Realms of Arkania - Retrospective Interview @ RPGCodex

A retrospective interview with Guido Henkel on Realms of Arkania and RPGs can be found at RPGCodex.

1. What's your definition of RPG and how did it evolve over the years?

To me, there are a few factors that make up role-playing. First and foremost, I think, it should be an adventure, in the sense of that it creates an exciting world and story that pulls the player in on some kind of quest. Exploration is a big factor also, along with critical decision making, which leads to certain character developments. And then there is combat, of course. While not necessarily integral, I think combat is always fun and should be part of a good RPG.

The key, however, is that fun should always trump the mechanics. A game that is tedious is missing the point, I think. The game should captivate the player, entertain and challenge him in his actions and thinking.

With the graphic capabilities of today’s computers we have moved away from role-playing games where the imagination played a big part to something that resembles more of a movie experience. This has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand you limit the player’s imagination, but at the same time you create something that is fascinatingly beautiful or exotic at the same time. Which one is preferable depends on how you look at it, I suppose.

More information.

a storm is brewing…

The Kickstarter has been submited. Expect it early next week if all goes well.

TB combat is confirmed, in the classical sense - not some modern interpretation. Details only after playtesting them to make sure his ideas are actually fun. Should happen soon.
Apart from that it will be "traditional", not "old school". So it's not direct competition to PE or WL2.

Thorvalla will neither be a DSA game nor get close to DSA in any way. Guido wants to create a completely new ruleset.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Apart from that it will be "traditional", not "old school".

Clever .
Looking forward to it, the first two RoA games rule.

We'll see if it's clever.

Guido seems to have some new ideas for storytelling and certain game mechanics. Which sounds good to me, even more so because he has the BaK guy on board.

So expect TB combat, a party and full character creation for the hero. Beyond that some innovation will happen. Probably not much, but certainly *some* innovation on top of a tradional RPG.

He also seems to consider the removal of map travel in RoA 3 to be a mistake in retrospect, hopefully that means he plans to include an engaging iteration of it in this game .

Who's the BaK(I assume that to mean Betrayal at Krondor, one of my all time favorite crpg's) guy on board?

Originally Posted by The Hulk
Who's the BaK(I assume that to mean Betrayal at Krondor, one of my all time favorite crpg's) guy on board?

Neal Hallford, one of the two writer/designers. Also worked on a bunch of other games. Noted he'll be involved a while back, on the Codex.

Excellent interview! Thanks to the Kodex!

Guido Henkel: I have always felt that real-time combat in a party based game is not only unrealistic but also extremely limiting. The beauty of role-playing is that you let your imagination go wild and if you force the player to revert to reflexive hacking and slashing, you are, in a way, defeating the purpose of RPGs. I prefer to take my time, appraise a situation and make tactical decisions. This kind of approach takes time since you need to do this kind of situational analysis for each member of the party. Therefore, real-time combat was never an option we considered seriously.

Amen! Couldn't agree more.

I agree with his comment except the part about real-time combat being "unrealistic". Is it supposed to be more realistic to be able to take as much time as you want in the middle of a fight?

Regardless, I vastly prefer turn-based or RTWP over real-time for any party-based RPG.

I guess that real-time-Chess would be fun, then ? (My usual argument. )

Originally Posted by Brother None
Neal Hallford, one of the two writer/designers. Also worked on a bunch of other games. Noted he'll be involved a while back, on the Codex.

Thanks, I missed that one. Makes me even more interested now to know that Halford is involved in Thorvall.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I agree with his comment except the part about real-time combat being "unrealistic". Is it supposed to be more realistic to be able to take as much time as you want in the middle of a fight?

Regardless, I vastly prefer turn-based or RTWP over real-time for any party-based RPG.

I'm guessing he means that you have one player who has to make real time decisions for an entire party of characters. Unrealistic isn't the first word I would use, but its not realistic either.