Gavin Verhey talked with Jules Robins, the lead designer for Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, on Good Morning Magic to discuss how dungeons came to be in the new set.
One of the biggest themes the design team wanted to capture in this set was the feel of adventuring and delving into dungeons, so the idea of figuring out how to get into dungeons and progress through them began from there. Dungeons went through some phases from highly complex to incredibly simple before landing where they are now. At one point, players had dungeon decks that offered up random levels and rooms, allowing players to progress through dungeons how they wish, even going back into previously explored rooms. Eventually they found having an extra deck for dungeons was a bit too much, so they dropped down to one single dungeon, but it got too predictable.
The design team ended up on three dungeons, offering players a simple dungeon, a dangerous dungeon, and a longer and more complex dungeon. The dungeons were limited to what they could contain due to the card size, so making three different dungeons allowed the mechanic to avoid repetition while not going overboard in complexity.
While all colors have access to some amount of venturing into dungeons, white, black, and blue have the most venturing. Green and red still have some venturing, like the new card Kick in the Door.
Kick in the Door plays much like a staple Limited card, but also has the bonus of venturing. Keeping venturing balanced in Limited was a key part in testing and led to some of the artifact cards like Fifty Feet of Rope and Dungeon Map giving all colors access to repeatable venturing.
What do you think of venturing into the dungeon? Can it cross over to Constructed or will it mostly live in Limited?
Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is scheduled for release on July 23. View our official preview gallery.