Kickstarter Update #36 - How Do You Wanna Do This?
Assemble Your Party
Hello, and welcome to Kickstarter Upda-
Wait is that Matt Mercer?
Why yes, it is! You see, we promised you a bunch of stretch goals, and while we've enjoyed sharing the progress we've made on most of them, there's one that we've been very quiet about. The
big one. The $2 million question, so to speak:
What about Game Master Mode?
Well, we've spent the last two years building, tweaking, polishing, and testing it, and we're finally ready to show you what it can do. And who better to put it through its paces than
Matt Mercer, Jesse Cox, Dodger, Strippin and
Bikeman?
Matt (of
Critical Role and voice acting fame) will lead some of our favorite streamers in his very own custom adventure, and you’ll be able to see it
live TODAY! We’re absolutely thrilled to be streaming it
on our Twitch channel later today (9th May) at
4pm PT. So tune in and see what Game Master Mode can do in the hands of a story-telling virtuoso!
Of course, we needed more people to test our new drag and drop tabletop, so Swen swung by some friends in Seattle. This is what happened:
Master of the Gameverse!
This, my friends, is the ultimate power trip. In Game Master Mode, you can write stories, create NPCs (both heroic friends and fiendish enemies), build your own customisable items and treasure, craft the scenes in which your tale will play out, and much, much more as you lead your friends through the ultimate role-playing adventure.
Will you be a kind and benevolent god, or will you cover every available surface in harsh, unforgiving flame? It’s entirely your choice, as up to four players put their fates in your hands and start off on an adventure through your collective imaginations.
Tell Your Stories, Your Way
With Game Master Mode, we set out to create something that bridges the freedom of tabletop role-playing, and the interactivity and visual presentation of a computer RPG.
We built Game Master Mode to be as flexible as possible, so you can adapt to your friends on the fly and create a truly reactive world. Do your players want to burn down an NPC’s home? Make a pact with, rather than kill, the demonic boss? Perhaps they want to parlay with the pack of rabid wolves using pet pal? Even if you haven’t planned for it, you can adapt quickly to their choices and still deliver a story that feels real.
Whether you’re new to tabletop role-playing or an experienced GM, we’ve worked hard to make sure this is easy to pick up and intuitive to use. We also have prepared campaigns so you can jump straight in, working with a preexisting world to get a feel for the tool or, of course, you can create your own.
Craft Your World
Game Master mode comes with a variety of world maps and over 100 pre-made locations! But of course, you can always upload your own world map or craft your own location in our powerful
Divinity Engine Editor.
Mood Lighting
Tweak the atmosphere, ambience, music, time of day (why yes, there
is a night option), weather and more to fine-tune your story!
Create Unforgettable Encounters
Unleash the bestiary with hundreds of monsters and characters from the Divinity universe or download player-made characters and enemies from
Steam Workshop. Give characters unique skills and name them. Cover the landscape in any of our elemental surfaces using our
Surface Painter. Make the fight worthwhile by creating
unique items for the players to loot.
Assume Direct Control
Control any enemy or NPC directly by possessing them.
Tell Your Tale with the Vignette System
Add NPC dialogue, narration, and present difficult choices with our powerful
Vignette System. Add your own graphics and even additional dialog options on the fly! Managing different dialogs and encounters is now as simple as creating a presentation.
It's easy as creating a powerpoint presentation. But... you know, fun.
A Roll of the Dice
We brought in the essential component of every tabletop session: skill checks. Let your players roll the dice to see whether they succeed or fail!
Play Together and Share Your Creations
Tell your story in real-time, no rulebooks needed. Possess creatures, level up the party, create new locations, encounters and items on the fly. Tell your stories, your way - and share them with the world using
Steam Workshop!
Building a scene is drag'n'drop simple.
We couldn’t be happier with how Game Master Mode has turned out, and we can’t wait to let you play it, but there’s still some work to be done. Game Master Mode will be available when Divinity: Original Sin 2 launches, later in 2017.
Patch Inbound
Switching gears, we also want to announce that another patch is coming up very soon! It is quite a big one and has given us some real technical headaches but we’ve finally got them figured out!
We think.
All going well, there will be quite a major patch coming up in the following weeks, so look out for that.
And that’s all for this Kickstarter update. We’re ridiculously proud of the team for the work they’ve put into the Game Master Mode and we can’t wait for you to see it in action on our
Twitch channel later today!
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