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Please continue.
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RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
Chris Avellone , I've wanted to ask you, since here on the Codex we often shitpost about this or that writer being a "worthless hack", when not something worse -- what qualifies a videogame narrative designer as a bad narrative designer in your perception?
ColonelTeacup
Liturgist
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It does not surprise me that your managers are incompetent. I still remember the disastrous defeat of the emu war. If not for the fact that your country lies in the corner of the world, surrounded by water, and infested with horrific creatures, i've no doubt you'd have been conquered by someone else by now.
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Chris Avellone What is your opinion of Cleveland Mark Blakemore ?
Cleveland Mark Blakemore What is your opinion of Chris Avellone ?
Cleveland Mark Blakemore What is your opinion of Chris Avellone ?
Yes the managers probably introduce so much micro-issues.
And bugs in the STL.
A good Cleve-managed, Cleve-produced project can ship on time !
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Chris Avellone
Arcane
I have never met Cleve (unfortunately), and I have not had a chance to pay any of his games (unfortunately) but that's not by choice, I don't have time to play a lot of games, as I may have mentioned before. I like people who make games, granted I'm biased, but that means by default I have a positive opinion of him.
Playin' it safe here. But not gonna improve the opinions of people dissing you for posting on a forum they perceive to be Literally Hitler :D
Chris Avellone
Arcane
That is a long answer, and it would be tracing the many mistakes in my career (and then became part of design expectation at Obsidian and our style guides). I'll try to answer it, but it may take a while.
I guess the first initial answer is resist the temptation to break the 4th wall (which I failed to do in Fallout 2) unless its part of the thematic design. Sometimes as a new writer, you can get caught up on the ability to nod-and-wink to the audience, and you need to be certain the genre allows for that - sometimes it does.
Often, you can still make a similar joke, but use the tools and setting of the franchise to do it (I think Old World Blues was our attempt to be as comedic as parts of F2, but we tried to use elements already in the setting to set up the stage).
Second thing is don't dictate the story, let the players interact with it. I still think you can tell a good dictated story, but you might be missing the opportunity for the player themselves to bring something to it that makes it even better.
This could go on for a while, but that's a few points - and again, I've been guilty of these but tried to learn from them.
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Avellone's new studio will be called Incline. I have all figured out. The game designers will include Chris Avellone, Cleve Blakermore, Vault Dweller, Styg, George Zeits, and Tim Cain. The lead artist will be Pyke. The game industry will tremble with fear and awe. The game will have the writing of Fallout, the open world of Arcanum, the reactivity of Age of Decadence and the combat system of Jagged Alliance 2. Glorious!
hivemind
Guest
*cringes*
An understandable freudian slip, considering the meager price of grimoire.
Delterius
Arcane
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I thought the colorful commentary you added to the Icewind Dale games was memorable, and it's unfortunate Pillars of Eternity didn't continue the tradition.
e.g.
2house2fly
Magister
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There's elements of that in Cass's quest in New Vegas (one of your objectives is "make that bitch eat her hair") and Old World Blues("find out where the fuck you are")
You name your RPG characters after Josh's online alias Roguey? I.e. you are literally role-playing as Josh?I thought the colorful commentary you added to the Icewind Dale games was memorable, and it's unfortunate Pillars of Eternity didn't continue the tradition.
e.g.
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I wasn't really role playing as him, it was just a joke.You name your RPG characters after Josh's online alias Roguey? I.e. you are literally role-playing as Josh?
You name your RPG characters after Josh's online alias?
Interesting. Biromantic Asexual, that's something that has to be expected from a bicycle man.
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Bicycle man is probably the party thief.
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I love the writing of JA2, by the way. It's really grim.
Because he is that awesome.
What writing? You mean you actually read the merc bios or something?
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The setting.What writing? You mean you actually read the merc bios or something?
Big Wrangle
Guest
Well I'm pretty sure any 80's commandos film has a grim setting if you look at it that way. 
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