Blades of Avernum Center

Creating Balanced and Interesting Items

"Obviously, scenarios can differ in many ways, but all good scenarios essentially have some things in common that every designer should pay attention to: (...)"

Providing Choices and Exploring Linearity.

"(...) I aim to help you cut down on the number of towns in your scenarios and refine the ones that are left. The easiest way to do this is with a series of questions that should be answered for every town, along with some helpful tips that I've picked up along the way. "

"(...) If your scenario has a plot, you will want your players to know what it is and which physical location(s) it's taking them to at all times. There are a few ways (...)"

Chances are that your scenario contains towns. Chances are that these towns are related. Chances are you carefully thought out the what's, why's, and how's of your community. Am I right? If I'm wrong, then you need to do so.

Whether you're a designer, beta-tester or particularly critical player, it helps to know how to be the best debugger, critic and overall beneficiary to the scenario's development as possible. I have designed arguably my fair share of scenarios, and I have also tested many- some well, some poorly. Thus, I have a few suggestions on how to best get under the scenario's skin- your players and/or designers will, if they're any good, love you for it.

"Something that a lot of designers of neglect to consider is the fact that the world, or at least the area of the scenario, will change in response to what the party does. This can and should be different depending on the scale and type of scenario that you're writing, but it should happen in all of them, unless you make it a point of the scenario that the party has no effect on anything (which would be very weird and very interesting)."

At some point, you'll get tired of the general types of monsters and want to create something more interesting, more challenging, and more innovative. These are some general tips to make your monsters more difficult without making them boring or repetitive.

Traits & Skills Summation, gathered by dgoodrich. (The file is in pdf format)

Useful dialogue tips

For every prospective scenario designer, the most important question that they can ask themselves is 'Why?' At every step in the scenario design process, the author needs to question his/her work, the plot, and everything in-between. Answering the questions will lead to a cohesive scenario that makes sense and is fun to play. (...)