Submission Format and Writing Combat?

Jan 7, 2021
5
1
Sorry if this is another thing I'm overthinking, but I have more questions, and these likely won't be the last.

1) Is there a guide somewhere to formatting submissions? I know the Event Writer's Guide specifies things like font, but in reviewing some submissions I notice "//" seems to be used to distinguish something that's a note to the person implementing the content, as opposed to the content itself. Headers are also often in brackets. I can't find a guide that has these formatting rules, so I'm not sure what to do. Is there a guide? Are there any really important formatting things I need to know?

2) How does writing a combat-based encounter work? It doesn't seem well-explained. Things like stats and damage types are explained, but other things like implementing like/dislike factors to affect tease damage for an enemy aren't (or at least I can't find them). In some of the event submissions, users are merely describing the general gist of what they want to happen and providing stats and item names where necessary. Is that a placeholder, or are we not intended to write for combat? And if we are, what needs to be written to submit a combat encounter?

3) How do you format a portion of a submission dependent on the PCs previous interactions with a character? For example, a scenario where encounter dialogue is different depending on whether or not the PC lost, won, or surrendered during the previous encounter with the enemy? Or a bad end if the PC loses too many subsequent times with high corruption? Or a difference in a scene based on a value similar to Kinu's personality score? Is there parser stuff for this? Or is it more like "write it in and the coders will deal with it if the submission is approved / it seems doable"?

Thanks :)
 

The Observer

Scientist
FoE Mod
Aug 27, 2015
1,357
3,187
1. So long as you can get across what you intend, formatting isn't that big a deal. Pick an established author and mimic their formatting style if you like.

2. When it comes to combat, don't bother with stats or items. You can make suggestions as to how the encounter should generally play out, and then the balance and code boys will slide in powers, stats and the like as necessary.

3. If what you want isn't in the parser documentation, then do curly braces like these {} and leave a note as to what that is intended to mean. I would advise keeping the number of variables down as much as possible to avoid clutter and save file bloating.