If my experience has taught me one thing, it’s that the easiest time to mess up a scenario is the very beginning. Errors midway through or near the end can be easily caught and corrected, errors at the beginning cannot be. The difference between a good scenario and one that never gets finished can often be a well planned start. With that in mind, here are my suggestions for steps to take when starting a new scenario:
- PLAN IT OUT
Get out a sheet of paper, a pen or a pencil, and WRITE down the major towns, dungeons, and plot points. You don’t need to write every last thing down, every subplot, or decide where to place the Smithy in relation to the Pub in the city of Metropolis, but plan out the major steps. You should, before finishing the first town, know exactly what and where the major encounters and plot points will occur and how many towns/dungeons you will need. Which brings me to...
- Decide how many Outdoor Sections you will need!
There’s a limitation in the scenario editor that has caused me many a headache — each outdoor section can only have up to 8 town entrances in it. By planning out how many towns you’ll need, you’ll avoid having to scrap either towns or entire scenarios once you’ve run out of space. My advice — figure out how many outdoor sections you’ll need, then increase that by 50%. It can’t really hurt, you’ll most likely fence off your world anyway (via water or mountains), and an extra outdoor section just makes the download take an additional .4 seconds. It’s better to have an extra section and not need it than need an extra section and not have it.
- Edit the item list
There are a TON of spare monster slots, you’ll never have to worry about running out of those, but item slots are very limited. My advice — edit the list right away to create the type of stores you want — e.g., create a smithy that only sells Iron items by placing all the Iron items next to each other. Create a general store. Fix the potions so someone can sell weak, medium , and strong potions WITHOUT selling skill potions. If you wait until later to do this, you’ll inevitably have placed some of the items you’re editing, leading to all sorts of screwy results. Do it now.
- Keep notes
My final piece of advice is to keep notes, especially of all the Stuff Done Flags. It might be tempting to think “Hey, I’ll just have my SDFs correspond to the town #, so I won’t get in trouble.” Won’t work, never does. Keep notes, even if it’s just a check mark next to each SDF you’ve used. Trust me, it’ll save you gigantic headaches!
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