Expansion One

Many years ago, before RealmSpeak was much more than a dream, a friend and I decided to expand the Realm with a new set of rules, tiles, monsters, treasures, spells, etc. After much toil and trouble, the unofficial Expansion One was born. After introducing it to the Magic Realm community, I discovered pretty quickly that there were those that liked it, and those that "wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole".

Many years later, having become even more intimately familiar with the Magic Realm ruleset than I was back when we designed the expansion, I realized why people might not like the expansion, and tried to make adjustments. The biggest problem, is that it's really difficult to playtest, because setup is such a pain, a single game can last hours! In many respects, my inspiration for writing RealmSpeak, was so that I could someday playtest our expansion, and clean it up.

Finally, I can say that I've begun work on integrating the expansion. I started by drawing up some of the monsters, and rendering them onto chits:



Yeah, pretty amateurish art, but what can I say: I'm a programmer, not an artist. :-) I've got all the treasures entered, though none of them do anything yet. I should be able to enable a bunch of them, at least those that leverage existing rules. The ones that don't will take a bit longer, but that's just how it goes.

Of course, the expansion will be a game variant option, much like the "Pruitt's Monsters" option, and if you don't want to try it out, please don't. I'm not sure how long it will take me to complete, but that doesn't mean there wont be new versions of RealmSpeak while I'm working on it. I'll keep you updated.

Version 1.06 Released

Mostly just a bug-fix release, as there are not a lot of new features in here. There is a new option to open the VP selector up, so that you can choose whatever you want. This will enable those of you that are unhappy with how VPs are chosen for different situations (game extensions, restarting characters, etc), to do what you think is right.

In any case, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

• [1547] - New VP option to allow each player to select any number of VPs when starting the game.
  
• Added some more details to the log to better explain the situation where a character is unable to perform actions while blocked.

BUGS/ISSUES:

• [1543] - Altar/Shrine/TC/EM work correctly for summoning vistors/mission again.
  
• [1546] - When buying from natives, don't show the names of treasures until they are being bid on.
  
• [1552] - Pilgrim will no longer be blocked during the day by Demons/Imp.
  
• Power of the Pit "Rust" result will now correctly destroy armor that is already damaged.
  
• [1548] - The Imp's Curse alone is not sufficient to keep combat going, unless it does real harm (fatigue chits). Multiple identical curses are logged for clarity.
  
• [1427] - Day end trades no longer prevented if you are blocked during the day, or during combat!
  
• Curses will show up in exported character html now.
  
• [1532] - "Wish for Health" no longer rests the chit you cast it with.

This release is compatible with any 1.00+ version save game.

Version 1.05 Released

This is mostly a maintenance release to fix a couple of bugs, and to add some more detail to the log and html exporter. Sorry, no new character advantages in this release (didn't have any time to build any up), but I did fix a bug in the character builder tool that was making it impossible to have a companion with the same name as your character.

If you are upgrading from 1.04, you will see a warning about the version change, but it can be safely ignored.

Anyway, here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

• HTML Export enhancements
  
  • [1535] - Fixed a bug in the exporter that was putting the "clearing" hyperlinks in the wrong places.
    
  • Inactive inventory is visible for each player now. Treasures remain secret.
    
  • [1534] - The exported HTML for clearings no longer contains the NAME of face-down treasures in the Alternate-Text field.
    
  • [1533] - Treasure Card HTML has hyperlinks now, so you can see what is where (face down treasures and spells where appropriate, of course)
  
  
• Detail log enhancements
  
  • [1536] - Trade information (what was up for sale) is shown in detail log.
    
  • [1539] - Change tactics information (new monster attack side) shown in log
    
  • [1539] - Monster numbers added to monsters in log
    
  • All actions (alerting, dropping, activating, etc) shown in log
    
  • Indented combat resolution for clarity
    
  • Each phase identified in log by a separator

BUGS/ISSUES:

• [1538] - Transmorphed characters can do the CACHE activity.
  
• [1537] - Target assignment during combat is randomized each round now.
  
• [1541] - Non-simultaneous attacks on native horses will spillover to the rider now.
  
• [1530] - Fixed a problem in the character builder that was creating corrupt character files anytime your character name is identical to a companion name.

This release is compatible with any 1.00+ version save game.