Commodore Free 33R1/Commodore_Free_Issue_33R1_2009_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/geos rpg ii

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 10KB | 307 lines

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  Geos & Role Playing Games Part II
      Lord Ronin From Q-link
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Highly detailed maps are a good thing
and a bad thing. They take a lot
longer to make, and are more complex
to make. Thanks to Geos. you don't
have to go out and buy a mess of
templates to use for creating the
details for your map. BTW: a lot of
times those templates are not the
right scale anyway, so spoke the
voice of experience. I have no idea
as to how many fonts there are for
Geos. But I can tell you that there
are graphic fonts. Some of them work
fine in the games; though they are a
bit off scale. Oh wait a moment there
are font editors, those will let you
make the fonts you want. I mean you
create the say iris valve door for
the space game then save it as a
font, and then put it in the map. But
for graphic fonts that already exist,
you can use the font editor to scale
the font up or down. Truth be told
you may need to do a tad bit of clean
up work on the font after scaling it
to size. Hilgard 1 & 2. from IIRC a
RUN disk, have nothing but graphic
fonts. Between them I have made a
forest of different trees for an
outdoor map. I made the men and girls
bathrooms for a Zombie game. As the
items for those rooms are in the
graphic fonts. Also there is the
cardinal points, the compass that I
use in my legend. Potted plants,
chairs sofas and even some buildings,
which worked good on the outdoor map.
In fact there are some silhouettes of
people. I had others that worked in
making game maps. But they are on the
Hard Drive with Maurice for the last
3+ years.

The font may not be in the right
angle, GeoPaint has a tool that will
let you reverse and rotate the font.
This is how I had a row of toilet
stalls on one wall and another on the
opposite wall in the Zombie
adventure. Ah but there is another
problem; typing in the font, will run
it on your map and like it was on a
GeoWrite page. I mean in a line, and
what you have underneath is erased.
Now that is a bummer man in making
that outdoor forest map. Ah but we
have a copy option in GeoPaint. So I
just put one tree for example, on the
map. Then I "copy" it in a random
pattern on the screen. Slowly
building up my forest with that one
tree font. Adding other tree fonts
later. OK I admit that I am not great
at this. So I have to go into pixel
edit and clean up a bit.
Well you can see that if you want a
detailed looking map GeoPaint is the
way to go in Commodore programmes.
You can scale the font, make your own
fonts, make your own map scaled grid
or hex, allowing you to make your own
maps for your game. My tip is that
when you make indicators on your map;
that is the room numbers, treasure,
pre-set monster encounters and that
sort of thing. You code them by using
a font and a style on the map that
you repeat in the text that you write
in GeoWrite. My example is from an
AD&D game. I use the font "dungeon",
for indicating on the map where
treasure is located. This is the only
font that I still have which uses the
British pound symbol. So I use that
for a treasure mark on the map. Tells
me that there is some sort of
treasure in that room. That font is
at 8 point and fits quite well in a
1/4" square. While the other font
called "dungeon ii" is 16 point, and
takes some careful planning and
movement to put it in the square. But
I use it on the map to make an
outlined capital "M". Telling me that
there is a placed monster. In the
text I do the same. So that room
would have the pound symbol and the
M. Both on the map and in the text.

The use of text is up to the guy
writing the adventure.

Based on his tastes, the use of the
adventure, his font collection and
his printer. I use Times Roman from
the Laser Lover's disk by Dale
Sidebotom. I understand that LW_Roma
is about the same for a stock GeoFont
this is for the main text. Explain
the reason for this in a bit, my
examples have been mostly in AD&D a
sword and sorcery themed game. But as
I said near the beginning, there are
thousands of games. Not all of them
are sword and sorcery. I actually
rather play the Sci-Fi, post
apocalyptic and espionage games. This
brings me into the font choices for
different games; being used for
chapters, headers, footers and other
code work in the text. What to use
and how much. Like at the top of this
paragraph, up to the guy doing the
adventure. Personally I like to use
fonts that in some way reflect the
theme of the same. Using those
dungeon ones for sword and sorcery
games alone with a font called
Sepulchre and one called Medallion
and another called Vatican. There are
also some Gothic fonts that I once
had as well as Old English ones.
Since I have different sword and
sorcery games I had combinations of
the above fonts set up for each of
the games. Let me know at a glance
for which game the stuff had been
written. Ah but for the Sci-Fi games
that is a bit different, as they run
a gauntlet of themes. Most of the
time I would use a font that looked
electronic. I Had several of them,
but not anymore. Basically they
looked like LED read outs, I even
made one once that looked like the
old nixie tube read out.
Espionage games, I use a simple
typewriter font. In fact that is what
it is called. Horror games, I haven't
found a font that sets the atmosphere
for me, as of yet.

Now then, these fonts generally will
have more than one point size. Not
always, but generally. Besides with
the font editors you can make them in
different point sizes. So then by
using the point sizes as well as the
styles, by that I mean in Geos bold,
italic, underline, outline and
combinations of those styles. You can
create a varied collection of chapter
headers and titles for your pages.
Beats me using a lettering guide and
an ancient typewriter, hey that beat
trying to hand write the whole mess.

However past the writers taste for
fonts and their use in his work.

The writer will use whatever fonts he
has at hand. I know that there are
places on line that have fonts. Just
haven't gotten over the depression of
the HD data being gone for so long,
to actively look for them. The other
factor is the printer I had on that
HD63 printer drivers for Geos. But I
have to state for the record that not
all printers like all GeoFonts. Take
that Sepulchre font above. OK on my
oki-mate 10, same for the star 1020.
No way on a couple of HPs, including
the laser one with postprint. Oh many
times it will default to something
else. On my laser printer it defaults
to courier. But this font locked me
up. Yeah to the point of having to
reset printer and the I28D. You can
imagine the terror I was feeling.
Before I knew it was the font even
specific drivers for printers have
not accepted fonts. As an example my
original copy of the "who " font,
from Dr. Who this wouldn't work on
any printer in GeoWrite. I gained a
copy of it from the author's site.
The font doesn't work on my postprint
system. OK in GeoPaint, but not in
GeoWrite, that is a thing to keep in
mind when selecting fonts.

Yeah I could do a long tutorial about
how to use GeoWrite and GeoPaint to
make RPG adventures for ones game
group, but that would require doing
it for specific games. I don't think
there is that big of an audience for
that level of information. Way too
specific for us in here. What I do
want to explain is that I use the
Commodore, Geos, Wheels, Post Print
to make the adventures for my game
group. My way and style is not the
same as everyone else's. I have been
doing games for over 31 years I have
way too many shortcuts gained over
that time. But something to state
here for those that want to pretty up
their GeoPaint maps. You can use
colour! Right, you can colour code
the maps, or just make that tree
green. Does mean that if you are
printing it out, you need colour
abilities on your printer.

Ah but if you have GeoPub as well.

Then you can make columns for the
text. Making the print out like the
old late 70s an early 80s modules.
Can add some small input of photo
scraps into the text in GeoWrite. Or
easier do it in GeoPub. Like the
control box at the door, or the
magical crown, the manual, the disk
or whatever loot, object item that
the team sees and needs. Even print
these things out on paper, along with
the information about them. Cut that
out and lay it on the player that
collects the item. Such hand outs
were in the old game adventures. Even
make a newspaper, or scroll. By using
the best looking text and create that
as a clue/hand out then pass the copy
to the players when they find it in
the adventure. Done in GeoPub As you
can place images in the page layout
part where you want and scale them,
as well as having the text flow
around the image.

Ah but if you have Post Print. Then
you can do more, with colour in
GeoPub, 32 colours as I remember your
maps can be colour as 1 stated
earlier. But you can also make colour
text, boxes, lines, circles and more
in GeoPub with Post Print. Bruce
Thomas has a great manual on a
tutorial for GeoPub. Also one can add
jpegs in the GeoPub document. So yeah
you can make something for the game.
Shoot it with a camera. Insert it in
the text and you have a colour image.
Or if you don't have colour abilities
on your printer. Gray scale the image
and insert it. But if you have GeoDos
and a FD along with a floppy drive on
your other computer. Ah there are
other ways of bringing across the
file. I just don't know them. You can
make a post script file of your
adventure. Then put it on the other
machine. Convert it to a PDF and
bingo, you have the adventure in
colour if you made it that way in a
format that no Commodore/Geos setup
users can see and use you colour map.

That is what we are doing in my users
and game group. Making the Geos
created adventures into PDF things.
Then saving them up for a CD of
Commodore created RPG things. A
fanzine of adventures for long out of
print games. Supplement items for
those games hint and tip things. Sure
it is for gamers and old school
gamers of older games but the point
of this is that save for converting
to PDF and the actual CD burning
parts. All of it is done on The
Commodore and in the Geos world.
Wonder what others can make like this
for their own hobby or work interests

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