Over 20 years of RPG making with Chris Avellone
Born and raised in the wilds of North Virginia, Avellone has become a leading videogame designer, writer and narrative expert over the last 20 years. games™ caught up with him to discuss his entire career
What was your first videogame experience?
Haunted House on the TRS-80 (4K). It was a text adventure game that was full of lies and deception and I rue playing it to this day. I got to the second to last level and no amount of verb or noun combination ever allowed me to prevail. It also turned me off enchanted swords forever.
Given your career has a strong background of storytelling and literature, did you study this at school?
Actually I went to the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which saved me from ever thinking I was smart. I was at the bottom ten percent of the pile and it was like getting punched in the face by a bunch of smart kids, except not with fists, with grades, which turned out to hurt less, but hurt longer. After school, I dicked around mostly and took part-time jobs to earn a little cash. In almost all my spare time I wrote and submitted pen-and-paper modules for publication.
You were a fan of Dungeons & Dragons?
Initially, yes. The first campaigns (aside from The Keep On The Borderlands, which was a staple back then) were Cult Of The Reptile God and the huge mega-module Temple Of Elemental Evil, which went on for years without a resolution until the party vanished into one of the elemental nodes and we all collectively decided the elements could have the shittest campaign as far as we were concerned. After that, I put D&D away and moved onto Superworld, Champions and Warhammer: Fantasy Role Play to get my fix. But D&D was inspiring, mainly because it allowed for interactive story and the idea that it was a game of make-believe with rules was especially appealing.
So how exactly did you get into the videogame industry?
I got traded for $300-worth of software as a referral bonus when my editor at Hero Games got me an interview at Interplay’s D&D division, Dragonplay. It was the first time – not the last – I felt like a prostitute and felt pretty dismal in terms of the circumstances. But I was working with games in franchises I loved, so it helped me sleep at night.
Were you interested in game design and coding as well as narrative?
I was happy to do anything related to games mastering. In my career I’ve often been overridden on anything except narrative so it’s rarely been seen in any game I’ve worked on. Probably a good thing, but it would have been nice to at least gotten the opportunity to try other things. I did code BASIC for a time, but I wasn’t great at it. They did compile, though, and they ran…sort of.
So what was your first major game over at Interplay?
Descent To Undermountain. I learned a lot about establishing roles and responsibilities and the importance of having the backing of those above you when it comes to making a title. Then I worked on Fallout 2, which unfortunately didn’t have the same leadership or creative and design oversight as the first game, which I thought was one of the best and most innovative RPGs I’d ever played. I think the Fallout world suffered for this – along with the bugs, there was a large push to get it out of the door before it was ready. While I loved Fallout 2, I wish it’d been managed better overall.
Perhaps your most fondly recalled roles from this era were the ones in the Infinity engine games.
BioWare’s to be commended on that engine. I’d argue that Black Isle couldn’t have made most of their games without it, and that was proven again and again. Making an engine is difficult, and BioWare had done a good job.
While you did work on Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale, your biggest role was with the intriguing Planescape Torment.
That’s not a pretty story. Interplay had the Planescape license but didn’t know what to do with it. They tried to make a PlayStation game with it but that didn’t go anywhere, so all they had left was ‘take the license, take the Infinity engine, make a game with half the people that normally work with this engine – GO!’. That said, I loved it. I got to write a story well in advance of the production period and iron out all the kinks. We had a small, passionate team and it seems to be a game that has stood the test of time and people enjoyed – I’m gratified that people seemed to respond to the themes and direction of the game, because I was certainly terrified they wouldn’t and I would lose my job over it.
Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance was an action-orientated console departure for you – what was your role there?
I did the story for BGDA. I’m proud of Snowblind’s tech, but not the story, which was pushed and pulled a lot by my bosses. The scope of these story suggestions reached the point where I realised that doing a story early or finishing work early actually became a form of punishment because it became a target for the most mind-boggling iterations and suggestions ever. Anyway, the original story and scope never saw the light of day, and the final product felt anaemic and ultimately, rushed, even though ironically it was done much earlier than anything else. I’m glad the fundamental gameplay made up for where the story was lacking, and recognising my limitations, I knew I wasn’t suited to be a lead designer on a console action-RPG, so recommended David Maldonado for the sequel.
In your own opinion, how did things start to go wrong at Interplay?
Interplay was in bad shape for the last five years. It had missed the console explosion and was trying to catch up, and the inability of Black Isle to create its own engine for most of the years of its existence definitely hurt the studio. Even trying to leverage other non-Infinity engines like Monolith didn’t work and caused a number of titles such as Torn to be scrapped. That was a lot of years wasted and it kept happening, which didn’t do much for morale. Overall, while games such as the Icewind Dale series helped generate revenue, there wasn’t much new success once BioWare went away. Also, that series, while fun and a quick project, didn’t do much to advance the RPG genre, so it felt like we were treading water, or rather, slowly drowning. Not fun times.
Things got even messier with Baldur’s Gate 3 and Van Buren (Fallout 3) and after the cancellation of the former you soon left Interplay. What happened?
While I was there, Van Buren hadn’t gone much beyond the paper prototype, which was considerable on the area, system and story side. The reason for this was there was no staff, and even as a developer of one, I kept getting pulled off for Lionheart where my role wasn’t very well-defined from Black Isle’s end. When I left that, I thought I’d be free to work on Van Buren, but got drafted into Baldur’s Gate 3 pre-production work, which I didn’t enjoy very much. After it was cancelled, I left and didn’t have much exposure to what happened to Van Buren from then on, but I did keep my design thoughts close in case I could explore them again. But at that point, it became clear to me that no matter how hard the developers worked, we could lose it all in a second.
So, while I loved Van Buren, I left Fallout at Interplay and moved on, taking a brief stop to work with Snowblind again as a script doctor on Champions Of Norrath. And sure enough, within a year, Van Buren was cancelled, which I regret, but knew [that it] wasn’t my or the other devs fault. My only other regret was that I should have realised from that brief stint freelancing with Snowblind that that could have proved a much better branch to pursue from that point on.
You then co-founded Obsidian with a number of ex-Black Isle employees – what were the first games you were involved with there?
I was lead designer on Knights Of The Old Republic 2 and wrote almost all the companions for Neverwinter Nights 2. That was a pretty brutal death march. I wasn’t actually a Star Wars fan, but I did become a fan of KOTOR and its universe, and grew to enjoy the possibilities of exploring Star Wars outside the realm of the ‘modern’ universe. I also got the opportunity to do a few Star Wars short scripts and, even better, write short comic bursts for Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures. It was my first foray into comics but my editor at Dark Horse, Dave Marshall, was very generous with his time and showed a lot of patience. I’m forever grateful to him.
Probably Obsidian’s most notable game of this period was Fallout New Vegas.
It was great to get back into the Fallout world and incorporate some of the Van Buren elements I’d spent years designing back at Interplay such as locations, factions, tech and even the Night Kin’s psychosis. I really enjoyed working on it, especially the DLCs.
You left Obsidian in June of last year (2015). Why the move?
I liked Swen [Vincke, Larian Studios founder], I liked Divinity: Original Sin 2’s inter-party agenda and mechanics, I liked its dungeon exploration and like their writers. I’d reached the point where I was looking for some management support and trust, and Larian provided that. It was weird to bring up design elements and be listened to – they didn’t agree to everything, but at least they listened, and that’s enough for me. Today I’m working on Divinity: Original Sin 2 and I can’t say what else – hopefully soon, so stay tuned!
What are your personal best moments?
The first time I did a stint as producer which was on South Park, and the gratification that came with fixing the animation cut scene pipeline. Also, the months after the release of Planescape Torment, and in the current day, the number of people who enjoyed the game we worked on, and those who have been inspired to go make their own games.
How has the role of games designer changed over the years?
It’s become more specialised. When I got into the industry, there wasn’t even such a thing as games designer, and now there’s tons of designers: system, level, narrative, all organised in a hierarchy or else it can become a bit of a mess.
What advice would you give to potential games designers?
Nothing’s stopping you from making mods or games right now – so do it. Between public game engines and digital distribution, there’s nothing much in the way anymore except your own motivation, so stop being a potential and be an actual. If anyone wants more specific advice for RPGs, I’m always happy to help if I can: drop me a line on twitter @chrisavellone and I’ll do what I can.
