RPG Codex - Interview with Chris Avellone

Jedi Master Radek has interviewed Chris Avellone over at the RPG Codex. Its an interesting interview with none of the usual questions.

Jedi Master Radek: A few years ago, you said you had an idea for a Star Wars RPG set during the Empire era. Could you tell us more about it?

Chris Avellone: Yeah... so that game was set during the dark times of the Republic when everything was falling apart, but there were still a few scattered Jedi lying around. The premise was that you'd be one of those Sith and you'd go around hunting down and killing Jedi. However, then I read the Dark Horse comic series called "Dark Times" that was written by Randy Stradley and that story was far better than any story I could have come up with. [laughs] So yeah, that was the premise, basically. You'd be one of the Imperial agents and/or Darth Vader, and then you would just go around hunting down and killing all the Jedi.

JMR: You said on Twitter you were involved in the preproduction of Tyranny. How much of it will be shown in the final game? Was this involvement only on the design documents level or will we get some of your writing in the actual game?

MCA: There is none of my writing in Tyranny. And the preproduction period was all I was involved with, so I actually don't know how much of that stuff will actually show up in the final game.

JMR: How much, if any, of your actual writing is in Wasteland 2? Nathan Long said you left after finishing design documents for your locations.

MCA: I didn't do any dialogue writing for characters. I did the revisions and contributed to the story document, the vision document and a lot of work on the area design documents which weren't the final areas that got implemented. But that was the work that I did on Wasteland 2, yeah.

JMR: The environmental descriptions in the Ag Center, were they your work or Nathan's?

MCA: I remember doing a few samples lines for that, but I don't think the final ones made it in.

JMR: How is it like working with Larian? How is it different from working with Obsidian or inXile?

MCA: The story process on Larian is as collaborative as inXile and more collaborative than Obsidian. There's a lot more writers involved in the storyline for Larian, about the same level for inXile, and what we do is we all get on to Skype and Google Documents and then we sort of have like a remote meeting, where we talk through each of the plot points one by one and try and make sure that it's compelling, it's interesting, and we just keep doing that until the story feels right. We've moved on from the story and now we're doing the player character origin story, which is kind of like the background you can choose for your character, and that's currently what I'm involved with right now. I got to write the Undead origin story, which is pretty cool.

[...]

JMR: Fans really want an RPG with MCA as lead writer again. Will that ever happen? Even if it means working for Larian, inXile or any other company that shows interest? Many of us think that when you only write a character or two, or assume a strictly supervisory role, then that waters down the Avellone experience.

MCA: So I absolutely would be a lead writer again. It depends on the company. I did not want to be a lead writer at Obsidian. I would be a lead writer at another company. The issue with Larian is they already have a story structure in place. And the same thing with inXile. But under the right circumstances I absolutely would do it again.

[...]

JMR: What was the storyline for the third KotOR game? What would the player do in the Sith Empire? Was it going to be structured like the first two KoTORs: prologue, four planets and then the ending? Or something else?

MCA: So it was gonna be a little bit different. So basically, I think I've said this before, but the player would be following Revan's path into the Unknown Regions, and he goes very, very deep into the Unknown Regions and finds the outskirts of the real Sith Empire. And that's a pretty terrifying place. The intention was that it would be structured on a basic level like KotOR 1 and KotOR 2, but what would happen is you'd have a collection of hubs, but every hub you went to had an additional circuit of hubs, that you could choose which ones you optionally wanted to do to complete that hub, or you could do them all. But ultimately there was just a lot more game area in KotOR 3, just because the Sith Empire was just so fucking big. But yeah, so, on some level it was a similar structure, but it was intended to... so one of our designers, Matt MacLean, had this idea for Alpha Protocol mission structure, where what would happen is, you'd sort of go to a hub, but it wasn't really a hub, it was like a big mission you had to do as an espionage agent, but then there were like six surrounding missions, that central mission, and you didn't have to do any of them, but by doing some of those, you would cause a reaction in the main target mission that could even make your job worse or easier. Or you could choose to try and do all of them, and he let each of them like cater to like, a speech skill, or stealth mission, or shoot 'em up mission, and that would cause different reactivity. And I always liked that, because I felt like you were being given a larger objective, but you were getting a lot more freedom in how to accomplish it and how to set the stage, so it was easier for your character. And that's kind of the mission structure I would have liked to have bring to KotOR 3, because I thought it was much more intelligent design.

JMT: Sounds really cool.

MCA: Yeah, it was a great idea he had. He was very modest about it. I think he still gets mad when I bring it up. [laughs]

JMR: What functionalities and gameplay elements do you want to see in future RPGs?

MCA: Oh, less talking. More things that you see. More stuff that you do to interact with the environment. Like, one thing I like about Divinity is, they have in my opinion superior dungeon exploration mechanics. I think the way that you can manipulate the environment very easily to solve sort of environmental puzzles, I think it's really cool. And it makes me wish that other games would do, would follow their footsteps. But I'd like to see more ways for the player engaging with the dungeon environment that isn't just talking to NPCs and killing monsters.

JMR: How do you view your career? Is there something you regret not having done?

MCA: [thinks for quite a while] Um... no. I feel like... if not then... I now get to work on everything that I want to work on. Like, it started with Wasteland 2, I'm like, "I already worked on Wasteland." I had to work on Fallout. Now there's a whole selection of people and companies that I can work with freely and there's no obstacles to it. So... I don't regret anything. I think if I had only one regret, it's that I didn't go out into the game world earlier. I was worried that... a game company was my only life, and there wasn't anything outside that. And that's my only regret.