade for any would be crafters. If alchemy is more your craft, then the mortar & pestle will be your first tool of the trade, costing around 4 gp and obtained from any good alchemist or local sundry store. On the other hand, if working with molds to create your own armour and weapons is more your thing, the you will need to pick up a smith hammer, also costing around 4 gp from a smith or local sundry store.

The most expensive tool a crafter is likely to purchase is a Shaper's Alembic; a tool designed to convert, combine or divide essences, costing around 320 gp and normally only one or two available at a time from an alchemist due to their expense. They become a much more viable tool at higher levels and when the crafter really needs to work with essences more effectively.

Note from the description, however, that all the information about skill ranks is known ahead of time and that the tool handles all essences that can be found at much lower levels than any previous campaign has allowed, making the whole system easier to get into.

Finally, take a look at some of the modern recipes available in the screenshots below. Notice (like the molds name) that these recipes include a number in their name title if the PC needs to meet a minimum caster level (for enchanting) or rank in a skill (for creating). This makes it it as easy as a glance to quickly look at the recipe name and determine if you are of high enough ability to even be able to attempt the crafting without having to look at the further details. Scrolling through the recipes available in a book will be all it takes to quickly work out if you have anything within your capabilities. You can even see from the names in these examples, that the Amulet of Health (+2) does not have a minimum figure, which means only the feat is required.

(TYPO: Longbow recipe should say Blacksmith Bench required.)

Among many of the objects you may find along the way to help with creating other items are things like ingots. Once again, any item like this that you find in the game will be clearly marked as to what type of item it might be used for. This helps remove the nagging questions or doubts about what items you need for the type of crafting you may be following:

Item Properties

One of the major problems with the different crafting systems was that they all had their own idiosyncrasies about how to add properties and what would or would not count as a property already. For example, in some systems adamantine weapons counted as having enhancements already, whereas in another, they did not count. In Better The Demon, all this has been ironed out and it a very simple case now of all weapons and armour can have a maximum of 4 magikal properties - excluding any material benefits! (*) Therefore, whether a weapon is made from adamantine or iron, both weapons can have four more properties added. The added benefits of an adamantine item are just that - additional benefits! Therefore, the system does not penalise for characters improving items created from the more exotic materials, but even enhances them further! This maximum is across the board for items, be they weapons or armour, etc. The only exception to this maximum is if the weapon is of poorer quality (a new gaming system in Better The Demon), in which case, a weapon may only hold one or two properties, or the poorest quality weapons none at all! Furthermore, it is possible for weapons to degrade if not cared for, and if they drop a level in quality, they could potentially lose a magikal property as well. Note, however, weapons cannot lose their material properties, which adds value to weapons made from exotic materials, as even the poorest quality weapons of such materials can offer benefits.

(*) Items other than weapons and armour are also set to four, but are subject to any restrictions they may have in the official rules.

Furthermore, all items can have a property upgraded even if all four property slots have been filled! In previous systems, property slots had to be "left open" to allow a property to potentially be upgraded if a higher value magikal property recipe was found. Now, for example, if you have an item with all four slots filled and you find a recipe that can improve a weapon's AC protection from +1 to +2, you can replace the old property without any problem.

This maximum number of properties and ability to upgrade an existing property is valid across any and all systems of crafting. Therefore, irrespective of which crafting system you may have adopted and used in the past, you should find it very easy to fit within the new single amalgamated system, using whichever recipe formula you have available to you at the time: be it acquiring and working with the lesser essences and gems, or obtaining the greater essences or even finding modern recipes - all of them work together to either improve existing items or allow you to create better ones. To keep track of the number of slots available, the information is given to the player as a message each time they acquire, equip or unequip the item.

Brewing Potions, Scribing Scrolls & Crafting Wands

Finally, I would like to just mention (as a side topic to crafting) that these three creation feats have taken on greater strength and ease of use in Better The Demon as well. The PC now has much more control over the power of such a creation, being given the option to upgrade the power of the item at time of creation. Scrolls, in particular, have the added benefit of automatically increasing in power along with the strength of the user. e.g. If a PC found a Magic Missile scroll at 1st level and cast it, it would release a level 1 missile. If, however, the PC did not use the scroll until they had reached 5th level, then the same scroll would cast as a 5th level Magic Missile. The idea of all these additions to the existing systems is to a) Make it easier for the player to use the system and b) Make the feats worth learning and using. As an addition, it is cheaper for a PC to create their own potions using the Brew Potion feat (or scroll or wand using the appropriate feat) than purchasing one. Therefore, they are immediately rewarded for their new found feats and could, potentially, even earn a few gold creating and selling these items along the way.

Blank scrolls cost 1 gp, potion bottles cost 3 gp and bone wands cost 10 gp where stock is available.

By the way, I never got around to finishing the tome. ;)

Creating A Party (POLL: Your Ideal Party Size)

2010-09-11T19:02:00.007+01:00

I have been making slow but gradual progress over the last week or so, mostly to do with the main quest. This includes trying to design an interior area as well as do a little scripting to help generate specific random items in particular circumstances based upon PCs statistics and attributes. The results are exciting to see and I look forward to hearing how players get on with this aspect of the module.

On a more unsettling note, I appear to have lost contact with Hosa, who was going to be designing some exterior areas for me. The last email I had from him was over a month ago now, and even though he seemed quite positive at the time, I have heard nothing from him at all from all my last emails trying to contact him. I have not given up hope totally, but the lack of response is disheartening.

I also had the opportunity to play a little of Wyrin's White Plume Mountain with a friend of mine. We don't play for long, but in the little time we did play, we managed to get our party together and equip ourselves. We did discover an error in the scripts that prevented players (apart from the main PC) and companions from acquiring the required XP and gold on start up, but it was easy enough to fix and I sent Wyrin an update to help him fix it. The error would not have affected anybody playing a SP game, but only those playing a MP game. If we discover any more MP bugs, I will be letting Wyrin know.

Party Creation

It was after playing Wyrin's module that I thought I would explain how my own module, Better The Demon will work with respect to party creation; especially as my module is geared towards MP play as much as SP. So, without further preamble, here is how it will work:

As soon as the host player (SP or MP game) has finished reading the introduction to the module and established the background for the party, they will be introduced to the Party Creation Rules for the campaign. This information GUI basically explains which classes are not supported in the World of Althéa and therefore not permitted to join. If a PC is imported or created with any of these anachronistic classes in it, then they will be prevented from entering the world.

The same GUI also explains that party creation is not a requirement, but merely an option. To begin with, if the player decides to take up the opportunity of rolling a party at the start of the game, then they are restricted to 3 additional PCs (to a maximum of 4) at this stage. This figure is reduced by one for each subsequent player that enters the world in a MP game.

The screenshot above shows the current party at the start of the game with the main PC already within the party (Adarkin Bundais) in a SP game. The player now has the opportunity to add 3 more PCs now, or wait to see if they find and recruit companions from the world instead. Subject to whatever the player decides to do, they will begin the game either as a single PC or a party of 4, or somewhere in between. Later on in the game, the player will be given the opportunity to increase the party again. (See next.)

Whatever the player decided to do at the start of the game, later on in the game they have the opportunity to extend their party further. This can be done by going to the local tavern and climbing the soap box stage to rally some troops, which basically brings up the Party Editor GUI again. Depending upon how the player responds to the options and whether the game is a SP or a MP game determines what happens next. In most circumstances, the current party members will be automatically temporarily dismissed (allowed to wonder the tavern) while the leader of the party "gives the speech". Basically, the player is able to create more PCs for every blank slot remaining. In a SP game, this will be another 3 PCs. In a MP game, it will be 4 minus the number of players. In other words, if there are four players joined at this stage (the maximum number of players supported), then no more PCs will be able to be created this way and only companions can be added.

The bottom line is, the party size can grow to a maximum of 6 PCs. This can comprise of any of the created PCs the lead player cares to spend time creating each time they use the soap box to rally troops. In other words, if they believe a previous created PC in not good enough for the job, then they can choose to create another one to take its place. Of course, the player does not have to use created PCs at all, but can use a complement of any companions they may find along the way to bring the party size to 6 as well. The best combination would probably be a combination of created PCs and companions. (Henchmen can be added over and above the maximum of 6 in the party. The 6 maximum is for created PCs and companions only.)

POLL: Maximum Party Size

This topic brought me to a poll I have been wanting to run for some time: What is the optimum party size in your opinion? Please cast your vote on the poll and then tell me in a comment your personal class combination in the following two circumstances:

a) What classes would you play if the party size was a maximum of 6 PCs?
b) What classes would you play if you could play any party size (if not 6)?

And tell me anything else about your party that would be interesting to know!

Death & Recovery

2010-09-01T15:56:00.034+01:00

Sorry about the lack of a post last week, but personal situations prevented me having the time. (No deaths, thankfully.) This post is still a couple of days later than I hoped to have it done by, but as I was testing the code I was going to blog about, I realised I was not content with the way it was written and so spent a little time rewriting it so that it worked more efficiently. That is now done and I am much happier with the way it works. So, without further ado, I now present to you the Death System and explain how it will work in Better The Demon.

Dying Is A Drag

For players who invest time and energy into building a PC, the worst thing that can happen to them is to see their PC suddenly come to an untimely death. Whether it comes during battle, from a trap, or simply attrition, there is always that sinking feeling when you see your PC's HPs plummet to zero and they keel over dead. In NWN2, a system was introduced that meant a PC was not actually dead if someone in the party survived a battle. At the end of the battle, if there was a survivor in the party, all the PCs who had "fallen" would get back up as if they had only been knocked unconscious. While I have a degree of respect for this system, I do feel it robs the game of the impact of death, which became a lot harder to meet. For Better The Demon, I wanted to introduce an idea I had in mind since my early pen and paper days that helped in this sort of situation. This idea, however, could not be introduced until after the heroes had finished the Soul Shaker module, which is where this module begins.

Multiple Situations

Part of the complexity with the Death System for my campaign is that I have introduced a couple of gaming elements that replace the standard system. The first and most complex element I have added is something I call the Life Essence. The second element is because, unlike SoZ, when a PC dies in my campaign they remain dead! Add to this that it also has to cope with a MP game (and overland maps) and the system becomes quite involved.

The Life Essence (Soul Protection)

I have written about this item even before this blog began, and have continued to write about it on and off over the course of this blog. (I first mentioned it three years ago in an old forum post on 30th August 2007, which I reposted in this blog here.) It is probably one of the most distinguishing elements introduced in the campaign that helps mark the new era. To begin with, the PCs will not know what this item is, but not too long after they begin their adventure, they will be introduced to an "understanding of life" and the Life Essence. I won't go into any more details about this in particular (I don't want to spoil the story), but will, instead, explain a little more how this new element helps alter the way the game plays. If, however, you would like to read a little more about the Life Essence, then also read this blog.

The bottom line is that one use of the Life Essence is that it can be used to help protect a PC from untimely death, by offering Soul Protection. It also has some other very useful applications and so a player must decide on how they want to use this item in the game. As they collect more of the Life Essence, so they may be more flexible with its use, but there is always a balance to keep. By default, Soul Protection is activated from the moment the PC understands its concept. From that moment on, when a PC dies, if they have enough Life Essence on them, they will immediately be reborn with full hit points and without any ailments. In combat, a PC will not even fall to the floor as the Life Essence sustains their life and keeps them from death. In game terms, one Life Essence is required for each level the PC has acquired. E.g. A first level fighter who dies carrying three Life Essences, will have one of them used up to enable rebirth, leaving them with two. Once the PC has run out of Life Essence, they will die in the normal way. NB: The term "rebirth" is used when a PC is respawned using Life Essences, as opposed to being "respawned" using the Main Death GUI.

Resisting The Rebirth

Because the Life Essence is valuable in other ways, the player has the option to determine if their PC resists the power of the Life Essence to have them be reborn or not. Resisting is more likely to be the case if somebody in the party has the ability to raise the PC from the dead in other ways, or can pay somebody else to do it. As the PC increases in level, the Life Essence may be better saved for uses other than Soul Protection.

A Party In Action

Here is an example of how a combat might unfurl in a single player game with a party of three PCs. Hopefully, it helps to explain how the system works. A MP game plays the same way as described for the SP game except when a player's Main PC dies (and who carries insufficient Life Essences for a rebirth) then they may only continue to control another companion (not possessed by any other player) or wait until a fellow party player comes along and revives them. If all the players eventually die through lack of Life Essences, then the assigned leader for the group of players will be offered the chance to reload only. There is no respawn option available in a MP game. (UPDATE: There are some circumstances where a respawn option will be given in a MP game, such as when changing modules, or when leaving an encounter area.)

Some of the following pictures have been edited for ease of demonstration.

Brent dies without carrying any Life Essences. (A tombstone is created alongside him.) Notice Brent is no longer in the party member bar on the right hand side.

Clicking on the tombstone reveals Brent's body (that can be carried) and any items he was carrying(none in this example). It would not show "plot items" he carried, as these would have automatically have been transferred to the Main PC upon his death (in case the player had chosen to abandon the companion).

When Adaur dies carrying Life Essence, there is no tombstone - and because the player chose to have auto-rebirth turned off for this PC, the player must now stand next to the corpse to be offered a choice of Life Essence rebirth or to leave him for the time being. Notice, Adaur is also removed from the party member side bar when not using auto-rebirth. He will also have had any "plot items" he carried moved to the player's Main PC upon his death.

When the Main PC dies (Adarkin in this case), he will automatically be offered to be reborn if he carried sufficient Life Essences. The player can choose to either rebirth using some of the Life Essences Adarkin carries or reload a game. If the player had had auto-rebirth enabled for Adarkin, then the PC would have kept automatically respawning until he had run out of Life Essences.

If the Main PC had died without any remaining companions to take control of or Life Essences to be reborn with, then the player is offered the Main Game Death menu and have the option to Respawn the Main PC, but with an XP penalty.

Above are some examples of the feedback during combat, including the turn counter. In the first window, it shows the combat being initiated (the establishing round, which may not be a complete round of actions), followed shortly after by Brent dying. (He had no Life Essences on him at all and so just died leaving a tombstone.) The second window shows a combat where Adaur did have auto-rebirth enabled and lost a Life Essence on a rebirth situation. The last window shows Adarkin "apologising" to stop all further combat that had been initiated. The "Sorry" option can only be used with "good" aligned NPCs who have been attacked "by mistake". The facility can only be used after a 30 second cool down period and there are also consequences for killing innocents "by mistake" or otherwise.

Overland Travel (Death By Attrition)

In Better The Demon, an unprepared party can also die through attrition, especially in the early days when they do not have spells to support them. Even then, death by attrition is most likely to occur when the player decides to take his party on a long distance journey. There are circumstances when a party member will refuse to travel in the first place (when there is no means to supply food/water for the journey), but if travel is started, then the leader of the party (or the chosen leader for a group of players in a MP game) has the sole responsibility for all the PCs in the party.

When a party enters overland travel, it is the leader who controls where the party travel, and it is only the leader of the party that the player directly controls. (In a MP game, only the lead player controls the direction of travel for all the players, just like SoZ.) It is possible for companions to die along the way through lack of food/water, and in such circumstances if they do not have Life Essence to revive them for a short while longer (and before they die again from lack of food and water), then they will die just as if they had in battle and leave a tombstone on the map that contains their body and items. The leader must then decide for the group if they intend to take the fallen companion with them or not.

If the leader themselves dies, and they carry Life Essence, they will be revived automatically if set to do so or given the option to be reborn using Life Essences or reload a game. If they do not carry Life Essences, then they will only be given the option to reload a game at the official Death GUI. Basically, on an overland map, if the leader dies and does not have sufficient Life Essences to be reborn, then the party is considered "lost" and if there are any surviving companions at the time, then they are also considered dead. On an overland map, it makes sense to ensure the leader stays alive the longest for the sake of the party!

Time ...

2010-08-16T20:22:00.017+01:00

I thought I would talk about the topic of "Time" this week. It is an especially difficult topic with respect to D&D (or any CRPG that involves time for that matter) simply because in almost every gaming situation the process of passing time varies from one action to another: From combat rounds to spell durations and even to timed events over days, weeks or even months. In D&D, the passing of time is handled by the DM who determines how much time passes in the world after each player action. In a CRPG like NWN, however, managing such events (in modules that do not have a DM at the helm) are not so straight forward without a robust time system being in place that can cater for the various player actions. As an aside, I found it interesting to read how the D&D rules regarding time have changed over the years: In the 1E rules, time was considered "of the utmost importance"; in the 2E rules, the importance of time became "decided almost entirely by the DM", and by the 3E rules, there is no index reference to it at all. In fact, the 1E DM's Guide even stresses in capitalised letters that, "YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT." So, one question is, just how important is time and its keeping?

Party Time Keeping First of all, however, I want to ask the question just how do our party of intrepid adventurers keep track of time for themselves? The passing of a day is fairly obvious, and so tracking periods of time in days, weeks and months should be considered straight forward enough, but what about more intricate time tracking? Our guide for this comes in the form of equipment that the PC can purchase from a merchant according to the D&D Player's Guide. In the 3E rules, a PC can purchase an Hourglass (25gps) and a Water Clock (1000gps); the latter not being portable. There is also the possibility to refer to a sundial on a sunny day. However, I think it may also be assumed that some ingenious gnomes will have produced a better time piece at some point in time (if you pardon the pun), but, like the Water Clock, this would be well beyond the basic adventurers need considering its cost. The bottom line is, in general, the adventurer does not need to keep track of time to the minute. For the adventurer, the most critical time they will most likely need to observe is when a ritual might be planned to take place, like the midnight hour on the first day of the year. In such circumstances, the adventurers would normally lie in wait at the site until the event occurred, thereby avoiding the need to be too specific. In my own module, Better The Demon, the recognition of a new hour is also handled by magik(*): Towers with enchantments placed upon them will chime at a new hour without the need for interaction. (*) Magik with a "k" refers to objects containing magic, rather than magic with a "c", meaning from a creature.

Game Time Keeping Most CRPGs will not track time from minute to minute, and even if they did, they would normally have a means of fast-forwarding time when required. In most NWN modules (my own included), time is scaled in such a way to allow it to pass quicker than in real life. For example, in Better The Demon, 1 minute real time equates to 15 minutes game time. However, this is not the case where combat or certain spells are involved, which can be confusing if not recognised. For example, a spell that lasts 1 minute per level will last for 15 minutes for a 15th level wizard. This spell would actually last 15 minutes real time, which equates to 1 hour game time. How one interprets this time difference is a matter of perspective during play. (See Amorphous Time below.) Furthermore, when a PC rests, time can be moved forward or not, according to both where they rest and how they rest. For example, in Better The Demon, resting at an inn will always assume 8 hours game time moves forward (regardless of when resting was started), whereas if the party chose to rest (to pass time by waiting until dawn or sunset), then only the number of hours to the specific time will pass. If there is only one hour to dawn, then only one hour will pass when rested. Better The Demon also introduces the concept of Personal Time, which I will discuss next and answers the question of how they rest.

Amorphous Time & Personal Time I have mentioned this before, but will mention it again as it is an important feature to grasp with respect to the passing of time in Better The Demon. To keep the game running smoothly and to prevent a "resting every few minutes to regain spells", resting to regain spells works around a Personal Time frame. Basically, the assumption is made that a PC can rest to regain spells once every 8 hours, and as long as they do not regain them more frequently than this, then they can rest at any time without moving time forward for the rest of the group. I call this Amorphous Time, because time effectively shifts according to the individual player's perspective. I go into an example of how it works in this post: Resting & The Passage of Time. You can also read how time affects party attrition in this post: Hunger & Vigour System.

Is Time Important? I suppose the answer to this question depends upon your own gaming background and just how much of a stickler you are when it comes to such things as resting, spell recovery, timed events and its effect with respect to travel. For me, all this is important, and so I like to make sure time is well catered for. This is why in Better The Demon any form of overland travel will be counted; all resting will be monitored and spell learning periods will be adhered to. (Time for item creation, however, will be instantaneous in Better The Demon compared to time taken in D&D.) Some may argue that adhering to these time elements is superfluous to the story and that time can be moved forward according to the stage the player is at. However, I have always seen D&D as a "free environment" in which the player can immerse themselves and follow events as they see fit. They may wander into new events and quests that demand their time, which in turn may apply time constraints when trying to complete other events. The point being, using time in this way adds a dimension of urgency to the game and causes the player to consider their actions more carefully. For example, if a cure for a poison is not found for the princess by midnight, then she dies. In this case, any form of travelling would quickly add time and so it forces the player to work within the limits that the remaining time offers them. Basically, using time in this way helps remind the player of their own limits, even when they are playing the hero.

Date System Every campaign world with a decent background and ecology usually has its own date system based upon its own historical world events. Toril (of Faerun fame) has its own unique date system and Better The Demon also has one. The problem with a world having its own calendar with different days and weeks has, thankfully, been solved by a great piece of custom work by Edward Beck's (aka 0100010) and his Custom Calendar GUI. Depending upon just how involved you want your calendar system to be, this custom content may require more coding. The personal touch it adds to the campaign, however, is well worth the effort and is very rewarding. You can see a screenshot and more info about the date system in this post: Keeping A Date.

Time To Conclude It's obvious that not every module needs a solid time system in place to allow a fun time. However, if a builder intends to present their work as a campaign (with events occurring over time throughout the world), then I do think there is a strong argument for the case of having an established time system in place. It also depends on your approach to the game and whether you prefer what is now referred to as "hard core rules" that include items and conditions that are affected by time like some of those I mentioned earlier. Yes, it involves more effort to make work, but I believe if done correctly, it can add a great deal of depth to a module transforming it from a good module into a classic module. It's true that playing with the added element of time is more difficult, but I believe the rewards for succeeding with it included are also that much more satisfying.

Time For You That's my take anyway, but what about you? Builders: How do you handle time? Do you stick with the default system or have you altered it in any way? Builders/Players: Does being allowed to rest, heal and relearn spells at any time appeal to your style of play, or do you prefer a stricter setting and background to play? Players: Do you keep track of the date at all? Do you believe timed events are important or not? Basically, tell me what you think about time in the modules you build or play!

IMPORTANT INFO: Any time constraints I use will NEVER stop the player from finishing the game. They are not to be included to frustrate the player, but to add a different slant to the game. Time constraints will have a biggest impact on when a player can rest and recover HPs and spells. Otherwise, time constraints that cannot be circumvented in any way will only appear in side quests. This gives the player a reason to choose a different path to play on a potential replay.

The Party

2010-08-07T18:25:00.035+01:00

"Dungeons and Dragons" (D&D) has always been about taking a party of adventurers into unknown lands and dangerous dungeons in the search of adventure, gold and fame. Yet just how big can the party be and who exactly makes up the party? What is the difference between a PC, cohorts, companions and henchmen? Many of you may already have your own ideas about this, but I hope to set out what I believe are the differences between them and how they will play in Better The Demon. To help illustrate this, I will refer to the great Lord of the Rings film, using Frodo as the main character.

Party Size: To begin with, there is nothing to stop a player from playing a party of only one character in size: their avatar and nobody else. Also, in a multi-player game, each player can play just their single PC and nobody else, but when they join together then the party size will be as big as the number of players in the session. Yet in both the single-player and multi-player game, players often like to either play more than one character determined at the "party creation" screen or find other characters that will join their company along the adventure. Determining how the players(s) take new members into the party will determine just how faithful those characters will be.

The Player Character (PC): There can only ever be one main PC for each player. This is also referred to as the player avatar: the character that represents the player within the fantasy environment. This character will always behave as the player controls them (unless dominated in some way) and will stay with the player throughout the adventure. They would represent the leader of the group of PCs that the player is playing. (In a multi-player game, an overall party leader is chosen from all the PCs that represent the different players.) In my example, I see Frodo as the character that would represent the main PC within Lord of the Rings.

Cohorts: Sometimes, however, a player likes to make their party larger than a one-man band and looks for fellow adventurers to accompany them along the way. Since the release of Storm of Zehir (SoZ), a gap has been filled in the NWN system to come closer to the D&D environment. That is, a party creation system has been introduced that allows players to create their own party with more than one character from the start of the game. In D&D, a player was always allowed to play more than one character in this way if they wanted to, and was actively encouraged to do so if there were not enough players to create a reasonable size party full of PCs. These additional characters, known as cohorts, were seen as devout followers of and always dedicated to the leader PC. As such, their statistical make-up was at the control of the player and they behaved very much like a PC as far as control was concerned: a player could always rely on knowing they were on their side. Continuing my example, Sam, Merry and Pippin would be cohorts to Frodo.

Companions: Before the introduction of cohorts (via SoZ), the closest a PC could come to finding allies for the adventure ahead came in the form of companions (unless playing with other PCs in a multi-player game of course). A companion is often (but not always) represented by an NPC ally, who is ready to help with the party cause or simply tag along for the company. As such, their motive is not always clear and they are often only to be trusted all the while they remain in service with the party. A difference of opinion or a change of influence can often end the relationship quicker than it started, and this could be catastrophic if it happened at a bad time like in the middle of negotiating terms with an enemy. As such, a companion's statistical make-up is not usually at the hand of the player. The initial build certainly isn't, with any further build being determined by the module creator at build time. Although, companions are similar to cohorts in that the player can normally control them in every other respect while they remain in the party, by having full access to their character sheets and inventory. In my example, Gandalf, Strider and Boromir would all classify as companions. In this case, Gandalf and Strider remain faithful to the main PC, Frodo, whereas Boromir does not.

Henchmen: At the bottom of the barrel and very much of the "cannon fodder" level come henchmen. Now this is not always the case and there are some very close relationships with some henchmen that may come close to companionship, but as far as gaming characters go, then, unfortunately, henchmen are the Star Trek red-shirts of the D&D world. Players have next to no control over henchmen except that the henchmen will generally support the main PC in a battle, but not even this is assured. They will often only accompany a party if they are paid in gold coins (in advance), and only then all the while the PC acts in a way they agree with. Henchmen will usually be the first to die in a party, the first to run away or leave and the last person you should trust. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but as a general rule, players have the least control over henchmen and are only able to issue basic commands to them. While not quite in the same vein, Gollum could have been considered a henchman in Frodo's party. However, I also see the many soldiers-at-arms as allied henchmen for Frodo as well.

Better The Demon

I hope to allow all these character types in my module and have them interact according to their type. For instance (and subject to spell domination), cohorts can be possessed and controlled by the player all the time; companions can have the same control all the while they are not following their own motives; and henchmen can have simple commands issued to them, but cannot be possessed and controlled. Therefore, for players who want complete control of their characters, then they should only rely on cohorts (create a party using the party creation system). For those players who don't mind a little variation or less control of their characters, then take on board some companions. If you really don't want any attachment, then maybe it will be possible to pick up the odd henchman, but don't rely on them lasting long. Furthermore, all characters may respond with comments (even the main PC if possessing another character at the time) subject to events, location and condition; allowing the party to feel more alive, responsive and interactive.

What's Your Favourite Party?

Finally, I would like to ask readers what is their favourite party build? Do you like to go it alone, or build a large party? What size party do you like and what classes would you include? Tell me your party build and why you think it is the best option.

Combat & Roleplay

2010-08-01T14:34:00.006+01:00

A little while ago, I asked fellow blog readers to give their preference to a module's design. The blog post was titled: A Module Referendum (Poll: A Hung Module?) The idea was to find out what style of game readers preferred. At the end of this post, I ask readers for further feedback. Here are the results:

ROLEPLAY: Of the forty responses, it was interesting to learn that there is still a slight preference for a combat and roleplay (27%) combination (with minimal puzzles involved) over the combat and adventure combination (25%), which prefer puzzles over roleplay. Looking at the roleplay and adventure (puzzles) standalone preferences, roleplay is still preferred by 3 to 1 players. Comments made by an Anonymous poster and ElfinMad suggested to me that more concise conversations may be the way to go rather than larger monologues. What the poll results don't make clear is whether people also associated the term "roleplay" with using their PC's various skills outside of conversations as well as within. Interpreting the results as I see them, it would suggest that around 65% of players prefer modules with roleplaying in them than without.

COMBAT: Without doubt (and probably as expected really) 85% of players have a definite desire for combat in one form or another, with only 15% of the votes having combat at the lower end of their gaming preference. An Anonymous poster at the time said that they preferred more specialised encounters with more unusual monsters than monsters at every turn, and this was seconded by a comment by ElfinMad. Without further feedback, I am going to make the assumption that this would be the general agreement with perhaps an exception of around 2-5% who may simply prefer a good hack and slash regardless of foe.

ADVENTURE: Interestingly, the adventure preference did not score as high as I thought it would do, coming in at around 55% of players who like to have puzzles in their game. I should point out, however, that there are still twice as many people who prefer a more focused adventure (puzzle) oriented game (5%)to a focused combat one (2%). Furthermore, this result may have been skewed by the fact I included "exploration" as part of the description in one of the options. I was pleased, however, that both of the posters (Anonymous and ElfinMad) had a definite preference to having puzzles in their game, as this would also be one of my own preferences.

Personal Preferences

Personally, my own favourite combination for a module would probably be along the lines of an "even split", with perhaps more of an edge towards puzzles and exploration over roleplay. My own score divided over 100% would be something like:

Combat 40%: Combat for me can be any type of creature as long as it makes sense for the situation and potentially offer a challenge. I don't mind areas where there is no combat at all, but do like to be able to test out a newly acquired weapon from time to time. As a large proportion of the game is about acquiring new items and overcoming adversaries, then it is no surprise that I also find this part of the game important.

Adventure 40%: For me, however, there must be as much adventure as there is combat. By adventure, I include exploration, discovering texts, using skills and solving puzzles! I love being challenged in this way as it allows me to develop my characters in a way that I feel I can use to overcome different obstacles other than resorting to combat. As long as puzzles fit the situation, I am prepared to overlook the style of the puzzle. E.g. Logic puzzles are still a fun diversion to get past a lock. In some respects, I see how I "adventure" through a game more like roleplaying (playing my role in the game) than what is considered roleplaying when interacting with NPCs.

Roleplay 20%: Roleplay is necessary. Personally, however, I can often find NPC conversations difficult to appreciate and, like other comments made at the time, I prefer NPCs to keep conversations to the point and not veer from the main issue. I can see the attraction in using one's PC skills to change a conversation path, but only if it gives a benefit of some kind for doing so. Most of the time, however, NPCs appear a means to an end to me and simply act as the go-between to getting to grips with the story proper. In this sense, I see NPCs more as the story providers than a gameplay aspect and so do not mind less of this in my own style of game.

Better The Demon

How will my own module score? I think the final result will probably be close to an "even split", but with results possibly being skewed by my own playing preferences. If I was to hazard a guess at the final outcome, I think it will probably be something like:

Combat 40%: There will certainly be some areas that will not have any combat, but at the same time, I hope to include areas where players will be able to visit time and again if they like chance encounters (like world maps). All monster encounters should make sense, and I hope to ensure combat is not included simply for the sake of it. I will also try to make combats vary according to different creature abilities. Every creature can be attacked (except on some rare occasions), but there are always consequences.

Roleplay 30%: With respect to roleplay, I will try to include as much variety as possible and involve PC skill options whenever and wherever possible. I will try to ensure conversations are kept concise as possible, but also allow slight variation for those who prefer to develop the three main conversation skills: bluff, intimidate and diplomacy. Success in these will give XP rewards, which I hope will make conversations objects of fun and play as well as developing the quests and main story.

Adventure 30%: I love designing modules with adventure in mind, probably because my background is one of a DM and I always enjoyed watching players try to solve a puzzle to get past a certain point. Where possible, I have tried to include different puzzles for different points in the game. Most of them allow for an alternative means to solve them (bypass them), but there is bonus XP for solving them. Furthermore, bypassing a puzzle costs the PC in other ways that a player may prefer to keep.

Give Your Personal Feedback

What about you? Now is your chance to give a more precise score (from 100%) of how you would prefer your game. If you are a player, tell me your personal scores for the different categories. If you are a current builder as well, then give me feedback on how you have designed your module. Furthermore, if there is a category you think should be added or a comment you would like to make about this, then please do.

Polls & Quest Permutations!

2010-07-24T21:57:00.008+01:00

This week's blog is a little bit of a ramble I'm afraid, simply because all material I have covered in building this week cannot be revealed without giving spoilers. However, I can say that I have been continuing to write the story and cover coding around one side quest (now complete) and the main quest (work in progress).

The Polls

Before I ramble any more, I thought I would talk about the polls. The poll asking about how often I should blog came to an end last week and the results were significantly in favour that I should continue to blog weekly, scoring 73%. I am quite happy to do this, but I would encourage feedback from readers in the way of questions about the module that may help inspire certain topics from week to week. The second poll (currently still running) is asking for player's preferences when it comes to style of gameplay and finishes at the end of the week. If you haven't voted yet, please do. I will discuss the results of that one next week.

Quest Permutations!

My rambling topic this week is about the number of paths a quest can take and just how quickly the number of permutations can grow when allowing the player just a few different options to take along the way. For example, I have one side quest that can "start" in no less than 4 ways. Furthermore, the first two ways involve a potential split in direction. The same quest also involves a number of NPCs. Depending upon the order the PC encounters these NPCs also adjusts the conversations, with each node varying according to the way the quest started in the first place.

If you take every possible permutation the player could take to resolve the quest, then I think there are easily over 20 different ways, if not more! Of course, this could have easily been brought down to a couple of paths by restricting player options, including limiting access to certain areas and/or dealing with NPCs. However, as I wrote the quest, I tried to include all the various options I believed a player might want to take and that would be considered reasonable.

The bottom line is, however, I have learnt a lesson since writing this quest: Keep design tighter and involve only one or two NPCs per quest. This lesson may appear obvious to many already, but there is also a danger in the process of sticking rigidly to this design in that a builder could inadvertently railroad the player along a path of limited choice. Knowing how to balance this design is the trick to learn. Consider some of your own designs for a quest. What design limitations tools do you use to help keep the variables under control? Which options do you use here:-

1) Are some areas restricted or are they all available from the start?
2) Can quest NPCs be killed at any time or never be hurt?
3) Can locks be bypassed with certain skills or do they often require a certain key?

Personally, I try to limit restrictions in all these three areas, but have had to recognise I needed them in a couple of circumstances. However, I have only used them as a last resort and in a way that I hope will not impact of the majority of players. I would be interested in hearing the opinion of both builders and players with respect to game design:-

Builders: I would like to know how involved you make your quests? Do you cater for the less likely path and events or do you ensure players play by the rules you lay down and have only one path through the quest? (I am not just talking about different quest ends, but different quest paths to various ends.)

Players: I would like to know how involved you like your quests? Do you like simple and straightforward quests or more complex tasks? What has been your favourite quest (in any game) to date?

Basically, I want to here about your quests! If you are a builder, tell me about your preferred design technique. And if you are a player, tell me about your favourite quests.

Writing: The Blessing

2010-07-17T13:51:00.004+01:00

Most of this blog's readers will know that I suffer from an illness called M.E. It causes me grief in one way or another all of the time. Over the last few years, I have suffered a great deal more from aches and pains, especially in the back. This week has been no exception and the frustrations and incapacities it causes are most infuriating. I no longer work, so I am in a position where I can rest as often as I need to, which is far more often than I would prefer. However, the beauty of a having a hobby like writing a module for NWN or for this blog is that it is flexible with my condition. If I am in too much pain or too tired, I can simply go to bed. On the other hand, if I have an hour or two where I am in less pain and feeling up to it, I can chip away at the story of the module I am creating. I can also update this blog.

This week I have added to the conversations and fixed some of the code to help move the plot forward. I don't know how much word counts help give an indication of progress, but one conversation (that I have been working on since day one) has over 6500 words - and is not even finished yet! This does come from one of the main NPCs of course.

I am also spending some time looking at bringing together the last few quests of the first module. While separate quests, they do have some cross-over in play and I am doing my best to ensure all the variable states stay correct at all times.

I am a little concerned about HOSA at the moment (who is working on some of the areas for me), as I have not heard from him since 27th June. I know he had a problem with his computer's graphic card, but he has not responded to a number of emails since then. His last email was optimistic though, so I hope it's just an ongoing issue with his computer that is simply taking a while to fix.

A lot of my ongoing work now is continued writing of the plot with conversations and scripting. Therefore, I am opening up the blog to readers to ask what they would like to hear more about with respect to gameplay. I believe I have covered a number of the module's gaming aspects already, but if there is anything readers are not clear about, then please contact me.

Professions: Earning A Living

2010-07-12T13:51:00.030+01:00

Every adventurer knows that to earn the most gold you have to go into the world and face danger by encountering dreaded beasts and looting ancient tombs ... mostly. There are, of course, many other ways to acquire great amounts of gold, but generally, you need a bit of experience behind you before tackling the more dangerous tasks. So what about when you have only just started your adventuring career? Is there something just a little less dangerous to start along the path of earning a living before stepping into the great wealth of heroic adventures? Later in this blog, I will cover some of the ways a player can earn some basic gold for their PCs. It's not all plain sailing, but at least it's a living!

First, I must apologise for a late blog entry. This should have been posted a couple of days ago at the latest, but time slipped away from me as I had to attend a couple of important appointments. However, in the time I have had, I have been using it to finish off some of the earlier quests the player will find in Better The Demon. I have now finished nearly 50% of the quests to be found in this module, which is one of three for the campaign as a whole. The ones that remain, however, are some of the larger ones (but maybe not as complicated) and so may still take me a few weeks to finish yet. Once they are finished, however, I can move onto the second chapter (of three) of the campaign. It will be a huge milestone overcome.

All In A Day's Work

As mentioned above, I will now cover some points about earning gold in Better The Demon. Followers of this blog will already know that I spent some time going through all the 2da files related to costs of items and reworked the entire economy for the game to reflect a more realistic level. Even though I recognise this is a fantasy game, I still prefer to keep within the realms of a realism when it comes to what a shopkeeper can afford to pay. After all, if every shopkeeper was able to buy as much as they did in the OC, what would be the point of adventuring for rare items and great hordes of gold? The shopkeepers already had this market wrapped up!

Furthermore, it goes against all my better reasoning to allow a PC to carry (up to) millions of gold around with them to purchase an uber weapon at the local wizard store. Therefore, to this end, not only is a PC limited to the amount of gold they can carry according to their strength (and magik containers they may have), but a PC is also limited to the items that they can sell or buy. And even when they do sell something (if they can find a buyer), the item will now only reward the player with a respectable amount of gold rather than the insane amounts they did in the OC. In fact, the purchaser will be very strict on the maximum amount of gold they are prepared to pay for an item, and will have limited gold for purchases at any time anyway.

With this background in mind, where does this leave the PCs when it comes to them earning a living? Firstly, I must reassure the player that adventuring and finding gold through tough and heroic deeds is still the best way to bring in great wealth and items of desire. However, in Better The Demon, every PC can still earn a little gold from practicing their profession, much like any other NPC is recognised to do. Listed below are some of the ways PCs will be able to earn a good wage without having to step too far from the safety of their home and making good use of their skills. As the campaign develops, I may add other ways for other classes, but for now, I believe the following list covers the most useful professions available to PCs. If, however, there are other professions you would like me to consider, then please let me know in a comment.

Bounty Hunting

Probably the most common form of earning a living is by tracking down a few hostile creatures and bringing back trophies from them to someone who can issue a reward. Any class of PC can take part in this form of gold earning, but it is best suited to melee classes who can go head-to-head with the hostile creatures with least risk to themselves.

Rewards vary according to how many trophies a PC can return with and what particular creature is killed. More dangerous creatures bring greater rewards. Furthermore, some NPCs will provide greater rewards for trophies than others and so it is worth learning which traders like to deal with which trophies.

This type of living is the most hazardous of the professions, but also requires the least specialised skill. As long as the PC can earn more gold than it takes them to recover from wounds of previous sorties, then there is profit to be made.

Magik Crafting

The second most common form of earning a living (for PCs anyway) will be selling items they have crafted. The most common crafted magik (*) items will be scrolls (scribe scroll) and potions (brew potion), but most crafted items can be sold for profit with the right buyer.

Magic (*) using classes will lean towards this type of profession, as long as they can find someone who is prepared to buy the scrolls or potions they can make. Local wizards and healers are often a good source of income when selling crafted items with this profession.

While not hazardous (compared to bounty hunting at least), the magic user does have to recognise that they will lose the use of the spell they used to craft the item in question for the rest of the day. Therefore, they will need to weigh up the benefits of the extra gold to the use of the extra spell.

(*) Magic and magik are two different ways of referring to a source of power and how it has been used. In general, magic (with a 'c') refers to magic that is cast from a living creature and is personal to the caster. Whereas magik (with a 'k') refers to magik embedded in an item.

Performing

Putting on a performance in a local tavern is one of the new professions that can be used in Better The Demon. Basically, as long as the PC has the perform skill (Bard class), and the local tavern has a stage (most taverns will), then the PC can opt to put on a performance.

The typos in these screenshots have been fixed now.

A performance is judged on a number of factors as well as the perform skill. E.g. a PC can easily overdo an act if they try it too often. However, if they get the balance right, between the number of shows and giving good performances, then they can continue to bring in a wage all the while the audience like their work. A bad performance may mean having to leave it a few days before performing again, while an atrocious performance may lead to a ban from performing at the venue until the performer improves their skill.

The performance results are shown in a new GUI.

The Crooked Path

(Images do not show all options available.)

For those PCs that prefer to let their tongue (communication skills) do the work or their light fingers pick the profits, then there is always the crooked path. The ability to pick the pockets is available to those with the sleight of hand skill and some houses will be suitable for burglary for those with the open locks skill. This line of "work" is obviously frowned upon and affects the alignment of the PC who steals any property. Other skills, such as listen and move silently will also benefit the chances of success for this profession.

Success in this profession will vary according to the PCs skills being used and eventually upon how much wealth there is left to "acquire" this way. After all, a property can only be relieved of its wealth once, and is one reason why a thief may move from place to place.

The biggest risk to this profession is being caught. Often local guards will do random checks on PCs to make sure they are not carrying any illegal booty. If caught, the PC would have to pay a fine and have the goods confiscated or risk a fight to keep hold of their loot. Often, however, a village or town will have a local Thieves Guild where a PC can get the traceable property they have looted laundered. Doing so makes the goods untraceable and not be detected by guard checks.

In the end, however, the amounts of gold to be made with these professions compared to the greater possibilities that come with adventuring will draw the PC away from the general treadmill of everyday work to the darkest depths of some strange land. At the start of their career, however, the relative safety of a simple profession is exactly what they need to keep hunger from the door and have a good night's rest.

The Main Menu (New Era Mechanics)

2010-07-03T13:05:00.011+01:00

It's been a while since I last updated you about the Main Menu that will be available in Better The Demon for players, and so I thought I would post this week about it again. Before I do, however, I can report that this week I have been writing more conversations and correcting code to expand possibilities for player's actions. Wherever possible, I have tried to keep the responses "real" according to NPC motivations and subject to the PC's skills at bluffing, intimidating or using diplomacy. The code correction I mention related to monster drops and now differentiates between bounty item drops and alchemical distillable item drops. The difference being, the former items are always recoverable, whereas the latter items require ranks in the alchemy skill to have any chance of recovering.

The Main Menu

The Main Menu is a GUI that the player uses to play extra mechanics for their PCs in Better The Demon. It can be used as little or as much as the player wants to. It is activated by clicking on the Main Menu button (a newly added feat on entering the game) that has been moved to the quick slots for easier access. (See screenshot.) The Main Menu cannot be accessed during combat.

From the same screenshot, you can also see two other newly added feats/buttons to do with game play in Better The Demon: The Sorry button (used to pacify hostile NPCs who have reacted to a PC attacking them) and the Auto Pause button, used to turn play into a simulated turn-based combat mode, which pauses every six seconds allowing players to determine their PCs actions ahead of time and at a more leisurely pace.

Basic Information: For those who will have seen the last version of the Main Menu, they will see there have been a few changes. First, the menu now has four tabs (this screenshot is currently on the first tab, Basic Information). The renaming of a weapon was incorporated into the new Rename Equipment tab. Secondly, a new combat Auto-Pause option has been added to allow a party of PCs to be automatically paused (and placed into turn-based combat) if attacked and the option is on. Other changes include a Session Time and Total Time for players to note how long they have been playing the module. This page also has the Map Pin buttons and Game Test buttons (when a test is available) and shows the PC's current Vigour level, as well as the Current Game Date.

Rule Information: Accessing the second tab opens up a conversation window at the same time. The conversation window then has a list of options for the player to choose which rule they wish to check on. This Rule Information is given to help clarify the differences in game play in Better The Demon to a normal NWN2 game. The list of rules also updates if and when a player encounters a situation that introduces a new rule. Once a rule is understood, then this section will probably not be visited by the player as much as the others sections. However, some of the information presented here also gives some reference figures that the player may need to refer to now and then. (E.g. Crafting ranks required for working with certain materials.)

Improve Dead Weapon: The third tab relates to a new system used in the Better The Demon: Some weapons, called Dead Weapons, can deteriorate with use. Such weapons can either be maintained by a blacksmith (or PC member with the appropriate skill) at a repair workbench, or, if in the field and far from a workbench, by the use of sacrificing a Life Essence. This function of the Main Menu is where the player can use their PC to repair a Dead Weapon using any Life Essences they might carry.

Rename Equipped Items: The fourth and final tab is used to rename items that the PC can equip. Only items that the PC can equip (and is not stolen) can be renamed. This is just a simple interface to allow players to help personalise their equipment.

If you have any questions or comments you would like to raise about this interface, then please do. Furthermore, if you have any questions about any of the other systems Better The Demon will use, then please let me know in a comment as well.

Poll: Policy Ratio Preference

A reminder ... if you haven't voted in the poll yet (on the left hand side), then please do and feel free to comment.

Staying On Track & On Target

2010-06-25T18:48:00.007+01:00

Since last week, it has become even more apparent that weekly updates are the overall preference for readers according to the poll results to date: hence, I bring you another update. This week I offer some general advise and some tips when designing a module and using the toolset.

Before I do that, however, I would like to report that I am continuing to write conversations and ensuring NPCs react in an appropriate manner depending on a PC's reaction to them. In Better The Demon, this process is over and above the normal different conversation responses available and also involves how an NPC might react to suddenly being attacked and the consequences with faction members. Thankfully, I have quite a few well-established systems in place now that help make this type of behavioural AI coding easier to do. That said, I still have to tweak the odd script here and there for any given situation. Anyway, now for the general advise and tips I mentioned earlier ...

Avoiding The Tangled Web

There is, without doubt, a risk of becoming too deeply involved with a campaign project and it seem to become never-ending. I refer you to Kamal's latest blog entry that raises the same question, "When is it Done?" I think every builder asks this question eventually, but I believe if one has set out clear design goals and sticks to main objectives, then a project does remain manageable. Self-discipline and sensible pacing are crucial attributes to possess if you want to prevent the project from turning into a tangled web with no clear end in sight.

Of course, avoiding the tangled web is the plan of every builder, me included. However, subject to personal circumstances, some people will aim to finish their project by a date deadline, while others will only say their project is complete when they are satisfied that their design goals have been met - and many builders will fall somewhere in between. Personally, I recognise I am unable to work on this project as much as I would like due to ill-health and, therefore, I have not set myself a deadline to work to. The upside to this is that I should be able to achieve a well-designed module, meeting all my personal needs by the time it's finished. The downside, of course, is that there may not be many people left around playing NWN2 to download and appreciate it by the time the module is done. My hope is that there will at least be a handful of patient people still around who will.

Avoiding The Black World Map

If you have ever tried to view a TGA or DDS world map image with the map editor, and you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, then the chances are you will only have seen an empty black image. I noticed this myself after I switched to using a Windows 7 computer instead of Windows XP. This is a problem, because you need to be able to see the map in the editor to place map icons on it in the correct place. Here is the workaround to be able to see the map in the editor:

1) Load the NWN Toolset. (Do NOT load the module yet.)

2) Load your world map in the editor. (You will still not see the map image yet.)

3) Reload the map image you are using into the map editor. (The image should now show.)

4) Load the module and continue working on it.

5) You will need to repeat this process each time you load a new map into the editor.

Working With Prefabs

Prefabs are a group of placeable objects grouped into one larger one. The idea is to make new, larger objects that can be moved around as a single placeable object. The problem is, if you have ever tried to make a prefab, you will probably have noticed just how awkward they are to work with. Here are a few useful prefab tips that I hope will prove useful to other builders. If you do not intend your prefabs to be interacted with, then you can ignore the first few tips referring to scripts:

1) Of all the objects you intend to group, ensure only one object (the easiest to interact with) is made useable with the useable flag ticked, and has the name and description set for the entire group. (Sometimes, it may be easier to add an "invisible" object placeable somewhere in the group of objects and make that the useable object for the group.)

2) Ensure you add any event scripts required to the same single object of the group (from 1 above) as it acts as the main object that will be interacted with for the entire group of objects.

3) Select each and every object either in turn or by drag selection (if enabled) and, once selected, right click on any of the currently selected objects and choose "Group" from the menu.

4) In the naming menu that appears, choose a name that describes the prefab and select OK when done. (Whatever you choose will also be the default name for the prefab file name when we come to saving it as a prefab.)

5) To make this group into a prefab that we can reuse whenever we need to, you now need to right click on the group of placeable objects (now a group) and select "Export Group". You will now be given the option to save the prefab (with the same default name when naming the group) as a .PFB file in the Toolset Prefab subdirectory. You could do this, but I would recommend changing the save directory to a sub-directory of your own project files. This is because when you reload your module at a later date, the prefab is not reloaded from the Toolset subdirectory. It is, however, reloaded from your module's files subdirectories. And since the idea is to reuse your prefab during building, you will need to ensure this PFB file is available to you from your module files.

That's all for this week. I hope the couple of tips I mention are useful to some of you, and I do hope to bring more playing/player information in the next post. But, if you have any personal interests regarding any aspect of Better The Demon that you would like to know about, then please leave a comment and I will see what I can do about it in a future post.