Shastao's Tips for the amateur Mordor DungeonMaster

See also the Troubleshooting Guide, and and the Mordor FAQ

Editor's Note: This document was commented and HTMLized on 1/5/99 by BP. It is provided here because it is a nice intro for new DMs, and was written by someone who obviously put a lot of time in figuring out things.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. Getting Started
IIa. Why won't it load the rooms?
IIb. How do I make myself a DM?
III. How to make items good
IV. How to make shops good
V. Getting additional help
VI. And what about making additional classes/races?

I. Introduction:

Hello all you amateur Mordor DMs and hosts. Frustrated at something? See if any of these sections help. And if you wanted to download the stuff just go to www.shareware.com and search for "Mordor". Thats how i found it :)
[BP: Or you can make sure you get the most up to date version at the Mordor Home site.]

II. Getting Started

After downloading your zip file (which btw the unzipped part takes up a rather large chunk of my hard drive) you should unzip it in your main hard drive (usually C) in the folder C:\home\mordor.
After a bit of waiting (i spent it thinking on what i was going to do once i got it running) and after all that, you run mordor.exe in /bin/nt and what's the first thing you see?
A blank screen. How sad (joking.) Actually it is running at that moment. Use zMUD or telnet to log into it, using either your online ip or your local machine ip (i.e. 192.168.0.1, windows will tell you for sure...) and use Tesseract for now. His default password is always "dmname".

IIa. Why won't it load the rooms?

Whats that? It won't load your rooms? (chuckle) Ok, i ran into that problem too. After several experiments, I found out that it works best if you copy mordor.exe and editor.exe into your /players directory. Type "*shutdown 0" and restart mordor.
[BP: Actually it is supposed to be in the /bin directory, but since it looks in the relative path players will work too.]
Does it work now? If it doesn't, e-mail to me at dnorris@zoomnet.net and ill see if i can help you any.

IIb. How do I make myself a DM?

Two ways:

Way #1: Using Tesseract to make you some wierd thing by typing "*set p (target-char) c 15"
[BP: This sets the class on the target to 15, which is a DM]

Way #2: Editing the mordor.cf file in the /bin directory, search for [DM's names] in it. Edit/add the char name of your choice. Load the game, and when it asks for a password to create your char, enter NaZg0OL (if you havent written it down yet)

III. How to make items good

I have found its best to use editor.exe to make both creatures and objects. The most important things in creature making is:

1. Name/desc/talk
2. Keys (not as in a key to unlock a door but a key to use it
(i.e. Zombie Man key1: zombie; key2: man key3: [nothing] )
3. Stats (adjust them to your personal pleasure)
4. Flags (type "*dm cflags" for more info)

[BP: You can also do this online with the *set, *cname, and *oname commands. If you do use the editor, be sure to have ANSI.SYS loaded so the editor menus work (as mentioned in the WinFAQ).

IV. How to make shops good

Ah, making shops now, are we? I'll tell ya what. Go to /docs/dm/ and look at dm.doc for more infomation. If you're not up to searching, remember these steps:

Step 1: using "*c (item#)" to add the items in your inventory that youre going to add to the shop.

Step 2: using "*add r (any # above 7000)" to make a room.

Step 3: repeat step 2 except you must increase the room # by 1 (i call it a storeroom)

Step 4: using "*set x (exit) (your rm#)" to make an exit to the shop's room

Step 5: using "*save" to save that room (this step is important)

Step 6: setting an exit out to the host room like step 4

Step 7: Repeat step 5 in the shop's main room

Step 8: use "*t (shop's storeroom #)" to go there

Step 9: use "*set r f 13" to keep players from teleporting there and ruining your business :(

Step 10: use "*set o (item) f 9"

Step 11: repeat step 9 except replace flag #9 with flag #10

Step 12: drop the item

Step 13: If additional items, repeat steps 10-12.

Step 14: Use "*perm (item)"

Step 15: Repeat step 14 until all items are permed. Congrats! You have just made a store!

[BP: Steps 10,11 & 13 are not necessary, and it is best to use the editor or newer versions of *perm (in Mordor 4.06+) to perm things.]

V. Getting additional help

So, what i included in here didn't cover what you needed?

E-mail to me at dnorris@zoomnet.net and ill see if i can help. Afar from that, you're on your own.

VI. And what about making additional classes/races?

You're on your own on that, buddy. I will tell you that you need a C compiler and to edit mordor.exe, and that you need to make an additional flag(s) to be able to make training area(s) for that class. It is possable to make restrictions on those, too. The sky (and your hard drive) is the limit!

Have fun! - Shastao (dnorris@zoomnet.net)