Planning
You've installed Blades of Avernum correctly, played through all the scenarios that come with it, and installed the Editor. By now, the urge to play around with the Editor must be irresistable. If that's what you want to do, go ahead. Open a preinstalled scenario and start editing to your heart's content (as long as you don't save, you won't break the scenarios). It's a good way to get familiar with the Editor, but it's a bad way to start designing a new scenario. It turns out that you can't start making random dungeons and filling them with random monsters, and have it magically turn into a scenario (let alone a good scenario). Let's start planning the scenario you'll be making for the tutorial by asking ourselves a bunch of questions.
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What will the party do in the scenario?
The very first thing to do is come up with the main plot for the scenario. If you don't have a story, you don't have much else. Chances are you already have a story in mind for a scenario or two. That's good. Use this step to limit the scope of your story. Your first scenario should be small enough to describe in two sentences. The first sentence describes the situation the party finds itself in when the scenario starts. The second describes what the party should do to 'win' the scenario. By forcing yourself to describe your scenario this way, you'll end up with a small but focused first scenario, rather than a meaningless collection of side quests.
The tutorial scenario will be short — about as short a scenario can be while still having a plot. Let's pick something simple: someone was robbed by goblins, and the party has to track down those goblins to get the stolen item back. After a bit of thinking, we have the following two sentences: "A merchant has her necklace stolen by a band of goblins. The party tracks the goblins down, kills them, and brings the necklace back to the merchant."
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What sequence of events will happen during the scenario?
Time to go into more detail. Make a flowchart of every major event that happens in the scenario. To start, make a list of every quest the party will do during your scenario. Make sure that each quest has a clear beginning, where the party is given the task (How does the party find out about the quest? Do they have to talk to a non-player character to get it?). Also make sure that each quest has a clear ending, so the party knows that they've finished the task (Does the party have to talk to someone to get a reward? Does that someone give them a new quest?).
It's important that all quests have a clear beginning and end, even if the beginning is as simple as "The intro text tells the party they have to meet Alice at the inn", or the end is as simple as "A dialog box appears saying that the party has killed the ogre chieftain". Without the beginning part of a quest, someone playing the scenario might be confused about what to do next. Without the end of a quest, a player might still think the quest is incomplete, and not move on in the scenario.
Once all the quests are listed, piece them together with a flowchart. Doing this will be next to impossible for large scenarios, but it's possible for small scenarios. This will let you see the scenario's plot at a glance, including any points where the party can choose between two or more different paths. Does every possible path through the scenario make sense? At each point in the scenario, is it clear what the party needs to do next?
Back to the tutorial scenario. There's really just one major quest in the scenario, so let's add a bit more content. Say that when the party tracks down and attacks the band of goblins, the goblin carrying the necklace runs away and hides in a cave. The party must then perform the 'subquest' of finding that goblin and taking the necklace from it. For the sake of example, let's consider finding and talking to the merchant to be a subquest as well.
- Find the robbed merchant.
- Track down the band of goblins.
- Track down the goblin with the necklace and return it.
The scenario is looking pretty linear right now, so let's add a minor choice for the party. Once the party retrieves the necklace, they can either give it back to the merchant for a small reward and experience points, or they can keep it themselves and 'sell it' once they leave the scenario, for more gold but no experience points. Finally, you can make the flowchart for the scenario. Since the scenario's so small, all this work might not seem worth it, but it is worth doing for other scenarios. There's a hidden benefit of breaking a scenario into tiny bite-sized chunks: even if you only finish one item a day, your scenario will get finished. Double-check the following sequence of events; at each point, would the average player know what to do next?
- The party enters the scenario, and the intro text says they see the merchant's camp and that they should investigate.
- The party talks to the merchant and learns about the goblins. They are given a quest to get the necklace back.
- The party leaves the camp and enter the outdoors. They have to track down the group of goblins.
- The party encounters the outdoor group of goblins and fights it. At the end of the fight, a dialog box appears indicating that one goblin ran away.
- The party follows the goblin to a cave. They search boxes until they find the one the goblin is hiding in, and it jumps out.
- The party kills the goblin and takes the necklace.
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The party returns to the merchant and...
- returns the necklace. The merchant give a small reward of gold, and the party gains experience points.
- claims they couldn't find the necklace. When the party leaves the scenario, they 'sell' the necklace and gain a lot of gold, but no experience points.
- The party leaves the scenario.
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How will all this be done in the game?
Now that you know what the plot requires, you can begin translating it to game terms. How many towns/dungeons will the scenario need? How many outdoor sections are necessary to fit your scenario in comfortably? Now that you know what enemies the party will be fighting, you can give the scenario a rough level range. Another thing you might want to think about now is any custom graphics or scripts you might need (if your scenario takes place in a cathedral, you might want to make some custom graphics before you start designing).
The tutorial scenario is small and will only need two towns: one for the merchant, and one for the runaway goblin. You'll be able to fit everything in one outdoor section. The only enemies are the goblins, so the scenario should be playable by level one parties. Nothing in the scenario really needs custom graphics, but maybe you should give the runaway goblin a different graphic, to distinguish it from the others.
Whew. Now that you've got a working plot, you can finally open up the Editor and create the scenario.
