Witcher Dev Note #17: Voices

Correction:  This article was written by Lisa Pondsmith.

Lisa Pondsmith, contributing author to The Witcher TRPG, discusses the decision to create a genuine world experience for those both old and new to The Witcher.

We are working diligently on The Witcher Table-Top RPG. Right now we are putting in side bars, many of them quotes from my character, Brandon of Oxenfurt. He’s a crusty old historian at the University, but he knows a lot about a lot of things. His sidebars and the sidebars of Cody’s dwarf merchant character are there to put context around what could be long boring game passages. This is how someone inside the world relates to this topic. One of our primary challenges is to make the setting feel like Witcher, even for people who don’t already know what that world is like. The rules can’t always do that, so the side bars tell you what people sound like in the world and what they do. The reaction of Witcher fans during our demos at GENCON was very positive, but we try hard to write the game for the uberfan who’s finished every game and DLC, read the novels and short stories, got the T-shirt… and also the person who just picks the game up with no previous knowledge thinking “Well, this looks like fantasy.” Keep that in mind if we seem to be explaining too much.

By Lisa Pondsmith