The Responsive World
By Drakefyre

Something that a lot of designers of neglect to consider is the fact that the
world, or at least the area of the scenario, will change in response to what the
party does. This can and should be different depending on the scale and type of
scenario that you're writing, but it should happen in all of them, unless you
make it a point of the scenario that the party has no effect on anything (which
would be very weird and very interesting).

There are quite a few ways to go about making a fully responsive world. The
easiest and most common is changing dialogue based on events that happen and
things that the party does. A step up from that is changing dialogue and the
perceptions of the towns by including some sort of a 'reputation' or 'karma'
counter that can be used to lower/raise prices, get hired by more prestigious
people, and so on. The last step is causing far-reaching effects as a result of
what the party says, doing other events, et cetera.

Changing dialogue is the preferred way of getting these changes across to the
player, and it's incredibly easy to do so in Blades of Avernum. Having dialogue
depend on a condition, having strings removed and added, and dialogue actions
like INTRO and DEP_ON_SDF all greatly improve the control that we have over
dialogue. This makes it a cinch to change everyone in the town from being scared
of the baddies to happy that you killed them.

This does not have to be contained to the threatened town - maybe all of the
towns nearby have heard of what you did and now more options become open. That's
getting into the second type of changing world, based on the deeds of the party
and changing the perceptions of the characters with regards to it.

Another important thing to remember is that if the big den of monsters has been
cleaned out, all outdoor encounters related to it should disappear, either with
a message upon encountering them, or just purely destroying them. Outdoor
encounters, unless used properly, do not add a lot to a scenario.

The second method of changing the world requires an SDF or two that would serve
as a reputation or karma counter. As the player did more quests or said things
that people liked, NPCs would become more friendly. This can also work the
opposite way, and it's great to see either one. Knowing that your actions have
an effect on how you can play the game makes the player think.

It's fairly easy to implement these changes too. Something easy to do is call a
state when entering a town that uses an else-if ladder to determine a dialog box
to show that describes how the town feels about you. It could be "They notice
you and start talking excitedly. These are the adventurers who killed X, Y, and
Z," or "The citizens of the town sneer at you as you walk by. You certainly
don't feel welcomed here," or something in-between.

There are still dialogue changes, and everything from the first level should be
included here as well. In addition to those before, using actions like SET_SDF
upon giving a favorable/unfavorable response will allow you to let the party
express their opinion through dialogue, and then you can concoct the appropriate
responses. This is particularly effective in scenarios with multiple sides to
join, as it can be used to determine how each side views you, ˆ la Geneforge.

The third method is by no means the most intricate method available, but it's
still more complicated than the two described above. This can't be used in all
scenarios, but it can be extremely effective when it's used properly. It still
builds on the first method, and it's possible that it would implement the second
as well. The main idea with this method is 'consequences'.

Everything the party does will have consequences and repercussions in the world
- some foreseeable, and others not. If the designer implements them, it makes
for a much more challenging and fun game to play. Shutting off the power to an
old factory that's spawning muck monsters may also shut down the
waste-processing plant, which could dump sewage into the water supply, poisoning
a town.

Variable Town Entry is generally fit for a purpose like that - if a town changes
radically, especially its terrain, and if people die or have dramatically
different dialogue responses, you'd be better off creating a whole new town and
just replacing the old one. This generally fits in when a disaster occurs, towns
are wiped out or attacked, or even when there have just been so many changes
that it would be better to just have half happen in a completely new town.

Something you have to ensure when working with VTE is continuity. If someone
gives you a quest in the old town and is still alive in the new town, they
should still give you a reward, or at least acknowledge the deed. Maybe the
economy has crashed between getting and finishing the quest, and he can't pay
you in gold - only copper. This creates a little bit of an 'oh, man' factor, and
it encourages the player to replay the scenario and see if they can complete the
quest before the disaster occurs.

Imagining and implementing these consequences will allow for a fuller game that
immerses the party and lets them know that for every action, there is a
response, even if it may seem like there isn't. A very good way to mix it up a
little is to have the original quest you were supposed to solve create a
horrible and unforeseen problem that you now have to deal with, because you were
the one that mucked it up in the first place.

As a player, you always want to play in a world that makes you feel like what
you do is either important or has effects. Playing in a static world is no fun.
Even though this may not apply to some scenarios (especially ones where you
can't go backwards to places you've already been), it helps if every designer
would consider them.