SPACE 1/SPACE - Library 1 - Volume 1.iso/games/44/design.txt

Text File | 1987-04-03 | 22KB | 400 lines

                 A MANUAL FOR EAMON ADVENTURE  DESIGNERS

                          By Donald Brown


    EAMON  is  the computerized fantasy role-playing game developed  by  Donald
Brown. This manual has been written for those stalwart people who are tired  of
having  their  characters killed in the many adventures written for the system,
and want  revenge by creating their own death traps. It is assumed that you are
already familiar with the gaming system and the  information  included  in  the
Player's manual.

    Most  of  the  adventures  that are written for the Eamon system have  been
similar  to  the  "Adventure" game that was created by  Don  Woods  and  Willie
Crowther of MIT, such as the Beginner's Cave included on the  master  diskette.
This manual  will  both help you design your own scenarios in that type of game
but will  also  permit  you to meld any other type of game with the system that
you wish.


                          HOOKING UP WITH EAMON
                                  or
                SENDING ADVENTURERS TO THEIR DEATH  FOR
                            FUN AND PROFIT


    Under the Eamon rules, a relatively few numbers  can  completely describe a
character. Between adventures,  all  of the characters  that  the  local system
knows are  stored  in a  file  that  is called  "CHARACTERS".   It is a random-
access  file  with a  length  of   150. Record  0  holds  the number of records
used in the file,  and  all  subsequent records  may  hold a character.  If the
first string in the record is null ("") then the  character  in that record has
been deleted  and  the  record  may  be reused   to   store  a  new  character.

    The  data  held  in  each record is first a string that has the  name.  The
next numbers   stored  are  (in  order) player  Hardiness,  Agility,  Charisma,
the four  spell abilities (Blast, Heal, Speed,  and  Power),  the  five  weapon
abilities  (Axe,  Bow, Club, Spear, and Sword), the player's Armour  Expertise,
the player's  sex  as  a string ("M" or "F"), gold pieces carried, gold  pieces
in the  bank, the player's armour class (Leather=2, Chain=4, Plate=6, with  one
added  for  a shield), then for each of a player's four  weapons  the  name  of
the weapon, the weapon type, the weapon complexity, the weapon  dice,  and  the
weapon's  sides  per  die.  If a player does not have four weapons, his weapons
will be  first,  and  all  other weapon weapon names will be "NONE". Except for
name,  sex, and weapon names all of the information is  stored  as  an  integer
number,  with  all  probability numbers stored  as  percentages  (perfect=100).

    When a player leaves the Main  Hall to go  on an Adventure, first his char-
acter is deleted  from  the  CHARACTERS file,  and  then the player is prompted
to change diskettes.  The program  then tries  to  read a program name from the
file EAMON.NAME on the adventure  disk. If this  name  is  found, a file called
FRESH MEAT is opened on  the  disk  and the data  that was in the record of the
CHARACTERS file is  written  into  that file,  preceeded  by  the record number
that the character  previously  resided in.  Finally,  the program given in the
EAMON.NAME file is run.

    Once the adventure is over, control must be  returned  to  the  main  Eamon
programs.  If the  adventure  ended  in the character's  death,  all  that must
be done is deleting a file called  "THE ADVENTURER"  from  the  master diskette
and running MAIN HALL. (You may instead directly  run  THE  WONDERFUL  WORLD OF
EAMON and then do not  need  to  delete the file. If you do want to go the MAIN
HALL route, it might  be  advisable  to open THE ADVENTURER before deleting it,
to make sure it will really be  there.)

    If  the  character  survives   your adventurer,  you  will have to recreate
him into the CHARACTERS file.  Normally this is   simply  writting  in  the new
information of the character  into  the old record given in FRESH MEAT. However
if your  program  has  the  ability  to quit for  a  while and come back later,
it is possible for a new  character  to be stored  in  the old record.  In this
case you should search  the  CHARACTERS file for  a  free  record  to store the
character, and write it in  there  (for an example  of  how  this is done, list
the NEW  CHARACTERS  program  on   your master diskette).

    Once  you have stored the character into the  CHARACTERS  file,  you   must
re-create  a file called THE ADVENTURER which has two pieces of  data  in  it--
the name   of  the  character,  and the record he resides in of the  CHARACTERS
file.   Once  this  is  done,  run MAIN HALL to finish.


                 USE OF   THE  DUNGEON  DESIGN  DISKETTE

    The   Dungeon   Design  Diskette is designed to make the  job  of  entering
new Adventure-like    scenarios    much easier.  It  includes a  base  to  work
from for  your  program,  as  well as a simple means of entering the data  into
the text  files  needed  by  that  base program.

    The first  step  in  creating  your adventure is initializing the diskette.
The program on the DDD (Dungeon  Design Diskette)  will  do  several things for
your--it will INIT  the  diskette,  put your program's  name  into  EAMON.NAME,
and put in  the  starting  data  needed for the   dungeon   editing  program to
work.  It also creates a  boot  program that identifies   this  diskette  as an
Eamon adventure by you!   You  will  be asked  for  an  adventure  number, this
must be an integer from 1 to 254, since it is  used  as the disk volume.  It is
not important what number  you  assign, it simply  helps you keep track of your
different dungeons.

    Once  you  have  initialized   your diskette,  you should re-insert the DDD
and run the program  of  DUNGEON  EDIT. This program  is the one that puts your
basic dungeon design  into  the  files.

    A few general remarks are in  order now--First  of  all,  you should always
have your  dungeon   designed    before entering  it.   Decide  what  rooms you
have, how they connect,  what  monsters inhabit  those  rooms  (and  what their
attributes  are),  and  what  treasures are sprinkled about.

    For each of the four things you can enter  (ROOM,  ARTIFACT,  EFFECT,   and
MONSTER),  you can either add a new one onto the end of the list, or  edit  one
already  there.   You  cannot  delete a thing already  there  (though  you  can
replace  it through editing).  You also must not go beyond 100 of  any  of  the
things  (though  the  total can go over 100).  You will not be warned  of  your
error, but you will not get the results you wanted.

    Adding and Editing will  be  almost identical  for  all  four  data  types,
except that in editing your  old  entry will be  placed after the cursor at the
start of entries.  Every time  you  are to do  more entry than just hitting one
key, the entry  will  be  done  with  a special  input  routine.  It appears to
be the standard Apple  input  on  first glance,  but  it  has  many significant
differences.  First  of  all,  the  old Escape-key   editing  features  do  not
work.  Instead, the  following  control keys do things--

    ESC--this  returns,  accepting both what is before and  after  the
          flashing  cursor.  It is very useful while editing, since if
          you  simply hit ESC no change will be made.

    RETURN--this  also  does a  return, except  only  accepting  what
         is before the cursor.

    CTRL-B--this moves  the  cursor  to the  first  character of your
         input.

    CTRL-E--this moves  the  cursor  to the  last  character  of your
         input.

    CTRL-D--this deletes the  character that the cursor is sitting on,
         bringing the characters  after the cursor forward one space.

    CTRL-I--this  inserts a space where the  cursor  is,  moving   all
          characters  after  the cursor back on space.  This  is  good
         if  you  are  entering a line that you want to look good  as
         it wraps around your 40-column screen.

    <-,-> (FORWARD & BACKWARD ARROWS) -- these move the cursor back or
         forward one character.

    Copying over a character  does  get rid of it.  Your entries cannot go over
250 characters, and you should not  use quotation marks ("). You may use commas
and colons.  However,  you  should  not have any  trailing  spaces on the names
of items. (Applesoft regards "LION"  as being  different  from  "LION ", though
your player  may  not  recognize    the difference.   Additionally,  if you are
entering a number, enter only a number, do not  include any leading or trailing
spaces or other extraneous  characters. The program  won't  like  them and will
simply spit them back at you.


    For  every  room,  you will need to give eight pieces of  data.   First  is
the room  name,  which  cannot  go over 39 characters.  In the program it  will
be printed as "you are (program name)", so you should use names like,  "AT  THE
CAVE ENTRANCE".    Secondly   you  will need to give a room description. It  is
not preceeded  by  anything, so it must be a full and complete description.  If
your description   is   longer  than 40 characters, you must pad it with spaces
so that   when  the  description  wraps around the  Apple's  40-column  screen,
the breaks are between words.  Finally, you will have to give the room  numbers
that you  can  get to from that room in each direction.   A  special  code  has
been developed--if  you  give a room of 0, you can never move  that  direction.
If you give positive direction, there's an open  connection.  Negative  numbers
special--a  -99  takes  you home, other negative numbers can be easily made  to
have special  results  by  altering the base program (see below).

    Artifacts are somewhat similar.  An artifact  is  any non-living thing that
is in the dungeon.  In addition to what you might   normally  think  of  as the
artifacts you want  to  include  (gold, silver, statues), you must also have as
an artifact all weapons  used  by  your monsters,  as  well  as a dead body for
every monster.

    For each artifact, you  will  again need a  name (this time just the normal
name, such as "GOLD COINS") and a  full description. You will also need to give
the item's room that it starts in,  its value  in gold pieces, its type and its
weight.  The room is usually a positive number,  however  if  the item isn't in
the dungeon yet (such as a  dead  body) you should  assign  a room of zero, and
if the item starts by being carried  by the player, its room is -1.

    There  are four types of artifacts. Type 0 is a treasure with a value  that
will not  change   with   the  player's charisma, such as a pile of gold coins.
Type 1  is  a treasure whose value will vary with the player's  charisma,  such
as a Persian  rug.  Types  2  and 3 are weapons, with 2 being a weapon that can
be bought  at  the  Main  Hall, and 3 a special weapon.

    If your artifact is a weapon  (type 2 or 3),  you  will  also have to enter
some more information on it.  First  is the weapon   complexity,  then  is  the
weapon  type  (1=axe,  2=bow,   3=club, 4=spear,  5=sword),  then  the weapon's
damage with first the number of  'dice' thrown  for that damage, then the sides
per die.

    The other major type of data to  be put in  your  files  is monsters, which
are any living (or animate)  things  in the dungeon.   Monsters  are similar to
characters, however they are assumed to have their  full  armour  expertise and
know all weapons equally well. For each monster  you  will  need  the name, the
description, then hardiness (as with  a player),   agility,  friendliness  (the
percentage  chance  of  making  friends with a  character of a charisma of 10),
courage (will flee from a  fight  after he has  received that percentage of his
hardiness in  hits,  on  the  average), room starts  in  (may  be  zero if in a
chest or other special thing  activates him),  his  body  weight,  his  special
defensive odds (normally 0,  but  magic or size/speed  may  make  some monsters
harder to hit), armour  (hits  absorbed per blow.   This  may be things such as
a furry skin or magical  effects),  and the weapon  number  (a  pointer to some
artifact.  If the weapon  number  is  0 it is assumed natural weapons; claws or
teeth. If the weapon number is -1  then the monster  isn't  carrying a weapon).
You will then have  to  give  for  that weapon  the  monster's  complete chance
to strike a blow with it, and its sides and dice  of  damage.  These numbers do
not have  to  be  consistant  with  the numbers  given  in the artifact list; a
monster may know how to use his  weapon better  than  someone  who doesn't know
some secret, and the chance of  hitting is of  course affected by the monster's
weapon expertise and other  information not stored.

    There is a fourth thing that can be entered called an "EFFECT". It is there
for your  own  special  use--it permits you to store some  string  on  disk  so
that it  can  be called in quickly. For examples of its use you might  want  to
check  out  The  Beginners Cave.  It is also included as room for expansion  of
the DDD.


    Once you have put all of your  data into your files, you will probably want
to see  what  you  entered,   to  catch errors  and get a good overview.  There
is a program included on the  DDD  that will list all of your data in a simple,
organized fashion.  It  will  list  all of your  rooms, artifacts, and monsters
in order, also pointing out  what  sort of "links"  have  been  set up (what is
the room name you are moving into, what is the  name  of  the artifact that the
monster uses  as a  weapon,  etc.)   If one of  these  links  goes to the wrong
thing, there's an error!  If  you  want to put  this  output  to a printer, you
must modify  lines  9000-9999  of   the program  DUNGEON  LIST  to  start  your
printer and set  the  value  of  PL  to the line  length  of your printer, less
one (39  for   the   Apple's   screen).

    There is  also a  program  included called  DUNGEON  LIST  (OLD)  which was
written to work with the  older  system of files   where   EAMON.MONSTERS   and
EAMON.ARTIFACTS were sequential  files. Although  it  might  be  very useful to
examine other people's  dungeons  after you have  played  in  them to learn how
to design your  own,  it  goes  without saying  that only a cur and a scoundrel
would  list  someone's  dungeon  before playing to avoid dangers!



                  ADAPTING  THE  BASE   DUNGEON   PROGRAM

    All of the work above  was  to  put your dungeon  into  a  format  that the
computer  can  use.   It  couples  with a program   called  the  BASE   DUNGEON
PROGRAM.   If  you  have   no   sliding doors,  things  hidden  inside of other
things, etc., you can simply  save  the program on your diskette under the name
of your adventure.  (Or,  what  may  be better,  write  a  program  to  print a
screen's  worth  of  explanation,   and have it  run the BASE DUNGEON PROGRAM.)

    However,if you want special effects such as a sword that teleports the user
to another room at random times (gee, I may use that) these explanations should
help you.

    Lines  100-999  are  the main loop. Every time a command is  gotten,  those
lines  are  run through. If you want to have something done  (or  checked  for)
every  turn,  it should be put in lines 500-900.

    Lines 1000-1999 reads  in  monsters and artifacts  from  disk,  as  well as
doing other initializing. If  you  want to add  a  new  command,  you will have
to change line 1910(increase the number in the  DATA  statement), 1920 (add the
new verbs--no  spaces  are  permitted), and line  290  (add the line numbers to
go to).  If  you  want  special  things to happen  at  the start, such as a fee
from the player's gold for  some  item, do it in lines 1150-1890

    Lines  2000-2999  are  the  closing routines.  When  this  is  entered,  if
the variable  DIE  has a non-zero value the player didn't survive.  Lines  2100
thru 2290   are   for  your  additions.

    Lines  3000-3999  are  the movement commands.  If  you  want  to  magically
move the  player,  set R2 to the number of the room to enter and  go  to  3500.
If something  happens  so  as  to  make the monsters reconsider their reactions
to the  player, a GOSUB 3600 will check the reactions of all monsters  who  are
unaligned  (see  below).   If  you have special results and/or  conditions  for
movement  and  have thus given negative room numbers in the editor,  the  place
to check is in lines 3050-3490

    Lines  4000-4999 are to get things. Lines 4200-4899 are the  place  to  add
special   results   when  getting  some artifact. You  may  place  synonyms  in
lines  4030-4110  (such as, 4030 IF S$= "BAT" THEN S$="VAMPIRE BAT").  Finally,
if a command  MUST  have  a  subject, a GOSUB 4900 will ensure one  is  gotten.

    Lines  7000-7999  are  the   attack commands  and  subroutines. Lines 7700-
7999 are to kill monster M.  If  things happen  when  a  monster  dies (such as
dropping  something  from  the   body), it should   be  put  in  this  section.

    Lines  13000-13999  are  the  Power Spell.  As told in the Players  manual,
this spell  can  do  anything  at all-- feel free to through out  this  section
and add your own.

    Lines   16000-16999   are  the  say command,  which  is  very  useful   for
'words  of power' or some other strange effects.

    Most of  the  variables  are  self- explanatory  and  also  can  be changed
locally if desired,  but a  description of some of the others are--

AC - ARMOUR CLASS OF PLAYER
AD%(*,*) - ARTIFACT DATA
   The first subscript is the number of
    the artifact, and the key  for  the
    second is (1=Value,2=Type,3=Weight,
    4=Room,5=    Complexity,6=    Type,
    7=   Dice,8=  Sides,9=Flag if seen)
AE - ARMOUR EXPERTISE
AN$(*) - NAME OF ARTIFACTS
BANK - GOLD PLAYER HAS IN BANK
C - HOLDS   NUMBER   OF  COMMAND  GIVEN
C$(*) -  VERBS  PROGRAM   RESPONDS   TO
CH - PLAYER CHARISMA
CZ$ - LAST COMMAND GIVEN
DF - DEFENDER
DIE -  LOGICAL  FLAG,   1=PLAYER   DIED
DK$ -  HOLDS  CTRL-D  FOR DISK COMMANDS
DR%(*) - ROOM MOVED IN  EACH  DIRECTION
EA - EFFECT  OF  ARMOUR  ON ODDS-TO-HIT
FD%(*) - FULL DAMAGE OF A SIDE IN COMBAT
FR - FUMBLER     ROLL/FRIEND     RATING
GOLD -  GOLD  PLAYER  HAS   ON   PERSON
HIT -  LOGICAL  FLAG  IF  HIT IN COMBAT
INC - LOGICAL FLAG IF ABILITY INCREASED
LK - LOGICAL  FLAG  IF 'LOOKED' ALREADY
MD%(*,*) - MONSTER DATA
    First  subscript is monster number,
    second key is  (1=HD,2=AG,3=FRIEND,
    4=COUR., 5=ROOM, 6=WGHT,7=DEF ODDS,
    8=ARMOUR,9=WEAPON #,10=ODDS TO HIT,
    11=W DICE,12=W SIDES,13=HITS TAKEN,
    14=REACTION; 0-NOT MET, 1-FRIENDLY,
       2-NEUTRAL, 3-DISLIKE)
MN$(*) - NAME OF MONSTER
MR - MONSTER MORALE
NA - NUMBER OF ARTIFACTS
NBTL -   LOGICAL   FLAG  IF  IN  BATTLE
NC - NUMBER OF COMMANDS
NM - NUMBER OF MONSTERS
NW - TOTAL COUNT  OF  WEAPONS  IN  GAME
NZ - NUMBER  ARTIFACTS  NOT PLYR WEAPON
OF - NUMBER   OF   OFFENSIVE    MONSTER
RAISE  -  LOGICAL  FLAG IF POWER RAISED
REC -  PLAYER  RECORD  IN   CHAR   FILE
RL - RANDOM NUMBER 1-100
ROOM -   ROOM   PLAYER   CURRENTLY   IN
RR - RANDOM   NUMBER  1-100  FOR  POWER
S$ - SUBJECT OF COMMAND GIVEN
S2%(*) - CURRENT SPELL ABILITY
SA%(*) - TOTAL SPELL ABILITY
SEX$ -  HOLDS  'M'  OR  'F'  FOR PLAYER
SPD - NUMBER OF TURNS SPEED SPELL TO GO
SUC -  LOGICAL  FLAG IF SPELL SUCCEEDED
TD%(*) - DAMAGE TAKEN IN BATTLE FOR SIDE
TP - TOTAL PRICE OF TREASURE
V$ - VERB OF COMMAND
V%(*)  -  FLAGS  IF PLAYER BEEN IN ROOM
WA%(*) -   PLAYER'S   WEAPON    ABILITY
WD%(*)  -  FOR  WEAPON,  DICE OF DAMAGE
WN$(*) -  NAME   OF   PLAYER'S   WEAPON
WO%(*) - WEAPON COMPLEXITY
WP%(*) -  WEAPON  POINTER  (IN   CLOSE)
WS%(*) - SIDES/DIE OF DAMAGE FOR WEAPON
WT - WEIGHT PLAYER CARRYING
WT%(*) - WEAPON TYPE
WZ - NUMBER OF WEAPONS  PLAYER  BROUGHT



    Once  you  have  "played-out" other people's adventures,it would definitely
be a good  idea to tear it apart to see how other  people  have  adapted   this
program  to  their own use.  Also, if I might give a  few  suggestions  to  new
Eamon dungeon designers--

    1. Be fair to the adventurer. Don't try to stack the odds  totally  against
him.   A  good rule of thumb is that an adventurer can lick  about  five  times
his own  Hardiness  in  opponents, with allies Subtracting their Hardiness from
the opposition.   If   you  continually design  pure  death  traps  (and  don't
reward  the  successful  outrageously), people aren't going  to  want  to  send
their   carefully-built  up  characters through your dungeons.   On  the  other
hand,  if  your  dungeons  are just big give-aways, they  will  quickly  become
boring.

    2.   You can place one or two traps of the zap-you're dead  type  (such  as
the book  in  the  Beginner's  Cave) so long as they are not overdone  and  are
not required  to  survive  them  to get out.  Thus, if your only way out of the
tunnels  is drinking a potion that half of the time  teleports  you  away,  the
other  half poisons you, it isn't fair.

    3.   Particularly to those who have designed dungeons for  non-computerized
role-playing games, remember that there is only one adventurer going in, not an
army!   No matter how great a character is, he cannot by himself handle a dozen
thugs.

    4.   Last  but  not least, don't be afraid to break any of these rules.  If
you truly  believe  that  your  dungeon will be better, do anything you please.
The worst  that  will  happen  is  that people will not play in it  and  you'll
have to change a few things.


                THE END