Dialogue, puzzles, quests and more

This page describes the additional mechanics of your book. All of them are optional. A book that does not use them stays unchanged. They work without AI and without credits, and they take effect in the test play, in the web book, in the phone companion, in the validation and in the printed book.

Dialogue with speakers

In the text of a section, write who is speaking. There are two ways to write it:

• Whole paragraph: Begin the paragraph with @Mara: and the sentence. The Spielbuchschmiede adds the quotation marks if you leave them out.
• Single piece of direct speech: Write „Wir müssen hinauf“{Mara}. The curly bracket follows directly after the quotation mark.

With @Erzähler: you force the narrator. The name is the name of a character from the series bible. The full name and every single part of the name with at least three letters are allowed, as long as it belongs to only one character. The voice output uses the same marking.

In the test play and in the web book, the name of the speaker is shown before the direct speech. In the printed book and in the EPUB, normal direct speech appears without marking characters. The validation reports a name that cannot be matched to a character of the series bible.

Combining items

Open the Combine items section in the rule set of the series and create a combination. Choose two items and the result. You decide whether both items are used up afterwards. You can also set conditions and effects, for example experience as a reward.

In the game the button for the combination appears as soon as the reader has both items. A choice can be tied to a combination: Under Only possible if, choose the type Items can be combined. In the printed book this choice then carries the sentence "If you have lamp oil and a wick, turn to 27." A table of all combinations is in the rules section.

Puzzles with hints

In the section you find the Puzzle area below the card of the choices. Enter the question and choose whether the answer is a word or a number. Each correct answer has a target section. For words, the Spielbuchschmiede ignores upper and lower case, punctuation and the spelling of umlauts.

Wrong answers have consequences that you define. With a maximum number of wrong answers and a section for the case that the attempts are used up, the puzzle does not end in a dead end. You can enter up to three hints. If you choose a stat as the price, for example luck, each hint costs this stat.

In the printed book the number of the target section is the solution. For a number it is the number itself. For a word the reader adds up the letters, where A equals 1 and B equals 2. For this, set the fixed number of the target section as the editor shows it. The validation reports when the number does not fit. The hints are in the appendix of the book.

Quests

A quest has steps. With the effects Change quest you start it, continue it, complete it or let it fail. Conditions query the progress. In the web book and in the phone companion the reader sees their quest log. The validation reports quests that no effect completes and quests that were never completed in the trial plays.

Relationships with characters

In the rule set, create a relationship for a character, for example with values from minus 5 to plus 5. Effects change the value, conditions query it. The value always stays between minimum and maximum. The reader sees it in the web book and in the phone companion.

Difficulty

Turn on difficulty in the rule set. For Easy, Normal and Hard you set by how much the strength, health points and damage of the opponent rise or fall and which starting values change. The reader chooses the level before starting. The validation calculates each level separately and shows how many readers reach the good ending.

Time

Turn on time in the rule set. The counter rises either with every section or only through the effect Time passes. Events occur exactly once from a certain counter value, show a text and have effects. A condition can query the counter value.

Choices across several volumes

In the rule set, choose under Carry choices over to the next volume which statuses, quests and relationships are passed on. The character code at the end of the volume then contains these choices and a checksum. In the following volume you query them with the Earlier volume conditions. A code that has been changed is rejected. Codes from older volumes remain valid.

Basics about the rule set are described under Rules. Whether everything is correct is shown by the page Validation. For trying things out, use the Test play.