Veteran game designer Chris Avellone, known for Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment, shared insights into his origins during a recent interview. He described starting with Dungeons & Dragons at age nine and transitioning to video games through trial and error. Avellone emphasized a player-focused philosophy that has shaped his career.
Chris Avellone's journey into game design began in childhood with pen-and-paper roleplaying games. At nine years old, he discovered Dungeons & Dragons, which he called a 'wake-up call' for blending imagination with structured rules. Initially preferring to play rather than lead, Avellone stepped into the game master role when friends showed no interest, finding joy in crafting interactive stories.
In the early 1980s, inspired by text adventures like those from Scott Adams, he experimented with coding on a TRS-80 computer. These solo efforts produced buggy fantasy adventures, relying on library books and manuals due to limited resources. Avellone did not initially aim for a programming career; he dreamed of writing tabletop modules and comics. However, opportunities in the computer game industry drew him in, leading to narrative design as his primary focus.
A pivotal moment came in 1995 when Interplay hired him for Planescape: Torment after he pitched a concept addressing save scumming frustrations in RPGs. 'Save scumming in RPGs up to that point felt like a waste of everyone’s time,' Avellone said, advocating for seamless respawns to maintain adventure flow. The game embodied his core belief: 'Players are selfish,' prioritizing experiences centered on the player.
This philosophy extended to later projects. For the canceled Fallout Van Buren, he used a tabletop RPG to test systems, ensuring diverse character builds like ghouls and super mutants had 'shine moments.' Elements influenced Fallout: New Vegas, where Avellone served as senior designer. He warned against 'give, then take away' rewards, recalling a tabletop mishap that nearly sparked mutiny.
Avellone applies these lessons today at Republic Games, developing a dystopian rebellion-themed title. 'It’s still important to me to see the range of archetypes and builds a player can make,' he noted, stressing alignment of player motivations with in-game goals for stronger experiences.