Club Amiga de Montreal

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM / CAM_CD_1.iso / files / 167.lha / Player / Player.Doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1988-04-28 | 50KB | 1,009 lines

Player: The Energion Character Playing Program Version 2.10, 9-14-88 Copyright © 1988 Rick Huebner Reproduction and distribution encouraged 0. Administrivia (let's get it over with early) ----------------- 0.1 Copyright & distribution notices This document and the program it accompanies are Copyright © 1988 Rick Huebner. However, you are hereby granted permission to distribute and use this material freely. I'm not keeping the copyright in order to restrict distribution, but only to allow myself to keep ownership of the program and control over future versions. You may consider this software to be real freeware, i.e. really free, no strings attached. Not quite public domain, but close enough for most purposes. Please post this on RPG and Amiga BBS's, include it in appropriate software libraries, etc. 0.2 Warranty There isn't one. This is a gift, not a commercial product. However, I have tested this software pretty thoroughly, and I use it myself constantly, so it shouldn't cause anybody any big problems. If this software does somehow cause serious problems (though I can't imagine how it might), please contact me (see section 5), and I'll try to fix it ASAP. That's a better support policy than you usually get when you pay for it. 1. So what is this thing, anyway? ---------------------------------- 1.1 What is Player? Player is a utility program to help with the creation, play, and maintenance of Energion characters. It is not, in itself, a game, but is rather a utility program which helps you to play a game (Energion). 1.2 (sigh) OK, so what's Energion? Energion is a fantasy role-playing game (FRPG) rules system which allows you to create fantasy characters and simulate their lives (or deaths), adventures, and exploits. It's similar in purpose to other RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons(tm), RuneQuest(tm), Chivalry and Sorcery(tm), etc. It provides rules to handle the description of a character's capabilities and skills, and the effects of magic and combat. However, Energion's special emphasis is on in-character realism and easy rules computerization. In-character realism means that as much as possible, Energion tries to make the results of a character's actions self-consistent and logical within the character's game universe. For example, a warrior does not instantly become much more powerful by killing a monster or grabbing treasure; a warrior gains skill through training and practice. There are as few arbitrary restrictions and limitations as possible; the only limitations should be those dictated by common sense and the physics of the game universe. There's no rational reason why a character can't be expert both at picking locks and fighting, for instance, so Energion has no rigidly stereotyped character classes. Instead, there are skills of varying difficulties and capabilities, which may be learned by any sentient creature who invests enough time and effort into the task. Easy rules computerization means that where possible, Energion uses simple, smoothly-progressing mathematical formulas rather than look-up charts full of arbitrary numbers. Exceptions and special case rules are minimized. Energion characters can be stored, updated, and possibly even played using standard spreadsheet programs. Gaming utilities are much easier to write than for most other RPG systems, even in "stupid" languages such as primitive versions of BASIC. This makes it easier to automate a lot of the drudgery of role-playing games, like Player does. 1.3 But what does Player *do*? One of the biggest hassles of serious role-playing games is maintaining and updating the records of all your characters. The second-worst annoyance is usually the mechanics of the game system itself during play; rolling dice, computing hits, keeping track of damage points, etc. Player is designed to make the bookkeeping and game mechanics of Energion as easy and unobtrusive as possible, to allow you to spend more time thinking, planning, and playing your characters, and less time messing with dice, papers, rule books, and calculators. Using Player, a single player can easily maintain records for a score of characters, and run an entire medium-sized adventuring party complete with henchmen, where before they had their hands full playing a single PC. A gamemaster can use Player to run groups of NPCs during encounters, and to maintain records with much more detail than would be practical by hand. Player also makes certain kinds of normally impractical game play playable; how often have you had to stop game play for several minutes in the middle of a hot encounter because a PC lost half his levels to an undead and the poor player had to refigure most of the character sheet in mid-hack? What's worse, how often have you gamemasters screwed around with what ought to happen in order to avoid having to handle such out-of-character logistical nightmares? Player takes the form of a computerized character record sheet. You enter your character's stats, training points, weapons, etc., and Player automatically figures out their current skill levels, hit chances, avoidance rolls, and such. Player provides gadgets for automatically rolling and computing most anything needed during game play. Characters are stored as disk files, and can be easily updated and maintained. When your character earns more training points, you just enter them in, and Player automatically handles going up levels and computes in all the side effects. Player can handle up to 20 characters loaded at one time, and allows you to quickly switch between them so you can play multiple characters at once. Even if you don't have an Amiga available during games, Player can be used to keep track of your characters, with filled-in character sheets being printed out for use during play. A gamemaster with an Amiga could maintain the character files for the rest of the gaming group, and generate updated character sheets as needed for the players. And even if you don't use the Energion rules system, it might be worth your while to fire Player up once and play with it a bit, just to see what you're missing; a seasoned fantasy gamer will be able to get a pretty good idea of what the Energion system is like by twiddling with Player for a while, and you may decide to give it a try. It would be immodest to claim that you'll be tempted to switch game systems just so you can use Player, but it's true. B-) 2. Installation ---------------- 2.1 Required files Player requires that three files be available in order to run: the skills, weapons, and armor data files. The names and locations of these files can be set by you, but they default to Skills.Dat, Weapons.Dat, and Armor.Dat, all in the current directory. You'll also need a character sheet print format file, default name Player.Prt, in order to produce printed character sheets. These default names, and a couple of other operating parameters, may be overridden by providing a Player configuration file (Player.Cfg). 2.2 Player configuration file When Player first starts up, it'll look for a configuration file called Player.Cfg, first in the current directory, and then in S:. If found, this file will tell Player what screen colors to use, and where to find the other necessary files. If Player.Cfg is not found, Player will use a set of built-in defaults, as specified above. Therefore, if you store Player in a directory in your CLI command search path, and you store Player.Cfg in S:, you can run Player from any directory you want without problems. Alternatively, you can just throw all the Player files together in a single directory, and always run it from there, and not bother with Player.Cfg at all. An example Player.Cfg which assumes all the Player files are kept on a disk (or ASSIGNed directory) called Player: has been provided. 2.3 Player startup script If you have ARexx, Player will attempt to execute the ARexx script Startup.Player when it starts. If this script doesn't exist, Player just ignores the error and goes on. This allows you to provide an automatically executed startup script for Player if you choose. ARexx will look for this script in the same standard locations as for any other script file, so you'll probably want to store this file in your assigned Rexx: directory. The script will begin execution with an implied "address player" command, so you can immediately begin issuing Player commands. An example Startup.Player script has been provided (which will need to be renamed due to ARC limits). 2.4 Character sheet format file The Print Character menu option uses a character sheet format file to lay out the format of the finished character sheet. This format file consists of a series of 'C' language "printf" format lines which are used by Player while printing your character sheet. The first line of the format file gives the name of the file to print the finished character sheet to. The example format file provided is set up to print to the PRT: printer device, and the file therefore uses embedded PRT: device control escape codes to do things like turn underlining on and off. If you have a good Preferences printer driver installed, and Preferences is set up properly, this should work fine for you. However, if you don't have a good printer driver available, or if you want to use some fancy feature of your printer which Preferences doesn't support, you can edit the format file with any standard ASCII text editor and redefine things as necessary. Just change the first line to PAR: (or SER:) to bypass the PRT: device, and change the PRT: device control codes to whatever your printer understands. All standard 'C' language '\' escape codes are recognized, plus the code '\e' for the Escape character. See section 4.6 for more details on customizing this file. 3. Usage --------- 3.1 General usage instructions Player is quite easy to use. Under normal manual operation, it works totally through the standard Amiga Intuition user interface (many thanks to RJ Mical!), and is almost completely mouse-driven with the standard menu commands, click buttons, and pop-up windows one expects on the Amiga. Basically, if you think something might do something, just click on it with the mouse to see. For example, to roll an avoidance roll, just click on the place on the character display where the avoidance rolls are printed, and an avoidance roll window will pop up. All gadgets use Intuition's release-verify option, so if you just want to see if something is a click-gadget without activating it, you can hold the left mouse button down to highlight the click zone, and then move the mouse pointer out of the highlighted click zone before releasing the mouse button, and the gadget will not be activated. The only non-Intuitive (ahem) thing about the Player interface which I can think of is the common practice of embedding string gadgets into the text of a pop-up window to save space. For example, in the aforementioned avoidance roll window, you'll notice that the Bonus value is blue, rather than black. This means that the avoidance roll bonus value is actually a string gadget, and may be clicked on and edited to enter any applicable bonus or penalty to your avoidance roll before you click on the appropriate selection button. Player always uses black text for normal print, and blue text for string gadgets, so you should be able to recognize these if you look for them. Since these are all standard Intuition string gadgets, all of the normal editing keys are available (right-Amiga-X & Q, shift left & right arrows, etc.). One thing which you must remember about all string gadgets in Player is that changes which you make will not be noticed until you hit the return key. If you click on a string gadget, edit it, and then click somewhere else before hitting return, your changes will not take effect. For automated operation, Player has a full-blown ARexx script language interface. This allows you to do just about anything from an ARexx script which can be done manually, plus use the ARexx programming language to automatically perform complicated or repetitive gaming chores, like rolling up new characters or performing major surgery on skills. Gamemasters can, with the right combination of cleverness and lazyness, use the script language to handle such things as mass combat or even a bit of "artificial stupidity" for NPC's. Some example ARexx scripts have been included, and more will most certainly be posted on our support BBS in the future. 3.2 Command line startup Player can be started from the CLI command line either directly or with the RUN command, and should work fine with around 4K of stack or more. STDIN and STDOUT ("<" and ">") are not used unless an error prevents Player from starting properly, or when ARexx reports an error in a script, so RUNBACK should usually work as well. Player accepts the names of character files to be immediately loaded upon startup as command line arguments. These arguments are processed before Player attempts to invoke the Startup.Player ARexx macro (if any). Player would probably run fine from the WorkBench if you attached an icon to it, but I only see the WorkBench maybe once a month, so I haven't bothered to provide one. If you need one, go for it. 3.3 Menu options The following menu options are provided by the Project menu. They allow you to perform all the standard loading and saving operations you'd expect: New character: Loads a new empty character sheet, which you can then edit to enter a new character into Player. Load character: Loads a previously-saved character file from disk. See the notes below for info about using the file requester. Unload character: Unloads the currently displayed character from Player's memory. Does NOT delete or otherwise affect any saved disk files. If you've edited any of the fundamental data for your character without saving yet ("unsaved" will be shown in title bar), Player will verify that you really want to discard your changes. Save character: Saves the currently displayed character to disk. If Player knows the filename for this character already (from a previous Load or Save As operation), the old file will be automatically overwritten with the new data. If Player doesn't know the filename yet (new character), this option acts as a Save As. Save character as...: Also saves the currently displayed character to disk, but prompts for the file name to use first. If there's already a file with the name you give, Player will verify that you really want to overwrite the old file. Print character: Prints out a filled-in character sheet for the currently displayed character. Player first looks for a character sheet format file with the same name as the character's file but with a ".PRT" suffix, and then defaults to the generic format file whose name was specified in Player.Cfg. This allows you to make customized character sheet format files for your characters, with the notes and personal data filled in. WARNING: Due to a bug in the Manx 'C' fopen() function, if you have printer problems while Player is trying to open the printer device Player will lock up. Once the printout has started everything is fine, and you'll be able to abort out of any printer problems as expected. Make sure your printer is ready before starting a print! About Player: Displays the obligatory boring copyright notice and version information, and a reminder of our BBS number. Since I'm planning on producing a steady stream of new versions for a long time to come, this option will mainly be useful for finding out how outdated whatever version you're currently using is. Quit: Unloads all currently loaded characters, and then halts Player. Equal to clicking on the main window's close gadget. A few notes about the file requester are in order here. The file requester is completely "live", meaning that you can go ahead and start doing things as soon as it shows up, without having to wait for it to finish reading the directory. In order to reduce the amount of mouse-tag required while the list is being updated, the list will stop updating if you click in it. You can restart the updates by clicking anywhere in the requester background, outside of the gadgets. The string gadget box at the top is for the directory to list; you may click in this box to type a new directory name, or you may click on a listed directory name to enter it into this box automatically. Hitting return within this box, or double-clicking a listed directory name, causes the requester to list the files in the new directory. The center box lists the files and/or subdirectories found within the directory being listed. Subdirectories are printed in red, and normal files are printed in black. The lower string gadget box is for the name of the file to be loaded or saved; as with the directory box, you may click in this box to type a filename, or you may click on a listed file name to enter it automatically. Hitting return within this box, or double-clicking a listed file name, finishes the file requester's job and is equivalent to clicking on the Load/Save button after entering the name. 3.4 Control buttons Once you've loaded a character into Player, you'll see the main page of the character sheet. Across the bottom of every page there's a row of control buttons. The buttons control those functions which need to be available at all times, no matter which page of the character sheet is currently displayed. Main: Displays the main page of the character sheet. The main page is the general-purpose quick-reference summary of the entire character, where you'll spend most of your time during games. Skills: Displays the skills page of the character sheet. This page is simply a list of all those skills which your character possesses, with a summary of data about each skill. Weapons: Displays the weapons page. This page lists the weapons which your character has available to use, with relevant info about each. Armor: Displays the armor page. This page displays info about the armor the character has available. Dice: Pops up a dice-rolling window. This window provides three buttons: 1d10, 1d100, and a customizable whateveryouwant button. The left string gadget within the custom button controls how many dice the button will roll, and the right string gadget controls what size each die will be. Click on the rest of the button outside of the string gadgets to roll again. Edit: Toggles Player between play and edit modes. In play mode (the usual state), Player does things needed while playing your character during a game, like roll hits or select which weapons you're using. In edit mode, Player lets you edit and update the fundamental data about your character, like stat values and what weapons are available. See the appropriate sections below for more data on exactly what can be done in each mode. Select: Lets you select which of the currently loaded characters you wish to work with at the moment, from a list of names. Just click on the one you want to switch to. Prev: Switches to the previous character in the stack of loaded characters. Wraps around from the beginning of the list to the end if necessary. Next: Switches to the next character in the stack, wrapping around to the beginning of the list if necessary. 3.5 Play-mode functions These are the functions which Player can perform while in play mode (Edit button turned off): Main page: The main page is divided into several info boxes. Some of these boxes are only for displaying info, such as the movement rates box. Others act as triggers for relevant pop-up windows to perform game-related rolls and calculations, as follows: Stat rolls: The Stats box brings up the stat roll window. Stat rolls are generic rolls against your character's stats, used at the gamemaster's discretion (for example, "Roll under half your agility to prevent slipping on the ice"). Sometimes these rolls are pass/fail, sometimes you need to make it by at least a certain margin, and other times you need to make it within a certain percentage of the stat. This window displays results using all of the above methods. The Bonus value is a string gadget, and may be edited to apply any relevant bonus or penalty before rolling. Perception/reaction rolls: The Senses box brings up the Perception/Reaction time roll window. Click on the appropriate button, and Player will tell you what category of perception roll you made, or how long you are delayed due to surprise. Weight carried accounting: The Weight box brings up the weight carried adjustment window. This is where you specify how much weight your character is carrying, other than the armor being worn. Player will compute how encumbered this makes the character, and penalize their AG and CO accordingly. Damage point accounting: This box brings up a window which lets you adjust your character's current damage points. A dice rolling button for healing spells is provided, which will roll any number of d10 required. Click in the string gadget to set how many dice to roll, or click in the rest of the button to roll again. The Change By string gadget lets you adjust your character's damage points by any specific amount required; usually you'll enter a negative number here to apply damage, and then click on the Heal button to heal again. Avoidance rolls: The avoidance roll box brings up a window which (surprise!) lets you attempt avoidance rolls. Both the pass/fail margin and the damage multiplier are displayed for use as appropriate. Note the ubiquitous Bonus string gadget. Spell level accounting: The Spells box brings up a window for adjusting how many spell levels you have on tap for magic-related skills. When levels are used, use the relevant string gadget to subtract them. As time passes, use the Recover string gadget to let Player compute your recharge progress. Weapon hit rolls: Last but not least, both of the two weapons-in-hand boxes bring up a hit roll window. Use the target range and target resistance string gadgets to prepare for the attack, and then click the Attack button. If you hit, Player will display the hit quality and net damage inflicted. Use the Bonus string gadget to apply special adjustments for relative motion, target size, etc. Skills page: The skills page lists one skill per line. Click on any skill line to bring up the skill roll window, which will allow you to attempt a roll against that skill percentage. 'Nuff said. Weapons page: The weapons page lets you select which weapons are considered in-hand and ready to use. Just click on the weapon info to toggle the readiness status. The main page only has room for two ready weapons at once, so if two weapons are already selected, you have to toggle one of them off before you can toggle another one on. Armor page: The armor page lets you select which sets or layers of armor your character is currently wearing. Click on the armor info column to toggle it on and off. The weight of all armor being worn will be computed, and appropriate penalties applied to AG and CO as required. 3.6 Edit-mode functions These are the things which Player will let you change while in edit mode (Edit button turned on): Main page: As in play mode, several of the info boxes on the main page bring up windows when clicked: Name & stats: Clicking on the Stats box brings up a window which lets you edit the character's name and stat values. Pretty straightforward. Vision penalty rebate: Clicking on the Senses box lets you edit the character's vision penalty rebate value. If you use Energion's optional rules for applying hit chance penalties at range, you should set this value as appropriate to the character's race. If you aren't using those rules, you should set this value to 100 to eliminate the vision penalty entirely. Avoidance roll bonus: Clicking on the avoidance roll box lets you edit your character's avoidance roll bonus value. Since the only way for a character to get a general-purpose bonus to all avoidance rolls is a special luck blessing from a god, that's what the window asks for. The bonus string gadget within the play-mode avoidance roll window is more appropriate for one-time special circumstances modifiers. Strategic point modifiers: Clicking in the bottom weapon info box lets you edit the character's strategic point value modifiers. These are part of some new optional rules we're playtesting, for handling generalized mass combat at the strategic level. Until we get those rules finalized and published, there's not much reason to bother messing with these values. Skills page: Once you get your character entered into Player, this is where you'll do most of your maintenance. Click on a skill line and the editing window will pop up. To enter a new skill, you first enter the skill number from the Skills.Dat file. The rest of the values will then be loaded with defaults from the data file. Edit the name of the skill if necessary. Then fill in the prime stats to use for this skill, chosen as specified in the skill description. Where possible, Player will supply default prime stats. If there's no choice, Player will fill in all of the stats (i.e. Spellcaster, Open Locks). Some skills have both mandatory and chosen prime stats (i.e. Sneak, Hide) or even all chosen stats (i.e. Combat), in which case Player will supply those it can, and leave the remainder empty. You can detect this by checking the stat weights; a weight of 0 means this stat is not used at all, while a weight of 1 with a stat abbreviation of 0 means that this stat is used, but Player doesn't know which stat it is yet. Prime stat weights above 1 may be used at the gamemaster's discretion; these allow the gamemaster to tailor how important each prime stat is to the character's overall aptitude for the skill. Finally, enter either the number of training points the character has earned in this skill, or the skill level which the character has achieved. When you're finished editing the skill, click the OK button to close the window, or click the forward or backward buttons to proceed through the character's skill list. NOTE: The first skill line must always be used to hold the character's Combat skill (even if level 0), since that's where Player will get the skill percentage when computing hit chances. Weapons page: Click on a weapon info box to bring up the weapon edit window. Enter a weapon number from the Weapons.Dat file to enter a new weapon into the list, and then edit the other values as necessary. The hit bonus value is the weapon's innate bonus to hit, not counting strength or skill. Likewise, the damage bonus is the weapon's innate bonus to damage. The strength of the weapon may be specified as 0, which will cause the weapon to always be used with the character's current ST (for hand-held melee weapons), or a specific non-zero strength may be entered (for fixed-strength weapons like crossbows [or rifles!] which don't get stronger even if the character does). This allows Player to gracefully handle temporary changes to the character's ST, like via a Mind-Master's hysterical strength ability. The telescopic sights value is useful only if you are using the optional range/vision penalty rules as mentioned above under Vision Penalty Rebate. And finally, the skill value is the character's extra skill with this specific class of weapon, if any. Armor page: Click on an armor layer info column to edit the character's armor, or click on the shield value display to edit that. As with skills and weapons, to enter a new layer of armor you first enter an armor chart entry number from the Armor.Dat file, and the default values will be read in. The parameters for armor are pretty much self-evident. 3.7 ARexx script language Player checks for the availability of ARexx when it first comes up, by attempting to open "libs:rexxsyslib.library". If it succeeds, Player assumes that ARexx is available, attempts to invoke Startup.Player, and prepares to receive Player commands from ARexx. If Player can't open the library, it will assume ARexx isn't available and will disable all further ARexx functions. There is (currently) no way provided to invoke ARexx scripts directly from within Player. Player scripts can be invoked from the CLI by using the ARexx command "address player" to direct the commands in the script file to the Player program. See the example ARexx scripts provided. The general command syntax is very simple. A command is a string consisting of one or more keywords (or unique abbreviations thereof) and possibly argument values, separated by any number of blanks, commas, or tabs. Quotation marks are never needed in the final command string which gets sent to Player, since any time that a random-content string is allowed (such as setting the character's name), it's at the end of the command line and Player just uses the whole tail end of the line. This saves you from messing with the often-confusing quotes-within-quotes problems which often occur with ARexx commands. Once again, see the example scripts provided. The following error codes may be returned by Player commands: 10: Unknown keyword ("get stat frog") 11: Non-unique keyword abbreviation ("get s") 12: No characters loaded 13: Too many characters loaded 14: Invalid argument value ("get armor 1386 name") The complete list of available Player commands follows. Command names are listed first, with all possible keywords indented below. Commands or keywords are in upper case, and user-supplied variables are described in lower case. Optional arguments are surrounded by brackets; all other arguments are required. LOCK (prevents manual intervention) UNLOCK (reenables mouse & keyboard) PROJECT NEW (selects new character) LOAD [filename] (prompts user if no name given) UNLOAD (prompts user if unsaved changes) SAVECHAR (prompts user if no filename set) SAVEAS (prompts user no matter what) PRINT QUIT SELECT (selects the current character) SLOT charnumber (loaded character # from 1-20) NAME charname (unique left substring of name) RECALC ALL SKILLS WEAPONS DAMAGE REDISPLAY (recalcs all and updates display) ROLL (returns requested value in RESULT) STAT ST through FO (returns points made/failed by) REACTION (returns seconds delay) PERCEPTION (returns perception type made) AVOIDANCE (returns points made/failed by) AREAATTACK POINTATTACK NECROMANTIC DOMINATION DECEPTION HIT readyweapon (damage done or MISS/FUMBLE/RANGE) SKILL skillline (returns points made/failed by) WINDOW DICE OPEN [x y] CLOSE SELECT (same keywords for all windows) STATS SENSES WEIGHT DAMAGE AVOIDANCE SPELLS WPN1 WPN2 SET NAME charname STAT ST - FO value (*1) STBONUS statrollbonus VISION rebatepercent (*3) CARGOWT kilograms (*1) CARGOEF factor (*1) DAMAGE currentdamage (*4) HEALDICE value HEALPTS value BLESS permavoidbonus AVBONUS avoidrollbonus READYWPN readynumber (*3) (either 1 or 2) NUM weaponline (from 1 - 15) TGTRANGE meters TGTRESIST value HITBONUS value STRATEGIC modnumber value SKILL skillline (*2) (from 1 - 43) NUM chartnumber (loads defaults from chart) NAME skillname PRIME primenumber (prime stats 1 - 4) DEFAULT (use default stat from chart) ST - FO abilitynumber WEIGHT primenumber DEFAULT (use default weight from chart) value TP trainingpoints SKBONUS skillrollbonus WEAPON weaponline (*3) (from 1 - 15) NUM chartnumber (loads defaults from chart) NAME weaponname HITBONUS value DMGBONUS value SKILL value STRENGTH value SCOPE value ARMORLAYER value (*1) (from 1 - 4) NUM chartnumber (loads defaults from chart) NAME armorname BONUS value WT kilograms EF factor WORN Y|N SHIELD value NDICE value DIESIZE value CURRDISP (causes recalc all & redisplay) MAIN SKILLS WEAPONS ARMOR CHANGED Y|N (whether to prompt user for save) FILE filename (full path of character file) PCPATH directory (default location of char files) PRTPATH printfile (default print format file) GET (returns requested value in RESULT) all SET keywords (sans last argument) plus... REALAG (base unencumbered agility) REALCO (base unencumbered coordination) REACTION (reaction-time adjustment) PERCEPTION (base perception) MOVE (base movement rate) LIFT (max liftable weight) ARMORNETWT (effective weight of armor) CARGONETWT (effective carried weight) ENCUMBRANCE (percent of encumbrance) MAXDAMAGE (fully-healed damage points) CONDITION ("Unhurt","Scratched",etc.) AVOIDANCE (total avoidance roll percentage) AREAATTACK POINTATTACK NECROMANTIC DOMINATION DECEPTION RESISTANCE weapontype (from 1 - 17) FULL NOSHIELD SURPRISED READYWPN readynumber (in addition to SET keywords) INIT SPEED STRBONUS RANGE rangenumber (1=point blank - 5=extreme) HITCHANCE rangenumber DAMAGE rangenumber STRATPTS SKILL skillline (in addition to SET keywords) AVG (average weighted prime stat value) NTP (training pts for next level) PCT (current skill percentage) FACLVLS (factored levels) LEVEL (current skill level) SLOT (loaded character position number) NCHARS (number of characters loaded) NSKILLS (number of entries in Skills.Dat) NWEAPONS (entries in Weapons.Dat) NARMORS (entries in Armor.Dat) *1: Recalc all after changing *2: Recalc skills after changing *3: Recalc weapons after changing *4: Recalc damage after changing Examples: select name fred set stat st 100 set skill 4 num 10 set skill 4 prime 1 st set skill 4 weight 1 1 get skill 4 num get skill 4 weight 1 get readywpn 1 range 1 get resist 14 full roll avoid area roll hit 1 window damage open 20 20 window senses o w wpn1 c recalc all redisp project load fredfile pr l df0:fredfile p q 4. Customization ----------------- 4.1 Philosophy Energion is not intended to be a complete set of rules detailing everything needed to run a campaign, nor is the gamemaster intended to be locked into any particular set way of doing things. It's meant more as a skeletal set of basic rules which the gamemaster can use to implement his/her own idea of a fun campaign universe. The gamemaster is encouraged to customize things to suit. Accordingly, Player attempts to give the gamemaster as much design freedom as possible. All of the data which Player uses and generates is stored in easily customized plain ASCII text files. Gamemasters are encouraged and expected to add/delete/tailor skills, weapons, and armor as appropriate for their own campaigns. 4.2 General data file format The first item on the first line of the file must be the number of skills, weapons, or armor types in the file. Player uses this value to compute how much memory to allocate before reading in the rest of the data. The rest of the first line is ignored, and is generally used for column title comments. The rest of the file is read as a free-form series of data items, separated by any number of commas, blanks, tabs, newlines, carriage returns, and/or formfeeds. It's generally easier to maintain the file if you put one skill or whatever per line, but Player doesn't really care how the data is arranged as long as it's all there in the right sequence. Text items which contain embedded commas, blanks, or tabs must be enclosed in either single or double quotation marks. Text items which contain quotation marks must be enclosed in the other kind of quotation marks. Other items may be placed in quotes if you like, but it doesn't matter. Fair warning: Player does almost no error checking or validation of data items while reading the data files. If Player reads a text string when it expects a number, it will generally be interpreted as a 0. Messing up the data files can lead to some pretty bizarre errors, so be careful. As long as you stick to the format of the distributed data files you should be OK. 4.3 Skills data file format Each skill in the file is described by the following list of items: Skill number: Ignored by Player, which counts the skills as it reads them. Only provided for humans to read, but must be present. Skill name: The first letter flags what type of skill this is; use P, M, A, or O for Physical, Mental, Ability, or Other as appropriate. The second letter is ignored, and the rest of the string is the default skill name. Base TP: Number of training points required for a character with average primes of 100 to reach first level, multiplied by 100. Base skill percentage: Self-explanatory. Skill gained per level: Also self-explanatory, except values are multiplied by 10 to allow one decimal place without floating point. Level factor: Percentage of skill level counted towards total factored levels. Default prime stats: Use the standard stat name abbreviation, or "--" if the stat is unknown or non-applicable. Non-ability skills can also specify the skill number of an ability, in order to use the character's skill percentage in that ability as a prime stat. All four potential prime stats must be specified. Prime stat weighting factors: Normally, a weight of 1 means that the corresponding prime stat slot is used, and a weight of 0 means the stat slot isn't used. Optionally, the gamemaster may use weights greater than 1 to adjust the relative importance of each stat to the overall prime stat average. Spell level prime stats: Allows the gamemaster to use different stats to determine the daily spell levels multiplier than are used for TP calculations. Use the same notation as for prime stats. If no stats are specified the general prime stats are used. Only relevant for magic-related skills. 4.4 Weapons data file format Each weapon is described by the following list of items: Weapon number: Ignored by Player, the same as for skills. Weapon name: Self-explanatory. Weapon type: Which of the 17 basic weapon types this one fits. Handedness: Whether used 1 or 2 handed. Mechanical: 0 for non-mechanical weapons, meaning those powered directly by the character's muscles, like a sword. 1 for mechanical weapons which are self-powered once activated, like a bow. Base initiative: Average number of seconds for a totally average person to prepare the weapon for use from a completely-unprepared state. Base speed: Average number of seconds between useful attacks when wielded by a totally average person. Base ranges: The normal average-strength range in meters for each of the 5 weapon range categories. Use 0 for touch-range weapons, like swords, and use -1 for non-applicable ranges. Base damage: Average number of points of damage done by the weapon at short range when used by a totally average person. Default strength: Default weapon strength to use when entering new weapons into Player. For mechanical weapons, 0 means to default to a hard-coded value of the character's ST; this assumes that the character will buy a bow (or whatever) of the maximum strength they can properly use. For non-mechanical weapons, 0 means to default to a 0 in the weapon editing box, which causes Player to use the character's current ST whenever the weapon is used. For any weapon, a non-zero value means to default to that hard-coded strength value for the weapon; this is useful for weapons which have innate strengths which make it irrelevant how strong the character is, like firearms. 4.5 Armor data file format Each type of armor in the file is described by the following items: Armor number: Ignored by Player, as for skills and weapons. Armor name: Self-explanatory. Resistances: A set of 17 values giving the resistance of this kind of armor to each of the 17 basic categories of weapon. Armor weight: The weight in kilograms of an average, normal quality set of this kind of armor, fitted for an average-size human. Multiplied by 10 to allow one decimal place without getting stuck with floating-point numbers. Armor encumbrance factor: The encumbrance factor of this style of armor; i.e. how well distributed is the weight, how much does it hamper normal activities, etc. A value of 1 is equivalent to dead-lifting that much weight above your head and carrying it around, while 5 means the armor fits like skin. Once again, multiplied by 10. Must NOT equal zero. 4.6 Character sheet format file The character sheet format file is not a standard-format data file like those described above. It's a special kind of merge file used by Player when printing a character. The first line of the file gives the filename to print the character sheet to; this is usually either PRT:, PAR:, or SER:, but could just as easily be any other valid filename. The remainder of the file is a series of 'C' language "printf" style format lines. Player goes through the file, copying those lines which don't contain any spots for variables straight to the output, and using the other lines to format and print the variables involved in printing the character sheet. You can make any changes you want to this file, so long as you don't change the sequence, grouping, or expected data type of the variable formatting codes in the file. For instance, the first line which contains a formatting code must be ready to print a text string variable, namely the character's name. The next line which contains formatting codes must be ready to print 4 decimal integers, namely the character's ST and HE stats and bonuses. As long as the variables which Player expects to print can be printed in the expected sequence and groupings, you can change anything you want. You can change the width of the printed fields, the background text or notes contained in the line, the control codes used, etc. Basically, you have total control over the fine details of the character sheet, as long as you stick to the same overall design. 5. Upgrades, bug fixes, related Energion info, and other support ----------------------------------------------------------------- 5.1 Energion Support BBS You may send enhancement suggestions, bug reports, or questions to the Energion support BBS, The Wind Dragon Inn. You can also obtain future versions of this program, other useful Energion support software, and Energion-related text files and articles, or participate in Energion or general FRP discussion areas. This is the best way to contact us; messages are usually answered within one or two days. The number is: The Wind Dragon Inn 402-291-8053 (FidoNet node 1:14/614) 300/1200/2400 bps, 8N1, 24 hrs. P.S.: The Wind Dragon Inn also features one of the better libraries of general Amiga PD software in the MidWest, so it may be worth a call even if you aren't looking for more Energion info! 5.2 Energion Publications mailing address Those of you who can't call our BBS may send correspondence to: Energion Publications P.O. Box 1147 Bellevue, NE 68005 However, there are currently no plans for distributing free software or text files via the mail. This address is intended primarily for placing orders; other inquiries will be answered as time permits. 5.3 Future plans There are a lot of major enhancements to Player in the works; this is the program which we use for our own games, so it will automatically receive a lot of attention and work. Next on my list is a tactical situation display capability, which will show where characters are in relation to each other and to other objects, handle automatic movement, do range/area-of-effect/line-of-sight calculations, etc. Kind of an intelligent tactical display map to go with the intelligent character sheet. And in the future I'd like to implement some kind of simple networking to allow multiple copies of Player to exchange info so that they can automatically roll hits against each other's characters, show each other's characters in a shared tactical display, and generally act as intelligent gaming workstations. And of course, other Energion software and information will be appearing regularly on our BBS along with future versions of Player, so be sure to keep in touch. And if you come up with anything which might be useful to other Energion players, be sure to upload it; the more goodies people upload, the more goodies will be available for download. 5.4 Version History 1.00, 5-30-88: Playtesting version, not fit for public distribution. 2.00, 8-28-88: First publicly distributed version; complete rewrite, with fixes and enhancements too numerous to mention. 2.10, 9-14-88: Added ARexx interface and command language.