Ruleset, part 1

Hi all, Sherincall here..

Seeing as we haven't been around for a while, it is only fair that we show something good when we come back. That something is our new ruleset. Unfortunately, it is not finished, so we can let you play with it just yet. Until such a time comes (soon!), I'll just give you a quick overview of it.

There are no classes in the Shadows and Silver ruleset: everyone plays as a generic PC class. Sounds dull? Not really. Rather than limiting a character to three strict classes, we allow seamless customization for all character types. If you want to play a sword master who is interested in the arcane, and also obsessed with locks, you needn't be a fighter/wizard/rogue. You will simply increase the skills you want. In order to achieve this, we had to modify most of the skills, and add many new ones. Here are the skills present in the S&S ruleset at the moment:




There will be a detailed explanation for all of the skilled listed above, but for now let's just say that the Arcana skills will be used to perform actions similar to spellcasting in NWN, combat skills will increase your battle prowess, such as attack bonus, armor class, damage and even attacks per round. Most other skills are self-explanatory.

Another novelty to the NWN skill system is that skills can now be progressed without gaining a level. So, if you want to train your marksmanship skill, you can either gather experience and put a point in the skill at level up, or you can pick up a bow and practice. This goes for every skill, and those cross class skills can only be perfected this way.

That's it for now. Next time I will explain how feats work in the new ruleset. After that, you will get a chance to try it for yourselves.. I'm eager to get some feedback.

Rethinking

Well, it's been a while since my last update. That was due to my getting married (woohoo!) and to computer woes which required me to reinstall Windows twice (still not totally fixed, btw). During that time, I've been turning lots of different ideas for the world over in my head.

One of my ideas is to use Project Q instead of the CEP. Q's content is very high quality, and it matches the slightly gritty TNO art style, which means it will go well with the feel I want in the module. On the other hand, it's still in development, which means it'd be a while until I could incorporate its content into my module. I could just build without it for a while, and I have plenty of script work that could be done during that time. Then, too, the CEP content would have to be ripped out of my module, and that's a lot of work, especially considering how much time it took to place it all so carefully in the first place.

After weighing the options, I think I'll go ahead with my idea and plan to use Q. I'll keep the work I've done untouched so if I decide to go ahead with the CEP instead in the future, I can. I won't be able to do as much building while waiting for the Q content to come out. Wait, no. I will be able to do plenty of building, just not as detailed as I was doing before. That may be good, though. It'll mean I'll get more areas set up, flesh out the city, and possibly even start building some of the countryside and adventure zones. I'll also be able to use the time to work more carefully on storyline and conversations, plan some early DM events, and do all the scripting work I've been putting off.

I suppose getting to rebuild things is good. After all, I've wanted to make some changes to the tileset I've been building Midport with (NWAlleys overwrites the Merchant Ship tile group). Then too, I think I haven't been setting the exact tone I wanted for the module. I wanted it to be a bit for cynical and dark and have a greater presence of technology. As it is, you only get a hint that this isn't just any old medieval port. I want to make things more obvious. I want this world to be truly unique, a place where anyone can come and play and say, "Whoa, I've never seen this before." I think that's why I love the cluttered city look, the NPCs with real personality, the flavor text, and the whole idea of the world. It's something I've never seen before (and I doubt anyone else has). I want it to be a breath of fresh air.

Er, wait... there's no fresh air in Midport. :P

The Base, Part 4

In designing the starting city for the players, I need to settle on a few things to flesh it out. So far we've got a city that was near a battleground that has ruined the land, where food is difficult to grow, and where the poor are heavily oppressed and starved by the elite. It's good stylistic information, and you need to have a solid sense of flavor if you want your locations to stand out. But you also need some concrete details, so this time we'll work on that. Ray Winninger suggests several areas to start with:

A local authority:
Any home base needs to be at least somewhat stable. You don't want it being invaded by monsters or constantly having revolutions or wars. at least, not until your player base is sufficiently entrenched in the world to do something about it. Someone needs to keep control. In the case of our home base, we've already decided that whoever runs the place ultimately bows to the Church, so it could be run by the clergy. However, we also know that the local nobles manage to keep food locked away from the masses. Nobility suggests a monarchy. Now, while there is a historical precedent for clergy and monarchy vying for power, that smacks of the Middle Ages, and I want something more modern. Imperialism is closer to the attitudes I imagine people in this world having, so let's use that.

Our city was once part of a large mannish empire that spanned much of the known land. It had spread by conquering feudal territories, and those rules that surrendered peacefully were promoted to high-ranking government offices. Often, this meant oversight of local industry, which was controlled by the state. After the fall of the empire (due to plague and the recent war), many nobles fragmented their lands with war as they tried to carve their own feudal kingdoms from the carcass of the empire. As one of the core provinces, our city was particularly favored by the imperial Church, which worked hard to maintain order. As a result, most of the original government still stands, though lack of oversight by an emperor has allowed the officials to seek their own interests, rather than the good of the state. The government, then, is a small republic which represents the upper class: former imperial officials, wealthy families, and businessmen. Wealth gets you a place in politics, and the purpose of the political system is to maintain the privilege of the elite. The fact that the city is one of the primary trading ports in the old imperial lands means that they make quite a killing.

Who, though, is in charge? I'll settle on a fellow named Albus Engelhardt. Though he comes from a long line of nobles, he's chosen to ally himself with the imperial remnant, preferring his title of Governor to any conferring royalty. My inspiration for him comes from Havelock Vetinari of the Discworld novels. He's ruthless, but smart enough to realize he can't be brutal. As such, he courts the Church, and their charity work helps to pacify the populace. He also maintains efficient control over the republic, guiding policies so that the only entrench him more into power. Also of note in the city are the Harbormaster (who controls the docks and, thus, trade), the Marshal (who commands the city guard), and the Pontifex (the local head of the imperial Church).

That's a major piece of the puzzle, which means we need a secret about the rulers. I'm settling on the fact that Engelhardt has orcish blood in his veins, a fact he keeps quite hidden.

Townsfolk:
A city isn't just composed of rulers. They have to have someone to rule, and these are the people who the players will encounter most often. Where do they live and what do they do? What lifestyle do they have? How many are there?

I already know that the poor are starving wretches. But my more modern civilization suggests there is a rising middle class. I'm going to divide my townsfolk into three groups, then: the upper class (the aforementioned nobles, but also business owners), the middle class (merchants and shopkeepers), and the lower class (factory workers, farmers, and laborers). I know I want my city straddling a river, and this provides the perfect opportunity to split them up. The southern side of the river will be called the Southside, and is largely slums where the poor live. The Upper Side (side the Northside just doesn't sound as neat as Southside) is where the upper and middle class live, though the upper class citizens live in walled communities. The centers of business are located near the docks, so the wealthy either conduct business there or works from their homes through aides. I think my middle class's shops should be located in high-traffic areas such as the major roads and the docks, though there will be a few mingled with the general housing. The slums have plenty of little gardens and street merchants, but most of their work is done in the large factories the slums are centered around. The desperate and criminals slave away at the water treatment plant upriver. All in all, I'd say there's around 70,000 people in this city. There were far more, but many have fled or died because of famine and plague.

What's a secret for this? Those plant workers? Their bodies and minds are often horribly twisted from constant exposure to the toxins in the water, and there are a few communities of crazies scattered throughout the slums.

Shops:
Players need to buy things, and NPCs need to make money to survive. The lower class is likely to be more self-sufficient than the upper and middle class, since these two groups often specialize in their labor types. This means you'll generally find more shops in the richer quarters, and the shops will be more specialized the more wealthy those living in the location are. what types of things are for sale? What is the place known for? What is rare and in high demand? What is worthless?

Since factories are common in this city, we'll say there's plenty of manufactured goods. Metal implements are likely sold by large businesses, and they'll likely be cheaper than hand-made ones. Still, in a city like ours, crime is probably high, so basic weapons are likely to be easily obtainable. You'll be hard-pressed to find heavy armor or martial weapons here, though; those are banned by the government unless you have a licence. Wooden or cloth items are likely to be made by the general populace, though. I'm going to imagine that fine clothing, food, and books and other intellectual pursuits will be marks of wealth in this city. Local food is probably limited to bread, fish, and bland vegetables, so meat, spices, and fruit are likely to be hot commodities. I'm going to have some fun here and take a page from Firefly: some manufacturing companies have managed to synthesize proteins and combine them with high-density carbohydrates and other nutrients into bland but relatively nutritious food, sort of like protein bars. Everyone hates it, but it's cheap.

As for a secret here, I'm deciding that there's a thriving black market located in the sewers and slums. If you have the money, you can get some exquisite goods; but these are often stolen from nobles or the Church.

Temples:
Religion needs a place in most towns. Especially when people are as bad off as they are in Shadows & Silver, people need an opiate. Here, the Church fills this need. As the only sanctioned religion, it has small chapels and shrines scattered throughout the city. In the poor quarters, the chapels often are centers of charitable work, and soup kitchens are common. In the richer areas, they serve mostly to receive donations and prey on the rich's guilt over their oppression of the poor. The local pontifex makes his abode at a grand cathedral on an island in the middle of the river (which is where I'm also putting the seat of government).

Other religions are not as common as the Church of the Archons, but their cults do exist. Clergy of the Elemental Tides and the Fae Courts find their greatest supporters among the poor, who seek a change in the status quo. While the Church does not actively oppose these religions, their followers are often seen as troublemakers and are rarely trusted. Here's a secret: demon- and devil-worshippers are found most often in the wealthy sectors, where it has become vogue to dabble in black arts forbidden by the Church.

A fantastic element:
This is a fantasy, so we need something fantastic to distinguish the place and make it stand out in the minds of the players. I'm going to make this a secret about the city: some of the populace in the poorer quarters are afflicted with lycanthropy. On nights of the full moon, they roam the shadowy alleys. Their existence has never been proven, since the Church works behind the scenes to exterminate them. Gruesome killings are reported fairly often, though these are usually attributed to local gangs.

Alright, that's a lot of good stuff. But one thing is still bothering me: I don't have a name for my city. I've thought for a long time and think I've finally settled on one: Midport. I'm thinking it'll have been named for the island port in the middle of the river, which is now called Midport Proper. Sounds good!

So now I've got plenty of good solid details about Midport. How about some screenshots? The following pictures are made using the Gothic City and CC City Exterior tilesets, available on the NWVault. I think I like the Gothic City look better, since it's darker. It also feels more modern than the medieval-esque CC City Exterior shots. All of them are devoid of placeables and NPCs, though I went ahead and put some doors in so they didn't look too odd. Look at 'em and tell me what you think. First the Gothic City...






And now the CC City Exterior...







Next time we'll work some on the world at the national level. Until then, enjoy the screenshots!

The Base, Part 3

One of the keys to designing a world is to never force yourself to design more than is necessary. This, according to Dungeon Magazine's Ray Winninger, is the first rule of Dungeoncraft. Enthusiastic world builders often get bogged down in unnecessary details, such as weather patterns, monetary exchange rates, and the correct orcish insult to use when addressing your mother-in-law. Just as often, we design massive civilizations with hundreds of cities, each of which we try to map down to the last bakery, or try to generate a fifty-god pantheon. Players really don't care about your lovingly crafted world nearly as much as you do, and if your force all these details on them, they're going to be bored. Granted, players want to see that you've put time and effort into your world, and enthusiastic role-players may look for as many juicy bits of lore as they can. But the majority of your players want to go have fun adventures in your world. Your job as a world builder, then, is to give them the opportunity to do this.

At minimum, a game world should contain two things: an adventure site and a place where players can rest, sell loot, and buy equipment. Usually, the place where they rest is where they will start in the game. It makes the most sense, really, as it gives the players a chance to stock up on equipment so they don't get slaughtered in their first adventure. The ideal location for a home base like this is a city where all the PCs needs are met... if they have enough money. A home base also needs to have adventure hooks so players have a reason to go out and kill things and take their stuff (something that's all too lacking in many of the modules I've played).

But even going around killing things and taking their stuff gets old after a while. You'll want to keep plenty of things around for the players to do. This means having plenty of quests, new things to discover and, of course, more things to kill. You don't want to design all these new things up front, though. Remember the first rule of Dungeoncraft: never force yourself to design more than you need. What you do design, though, should have lots of hook-ins for you to later expand your world. Mr. Winninger thus states the second rule of Dungeoncraft: Whenever you design a major piece of your world, make some secret to go along with it. That can be just a bit of lore that changes how people would see your world (or, at least, that aspect of it) if they knew it.

You don't want everything to be a big, jumbled mess, though. Everything should flow together logically. Your players may not have all the details as to why things are the way they are, but you should, and everything should make sense from your omniscient viewpoint. I'm going to create a third rule of Dungeoncraft, then: everything you design should make sense in the context of the whole world.

Let's start building my world, then, by thinking up a home base. In accordance with Rule 3, I want a place that embodies many of the themes of the world. This will help the players to understand right away what kind of world Shadows & Silver is. My first inclination, then, is to make it a city, one that reeks of the problems of modernization. I've already talked about wanting to have natural disaster and famine play a part in the daily struggle for survival that so many face, so we'll start by supposing this city was one of many battle grounds for a fairly recent war that destroyed much of the terrain. The ground no longer supports hardy crops, and the water has become poisonous. That's some war! Well, in accordance with Rule 3, we've got to make it make sense. Why do people still live here if it's so bad? The obvious answer would be that the rest of the known world has gotten so bad that this is simply one of the best places to be. But how do they get their sustenance? I've long imagined that the city straddles a river at the mouth of an ocean, and a ways upstream they've built a large facility that purifies the water. It does this, of course, at a cost of high air pollution. But it's more important to have drinkable water than clean air, right? This is a great example of people turning to technology to answer problems technology caused, all the while making things worse. I'll also suppose that the city itself wasn't the site of the battle. No, that was further upriver, and all the fallout washes downstream. It's soured the soil, but the treatment plant is slowly allowing things to return to normal... except its air pollution makes crops suffer, so there's a limit to how well crops grow.

So what I have here is a sort of environmental hook. Our city is a place where people find it very difficult to get anything to eat. Because of where it's situated, it's probably a trading hub, since it can send ships up and down the coast as well as up and down the river. This means it can also likely get food by trade, but that food is bound to be expensive, especially if other lands are having similar troubles. What does that imply about the nature of the city? Well, it gives me an opportunity for a classic rich vs. poor conflict. The rich hoard all the food while the poor starve.

Okay, Rule 2 demands we make some secrets to go with the major pieces we've put together. Now, I don't want to make anything too spoiler-ish here, in case future players of my module are reading this, but I suppose it's necessary if I want to show the build process in action. I expect that no future players will use this information to metagame.

There's three major pieces I've shown so far: a major war that devastated the countryside, a water treatment facility, and rich people hogging all the food. The first one, I think, is that this huge war was instigated by industrial corporations hoping to profit from selling war machines to the government. That may not be much of a secret. I imagine that, while plenty of people have a patriotic streak and think that their country was justified in whatever war it entered, many are cynical and see no gain from the war. Oh, and we'll also say they lost (as may be guessed from the devastation caused to the countryside). The second one is fun, too. The corporation that owns the treatment facility is one of those that instigated the war. All lands watered by this river now have to pay them as much as they want unless they want their people to be horribly poisoned from the fallout. The one about the poor people starving: no matter how little food they receive, they still manage to catch enough fish to survive. How they can catch anything reasonable in the still somewhat poisoned water, though... well, I'll hang onto that one. I've got a wicked idea that will probably become one of my adventures on down the line.

So now I've got a great start for my home city, some neat hooks to tie future plot lines into, and some basic conflicts. We need an adventure hook, though. How's this: the other party in the big war was an alliance of orc tribes, which took up residence in the spoiled parts of the land. They're hardy enough to survive in those places, but they're spreading. The local authority wants them pushed back. This suggest an adventure area where you get to fight orcs. It's not because the orcs are evil that the authority wants them driven out; it's because they have something he wants.

Which leads me to a secret: the spoiled land isn't worth much in its present condition, so the argument that the land only wants its territory back is a weak one. I decide that there's something of incredible value in that territory that civilized leaders want badly enough to risk war to get. I don't know what it is yet, but that's okay. If they told anyone, there would be a risk that the orcs would find out and they'd start looking for it. No, instead, they just pay top dollar for any magic items brought back, regardless of what they are. I'll further suppose that it's not the ruler of this city but the head of the Church that wants them, and he's only told the local nobles that he wants any magic items that are found. Oh, and magic items have been declared contraband by the Church anyway, so anyone caught using them is committing a crime. Turning them over to the Church and getting paid is better than rotting in a jail cell any day.

Great start! Next time we'll tackle some more of the specifics of the world like government. In the meantime, I'll keep working on building so I've got some more good screenies of home base.

The Base, Part 2(ish)

I'm currently beating my head up against a wall. After spending days working on my XP system and Reputation system (and, by the way, getting only about three hours of sleep a night), I have about 4000 lines of code, none of which work the way I want. I can't nail down what the systems are even doing, much less where they are messing up. I'm tired of looking at code, but I don't want to get up until I fix the damn thing. I suppose I'll go pour myself a stiff drink and try to cool off.

As important as scripting is, that's not all there is to building a persistent world. You've also got to have areas, and building areas is Casa's strong point, not mine. Nevertheless, I thought I'd show a couple of scribbles of my own to show the direction I'm planning on taking my world. Shown are a couple of the intro areas: the jail cell the PC wakes up in, and a shot of home base.

It's not much, and it's practically devoid of placeables right now. But it does give a general idea of how the world will look. Dark, gritty, and ominous. I think proper lighting will play a large part in the design, as will strategic use of placeables to make everything look dirty and cluttered. This gets my creative juices flowing. I'm not great at building beautiful areas, but I can definitely think up how things should look based on an artistic style.

Next time I'll start outlining the layout of the land, especially home base, the city where the PCs will likely spend most of their time.

The Base, Part 1

Casa laments in one of his first posts the difficulty of creating a base for a world, and he's spot on. The problem when making a persistent world is that you can't simply start building and expect it to work well. Remember one of the points in my last post: coherent design. If you want everything to flow together, you have to design it that way, and that means building a solid foundation for everything else to stand on.

What composes a foundation? Well, if you're designing a persistent world, you've obviously got to have a persistency system. You'll need to keep track of things like whether players have completed important quests, joined a guild, rented a room in an inn, and so on. You also need to prevent exploits, such as players logging out to avoid death or to regenerate spells. NWN allows you to set persistent variables on items, but what if something gets set by mistake? You want to have the ability to edit or delete any persistent information you store on a character, so the ideal thing would be a database. So then you need to design a way for your scripts to talk to a database and reliably get the information you need. NWNX fills this need, but the included scripts are really only a start; you need to customize it heavily to get any real use out of them

And what about XP? Players want to be able to gain experience, and the default system is certainly not built for PWs, which usually call for slow level advancement. And what do you do about high-level PCs teaming up with low-level PCs to get better XP? How about spawn camping, where players sit and kill the same thing over and over?

How do you design treasure drops? What about encounters? Crafting? Do you want any of those "realistic" systems like hunger and thirst that so many PWs have? How are you going to make them all work together and not be a mish-mash of random junk?

When builders realise just how much work goes into designing a PW, they often throw up their hands in despair and just drop the project. I made a commitment to myself early on that I was going to put as much effort into this world as was necessary to get it to meet my vision, and that it wouldn't be just another project that I get excited about and then put up on the shelf a month later. It was about this time last year that Casa and I started planning on how to build our awesome PW (and I'm suprised that both of us are still excited and producing stuff). He decided to focus on the building while I went to learn how to use NWNX, MySQL, and NWScript. We've both finally got something to show for it, but a lot of work remains ahead.

I settled on the Hardcore Ruleset as my method for tying all the various systems of the PW together. While it's mostly known for systems that allow permadeath or keep your characters from resting more than once a day, the core system doesn't enforce any of these. Mostly, it's just there to let you run multiple scripts on a single event so you can easily mesh plenty of systems together. It also comes with a decent and customizable persistency system that you can modify based on the type of database you use. Even better, the scripts are carefully designed to be self-documenting and follow a careful naming convention. I adopted both of these practices, and every system I've designed for my base I've designed to work with HCR2. I've also expanded a lot of HCR2's functionality, such as allowing hook-in scripts for creature and placeable events, rather than just the default module and area events.

To this, I'm adding plenty of custom systems:

• A custom XP system with class-based rewards
• Persistent reputations with NPCs and factions
• Persistent quests and journal entries
• Persistent chests and banking
• A D&D 4th Edition-style resting system
• A D&D 4th Edition-style bleeding and death system
• A cut scene system
• A crafting system
• An inn room rental system
• A whole new magic system (yes, you heard that right)
• And a whole lot more

So yes, it's a lot of work. But with the foundation built, it's coming together quickly.

Game Design Basics

Before you jump into designing a game, it's important to know what you want yourself and others to get out of it. If you start building without a purpose, then, when you finally have settled on a purpose, you have a bunch of unrelated junk that doesn't at all promote the actions and attitudes you want. That said, what do I want in my game?

1. Fun. Entertainment is the chief value of a game. Sure, it may be thought-provoking and challenging, but it's got to be enjoyable first and foremost. Games that are not fun do not keep players. For me, I get most of my fun out of role-playing, but there's other ways to have fun, too. Some people like wasting monsters, some like gaining recognition, and others just like discovering the game world. Often, players are a mix of the three. Thus, all three of these play styles should be catered to in order to keep the majority of people happy.
2. Solid gameplay. I've seen many games that, while they've got lots of complex systems in place to ensure realism, lack any sort of gameplay. Often, that means they stick players into a sandbox type of game where they've got bunches of rules to obey but few clearly defined goals. No, you don't need to have every step in the game planned out for the player, but you should always give him something new and fun to do. Gameplay, in my mind, boils down to these things:
   
   • Clearly defined objectives: the player should never be left scratching his brain to figure out what to do next. Giving the player free reign over his actions doesn't mean you can't point out the way for the newbies.
   • Opportunity for advancement: so often I see persistent worlds where the owners think XP is something evil. On the contrary, building your character up in power is fun, and, if the game is fun, it will give you opportunities to do so.
   • Chance for adventure: Neverwinter Nights is a game of adventure, and most of the characters your player will create will be adventurers, like it or not. This means you need to allow your players to experience a sense of wonder and excitement. That doesn't always mean slashing up monsters (though that's a part of it). It also means giving them new and exciting places to explore, challenges to overcome, and limits to push past.
   • Coherent design: this is my other big beef with so many PWs I've seen. There's a huge mish-mash of cultures that don't fit into a realistic world, and there's an equally dissatisfying mix of gameplay mechanics. Often the mechanics are there for "realism," but, again, there's no rhyme or reason to what's being made realistic. Why force me to have food in my pack to rest for the night? Do they think no one has ever gone hungry for the night? Realism is useful, but any game mechanic should not be in place to ensure realism but, rather, to ensure fun. That is, after all, the point of a game.
   • Immersion: I would much rather play in a world where it felt like a real place but there were no nifty features than one where there were plenty of flashy gimmicks but nothing to draw you in. Fantasy gaming is about cultivating a sense of wonder, and that's one of the things that makes it so fun. Give a world I can lose myself in, and I'll be happy forever.
3. Something new. Tried and true is good, but if I was wanting the same thing I can get anywhere else, why am I coming here? A game should give its players an experience they just can't get anywhere else. Whether that means storyline or character classes or just the visual style, you've got to have something the players haven't seen before to grab their attention. But you've also got to be careful to have real substance and not just flashy gimmicks.
4. Improvements. A game designer has the luxury of being able to look back at past games and see why they worked and why not. He then has the duty to do his absolute best to improve the game in every way he can and to thus give his players a better experience. Don't just copy what worked for others. Figure out why it worked and make it work even better.
5. Art. Some people throw things together, while others take the time to really give it their all and put some serious creativity into it. Casa is one of the latter. I've never seen an area he designed that didn't thrill me. Aesthetic appeal helps create a sense of immersion that sucks you into the game and won't let go. And it's not just visual appeal that does it. I've seen NWN modules that stood out to me because of the great dialogue and the carefully developed plot lines. But art doesn't just mean aesthetic appeal; it also conveys a certain depth of feeling and expression. I've spent so much time in this blog talking about the importance of theme because saying something deeply meaningful is important to me. I want to make a deep world.

Well, that gives you a bit of a glimpse into what I want from this world. We'll get more specific next time.