Simple Innovations

By Terror's Martyr

I've made no real shortage of scenarios, and while I'm not the greatest innovator by any stretch of the word, I still think I have a few ideas that designers should incorporate into their scenarios. Here's a list of them:

* Unlocking Portculli?
In Yada Yada II, Alcritas proposed that alternate door graphics be made with little "I"s at the bottom-right corner as seen in the editor to alert the party that the door cannot be unlocked. I have an easier idea that every designer can manage: Edit terrains 128, 145 and 160 so that they are no longer Unlockable/Unbashable. You can change their names to "Sealed Door" if you want as well. I haven't seen many scenarios that use the "Unlock/Lock Terrain" node, and I suspect that it will not happen in the near future. While the "I" tells the party that the door cannot be unlocked, it looks sorta strange. The "Wrong terrain type." message or the lack of the Pick/Bash/Leave dialog box would indicate to the party that the door cannot be unlocked just as well, and it would avoid aesthetic glitches. You can also remove the Unlockable/Unbashable ability from portculli, since the party clearly won't be unlocking portculli either.

* Quest List
As far as I know, Bandits II: Ballad of the Red Star (which, BTW, is bereft of both Bandits and Ballads) is the only scenario to have a Quest List. If you don't plan on having a billion keys or special items in your scenario, then somewhere half-way down the scenario list, make a special item called "----". This is the partition between the "normal" special items list and the Quest List. Have a special item called "Current Quests:" below the "----". Set both of these items as "Party starts scen. with item". As you progress in your scenario and begin creating sidequests, just create corresponding items below the "Current Quests:" special item. If you're a purist, have a concise description of the quest as the special item's description. Give the special item to the party when they receive the quest, and take it from them when the quest is successfully completed. Bandits II didn't profit much from this innovation due to its linearity, but it could really help scenarios with many sidequests that need to be kept track of.

* Morphing Dungeon
This is fairly useless and was only used once (and in Echoes to boot!), but it's interesting. The gist of it is that each time a dungeon is entered, it is different from the previous time for a certain number of times. This took me many under-appreciated hours of work to do so I won't jot down every single node I used, but if you want to find where I did it, fly west from 18,24 in the northwestern-most outdoors section in Echoes. The first time the party enters the dungeon, they are assaulted by undead. The next time, different rooms are accessible and the party teleports out by different means. Each time, blank rooms are filled with objects and different rooms are connected, also bypassing Magic Map in the process. It's not really worth using, but took me way too long to make, and I'm going to make sure that it doesn't go unsung.

* "Alternate" Dungeon (aka "Welcome to the Twilight Zone")
In Corporeus, I wanted to make an interesting dungeon, so I made a two-dimension dungeon. What does this mean? This means that the dungeon existed in two "dimensions". I used only a few terrain types in the "real" dungeon, and then created alternate, corresponding terrains for the "alternate" dungeon. I gave the party a special item that could be used to travel between the two dungeons. Essentially, the special item swapped the "real" set of terrain with the "fake" set. I used somewhere around 12 terrains in the "real" dungeon, so I created 12 "alternate" terrains. The trick was, however, some doors/gates that were open in the "real" dungeon were closed in the "alternate" dungeon, and vice-versa. If you can find a good reason to use this trick, then I would probably use it if I were you- perhaps the entire dungeon is a giant elevator? The ideas for two dungeons are endless, and you don't really have to swap all of the terrains.

* Leveling NPCs
In Bandits II, I made lots and lots of NPCs, so I couldn't use this innovation. I sorta-used leveling NPCs in Echoes, but the entire scenario was off-kilter, my execution of this technique included therein. The trick of it is that you have a certain number of NPCs acquired through various means, and they grow in ability throughout the scenario. You can have this so that all creatures in your scenario call a special node on death that increases the virtual EXP of your NPCs causing them to level up at a certain point, or you can have all NPCs automatically level up after a major boss fight. The former requires a great amount of planning beforehand, including creating replicas of all monsters you want summoned. (If you forget to do this, a player can feasibly summon creatures and kill them to give his NPCs levels- ouch!) Node limitations means that you'll either have to keep your NPCs or possible levels gained minimal, but using this in a scenario gives an extra sense of realism to your NPCs.

* Item Augmentation
One day, I was inspired by Avernum 3 and decided to try making myself an item augmentation platform just like it. Since that day, I have successfully made it, and accidentally forgot to save it when transferring from one computer to another. Drat. In this version, there were two possible augmentations- Magical and Physical. The augmentation platforms were in their own town (connected by stairways to the starting town) and required a magic rune or energy stone or something of that nature (you can be creative here). I used katana's item-less bladbase and created 10 default types of weapons. Then, I created the types of weapons with Magical augmentation. I created the Physically augmented weapons, and then the weapons with both. All in all, I had 40 weapon types based on 10 default types. If you actually pull this off, you have my deepest respect and condolences. I may just make a scenario with one augmentation type, although the incredible difficulty of doing things the way I tried calls the law of diminished returns into effect- sometimes, innovations that are this difficult may just not be worth it.

* Never-ending Flight
In Echoes, there is a special item called Mysterious Wings. Whenever the party uses these wings, they are given 10 flying, and a SDF is set to 1. Every 10 turns, a scenario node is called. If the SDF is set to 1 by the Mysterious Wings, the party is given 1 flying. I'm not exactly sure how the mechanics of the flying node work (since 1 as a value in the flying node calls more than 10 turns of flying, whereas 10 as a value causes approximately 10 rounds), but the end result is that the party can fly anywhere without ever having to land. You will have to take abuses of this ability into account when designing your scenario, but it can open many opportunities- imagine flying over an entire army, or placing hidden dungeons all over the mountains. The downside of this is that the party will have to pause for a while in order to land- I'm not entirely sure how one would avoid this. Nevertheless, it's a neat innovation that I'm surprised has not shown up earlier.

* Regulating Speed/Bless
Keeping in mind that the maximum and minimum for speed/bless values in Blades are 8 and -8 respectively, one can "regulate" the party's status in a scenario. For instance, in Emulations, the party fights Ramahl. I wanted the fight to be moderately challenging (and it ended up being so to the point where I also suggested to Stareye that the party should be *allowed* to lose), so I gave him the idea of "resetting" the party's status effects before the fight. One key strategy of Blades players is to bless/haste before a major fight. If you take this away, then most Blades players will have a much harder time of it. To "reset" a party's speed, raise their speed by 16; Blades will cap off speed at 8 and -8, so regardless of which value it is before the node, it becomes 8. Then, reduce it by 8. The party's speed will be 0, and any hasting they would have given themselves would be gone. Alternatively, one can ensure that the party is never hasted throughout the entire fight by raising the party's speed by 8. If it is at 0 or lower, it will go to 8 or below. If the party raises their speed that turn to a value above 0, then raising speed by 8 will "cap" the speed off at 8 regardless. After this, lower speed by 8. If the party's speed before the node was greater than 0, then their haste spells are negated. If the party's speed before the node was less than 0, then their speed stays where it was. Keep in mind, of course, that this strategy is nothing but devious and should only be used in tricky circumstances.
(Note! In Blades of Avernum, a stat's maximum is 250, and this technique can then be used accordingly.)

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