DM Commands: ("monster" refers to a full name of a monster, capitalization is ignored)
/DO monster phrase -> shows action for a monster
/ADD monster/icon init THACO 2d6+2 HP AC phrase -> adds a new monster, specifying icon is optional
ie, "/add orc" auto-generates icon of o1, "/add orc/o" sets icon to o
/DELETE,/DEL monster -> removes a monster
/CLEAR,/CL -> removes all monster
/DAMAGE,/DAM X thing -> stores X damage to thing (monster or player)
/INIT -> starts a new round of initiative rolls
/NEXT - (DM or current player) moves to next initiative number
/WAIT - (DM or current player) moves current monster or player to the end of the initiatives for this round
/END -> ends the initiative round
/SAY monster phrase -> speaks from a monster
/ATTACK,/A monster target -> attacks from monster to the target (player or monster)
or attacks LastTarget if target is omitted
/TARGET, /T target -> set LastTarget for the current initiative monster to target
/FUDGE,/F [H M C F] or [DH DL] -> affects next attack by anyone
Abbreviations stand for: [Hit Miss Crit Fumble] OR [DamageHeavy DamageLight]
Both a "hit" modifier and a "damage" modifier may be set
/PHRASE,/P monster phrase -> sets a monster's phrase to new phrase
/EMULATE, /EM name -> all speech typed by the DM will appear to come from "name"
Adding/Deleting Monsters
This may seem a little complicated at first, but you can remember the pattern after a while, or type "/add" by itself to see the correct order... But, it's also a lot easier to type up the adventure beforehand with both text descriptions and commands to add the monsters, as in the example later on in this file. The DM can type "/add orc1 3 17 2d6+1 32 -3 with a sword" to add orc1 to the monster list, with speed factor of 3, THAC0 of 17, a weapon which does 2d6+1 damage, 32 Hit Points, an AC of -3, and the phrase 'with a sword' which shows up in the '/who' list. (the reason orc1 is used, is that when you have several similar monsters, they must have unique names in order to identify them. ie, orc1, orc2, and orc3) Monsters can be deleted by typing "/delete orc1", or by typing "/clear" which removes all monsters.
Damage
DM can type "/damage orc1 12" to do 12 damage to orc1, or "/damage Blade 5" to do 5 damage to player Blade.
Monster actions/speech
Just as players can say things and 'do' things with '/do', the DM can type "/do orc1 cocks his crossbow" in order to get "orc1 cocks his crossbow". Also, the DM can type "/say orc1 Stop or I'll shoot!" to get "orc1: Stop or I'll shoot!".
Emulating a monster/NPC
"/emulate Dragon" will make all talking and DOing by the DM to act as if he/she were really logged in with the name of "Dragon". To take off emulation, just type "/em" or "/emulate" without any name. To switch to another name, use "/em new_name".
Changing of monster phrases
If a monster moves to a new location, or switches weapons, and the DM wants to inform the players of such, "/phrase orc with a sword" or "/p orc2 by the stairs".
Initiative Rounds
DM can type "/init" to start a new round of initiatives. Initiative rolls (d10) are rolled for every player and monster, with each player's and monster's speed factor added in to their respective roll. The DM is shown a list of all the initiatives, while each player is shown only theirs. Then, the lowest initiative player or monster is announced to everyone. Once the player/monster has gone, either the DM or the current player types "/next" and the next initiative is announced, until the round is over, when it is announced that there are no further initiatives, and the DM can type "/init" again. (NOTE: There is a limit of 100 players + monsters in the initiative list. So I didn't want to bubble sort a linked list and just did an array. Nyah! :-) )
"/wait" causes the current initiative holder to save their action till the end of the round, when they will then get another chance to act.
"/end" will end the initiative round and not start a new one.
Automatic Attack Resolution
The DM may type "/a orc1 orc2" in order to have monsters attack one another, or "/a orc1 Blade" to have a monster attack a player. Just like with players, once a monster has attacked, its LastTarget variable is set and is visible in /who. Then, to auto-attack the LastTarget, simply omit the monster's target. ie: "/a orc lupus" followed by "/a orc" would attack lupus twice.
Quick Attack
If during an initiative round, the DM types just "/a", the current initiative monster will attack its last target. This feature greatly speeds up the game.
Fudging of Attack Rolls
Just like in real RPG gaming sessions, it is sometimes necessary for the DM to fudge some die rolls behind the screen, in order to keep the adventure moving in the right direction. NetRPG has "fudge modifiers" to do this, which affect the next use of "/attack" by _anyone_. The DM can set up both a "to hit" mod and a "damage" mod with "/fudge". The options available are :
• for "to hit" modifiers: H, M, C, F - which stand for Hit, Miss, Critical hit, and Fumble.
• for "damage" modifiers: DH, DL - which stand for DamageHigh, and DamageLow.
H - causes an automatic, but random looking hit
M - causes an automatic, but random looking miss
C - causes a critical hit (a 20) to be rolled
F - causes a fumble (a 1) to be rolled
DH - causes the damage rolled to be at least half of the max damage
DL - causes the damage rolled to be at most half of the max damage
NOTE: if the DM wants both a hit modifier and a damage modifier active at the same time, the hit mod must be set first, and then the damage mod. To remove fudge mods, type "/f blah" or other nonsense.
Example: The party is on its last legs, and the demon is almost dead. Dirk the thief comes up from behind to make a backstab, and the DM feels it should be a good one, and therefore types "/f c" and then "/f dh". This will force an automatic critical hit, and damage that is at least 1/2 of the maximum. Dirk's attack consumes the fudge factors, so any further attacks are normal.
Maps
"/help map" gives:
===========================
Map commands
===========================
/MAP BEGIN -> starts capturing the MAP data
/MAP END -> stops capture of the MAP data
/MAP PUSH -> sends the current map to all player's info windows
/MAP FOR <player> -> sends the DM a copy of the map that <player> sees
/MAP DRAW x,y <string> -> writes the <string> into the map data at x,y
/MAP ERASE x,y -> puts a space onto the map at x,y
/SET WINDOW w,h -> sets the map output to be w wide and h high.
/MAP MODE <mode>, /SET MAP <mode> -> sets map mode to FILL,STATIC,SHOWALL, or LOS
FILL mode shows players everything up to walls, using 4-connectivity
LOS mode shows everything up to walls, if they are in line-of-sight, and uses 8-connectivity
SHOWALL mode shows everything, but still moves the map window relative to players' positions
STATIC mode shows everything but always anchors the map with 1,1 in the upper-left corner of the window
Wall characters for use in maps are: * # x X | \ / - + =
/MOVETO, /MVTO thing 54,12 - moves thing's icon to 54,12
/MOVE, /MV thing 4444422 - moves thing's icon 5 spaces to the left and then 2 spaces down
/MOVE, /MV ALL 4444422 - moves every icon, /MOVETO, /MVTO ALL 10,3 moves every icon to 10,3
/ICON LIST - prints out active icons
/ICON ADD Blade B 20,5 - adds an icon "B" named Blade at 20,5
/ICON DEL Blade - deletes icon named Blade
/ICON CLEAR - removes all icons
/ICON SET dragon DRG - updates already existing icon of dragon to be DRG
• /MAP - (can be used by anyone) Returns the current contents of the server's MAP storage, which can be any set of strings that the DM stores.
• /MAP BEGIN - makes all subsequent strings sent to the server by the DM be stored in the MAP storage
• /MAP END - stops the MAP capture
• /MAP PUSH - sends the current map to everyone's info windows
• /MAP DRAW x,y <string> - this will put the <string> onto the map at position x,y. Unlike icons, this permanently affects the map you have entered. Useful for putting in a door that gets closed, or a hole in the floor that opens up, etc.
• /MAP ERASE x,y - this just puts a space onto the map at x,y. Useful for erasing (opening) doors.
• /SET WINDOW WIDTHxHEIGHT - changes the size of the map output windows. this can be used to speed up mapping if people are moving around a lot (by making the window smaller, mapping is faster)
• /SET MAP <mode> - where mode is one of (FILL / STATIC / SHOWALL / LOS) (case is ignored, this is a DM only command)
• Fill mode shows only up to walls from a character's icon position. Fill mode uses 4 way connectivity, so the following map would not leak, and Blade (icon B) would not see outside:
###
# B #
###
• LOS mode shows only walls/stuff that are in the Line Of Sight of a player's icon position. LOS mode ends up using more than 4 connectivity, so you need to fully close off all corners, like this:
#####
# B #
#####
• ShowAll mode shows everything, but still generates maps dependent on icon position.
• Static mode shows everything, but does NOT generate maps dependent on icon position, so everyone gets the same map with 1,1 at the upper left corner, which is good for outdoor maps or charts of things. (Static mode is the default, since it is the same as the old mapping)
Important - all of the following ASCII characters are considered walls, and in FILL and LOS mode, you can't see through them:
* # x X | \ / - + =
• When an icon is moved on the map, the messages are now sent to info windows, so as not to break up conversation so much, since now movement happens a LOT more.
Here's an example of how to use mapping:
The stairs descend into a large cavernous room, lit by the glow
To the west, something spherical floats in the air
at about chest height. The spheroid seems to have a
central eye and a dozen tentacles topped with eyeballs
growing out of its top.
/add beholder 8 19 1d2 45 9 Floating eyeball
/moveto beholder 7,4
/do beholder slowly turns and looks menacingly at the party...
NOTE: Maps are limited to 250 characters wide and 60 lines tall
NOTE: Beware when pasting maps with #'s into Tinkeri View - TK has as its default multiple command delimiter "##", and it will garble up your maps! Change the delimiter, or change your maps!
Movable Text Map Icons
The DM (only!) may now add text icons onto the map. Once on the map, if an icon has the same name as a player, that player is allowed to move it. This is so that the map only has icons on it pertaining to a certain scene the DM may be showing. NOTE: The map does NOT need to contain whitespace all the way to the end of lines in order to have icons move there. The map size is currently limited to 60x20, though.
For people interested in making ascii maps, check out ASCIIPaint by JAHCCC@eworld.com. It's in this directory: <ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/text>
The commands for the DM are:
"/moveto thing 20,4" - moves the thing (player or monster) to 20,4
"/move thing 4488" - moves the thing left twice and up twice.
• /MOVETO ALL X,Y - DM only command which moves every icon to position X,Y
• /MOVE ALL xxxxx - DM only command which moves every icon by the path xxxxx, which is the same as used for the /MOVE command
"/icon list" - prints out a list of the currently active icons
"/icon add Blade B 20,5" - adds an icon named Blade (for either a monster or player named Blade) that shows up as a 'B' at 20,5. NOTE: Icons may be longer than 1 character (Ex: "/icon add Dragon <==--==> 30,1")
"/icon del Blade" - removes the icon named blade
"/icon clear" - removes all icons
• icons are now created when a player logs in, defaulting to the first letter of the player's name. icons may be changed with "/set icon Kr" to set their icon to Kr, for example.
• icons are deleted when a player disconnects
• icons are created when a monster is added. There are 2 ways for this to happen - you can specifically designate the icon for a monster you are adding by putting the icon after a slash after the name. Ex:
/ADD SilverDragon/SD 3 17 4d8 0 big guy
This will give the SilverDragon an icon of "SD".
If an icon is not specified in the add line, then an icon is created from the first letter of the monster's name, and a single digit, if there is one at the end of the name. Ex:
/ADD orc1 3 17 1d8 4 little guy
This will create orc1 with an icon of "o1".
NOTE: icons will NOT be auto-created for a monster or player if an icon with that name already exists.
• icons are deleted when a monster is deleted using "/DEL monstername"
• Remember - you can do whatever you want to the icons using the /ICON commands, these adding and deleting functions are hopefully to just speed things up a bit.
• /ICON SET dragon DRG - this will update a currently existing icon to a new word, here it would change the dragon's icon to DRG
DM privileges, notes, and comments:
1) DM can do bookeeping with:
a) /add, /delete to keep track of monsters
b) /damage to keep track of monster damage
c) /init to start up the initiative rolls
d) /next at any time to move on to the next player or monster (if a player has stepped away for a moment, for example)
2) DM sees all stats in '/who'.
3) DM gets a message when any player types /damage.
4) DM gets a message when any player types /set maxhp
5) DM can do a '/who <name>' on anybody, while players can only look at people who are logged in.
DMing Examples
In order to make gameplay faster, the DM usually types in entries for various encounter locations througout the adventure. Then, when the characters get there, the DM simply copies a section from an open text editor in the background and pastes it into whatever terminal program they have connected to NetRPG. Here's a sample from a typical adventure:
/CLEAR
/ADD ogre 3 16 3d6 34 3 with a big club
/ADD orc1 5 18 1d12+2 20 2 with a bloody longsword
/ADD orc2 5 18 1d8 20 4 aiming a bow at you
You enter the corridor and are faced by a huge humanoid figure flanked
by two orcs. They advance toward you...
/SAY ogre Who dares enter my cave?
/DO orc2 pulls back on his bow
The DM would copy the above 8 lines and paste them into NetRPG. The result would be that the 3 monsters would be recorded in the monster list, the players would see a description of the area, and then they would get the SAY and DO commands. If the players were to type "/who", they would be able to see more accurate descriptions of the monsters.
