Immobilizing the party

[Parallax]

I am trying to make a cutscene in a dungeon. Basically, when the party steps on a given tile, I want a series of events to happen, but they will take some time and involve various sights, as well as teleporting the party around. My problem is, I want a captive audience for this. I don't want the player to be able to walk away, or turn, or throw rotten tomatoes at my cutscene.

I can't seem to find the appropriate action for this. I'm thinking I might be able to force the entire party to take an action that does nothing and takes the entire cutscene to recover from, so they can't attack. I can make every tile where the party will be standing a no-magic tile so they won't cast, and no-sleep as well so they won't sleep through it. But how do I prevent the mouse pointer for throwing items without putting a wall in front of the party? And how do I disable the direction keys so the party does not turn or move. Teleporters that send the party back to the tile are not enough for logistical reasons, and I don't want the characters to take damage if they try to walk away into a wall. I just want them not to be able to move. Any ideas?

[Sophia]

Hmm, the DM engine isn't really suited to cutscenes. I'm not sure there's a satisfactory answer.

It's really more in the spirit of a first-person game where you have control all the time. Could you possibly rework it that the party is observing the scene somehow, and it's set up so they CAN'T interfere-- watching the whole thing through a door, thieves eye, etc?

Otherwise, you may have to make do with teleporters that block any attempts to move or throw something. Why aren't they enough?

[George Gilbert]

Have a look at the top level of the DM-II dungeon. There there is a FLOORITEM_HOLDER (to prevent the party moving) and together with some teleporters and triggers prevent the party from throwing items away from the tile.

Combine that with a few NO_SAVE / NO_SLEEP / NO_MAGIC tiles and you'll get something very close to what you're looking for.

[beowuuf]

I did this with the CSBwin engine, and dammit you can do it with RTC too : )

Just create a constantly targetting set of relays to a teleporter on the party tile that that forces north facing, (using the 'on party tile effect I would have thought) with others surroundign them so they can't move sideways etc. Move anything frm the hand to the floor (a bit of a fudge, in CSBwin it was freeze life so I assumed things would fall from your hands, so not as weird) and have the action constantly cast runes in the spell box so only a power rune at best would be cast. Obviously drop from sky any objects and spells too just incase

A slight fudge (more elegant in CSBwin with attack filters etc) but should suffice for now?

[Parallax]

FLOORITEM_HOLDER! So that's what it is! (and what that mysterious flooritem is there for, incidentally. I thought it had something to do with holding items, like, in mid-air, or something... )

Thanks George. And thank you also to Beowuuf and Sophia, your suggestions are giving me a lot of ideas...