Useful Dialogue Tips by Isaac Talking is an essential part of Blades of Avernum. It serves several roles: * Shops * Advance the plot * Give the player hints * Add realism * Give the player a break from fighting monsters (some people like having conversations, too) Shops are essential to a BoA scenario. Most important is someone to identify your items and someone to sell stuff to. Preferably, they should be in the starting town so the player doesn't have to look around for them. Without these, the party will have their inventories full of unidentified items and items they want to sell. They can leave them lying in any town, but it will be wasted treasure. As a player, I find this very annoying. Also, shops that sell consumable items are important. Archers need javelins/arrows/bolts and non-mages need lights (candles, torches, and lamps). You never know if that kind of party might enter your scenario; don't assume they have a mage, for example. You should put in a healer somewhere, too. Other types of shops sell lights, food, tools, weapons, armor, bows/arrows, priest spells, mage spells, skills, alchemy recipes, alchemy ingredients, potions, scrolls, etc. You can even make your own random item shops using the calls get_ran and add_item_to_shop (although it is probably a better idea to decide what items you want in the shop instead of choosing randomly). Make sure the shops sell items at the right power level; in a scenario for starting parties, don't sell Iron Plate Mail. The party should be able to sell items to almost any shop that isn't a spell/recipe/skill shop. Almost all shops should have the same prices to sell to. This way the player won't have to bother going to the shop with the best prices all the time. Theoretically, it is also an economically sound decision for the merchants, at least within a single town. Using characters to advance the plot is a good decision. It gives them something interesting to say, and makes the plot feel more connected between people and monsters. The party is usually adventuring to save people from monsters. The people in danger ought to have something to say about it! They can say things relevant to the plot that have no actual effect, such as "The curse is making the crops die. People are starving." They can give quests, either side quests or part of the main plot. A quest should usually have a reward from the person who gave it. Characters can also give information. Beware, though: some players will not want to talk to everyone. Avoid putting information essential to completing the scenario in some random person's conversation. It is all right if he/she is an important person, such as Mayor Crouch in Valley of Dying Things, but you have to make sure there is a reference to lead the player to him/her. For example, in VoDT, as soon as you leave your room, you find a note telling you to see Commander Terrance, who gives you a quest to talk with Mayor Crouch. These also give decent directions to find the person - when you tell the player to find someone, make sure you give directions (for example, "Down the corridor to the south" or "In Sweetgrove"). Dialogue can be used in hostile towns either talking with prisoners, people that are hiding, or even important enemies. This is often part of the scenario's plot. The player can free prisoners for a quest, or learn about secret passages from a friend there, or perhaps do diplomacy with your enemies (or at least get to know them better). Characters can be used to give the player hints. If a certain thing is important, lots of people can say something about it. This way you can give important (non-secret) information to the player subtly. For example, everyone can talk about the monsters that appeared out of nowhere and their guesses about its origin. Or in VoDT, you can ask half the people about the School of Magery, which hints that it's important. Realism is important to keep your scenario believable. If people are farmers, they should talk about farming, and someone nearby might sell the food they produce. Also, some players like to talk. Give your characters more depth than "I sell armor." If the land is being ravaged by monsters and the towns are under attack, wouldn't people have something to say about it? Most characters in friendly towns have something to say or are at least willing to talk. Those that won't talk often have 'conversations' that are something like "I'm busy. Go away." To keep conversation interesting and realistic, give your characters varied personalities. (For more details about how to design characters' personalities, see the article Creating Compelling Characters.) Creating good dialogue can be very time-consuming. There are ways to reduce the amount you have to make. Less important people can have less to say. A crowd of people that are the same, like serfs or guards, can be very simple and all have the same dialogue in the same town. Talk to any guard in the scenarios that come with BoA to see what I mean. Don't put in more towns than you need, either, if they don't help the scenario in any way. -Isaac