Impending d00M
Filed under Design Diary on January 7, 2008
Keywords: d00M RPS, Neverwinter Nights, Pool of Radiance
I finished up the opening cutscene for my Neverwinter Nights adaptation of Pool of Radiance this weekend. I also wrote a script that locks doors depending on whether it is day or night, placed some NPCs, and played around with lighting. I was hoping to create a script that turned torches on or off depending on day or night, but I read about a bug that’s been around since release. Even though the fire animations get shut off, the “glow” won’t disappear. The glow isn’t too obvious outdoors during the day, but I’m holding off on the script for now.
I started on the interior area for the City Hall, but it was hard to keep momentum after reaching an obvious milestone. I’m going to switch gears and work on one of my other goals for the year, the development of the d00M roleplaying system. This is a project I actually started back in 2003 (according to the copyright notice I wrote at the bottom of the table of contents). I pulled it out again over the holidays when inspiration struck and I came up with a solution to an issue that caused me to cease my last round of work (sometime before GenCon 2007).
To those who might be wondering what d00M is (and I think that’s everyone but Harley, whose ear might still bear teethmarks from the chewing I did concerning this subject), the spelling is intentional. It stands for “d100 mechanic.” Clever, huh? 
This system is more than just d20 with different dice. It is raceless, classless roleplaying inspired by the Elder Scrolls games and the Marvel Super Heroes rpg. Races exist as flavor, not game mechanics, and players build characters by choosing from a selection of Combat, General, or Magic skills rather than predefined kits. And instead of amassing experience points to gain levels, players spend their character’s experience points to increase their attribute scores or gain skill levels.
Combat is handled differently in the d00M RPS, as well, but it’s too early to go into details. In fact, my goal this week is to write up the Combat chapter.
I’m also going to spend some time tweaking the blog now that I’m posting with more frequency. Wordpress seems to have issues with the tags used to embed videos (e.g., YouTube), so I need to research that. I’ve decided to remove the registration/logging in requirement for commenting and will install a visual confirmation code. I’m also going to try Gravatars and Wavatars.
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January 7th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
hey kam. just got all your messages on my blogging forgotten realms. welcome aboard! the christmas holidays have taken me away from it a little bit, but i’m still planning on finishing, so please continue to keep me company on the way. i think pretty soon i’ll be needing a copy of curse of the azure bonds as well.
love your site, btw.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Congrats on the progress, Kam! I promise I’ll give PoR a try when you finish it. The orginial gold-box game is probably one of my top-3 all time favorite crpgs. Keep up the good work!!
January 8th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Hey, guys. Thanks for stopping by. POR was the first crpg I ever finished and holds a very dear place in my heart. It’s been fun running through it on DOSBox as I work on the NWN adaptation. I never get tired of it. I’m enjoying seeing it through your eyes, joN. I take so many things for granted having played through it multiple times.
And I’ll definitely be looking for beta testers, Kafu. Glad to know someone will take a look at it.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:25 am
No forums makes me sad.
Poor Grail.
PoR… ah, I remember that game. I also remember getting to the very final battle and having it crash on me… happened every time I re-loaded. I really wanted to finish the game, but never got around to playing through it again because I wasn’t certain my copy wouldn’t just crash at the end again. Maybe now I’ll be able to finish it..
Although I only have the original NwN, so if you are using anything from the expansions I’ll still be out of luck.
January 8th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Yeah, you’ll need to pick up the expansions, as well as install the Community Expansion Pack v2.0 and make sure NWN is patched up to 1.68. You should be able to get SoU and HotU for pretty cheap off ebay.