Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[2house2fly]

Weird that Avellone would suggest GM as an antagonist. All she cares about is delivering babies in the sticks.

Yeah. I'm not even sure how Durance would work as an antagonist (you want to blow up all the gods now? Sure be my guest) but GM literally just wants to be a midwife

 

[MicoSelva]

This is why I want Chris Avellone to be a lead on a project instead of just playing second fiddle:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...a-release-thread.113925/page-163#post-5019591

He just *gets* it, but it seems that he does not feel like forcing his vision is the way to go.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah. I'm not even sure how Durance would work as an antagonist (you want to blow up all the gods now? Sure be my guest) but GM literally just wants to be a midwife

I now do recall that Avellone said his original plans for GM and Durance involved them being evil, rotten people, but somewhere along the line Sawyer and/or Fenstermaker decided that they weren't going to do evil companions.

 

[SionIV]

Yeah. I'm not even sure how Durance would work as an antagonist (you want to blow up all the gods now? Sure be my guest) but GM literally just wants to be a midwife

I now do recall that Avellone said his original plans for GM and Durance involved them being evil, rotten people, but somewhere along the line Sawyer and/or Fenstermaker decided that they weren't going to do evil companions.

I don't understand why they made that decision. Some of the most memorable companions I've seen in RPGs have been evil.

 

[Roguey]

I don't understand why they made that decision. Some of the most memorable companions I've seen in RPGs have been evil.

If I could take a guess, it'd be because Josh doesn't like eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil characters. He took Avellone's hanged bad ass from Van Buren, and turned him into a quiet, repentant man.

I think it's worth noting that in even Van Buren's documents, a lot of the references to the Hanged Man's "evil" refers to past acts. In VB, he was seemingly a man without purpose. While his characterization by others and his tendency to laugh off/ignore attempts by others to control him could have been interesting, it really ended at "nasty guy who says and does creepy stuff and is a badass". There were specific instances (such as at New Canaan) where he would specifically avoid conflict and showed some additional depth, but he effectively had no character arc within the story.

Personally, I think the "wow so crazy" type characters aren't particularly interesting or insightful because they only exist in pure fantasy and, as such, can't really be related to. I think it's important for characters who are influencing player opinions to be more-or-less human. If you can't put yourself in the character's shoes, it's hard to empathize with him or her.

Still unintentionally gave him a meme line.

 

[Infinitron]

GM is a morally unmoored liar. She's not evil and rotten because she's now just hiding and not doing anything bad, but if you'd encountered her while she was still meat-puppeting an entire village, things might have turned out differently.

In Avellone's original plans, was there anything evil about GM besides her dark past? What could she have possibly been up to?

 

[Roguey]

GM is a morally unmoored liar. She's not evil and rotten because she's now just hiding and not doing anything bad, but if you'd encountered her while she was still meat-puppeting an entire village, things might have turned out differently.

In Avellone's original plans, was there anything evil about GM besides her dark past? What could she have possibly been up to?

All the strategy guide mentions is

The “Grieving Mother" (GM) is a cipher who acted as a midwife in a local community. She was blamed for the births of other Hollowborn children in her community and, specifically, she was punished viciously and unjustly by Durance who saw her as part of the Hollowborn crisis.

The Grieving Mother’s powerful cipher abilities cause awareness and perceptions to slide o of her, and she is difficult to recognize. Many simply see her as an unremarkable peasant woman who travels with the party and is not worth addressing.

She sees others through their souls, not their physical appearance. She does not communicate with people in the environment; although she may counsel the player on a course of action she feels strongly about and will warn the player of danger whenever possible. She is strongly motivated to end the Hollowborn crisis (even if it causes other problems), and she believes the Watcher is necessary for this to happen.

She does not blame Durance for the violations that were done to her soul and her body. She does not recognize him when he is in the party, as his soul is didifferent from when they first met. The damage she did to him, arguably in self-defense, was considerable and far outweighed what was done to her.

She is not an anguished figure. In many respects, she is quite serene and calm, even when inflicting harm on another (and she would kill without hesitation to protect her primary goals: ending the crisis and protecting the player). She often prefers to speak through visions rather than words.

GM is in a state of deep mourning. Her substantial desire to see her children resurrected may lead her down a dark path.

Key parts being "would kill without hesitation to protect her primary goals" ""even if it causes other problems."

 

[Delbaeth]

Interesting.
GM'd some kind of True Neutral antagonist, as opposed to the classic 3V1L cliche?

 

[Quillon]

Fuck strategy guide & design intentions. Grieving Mother was boring as fuck. And as far as I care there is no connection between GM & Durance, cos there were none in the fucking game.

Chris wrote it so she's awesome! If she's not its cos of the cut content. Durance is awesome despite the cut content. There is zero chance for either of these 2 characters turned out better cos of the edits. Chris rulez no mather what. Bias, bias everywhere... or in the fucking MCA appreciation thread, naturally. Fuck.

 

[Fairfax]

Yeah. I'm not even sure how Durance would work as an antagonist (you want to blow up all the gods now? Sure be my guest) but GM literally just wants to be a midwife

I now do recall that Avellone said his original plans for GM and Durance involved them being evil, rotten people, but somewhere along the line Sawyer and/or Fenstermaker decided that they weren't going to do evil companions.

What he said in that interview:

At a specific level, in Eternity, the original premise of the companions I wrote (Durance and the Grieving Mother) was unpeeling the layers and discovering what they were at the core – unpeeling these layers involved slipping stealthily into their unconscious, a dungeon made out of their memories. There, the player could go through an adventure game-like series of interactions, exploring their memories using psychological items important to both your character and to them as emotional keys to thread your way through the memories – but carefully, without revealing your presence. The memory dungeon was to uncover their shared history, how it impacted you, and the core of who they were as people.

And their core was pretty unpleasant. Both of them were very bad, very weak people, committing not only violations on each other, but on the player as well. When faced with the discovery that your allies, even if they fiercely support you and fight for a larger cause, have some pretty horrid faults, what do you do? Do you pass sentence? Do you forgive? Do you assist them to reach an understanding? And what I found more interesting with the spiritual physics in the Eternity world is that a death sentence isn't a sentence – killing someone actually sets a soul free to move on to the next generation. So if you intend to punish someone in a world like that, either out of revenge or to correct their behavior, how do you do it when execution is not an answer?

The elements above got stripped out of the companions in the end, so I'm happy to share it here (and I may re-examine it in the future). Overall, I thought they raised interesting questions for the player to chew on, and it was interesting to explore those themes, as most game narratives and franchises wouldn't allow for such examinations – still, Eternity was intended to be a more personal project for Obsidian where we can stretch our narrative legs more, both in structure and themes.

And according to Fenstermaker in the Codex interview, MCA himself chose what to cut, so maybe it wasn't because they were "evil", but then again, we don't know what Saywer thought. I don't get why Bubbles wasted the opportunity to ask Sawyer. I did ask MCA about it, but he couldn't explain for legal reasons.

 

[Cosmo]

we don't know what Saywer thought

Too outlandish, too expensive maybe ?

 

[Infinitron]

And according to Fenstermaker in the Codex interview, MCA himself chose what to cut, so maybe it wasn't because they were "evil", but then again, we don't know what Saywer thought. I don't get why Bubbles wasted the opportunity to ask Sawyer. I did ask MCA about it, but he couldn't explain for legal reasons.

I think by the time Bubbles met Josh, he and most other people had moved on from the topic of cut content in PoE and were focused on getting information about PoE2.

 

[Roguey]

And according to Fenstermaker in the Codex interview, MCA himself chose what to cut, so maybe it wasn't because they were "evil", but then again, we don't know what Saywer thought.

There aren't any evil companions in New Vegas or Deathfire either.

 

[Rev]

Evil companions are stupid anyway, I'd rather have believable and more nuanced characters rather than the usual "I'll destroy everything cause I'm so evil" shit we've seen in so many games (especially in fantasy settings).

 

[Roguey]

Evil companions are stupid anyway, I'd rather have believable and more nuanced characters rather than the usual "I'll destroy everything cause I'm so evil" shit we've seen in so many games (especially in fantasy settings).

One of Many was pretty fun, as was HK-47 and G0-T0.

 

[Rev]

G0-T0 wasn't anything special, but I agree on the other two, although they wouldn't work in just any setting.
The average evil companion is cartoonishly evil, though, and we've had far too many of those over the years.

 

[Lacrymas]

Have we even had "evil" companions as of late? Durance is the only one that comes to mind (and I wouldn't say he's evil), even Tyranny doesn't have one.

 

[Roguey]

Have we even had "evil" companions as of late? Durance is the only one that comes to mind (and I wouldn't say he's evil), even Tyranny doesn't have one.

Coldsteel the Hedgehog seemed pretty evil to me. Verse too.

 

[Abu Antar]

Tybir from Torment might not be evil but he is a bit of a cunt. Matkina isn't a saint either.

 

[Roguey]

among them Sawyer's responsible for that

Yet there are so many "Why would anyone help out the Legion?" posts.

In Pillars, you can side with Raedric and the criminal family in Defiance Bay and things more or less work out.

 

[Infinitron]

Besides, it's difficult to introduce the asshole element through gameplay

Organic storytelling is where it's at - story told through gameplay

Have you considered the possibility that increasing developer recognition of this is the reason you're seeing less "asshole" companions?

Xzar and Montaron-style evil companions that join you in performing Lawful Good heroics until your reputation meter hits a certain point and then they leave = kind of stupid

 

[Roguey]

Sawyer has his own personal agenda - cruelty against animals is a despicable thing (he even had a t-shirt saying this exact thing iirc), I may not agree with him completely but I understand where he's coming from with these views, good for him to hold beliefs

In Pillars, there's a quest where you get a nice stat bonus if you collect some birds so a guy can eat them alive.

 

[Quillon]

have you watched the Q&A streams after the announcement of the relationships system? there Sawyer explains that, for example, if you're cruel to animals then Eder's going to distrust you, but immediately adds "why would you do that"

Sawyer has his own personal agenda - cruelty against animals is a despicable thing (he even had a t-shirt saying this exact thing iirc), I may not agree with him completely but I understand where he's coming from with these views, good for him to hold beliefs

 

[Lacrymas]

Even I find cruelty towards animals morally reprehensible and you have to be the lowest of scum to do it. With that said, I think you should be able to be as disgusting as you please in a game and Josh probably agrees with me, so good on him.

 

[Sherry]

Hi.

gosh today on the way home in the car there is a radio show that is on between 7pm and 8pm right and they were talking about the new Mass Effect game coming out but it was live on the radio so they have not made it available yet to listen to online okay? but when I got home and looked at the radio station website I found this and thought of sharing it I hope you enjoy it. There are lots of long interviews but this one has interns in the office but still a good listen right?

……………..FEATURE INTERVIEW………………
Legendary writer and game designer Chris Avellone joins the show to talk at length about his work on such incredible titles as Knights of the Old Republic 2, NWN’s, Fallout 2 (and of course the incredible New Vegas), the System Shock remake and the soon to be released Prey.

Chris gives a little insight into the magic behind creating believable RPG worlds and characters and it starts with a VERY specific design focus from some VERY smart people.

28 minutes is the start of the interview okay?

https://soundcloud.com/am640/game-d...gic-behind-creating-the-best-rpgs-of-all-time
https://soundcloud.com/am640/game-d...gic-behind-creating-the-best-rpgs-of-all-time
Full radio show recordings of all the other shows it might interest some outside of this interview.

https://soundcloud.com/am640/sets/video-game-sophistry-talk

Thanks,
Sherry