Chris Avellone Hates RPGs

Obsidian Entertainment’s official website is pointing to an article on Kotaku Australia entitled “RPG Designer Hates RPGs”, which covers Chris Avellone’s presentation at the recent Framework Conference in Melbourne, Australia.

In Planescape: Torment, Avellone felt it was the perfect setting for a guy burnt out on RPGs because it allowed him to turn everything on its head. He hated death, so he made the main character an immortal so that death became something useful rather than an impediment. He felt inspired to build a game where the death screen is just the beginning – and so Torment opens with you lying on a slab in a mortuary.

Predictable encounters were another hated aspect. Every RPG has the player killing rats in the tutorial dungeon because rats are an easy enemy. Avellone proceeded to make rats one of the most dangerous creatures you would face in Torment. Cranium rats, as they were called, would grow more powerful in greater numbers and could overwhelm you with a host of magic spells.

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For his current project, the modern day espionage of SEGA’s Alpha Protocol, Avellone applied his hatred to character interaction. Most RPGs give you a dialogue tree where you select branching options, but can usually return to the top of the tree and start over again. Essentially, NPCs become information kiosks rather than real people.

In Alpha Protocol, every conversation is a once-through system where there’s no opportunity to return to the top of the tree. You choose your response at each juncture and that’s it, no second chances. With no danger of repeating dialogue, the idea is to create greater immersion by ensuring each conversation feels natural and plausible.