People News ObsidiLeaks: The Chris Avellone May of Rage Archive

[Bigg Boss]

I finally figured out a way to get MCA and Sawyer to combine forces and make the perfect Fallout:

 

[Skall]

"This is his gallery. He says that he *knows* you as his canvas. He shows respect to your strength with his admiration.” Dak’kon is silent for a moment. “Then he insults you by giving you his pity."

I've finally read through the other thread and caught up with this one, so I'm surprised that aside from MRY's excellent question, there haven't been more Planescape: Torment inquiries.

For brevity's sake, here are some bullet-points for Chris:

• What were some of your favorite writing bits in Planescape: Torment done by the other team members?
• Did you develop a character/plot bible for everyone to follow, especially when having to write for others' characters? Or did that never really happen and deeper party interactions (e.g., Fall-from-Grace stating that Morte smells of Baator, not like a Mimir, which in turn led to a whole new dialogue path with Morte) were always handled by a single person?
• On a similar note, did you write a lot of material for TNO's previous incarnations that the team would reference? Personally I often delve too deep into backstory/worldbuilding in similar cases, so I'm curious where you drew the line.
• You mentioned recently gravitating towards Xachariah's story -- was this something you wanted to explore more in the original game? Was there any cut content in general you really wished would've made it in? Conversely, was there any content that you think could've been sacrificed to add more polish elsewhere?
• Who had the pleasure of proofreading/editing this monolith?
• What did you think of Numenera's setting compared to Planescape?
• Is there anything you can reveal about what you were planning for the spiritual-successor-to-Torment Kickstarter at Obsidian?
• Likewise, any info you can share on BeamDog's Planescape sequel plans?

Oh, and one more not strictly tied to Torment: now that you're freelancing, what sort of projects are you most excited (writing-wise) to explore?

 

[jaydee2k]

I finally figured out a way to get MCA and Sawyer to combine forces and make the perfect Fallout:

Avellone contributed to a decent Fallout? Hmm got to ask Tim & Leonard about it...

 

[ArchAngel]

I finally figured out a way to get MCA and Sawyer to combine forces and make the perfect Fallout:

Sawyer contributed to a decent Fallout? Hmm got to ask Tim & Leonard & Avellone about it...

Fixed it for you.

 

[Bigg Boss]

 

[Grotesque]

I did make the mistake of asking Tim to come back and work with the ex-BIS crew (Obsidian) - if I could go back in time, I'd order my younger self to spare Tim the agony. He tried to educate, and it wasn't well-received.

All I was thinking while reading that summary doc was how Tim and Leonard sit at their respective desks in the same tiny room at Obsidian, reading the same document in a dead silence pierced only by sporadic scroll wheel sounds.


What's the attitude Urquhart has towards Tim Cain?

 

[Bohr]

I did make the mistake of asking Tim to come back and work with the ex-BIS crew (Obsidian) - if I could go back in time, I'd order my younger self to spare Tim the agony. He tried to educate, and it wasn't well-received.

All I was thinking while reading that summary doc was how Tim and Leonard sit at their respective desks in the same tiny room at Obsidian, reading the same document in a dead silence pierced only by sporadic scroll wheel sounds.


What's the attitude Urquhart has towards Tim Cain?

Wasn't that paragraph about Tim Donley?

 

[sser]

Hm. It's even harder for me to imagine a gender-choosing PS:T than it is to imagine the game with a female protagonist. The latter is a different, but definable game. I don't really see how you can have the same plot arc for both. "We're going to tell a highly personal story, the same way, regardless of TNO's gender" doesn't seem likely to work?

Anyway, hopefully Chris will stop in to sort it out. It would be nice to hear how the plan was going to work. (The Last Rites vision doc is clearly meant for a single-sex TNO, so the decision must've been made before then.)

Was away from computer for part of the weekend (family issues), but did want to say before the doc was even written, there were marketing department concerns (although not from Fargo) and a resource decisions that were involved as well - there was no way we could have done the range of models like BG, for example, and the management, marketing, and resource hurdles were known before the vision doc was written to pitch to Interplay.

Lengthier explanation to follow, though, those are good questions.

May have already answered this, but was there any regrets about the box art? I think it's very unique, but the advertiser in me thinks it couldn't have helped sales all that much.

 

[Grauken]

he talked about this before (either this or the other thread), he didn't think it helped sales, but wasn't sure whether that was ultimately true or not

btw. I really liked it and I prefer my box of PST over all the BG or ID boxes

 

[toro]

Poe2 was released and now we have silence

 

[ArchAngel]

Poe2 was released and now we have silence

Yea, it seems MCA is playing it night and day and ignoring us

 

[ScrotumBroth]

I'd be interested to know MCA's opinion on Deadfire.

 

[toro]

I'd be interested to know MCA's opinion on Deadfire.

His fire is not dead yet, if you know what I mean

 

[screeg]

Trying to wade through the Google Doc. How could Avellone be an "owner" at Obsidian and at the same time leave with nothing, as he repeats several times in his responses?

 

[Skall]

As is often the case in art, it seems like the lack of resources was a cause of, rather than impediment to, the game's achievements. The decision to do Chrono Trigger/jRPG style fixed sprites with unique silhouettes is a large reason why PS:T's characters are so memorable. That's partly visual, but the visual distinctions significantl informed the substantive characters, too.

I think this is an important element that's often overlooked. Planescape: Torment was rightfully praised for its console-style spell effects, yet no one seems to mention that the companions definitely felt closer to the character-driven JRPGs (albeit much better realized) than traditional CRPGs. I think they were designed with that Team Fortress 2/League of Legends methodology of unique visuals/abilities/personalities, which was a big step from the predefined "I'm a Chaotic Good human rogue." vs. "I'm a Chaotic Evil half-elven rogue." companions of its contemporaries. While I can also understand the distaste for pre-defined party members, it certainly seemed to have been an inspiration for BioWare's very successful titles (the party members of KotOR, Dragon Age, etc.).

By the time Planescape: Torment came out I had been weaning myself off of JRPGs for quite a few years, but its focus on narrative definitely struck a semi-nostalgic chord with me. I wonder how many others found it a "gateway" title to other CRPGs?

 

[Riddler]

Trying to wade through the Google Doc. How could Avellone be an "owner" at Obsidian and at the same time leave with nothing, as he repeats several times in his responses?

Forced share buyback at unadjusted valuation.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

Im surprised this is even an issue MRY.
But its only "a problem" because its seen from all the wrong angles.

The reason I ask is that it's impossible for me to imagine how PS:T would work with choose-your-gender or with a female TNO. The entire story is a male story -- a male power fantasy painted over (and peeling back from) a tragedy of male hubris and ultimate powerlessness.

No its not. Its a deep charcater driven story about some fundamental human questions - that just happened to be told through a male angle. And its ridiculous to call PST story a "power fantasy" which is at best a secondary additional ingredient there more because of general gaming and setting requirements then as some kind of a central point.

The whole core of the story and gameplay is literally a deconstruction and subversion of the usual power fantasy ego trip for fuk sake... The player not only learns that all his actions have terrible consequences on every companion, but that each being he killed and his own resurrections are returning as shadows hunting him and the main villain is indirectly himself, in the form of his own mortality. And you learn that your previous incarnations were all even more powerful then you in current state and had failed.
And then on top of all that the best ending is if you either kill yourself permanently or accept atonement for all your crimes in hell.

Male hubris? Since when is that only a male thing?
Females are more then capable of it and as an a human fault it has no specific gender limits, which are only secondary or tertiary expressions of that state of mind or character fault.

The flaws of TNO's prior incarnations are particularly male flaws.

No they're not. Not in any exclusive sense. Each could be rewritten as a female character flaws - because they are primarily human character flaws, which then express themselves in slightly different ways - depending on a specific character - which is then slightly influenced or colored by gender.

You are literally thinking about human nature in upside-down regressive manner.

I'm not sure how the character interactions would've worked -- I assume the companion roster would've had to be totally different, since while there are Betty-and-Veronica/whore-Madonna targets for the male gaze in Annah and Grace, the male companions (a skull, a hollow suit of armor, a boxy robot, a bald and liver-spotted old man) seem designed precisely so that no female could want them.

Really? So i was playing PsT to lust after Annah and Grace sprites? Thanks for clarifying that for me. I didnt know that.
I guess i missed all the sex scenes and "fade to black" moments in the brothel of Slaking intellectual lusts too.
Hey all you guys who played PST, MRY just reduced all of you to cheap cretins who got your biggest kick out of "hot babes" in PST.
And all the female players who loved the game too.

Because thats what "a gamer who loves rpgs and PST" means - according to him. Thats the base line that has to be satisfied.
We are all the lowest common denominators, playing PST for "power fantasy" and hot chicks.
Send any further inquiries about this fantastic clarification to his twiter or email.

Also, its of course impossible to come up with a few characters that could have a subversive deep relationship with a female TNO... IT JUST CANT BE DONE YO! Especially in Sigil and the Planes setting.

- Only thats actually what the deal with companions in PST were, relationships first and foremost - deep and meaningful relationships between very well written characters, not romances or idiotic sexy time made for retarded, devolved bio/beth drones and general mass market. -

>And it seems like self-scarification and suicide would've had very different meaning in the context of a female TNO than a male one.

Wow... i just cant even... I mean what the fucking fuck...
Every time i try to wrap my mind behind motivations and reasons one could have to proclaim something like this a giant portal leading into vast environment of modernized "culture" vomited through mass market media opens up. A truly Baathorian landscape or mind and soul twisting torture.

I wish i could someday to find a reasonable answer for this unique game developer schizophrenic cognitive dissonance, by which you only see and accept the most idiotic, stupid, regressed morons as audience and then try to create worlds and stories to satisfy their preferences.

Whats the Fallen Gods then about? Male power fantasy and snu-snu with sexy troll chicks?

Maybe its because people sometimes have negative gut reactions to an idea, influenced by who knows what irrelevant superficial garbage enhanced by mass media, and that then influences you to only come up with the worst examples and further dumbest ideas about the issue. Just like Azarkon and few others immediately went to most retarded lousiest examples from dumbest pop culture - instead for the best. Or it could have something to do with general intelligence, epigenetics and other more personal faults.

Wymyn only enjoy "resistance fantasies" which shows "female characters as members of the oppressed, who rise up to either over throw or control the system of mens oppression around them" - really?
The millions who enjoyed playing Witcher 3 are aliens then.

Is that how the "Myn" only enjoy bioware/bethesda mass market garbage and male power fantasy ego pandering?
Is that who we all are? A quality standard to adhere to and build games like PsT FOR!?

It can be hypothesized that the female experience in the West, as it currently exists, must sympathize with the condition of being oppressed, such that women love literature featuring protagonists who are oppressed, and who rise up to cast off that oppression.

As opposed to every single damn RPG in existence including PST in which we all play manly awesome super powerful characters from the get go!


Wheres Ellen Ripley? Why is she not an example of a great female character? Sarah Connor?
Why not Charlize Theron Furiosa? Or several other characters she played in more demanding dramas? How about Jessica Chastain in Zero dark thirty, Amy Adams in Arrival, Dolores in first 9 episodes of Westworld, Michell Pfeifer Catwoman, Frances McDormand character in Three Bilboards, and so on. Hell, even Gadot Wonder Woman. Why are not these taken as examples of great characters?

*Not only, this, but worth mentioning I think that whoever it was that decided TNO to be a man would probably also not like a lesbian love story between TNO and Deionarra.
Would you have turned Deionarra into Deionarr? Huh?

Who giveas a fyling fuck Rads? Its not like you have an actual sexual relationship with Deionarra in the game for fuck sake, or a romentic one either.
All you have are tragic consequences of the past. That would be the same in Chris Avellone writing regardless of gender, or if that tragic relationship was given to another character, maybe the blind archer, for an easy and quick example from the top of my head. (and i bet Chris can come up with a better idea then that too)

Can't think of any wRPGs,

Ciri, Yennefer. Grieving Mother, maybe even Triss to some extent. Although not the protagonists they are very well written and conceptulaized strong characters who could cary a whole game in which they would be further enhanced and deepened.

The tragedy to me is that if Chris had been allowed in the 1990s to tell his female-centric adventure, not about some babe but about a weary old woman, it would've been utterly groundbreaking. (It would still be groundbreaking today.)

Really? It would have been grounmdbreaking if it was an old grandma, but not if it was a "babe"... whatever that term would mean for an emascieted undead zombie.
Is that why there is no "babes" in your game?

So... let me get thir straight - for you there are only "babes" and old grandmas in female gender?

Hm. It's even harder for me to imagine a gender-choosing PS:T than it is to imagine the game with a female protagonist. The latter is a different, but definable game. I don't really see how you can have the same plot arc for both. "We're going to tell a highly personal story, the same way, regardless of TNO's gender" doesn't seem likely to work?

Hrklyush yourself.
And the rest of you confused by this issue can join him. It will do you good.

It is precisely because it is a highly personal and deeply character driven story that it would work regardles of gender.
It is precisely because of that that PST is what it is, not some cheap male power fantasy with babes shite.
It is PRECISELY because Chris Avelone doesnt think like you do that he created PST as it is.
Or do you actually, really think like that?
Thats a question for you to find an answer on. What can change the nature of a game developer?


My point is that PsT kind of a game worked because it was well written character driven story. Any such character driven story will work based on quality of the writing, strength of the character created and how deep and well constructed the plot is while being dependent on and reacting to (since its a game) that characterization and his or her actions - which are fitting for that character.

Thats all one has to worry about when trying to create a story driven game like PsT. If the character is great and writing is good while their interaction with the gameplay and mechanics is good the spice will flow.

Numenera failed because all of these essential foundations were bad. PoE greatest faults were those essentials too.
And no amount of power fantasies or "babes" could have helped.


For Chris Avellone, Ill just second these questions:

Is there anything you can reveal about what you were planning for the spiritual-successor-to-Torment Kickstarter at Obsidian?
Likewise, any info you can share on BeamDog's Planescape sequel plans?

 

[Grauken]

Your post is worth ten thousand brofists

 

[agris]

to think, we used to take hiver posts for granted. now, in these dark times, they're like rays of light.

 

[Bohr]

to think, we used to take hiver posts for granted. now, in these dark times, they're like rays of light.

It seems MCA threads have a certain power... to make idle speculation real:

Every time it seems the thread has simmered down...

(next thing Hiver will arrive with a new account)

 

[MRY]

Mr. Hiver I think you've misread my post. For instance:

power fantasy painted over (and peeling back from) a tragedy of male hubris and ultimate powerlessness

and

The whole core of the story and gameplay is literally a deconstruction and subversion of the usual power fantasy ego trip for fuk sake... The player not only learns that all his actions have terrible consequences on every companion, but that each being he killed and his own resurrections are returning as shadows hunting him and the main villain is indirectly himself, in the form of his own mortality. And you learn that your previous incarnations were all even more powerful then you in current state and had failed.
And then on top of all that the best ending is if you either kill yourself permanently or accept atonement for all your crimes in hell.

It seems like you've misunderstood what "painted over (and peeling back from)" means here.

The rest of your post really just boils down to your view that an author can swap the gender of a character and it makes no difference because neither traits nor relationships are shaped in any respect by gender. I realize this is a heated political topic, and I applaud you for your strong views on it, but I don't really enjoy debating politics on the Codex. My own experience is that many works of literature assume that gender matters, and PS:T is an example of that. I am surprised that you think nothing about TNO or his relationship with other characters in the game was intended to reflect TNO being male, but, again, I think you can and should hold true to your beliefs.

I would have thought that the idea that PS:T is about a male character with male flaws engaged in male relationships would be fairly uncontroversial. Perhaps your seeing TNO as a genderless embodiment of all of humanity is proof of your wisdom, or perhaps it suggests your experience in the world is just different from mine. In any case, I'm happy to let you love the game in your own way.

 

[Skall]

Mr. Hiver I actually agree that what MRY referenced as examples/allusions to a male power fantasy were largely ancillary to Planescape: Torment's narrative. As you've said, a lot of its core elements (e.g., the fear of death/desire for immortality) are more universally human concepts rather than gendered ones. The big flashy spells, the "babes," the high level-cap character progression, etc., came across as way to appease marketing/get some extra sales/elements of CRPGs that could not be subverted without alienating the fanbase.

While MRY suggested that Torment would have had to been a completely different story if it starred a female -- or gave a choice of gender to the player? -- you seem to imply that no real changes would be necessary (aside from logistics like pronouns, I presume). I guess my position is more in the middle: some changes would be required.

While I think the central focus of TNO's story could stay regardless of gender, I think his/her backstory and game-interactions/progression would need to be altered in some ways. I don't think writing men/women is just a static checklist, nor can the genders be swapped without extra effort while maintaining the same level of verisimilitude. Chris has also proven himself (if anything) to not be a lazy writer, so I don't think he'd be OK if such a character-driven game did not accommodate for the protagonist's gender.

That's what makes it such an interesting question for me: what would Chris have done differently if TNO wasn't a man?

 

[Grauken]

I would have thought that the idea that PS:T is about a male character with male flaws engaged in male relationships would be fairly uncontroversial.

Sorry, but no. This really sounds like a very modern interpretation, independent of what your politics are. When it came out most people didn't view it from a gendered viewpoint, just a human one

 

[Alpan]

This is one of the rare occasions I find myself disagreeing with MRY. Aside from the whole Deionarra arc and the romances I find very little about TNO that absolutely screams essentially male. MRY is leaning on the fact that themes like power fantasies and hubris have historically been easier to associate with males rather than females. I have a strong feeling that he wouldn't be asking these questions in 2018 had PS: T a gender option from the start.

I think what's actually perturbing about the "TNO was almost female" revelation is that it undermines MCA as the writing demigod who intentionally penned TNO as the flawed male protagonist that he is (not that he would accept that sort of designation himself). The contingency implied by the fact that PS: T's main appeal hinged on a capricious marketing decision is hard to reconcile with MCA's existing reputation.

 

[MRY]

Skall Grauken This would be a long discussion, but what I would say is that TNO's flaws, strengths, relationships, and goals all seem "male" to me. I don't mean exclusively so, but I do mean that they are modeled after, and drawn from, long literary traditions about male characters. Even the basic arc -- a person thinks that if he only has more power he can fix problems, only to discover that the accumulation of power creates ever-greater problems requiring ever-greater moral compromises -- is an arc that is almost always told about men. Again, I'm not really sure why this is a controversial position. It seemed self evident to me that relationships in the game are amorous, fraternal, paternal, male-rivalry, etc. That's what makes the game great.

For instance, you could make Dak'kon a woman. But Dak'kon as a woman is a different (and worse) character because Dak'kon is a deconstruction of a particular male literary trope. You could make Grace an incubus, but that, too, would be a much worse character. To me, the same is self-evidently true for TNO. I guess what I would ask is, do you think that Don Quixote, Death of a Salesman, Your Friends and Neighbors, American Pastoral, I, Claudius, 1984, or Hamlet could have their protagonists' genders swapped without distorting the work? If you think that Doña Quixote, Sally Loman, etc. would still be the same character -- not an ironic recasting of the story -- then I guess your view is consistent. But if you think it would change the work's whole meaning (as I do), for the worse, then the question is, "Why is PS:T different?"

The point isn't that there couldn't be a PS:T about a female character, but that it would simply be a different story. I think it would've been great if Chris had been allowed to tell that story, that's all.