SUBMISSION TUTORIALTable of Contents
TSSI Environments Organizational Chart
Essay on Writing a New Environment
FUTURE TSSI ENVIRONMENTS ORGANIZATION CHART
I. Operations
II. Intelligence
III. Support
IV. Supply
If one of these positions sound interesting to you, write me. Job descriptions will be coming soon, take advantage of the opportunity to make it up yourself!
[This is only for those who really want to go hard-core and make a well-developed Environment or mission.]
Your Environment should be a series of scenes. Each scene must describe how it should be linked to other scenes and action pages. There must be a link for every possible path or action out of a scene.
In each scene, you will have NPCs or props that PCs can interact with. The amount of success or information the PCs obtain should depend on their making a skill check. You must tell the players what skill check to make: simply write the name of the check in the text.
For example:
"You see a half-open trash can at the bottom of the steps [1/2 INT: PASS/FAIL]. A black cat is digging in the trash [1/4 INT: PASS/FAIL]. An old man smoking a cigarette sits at the top of the steps. He flicks the butt at you and you duck [REF: PASS/FAIL]."
Each underlined skill check will eventually become a hyperlink to a separate Action Page. When the player passes or fails the roll, he may click the link and find out the result. For example:
Action Page 1 Pass: If a player rolls a 1/2 INT check at the trash can, he will spot a gun, lying in a pile of moldy noodles.
Action Page 2 Pass: If the PC rolls a 1/4 INT check at the cat, he will discover ... nothing, just a false alarm.
Action Page 3 Fail: If the character fails his REF check, he catches a flying cigarette butt in the side of the face.
When submitting your Environment for publication, you should arrange it in scenes. Each scene should begin with a tag line, then have a description of what can happen in the scene (just like the Plot Thickens and stuff from TS/SI adventures), and then a list of the things that could happen in the action pages.
The proper tag line format is: [INTerior/EXTerior]. [Location] --[Day/Night]
For example:
INT. PAMELA’S LIVING ROOM – DAY
Generic living room. Pamela is sitting in a chair across from the door. An old, blue book is in her lap. She does not look happy to have visitors.
If the PCs ask for the book, she will go for a gun under the blanket across her lap. If the PCs ask her for help, she will tell them she doesn’t know anything. If they leave, she will stop them and tell them that she is tired of hiding the truth and they can find her stepson hiding in an apartment at 31230 Switzer Lane. If the PCs press her for information, she will pull the gun and tell them to leave.
The Administrator will convert this scene like this:
And so on.INT. PAMELA’S LIVING ROOM – DAY
Typical living room: couch, two chairs, rug, a lamp on a stand in one corner [INT: PASS/FAIL]. An old woman is sitting in the chair next to the lamp, wrapped in a blanket and holding an old, blue book [1/4 INT: PASS/FAIL]. She does not look happy to see you.
If you ask to see her book.
If you tell her you need help.
Here's how it works. I have numbered or lettered each component of what you need. I put a basic outline of an office on the Net; just go through the office and mark down what you need to write for each letter or number. Then e-mail me the list of lettered/numbered paragraphs. Kind of vague, huh? E-mail me with questions...