OasisOLC and Deaths Gate script reference

Specifications

Boy, does that sound dull :)

However, since it's absolutely necessary to point out how we want things, I've got to make a section describing the "standard specs" for rooms/objects/mobs.
Well, maybe the word 'balance' is enough? 
I hope so... But not being too naive, I think I need to outline a few numbers:
The chapters are called : Objects, Mobiles and Rooms:

3 lines is the minimum in a room description. I'd say 5 just to please Zemial, but the truth is most people find it difficult to describe their imagination without losing the big picture. Still, nothing is more boring than walking through an area with all 2-liners..:

>n
The path
   You are on a gravel path. It continues north and south.
Exits: north, south

>

This could better be described like this:

>n
The path
   You are walking along a gravel path, with hedges lining the sides. Both the path and the hedges look well-tended, and you feel certain you might meet a gardener any time soon. The path leads north toward a large mansion and south toward the garden entrance.
Exits: north, south

>

In this example it doesn't matter if you tell the character he's in the front of a large mansion, since it obviously well tended and straight lines all around. If, however the path lead to a more sinister place, the character maybe shouldn't be informed too much about the surroundings:

>n
The path
   You are walking along a gravel path, with hedges lining the sides. The hedges look unfamiliar to you, the leaves black with a red edge and a lily-white stem. The path twists slightly, the hedge obstructing the view of the path ahead.
Exits: north, south

>

Here an extradescription might be in order:

>l hedge
The hedge is about 6 feet tall, and looks very sinister. You are certain that people trying to press through never get to the other side.

>

Another 'bad habit' is to place people in the room description:

>n
   You enter the garden where the musicians have been playing all afternoon. The conductor is still here, gathering himself before tonight's grand finale. Chairs litter the lawn in front of the pavilion, and sometimes a bird leaps down to collect a bread crumb lost between the chairs.
Exits: east, north
The conductor is here, relaxing himself.

>

Rgiht now this makes sense - but some hardheaded music-hater  would probably come by sometime and kill the poor conductor. Then the sentence in the description is misleading and misplaced. Avoid putting people in the room description. If you MUST, do this only with mobs that cannot be killed, like shopkeepers, or do it less specific, and use terms like -  the spectators are walking around, people of all sorts crawl the shadows, etc. - and make some people to populate the area instead.

Lastly, a note on color: Use it, but don't abuse it. Color can make a decent area good, but it can also make a good area bad - many muds out there use excessive coloring schemes to make their mud interesting. We use good, well structured areas instead. Examples of what we don't want to see:

An o ld man is here,  oblivious
You walk in a green forest , with brown leaves above you. The sun is shining and you feel blue .

I know, I'm being pedantic. But the colors shouldn't make things hard to read, as I've seen examples of elsewhere. And NEVER use color in the 'alias' field. The colors are nice to use in long descriptions, though. For instance:

>l sign
 +-----------------------------------+
 |                                   |
 |         No       Trespassing      |
 |                                   |
 +---------------+----+--------------+
                 |    |
                 |    |
                 |    |
                 |    |
                 |    |
>

So much for rooms and descriptions.

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Objects:

Again the word balance comes to mind.

Don't - DON'T - make weapons with extreme +hit or +dam - or for that case multiple positive spell effects and no drawbacks. If an object (armor, weapon or otherwise) has a positive effect, give it some drawbacks too. I.e.. a ring gives +30 hit points. give it some drawback too, i.e. -1 to dex. This makes the ring good, but not too good.

When making metal objects, ALWAYS set the metal bit, if you do not describe you way out of it. That means a metal axe must have the metal bit set, unless you specifically state in an extra description for the axe that it has a leather wrapped handle or a wooden shaft. Same thing goes for armor; scale mail might consist of a leather jerkin with metal scales attached, but the metal would still prevent a mage from using it, since it blocks his powers.

Stay in THEME - no smurf village is ever going to be built. Or Sesame street. Or factory. Or Space cadet school. Or <put your out of theme area here>.So don't make wrenches, smurf hats, laser guns, etc.. If you don't make them it saves us the trouble of removing them. For we will remove them.

Specific numbers are on the corresponding OEDIT pages.

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Mobiles:

Balance, Balance, Balance...

Actually we've made it easy for you. We've made an option in the OLC to "auto configure" a mob with standard values. If you do this, the mob will be set up, according to our specifications. A good way building mobs that differ from the specs we've set up, might be to auto configure the mob first, then alter the values you want altered. For one, the number of attacks don't change when auto configuring. Also, subtle changes like hit dice are specific to the way you want the mob to react and won't be set automatically.

Here are the numbers for a standard mob - note - this is  very standard:

This is a rough template for your mobs, nothing more - we want you to bring your ideas into the game.

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