The starting rules were simple: We’d have four basic heroes – fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue – positioned at the bottom of a battle map with a random assortment of monsters arrayed before them. We used a series of paper prototypes – character sheets, random encounter decks, miniatures grabbed from 3 rd Edition Basic Game boxed sets, and a lot of dice – to test basic game mechanics and find the fun. All the early games were played with pencil and paper. Warriors of Waterdeep didn’t start in a forest – it started at a conference room table. The story of Warriors of Waterdeep is the story of how we answered that question for owlbears and then for kobolds, mind flayers, and dragons. The short answer to the question is… six. First of all, what does it even mean? How many owlbears can virtually fit on a mobile phone screen? What kind of phone? Portrait or landscape? Do the owlbears show up all at once, or one at a time? Where are they – in a forest? Can we design a cool forest environment? Can you hear the owlbear screeches and see their feathers? Who are they fighting? What are their damage dice? Did the Dungeon Master give the players any clues, or was it all an ambush? What kind of heroes can stand up to owlbears? What’s the expected survival rate for halflings versus owlbears? What if they are very high-level halfling fighters, with support from clerics and wizards support? Developing Warriors of Waterdeep, an official Dungeons & Dragons mobile game, at Ludia boiled down to answering one simple question: How many owlbears is too many owlbears?
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