The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Interview
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Within many games, NPCs serve a "story-telling" mode - they often are the narrators or deliver key pieces of information that drive the story; how is the story driven forward in WITN?
Scott Crawford: NPCs certainly play a large role in delivering story in WITN, but we also strive to make sure the player doesn't feel as if his character was just born into Middle-earth yesterday. A lot of our story will come from the lips of the player characters themselves, and those who explore playing all three available races will find the characters have differing viewpoints and a different store of knowledge.
For example, in a conversation about co-operation among the free-folk, an NPC might bring up the Battle of Five Armies and our Ranger might choose to ask more about that event only to find his Dwarven companion speaking up to give a first-hand account of the battle.
We hope dedicated RPG players will find it refreshing to be the one to answer a question every now and then instead of always being perpetually clueless.
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RPGs in general tend to have more in-depth storylines than other genres, and then with the basis of The Lord of the Rings, the story becomes that much more critical. How does the genre affect the creation of NPC characters?
Scott Crawford: As I touched on above, our NPCs have to feel as if they belong in Middle-earth, generic fantasy characters have no place in this story. Each character created and each line of dialogue gets held up to the mirror of Middle-earth, as it were. I often imagine the events, characters and dialogue from our game occuring in the film adaptation and I ask myself if first-time viewers would accept it as all part of the same story. Our goal is to create characters and events that never feel out of place in Middle-earth.
