Hero of Zero

[vagiz-ahm]

[jesawyer]

how come it's possible to play a noble from the White that Wends given the lifestyle there is said to be nomadic and clan-based? is it related to bloodlines or only something seen in the coastal settlements that are moving away from the traditional way of life?

My stance with "weird" or "impossible" combinations of backgrounds/regions/whatever is that these are the players' stories about their characters. They are stories within a world I helped create, but I have to let players use those building blocks in the way they want to. Maybe their character is from an unusual or unique community of pale elves. Maybe their character is from a displaced group of ocean folk who have lived in an isolated village for generations, maintaining their old ways and customs.

Anyway, it's not my business. I try to provide the building blocks and make them mechanically appealing. That way if a player finds some combination they really like, I'm not standing in the way of them building the character they want.

[leona-florianova]

Some of the good citizens of Goodsprings 

[jesawyer]

Has the prospect of a Pillars F2P game ever come up? Is that something you think Obsidian would be willing to try, or is the concept of monetizing the Pillars world like that unappealing or too far outside the company's comfort zone?

I can't speak for the company, but I don't have any personal interest in being involved in monetization discussions/planning. I am comfortable with making a traditional "buy this" product that someone else will figure out how to price and distribute.

I feel like the more we get into what I would consider "schemes" (sorry) for getting money out of people through shell games instead of a straightforward purchase price, the less happy I am about it. I don't like soaking people for cosmetics or micro DLCs. I don't like the idea of the majority of the user base being gated from premium content that's only accessible by "whales" (gross).

There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, but you know when you're essentially running a grift. F2P games often venture far into that territory and I'm not interested in it.

[miapcain]

wealth beyond measure, outlander

[trynsave]

[kingpin-of-steel-act3]

[mediahater]

Sits in my desk chair like a skyrim jarl for the entire duration of the zoom call

[mediahater]

[gameshots]

Legend of Grimrock 2

[vagiz-ahm]

[sonofkhaz]

I’ve been playing Oblivion again. If the former governor of Minnesota sees this: Please don’t body slam my house.

[moestavern]

[ratboy-thin]

MARGE: You have the right to remain silent!

HOMER: I choose to waive that right! [SCREAMS]

[stream]

The Simpsons “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show”

[flyinghellfish]

[qtt-art]

Here’s my loveletter to Supergiant’s game, Pyre!! I think this is the longest I’ve ever spent on an illustration, and I had fun the entire time because every character presented different challenges.

[jesawyer]

Hey Josh, I know I could probably extrapolate from your work but I thought I’d ask you. Are there any themes or character styles that you feel yourself consistently wanting to explore when writing companions or characters for RPGs? Always personally liked your exploration with Arcade and Graham and my wife Pallegina of the messy personal baggage that comes with devotions and connections to an ideology.

I think I like exploring characters that have some sort of extreme ideology, or at least an ideology that pushes them to do (or not do) extreme things: Arcade, Hanlon, Joshua Graham, Daniel, and Pallegina all apply.

[jesawyer]

I was wondering what your thoughts were on dungeons and dragons' recent decision to move away from fixed stat increases for races, and instead letting players choose the stats they feel best fit their character. Pillars 1 and 2 both had fixed stat bonuses for races, and unless I'm mistaken, the pillars ttrpg will as well. From a design perspective, how do you balance player freedom to create any character without making every race feel pretty much the same?

I’m doing something weirder with the Pillars TTRPG now, where Attributes are like little perk packages, but there are still groupings associated with different Species (which is what I’m using instead of Race).  We’re still experimenting with it, so IDK how it’s going to wind up.

I understand why games are moving away from this paradigm, because traditionally fantasy games use the word “race” to define human/elf/dwarf and we use “race” in everyday speech to talk about something more like ethnicity.  Players try to map Earth ethnicities onto fantasy “races” and things drift into The Danger Zone -- or they are intentionally designed around racial supremacy theories.

To be honest, I’m not really concerned about how the lack of attribute bonuses/penalties will affect the distinctiveness of species.  I think it’s one of the weaker ways to distinguish characters since everyone has the ability scores and the bonus/penalty value is typically just adding or removing 1 from the die roll.

Balance-wise, I’m also not concerned about it.  If everyone has the same potential bonuses, the Worst Case Scenario for a min-maxed build doesn’t really change that much.

I do think you will wind up splitting some odd hairs when you have to pass a fairly arbitrary dividing line between playable species and non-playable ones.  It’s easy to fudge a halfling, human, and orc all having the same potential max Strength.  And you might say, “Well, a frost giant is different because it’s SO much bigger, they’re just inherently stronger.”  But where does that leave an ogre, or a troll, or an irda in Dragonlance?  Or, in the other direction, pixies, quicklings, etc.

Is it all right for kobolds to have lower intelligence, mind flayers to have higher intelligence than “baseline”?  Is there a point at which sapient species are different enough from humans that there are no implicit issues with making them smarter, stronger, weaker, slower, etc. than what the players are playing?