Neverwinter Nights Interview

The guys over at Stomped have posted up a chat with Rob Bartel, the co-designer of the upcoming RPG from BioWare, Neverwinter Nights. They discuss many of BioWare’s ambitious plans for the game, starting off with how they came up with the single-player storyline:

Stomped: The single player game in itself sounds like it would be plenty for even the most die-hard D&D gamer. How did you come up with the storyline for the game?

Bartel: Coming up with a new story arc can be a grueling process – for every story that finally gets turned into a game, we leave another 25 on the cutting-room floor. We knew our story was going to be set in and around the northern city of Neverwinter, so the first step was to immerse ourselves in all of the existing Forgotten Realms materials having to do with that area – Volo’s Guide to the North, The North boxed set, etc. This helped us get a feel for the mysteries and loose ends of the region and, little by little, we were able to weave together an epic conspiracy theory to start filling in all the gaps and questions. Why does snow never fall in the Neverwinter Valley? Why does Volo mention that the city is laid out roughly in the shape of an eye? What lies at the root of Neverwinter’s historic rivalry with the city of Luskan? Who was Lord Halueth Never, the elven founder of Neverwinter, and why are twelve magical swords rumored to guard his tomb? What drew the long-lost wizards of Netheril to construct a remote school and outpost in the hinterlands of the Savage Frontier? When everything starts to make an uncanny sort of sense, that’s when you know you’ve got a story worth telling.