I)   THE MAKING OF THE PROGRAM
II)  HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS
III) "TEAMWARE", REGISTRATING BY HELPING
IV)  VERSIONS
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THE MAKING OF THE PROGRAM

Tavern Maker is a program written by me in order to help DMs (=myself) 
creating different "tavern-room-descriptions". I just became bored of 
the "standard" descriptions whenever my party entered a tavern
("You see the fat landlord, some farmers and merchants..."),
but I also didnt want to make up my mind for detailed descriptions 
everytime the party went to a tavern - sometimes they do so for 
several times a day! So I thought a random-generator mixed with the
imaginarity of all RPG-fans on the net could help here and started
programming. This was in the summer of 1996 and the frame program was
finished after two weeks. Then Andrew Williams joined me and programmed 
the excellent WIN95 surface for my program. (Special thanks again, Andrew)
The whole thing was finished in November 96. The only problem I had was,
that it seemed that I was unable to find enough creative people willing to
help me create the description-database without my program is worthless.
After a while I realized, that it was necessary to do the start of the work
on my own. (Although my English isnt the best.) And today (22.Feb.97) I finished
the first 100 descriptions. (well, to be exact: 31 descritpions were written by 
Pete J. Mitchell and Richelieu [sorry, lost the forename])

In the meantime (we now have the 26.March.98) the database(s) have increased to over 1000
entries total, but still new descriptions are needed and wanted, as the program grows better
with each one. I unfortunately lost contact to Andrew Williams and so the WinTavern version has 
"died out" by not beening updated to newer changes (like custumizeable menues, more races etc.)
Luckily I found a new helpful ghost ("whinney") who took on the part of programming the Win95 shell.

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HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS

According to some "flags" like prices, quality, size, type etc. of the tavern and
race, riches of the guests the program randomly creates some "table - descriptions".
It also creates a "pick-pocket"-list for the DM and a menu. Those informations are 
saved in three TXT-files (*.MNU *.TBL *.PPL)for further uses. The program also generates 
random tavernname and (rough) floorplan, if wanted.

There are three ways to use the program:

1.) Youre lucky and have WIN95: Just throw all files in one directory and start the
program WINTAV.EXE. Although the program hasnt a helpfile yet (sorry), the program
should be selfexplainig. If it, however, is not, just send me a mail. (BEJOSCHA@PING.AT)

2.) You DONT have Win95. (...well, youve to do without a nice shell):
 Just start TAVERN.EXE in DOS. Youll come to a functional, but ugly menu which should
 also be selfexplaining.

3.) You want to do it in parameter-form: Just start the program TAVERN.EXE with 
   some parameters and youll never see a menue. (The parameters are given in
   PARAM.TXT and are listed if you type "TAVERN.EXE /?")

 If youre going to program your own shell for the program, let me know please!

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"TEAMWARE", REGISTRATING BY HELPING

Well, I nearly wrote Freeware, but _everything_ has its price. The price of the
program however is only a bit of your time. If you like the program [-and if you
did use it once in your campaign then it counts as "I liked it"] you have to 
"pay" me with some work.

Write at least 5 TABLE-DESCRIPTONS
or            10 MEAL/DRINK DESCRIPTIONS

and mail them to me. (Any textformat, but not more than 5 lines of 70 letters)
Ill include them in the database, write your name in the list of credits and be
VERY thankful. :)
Of course you can write MORE then the minimum (and place your name on higher rankings
in the credits-list.)

>>>Please also write me where you live, as I want to mark all "my" users on a worldmap.

Oh, one more wish: I never said, that my English is good, so please email me, if you 
find any mistakes so that I can correct them. 

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VERSIONS

New in version 1.1

- The program now doesnt use the same description twice in one text-file.
Instead of this some "generic" descriptions may be created

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New in version 1.2

- You now can descide to uses special databases in parameter-mode
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New in version 2.0

- The meals are now "weighted". There are differnt kinds of meals/drinks
  and the menues should now be more reasonable. This however slowed down
  the generating a little bit.

NOTE: DATABASES HAVE CHANGED FORMAT! YOU CAN`T MIX OLD & NEW VERSIONS
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New in version 3.0
- The halfelves are now a seperated race (v-flag)
- There are now seven Taverntypes 
 (Harbour/Nightbar/Bar/Traveller/Lokal Village/Lokal City/Lokal Restaurant)
- You could created customized menues with an config-file.

NOTE: YOU HAVE TO USES v3.0 IF YOU WANT TO USE NEWER DATABASES
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New in version 3.1
- You now could customize the menu within the program
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New in version 3.3
- The Menu-files now also have headers for the differnt meals.
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New in version 3.4
- You now can save/load settings and use this settings in parameter-mode.
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New in version 4.0
- After a lot of trying I finally did a kind of random-housplan maker. 
Its my first graphic-output program ever, so dont expect too much.
On the other hand the output isnt too bad. To start the plan-maker just
use the new menu-point or the new parameter "-p". The plan-maker is
pretty much selfexplaining. Just try until you think the plan fits and then
save it! The plan is saved as a grayscale-TGA file with the filename given
in the settings. Note: Other settings doesnt do anything to the plan-maker!
Its just random.
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New in version 4.1
- Just had to do some changes so that the new win95 shell "cooperates" better.
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New in version 4.2
- The program now generates tavernnames too. (The *adjective* *nomen*) Two files have been added:
  nomen.dat and adjectiv.dat
- The program saves the maps now either as b/w-TGA or as b/w-BMP file. (Both uncompressed!)



I think thats all.

      bejoscha@ping.at

