Missing entries

[sergey]

I am watching a rewiew of this adventure by Marco Arnaudo, and he has mentioned that some entries in it are missing (for example just after (266) it is (269)! And where is (267) and (268)?).

Is it kind of typo (i.e. they were never written) or have they been really missed?

[mister frau blucher]

Hey Sergey,

These entries were never written. When I originally wrote the adventure, I laid out a bunch of paragraph numbers, and filled them in as i wrote. When I was done, there were some empty paragraphs. I did not re-number the entries, as we do now.

So while there are some missing numbers, there are no missing paragraphs.

Thanks for asking!

Bret

[sergey]

Thanks for answer Bret.

But this gives us another question. In the "Sorcerer's Manor" we can find a diary of dead elf and therefore get a plotword "MYSEERE". Does this plotword really participate in "The Dark Vales" or entries with this side-quest weren't written?

By the way, I really love this idea with interlocked adventures - really cool.

[mister frau blucher]

Jun 29, 2012 9:19:11 GMT -5 sergey said:

Thanks for answer Bret.

But this gives us another question. In the "Sorcerer's Manor" we can find a diary of dead elf and therefore get a plotword "MYSEERE". Does this plotword really participate in "The Dark Vales" or entries with this side-quest weren't written?

By the way, I really love this idea with interlocked adventures - really cool.

Hey, Sergey,

The plotword MYSEERE does show up in the Dark Vale. If you want me to go into more detail, I will, but in case you want to find it yourself, north of the the town of Seven Mile Bridge (100) is a small community of wild elves. You can get there beginning with instruction (065).

As I said, if you want me to spoil all the details, let me know!

I really like interlocked adventures, as well. The mapseller Honest Alzander is referenced in multiple adventures (SOR, TSM, FITS), but the sage Moffitt shows up in the most. He is in SOR, FITS, TSM, a flashback in TDV (at the entrance to Rando's tomb), and he is the focus of Emerald Twilight.

Edit: And the bad guy who gets away at the end of the Sorcerer's Manor meets his fate in the Dark vale, as well, further tying those two together.

Thanks, Sergey!

Bret

[sergey]

I am very flattered Bret.

Well, it would be nice to have a complete walkthrough, but I don't want to bother you.

Looking forward for pdf-versions of your adventures (no shipping fees, no waiting - the only problem is colourful board and counters).

[mister frau blucher]

No bother, Sergey!

If you head north of Seven Mile Bridge into the Everbleak Marshes, you encounter some wild elves. If you accompany them, they take you to their queen to discuss your business. If you tell her you are in the Dark Vale to destroy the Blackstone, you recieve a couple of gifts to help you in your quest, and you might also receive a quest from her, that would help them out.

In addition, if you have the plotword MYSEERE, you have the opportunity to tell her you have found the Elven mage's journal and give it to her. Myseere was her cousin, and while she is pained to learn of his passing, she is glad for the closure and gives you a gift, of an elven cloak that aids the Stealth skill.

I hope that does not keep you from playing through!

I actually put a lot of elements such as this in the Dark Vale (and other adventures), many of which you do not need plotwords from previous adventures for. I think it is important to draw players into the adventure. I include a lot of role-playing opportunites like this in every adventure (despite what a certain dishonest poster on boardgamegeek claims, givingnegative reviews to games that he has not even played).

Thanks for the questions, Sergey! Again, i hope this does not keep you from playing through TDV!

Bret

[sergey]

OK, then I will quote (translate to be honest) what this plotword does in my preview of "Sorcerer's Manor".

[mister frau blucher]

I hope that made sense! To put it more clearly, the plotword allows you to return the journal to Myseere's kin, and receive a reward in turn.

[gigglestick]

Continuing rewards are always a nice thing to have from game to game. (The original COK and ILS had some nice continuing rewards as well...)

As for missing entries, if you go through the out of print Little Black Book, there should be an entry for every number, though some of them are impossible to reach during gameplay. As an homage to Steve Jackson's Convoy Programmed Adventure for Car Wars, I wrote silly or just wierd things in the unreachable entries...(I think there's one about a small lizard trying to sell you Gecko insurance for your cart...)

The sequel (if it ever gets finished) will have similar things, though as edit, it was pretty much stuffed to the gills, so there will be fewer lost entries.

Of course, sometimes the actual entries can be pretty wierd too...

[mister frau blucher]

Just so you (and everyone else knows) Sergey, we no longer have a lot of missing numbers. We do re-numbering now, and while there are usually a couple of missing numbers, there are usually five or less if any in the more recent games.

[klingor]

Hi,
Please reissue Little Black Book!
I see so many references to it that I would love to know what it all about.
Please scratch my itch!!
Cheers
Colin

[mister frau blucher]

Hey Colin,

That is Jerry's manuscript, and his company will eventually re-publish it. He'll be glad to know his constant talking about it will generate a sale!

We may have an extra copy lying around, though, which will be free if I find one. I'll let you know, amigo!

Bret

[Deleted]

am i missing a few entries in my brain? wait, don't answer that

i don't see why anyone would care if some entry numbers got skipped...as long as nothing referenced those numbers, nothing is really missing. it's kinda like writing a BASIC program...

10 print "hello world"
20 beep
30 print "goodbye"

ten numbers get skipped between every line. it doesn't hurt anything. in fact, it helps. if you wanted to go back and add a line of code, you just 'insert' it...

10 print "hello world"
15 print "inserted"
20 beep
30 print "goodbye"

[Deleted]

really, i think you should skip as many numbers as you want. it can help you stay sane. let's say an adventure/module has multiple locales....

use 1000-1999 for 'rooms' / encounters in the town
use 2000-2999 for 'rooms' / encounters in first level of the dungeon
use 3000-3999 for 'rooms' / encounters in 2nd level of dugeon
etc.
(i could be mistaken but i think MUDs traditionally do this for different areas also)

it's easy on the eyes and brain.

of course, you'd want to scramble the order in which the entries (not the numbers) are listed so readers don't accidentally cheat

i do kinda like the idea of slipping some bogus entries in there (entries that aren't designed to be reached). that can slightly thwart an 'accidental cheater' it could also encourage replay. imagine playing through an adventure and your eyes accidentally read something about a '+10 great axe of dismemberment'. you'd want to play that again and figure out how to get there! LOL

[gigglestick]

Jun 29, 2012 21:10:02 GMT -5 mister frau blucher said:

Hey Colin,

That is Jerry's manuscript, and his company will eventually re-publish it. He'll be glad to know his constant talking about it will generate a sale!

We may have an extra copy lying around, though, which will be free if I find one. I'll let you know, amigo!

Bret

If we ever get it back up, George will have access to a Legends version, so you'd be able to get it from him as wel. And its not as good as it sounds. It was my first foray into programmed adventures and there are a lot of mistakes, WAYYYY too much XP given out, and some entires that can only be gotten to in one direction.

As for where to put numbers, we have experimented with keeping certain areas in a basic range of numbers as has been suggested. (Part "1" will be 10 - 90, Part "2" is 91 - 300, etc.). When writing, I now try to keep entries from the same source within a couple pages of each other, though I try to keep them from being so close that someone can accidentally see two at the same time (for example, if they end up on the same page.)

One of my old playtesters wrote a program that allowed him to track entries so that you could make sure that you could get in and out of each one in the correct order as well. It also told you which entries were still available. It worked well, but I'm not sure if he still has it anymore.