I am about to try to write a new adventure. The "plot" goes somewhat
like this:
Planet EAMON is in the midst of a World War II/Cold War era. The Mal
Rojo Empire is starting to take over innocent countries. One of them
is the Eamon Republic, home of the EAMON Adventurer's Guild. When
General Zuchowksi of the EAG heard about this, they decided to see if
there was any truth to the legend of the Islas del Sorpresa.
Legend says that these islands, which lie in the Muerte Sea, have
never been reached before. The Muerte Sea has also never been
successfully crossed. Rumors say that this is because of dragon and
sea monster attacks. Nobody dares go across the sea. However, the
islands, according to the legend, contain three objects (just what is
not known), that if correctly used, can be used to control any human.
The EAG wants the adventurer to go out and see whether the enemy has
found them and is using them, or to take the objects themselves.
About three hundred years ago, a famous warlock of the EAG had gone on
a similar mission. However, he has never been seen or heard from
since. Most people had considered him to have godlike powers and to
be the toughest EAG member to ever exist. Therefore, the mission may
be tougher than anybody could handle!!
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Some questions:
How tough is too tough? How many and how tough monsters should be
assigned as enemies, and how tough should friendly monsters be?
If there are deathtraps, how can they be subtly warned about (I'm
looking for example adventures here, there's got to be something I'm
looking for in 250 adventures)?
Would anybody be offended by content relating to the Cold War?
Would it make sense to FREE a dead body to resurrect it, or should I
make it a POWER effect? Or should I do something completely
different?
Have there been any GOOD attempts at wandering monsters and is there
an easy-to-understand algorithm for this? What I want is a friendly
wandering monster that just happens to be in the right room when you
need him/her/it.
Have any other adventures been invented with similar themes that I can
look at (that means tear apart and steal ideas from)?
Finally, anything about the plot that should be changed to fit the
EAMON "standard"?
I responded with:
Sounds like an interesting background... I only have one question you might
want to address. If my country is being faced with invasion from a foreign
country, I don't think my first thoughts would be launching an expedition
across the sea, especially if its after a "legend"... You might want to have
some sort of special circumstance that makes the good General think that the
three objects have something to do with it and/or the three objects are the
solution to the problem. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but I think it'd make for
a better story.
> Some questions:
> How tough is too tough? How many and how tough monsters should be
assigned as enemies, and how tough should friendly monsters be?
The old DDD manual stated "A good rule of thumb is that an adventurer can
lick about five times his own hardiness in opponents, with allies
subtracting their hardiness from the opposition." The newer one states "an
adventurer can generally lick about three times his own hardiness in
opponents, with allies subtracting their Hardiness from the opposition".
I'd try to aim somewhere in between there if it was really a concern.
I'd say it definately shouldn't be as tough as the Iron Prison. The January
1987 issue of the NEUC actually printed a bug fix because it was considered
so tough...
"Problem: Impossible Adventure!! Only managed to get 7 friends with a total
hardiness of 192 up against 80 enemies with a total hardiness of 3,655!!
This does not include the army that you meet with a hardiness of 10,000!!!
Fix: Don't play it and send the author a rasberries type letter. Then go in
and edit the monsters to make them more reasonable." I wonder if Sam ever
got any letters from that...
> If there are deathtraps, how can they be subtly warned about (I'm looking
for example adventures here, there's got to be something I'm looking for in
250 adventures)?
Deathtraps can have several subtle warnings. Even though you asked for
sample adventures, I think Tom gave death traps a pretty good write up in
the June 1989 Dungeon Designs Column (available at
http://www.eamonag.org/columns/DD-columns.htm#6/89)
> Would anybody be offended by content relating to the Cold War?
Not at all... I think it would make for a refreshing change in comparison to
the Eamons that are out there.
> Would it make sense to FREE a dead body to resurrect it, or should I make
it a POWER effect? Or should I do something completely different?
Hmmm... I'm assuming that there might be a dead body which is bound in
chains against the wall? I think a more amusing effect might be to program
for both. If a player FREEs the body and then casts POWER, the body comes to
life. If the player casts POWER first, the result is a living person coming
back to life in chains (screaming bloody murder). The player could then FREE
the prisoner. That's the way I would handle it, although there may be some
other ideas out there...
> Have there been any GOOD attempts at wandering monsters and is there an
easy-to-understand algorithm for this? What I want is a friendly wandering
monster that just happens to be in the right room when you need him/her/it.
I think the classic attempt at wondering monsters was the "Assault on the
Clonemaster". The monsters in that one actually move from room to room
instead of just random monster insertions here and there. It's definitely
worth a look. Another good one to look at is 92 "The Fugative". There, you
have roving soldiers who are looking for you, moving from room to room. You
are able to see the soldiers in time to get out of the way. This is also
done well.
Maybe a good way to implement your idea is to have your random monsters
wondering about. Then, just force the one monster to enter the room where
you need him/her/it later. It might be easier then programming a target room
for the monster to work its way towards...
> Have any other adventures been invented with similar themes that I can
look at (that means tear apart and steal ideas from)?
Operation Endgame has a special operations unit trying to infiltrate an
enemy base... Good stuff here... I'm sure there are some other ones out
there, but they just aren't coming to mind...
> Finally, anything about the plot that should be changed to fit the EAMON
"standard"?
I'm not really sure if there is an Eamon standard. It's pretty open and
flexible. Each author has their own style and adopts the Eamon world to that
style. I'd say that you'd be safe writting almost anything, as long as it
was enjoyable to play and wasn't illegal! ;-)
If anybody has other ideas, please share them on alt.games.eamon or leave a comment here!
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