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A MANUAL FOR EAMON ADVENTURE DESIGNERS
By Donald Brown
EAMON is the computerized fantasy
role-playing game developed by Donald
Brown. This manual has been written for
those stalwart people who are tired of
having their characters killed in the
many adventures written for the system,
and want revenge by creating their own
death traps. It is assumed that you are
already familiar with the gaming system
and the information included in the
Player's manual.
Most of the adventures that are
written for the Eamon system have been
similar to the "Adventure" game that
was created by Don Woods and Willie
Crowther of MIT, such as the Beginner's
Cave included on the master diskette.
This manual will both help you design
your own scenarios in that type of game
but will also permit you to meld any
other type of game with the system that
you wish.
HOOKING UP WITH EAMON
or
SENDING ADVENTURERS TO THEIR DEATH FOR
FUN AND PROFIT
Under the Eamon rules, it takes only a
few numbers to completely describe a
character. Between adventures, all of
the player characters, (or adventurers)
that the Master system knows about are
stored in a file on the Master that is
called "CHARACTERS". It is a random-
access file with a length of 150.
Record 0 holds the number of records
used in the file, and all subsequent
records may hold one character. If the
first string in the record is null ("")
then the character in that record has
been deleted and the record may be
reused to store a new character.
The data held in each record is :
A string that has the name. The
next numbers stored are (in order)
player Hardiness, Agility, Charisma,
the four spell abilities (Blast, Heal,
Speed, and Power), the five weapon
abilities (Axe, Bow, Club, Spear, and
Sword), the player's Armour Expertise,
the player's sex as a string ("M" or
"F"), gold pieces carried, gold pieces
in the bank, the player's armour class
(Leather=2, Chain=4, Plate=6, with one
added for a shield), then for each of
a player's four weapons the name of
the weapon, the weapon type, the weapon
complexity, the weapon dice, and the
weapon's sides per die. If a player
does not have four weapons, his weapons
will be first, and all other weapon
weapon names will be "NONE". Except for
name, sex, and weapon names all of the
information is stored as an integer
number, with all probability numbers
stored as percentages (perfect=100).
When a player leaves the Main Hall
to go on an Adventure, first his char-
acter is deleted from the CHARACTERS
file, and then the player is prompted
to change diskettes. The program then
tries to read a program name from the
file EAMON.NAME on the adventure disk.
If this name is found, a file called
FRESH MEAT is opened on the disk and
the data that was in the record of the
CHARACTERS file is written into that
file, preceeded by the record number
that the character previously resided
in. Finally, the program given in the
EAMON.NAME file is run.
Once the adventure is over, control
must be returned to the main Eamon
programs. If the adventure ended in
the character's death, all that must
be done is deleting a file called "THE
ADVENTURER" from the master diskette
and running MAIN HALL. (You may instead
directly run THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF
EAMON and then do not need to delete
the file. If you do want to go the MAIN
HALL route, it might be advisable to
open THE ADVENTURER before deleting it,
to make sure it will really be there.)
If the character survives your
adventurer, you will have to recreate
him into the CHARACTERS file. The Main
Program logic is already writing the
character his own character record now,
but you may want to change this if you
have a special reason for it. Normally
this is simply writing in the new
information of the character into the
old record given in FRESH MEAT. However
if your program has the ability to
quit for a while and come back later,
it is possible for a new character to
be stored in the old record. In this
case you should search the CHARACTERS
file for a free record to store the
character, and write it in there (for
an example of how this is done, list
the NEW CHARACTERS program on your
master diskette).
Once you have stored the character
into the CHARACTERS file, you must
re-create a file called THE ADVENTURER
which has two pieces of data in it--
the name of the character, and the
record he resides in of the CHARACTERS
file. This too, is already done by the
logic of the Main program, but it may
be necessary for you to know what is
being done, in case you want to change
it. Once this is done, run MAIN
HALL to finish. (Also currently done.)
USE OF THE DUNGEON DESIGN DISKETTE
The Dungeon Design Diskette is
designed to make the job of entering
new Adventure-like scenarios much
easier. It includes a base to work
from for your program, as well as a
simple means of entering the data into
the text files needed by that base
program.
Version 5.0 of the Dungeon Designer
Diskette will contain two versions of
the Main Adventure program. One is
called MAIN PGM (or BASE PROGRAM 2.0)
and the other is MAIN PGM 10 (or BASE
PROGRAM 10).
Version 6.0 will only contain MAIN PGM,
but will contain an extra file called
CONVERT MAIN>MAIN 10. This is a text
file that can be executed (using the
DOS EXEC command) to convert MAIN PGM
to a ten direction version. To do this
simply load in MAIN PGM and type EXEC
CONVERT MAIN>MAIN 10. You will see some
Applesoft prompts. When it stops, you
will have a ten direction version of
the MAIN PGM. You may then save this on
your adventure diskette.
The first step in creating your
adventure is initializing the diskette.
The program on the DDD (Dungeon Design
Diskette) will do several things for
you---it will INIT the diskette, put
your program's name into EAMON.NAME,
and put in the starting data needed
for the dungeon editing program to
work. It also creates a boot program
that identifies this diskette as an
Eamon adventure by you! You will be
asked for an adventure number, this
must be an integer from 1 to 254, since
it is used as the disk volume. It is
not important what number you assign,
it will be be assigned to the next
valid number - once you have submitted
it to the library.
When you have initialized your
diskette, you should delete the text
file SAVE LEADIN PROGRAM HERE. Then
re-insert the DDD and load LEADIN
PROGRAM. The diskettes should be
switched again and you will type in
SAVE (your adventure name). You must
spell the name to be saved -in () above
exactly as you did when you typed in
the name of the adventure during the
initializing process. Then re-insert
the DDD and type LOAD MAIN PGM or LOAD
MAIN PGM 10 (depending on whether you
answered 6 or 10 directions during the
initialize process. The MAIN PGM 10
should be used if you answered 10 to
the number of directions. Otherwise,
use MAIN PGM. Now re-insert your new
adventure diskette and type SAVE MAIN
PGM. Note --- here you use 'MAIN PGM'
regardless of which program you loaded.
You are now ready to begin entering
data for the adventure. Insert the DDD
and run the program 'DUNGEON EDIT'.
This program is the one that puts your
basic dungeon design into the files.
A few general remarks are in order
now--First of all, you should always
have your dungeon designed before
entering it. Decide what rooms you
have, how they connect, what monsters
inhabit those rooms (and what their
attributes are), and what treasures
are sprinkled about.
For each of the four things you can
enter (ROOM, ARTIFACT, EFFECT, and
MONSTER), you can either add a new one
onto the end of the list, or edit one
already there. You cannot delete a
thing already there (though you can
replace it through editing). You also
must not go beyond 100 of any of the
things (though the total can go over
100). Actually you will run out of disk
space long before you hit the limit of
100 on these items. The more practical
limts of the system are: (-in general-)
Rooms: 50-85 Artifacts: 35-50;
Effects: 0-25; Monsters: 12-35.
If you do go over the 100 limit on
anything you will not be warned of your
error, but you will not get the results
you wanted.
Adding and Editing will be almost
identical for all four data types,
except that in 'editing' your old entry
will be placed after the cursor at the
start of entries. Every time you are
to do more entry than just hitting one
key, the entry will be done with a
special input routine. It appears to
be the standard Apple input on first
glance, but it has many significant
differences. First of all, the old
Escape-key editing features do not
work. Instead, the following control
keys do things--
ESC--this returns, accepting both
what is before and after the
flashing cursor. It is very
useful while editing since if
you simply hit ESC no change
will be made.
RETURN--this also does a return,
except only accepting what
is before the cursor.
CTRL-B--this moves the cursor to
the first character of your
input.
CTRL-E--this moves the cursor to
the last character of your
input.
CTRL-D--this deletes the character
that the cursor is sitting on,
bringing the characters after
the cursor forward one space.
CTRL-I--this inserts a space where
the cursor is, moving all
characters after the cursor
back one space. This is good
if you are entering a line
that you want to look good as
it wraps around your 40-column
screen.
<-,-> (FORWARD & BACKWARD ARROWS)--
these move the cursor back or
forward by one character.
Your entries cannot go over 250
characters, and you should not use
quotation marks ("). You may use commas
and colons in descriptions only. Do not
have any trailing spaces on the names
of items. (Applesoft regards "LION" as
being different from "LION ", though
your player may not recognize the
difference. Additionally, if you are
entering a number, enter only a number,
do not include any leading or trailing
spaces or other extraneous characters.
The program won't like them and will
simply spit them back at you.
Another thing to watch out for is names
on artifacts that begin with a number.
The program will accept them and you
can use them, but when you try to give
the item to a monster the program will
not understand. For example assume you
want to put an 8 inch knife in your
adventure. When adventurer picks it up
and tries to give it to his friend the
Doctor, the Doctor will think he is
being given 8 gold pieces. That is
because the program looks at the
artifact name and because it begins
with a number, it mis-understands.
For every room, you will need to
give eight pieces of data. First is
the room name, which cannot go over
39 characters. In the program it will
be printed as: "YOU ARE (room name)",
so you should use names like, "AT THE
CAVE ENTRANCE". Secondly you will
need to give a room description. It is
not preceeded by anything, so it must
be a full and complete description. If
your description is longer than 40
characters, you must pad it with spaces
so that when the description wraps
around the Apple's 40-column screen,
the breaks are between words. Finally,
you will have to give the room numbers
that you can get to from that room in
each direction. A special code has
been developed--if you give a room of
0, you can never move that direction.
If you give positive direction, there's
an open connection. Negative numbers
are special and usually indicate a
secret passage. Another special code is
-99 which indicates the exit to home.
Negative numbers can be easily made to
have special results by altering the
base program (see below).
Artifacts are somewhat similar. An
artifact is any non-living thing that
is in the dungeon. In addition to what
you might normally think of as the
artifacts you want to include: (gold,
silver, statues), you must also have
as an artifact all weapons used by your
monsters, as well as a dead body for
every monster.
For each artifact, you will again
need a name (this time just the normal
name, such as "GOLD COINS") and a full
description. You will also need to give
the item's room that it starts in, its
value in gold pieces, its type and its
weight. The room is usually a positive
number, however if the item isn't in
the dungeon yet (such as a dead body)
you should assign a room of zero, and
if the item starts by being carried by
the player, its room is -1.
There are four types of artifacts.
Type 0 is a treasure with a value that
will not change with the player's
charisma, such as a pile of gold coins.
Type 1 is a treasure whose value will
vary with the player's charisma, such
as a Persian rug. Types 2 and 3 are
weapons, with 2 being a weapon that can
be bought at the Main Hall, and 3 a
special weapon.
If your artifact is a weapon (type
2 or 3), you will also have to enter
some more information on it. First is
the weapon complexity, then is the
weapon type (1=axe, 2=bow, 3=mace,
4=spear, 5=sword), then the weapon's
damage with first the number of 'dice'
thrown for that damage, then the sides
per die.
The other major type of data to be
put in your files is monsters, which
are any living (or animate) things in
the dungeon. Monsters are similar to
characters, however they are assumed to
have their full armour expertise and
know all weapons equally well. For each
monster you will need the name, the
description, then hardiness (as with a
player), agility, friendliness (the
percentage chance of making friends
with a character of a charisma of 10),
courage (will flee from a fight after
he has received that percentage of his
hardiness in hits, on the average),
room starts in (may be zero if in a
chest or other special thing activates
him), his body weight, his special
defensive odds (normally 0, but magic
or size/speed may make some monsters
harder to hit), defensive odds are a %.
Armour (hits absorbed or stopped -
per blow. This may be things such as
a furry skin or magical effects), and
the weapon number (a pointer to some
artifact. If the weapon number is 0
it is assumed natural weapons; claws or
teeth. If the weapon number is -1 then
the monster isn't carrying a weapon).
You will then have to give for that
weapon the monster's complete chance
to strike a blow with it, and its sides
and dice of damage. These numbers do
not have to be consistant with the
numbers given in the artifact list; a
monster may know how to use his weapon
better than someoneHwho doesn't know
some secret, and the chance of hitting
is of course affected by the monster's
weapon expertise and other information
not stored.
There is a fourth thing that can be
entered called an "EFFECT". It is there
for your own special use--it permits
you to store some strings on disk so
that it can be called in quickly. The
code to read effects is not in place in
the base program (Main Pgm). To read an
effect (number E, for example) use
a routine such as:
PRINT DK$;"READ EAMON.DESC,R";E+200
: INPUT A$ : PRINT A$ : PRINT DK$.
NOTE: This routine also prints the
effect (A$) that it reads. For further
examples of its use you might want to
check out The Beginners Cave. It is
also included as room for expansion of
the DDD.
Once you have put all of your data
into your files, you will probably want
to see what you entered, to catch
errors and get a good overview. There
is a program included on the DDD that
will list all of your data in a simple,
organized fashion. It will list all
of your rooms, artifacts, and monsters
in order, also pointing out what sort
of "links" have been set up (what is
the room name you are moving into, what
is the name of the artifact that the
monster uses as a weapon, etc.) If
one of these links goes to the wrong
thing, there's an error! If you want
to put this output to a printer, you
must modify lines 9000-9999 of the
program DUNGEON LIST to start your
printer and set the value of PL to
the line length of your printer, less
one (39 for the Apple's screen).
There is also a program included
called DUNGEON LIST (OLD) which was
written to work with the older system
of files where EAMON.MONSTERS and
EAMON.ARTIFACTS were sequential files.
Although it might be very useful to
examine other people's dungeons after
you have played in them to learn how
to design your own, it goes without
saying that only a cur and a scoundrel
would list someone's dungeon before
playing to avoid dangers!
ADAPTING THE BASE DUNGEON PROGRAM
All of the work above was to put
your dungeon into a format that the
computer can use. It couples with
a program called the BASE DUNGEON
PROGRAM (or on later versions called
MAIN PGM or MAIN PGM 10). If no sliding
doors, things hidden inside of other
things, etc. are needed, and you are
using the original DDD, you can simply
save the base program on your diskette
and have a program that prints the
explanation or mission run this program
If you have a newer version of the DDD
and have already saved the MAIN PGM and
your (name of adventure) program, you
are all ready to go.
However,if you want special effects
such as a sword that teleports the user
to another room at random times (gee, I
may use that) these explanations should
help you.
Lines 100-999 are the main loop.
Every time a command is gotten, those
lines are run through. If you want to
have something done (or checked for)
every turn, it should be put in lines
500-900.
Lines 1000-1999 reads in monsters
and artifacts from disk, as well as
doing other initializing. If you want
to add a new command, you will have
to change line 1910(increase the number
in the DATA statement), 1920 (add the
new verbs--no spaces are permitted),
and line 290 (add the line numbers to
go to). If you want special things
to happen at the start, such as a fee
from the player's gold for some item,
do it in lines 1150-1890
Lines 2000-2999 are the closing
routines. When this is entered, if
the variable DIE has a non-zero value
the player didn't survive. Lines 2100
thru 2290 are for your additions.
Lines 3000-3999 are the movement
commands. If you want to magically
move the player, set R2 to the number
of the room to enter and go to 3500.
If something happens so as to make
the monsters reconsider their reactions
to the player, a GOSUB 3600 will check
the reactions of all monsters who are
unaligned (see below). If you have
special results and/or conditions for
movement and have thus given negative
room numbers in the editor, the place
to check is in lines 3050-3490
Lines 4000-4999 are to get things.
Lines 4200-4899 are the place to add
special results when getting some
artifact. You may place synonyms in
lines 4030-4110 (such as, 4030 IF S$=
"BAT" THEN S$="VAMPIRE BAT"). Finally,
if a command MUST have a subject,
GOSUB 4900 will ensure one is gotten.
Lines 7000-7999 are the attack
commands and subroutines. Lines 7700-
7999 are to kill monster M. If things
happen when a monster dies (such as
dropping something from the body),
it should be put in this section.
Lines 13000-13999 are the Power
Spell. As told in the Players manual,
this spell can do anything at all--
feel free to through out this section
and add your own.
Lines 16000-16999 are the say
command, which is very useful for
'words of power' or some other strange
effects.
Most of the variables are self-
explanatory and also can be changed
locally if desired, but a description
of some of the others are--
AC - Armour class of player
AD%(*,*) - Artifact data
The first subscript is the number of
the artifact, and the key for the second is:
1=Value
2=Type
3=Weight
4=Room
5=Complexity
6=Weapon Type
7=Dice
8=Sides
9=Flag if seen
AE - Armour expertise
AN$(*) - Name of artifacts
BANK - Gold player has in bank
C - Holds number of command given
C$(*) - Verbs program responds to
CH - Player charisma
CZ$ - last command given
DF - defender
DIE - Logical flag, 1=player died
DK$ - holds CTRL-D for disk commands
DR%(*) - room moved in each direction
EA - effect of armour on odds-to-hit
FD%(*) - full damage of side in combat
FR - fumbler roll/friend rating
GOLD - gold player has on person
HIT - logical flag if hit in combat
INC - logical flag if ability increased
LK - logical flag if 'looked' already
MD%(*,*) - monster data
First subscript is monster number,
second key is:
1=Hardiness
2=Agility
3=Friendliness
4=Courage
5=Room
6=Weight
7=Defensive odds (%)
8=Armour
9=Weapon #
10=Odds to hit (%)
11=W Dice
12=W Sides
13=Damage
14=Reaction
0-not met
1-unfriendly
2-neutral
3-friendly
MN$(*) - Name of monster
MR - Monster morale
NA - Number of artifacts
NBTL - logical flag if in battle
NC - Number of commands
NM - Number of monsters
NW - Total count of weapons in game
NZ - Number artifacts not player weapon
OF - Number of offensive monster
RAISE - logical flag if power raised
REC - Player record in char file
RL - Random number 1-100
ROOM - Room player currently in
RR - Random number 1-100 for power
S$ - Subject of command given
S2%(*) - Current spell ability
SA%(*) - Total spell ability
SEX$ - Holds 'M' or 'F' for player
SPD - Number of turns speed spell to go
SUC - logical flag if spell succeeded
TD%(*) - Damage taken for side
TP - Total price of treasure
V$ - Verb of command
V%(*) - Flags if player been in room
WA%(*) - Player's weapon ability
WD%(*) - For weapon, dice of damage
WN$(*) - Name of player's weapon
WO%(*) - Weapon complexity
WP%(*) - Weapon pointer (in close)
WS%(*) - Sides/die of damage for weapon
WT - Weight player carrying
WT%(*) - Weapon type
WZ - Number of weapons player brought
Once you have "played-out" other
people's adventures,it would definitely
be a good idea to tear it apart to see
how other people have adapted this
program to their own use. Also, if I
might give a few suggestions to new
Eamon dungeon designers-
1. Be fair to the adventurer. Don't
try to stack the odds totally against
him. A good rule of thumb is that an
adventurer can lick about five times
his own Hardiness in opponents, with
allies Subtracting their Hardiness from
the opposition. If you continually
design pure death traps (and don't
reward the successful outrageously),
people aren't going to want to send
their carefully-built up characters
through your dungeons. On the other
hand, if your dungeons are just big
give-aways, they will quickly become
boring.
2. You can place one or two traps
of the zap-you're dead type (such as
the book in the Beginner's Cave) so
long as they are not overdone and are
not required to survive them to get
out. Thus, if your only way out of the
tunnels is drinking a potion that half
of the time teleports you away, the
other half poisons you, it isn't fair.
3. Particularly to those who have
designed dungeons for non-computerized
role-playing games, remember that there
is only one adventurer going in, not an
army! No matter how great a character
is, he cannot by himself handle a dozen
thugs.
4. Last but not least, don't be
afraid to break any of these rules. If
you truly believe that your dungeon
will be better, do anything you please.
The worst that will happen is that
people will not play in it and you'll
have to change a few things.
.FF
The process of creating your own
adventure in Eamon will require that
you have a basic knowledge of program-
ming in Applesoft and in operating your
system as far as being able to load and
save programs as well as copying files
and diskettes. If you are unfamiliar
with these operations, you should
review them until you are comfortable
doing these functions.
The following is a summary of the steps
to follow to create an adventure of
your own. This summary is provided to
allow you an easier step-by-step method
of creating your scenario.
1. Be sure you have everything you need
The things you will need are:
a. A theme for the adventure.
This is usually the hardest part.
b. A map of the setting for the
adventure
c. A list of all the monsters
that will appear.
d. A list of all the artifacts
you will need.
e. The DDD (Dungeon Designer's
Diskette)
2. The next step is to initialize your
adventure diskette. This is done by
booting on the DDD and selecting the
initialize function. You will be
requested to replace the DDD with a
blank diskette. Then you will be asked
for the name of the adventure, the
adventure number and the author's name.
THE DISKETTE THAT IS SITTING IN THE
DISK DRIVE AFTER THESE QUESTIONS ARE
ANSWERED WILL BE INITIALIZED. FOR THIS
REASON, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS KEEP YOUR DDD
WRITE PROTECTED.
3. When the diskette has been initial-
ized, you'll need to copy two programs
from the DDD to your adventure diskette
The first one that should be copied is
LEADIN PROGRAM. Copy this one by:
a. Insert the DDD and type in:
LOAD LEADIN PROGRAM
b. Insert the adventure & type
DELETE SAVE LEADIN PROGRAM HERE
c. Now type: SAVE (whatever you
called your adventure)
The name that you use in the save
command must be the exact name that you
used when you initialized the diskette.
The second program that you have to
copy from the DDD to the adventure
diskette is the main adventure program.
The name that this program goes by on
the DDD may be one of the following:
BASE DUNGEON PROGRAM
BASE PROGRAM 2.0
MAIN PGM
This will depend on which version of
the DDD that you have. If you answered
the question "six or ten directions" as
10, then you will have to use the ten
direction version of the main program.
Some versions of the DDD do not have
this capability. However, if you did
get a question on how many directions
you wanted, your designer does have
this capability. If you are using
version 6.0, and you want to use ten
directions, you have to create a ten
direction version of the main program.
This is a very simple process. Simply
load the MAIN PGM program into memory,
and type : EXEC CONVERT MAIN>MAIN 10.
When the process is complete, you will
have a ten direction version in memory.
You may then save this on the adventure
diskette. When you have the appropriate
program in memory, insert the adventure
diskette and save it under the name
MAIN PGM.
4. The next step is to add the data or
information about your adventure. All
items are added using the DUNGEON EDIT
program. Boot on the DDD and select
modify an adventure. The edit program
is run and then requests you to insert
your adventure diskette. You will then
add all of your rooms, artifacts,
effects and monsters. This may take
several days, so whenever you get tired
of entering, select quit option. All
of your items will be saved and you can
pick up where you left off.
5. After all your rooms, artifacts, etc
have been entered, you may make your
program changes to MAIN PGM. These will
be all of the things that you want to
be special about your adventure.
6. The next phase will be to test your
adventure. The best way to do this is
to be sure the PRINT DK$"DELETE FRESH
MEAT" statement has been deleted from
the MAIN PGM, (..try line 1055 or 1050)
and that your main program has been
saved to the adventure diskette after
making your changes. Then boot the
Eamon Master diskette. Select the
character to be used to test with and
take him into the Main Hall and select
adventure. Insert adventure diskette
and you should now begin your test.
From that time on, to repeat a test you
should be able to simply run MAIN PGM.
(Or if MAIN PGM is already in memory,
simply type RUN)
Another helpful hint: to restart an
adventure if it bombs off you should be
able to type GOTO 210.
7. When you are sure your adventure is
ready you could have a friend test it.
When the adventure is completely ready,
send a copy of it to:
John Nelson
1226 E. University
Des Moines, Ia 50316
It will then be an "official" Eamon
Adventure and may be distributed.
If you have any questions or problems
designing an adventure, write to the
above address. We will do our best to
help you get back on the right track.
THE END