Installing and playing the game
You're probably rolling your eyes right now, but this point needs to be made. You can't hope to create a scenario of your own until you know what a scenario is like. So if all you've played right now is other Spiderweb Software games, stop reading this tutorial, install Blades of Avernum, and play some scenarios (the preinstalled four at the very least). Once again, you shouldn't buy the game and right away start designing. There's a big difference between your average Blades of Avernum scenario and, say, Avernum 3 (size being one obvious difference). Don't make the mistake of thinking you can design something that huge, especially on your first try.
The other thing you must do is buy the game. Some people seem to think they can download the demo and right away start designing. The first problem with this is that you don't get enough experience playing the game to know what should and shouldn't be in a scenario. But the bigger problem is that it's impossible to play custom scenarios with the demo, including the one you're designing! You'll have to play your own scenario a lot when you're designing it. If you don't, it will undoubtably be full of scripting mistakes that will make it unplayable. Even if you're perfect at AvernumScript (unlikely), you still have to do things like making sure that combat is balanced. So if you don't already own the full game, buy a CD or a registration code.
If your computer runs a newer version of Microsoft Windows (Vista or later), you'll need to install Blades of Avernum to a certain place to make it easier to edit your own scenarios. The next section of the tutorial has more information about this. If you're a Macintosh user, or you use an older version of Windows, you can skip ahead to the next section.
