Ian Miles Cheong of Gameranx had an interview Dan Tudge about Sword Coast Legends. He manged to gleam some new information on the Dungeon Master Tools, that as of yet, we have not heard much about.
Some of the highlights of the interview (Pertaining to DM Mode)
There seems to be a major focus on developing the game’s Dungeon Master mode. How versatile is the system? What is the learning curve for dungeon mastering?
From its initial inception we wanted DMing in Sword Coast Legends to have a low-barrier-to-entry while still remaining robust. DMs will be able to create a fun and challenging experience for their party within a few minutes. However, if players want to spend hours crafting a massive campaign, they can do that too.
How will you make it so that the 4-player dungeoneering doesn’t feel like a versus competition against the dungeon master?
I won’t lie, it’s very tricky. Just like on the tabletop DMs in Sword Coast Legends will have a whole-lot of power, balancing that power is really what DM Threat is all about. DM Threat rewards DMs when they provide an awesome challenge for players and limits the totally out of whack griefing they can do. Of course, we don’t preclude adversarial play if that’s what the group wants to do.
What’s to stop a Dungeon Master from “griefing” players? You know, creating a trap that kills everyone in the party instantly. “Rocks fall, everyone dies.”
As I mentioned previously the threat system exists to help maintain encounter balance while giving the DM some fun tools to use in real time. We also do things like control spawn distance and limit threat spend on per area basis that help balance the experience. While it’s entirely possible for the Dungeon Master to “grief” players and create overly challenging situations, the DM’s experience would also be much less fun.
Well-written D&D campaigns like Baldur’s Gate revolve around actual role-playing (as opposed to games like Diablo, which are more of a “everybody wins” Monty Haul-type affair). Will the DM mode accommodate this level of advanced play?
While we’re not discussing the specific details of DM Campaign Creation right now I can tell you that we’re very aware of the importance of “role playing” in Sword Coast Legend. Campaign Creation will allow for much more than just create encounters with monsters.
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