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Neverwinter Vault, a Neverwinter Nights fansite has posted a recent interview with Bioware writer/designer Aidan Scanlan to talk about the company's latest RPG Neverwinter Nights. The rather lengthy interview covers mainly past and present issues, including anything from fan communities and modules to reflections on the game itself. Here is a sneak peak of what's inside:

RBB: I love the game, and am trying to move part of my PnP game to it. But it seems like the official campaign might be a tad under-challenging. How would you rate or change the encounter system, in terms of how it measures PC and monster capabilities?

I'd like to give an example of that. I would like to see a particular setting on what counts on the player's side for spawning an encounter. The reason being is we ran into a problem during testing that certain encounters would spawn huge, usually powerful, groups of monsters, where a similar encounter somewhere else wouldn't. That's because at the time what the encounter was scanning for were people hostile to the encounter. So we had an encounter area right next to a set of guards. So a first level guy would walk through, it would take all those guards into account, and spawn the encounter. We've since changed it so the encounter spawns only for the person triggering it and their party members.

What I would like to see in hindsight is a setting on the encounter to say what it encompasses—whether or not I want those guards in there. Or whether I want just the person, or [the person and] his party, etc.

Interview with Aidan Scanlan

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