The “Dungeons & Dragons” franchise is one of the most popular series of role-playing games in the world. Over the years, there have been a wealth of video games related to the series and now, you can add a new role-playing game to the mix with the launch of “Heroes of Neverwinter” on Facebook. Released by Atari and developed by Liquid Entertainment, the game offers short play sessions, deep character customization and the option to recruit your friends’ characters into your adventuring party.

When you begin playing the game, you choose a character (Human, Eladrin, Dragonborn or Halfling) and a class (Rogue, Fighter, Cleric or Wizard). There are 4 pre-set combinations for you to choose from or you can opt to completely customize your choice before giving your character a name. Your character growth is based on Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition, with attributes including strength, intelligence, wisdom and charisma. Your character’s looks and equipment are represented visually on the battlefield and your character sheet to show off your character. In the town of Neverwinter, you can buy equipment and chat in the tavern, invite your friends or other players to join your roster and swap strategies and stories with other players.

You’ll have 50 main adventures to play through and 3 difficulty levels to choose from at launch. Each adventure features monsters, traps and puzzles, starting with 2-4 so-called “encounter challenges” in earlier levels to finding secrets and tackling side quests and boss fights in later adventures. You can add your Facebook friends’ characters to your roster and use them in your party — your friends can participate in your adventures using spectator mode and help you out by offering strategy advice, healing allies and aiding you in gaining experience. The controls let you take control of your party in combat, where you position, coordinate and protect your characters.

What’s particularly cool here is that you have the option to create adventures for your friends to play using the dungeon creator toolset, which is accessible when you reach level 10. You can create and publish up to 6 dungeons which other players can check out and play through. Of course, you can share these dungeons with your friends and you’ll be rewarded for creating them by collecting a portion of the gold fee and snagging other bonuses.

This is the latest in a string of turn-based role-playing games that have launched on Facebook in recent weeks. One such game is “War Commander,” which lets you take command of a military unit in a disant dystopian future. Adapting a well-known brand such as Dungeons & Dragons into an RPG for Facebook users is a smart move, especially given the ability to take part in short gameplay sessions (I was able to work through the first dungeon within 10 minutes or so). As we’ve seen with Zynga, this can be a profitable strategy, as encouraging players to return to the game frequently can result in a high level of engagement over the course of a day. However, you can take part in longer game sessions if you choose to do so.

Scribbal had the opportunity to ask Ed Del Castillo, co-founder and president of Liquid Entertainment, a few questions about “Heroes of Neverwinter.” Here’s what he told us:

What, in your opinion, makes “Heroes of Neverwinter” stand out above other turn-based RPG games on Facebook?

In a word, depth. Facebook is awash with very light fare. On the plus side, that’s very easy to get into and out of, but on the minus side it’s also very easy to forget about. They don’t create lasting or memorable experiences. Our game is a little different. We’ve taken the D&D rules and brought as many as we could to the game while considering the overall play time. Some rules were reduced others modified to create a “faster than the paper game” experience but unlike most D&D titles of the past we didn’t just grab the name and use it to make an action game in a fantasy world, we instead worked on trying to be true to the paper (within the parameters of lighter faster play).

The result is a game that’s a bit deeper than your typical Facebook experience. We allow for the creation and growth of characters, our play sessions are longer and more fulfilling, and we’re seeing a gratifyingly large positive response as a result. We aren’t here to compete with Zynga and the other casual game companies. Heroes of Neverwinter is a destination for all the D&D fans who can’t otherwise get a paper game going and for all the casual game fans looking to sink their teeth into something a little more meaty. We don’t want to be an entertainment snack, we want to be a meal.

How does the game fit into the overall “Dungeons & Dragons” mythology?

We are lock step with what Wizards of the Coast is doing with Neverwinter in the current Forgotten Realms campaign. It’s about 100 years after Neverwinter Nights and lots of cataclysmic effects have occurred in the North to change the layout and the players in that region. we’re using all the same characters, locations, and factions that WotC has introduced this year for Neverwinter.

For fans who are keeping up with the fiction we made extremely sure that we were inline with everything WotC was doing so that we could be additive. For new comers they will get a taste and feel for the new Neverwinter but we were equally careful not overwhelm with lore that wouldn’t have a bearing on the game they were playing.

How is “Heroes of Neverwinter” being monetized?

Heroes is Free to Play. We have some standard Facebook conventions but we have a new approach to them. For example, we have an energy bar but you can get through a whole adventure before running out of energy which is often more than an hour of gameplay. Most casual games have you running out of energy in 15 minutes or less. We’re also providing a form of in-game currency that can be bought for cash. The key to all of this is that we’re trying to be less greedy than most games out there.

When I play alot of those games, I feel like I’m constantly being asked to pay money and it’s annoying. In our game we’re trying to strike a good balance between wanting to make money for the sake of continuing and improving the game and wanting the players to have a fulfilling experience that they feel that they can come back to again and again. So far, the feedback on this front has been really great. We’ll continue to tweak it, but the message is clear… “Come and try this out. If you like it you can chip in which if you want but this isn’t a pay to play game.”

To be absolutely honest, I never got into “Dungeons & Dragons.” I watched the TV show a few times when I was younger, but I was never able to enjoy the game in the same way that some of my friends did. However, I enjoyed playing “Heroes of Neverwinter” — it looks great, the gameplay is fun and simple (and of the kind that attracted hundreds of millions of players to Zynga games) and I like the music too. I might be tempted to delve back in from time-to-time. Although the “Dungeons & Dragons” universe is in-depth and complex in nature (“Dungeons & Dragons” games often demand a great deal of time to play), “Heroes of Neverwinter” really works as a pick-up-and-play social game with the option to delve in a little deeper if you choose.

You can check out “Heroes of Neverwinter” now by installing it on Facebook.