X-From_: williams@concentric.net  Sat Feb 20 17:22:56 1999
X-Sender: williams@pop3.concentric.net
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Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 18:20:23 -0600
To: blades@spidweb.com
From: Williams <williams@concentric.net>
Subject: BOE Article:  The Teleport Spell

The Teleport Spell

Not all scenarios work if the player is allowed to return to the beginning
town with Word of Recall.  For example, if a player is making a journey
accross an island chain, doing a good deed at every port before moving on,
teleporting back to the beginning could be disasterous!  I've seen at least
one scenario say in the readme, "Do not use Word of Recall in this
scenario."

Fortunately, there's a solution.  In fact, it can be used in several very
interesting ways.  You see, Word of Recall is affected by the Variable Town
Entry setting.  In the above example, it would be easy to make it so that,
as soon as the player arrives in the port, an SDF is upgraded to make
entering the starter town (now far away and forgotten over the deep blue
yonder) equivalent instead to entering this new port.  Bingo!  (For those
of you who do not know how to use Variable Town Entry, read the docs.)

One word of warning:  Be sure to have a "change outdoor location" node
somewhere where the party is sure to trigger it.  It wouldn't do for them
to leave the new port only to find themselves outside the starter town!
Incidentally, Word of Recall will put the party at the same coordinates as
where they originally started in the first town.  Be sure it's an empty
space!

So, how can this be used?  First, you can ruin the home-town to your
heart's content, and the party will arrive right in the middle of the
ruins.  Second, you can take the party to the localized home-town instead
of the starter town, as described in the example above.  Third, you can
even work it into the plot so that the party teleports to a town they've
never been to before!  Yes, folks, your high-level priest knows a teleport
spell that can take you anywhere - even into the middle of an ambush.
Remember, if you're going to make a lvl 7 priest spell essential to your
plot, be sure the party can find it and that the scenario is high enough
level that they would HAVE a lvl 7 priest.  Fourth, if you want to trap the
party in some outdoor section, you could make it stick them someplace very,
very bad if they try to use the spell.

The possibilities are unlimited.  To make a more powerful teleport spell,
create a special item which triggers a dialog which lets you select which
town you want to teleport to.  Done thus, the party now has another option
besides a boat or a horse.  Anyway, hopefully I've shown here that, if
properly accounted for, Word of Recall is not an annoying spell that makes
the scenario unfinishable, but is actually a powerful teleport spell which
can be worked into the plot.

Evan Williams
