X-From_: ivan@solaris.kala.com  Wed Apr 22 03:47:48 1998
From: ivan@solaris.kala.com
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 06:58:18 -0400
To: blades@spidweb.com
Subject: for the articles page
X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII

How to choose the suggested scenario level:


Many, if not most, of the posted scenarions have their suggested levels set
much too high. It is routine to find that a scenario with a 'Very Hard'
rating (suggested party level of 30+) that can be played easily with level 8
parties.

Such over-rated scenarios are neither challenging nor fun.

Or rather, they aren't very challenging _at the recommended level_.
But for _any_ scenario there's a party level at which it _is_ challenging.
The job of the author is to pick that level. And to keep the scenario
balanced so that a required encounter that is hard for the party isn't
followed by encounters which are trivially easy for any party which got
through the earlier one.

The level setting you specify (on the Scenario details window) has two
consequences. Many players have by now a full stable of parties of
various levels and equipment. The level you set is displayed in the
scenario pick list of BoE when the player is choosing what scenario
to play. It provides a guide to the player so that he can select which of
the available parties will yield the most fun in this scenario. It's
no fun to get stuck and dead (you need a higher party). It is also no
fun to simply wander hack-two-three-four through a scenario, brushing off
monsters like so many mosquitos. "Let's see this room. Right, 13 haakai.
Hack hack hack. What did they have for junk?". Your goal as an author
is to give the player some fun, so you need to pick a suggested
level that will be good for the average player. More skilled players
will automatically take in a lower-level party than the suggested one;
beginners should perhaps start with a higher level party. But unless
yours is a 'Low' scenario even beginners will have some experience,
if only by playing a party up to your level in other scenarios (unless
they build a party from the Character Editor or a utility of course).

The other consequence of the level setting occurs inside BoE itself.
Jeff has written BoE so that it automatically adjusts the monster
difficulty up (and down too? Jeff?) if the player runs a party at
a level other than the recommended one. Say you put in a room with
a couple of demons and rate it Medium. The player who runs a 35th level
party through that room will find Rakshasas, not demons, even though
you the author didn't put them there. It's Jeff's brilliant
way of adjusting for the presence of the Character Editor and the
party inflation caused by Monty Haul dungeons. He may also adjust
the number which controls the lock difficulty and wandering monster
frequency (not sure; Jeff?), although I'm pretty sure he doen't adjust
the locks downward because I have weakened my parties in some scenarios
to the point where I can still handle the monsters but can't get to them
because I can't open the doors.

Despite the automatic adjustment, it is still very hard for an author
to write a dungeon which will play well for all of the wide variety
of parties that players will take through. Often there's a McGuffin,
one special thing which will make the whole dungeon trivial if only the
party has it. Usually the McGuffin is a spell, sometimes it's an item.
For example, there's a dungeon in one posted scenario with a maze floor and
Mung Demons which (as far as I can see) takes at least a level 30 party to
simply fight through. But the dungeon is trivial even for a 10th level
party if the party has either Shockwave or Pestilence (which are often
McGuffin spells). Simply stand outside the building and Shockwave
the monsters inside. The author could have eliminated the McGuffin had
he made the monsters not appear until the party was already inside
(and trapped in) the room, or by blocking the terrain so that the party
couldn't get within Shockwave range.

It is much easier to avoid McGuffins in dungeons if you write 'Low'
rated scenarios. When the party has nothing (except what you have
given them already in the scenario) then they won't be able to
bust the game (and lose the fun) with something they brought in
from outside that they got in other scenarios. If you do an
Exile-scale epic you can retain this control over play balance even
up into the higher levels. But there are McGuffins even in the
low level stuff that everybody gets - Charm Foe and Detect Life are
commonly McGuffins in dungeons whose authors did not consider their use.

Simply upping the muscle of the monsters won't fix McGuffins. I recently
played a scenario in which the climax encounter was a NPC 'super'
demon with two haakai henchmen. This encounter was winnable by any
party at all, even a newly created default 1st level one. You simply
stood out of sight in the hall outside the door where the monsters
couldn't get you, entered combat mode, had your clerics shoot Wound
through the door, and exited combat again before the round was over.
So long as the party rebuilds spell points faster than the attacked
monster rebuilds hit points, then it's only a matter of time and player
patience before all the monsters die without the party taking a hit.
One may argue that it's a bug in BoE that a wounded monster with
cleric spell capability won't heal himself except during his turn
in a combat round, but we have to play the BoE we have.

One must clearly distinguish _party_ level from _player_ level. A
dungeon author needs to consider both. In simple combat, one can be
swapped off a bit for the other. Some authors finese the issue by
putting in things for which player level matters and party level does not.
Such things might be called 'tactical puzzles', as opposed to the
common 'riddle puzzle'. Too much riddle puzzle can ruin a scenario - you
might as well curl up with a copy of Games magazine. But I find that
tactical puzzles are fun. However, all puzzles (including the tactical)
suffer from the problem that they cannot be adjusted at play time
for varying player skill, the way BoE adjusts for party strength.
So a dungeon that one player finds fascinating will be an impossible
blood bath for another player. I know of no fix for this, other than to
describe the intended player skill level in the readme.

As you write each dungeon, apply this test: if there's a way to play the
dungeon such that the party would have no more difficulty even if you
doubled the monsters, then you have a McGuffin. Unless the point of
the dungeon is a tactical puzzle where the job of the player is to
figure out the McGuffin, then you should rewrite the dungeon to remove it.

Once the McGuffins are out, then it's time to set the recommended scenario
level.  Do not choose a level at which the party can simply run through each
dungeon in one pass using blades only. Choose a recommended level at
which the party must consider each room in turn and use a mix of tactics,
a blade rush in one, a tank in another, Charm in a third, fire spells
in another and so on, with rests in between. Then it's challenging
and fun.

Lastly, once you have decided on the expected party level, then and only
then set the town level of each dungeon, so that the party has some chance
of opening the doors.

NOTE FROM JEFF VOGEL:

Great article. Every scenario designer really, really should carefully set
the scenario difficulty and ratings fields. Also, really hard scenarios are
not made easier for low level parties. Some people just like a challenge.
:-)

Oh, and if the scenario is too hard, you san always use the option on the
Preferences menu to make the game easier.
