DSAs in RTC

[beowuuf]

Basically the above is not really what you want. You want a few simple commands you can combine, and a way to combine them. The CSBwin DSA system does this quite well currently.

a) A copy statement - a duplicate of an item hidden in the dungeon (with RTC this is in the -1 limbo) is created. This can be positioned anywhere that is 'legal'. Might need to be restrictive unless the designer is the one left with the task of error checking
b) a move statement - moves items around
c) Throw projectile - like a spell or copy of an object in the dungeon. This way you can create you 'magical' dagger from a cloned dagger that is breakable into whatever
d) Usual if/else and even a case/table statement
e) Interrupt - liek DSA filters, the ability to interrupt and terminate various instructions like monster walk, attack, party attack, eat, etc. Also a fetch to know what these instructions originally were
f) Create - create an instruction such as eating, spell being cast, monster move, etc. This can be used as above, so is liek the DSA filter, or can be done from no where to create a number of thigns - spell like effect happens on walking in an area, party gets 'nourished' walking into an inn...perhaps a party member even launches an unprovoked attack (dwarf attacks orc, not good if it was being passive along with it's 20 friends until then)

g) Fetching - in order to put the onus of checkign on designer, then fetch instructions to return the value of anything - what is in hand, what is on the ground...so you can check if the party hand is full on spellcasting, and say what will or won't happen (personally already doen the create food spell usign this in CSB)
h) Functions - compares, adds, subtracts, some shiny temporary memory arrays

[Chaos Awakes]

I actually got quite far in writing a DM clone years ago (It was really slow, I was just experimenting really for my own sake) and it had a complete scripting language built in which I'm assuming is more or less what Beowuuf is saying, yes?

Basically, the dungeon designer could write "functions" in a text file and pressure pads, spells, just about anything in the dungeon was linked to these functions. All the standard functionality was done through built in functions, and user defined functions could do anything. So you could write a function to play music, launch a projectile and even connect to the internet and download a file (although why would you want to?) in response to stepping on a pressure pad or casting a certain combination of runes, etc.

[beowuuf]

Without the ability to go onto the net (yet?) DSAs pretty much do that - I just wanted to include the important areas that I have found useful in doing and planning on doing stuff