Planewalkers: Embers of the Past

CHIMERA GAMING

A DM-Friendly NWN Planescape Campaign Module by Arawen

Sigil is the city of doors, a crossroads of the planes. Portals lie in every nook and cranny of its winding streets. Residents of Sigil range from fiends to devas, and include everything in between. Under the rule of the cryptic Lady of Pain, every one is welcome to Sigil except the gods...

You came with a mission to accomplish, but will you survive the city's tangled intrigues?

The Planewalkers Campaign combines a traditional fantasy setting, the world of Castellar, a vast declining Empire on the verge of civil war, and the AD&D Planescape setting. Within the story, characters from Castellar will discover the existence, power and features of the planes of existence beyond the Earth—and how they affect the destiny of the Castellar Empire.

The Planewalkers Campaign emphasizes roleplay and creative play in the style of pen and paper D&D. A DM is required. The style is freeform with no scripted NPC conversations. The module includes an extensive DM Guide, DM tools and widgets designed to make play flexible and dynamic.

For more information, please message Arawen at Neverwinter Connections.

News - October 12, 2005

I'm proud to announce that Beyond the Veil is ready for play. It's a sequel to Dreamland, and a prelude to the longer storyline continued in Embers of the Past. Beyond the Veil is setup to be DMed in several different formats: one shot, mini-campaign, and as part of the longer, epic Planewalkers storyline that interweaves with Castellar Chronicles.

Now that the prelude is finished, I am building Embers of the Past, where adventurers from the prime world of Castellar will discover in Sigil intrigues that imperil both heaven and earth...

About fifty areas are done, with more on the way to create a vibrant Sigil soundstage for freeform play and an epic plot that encompasses Planewalkers modules and beyond.

News July 10, 2005

This week's main toolset focus has been Dreamland, since the plan is to run the Embers of the Past Prelude, named the "Eternal Veil," as sequel one shot to Dreamland. Here's the teaser text:

As you hunt in the city of Sigil for answers about Simon's situation, you are drawn into a mystery involving murder and resurrection that may pierce the eternal veil itself.

As with Dreamland, both DM-required and single player versions in progress. Pen and Paper Planescape Fans may recognize the allusion to the TSR Planescape: The Eternal Boundary module. It provided provided some inspiration for this one shot prelude though my Planewalkers Campaign story line has very much transformed it.

News July 3, 2005 - Embers of the Past Prelude Module Progresses

Here's a screen shot from the DM Client from my testing of my Embers of the Past prelude module. Players will be meeting some familiar characters from Planewalkers: Dreamland, such as Azir (right) and Simon (middle) as well as new NPCs like Tianddra (left).

On a side note, the CODI Sigil tileset has been quite tricky to use in the toolset because it has quirks in terms of how it handles doors and some missing features, but it looks really spectacular.

During the holiday weekend, I have been detailing areas and designing challenges. There should be enough of a mix of roleplay and combat challenges to satisfy a range of player styles. The prelude is intended to double as both a Planewalkers Campaign installment and as a short stand alone campaign. A few aspects however will be for campaign players only, since they will require quick tooling around character backgrounds to work.

Anyway, I'm feeling rather pleased with the storyline. There's still a fair bit of scripting to go, combat testing, and converting the entire module to a system of spawning and triggers so that active content such as NPCs and critters are only present when PCs or DMs are in an area. Area heartbeat scripts also will run only when players are present. This helps improve performance for players and keeps the module size, and resulting memory use, small.

Ideally, a module for on-line DMed multiplayer gaming should be below 10mb in size to ensure maximum compatibility with the range of client hardware and connection speeds among NWN players. If one uses many custom blueprints and large script packages, size can increase very quickly. To that end, I use a very spartan set of scripts that I developed for my Castellar Chronicles campaign games. My barebones module event script set takes only about 100k total: a 12 line death/dying script, DM-controlled rest, DM notification of leveling up, a item acquisition/loss notification script, and a spawn system.

For example, the most common death script for DMed games, configurable, feature-rich HABD system, has over 3000 lines. These add a whopping one MB to module size. Large scripts like HABD, NPC Activities and spawn systems like NESS, are loaded into memory when the game runs. The impact of module bulk is both server and client side, so unless everyone in a particularly multiplayer game has oodles of RAM (512mb+), a machine's turn to virtual memory (i.e. harddisk) to handle game information during play is the number one cause of lag and crashing out issues during multiplayer play in larger modules.

How large and detailed should your own DMed module be? If you are building for maximum compatibility you might consider Lazybones' The Dragon's Village as one side of the scale. His elegant design balances selective detail in critters, NPCs, items and scenarios with mimimalism in area design and scripting. As a result his DM-oriented modules run well on a wide range of machines and internet connection speeds.

On the other side of the spectrum would be DMing modules like Ghool's Tomb of Horrors, Enoa4's Hythum, or Savant's The Aielund Saga, Act III: Return of the Ironlord. These modules clock in at over 20mb each. They contain more visual detail, more preplaced content, NPC conversations, and extensive scripting. However, for multiplayer gaming more than NWN HotU minimum chip speed and memory are needed to run them well. This higher hardware requirement in multiplayer affects both the server and player client machines.

Ultimately, all styles of module design involve tradeoffs and limitations. Building for live DMed games can be as simple or as complex as the designer desires.

News June 25, 2005 - Sigil and the Planes Proceeding Nicely

I've been testing and tweaking areas including Sigil and secret locations that players may discover, sketching out scripting and experimenting with design for a few movie-like DM controlled cutscenes.

To maximize performance and compatibility, the tileset and critter haks have been tweaked to minimal size, about 30mb uncompressed and 10mb to download.

News June 18, 2005 - Areas Complete!

Planewalkers: Embers of the Past has now been written, haks assembled, custom music chosen, and areas built in the toolset. There are still aspects of detailing, scripting, assembly and testing to be done, but it's looking quite playable already. I estimate that it will be comparable to Planewalkers: Dreamland in length, about five to six two hour sessions.

Like Dreamland, Embers is one episode within a larger, epic story arc that connects both with the Planescape setting and on-going events within my original Castellar Chronicles campaign.

News - June 16 , 2005 - At Long Last an Update

I've still writing and building Embers of the Past. CODI's grimy and atmospheric Sigil tileset, shown in the image above, creates a very visually striking atmosphere. The Sigil geometry and textures are truly outstanding, which will add to the city adventure setting for this chapter of the Planewalkers campaign. The party will continue their mission from Chapter 1, Dreamland, though the Sigil city setting should allow easy integration of new players into the story as well.

Every where in Sigil there are portals, some obvious, many as a subtle as the crook of a tree branch or even the shadow of an archway in the afternoon light. Just about anyone and anything can come to Sigil. If one knows the right portal and has the right key, one can travel anywhere in the multiverse. On Sigil's crowded streets, creatures of law and chaos bump into each other daily, but they don't have to like each other. The Powers cannot enter Sigil, but Sigil residents take belief very seriously. The planes are full of philosophies and deities of every kind, and in Sigil one can find followers of almost every one. They say belief can change reality. Will you dare to find out?

News - Feburary 6 , 2005

Design is coming into focus for Embers of the Past. I've started to map out areas in toolset and experiment with scripting to create what I hope will be some unique moments. As usual, my main constraint is that I have extremely little time to devote to gaming of any kind.

From the start, I have decided to be selective in what aspects of Sigil will be brought to life in Embers of the Past. The module will have open-endedness and non-linearity appropriate to a Sigil city environment. Embers will be considerably larger in scope than the first chapter of Planewalkers, Dreamland. However, a DMed campaign has to strike a balance between player freedom and a desire to keep a NWN module to a reasonable size. I would like the game to run well on a wide variety of hardware and internet connection configurations. My general philosophy is "build only what the story requires." Within that I try to incorporate multiple possible approaches to challenges and make the world living and responsive. Depending on what players choose to do, there will be many different outcomes at different points in the game. In addition, my game modules always include few generic areas such as homes, a wizard lair, pocket planes, a temple and so forth for DM improvisation. Players will always surprise the DM. The human element makes every live game enjoyable in different ways.

In my opinion, players often experience an NWN game somewhat like an interactive movie. They focus on the game as a set of dramatic scenes that immerse them in the story, set apart by less intense interludes. Rather than simulate every detail of an environment, I find that it can be just as enjoyable to create detailed, vivid scenes and backdrops. Once the party's business is complete, the group moves to the next scene with a minimum of travel time. This approach to game design maximizes eventful time, with player inititated interludes such as a respite in an inn providing quieter moments to reflect upon the emerging story.

News - January 22, 2005

Embers of the Past has been in development for several months now. It will be a city adventure set in Sigil and designed as a DM-required campaign.

I consider Planewalkers to be my creative building-oriented NWN activity. While tinkering with Dreamland custom content, I enjoy tooling and writing the story's next chapter.

The Planescape setting of Sigil especially interests me because it spices up traditional fantasy with unique planar settings related to belief. It is neutral ground that borders a fractious multiverse, a dark urban frontier with a touch of 17th century London where nearly anything goes.