Programmed Adventure Editor
 

I've been working for a while now on a web-based editor for programmed/solo adventures called Dmorte. It's ready to try now if anyone is looking for a tool to help them build such things. It can also be used for pick-your-path books. It lets you visually lay out the flow of your adventure and connect up the paragraphs. It will also generate the finished random text of the whole adventure with numbered paragraphs. You can try it out here:

http://shadekeep.com/dmorte.html

It's a bit complex, so hopefully the documentation will help. I'll probably also create a walkthru video at some point showing the basics of how to build your own adventure. The program starts with a demo adventure that you can study and tinker with as well, to help learn the program. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

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I favor programmed adventures, so this looks very useful. Danke!

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I've got a feature request already... :)

How about a way to share and play through other people's adventures? :)

(Oh, and can I suggest we nominate Shadekeep for some kind of award?)

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Do you mean directly through the site? Like a way to post and share created adventures on shadekeep.com? If so, there are a couple concerns for me regarding that.

One is that adding an upload mechanism introduces a possible security hole, though I could probably do it through a mechanism inside the program that would be less obvious and exploitable than the typical web upload form.

The second concern is that I'd have to "police" the contents of the posted adventures for copyright infringing material, libelous and slanderous content, hate speech, etc. There are new laws, most recently those just passed in the EU, that shift a lot of the culpability onto the site owner/manager, rather than just on the person doing the posting. So that's a bit more work than I want to add to my current workload. ^_^

Still, you should be able to share your adventures pretty easily through your own distribution channels. In their most basic form they are a simple text file, so you could even just email them out. I admit that it's not as nice as having a central location like the Dmorte homepage, but it is simpler in the end.

Anyway, I hope you find the program useful, and thanks for the nice comments!

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A major award at last! :D

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Shadekeep, you continue to amaze! Thanks for sharing this!

(Oh, and an award of some sort definitely seems to be in order! Maybe he should be nominated at Origins for something!)

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It bears reposting in this thread that SJ wrote an excellent article on creating solo adventures, posted here:

https://thefantasytrip.game/news/201...olo-adventure/

Useful reading before you begin, and part of the inspiration behind Dmorte. Especially by fanning the desire to take the drudgery out of numbering and randomising paragraphs.

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The next step in automation is to make it an online-only adventure and tell the computer to do things like roll up random encounters and track hit points and rations, etc.

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One thing I neglected to mention on the guide page is that you can rearrange the position of nodes via drag-and-drop. That makes the layout easier to read as you create more nodes and expand branching paths of the story. I'll add a note about this when I update the guide.

One feature I hope to add soon is the ability to add more rows to the node map. As it stands your are limited to 120 total nodes by the grid size, and adventures like Death Test are larger than that.

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I seem to recall reading somewhere that the old Fighting Fantasy books were set to have exactly 400 "nodes" (using your term; they probably called them something else). I don't have any of them in front of me to check, though. In fact, I think the only ones I still have are The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and the 4-volume Sorcery! series (plus the Spellbook), and I'm not sure where those are all buried.

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Yes, I had some of those too, and they are closer to a pick-your-path book in terms of node count. Those can get quite large. I'm using "nodes" as a techy catch-all term; in adventures they correlate to "paragraphs", and in books "pages".

If I recall, they worked on a similar principle to the Ace Of Aces combat books, no? I remember playing that one ages ago, fun concept.

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This is awesome! I'm considering writing my first one of these so the timing is perfect. With the help of the TFT Discord group, we put together a list of TFT-related links. I'd like to add this to the PDF file.

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That was my first thought, but how about as HTML? Turn each "Go to [entry]" into a hyperlink whose target is another node.

Just spitballing.

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Be my guest! I need to drop in on the Discord more often, too.

That was actually my original plan for the program. It was going to be more of a straight web-forms thing written in PHP that would kick out a linked HTML file. It was once I got into developing Shamat that I realised I could do a more graphical application. But HTML output is still a good idea, so I think I'll circle back on that as an option too. Cheers!

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I'm a big fan of programmed adventures, and I think this will really help my efforts in writing them. Thank you!

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I have a feeling this app would be ideal for creating a digital play aid for the Ambush series of board games (published by Victory Games) and other board games with a similar mechanism (e.g. Barbarian Prince, Tales of the Arabian Nights).

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I was just thinking of the Dwarfstar games the other night. It would be so nice to have those back in print, along with some of SPI's back catalogue. Wonder where in rights limbo those all dwell now...

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Some Dwarfstar games are officially available for folks to print their own copy.

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Awesome, thanks!

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SPI games MOSTLY reside with Decision Games now, but some are still floating around out there, probably with WotC (assuming they took over all of TSR's property rights) for many, but some are just in the ether (meaning that the rights are owned by SOMEONE, but they aren't currently enforcing them -- though if you try to make money off of them or otherwise infringe on the market for them, you are violating copyright law regardless), like TFT was until Steve got his rights back. Keep in mind that many SPI properties were sold to places like Avalon Hill and a couple of other now defunct companies that briefly owned the "S&T" magazine. A good place to take a look at what SPI games you might be able to do something with is HPS' DieHauptKampfLinie web site, which has game sets created for ADC2 -- if you don't have ADC2, downloading the game sets probably won't do you a ton of good, but you can at least see some of the titles of the games that Decision Games doesn't currently hold copyright to (they reserve the right to do ADC modules for their own games). Keep in mind this listing is not a legally definitive one, by any means... In other words, use at your own risk. Personally, I would tend to NOT share anything that I wasn't 100% sure it was okay to do so.

To see what DG apparently doesn't have an issue with (or at least, has chosen not to request be withdrawn), click on the SPI folder (scroll down past the screen shots), not the DG folder.

(Just FYI -- there is nothing wrong with doing an ADC module for a game on their list (or ANY game, for that matter) for your own use, but technically you're not supposed to share it except with people who already own the hard-copy game.)

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JLV, while that's a very neat site, I believe ShadeKeep - plus myself and others - want is to see those games commercially available again. Many of us are aware of the options, legal and illegal, to acquire digital copies of the old games. But when considering the actual manufacture and sale of them, the legalities are very simple: have the permission (or direct involvement) of the copyright holder. I wouldn't invest my money in a project where I wasn't 100% sure of the rights, and I know neither would SJ Games.

So, while I almost certainly will print out copies of the Dwarfstar catalog and modify them to fit in spare Pocket Boxes, I'd prefer to see them in stores.

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Colonel, I think we all feel that way; however the question seemed to be about what SPI games you might be able to experiment with, vice actually returning them to sale, so that was what I addressed. Certainly, the only way to ever return them to sale is to get with the copyright holder and determine what can be done. For SPI games, the initial stop in any inquiry should be Decision Games, since they hold the vast majority of SPI's old copyrights and can best answer your questions on the subject. As far as Dwarfstar goes, I would recommend the owner of the web site hosting them as your first stop...

(Actually, you know what I'd really like to see? I'd like to see Steve Jackson work a deal with the Dwarfstar folks to re-publish their games in a whole new series of pocket box games! "Pocket Box game for the Twenties!!!" That would be total awesomeness! Almost certainly won't happen (I think SJG has plenty of other projects on the fire for the foreseeable future), but wouldn't that be the greatest thing since canned beer? ;-) )

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SJ Games has made the Pocket Box available for licensing, and Phil Reed has mentioned that he's talked with at least one person about doing a re-release of their game in the format. Personally, I'd love to see all the old micro-format games in modern Pocket Boxes, especially since some have gotten very scarce and pricey.

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You and me both! I can think of some excellent ones that never got as much play as they should have back in the day, and yet were still pretty amazing little games. The real pity is that the old Metagaming micros will never see the light of day that way; most of them (ALL of the early ones) were either very good or simply outstanding, and they would be a big hit all over again, I'm betting.

However, I think we've hijacked this thread long enough, now! ;-) Back to Shadekeep's truly amazing programmed adventure editor!!

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Thanks for the comments and info regarding the old titles! I do shy away from the rights-ambiguous stuff. I actually did rights recovery for some old videogames a while back and got two classic titles re-released on GOG.com. If I get similarly motivated here there are some SPI games I'd love to track down.

I certainly think that the Dwarfstar games could be brought back in Pocket Box format. It seems like Reaper is the obvious initial point of contact for following that thread. For the SPI stuff I might do like I did with the videogames and try to contact the original designer first.

Anyway, thanks again!

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Reaper owns the Dwarfstar Heritage line.

In unrelated news, I enjoy chats with the Reaper team.

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Very cool, thanks for the confirmation. And the intriguing aside...

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Alas that Redmond is no more. But the original designer on the vast majority of the old SPI ludograhy was Jim Dunnigan, and he might even have some of his old copyrights. Hard to say...

OMG! ;-)

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Thanks, and yah, one doesn't really know until one goes digging. Jim Dunnigan designed one of the titles on my shortlist of ones I'm after, "Demons". John H. Butterfield designed my favourite SPI title, "Voyage of the B.S.M. Pandora", which truly deserves to be back in print. It is packed with great concepts and play mechanics. Other titles I'd like to get reprinted are The Creature That Ate Sheboygan and DeathMaze (both by Greg Costikyan), and Citadel of Blood (by Eric Lee Smith). Many of these appeared in SPI's short-lived but excellent magazine Ares.

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Citadel of Blood got a great graphical facelift by some BGG users.

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Nice job! ^_^

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Yeah, I was an Ares subscriber up until TSR shot SPI in the head. My personal favorite of all of them though, was Albion! ;-)

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That was a good 'un too. Really lush campaign setting material in that one as well.

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They did a DragonQuest conversion of it in a later issue of Ares, as I recall! It was a very cool and evocative setting and game. (Though it did require some errata in order to be played properly -- also available on-line at Web Grognards and/or BGG). I've often thought that it would easily convert to TFT, and even the "army level" spells would be easy to convert...

BTW, some guy in Denmark or the Netherlands or something (one of those small, northern European countries) did a nifty expansion of it called Fornaldor which included pretty much all of Scandanavia and added things like Mermen armies as well. VERY well done. He was selling hard copies via a link in BGG for a while, but I think some game company (Compass, or One Small Step, or somebody like that) bought the rights and is now sitting on it... At one time, there were rumors he was working on another expansion, set in Iceland, but I don't know if anything ever came of that or not.

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Albion is awesome. Probably my favorite game and setting from the Ares magazines. We never got to try the DragonQuest conversion, but the magazine still sits on my "on whim" bookshelf for inspiration. Would make an interesting TFT conversion, for sure. I'm in the throes of building my first TFT campaign now, so maybe, maybe ... (it IS tempting).

Voyage of the BSS Pandora is a game that definitely needs some new love to find a new audience. SPI produced so many excellent titles!

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Yeah, I loved Voyage and Wreck both; two great games individually that could be combined to play out the whole shebang. Very well done. I really miss SPI. They were frequently highly innovative, and their initial marketing strategy allowed them to absorb some loss if an innovative game didn't work out (Scrimmage was actually a brilliant game in it's way, but didn't mesh well with most wargamers at the time...). At least until Jim Dunnigan got stars in his eyes over retailing the games and took his eye off the ball as far as financial management and review went. Which in turn led to TSR...and, well, here we are. But I often wonder what kinds of brilliant design and graphic innovations we'd be seeing today if they had continued their run. Not that everything being done today is garbage; it's not, but so much of if it is just rehashing old SPI titles or reprinting great designs from back then with a few new bells and whistles on them. *sigh* Now I sound like my Grandpa... ;-)

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I did that with Grav Armor. I loved making the counters!

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Barbarian Prince was my fav -- but I like them all!

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Star Viking for me, but yes, all were great! Barbarian Prince is right up there too among the best of their best.

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Barbarian Prince also got a great fan-made redesign on BGG. BP was one of the first games I bought in this hobby.

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Yes it did! I've got a file just stuffed with Barbarian Prince upgrades, errata, and redesigned tables. I still think it would make the basis of a very excellent solotaire hex-crawl system.

While I may be focusing on that particular game in this forum, I must say I love every one of the Dwarfstar games I could get my hands on (there are a couple that aren't available on that download list that I REALLY would like to play). My greatest regret from the '80's is that I didn't pick them up in the hobby shops when I had the chance. So many missed opportunities! ;-)

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Shadekeep, thanks for making this too!

I'd like to see a "right-click - choose color" on the boxes. I'd use this option to mark which boxes I have completed with a certain color. This way, I know how much left there is to do.

Maybe a bold/italic option in the text would be good too.

I do appreciate how quickly both this and the mapper work.

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At least if you're crafty, you can make good reproductions of 6 of the 8 games from the site posted above.

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Good idea, a way to separate the "finished" from the "WIP" nodes. I'll probably add a little gadget in the free corner that lets you toggle the state. Need to update the save file as well to remember these changes.

Thanks!

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I got a lot of use out of Delta Vee - its "pod" system was an indirect inspiration of the modular design rules and GURPS Spaceships.

Voyage of the Pandora was a cool solo game. They also did an interesting Stainless Steel Rat solo.

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I used Grav Armor as a tactical module for a major battle in my Traveller campaign when one player character found himself in command of a regiment-sized unit assaulting a planetary fortress. Worked very well. I did the same with Demonlord for a fantasy campaign; it had an excellent quasi-tactical setup that I borrowed and modified extensively to play out an entire military campaign with. I always wanted to try Star Viking but never got around to it.

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Thanks for putting this up. I'll be interested in taking a look at how it works.

You can do a pretty extensive adventure with 120 nodes. Death Test was 167 paragraph nodes. Grail Quest was about the same, but had longer paragraphs for a significantly greater word count. Death Test 2 was huge with 287 paragraph nodes and about 15,000 words of paragraph text. My own Vampire Hunter Belladonna had 194 paragraph nodes, but was heavier on the story telling with about 16,000 words of paragraph text. (The longest paragraph solo adventures I'm aware of are the various book-length ones e.g., Fighting Fantasy and the extensive Call of Cthulhu solos)

So far, I think the pure paragraph adventure format with inset Melee/Wizard scale tactical maps has been most popular for TFT, with "strategic" movement handled strictly through text nodes whether you were moving in a dungeon (Death Test, Security Station, etc.) or through a wilderness (Grail Quest, Belladonna). This is more or less the same format used in the pioneering Tunnels and Trolls and the successful Fighting Fantasy adventures, albeit generally without a tactical map, in the GURPS Conan and Runequest solos and in most of the solos that were at one point a popular vogue for introductory adventures (I recall ones for Basic D&D, Star Wars, James Bond 007 in the 80s/90s. I think the Legends of the Ancient World adventures like Orcs of the High Mountain also use this standard format.

However, both SPI and Metagaming also did some hybrid formats where you moved about on a hex grid or area grid that was fully visible to the player and some or all hexes were keyed to encounters. I think Voyage of the Pandora may have been the fist to do this, and of course it was used in Treasure of the Silver Dragon and Unicorn Gold, and there have been other variations. I am not sure I like it as month as the pure paragraph format, but it adds interesting options. Finally, there is the "Chit Building" solo which SPI pionereed with its Citadel of Blood and Deathmaze games where you assemble a wilderness or dungeon by laying down tiles in a semi-random pattern as you explore each room.

SPI mostly used it for hybrid board-game rpgs, but the format might work well today for a high-budget kickstarter TFT game where the kickstarter funds an entire set of custom room tiles that you assemble to build your labyrinth as you explore it.

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Those were quite good as well (though I already had Delta Vee, since it was the tactical space ship combat system from Universe). The also put their version of Man-to-Man in Ares as an issue game; at the time I remember thinking it was kind of a cop-out since again, I'd already paid for that with my copy of DragonQuest, for which it was the tactical combat system. Ah well, many of the other games more than made up for it, in retrospect!

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Somewhat annoying, yes. I saw Delta Vee first as an issue game; I think I bought the separate version of Universe rather than the Box Set.

I've also liked Universe for sentimental reasons -- it inspired me to restart a moribund Traveller game (blending elements of both systems together and making up more of my own rules to fill gaps) that ended up lasting several years, which in turn encouraged me to design and write RPGs.

Another solo game from SPI Ares stable was Damocles Mission, which was sort of Citadel of Blood In Space, combining chit/tile building and paragraphs. It was interesting for SPI in being almost entirely non-violent, Archur C. Clarke-style Rendezvous With Rama-type science adventure . I found the concept good but the execution a little dry.

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There is actually a text-based online game called Sryth (sryth.com) with this style of coding. I subbed for about a year. Quite a good game, overall.

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I've added a "mark as WIP/Complete" feature now. There is a checkbox in the upper left corner which lets you toggle a node between WIP and Complete status. This currently has no effect except that a WIP node has a dashed outline instead of a solid one. So it is a visual indicator, but as yet has no effect on the generated document. Possibly it doesn't need to.

Previously created save files should load with nodes defaulting to Complete status. When you click to create a new node, it defaults to WIP.

This update is on the website version and is part of the downloadable version too. Hope it helps!

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Sadly, that last sentence pretty much described most of the "fantasy/Sci-Fi" games they came up with -- great concept, kind of boring in the execution. I never quite put my finger on it, except maybe that their style of rules-writing didn't mesh well with some of the concepts. (Allow me to note that they hit it out of the park with Albion, and the Pandora games, though...) I liked Damocles Mission. It was another one that could have used some more development time and a little more in-depth thought being given to it.