The Chronicle of the Five Stones - An adventurous design

[Mindstone]

Hey Dungeon masters,

I'm back after many a moon. I just have these cyclical urges to create dungeons and use this marvelous engine we all love so much

My latest design, The Chronicle of the Five Stones, is my most ambitious project by far. I want it to appeal not just to people in this community, but also those who have never played Dungeon Master before.

I have it all planned out, but I need some help with programming and expanding on the RTC engine to fulfill all my creative desires.

Features I need added to the engine:

i) Text / picture screens: I need a trigger that freezes the game and brings up a screen of text.

ii) Avatar-heroes who can be summoned for a limited amount of time before disintegrating.

iii) Alignment specific weapons and items (i.e. Syrahad the Cleric may not use Shadow weapons). Also certain weapons / items can only be wielded by those destined to wield them.

iv) Barding: An idea I got from Betrayal at Krondor: Play an instrument in an inn / drinking pit and get coins. Also a nice excuse to record some of my midis

v) Portals between levels: Summoned by a horn at places marked by the eight-legged horse, the steed of the unseen paths can take you between levels. This will need a separate screen showing all the potential places to 'portal' to, and some kind of 'animation', racing through the void.

vi) Regenerating enemies - I need to programme bosses who regain a little health every second. You need serious firepower to take these guys on. Also some AI to make bosses flee when their health is running low and just generally more interesting.

vii) Rune-charging / blessing weapons: time-limited bonuses for weapons blessed and / or charged.

viii) Re-charging magick weapons which run out of charges

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Are these things easily programmable? Is anyone up for helping me with them, as they can also be used by other designers too.

I can't wait to start on this project. Set in my Nodewheels Universe, it is going to add a novel-reading element to the glorious world of Dungeon Master

Mindstone

[Gambit37]

Quick Admin note: User "DMDM" is now known as "Mindstone".

Welcome back! I don't do any RTC work anymore, but some of what you want is already possible. Certainly (i), pictures screens can be done using the WALLITEM_INFOSCREEN.

For your other requests, other RTC experts should be able to help you out. Good luck

[Chaos-Shaman]

Mindstone, welcome back. the answer is yes, you can do all of the above.

[Mindstone]

Can I make all of the above work with the current engine?

Thanks for your replies, my friends. The more interest I get on this the more I am encouraged to see it through.

I think Five Stones is going to be uniquely non-linear. You can go and fight the final boss whenever you feel like you are ready to take him and his Companions out. When you triumph you will get an ending according to how you played (i.e. if you make a bargain with Fate's champion to win, then expect a lame victory where you get backstabbed).

Also going to have scroll after scroll of lore and dialogue. A narrative and character rich experience

[Saumun]

Pretty sure all these things are possible!
The only one i personally have no ideas about is point 2, but i'm sure others will have info on this.

[Chaos-Shaman]

That sounds like fun mindstone

Point 2 can be done, spent months on it and am still learning the ropes of RTC GUI.

If you're interested there is an example AI Pathfinding you can see it at work. You can hire Characters when you meet them, you can also set a time limit on them if you like, you can have objects that work with only them, they can also be removed from the party. Also you can find bones and resurrect them as well. So many possibilities. There are some limits but most of them can be dealt with with another method. Characters\Monsters have moods, at present in DM as itself the only moods are attack party. This winter I plan to improve it all once again as my skills grow. RTC builders are almost extinct, you're one of the last. Help you if I can, Happy building.

[Mindstone]

I would greatly appreciate any support. I am no good at programming, I'm just a designer and story-writer. With the mood I'd love to even have allies. Who would say no to a cohort of undead bound to the same cause, at your command

RTC is great - I love its feel. We have to keep it alive. Anyone can PM me an email if they want to see grand plans for this dungeon

If anyone is up for helping with graphics as well, that would be grand. Thanks for the encouragements.

[Saumun]

Taking into account time constraints, i'm sure most people would be willing to help if they can!
I myself have been helped along the way by a great many people in this forum.

At the moment i'm struggling to find time to finish the edits of my own dungeon, but am happy to help in any way i can (not with graphics though - i'm pretty hopeless on that front)

PS -- Be aware (pertaining to the scope of your dungeon) that RTC has an object limit of 20,000 (a fact i recently found out to my cost).

[Chaos-Shaman]

It is very time consuming in designing a Dungeon, the actual putting it together is not so bad it's the logic that can eat the time away. I'll have a look at your plans.

The 20,000 limit is not so bad, can destroy most of what has only one time use. A time limit can be placed on repeat objects like food and bones. Swapping does not increase limit. It is workable. There are a few ways to deal with it.

In the AI dungeon, monsters are in factions, so they will get along with some party members and other monsters but not all, if the wrong character is in the party the NPC won't be able to join until they leave. I play with it when there is some time to waste like in winter. The high comes from figuring out how RTC works

What really seperates this dungeon engine is that different monsters can occupy the same tile and even walk past each other in a hallway, that brings movement into the Dungeon instead of blasting everything in the way. NPC Characters do trade when clicked on using info screen, the Shop has been brought to the Party via through clicking on NPC as well, that was difficult to do, took one second to think up and a couple weeks to figure out , but even among all the the bells and whistles there is not much interest, RTC DM is dead to most people so good luck on that one. The fun has been kicked out from under it unfortunately.

Look forward to your plans.

[Saumun]

Just so...

I should point out that my reference to the object limit was not discouragement... merely a warning! I would love more people to get into dungeon building.
As CS rightly points out, most in-game objects can be dealt with by swapping or expiring. It is the mechanics of the dungeon that can eat up the number of objects.
A case in point is my last two dungeons. I wanted to make a work-around for the deterioration rate of stat-enhancing potions (in RTC it is much slower than original DM/CSB). I managed this, but it took a total of 916 objects (relays and actions) which is almost 5% of the total.

But don't be discouraged. I was still able to create a pretty big dungeon with objects to spare... and the number of relays/actions pertained to the number of potential characters (32 in this case). Less characters = exponentially less objects... and of course this was to meet my own preference. You may be happy with RTC's own hard-coded values.

To summarise... Your dungeon sounds exiting and i look forward to any developments. I think CS is your man regarding info-screens, NPCs, and shops... but i'll try to help in any way if i have the time.

[Chaos-Shaman]

Saumun, I'd like to see the work around you've come up with. If at all possible I'd like to help with that one. When playing previous dungeons I didn't notice the length of time. Potions were not important, it was all spell power. Happy to know you're figuring things out so people like Mindstone can build a dungeon with encouragement.

Here if you need a hand.

[Saumun]

CS... I've already used the potion workaround in The Chaos Mirror and Dark reign 2 (my previous two dungeons).
I'll upload a test version to my mediafire page later and give you the link.

[Chaos-Shaman]

Thanks, I look forward to it. Will upload to everyone here on how to use info screens, made one up and sent it to Dave a while back. It should help others with dialog with NPC characters. Have not played those two dungeons, might just have a whirl at it. There is one important factor that Dungeons should have, that's a clear story and MAPS! Do the dungeons have maps?

[Saumun]

Unfortunately the dungeons i mentioned do not. They're both very DM basic, and rely on you making your own.
The main reason i did the workaround is that in RTC, the stats degrade so slowly that with a couple of flasks you can keep your stats at max almost indefinitely. I find that even with an average weapon it makes the fighting ridiculously easy.

Anyway... A test file for the Stat Workaround is here.
https://www.mediafire.com/?c6f6benxxzqbvnr

In the file, only the Ku and Ros potion setups are active... but the others can be done in exactly the same way.
There is a Read Me file, but it is a bit garbled.

[Chaos-Shaman]

Cool Saumun, will definitely poke around with it.

Mindstone, if you need a hand just give a shout.

[Ser Xav]

PS -- Be aware (pertaining to the scope of your dungeon) that RTC has an object limit of 20,000 (a fact i recently found out to my cost).

I've been holding back in the wings because of an overly ambitious and meticulously planned dungeon, in conjunction with learning of the fact of 20,000 object limit. The two objectives were not compatible. Plan to come back at some point with a reduced version of the original concept.

[Saumun]

ebeneezergude:- Or maybe split it into two parts if you definitely cannot keep under the object limit. Would be a shame to see good ideas go to waste.

[Chaos-Shaman]

I hope that doesn't stop you ebeneezergude. Split it if you can. Wouldn't want to miss your dungeon.