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New Scenarios in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #19
What, you mean not everyone in the world is thinking about me all the time when they talk? I've been misled all my life...

Seriously, though, when I said
quote:
And I'm assuming that the second comment was not directed at me, seeing as that I already *have* BoE and appreciate its wonderfulness.
I meant it literally.

And it seemed like
quote:
1) Some may be ported, but the more complex (and better) they are, the more difficult it will be and the less likely it will happen.

was a direct (and somewhat empty, which should've been my clue that it wasn't) response to
quote:
Is anyone planning to port anything?
I assume TM will make a new scenario or two or fifteen, although he didn't directly say that. Who else not already mentioned has one in the works? (I really DON'T want this to become a discussion of porting, because then my original question will be completely forgotten.)

[ Wednesday, March 24, 2004 08:25: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Bye-Bye Damage Cap in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #1
It's really screwing with my playing style. I had become gradually more and more magic-based through the Avernum Trilogy, and now I'm finding my mage characters to be mostly useless. Now that bless and haste cost so much to cast, I'm forced to beef up my fighter's innate skills. But since Divine Warrior bit the dust after A2, Priest Spells are seeming less appetizing, with Healing the only one left that seems really worthwhile to cast often. And since agressive spells don't damage nearly as much as they did in the previous Avernums and cost a LOT more, Mage Spells also seem less useful.

I guess I really could go singleton rather than duo in BoA, something I could never even consider in the trilogy. With one warrior who was able to cast a few spells, I'd be fine.

I feel dissatisfied with the way that combat works right now in BoA, but maybe I'll get used to it. I was annoyed with combat in the beginning of A3, too, but I ended up loving it by the end of the game.

I had a plan for scripting a monster that liked to stand back and cast Slow on the party over and over again while they were fighting some other monsters. With the new spell system, this seems like it would give the party an even greater challenge than I had originally intended.

P.S. 100th post! Woo hoo! Citizen of Exile!

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Who or what is, or was, Alcritas? in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #9
I think all the old SW posts on that election are deleted now, but the Lyceum still has a few side-discussions of it. I just found this today: shameless campaigning .

EDIT: my bad, Creator.

[ Wednesday, March 24, 2004 08:03: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM, newly updated to v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
New Scenarios in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #16
I'm not saying that they should ... I'm just wondering if anyone will ...

Clearly the answer is no, which is probably as it should be. Pity that Jeff designed that capability, then.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
New Scenarios in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #14
Well, heh, Creator, I know that. I was asking if anyone specific was going to port anything specific. Like, say, TM's response, that he may port RoR. (And as I refer to my newbie notes, I see that RoR stands for... Roses of Reckoning.) I meant, say, are YOU planning to port Revenge (or any of your others), or is Stareye likely to port AtG (or any of his others), or Alcritas to port Falling Stars (or any of his others), or anything like that.

My guess is no, but I was just wondering.

And I'm assuming that the second comment was not directed at me, seeing as that I already *have* BoE and appreciate its wonderfulness.

EDIT: come to think of it, Stareye would have to be slightly insane to port AtG. That scenario is HUGE, is it not?

[ Tuesday, March 23, 2004 15:35: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Who or what is, or was, Alcritas? in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #2
The Lyceum's Hall of Fame entry

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM, newly updated to v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
New Scenarios in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #10
Is anyone planning to port anything? I mean, granted, it would be nice to see some new ideas, but we do have the capability in the editor, limited as it is. Some of the BoE scenarios out there might be worth it.

Presumably porting will be more worthwhile in a year or two, when people are more often buying BoA without buying BoE.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Spiderweb Newbie Looking to Find a Good RPG to Begin With in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #26
It will inspire a lot of scenarios, but *good* ones? Using BoE as a reference, about half a dozen of the scenarios that placed in the first contest are still regarded as "good" scenarios. The top winners had other scenarios out, too: Tarl Kudrick had one, and Brett Bixler did, too. All in all, by the time of the first scenario contest, maybe ten really solid scenarios had been released. (Come to think of it, the community has averaged about ten good scenarios a year since then, too. We have 64 rated 7.0 or above on the Lyceum's CSR.) So I wouldn't expect a flood of great scenarios in the first year so much as just a handful of good ones, followed the next year by another handful of good ones, and so on.

Bottom line: buy both BoE and BoA. IMAGE(tongue01.gif)

[ Tuesday, March 23, 2004 07:35: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
New Scenarios in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #0
So who's got a scenario in the works that should be done soon? And approximately how soon (days, weeks, months) will it be done? (And I am looking at the beta-testers, who had such a big head start on the rest of us....)

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Languages of the World in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #50
Oh, for crying out loud, just when I think I have a handle on what the heck everyone's talking about...

The most *logical* one based on the histories? Where, perchance, does the Ironclad dynasty appear in the games? And about a million other things, too. That was the issue that I was discussing about a three weeks ago in this thread. I would like to know where this stuf comes from, and what basis it has in the games (usually: none).

[ Friday, March 19, 2004 07:17: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Bosses in VotDT? in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #1
I'm tellin' you... go duo... so much easier...

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Slowness in BoA in Tech Support
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #0
Is anyone else experiencing UNBELIEVABLE lag in BoA? It's making it hard for me to move around... and the animations (hitting things, things dying) are taking forever. Anything that can be done about this?

EDIT: nm, I just quit and restarted. Now I have no other applications running and it seems to be fine.

[ Thursday, March 18, 2004 18:32: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Languages of the World in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #48
I had the same reaction, Captain Uglyhead, as you can read in my earlier posts in this thread. Two words: The Arena . More importantly, the link at the top of the 2nd page of this topic, The Encyclopedia Ermaria , a VERY incomplete summary of [EDIT: of god knows what, based on Drakey's comment]. And yeah, they made most of this stuf up (although it is never, so far as I've found, outright inconsistent with the games). For other historical discussion, see the Slith Homeland thread from a short while back, Drakefyre's Demesne , and many of the other links sprinkled around in people's signatures and this site.

[ Friday, March 19, 2004 07:04: Message edited by: Kelandon ]

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Let's all drool all over ourselves... in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #0
It's finally out! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

So cool.

This is the topic where we can all freak out and be happy that BoA was finally released. As of today, 3/18/04, a new era in the Blades community and probably in the whole Spiderweb community begins.

I am SOOOOO way excited it's not even funny.

*celebrates*

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Suicide in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #97
While we mentioned religion... some religious people commit suicide because they feel completely overwhelmed with their own sin. Like an anorexic person about his/her weight, the amount of sin actually involved is irrelevant; the person may be nearly a saint in everday life and do very little wrong, but those few little things seem overwhelming. Or the person may be a sinner in every sense of the word. It doesn't really matter. It's the fact of the obsession with sin that is more important than the degree of sin itself.

I think it is this that makes some religious people commit suicide, this feeling of being so sinful that one is completely lost to the mercy of whatever divinity in which one believes.

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Massive army combat? in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #9
quote:
Or will I just have to pepper the dungeons with healing potions to help keep the player from dieing horribly?
That's kind of what Jeff does in the Avernums. In a really long dungeons with no way out, he hides a cache of healing and energy potions in a secret passage somewhere, ideally in a place where a monster might realistically keep such things.

Or you could just hint to the player that the party may be stuck down there for a while ("You feel the ground shaking beneath you, as if it might give way at any second" a few steps before a trap springs that drops them down into a cave from which they must fight to escape) so that the player can know to regenerate spell points and grab potions if s/he hasn't already.

Or you can have one-time healing from altars and such, another favorite of Jeff's.

Or you could allow the player a way out of the dungeon so that the party can regenerate periodically.

Or... well, there are many options.

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Spiderweb Newbie Looking to Find a Good RPG to Begin With in General
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #7
I recommend starting with Avernum 1 (A1). You don't *need* to know the plotline from A1 to play A2 or A3, but I think it's better to play A1 first. And don't listen to these Exile freaks: Avernum is way better. IMAGE(tongue00.gif) Nethergate isn't widely liked (although I like it a lot), so your odds of liking it are lower than the Avernum series. Geneforge is also great, but more conversation around here centers around the Exile/Avernum plotlines.

So yeah. The best places to start are A1 (beginning of Avernum/Exile plot), A2 (probably the most-liked game), or G1 (beginning of Geneforge series).

And by all means download all the demos. They're huge and you could spend many hours just playing through them alone.

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Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!! (The home of BoA's HLPM, newly updated to v1.1!)

Rate my scenarios!
Northern Kingdom 0: Prologue
High Level Party Maker
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Languages of the World in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #43
Because *I* care, even though it seems like no one else does...

I actually went back to verify Custer's remark that Valorim is roughly the size of California. I started at Krizsan in A3 and waited for a day change. Then I walked to Blackcrag Fortress (on foot, without horses). It took almost precisely a day. This is how I would analyze that on Earth: assuming we're walking for 24 hours straight with no breaks, which evidently our heroes do, at a fairly strenuous forced march, so say about 6-7 mph, that gives a total length of about 150 miles. That's TINY. But Drakey's right: Ermarian's days may not be the same as Earth days. Venus, for example, is about the same size as Earth (slightly smaller ) but it has much, MUCH longer days.

However, there's a signpost outside of Blackcrag that says the fortress is 25 miles to the north. (And I reject the suggestion that miles are different... this is an English word that is invariant in meaning across all fields of study, unless you're talking about nautical miles, which don't really count :P , rather than "day," which in astronomy just means the rotational cycle of whatever planet you happen to be on.) The entrance to Blackcrag is 12 steps to the north (slightly farther, because some of the steps are diagonal). This leads me to believe that each outdoor step is 2 miles. I counted the number of steps in each outdoor section and came up with 48 by 48. Then I counted length and width of Valorim, and it's 10 by 7 outdoor sections. That would make it (10*48*2) 960 miles long and (7*48*2) 672 miles wide, for a total of 645120 square miles.

However, near Lorelei, the sign east of Bengaro says that Bengaro is 30 miles west when its entrance is 11 steps west. It says Dellston is 60 miles south when it is 41 steps south. It seems pretty clear that Jeff didn't intend to be consistent in terms of space and time. But let's figure each outdoor tile to be 2-3 miles by 2-3 miles, because most of the distances roughly agree with that. 3 miles gives Valorim the an area of (161280 tiles * 9 square miles per tile) 1.45 million square miles. We might as well assume that it's as big as reasonable based on the numbers, because it's a continent.

So I conclude that Valorim is about 1-1.5 million square miles. For reference, California is 156,000 square miles in area, Alaska 656,000 (from this site). Australia is, if I'm not mistaken, about 3 million square miles, India around 1.2 million.

So, bottom line: I think Valorim could be approximated at about the size of a small Earth plate, like India.

P.S. I have looked for the place where A3 mentions the other continents and their respective sizes, but I haven't found it yet. I seem to recall it describing one of the other continents -- Pralgrad, I think -- as "enormous," presumably significantly larger than Valorim, so maybe the size of North America. Also I'm guessing that Ermarian days are significantly longer than Earth days, maybe six or seven times longer (for 950 miles traversed in one day, rather than 150).

--------------------
Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Monsters resetting in BoE in Tech Support
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #3
No, it's offical: I hate the Exile engine.

That's okay. I think the Nethergate/Avernum engine is outstanding.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Monsters resetting in BoE in Tech Support
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #0
I'm trying to play VoDT, and the monsters in the dungeons keep coming back to life. I kill a bunch of monsters, go back to town, heal up and spend my gold, come back, and voila! Same monsters that I already killed are now attacking me. Now, maybe I'm just a stupid Avernum user, but when I kill monsters, I expect them to STAY DEAD. Is this not true of the Exile series? Is something going wrong? Do people know what I'm talking about?

If it matters, I'm running Mac OS 10.2.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
On Thud and Blunder in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #2
Designer's Forum... this sounds familiar, but all I can find is a thing called the Scenario Design Workshop. Is this what you mean? Because if so, only about a quarter of the Articles and Examples section is still relevant to BoA. Stuf like Custom Items Graphics Problems won't really apply... I assume we're writing new stuf for BoA, though, and that will go up somewhere soon too.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Languages of the World in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #36
I'm thinking Valorim is to Pralgrad kind what India is to Asia, only an even greater size difference.

You're right: there's no real (non-Eurocentric) way to define Europe as a continent without making any peninsula a continent. In terms of plate tectonics, it is part of the Eurasian plate, which India is not a part of -- it is its own plate.

So we might just assume that Valorim is a tiny continent beginning to collide with a much more massive one.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Sylak Items in Nethergate
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #5
In any case, it is the same link as at the top of the Nethergate forum. Either of them (to Schrodinger and Zeviz or to TM) will do, as both sites have the same Sylak items list.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
Developer's Update (March, 2004) in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #11
I think he meant, what does it mean to have a damage cap? What does it do?

The damage cap puts a limit on the amount of damage one hit can do. So, let's say your level 50 fighter wielding a Black Halberd hits a goblin and assassinates the bejeesus out of it. You might normally do 1500 damage to the wimpy little goblin. A damage cap of 199 (as I believe we had in A3; it was lower in A1 and A2) means that the 1500 damage is reduced to 199 (or usually something like 197 or 194 or something -- if someone knows how that works, I'd be interested to know). A damage cap of 999 means you can't do more than 999 damage in one hit.

This is all guesswork based on playing the games. If someone else has better info than me, feel free to correct me.

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00
On Thud and Blunder in Blades of Avernum
Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
Profile Homepage #0
For prospective scenario designers, I really like this article . It was written about fantasy stories, not Blades scenarios, but I think most of it applies to what we're doing, too, and deserves some thinking. The whole site is good (click on "Writing" at the bottom of the page), too, although not as directly related to our interests.

Any thoughts on this article? Responses? Other articles that are good?

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Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens.
Smoo: Get ready to face the walls!
Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr.

Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me
The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever
Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00

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