Interview with Matt Sernett – Narrative Chief on Battlemarked and former Lore Grasp for D&D

Oh, okay. I am going to attempt to do the fast model. *laughs* So, like a whole lot of children rising up, I used to be a giant fan of D&D. I began out once I was in all probability about eight years previous. We did not know the way to play. We did not know what we had been doing. However my buddy launched me to the idea of the sport, and I used to be simply enthralled with the concept of, you recognize, creatures within the dungeons and adventures and every little thing like that. Finally, we discovered the way to play for actual. And, I used to be at a sleepover at a buddy’s home, and we found for the primary time that folks make video games for a residing. That was revelatory to us. Like, we had no concept that that was really a profession path. And once we found that my buddy’s dad was strolling previous the room and stated to my buddy, mainly put that concept out of their head, you are going to develop as much as be a health care provider or a lawyer, and simply walked away.

This form of bizarre drive-by parenting, I believe, hit my buddy, however left me unscathed. As a result of I used to be like, effectively, wait a minute, why not me? Like what? What’s stopping me from doing this factor? Nicely, it took me a couple of years to be taught, and I ultimately did determine it out, and I ended up getting {a magazine} diploma from Syracuse College, working for magazines, Dragon Journal and Dungeon Journal, beginning again in 2000. After which, finally working my method into the R&D division for D&D, the place I labored at Wizards of the Coast for a few years on many various tasks.

After which I left in 2018 to pursue digital video games as a result of I had had some expertise at Wizards engaged on the D&D video games that licensees had been partnering Wizards with. After which, on some inner efforts that form of floundered at Wizards. But it surely was tremendous enjoyable to work on digital video games, so I branched out into that, and I have been doing it ever since. Battlemarked is my alternative to form of come again to the model that I like and that I fell in love with, that made me fall in love with the video games. And so it is a match made in heaven. 

I imply, they’re definitely all totally different. I imply, I take pleasure in all types of writing and world creation. Finally, that is what attracts me to writing and recreation design and that form of factor. It’s creating issues for different folks to take pleasure in. It offers me an immense quantity of pleasure to form of construct these characters and these worlds, after which, you recognize, know that different individuals are going to expertise these issues and take away happiness from that, like that. That is very fulfilling. And so, you recognize, no matter capability during which I am doing that, that is what I like to do. So far as what’s essentially the most difficult, I’d say essentially the most difficult for me personally is ending a screenplay and having it’s any good. In order that’s a separate difficulty *laughs*.

However, so I am studying there. However when it comes to, like, you recognize, dialog design or telling a narrative in video games or that form of factor, you recognize, actually the method is form of loads like being DM, proper? You’ve got a narrative you wish to inform, and also you need folks to see and expertise it. However you could have different gamers on the desk, and they’re those serving to to make the sport. These gamers are the constraints that the sport itself has. And in the end, what it’s worthwhile to do isn’t just inform the story that you simply wish to inform, however inform the story that collectively you may inform collectively that everybody enjoys. And in the end, you recognize, that course of is what produces a terrific recreation that the gamers take pleasure in. 

Yeah, I imply, I’d say that the canon impacts the method, wholly. So my method is to imagine, no matter recreation or is being made or story is being informed, whether or not that is on a tabletop recreation or in, in Battlemarked, is that it is going down in no matter form of the current day is, there’s wiggle room there, as a result of we do not give any dates away on this, you recognize, so is it, ten years from when Baldur’s Gate 3 befell, or is it ten years earlier than? You understand, I imply, canon-wise, like, it is not nailed down in a selected place. However, just like the, the, the concept is that we, we write it to be going down within the current day, assuming that, the, the canon that is been established is extant, and, and then you definately construct round that whereas constructing the premise of a narrative that does not really want all of that canon.

One of many issues about working in any setting with a whole lot of canon is it must be a narrative that lives by itself and breathes by itself and depends on all of these particulars of canon and all that form of stuff. But it surely would not really feel prefer it’s simply surfacing canon for the sake of it. Or, it’s a must to have performed the final six video games or learn the final six books or no matter to grasp it. It actually must form of dwell by itself two ft whereas it is nonetheless, on the identical time, working hand in hand with all of that established lore. 

So I suppose it form of is determined by the way you outline an Easter egg. I wish to have the sport contact upon different parts of lore. I like surfacing obscure parts of lore within the setting that have not been seen or talked about since Second Version (of Dungeons & Dragons) or one thing like that. But it surely form of has to serve the plot. It is acquired to serve the story. It has to serve the sport that we’re making. And so, I am not inclined so as to add an Easter egg, only for the sake of it being cute. It has to really work inside the Battlemarked itself. 

There is a weirdly great amount of lore in Neverwinter that form of goes untouched about form of the previous kings of Neverwinter. The road of these kings that handed within the earlier editions. So, within the early editions, just like the Second and Third editions, there’s this form of storied line of leaders of Neverwinter and stuff like that. And within the Fourth Version after which the Fifth Version onward, these individuals are useless. And there is really like, nearly like a, tomb of, Arthurian knights form of a factor in Neverwinter Citadel. That form of stuff is cool, like I, I like these echoes of different sorts of storytelling. The references to the broader physique of fable and tales we dwell with on the planet. Whether or not that is a principle in legend or, you recognize, Norse fable or one thing like that. I like it when you may see these echoes of storytelling in numerous issues.

Not essentially. There are methods during which the Forgotten Realms could be very a lot a mirror of Earth in a fantasy setting. You’ve got far to the East, which is the form of an Asia space, the realm that a lot of the Forgotten Realms storytelling takes place in, is form of a European space. After which all the way in which over on the opposite aspect of the ocean, it was form of an American-like space. And so to that diploma, there is a similarity in there. After which whenever you get right down to the specifics of the assorted settings, these settings generally echo sure sorts of storytelling.

So, the Dalelands are extra pastoral and have parts of each The Lord of the Rings and Robin Hood, and issues like that. However typically, I am not in search of that once I’m telling the tales that I am telling. It is extra concerning the total tone of the Forgotten Realms, which is one among heroic optimism, as in comparison with, say, one thing like Greyhawk, which is way more cynical, of a setting. And so I simply attempt to hold to that form of heroic optimism tone.

I believe one of many, the early discussions that we had once we had been speaking concerning the narrative for this recreation and the way it was going to work, was about that incorporation as a result of my intuition was to have the characters discuss and be a part of the story and that form of factor, nevertheless it’s simply it is impractical as a result of, you may come to the desk, with 4 gamers totally different from, every enjoying a unique character or the issue is they will every play the identical character. It turns into nonsensical for the world to be responding to these characters, as particular people, when in reality, there could possibly be 4 clones of them operating round and speaking to folks. And so the sport is designed to provide the sense that the NPCs are speaking to you and that you’re speaking to them, however you will not see the gamers’ dialog pop up. You will not have a alternative of dialogue that’s particular to your character. You’ve got decisions for what you’d say and the way you reply.

However once more, due to the restrictions of how the these these are constructed, you recognize, we could not put, you recognize, the all of the variations for the way a unique character would say this line, you recognize, or no matter, or these 5 traces, you recognize, usually as I used to be only a alternative of like three or 4 or 5 various things which you could say in response to anyone else. And, as a story designer and as a storyteller, you recognize, I need these traces to symbolize the character of the one that’s saying them. So in the event that they’re saying in the event that they’re asking a query and it is the dwarf, I need the query to be requested form of gruffly, proper, or one thing like that. However the actuality of it’s that there is solely a lot house on that line for phrases. And so if I’ve solely acquired house for like 3 or 4 phrases for a query, there’s not that a lot variation that I can construct into there, you recognize, that, or there’s, however then it is acquired to be inbuilt for each single character and alter out and in. And that is simply tremendous complicated for the form of recreation that Battlemarked is.

Many features are very comparable when it comes to simply writing an RPG guide versus writing a recreation. By way of the fundamental “sit-down at your desk by your self” work, it is very comparable. Proper? You do analysis, you do a whole lot of writing, that form of factor. However then the features of the writing within the creation of Battlemarked and comparable video games are very totally different. The product that you simply’re requested to develop and write for folks is a really totally different form of work. Writing a couple of thousand phrases in a day for an RPG journey or for a tabletop recreation is a really totally different expertise from attempting to provide you with the sixteenth model of what somebody says after they make a variety assault. It is only a totally different form of mindset, a unique course of, and a unique form of problem in that method.

Basically, the facet of writing could be very comparable, and dealing on video video games, there’s much more, form of co-development of the story and the world with different groups and different groups. And whereas, you recognize, on the tabletop RPG,  there actually aren’t that many limitations on what you do or the place you go or the way you inform your story or no matter. It is actually simply form of no matter it’s that you simply assume is smart, and, you recognize, inside restricted of a product like D&D, inside the limitations of the canon, whereas, you recognize, video video games like Battlemarked, there in fact, are at all times going to be totally different constraints. 

It isn’t featured in both of those adventures, however the adventurer is burning down the inn, the tavern, proper? Like, I am unable to rely what number of D&D video games during which that simply occurred as a pure course of occasions. Yeah. In order that’s my favourite.*laughs*

So, earlier than I went to work for Wizards of the Coast, I used to be a completely mad collector. was happening eBay and shopping for obscure books, you recognize, from Second version and First version and stuff like that, again within the day when eBay first began. Simply scraping the world on the web for these merchandise so as to add them to my assortment. I’d learn these books once I acquired them. After I began engaged on Dungeons & Dragons, I already had a base of information. At one level, there was a man, Curt Gould, who got here across the workplaces with a stack of DVDs and requested anybody in the event that they wished PDFs of a bunch of the merchandise, an enormous form of library of merchandise that was within the constructing on the time. And I took that and ran with it. And so what I did over the course of years was construct up on my laptop Wizards. Simply an ever-growing library of PDFs that I may dive into, search, and do analysis at a second’s discover. It allowed me to do issues like seek for Purple Dragon and Elminster and discover each reference to, you recognize, in any guide that had each Elminster and a Purple Dragon in it.

I may find all of that data, actually rapidly. Finally, that grew to become what Wizards used as its official library of PDFs for the time. That is form of what I exploit each time I used to be in search of materials, whether or not it was for a licensee or internally on an journey guide that was being made, or one thing like that.
More often than not, my work in that lore grasp function was studying over that stuff. My mind would hit and stumble upon pink flags. It might simply be “like, wait, what? Is that true?? So I’d return, look, and do the analysis to determine whether or not it was or wasn’t. Different occasions, my work was extra in entrance of the merchandise. So with Baldur’s Gate 3, when Larian got here to Wizards, a few of the work that I did was “hey, this is Baldur’s Gate. It isn’t as bizarre and form of bland because it was in, you recognize, the previous Baldur’s Gate video games. Here is the battle between the Githyanki and the Thoughts Flayers, and this is what that is all about.” Creating these paperwork and briefs that present folks the potential inside the setting. I used to be doing each these issues in that function on the time. 

You’ll be able to have numerous other ways. But it surely is determined by the place I am getting it. 

Gosh, there are such a lot of. The very first thing that sprang to thoughts, to be trustworthy, iss Star Trek.

I’d like to do the Kirk and Spock period of Star Trek. To be trustworthy, that might be essentially the most enjoyable. The subsequent property I left in thoughts was James Bond. And in that case, I can undoubtedly inform you it is a Chilly Struggle-era bond.

Nicely, Chris Perkins (former inventive director of D&D, now at Essential Position) had many long-running inner campaigns. In a type of video games, I performed a fighter, and I’ll flub his identify as a result of I do not bear in mind it. I believe it was Batho or one thing like that, however I do not bear in mind. He began out as only a form of massive, dumb fighter sort character, and over the course of the marketing campaign, he slowly went mad. On the finish of that marketing campaign, a whole lot of the opposite gamers had been legitimately afraid of what my character would do. 

t: Forgotten Realms. That is my bread and butter. Old flame.

Pie. 

No. 

Sure.

Powerful one. I’ll go along with Want as a result of it could possibly be something. 

I am unsure. There. I do not know. I like the straightforward ones that are not complicated. So like, Alertness. Is that simple? 

I do not know that there is a lot that I miss aside from, in a whole lot of these settings that we at the moment play in, the sense that there was a lot left to be taught and discover, and I imply that in that there’s a lot left to be taught and discover concerning the Forgotten Realms. Do not get me improper, it is a complete planet and half of it we do not even see. So, there’s loads left to discover. However early on in Forgotten Realms and all these different settings, you’d get slightly little bit of the world piece by piece, and that was a extremely enjoyable facet of studying concerning the world. The storytelling was that you’d get, like, Germany, then France, and then you definately’d transfer all the way in which over to Britain. You’d get little fine details of it, piece by piece.

Thanks a lot!