Chris Avellone

I recently did an interview regarding morality and games for a student's Master's Thesis, and I wanted to share in case anyone was interested. Or wanted to quote me in or out of context for fun. What is your name and professional title? My name is Chris Avellone, and I'm Creative Director (and Lead Designer on our Alpha Protocol CIA RPG) here at Obsidian Entertainment. For how long have you been working in the computer games industry? Over ten years (yikes) - I got my start in pen-and-paper gaming (Dungeons and Dragons, Champions), but the last decade has been primarily at two companies: as a designer at Interplay Entertainment, and then I went on to be one of the founders of Obsidian Entertainment. Could you outline your professional relation to moral aspects and choices in games? For example, have you worked on titles where these kinds of choices have been a premiere aspect of the game? Almost all the titles I've worked on have dealt with player choice and moral consequence, either in terms of a character alignment (good, evil). The moral consequences of choices you make in computer games is one of the hallmarks of a role-playing game, so it's core to what we do. If so, which titles? Planescape: Torment (the alignment system - you start out as a blank neutral slate, then your actions make you more chaotic, lawful, good, or evil), Fallout 2 (the karma system), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords (you can fall to the light side or dark side of the Force, depending on your actions, and it has consequences for your companions as well through the "influence" system), Neverwinter Nights 2, Neverwinter Nights: Mask of the Betrayer (both feature improved versions of the influence system, where not only can you become more good or evil, but the respect of your companions also increases or diminishes based on your actions). Do you consider moral choices in games to be an important aspect of game design? If so, why? At the risk of being quoted out of context, I don't think it's important. I think that the player should have difficult choices to make and moral choices are one of the best ways to present it, but the most important thing from a role-playing game standpoint is that there be reactivity and consequence to your actions, whether they are moral choices are not. In what game design phase do you think one should begin to think about moral issues in the game world, and why? Generally, I think it should be considered as early as possible in the game design, preferably at the time that you decide upon the game's "theme." For our Aliens project, for example, the moral theme that we're trying to communicate was considered an important establishing point in our early pre-production phase (as it was for Mask of the Betrayer). What do you consider to be successful use of morals in a game? Fallout 1 and Mass Effect come to mind. In Fallout 1, part of the dilemma in retrieving the water chip for your home has the potential to cause another community to be extinguished. This ultimately doesn't have the impact it could because you have the ability to save both, but it's a choice that makes you pause for a moment, since your choice can condemn one civilization or another to death. There's several moments in Mass Effect where I had to pause before making a choice because the game had done an excellent job of painting what the consequences of each action could be as I was making the choice. I don't want to give any spoilers unless you've played the game, but I had to struggle with some of the choices while making them, which makes them successful in my book. In our latest title, Alpha Protocol, we're presenting some of the moral choices within the context of the CIA operation itself - and the choices you make to achieve your mission or your goal can depend on how much you're willing to place others at risk. What do you think (in an ideal case) should be the consequences game-wise of a moral decision made by the player in the game? (for example: branching plotline, different reward/penalty, story related or functional character development, NPC-PC relationship development) All of your examples would be appropriate. The most important thing is that the world react to the choice, and the player sees the consequences of the action. To what degree do you think the consequences of such moral decisions can affect the player's progress without damaging the game experience? What, if any, non-game sources do you draw upon when contemplating moral choices in games (i.e. works on moral philosophy, current events, movies, literature etc)? A good many of the choices we make in daily life are the best indicators. Usually, the game sources we draw on are the situations that take place in the game - for example, when doing area summaries for a locale, usually a number of moral choices will suggest themselves just from the overriding idea for the location. What do you think a game design team should do in order to impart a coherent view on morality in a game? At Obsidian, either the lead designer or the lead creative designer (the designer responsible for the narrative and character) is the enforcer of the morality and choice in the game, in tandem with the game's theme. They act as the policeman across all quests, interactions, and NPCs to see that the theme and any moral arcs in the game are maintained. Have you ever during your professional career made any efforts to ensure a coherent game world regarding morality? If so, what have these efforts been? Not so much morality, but presenting balanced lawful, chaotic, good, and evil choices in Planescape: Torment, and in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, the main characters in the game frequently questioned the over-arching influence of the Force on the lives of individuals and whether surrendering to its Light or Dark sides served the purpose that was intended for good or evil, or whether the true enemy was the predestination the Force seemed to lay out. ...and that's it for Part 1. I'll post the answers for Part 2 in the coming week.

I got to join some distinguished colleagues in giving some comments on world, story, and character design - many thanks to Vince for giving us the opportunity. You can find the interviews and the collected thoughts at: Story, Character, World Interview at Iron Tower Forums.

EU Cantina Interview, Part 2. It's the last ten questions, but better late on my part than never, I suppose.

Working on Alpha Protocol is great, although it has caused some... changes around the office. Alpha Protocol work environment. Hope you all are having a more fun and less paranoid week than I'm having.

Thanks to Andrew (Son of Skywalker) and EUCantina.net, part 1 of writing/designing Star Wars comics/games is up at: Star Wars Expanded Universe Interview Part 1 Clone Wars Adventures (Issues 7-10) is also nominated for Best Children's Comic in the 2008 Eisner Awards! I feel incredibly stoked (I contributed stories for issues 7, 8, and 10).

You can read it all here. Not company safe in an abstract respect, I guess.

Fallout Memories, a decade later, over at Vault Network.

I have to confess, I was pretty happy to hear the Writers Guild of America, West was giving awards for video game writing. Award Criteria and Submissions Then the fine print came out, which basically invalidates all the writing work we did at Black Isle and Obsidian for the past ten years, including: "Submitted games MUST have separate credit for writing (i.e. Written By, Story By, Writer, Story Designer, etc.). Writing credits must be verified by their inclusion in the game manual. If writing credits are not printed in the game manual, the publisher must fax or e-mail screenshots of the game's complete writing credits directly to Melissa Gage at the WGAW, fax no.: (323) 782-4810 e-mail: Melissa Gage. Alternate proof of writing credit will be addressed on a case-by-case basis. While there is no limit on the number of credited writers a particular game may have, credits not specifically tied to videogame writing are not acceptable (i.e. Lead Designer, Designed By, Produced By, etc.)" This is a little frustrating because we didn't employ solely writers at Black Isle or Obsidian, mostly because our writers are designers... and I believe part of being a game writer is being able to do design work that complements the story within the engine you're "writing" for. I could go on a seperate rant on how the story should express itself through game mechanics as much as possible, but I'll leave that for another blog. Anyway, enough venting. I'm pleased to see awards being given out, but not so much the criteria invalidates a % of writers that also do design work.

Some fan-based questions I answered recently, posting them to share - it's about Ravel Puzzlewell from Planescape: Torment and some of the thoughts behind her creation. What was the origin of Ravel? We had a number of physically powerful enemies in Torment, and I thought a night hag would be a good adversary, especially if she was a cryptic, deadly puzzle maker. As the game went on, the idea that Ravel was a branching creature whose life resembled a great tree (or bramble) stretching across the planes, was in love with the player and she genuinely tried to help people at times (only to have it turn against her and the recipient) seemed to be some good hooks to make an adversary. Writing Ravel was perhaps one of the experiences I

I occasionally get interview questions from students aspiring to be designers. I try to warn them, but... ...anyway, if you're curious, here's some answers. And some questions to go along with them. 1. What is a typical day for you as far as working on a project or projects? I get into work at 9:30, and try to work for an hour without checking email. This work can be writing design documentation, designing a system, doing mock-ups for an editor or toolset, or formatting an Excel sheet. After that, I check email, respond to pending requests, then hit lunch. After lunch, I resume work for and attend design meetings (interface, level reviews) for the rest of the afternoon. I usually hit dinner around 6, come back to work at 7, and work until 9 or 10 on raw design material while the office is quiet and most folks have gone home. Then I go to the gym and then go home and either play videogames or watch DVDs (usually in the genre related to the games I'm designing) until I fall asleep, and repeat the cycle the next day. It

Comic-con redux, and here are some "celebrity" pix from the show. Again, we'll be at Gen Con and PAX, so keep an eye out for Mask of the Betrayer.

Not only am I, in fact, in love with Doctor Doom, but when it comes to romances, I think you

Got back from Comic-con, and here are some pix from the show, in case anyone is interested. Just a heads up that we'll be at Gen Con and PAX in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for Mask of the Betrayer.

So, I generally despise writing companion romances (I think unrequited and/or doomed ones are ultimately more dramatic), but there are some techniques I've accumulated over the years that I try to incorporate into writing and designing romances in RPGs. A lot of these things came out while writing Gannayev-of-Dreams in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, and I suppose it could hold true for other inter-party romances in games. What follows is a summary of some points we kicked around for how to foster romances with the PC. Any suggestions or examples of other techniques that work would be welcome because us Obsidian folks (or at least me) aren't the romantic types. Note: I'm going to cite examples from Season 1 of Lost a lot, so if the character examples below don't make sense to you, watch that and come back - although there's no spoilers below. I think. It's hard to tell with Lost what's a spoiler and what's not. Also, I haven't watched Lost past Season 2, so it's possible all the examples below are overturned in Season 3. Anyway, here's how to foster romance between characters - part one, and subject to iteration. First, the NPC romantic interest must be good in combat or contributes effectively to a mission. It is much easier to like/love someone who fulfills an effective combat role in the party (Final Fantasy VI/Final Fantasy III was always my model for this). Kate from Lost, for example, pulls this off - she's a good tracker, good with a gun, and can handle herself in a fight for the most part. The NPC is not subservient to the player, but either equal or not quite his or her equal. Kate from Lost does not feel she

Off to Comic-Con within a week, although we won't be showing Mask of the Betrayer there, the plan is to show it at Gen-Con Aug 16-19, and PAX Aug 23-25 as it currently stands. This may fluctuate, so don't quote me on this. In honor of convention season, I present some things to look forward to at game conventions. Enjoy and have a good weekend, folks.

There were some concerns floating around about Aliens being an action RPG, so I thought it would best to clarify. While there will be action elements to it, it is still an RPG in every sense of the word. An analysis of the elements, along with diagrams as to what constitutes an action RPG in the aliens universe, is presented for your viewing enjoyment here. Hypothetically, the diagrams may resemble cartoons. And it may not be a serious analysis. All other standard caveats apply. Happy pre-Memorial Day week, everyone. Chris

As part of the discussion involving Aliens interface design, our Systems Lead, Paul Boyle, showed us this supercool lighttable interface. Here's a glimpse of what future keyboards may be like. There's also pretty lights and a cartoon in there as well, for your viewing pleasure.

Technically, this is "Unofficial GDC Report, Part 3." Technically. This is because this topic goes faaaaaar beyond GDC. Regardless, I wanted to take a moment to show you why we love the fans who hate us.

Finally made it back from the Game Developer's Conference, and I'll be blogging the experiences through this coming week and the next. I will say, that parties at GDC can get awkward, depending on the celebrity turnout.

At the Game Developer

My Obsidian message inbox is full, and it

Someone wrote me a letter this weekend, asking if I had any suggestions for breaking into computer game writing, and it occured to me I didn't. I had suggestions for breaking into computer game design, but... Anyway, here's the gist of the response in case anyone else has a similar question about how it all works. Writing for video games is something of a different beast compared to game design. My experience is that someone will contract a writer (and usually late in the process) once an idea and game direction has already been determined and then it becomes the game writer's job to flesh out the idea for the game. Sometimes you're employed basically as a script doctor for a title, brushing up the dialogue before it's taken into the studio. If you wanted to propose your own world and characters for a game, though, one could do it through the mod community on the internet and then showcase those

BTW, that's it for the questions for now. I wanted to thank Fionavar for setting this up, and thanks to all of you guys for the great questions... especially the T vs. M rating for character arcs one, which made me give a lot of thought to whether M is really necessary, or whether I just can't stand parameters and am a big fussy pants. Thanks to everyone who contributed, and thanks for participating on the forums - we should be releasing more and more NWN2 news as the September ship date approaches as well as other annoucements. - Chris

10) I guess it depends what you define as the old skool RPGer, but I'll take a guess - isometric, turn-based, long dialogue trees, make your own journals and maps of areas, PC-centric control scheme, and a slower paced game in general. I'd say the answer is "yes, it is possible" though unless it's an established franchise (Neverwinter Nights 2), it can be a tough sell to publishers, but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this point. To address each point above: - Camera Angle: I think people should be given freedom with this no matter what, so I would never rule out an isometric angle, but I would allow people to pick and choose (like in NWN2). - Turn-Based: While I keep hoping for a 700 million seller on the PSP to change folks' minds, turn-based is a hard sell with publishers, and there's times where I don't think it's even appropriate or fun for the genre (for example, in Knights of the Old Republic, I think the semi-turn-based or even a full-turn-based implementation of the fighting system actually hurts the game and worse, hurts the genre you're working in). In all honesty, there's been a bigger push from the market for games with more instant gratification and more freedom in combat and camera movements over tactical, turn-based combat approaches. I will say that even if I don't always have the reflexes for it, I usually find fights in those games to get the adrenaline pumping a lot more. - Long Dialogue Trees: If the game isn't voice acted, again, this is a hard sell. Also, if the conversation is forced upon you or paralyzes you from exploring the world or even looking around while people are talking to your character, it's an obstacle to fun. I do think there's other ways to do conversations other than the old node/4 response option we've done in the past, and I think it's worthwhile to experiment with those (especially with greater animation power and more detailed facial reactons) to see if something better can be done. - Journal and Map Tracking: Most folks consider anything that makes you record things outside of the game (maps, quest tracking, journals) to be more of an obstacle to fun than fun in itself. Granted, I made about 300+ lovingly handdrawn maps for Bard's Tale, but I don't know if I would have the time to do that today. - PC-centric: There's been a bigger push from publishers for console games, and it's been tough to find publishers that simply want to do a PC game. That said, going for consoles usually involves limiting or scaling down the number of options you can input through the controller, which can reduce the complexity of the interface somewhat. I will say that this often prevents some of the laziness that comes from some PC schemes since you do have so many buttons, but it does limit your options. Anyway, to make a long answer even longer, it's possible, but there a number of forces that are an impediment to making such a game, and such forces are not developer driven. I don't think anyone here would mind making a Fallout-style game, but frankly, unless it IS Fallout, it's a tough sell, and even if it was Fallout, there would be a lot of arguments from the outside as to why certain old skool properties of Fallout would have to change.

9) I will say that, higher social profiles aside, the larger budgets will make landing projects with publishers more difficult, and make them prone to wanting to bank on the safe project as opposed to the risky ones, since the cost of making a mistake and bringing a potentially low-selling title to market is now HUGE. I think social profiles for developers are expanding right now, actually - the future is now and has been for a few years. When I hear Fatal1ty being interviewed on NPR and promoting his own line of video cards, or see Cliffy B getting his picture snapped with Paris Hilton, see Stevie Case posing on the cover of PC Accelerator and getting shots of herself for Rolling Stone, Rob Pardo making Time magazine, or John Romero doing... well... anything, you see some game development folks touching the spotlight more and more. I also think Will Wright is on his way to becoming the Steven Hawking of the game industry as well. I feel that designers either fade away, take a permanent hiatus, lose their cutting edge skillset, abstract out (and when I mean this, I mean they start giving in to philosophy or abstract concepts and begin to distance themselves from real game design and focus more on design theory), or if lucky, keep the energy going all the way to the end and they die from a coffee overdose. While I think my skillset isn't always useful when dealing with the interactions of the combat mechanics of a three hit combo with a dynamic light source or setting up the most efficient scripting arrays to track the number of droids killed (which one of our programmers will be quick to point out when checking over my scripts), I think certain skills in creating a role-playing game never go out of style, no matter what the game - creating moments for exploration, cool items, combats, puzzles, creating an ambiance and theme, cool quests, pacing - all of those things are still valued. And I will say that I do find I can keep tabs on most of my developer friends through MySpace, so maybe that's a form of rising social consciousness. Or a devolution. Or something.