Interview Temple of Elemental Evil Interview on RPGVault

[Mistress]

Tags: Temple of Elemental Evil; Tim Cain; Troika Games

<a href="http://rpgvault.ign.com">RPGVault</a> have posted an <a href="http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/385/385133p1.html">interview</a> with <b>Tim Cain</b> regarding <a href="http://www.troikagames.com">Troika's</a> current work-in-progress, <b>Greyhawk: Temple of Elemental Evil</b>.
<br>
<br>
<blockquote><b>Jonric:</b> Considering the module was written long before the 3E rules existed, what changes and additions have you had to make? How have you found them in terms of being suitable or adaptable to the computer platform? How deeply and how faithfully are you implementing 3E?
<br>
<br>
<b>Tim Cain:</b> We are being very faithful to the 3E rules (dare I say the only faithful implementation to date? I do dare). Since no dialogues or side quests appear in the module, we made them up, and made them relate to the new skills and feats in 3E. When 3E rules and module conflicted, 3E almost always won. In fact, the only exception I can remember is the undead banshee, who is so much more powerful in 3E that I toned her down a bit for the module. 3E is fairly easy to adapt to the computer, but as with all pen and paper rule sets, we are finding a lot of exceptions to every rule in the books, and making sure we code those exceptions and have them make sense to the player is the real chore.</blockquote>
<br>
He who dares...
<br>
<br>
Spotted at <a href="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPGDot</a>

 

[Jed]

Jonric: Why did you choose to make the combat turn-based? Do you think this will be a disadvantage in terms of building interest and awareness?

Tim Cain: I don't think we ever even considered making Temple of Elemental Evil real-time. D&D is a turn-based game. All of its rules are designed for turn-based play. The spells, the feats, the skills, these all mention rounds and initiative and other turn-based statistics. The sheer amount of effort to convert it to real-time would effectively invent a new game system, and what is the point of using D&D rules if you are just going to change its basic tenets? No. We decided to make a D&D game, D&D is turn-based, and that was that.

Bringin' the hammer down on the posuers.

 

[Spazmo]

I love all these subtle jabs at Bioware's games.

 

[Jed]

You 'n me both, Chief.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I think Tim should have started that answer with, "Damn, you're an idiot." Just once, I'd love to see old Tim get mad at a silly question like that, especially when it's as silly as, "Why isn't ToEE real time?"

I asked for the advantages of turn based in my interview with him simply because I wanted it out in the open, because there are definite advantages of making a D&D game turn based considering 3E relies on the sequential turn based system that PnP uses. There's way too many people out there who think rael time wiff puase iz like turn baised but gooder! mainly because of the crap that BioWare and Black Isle have been coughing up since 1998.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Tim's definitely too kind to these people. He should be a bit more viscious when questions like that are asked. After all : "There are no stupid questions, just stupid people", Mr. Garrison, Southpark :twisted: