Though I was a big fan of my early work (just because it was my early work, and evidence that I was working as a game designer) one of the first things I was truly proud of was TSR’s Birthright, my first published world, which took AD&D into a lower-fantasy setting and let you take the part of a ruler of a realm. Second was my work on the Planescape campaign setting, which allowed a huge degree of creative exploration. In that body of work, Monte Cook and I (along with our able editors, Ray Vallese and Michele Carter) were able to flesh out a significant part of the cosmology and background of the planes, defining and creating a foundation that would lead to my next big gig (and to Monte’s; not only did he help design D&D 3.0, he also produced an amazing string of successes, the latest of which is his Numenera setting).

Third, and perhaps most importantly, was Planescape: Torment. [...] I must have been only about six or seven months out from my TSR gig, so Planescape was still fresh in my head, and I became the go-to guy for matters of Planescape lore. The team grew significantly as we ramped up production, and I became Chris Avellone’s second for a lot of issues; he and I worked closely enough that we’re still good friends, though we haven’t seen each other regularly for 12 years.

I learned a hell of a lot from Chris: how to structure a dialogue, how to build in some real reactivity, how to condense ideas and stories to deliver maximum impact. The best part is that he didn’t sit down to show me–he just did it near me. And even though he and I both loved the setting, we saw ways that we could tell the story better by deviating from it.

But that’s not really the point of this post. The point is that of all the games I’ve written, the one that I keep circling back to is Torment. And now that the bulk of my work on Wasteland 2 is largely complete (with some iteration work that still needs to be done), I can start thinking about Torment seriously. [...]

I have a lot of ideas about what to put into a new Torment game, but my primary goal would be to help the player tell a story that was evocative of the original Torment without aping it. To be faithful to the odyssey of the Nameless One, and to recognize that it has ended, and that stories of Torment are ongoing.

What would you want to see?​

This would be a game in the vein of the Infinity Engine titles. I’ve got… let’s say I’ve got an in with the Torment IP. Planescape itself, not so much – but I think I’ve got something equally as cool lined up.​