Latest / In the Valley of Giants / From Kotor II to Fallout: How great stories change us | Chris Avellone | ITVOG #35

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From Kotor II to Fallout: How great stories change us | Chris Avellone | ITVOG #35 · In the Valley of Giants

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  I don't think the true one hundred 100% good is something
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  that you know I will ever see in my lifetime.
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  And I think currently like we're always in a mix of those two
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  States and we're hopefully trying to follow our better
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  natures. But like, let's like what you
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  were saying with discipline and those days when that energy and
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  that discipline, you don't have enough of it and you might do an
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  evil act out of weakness or because you're tired or you
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  don't have the energy even though it's the right thing to
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  do. I see some similarities with
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  Crea and actually some of the work that you did with Pray, but
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  Crea has this very famous line where she says apathy is deaf.
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  And if I'm understand correctly, one of the idea isn't Prey is
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  that you're fighting this alien civilization, these aliens, and
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  the aliens have no ability to feel any emotion whatsoever.
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  Again, apathy is indeed death. This is a theme that that you
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  that you find important. And I'd love to know why you
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  feel it's important if you can unpack it a little bit for us.
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  Hello, everyone. Today we are joined by Chris
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  Avalon. Chris Avalon is a video game
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  industry legend. He is a master of good and deep
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  storytelling and education. I asked him about exactly those
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  things. What makes a good and deep story
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  and how can we educate and challenge people that are
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  hearing our stories so that they can grow themselves?
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  This is what he's famous for. We also were able to discuss his
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  work on Knights of the Republic 2, Fallout, Jedi Order, and
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  more. I learned a ton and I hope you
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  do too. Enjoy Chris Avalon.
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  Thank you so much for joining us today on the show.
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  I appreciate the invitation. Thank you so much, Rabbi.
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  Of course. So I'm not sure if you saw this
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  coming, but you changed my life in a fairly significant way.
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  So you're going to definitely have a story to tell at the
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  dinner table. So when I was a kid, I wasn't, I
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  guess. So I played Knights of the Old
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  Republic too. So I'm not much of A haven't
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  been a gamer in a long time. OK.
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  But I was a bit then and I wasn't the classic, you know,
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  shoot him up sort of kid. I, I prefer on my free time.
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  I, you know, I learned Bible quite intensely and I also loved
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  reading philosophy and Greek mythology.
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  So if I was going to play a video game and had to have some
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  sort of depth. And so I played the game and I
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  was, I was completely taken over by it because of the philosophy
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  behind it. And in particular 1 character
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  that you created by the name of Crea, which I think is the most
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  brilliant character in existence that I know from pop culture.
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  So it's just an incredible character.
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  And what really, I'll just share with you the experience that
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  that stuck out to me. I'm not even sure if you
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  remember, it's been so long, but in the beginning of the game.
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  So you have the opportunity to give charity.
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  So in in my faith, and I'd imagine pretty much any faith,
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  giving charity is a very pious thing.
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  And if you give charity to this particular person, the beginning
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  of the game, what happens is you get chastised by Crea that
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  you're basically buttressing this sort of idea of just taking
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  from others and not working for yourself.
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  And more than that, that I could really be causing harm to other
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  people as that person might have now a little bit of money.
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  Someone else will see it and kill them and take it, which is
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  exactly what happens. Which as a kid I was like, oh,
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  this is, I love looking at the world in so much more of a
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  complex way. So you had a small part in that.
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  And I really appreciate that and I want to thank you for it.
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  Rabbi, you're very kind to say that, but this may be the very
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  first podcast where I drill into that exact situation.
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  But so the location you're referring to, a nice little
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  Republic to just for the audience that takes place on a
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  criminal planet run by all the huts called Narshada.
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  And it's a pretty cutthroat world.
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  So the whole cultural rules don't quite apply as they might,
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  as you know, in most civilized, I guess, civilized nations or
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  civilized countries. But what I was concerned about
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  is actually, I think that there were two situations involving
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  charity that I think I passed off to Quest designers.
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  And I'm worried they implemented the solution for both when they
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  weren't supposed to. In a sense, one should have been
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  positive and one should have been negative.
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  And instead of sending like just a general message.
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  So that that's one concern that I have.
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  The other thing to drill down on is the only time I can recall
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  that I meant for Crea to weigh in was there was one particular
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  charity case on Narshada where it's quite clear from the
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  conversation of the NPC you're talking to is kind of an idiot.
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  Like, and I, and I don't, and I'm, I'm not trying to be like
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  insulting to a situation or whatever.
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  But as he's telling his story, you discover that he's been
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  making a lot of impulsive, reckless decisions throughout
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  his life. It's led him to be stranded on
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  Narshadah with his family as a result of these situations.
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  And now he is here begging you for money to escape from this
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  situation. But if you're paying attention
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  to the conversation, you might start get the feeling that
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  simply giving this person a way out may not help the situation
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  at all because of all the choices he that he himself makes
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  and has made throughout his life.
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  And that was kind of the question that I wanted the
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  player to think about in that situation.
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  It doesn't apply to every single refugee on Nurse Shaddaq, but in
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  this particular case, any player paid paying attention to the
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  conversation might realize, you know what, this guy doesn't
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  really have his stuff together. And I think giving him money
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  might actually be a bad thing to do in this one particular
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  circumstance. And part of the reason I
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  included that quest line was because in so many games out
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  there, there's always the the classic character like, you
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  know, or a beggar or whatever they're you know who, who wants
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  a charitable donation. And normally I have no problems
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  with charity. But if the NP CS back story is
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  that they haven't learned any lessons or improve their lights
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  life as a result of you giving them this boon or the safety
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  net, you may not actually be helping them all.
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  You might just be, you know, prolonging a problem that
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  already exists for just someone taking a hard look at their
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  life. And I know that's kind of a a
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  deep situation to bring up in a Star Wars game and all things,
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  but I thought it'd be an interesting situation to put the
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  player in and hopefully house have them ask some hard
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  questions. So Chris, I'm going to amplify
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  actually what you said. So #1 to have it in a, you know,
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  in a game, I think gave you the opportunity to have access to
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  people that maybe were more droning.
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  I think that the, in my humble opinion, that's, that's the bane
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  of existence. It's one word, dogmatic.
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  And it's when we're not having open conversation and we're not
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  openly thinking. I think the biggest evils are
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  when we, we ignore others and, and just acrobatically, you
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  know, with our whims. So I think you had the
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  opportunity to give young adults and older adults as well, and
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  perhaps even children the ability to think a little bit
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  differently. So I think it's great that you
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  did that in that sort of universe, but you know, to, to
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  bring something from my faith. So, so in the Jewish Talmud,
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  there's it's pretty serious. The giving charity shouldn't
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  just be blase that giving charity should be for people
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  that need it, you know, and and there's something absolutely to
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  that. Just because one does a a, a
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  positive action doesn't mean that it's going to have a
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  positive effect. So I think that that there's
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  what you thought was a nice idea.
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  I think is a is a a principle in being kind.
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  It's are you truly, truly being kind?
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  So I, I really appreciated that. And, and I definitely am going
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  to push you on, on some interesting things that I had on
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  Korea that I had to have to know the answers to, which maybe I
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  don't deserve to know them because they're supposed to be
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  shrouded in mystery. But I'm going to, I'm going to
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  start off by by asking you about overall, it's, it's clear that
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  you are a master storyteller and that's such an important thing.
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  And the reason for that is, you know, I, I listen to Doctor
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  Peterson wants to make a point and I think it's absolutely
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  true. Is that why do famous franchises
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  become famous? And, and what I mean famous is,
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  I don't mean that they, they're necessarily box office sets, but
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  that they're become cultural. So if you take a series like
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  Lord of the Rings or, you know, Star Wars, why are these, why
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  are these series these so effective and so important to
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  people? And the point that he, that he
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  made, and I think it's absolutely true, is that there's
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  an art of storytelling when it actually hits deep spiritual and
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  psychological chords. So the hero story coming from
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  one place and then fighting through evil and the, because of
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  that fight becoming something else, right?
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  So there's, there's, there's a certain amount of of, of, of
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  depth that comes with good storytelling.
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  You're able to do that, Chris, and you're able to do that with,
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  with stories that didn't exist really before.
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  So I'd love to know a little bit about how you look at things and
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  how you create these ideas or what do you think is important,
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  you know, for storytelling and for all of our viewers, this is
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  not a video game question. This is a parental question.
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  When you tell your kids stories, what stories do you want to tell
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  them? What messages do you want to
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  send over and how do you want to say it?
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  So now you get to learn from a master of storytelling.
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  A few tips on how to do that. Well, so, so Rabbi, actually
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  this my answer is going to refer back to the the very first
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  question you asked. So you used a very interesting
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  phrase called droning and I absolutely agree.
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  And in that one charitable quest that we were talking about,
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  that's exactly the thing that I was trying to challenge.
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  Because within the Star Wars framework up to that point, you
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  can sort of drone out in the sense of like, oh, that's going
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  to be a light side choice. Oh, that's going to be a dark
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  side choice. And I think most people playing
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  the game instinctively think, oh, any charitable action is
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  going to be a light side action. And and in that particular
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  quest, that was the moment I wanted to question that where
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  I'm like, you'd actually been given all the information about
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  how this situation could play out.
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  If you, you know, bestow the spoon upon this person.
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  With that in mind, is it really a light side action?
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  Is it really improving this person, etcetera.
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  But in terms of getting back to the, the core of your question,
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  I guess a lot of the elements that really I guess make a, make
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  a lure for me about storytelling and you're very kind to say the
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  kind words about depth and storytelling.
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  I think a lot of it just comes from observing how the world
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  works, I mean our world, observing how people interact
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  with each other, how people view religion and taking all those
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  plausible real world examples. And then moving that over to a
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  franchise and saying, hey, well, like, what would like the, the
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  common people in the Star Wars Galaxy genuinely think about
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  this Jedi Sith war that's going on?
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  Like, do they understand all the philosophy behind it?
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  Like even Han Solo in episode 4, like he doesn't believe in the
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  force. Like, and there's probably a
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  good portion of the Galaxy out there in Star Wars that doesn't.
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  So the, the sort of philosophical war that's going
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  on between the Jedi and Sith, it always struck me that there
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  might be a large percentage of the Star Wars, you know, common
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  population that don't understand what's going on.
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  They don't understand what the, the, the source of this conflict
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  is, nor the higher energy of the Force that's, you know, that's
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  guiding and shaping this conflict.
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  They're sort of out of the loop. And for me, that's that sort of
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  struck sort of like a plausible chord and exploring that aspect
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  of the universe I thought made the made the universe more real
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  to me because I'm like, wait a minute.
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  We're not just approaching it from the the camera viewpoint of
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  high adventure and like, you know, lightsaber battles.
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  We're approaching it from just different perspectives from
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  different people involved as sort of the philosophical levels
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  within Star Wars for the people that know almost nothing about
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  the Jedi versus the Sith to the people that are absolutely know
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  everything about it. And then they make make
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  decisions and consequences the result as a result of that.
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  I'm just someone as a clarification point.
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  So you're saying that perhaps a key in storytelling, or at least
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  in, in the example of Knights of the Old Republic, but I bet you
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  it's going to be for any series that you were involved in.
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  You'll correct me if I'm wrong, but it's, it's, it's finding
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  instead of more about goals or social interactions.
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  What it is is, is what is the, the, the philosophy of the
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  universe? And there could be a few of
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  them, but but to to see every story in something infinitely
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  significant. Is that is that what you're
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  saying? Whenever I'm doing like a story,
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  even for a fantasy world, as I try and think about all the
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  plausible aspects and just to just to take a step away from
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  Star Wars for a second, because Star Wars isn't the example I
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  use for plausible storytelling. You know, no offense, George
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  Lucas or anyone else. What I do think was a great
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  example of plausible storytelling.
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  This this may surprise the audience is I thought the
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  Jessica Jones series season 1 was at a completely ludicrous
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  concept that they made very plausible by bringing in all the
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  real world consequences that you would expect from that
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  situation. And what I mean by that is
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  specifically when David Tennant's character in the
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  series, he has mind control, which is completely ludicrous,
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  but let's but they still made it plausible.
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  They've actually got like abuse and self help groups set up for
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  people that have been mind controlled by him.
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  And it sounds completely ridiculous.
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  But when you're a meshed and all the examples they show you
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  through the series, you believe it.
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  Like all the little cruelties that David Tennant's character
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  has done has left a mark on all these people.
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  And the idea that they would form a support group to try and
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  get past this abuse that he's done struck me as very
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  plausible. Also, they took a they took
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  great effort with David Tennant's character to also try
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  and explain how he felt he was wronged by his own power, which
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  sounds insane. But there's one point in the
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  series where he complaints to Jessica Jones about what a
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  burden it is to have this mind control power because he has to
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  watch what he says to people. And God knows how his words are
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  going to be like interpreted and like he's kind of right, but
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  then like he's, he's also super wrong in other respects.
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  But the fact that he takes on that victimization role felt
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  very real to me. Or it's like, wow, like I can
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  see somebody doing that. And even though it's a shock to
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  me as a viewer because I'm, I'm perceiving this guy 100% is a
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  bad guy, they still throw in these curveballs there where you
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  take a moment, you're like, oh, well, it's interesting that he
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  thinks like that. And I can kind of see where he's
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  coming from. Even though I don't fully
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  believe it, it does fit in with his personality that he himself,
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  who has this incredible power, still somehow feels like he's
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  victimized. And for that, that made him a
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  far more real character than say some super villain that flies
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  around with a Cape and shoots, shoots I beams and punches
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  through buildings or whatever. So Jessica Jones Caesar one I
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  thought did a great job of investigating that plausibility
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  within a fantastical, fantastical framework.
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  So it's seeing, it's seeing the effect of a character in more
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  than just one way. Meaning instead of I shoot you,
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  you're dead. It's well, I got up in the
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  morning after that and everything that comes with that,
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  which grounds the universe. Is that what you're saying?
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  And also there were examples were like, so I was watching the
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  the series of my wife and her reaction was she didn't think
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  Jessica Jones was a hero. And so we had a debate about
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  that. And I'm like, well, actually,
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  the series is trying to show you in small ways that no matter how
• 15:46
  ground down Jessica Jones is, she's still trying to do the
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  right thing. And she's still trying to
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  protect the people around her that are being abused in any
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  way, shape or form. Like, it doesn't have to be from
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  David Tennant's character. She'll stand up for like her,
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  per the people that live in her building from like, you know,
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  threats from getting beaten up or whatever, not because she
• 16:06
  genuinely likes them, but because it's the right thing to
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  do. And strangely, it's really easy
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  to miss those moments within sort of the misery of the series
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  because of all the higher level stuff that's going on.
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  But the way that they do in this series just felt very real and
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  plausible to me. And I thought that the
• 16:25
  showrunners for that just did a really good job with it.
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  Is that how you approach every single time you, you write a
• 16:31
  story or you're, you're involved?
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  It's how I can, how I can get that grit, how I can show all of
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  those different effects that that happened.
• 16:39
  Like that's that's part of your main focus.
• 16:41
  That's, that's my desire. And the only limitation of that
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  I've found with writing is that sometimes you need time to
• 16:48
  process that because the whole idea, for example, going back to
• 16:51
  Star Wars of how the, you know, the the people of the Galaxy
• 16:54
  would perceive the war, that didn't come to me immediately.
• 16:58
  That was like, OK, well, you know, I've been working on, you
• 17:01
  know, this game for three or four months.
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  And I'm trying to outline like how the conflicts going, you
• 17:06
  know, the after effects of the battle, any sort of like post
• 17:08
  trauma that the the universe might be going through.
• 17:10
  But then I examined it from like, OK, well, how does the
• 17:14
  common populace see this? Like, how did they see the war?
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  How did they see the conflict? And when you think about that
• 17:21
  for a few weeks, suddenly these these new ideas pop up.
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  We're like, hey, I haven't really seen this explored in
• 17:27
  Star Wars before, but I think if I include it, that would make
• 17:30
  the universe feel more grounded and more real.
• 17:33
  So I so I guess what I'm trying to say is those don't come to me
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  like instantly while I'm writing.
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  But if I do have time to percolate on the idea and
• 17:41
  genuinely think about all the ramifications of these events
• 17:44
  within this fantasy universe, sometimes ideas like that will
• 17:48
  occur to me. And I do find those very
• 17:49
  interesting. How did you know that you were a
• 17:52
  gifted storyteller? So by by knowing for a long time
• 17:59
  that I wasn't and the fact that I still don't feel that way
• 18:02
  because like I so like I, I like, I don't know, I go to
• 18:05
  imposter syndrome, but the but when I look at a game like a
• 18:09
  Star Wars, I think, and that's our probably too, like I don't,
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  I don't like I'm, I'm, I'm proud of what we were able to do in
• 18:15
  the time provided, but it's really hard not to see all the
• 18:20
  flaws and everything that you've done.
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  And that's it's, it's a terrible thing to focus on, but I try and
• 18:27
  take a silver lining from it in the sense of, OK, I'm seeing all
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  these flaws in the work that I've done.
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  How do I course correct it for next time?
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  And how did I, how did I get to that?
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  You know, that that bad decision, that bad consequence
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  in design, like I'll do like a post mortem, I'll try and think
• 18:45
  back to like, OK, what should I have done to improve this
• 18:49
  particular aspect of story craft?
• 18:52
  How can I avoid the same problems in the future?
• 18:54
  And hopefully like I just I use each game as sort of a learning
• 18:58
  experience. I will also say that being a
• 19:01
  game master around the DND table for almost a decade, your
• 19:06
  players will tell you when you're not being a gifted
• 19:09
  storyteller. They will get genuinely mad.
• 19:11
  They will get genuinely upset. And there were sometimes like
• 19:14
  they get upset about stuff that would surprise me.
• 19:16
  That didn't occur to me. But I'm like, from a player
• 19:19
  perspective, I totally get that. Maybe I shouldn't have taken all
• 19:21
  their magic items and stolen like giving it to the slavers,
• 19:24
  even though I knew they'd get it back like into up to like two
• 19:27
  more sessions. They didn't know that.
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  They were just really pissed off.
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  So like you learn a lot of lessons like about like that,
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  about respect the player, like respect their autonomy and try
• 19:37
  and make sure that the their experience that they're there
• 19:40
  for that you're delivering on that as an entertainer.
• 19:43
  Did you know going into the the. I mean, again, you have to
• 19:47
  excuse me because most of to prepare for this conversation, I
• 19:49
  had to do a lot of research because I haven't the last time
• 19:52
  I was a gamer was was was a while ago.
• 19:54
  But I, I know you worked on Fallout, Fallout New Vegas, and
• 19:57
  I think you also worked on the Jedi Fallen Order series.
• 20:00
  Is that correct? Yeah, I worked on Jedi Fallen
• 20:02
  Order One, but not Jedi Survivor.
• 20:05
  OK, so, but so using Fallen order as an example that seems
• 20:08
  to really deviate from, I would say your your signature flare.
• 20:13
  And I don't mean that you didn't have flare in the game, but I'm
• 20:15
  just saying, like you, you are a master in stretching your legs
• 20:18
  and again, giving people that that extra thing to think about
• 20:21
  that nuance, that effect. Jedi Follen order was a lot more
• 20:25
  of you're following the story and it's quite linear.
• 20:28
  I'm, I'm curious why you did that and how was that experience
• 20:31
  for you once at the backdrop of the history of the, you know,
• 20:35
  what you've done in gaming? Yeah, that's, that's a good
• 20:37
  example. So I, I don't mean my answer
• 20:40
  here to be a sidestep, but so the the lead writer that we have
• 20:44
  in the project, he and I, I like him a lot, but we did have
• 20:50
  different design goals going into it.
• 20:53
  And because I was reporting to him, I wanted to make sure that
• 20:55
  I was doing the best possible job for him and the game.
• 20:59
  But there were things that we disagreed on and some things
• 21:02
  that he was right about and other things that I was right
• 21:05
  about. S 1st.
• 21:06
  So one one example would be I did not like the progression of
• 21:10
  character growth and Fallen Order.
• 21:13
  There were moments that I liked it, but I thought that there
• 21:16
  were a lot of missed opportunities for for Cal's
• 21:18
  character art, for example. Not only that, I was also
• 21:23
  concerned the title wasn't really giving the player a
• 21:27
  choice in a, in a universe where that light side, dark side
• 21:32
  choice is very important. And so the idea, So that feeling
• 21:36
  you got of a very linear story became even more linear once you
• 21:40
  realized, hey, like I know in previous Jedi games, I could go
• 21:43
  dark side if I wanted to. And arguably, because you're
• 21:47
  allowed to have that choice, that makes your choice to do
• 21:50
  good even more important because you did have a choice.
• 21:53
  So that wasn't included in Fallen Order.
• 21:56
  And I really wish it had been because I think that dark side,
• 21:58
  light side options are very, very important for Star Wars and
• 22:02
  also for emphasizing good actions as well.
• 22:05
  Because if you're forced to do a good action, you know, you have
• 22:08
  to sort of question like, well, would I have done that
• 22:10
  naturally? Or is that something that
• 22:12
  they're railroading me to do? That's something that I've never
• 22:17
  really cared for in terms of player agency.
• 22:19
  I feel maybe this is my role-playing background, but I
• 22:22
  believe that the players should have an effect on the world.
• 22:25
  They they should feel the consequences of their actions.
• 22:27
  And if there's and if there's nothing like that, then it is a
• 22:30
  very linear experience like you're saying.
• 22:32
  So. And the last thing I'll bring up
• 22:33
  is, so one thing that also I didn't necessarily agree with
• 22:37
  with Fallen Order was everyone sort of got along really well at
• 22:41
  the beginning, as soon as they formed their party.
• 22:44
  And after after having played the reboot of God of War, where
• 22:48
  Kratos is having a very difficult relationship with his
• 22:52
  son right from the outset. Like there's damage there.
• 22:55
  Like he can't connect with Atreyas at all.
• 22:59
  If the God of War story had started with Atreyas and Kratos,
• 23:03
  like being connected and being on the same page, the story
• 23:07
  wouldn't have had the same weight that it did in God of
• 23:10
  War. And I think Fallen Order fell
• 23:12
  into that trap of everyone got too friendly too soon versus,
• 23:16
  hey, like, you know, our first few missions, we don't like each
• 23:20
  other. We don't trust each other.
• 23:21
  Like, that's just the way the Galaxy is.
• 23:23
  After Order 66, like a lot of damage went down.
• 23:26
  Like, I don't know why I would trust all these people, but the
• 23:30
  goal there is that when you, when you have that lack of trust
• 23:34
  or that dislike, it makes the moments where you reconcile
• 23:39
  stronger. So like when Kratos and Atreus
• 23:42
  do eventually go on the same page, that moment is so much
• 23:46
  stronger because you've seen all the damage that used to exist
• 23:50
  and you've helped helped fix it and helped heal it and fall in
• 23:54
  order. I really wish that there been
• 23:56
  more of that where sure, like they may have detested Cal at
• 23:59
  the beginning, but in the final battle, they're willing to lay
• 24:04
  down their lives to protect Cal is a fantastic character arc
• 24:08
  that absolutely speaks to your decisions in the game and
• 24:11
  honestly makes you a hero. And I think that that was
• 24:14
  something that the storyline had very, very early on, and then
• 24:18
  somehow it got lost along the way.
• 24:20
  But and then just one last thing really quick.
• 24:22
  However, there was one thing I was absolutely wrong about South
• 24:27
  in the game when you are interacting with the one with
• 24:30
  the one Jedi. And I don't give any spoilers
• 24:33
  for how that art plays out. The lead writer for Fallen Order
• 24:37
  really dug deep into the idea of the nature of grit and the
• 24:42
  nature of maintaining yourself under torture and under
• 24:47
  oppressive circumstances and still holding true to your
• 24:50
  ideals. And he'd actually done a lot of
• 24:53
  research in terms of like, you know, Vietnam POW camps and hey,
• 24:57
  like, how, like, how, how did, how did that experience like
• 25:00
  scar these individuals, how they get past it?
• 25:02
  And he made it. He made a conscious effort to
• 25:04
  include that in Fallen Order. And I thought that that was a
• 25:07
  very admirable take on a storyline that I really
• 25:10
  appreciated. When you say that you got, you
• 25:13
  got wrong. But why would you?
• 25:15
  What do you mean got wrong? You wanted to go in a different
• 25:17
  direction, at least at first. I would not have initially
• 25:20
  imagined that arc for a character, but as soon as he
• 25:24
  brought it up, like, like a light bulb went over my head.
• 25:27
  I'm like, yeah, he's absolutely right.
• 25:29
  Like, we're dealing with a Galaxy that has just undergone a
• 25:33
  horrible civil war with the Separatists, The Separatists,
• 25:37
  the Jedi Order has collapsed. Of course, we should be
• 25:40
  examining that theme within the context of this one Jedi that's
• 25:44
  in your party, because that's very much what she went through.
• 25:48
  And the fact that I've been blind to that particular
• 25:51
  emotional aspect, I thought was a mistake and a misstep on my
• 25:54
  part. But but he was he was there to
• 25:57
  cover that and actually elevate that character and make her
• 25:59
  stronger. I understand.
• 26:02
  Excellent. OK, let's let's dive in a little
• 26:04
  bit into Kreya. So why do you think Kreya is
• 26:09
  such an influential figure out especially I mean, I think in in
• 26:13
  video game history she is, but especially in the Star Wars
• 26:15
  universe, she she is a character that I mean, it's been what is
• 26:19
  it 23 years or something like that?
• 26:21
  It's been a long time, you know, is am I right?
• 26:24
  Am I right people? Keep correct.
• 26:26
  I'm just sad because of the, you know, age.
• 26:29
  I hear. But people keep coming back to
• 26:31
  that character and there's almost like an obsession with
• 26:33
  her. Why do you think that's so?
• 26:36
  I think because maybe she casts a light on a lot of the core
• 26:39
  aspects of the Force and Star Wars, but she does it in a way
• 26:43
  like I think it's the depth that you're describing.
• 26:45
  It's not like she's making one off comments about anything.
• 26:48
  She's genuinely asking you pointed questions about how you
• 26:52
  feel about the Jedi philosophy, the Sith philosophy.
• 26:55
  And a lot of that was inspired by an English teacher that I had
• 26:58
  in college who regardless of her own personal beliefs, she would
• 27:03
  challenge me on everything like and like she's like, well, why
• 27:06
  do you think that way? Like and what points defend your
• 27:08
  position? Like she was non-stop about it.
• 27:10
  And initially like I thought, wow, she must hate me.
• 27:14
  But then halfway through I suddenly realized, Oh well,
• 27:16
  she's just trying to elevate my thinking on this.
• 27:19
  And she's forcing me to defend my position and I'm learning
• 27:23
  stuff while I'm defending my position.
• 27:25
  And when I graduated and she handed me my diploma like I I
• 27:31
  was on, I would border at tears because of how much that she had
• 27:34
  taught me about challenging people about their beliefs and
• 27:37
  their ideas and how that can make their beliefs stronger as a
• 27:40
  result of that. And I owe her a huge debt.
• 27:42
  And a lot of that aspect went into Cray as a challenging
• 27:45
  force. Like a lot of people complain
• 27:47
  about like, okay, nothing makes her happy.
• 27:49
  That's that's absolutely true. But that's not Crea's goal.
• 27:53
  Crea's goal is going to make you happy or make her happy.
• 27:55
  She wants you to think deeply about the things that you've
• 27:58
  chosen to do. She wants to know your reasons
• 28:00
  behind them because she wants to learn from it.
• 28:03
  And she also wants you to learn from it.
• 28:04
  And that, and that's the gist of her character.
• 28:06
  And I'd like to think that that that approach is what really
• 28:10
  sort of like, it gives that push to a player to think about
• 28:14
  things a little bit differently, rather than, yeah, here's the
• 28:17
  Primrose path and here's the bad path and, you know, make your
• 28:20
  choice and it's just a game and who cares, like.
• 28:23
  I had a professor and university philosophy and at the end of the
• 28:30
  semester I thought she was fantastic.
• 28:32
  At the end of the semester she said, you know, I really, it was
• 28:35
  a class of religious Jews, but she was not a Jew herself.
• 28:39
  And so she, she was curious. So, you know, I've seen a lot of
• 28:42
  things and there's just some things that I'm curious about
• 28:45
  What the, what the class mind if I asked them?
• 28:46
  And we were all, but we laughed in our first question, not
• 28:51
  because it was silly, but because how silly it looks on
• 28:53
  the outside. So, and, and, but it's, it's,
• 28:57
  it's, it's, it's very close to something that you said.
• 29:01
  So when Jews learn Talmud, Orthodox Jews.
• 29:04
  So the way that the Talmud is constructed, I mean, it really
• 29:07
  sounds like a joke, but there's an argument, and that argument
• 29:12
  goes on two sides on how to look at a particular law or how to
• 29:15
  define a particular vessel or how to understand a particular
• 29:19
  belief. And it's very classic that
• 29:20
  there'll be at least two opinions, you know, like the,
• 29:23
  you know, the joke says that if there's, you know, three
• 29:25
  opinions, this is probably 2 rabbis.
• 29:27
  But in anyways, OK, so you know, but, but the way, the way the
• 29:31
  arguments usually work is so one side will attack another side,
• 29:35
  the other side will attack the other side.
• 29:37
  And then one side will be like, you know what, here's the reason
• 29:39
  why you're right. And the other side will be like,
• 29:41
  OK, here's the reason why you're right, right?
• 29:43
  And then they'll continue arguing.
• 29:44
  And this happens in real time when you learn Talmud as well,
• 29:47
  like on the outside. So you can be having a heated,
• 29:50
  heated argument with another Talmudist and they'll, they'll
• 29:52
  have opposing opinions and just there'll be a break within the,
• 29:55
  within the, the argument. And you'll see that side A is
• 29:58
  saying, yeah, but you side B, you know, you're really right
• 30:01
  because if you say XYZ, your position is actually better.
• 30:04
  And then side B would be like, no, actually a.
• 30:07
  No, you're correct. You see, because if you and then
• 30:09
  they'll go immediately back to fighting each other and and
• 30:12
  staying on. Their own sides.
• 30:13
  So quick, quick question. So is is that part of the
• 30:15
  structure of how debates are set up in that context or is that
• 30:19
  did that evolve naturally if my question?
• 30:21
  That's no, it does make sense and it's set up that way.
• 30:24
  And the reason? So she asked why that is.
• 30:27
  OK, so you get it immediately, right?
• 30:28
  So I mean, otherwise, otherwise like you're never, you're never
• 30:33
  going to compromise on a point. And also like if you, if you
• 30:36
  demonize the other side and then just label everything they say
• 30:39
  is negative, regardless of the truth of the matter, like it's
• 30:43
  not, you're not going to achieve anything positive from that
• 30:46
  discussion. So to see that framework set up
• 30:49
  and sort of like institutionalized that, that's
• 30:50
  awesome to hear. Like I I wish more arguments
• 30:53
  were structured like that. Yeah, I, I, I, I think it's
• 30:57
  amazing that, that you see the beauty of it.
• 30:58
  But for sure, I tell my students all the time.
• 31:00
  I, I, I have rabbinic students and just tell me to students, I
• 31:03
  tell them all the time. I said, if you're coming up to
• 31:05
  tell me that I'm right, you can, I'll be disappointed, but you
• 31:08
  can, if you want to impress me, make me happy, come up and tell
• 31:11
  me why I'm wrong. You know, so, so it's, it's
• 31:15
  amazing that, that, that, that you got to see that first hand
• 31:18
  and, and that that was imperative in creating this
• 31:20
  character which has so much, so much love.
• 31:23
  Crea is, is someone you know, and I, and I feel I see some
• 31:27
  similarities with Crea and actually some of the work that
• 31:29
  you did with Prey. But Crea has this very famous
• 31:32
  line where she says apathy is death.
• 31:33
  And if I'm understand correctly, one of the idea is ideas in Prey
• 31:38
  is that you're fighting this alien civilization, these aliens
• 31:41
  and the aliens have no ability to feel any emotion whatsoever.
• 31:45
  Again, apathy is indeed death. So this is a theme that that you
• 31:49
  that you find important and I'd love to know why you feel it's
• 31:52
  important, if you can unpack it a little bit for us.
• 31:54
  Well, so I have AI have a a curveball of an answer.
• 31:58
  So the the writer who actually wrote the apathy of the death
• 32:02
  line and a very dear friend of mine, Tony Evans, He's the one
• 32:07
  who actually wrote that line and nailed the emotion of it.
• 32:10
  And I think Tony was absolutely right where it's but you know,
• 32:14
  the the death Seth is a lot about passion and apathy is the
• 32:19
  absence of that. And apathy is also a detriment
• 32:21
  to the light side because if you're not willing to have the
• 32:24
  energy to intervene or do the right thing, like that's also
• 32:27
  the destruction of the good side as well.
• 32:29
  So I think in that one sentence Tony Evans summoned like, like
• 32:34
  summed up like the one emotion that is devastating to both
• 32:38
  sides of the argument. I thought that he really drove
• 32:41
  it home. So all due respect to Tony Evans
• 32:43
  on Pray the what you're saying about like the aliens and the
• 32:48
  typhoon, like learning like emotions and reasons for for
• 32:52
  their existence. That was Ricardo Baer, who who
• 32:55
  was the lead writer actually, and this is going to be a
• 32:58
  spoiler. That wasn't part of the original
• 33:01
  story. Ricardo actually had time to
• 33:04
  think about it. And I think over over the course
• 33:07
  of a year while working on the core price storyline, it
• 33:10
  occurred to him that you know what, the ending didn't feel
• 33:14
  strong enough. Like there wasn't like, I guess
• 33:16
  maybe a learning experience or an evolution thinking for either
• 33:19
  side. Well, technically like your
• 33:22
  relationship with your brother and pray.
• 33:23
  I would like to think this some sort of evolution, but in terms
• 33:26
  of the alien side, like that was kind of completely being ignored
• 33:30
  except for the sense of an ad, except in the sense of them
• 33:32
  being adversaries. So I think Ricardo did an
• 33:35
  excellent thing by going, well, we're sort of examine the
• 33:39
  evolution of a personal relationship and pray with your
• 33:42
  brother and all the people on the station whose actions you've
• 33:46
  you've caused consequences for, to put it lightly.
• 33:49
  He was like, well, on the alien side too, there should also be
• 33:53
  like some sort of element of growth or understanding.
• 33:56
  And that's why. And there was that ending that
• 34:00
  that occurs that sort of like turns things on its head.
• 34:02
  And I don't want to give me spoilers, but that was Ricardo's
• 34:05
  idea. And it came from him having time
• 34:08
  to think about the storyline and go, wait a minute.
• 34:10
  Now that I've been a master in this for so long, I, I can now
• 34:13
  see an opportunity and also something this story is missing.
• 34:17
  And then he just went and had an additive.
• 34:19
  Interesting. OK, so then it's coming out of
• 34:21
  the slightly different angle, so you might not have written the
• 34:24
  line. Apathy is death.
• 34:26
  But Krea has this fascination, which she mentions it at least
• 34:29
  once throughout the game, if I remember correctly, that she has
• 34:31
  an obsession. She'd love to kill the force.
• 34:34
  So why it's, it's almost as if, as you're saying it's, it's true
• 34:38
  that she wants deep thought and philosophical analysis and every
• 34:41
  single effect and every single action that a person does
• 34:44
  indeed. But yet she wants to destroy
• 34:47
  what is the depth of the universe, the thing, the
• 34:50
  unifying thing that keeps it together, which is the force.
• 34:53
  So why is that so? Why does she have a desire to
• 34:56
  destroy the force? And yeah, so it came from
• 35:00
  elements about Star Wars that were introduced in the prequels
• 35:03
  that I very strongly disagreed with.
• 35:06
  And it might have just been my role-playing game background
• 35:08
  where in choice is very important.
• 35:11
  The prequels were implying that the Force was OK with mass
• 35:15
  slaughter to achieve balance. And slaughter might be a strong
• 35:18
  word, but ultimately there's going to be a lot of people who
• 35:20
  die. Like sentient people who did not
• 35:23
  deserve it are going to die. Why do you say that?
• 35:27
  Well, so if I understand, and my recollection might be a little
• 35:31
  shaky, but the, the I think the prequels were stating that the
• 35:37
  force was always trying to achieve balance.
• 35:41
  However, everything that happens in the prequels delivers a lot
• 35:46
  of suffering to people I don't think deserve it just because
• 35:51
  the force is trying to right itself.
• 35:54
  Now, in my view, there would have been a better way to
• 35:58
  explain that where it's like, OK, well, if the Force feeds on
• 36:02
  the sentiment, not feeds, but like resonates with the
• 36:07
  emotional energy of people in the universe, then technically
• 36:12
  that does mean the universe is is off balance for all these
• 36:15
  people and they they are contributing to the problem
• 36:18
  that's occurring. And you can make a strong
• 36:19
  argument for that, but that's not what the prequel seemed to
• 36:22
  suggest. It seemed like the force was
• 36:25
  sort of willing was was OK with the the loss of a considerable
• 36:29
  amount of life across the Galaxy to make itself feel better
• 36:33
  strangely. And then the other problem was
• 36:37
  it didn't feel like anyone had a choice about it.
• 36:39
  And that's what really bothered me.
• 36:42
  I'm a, I'm OK with predestination and other faiths.
• 36:46
  That's absolutely fine. But within the context of a
• 36:47
  role-playing game or in a fan or in a a fantasy media delivery
• 36:53
  product, like like a film or TV series, if there's
• 36:57
  predestination is the plot, then I think that actually just hurts
• 37:01
  the plot because there was never a choice for any characters
• 37:04
  whatsoever. And I've had plenty of debates
• 37:07
  with friends over the time as to whether that's the case or
• 37:09
  whether not the case. But that was just my personal
• 37:11
  view. So I was like, well, Crea would
• 37:14
  really bristle at this. Like, First off, like, I don't
• 37:17
  want to be trapped by this otherworldly like energy field
• 37:21
  that surrounds all things and thinks that it's OK for me to
• 37:23
  die, like I want to say in it. And then I'd also question,
• 37:27
  well, what are we giving up as individuals by giving ourselves
• 37:33
  over to the force? Like, is it really the right
• 37:35
  thing to do? Like does the force have our
• 37:37
  best interests at heart? Did we ever really have a choice
• 37:39
  about it? All those questions are very in
• 37:43
  the kind of the Star Wars, We're actually giving very anti RPG
• 37:46
  answers. So within the context of of nice
• 37:48
  Republic two, I'm like, well, you know, I'd kind of like to
• 37:52
  break the universe a little bit and like give the forgive the
• 37:55
  freedom of choice back the sentient people of the Galaxy.
• 37:58
  And I consider that a very noble goal.
• 38:01
  But then Kraya makes all the right, all the wrong ways, all
• 38:04
  the wrong decisions about how to go about that.
• 38:07
  But I did want her to have a strong agenda for why she was
• 38:13
  doing things that would also resonate whether you were light
• 38:16
  side or dark side. Neither side wants to be
• 38:18
  chained. This otherworldly force that's
• 38:20
  that's that's controlling like every movement you do and
• 38:24
  already has your history written out.
• 38:26
  You do want to have a choice over the things, whether you're
• 38:28
  light side or dark side and you and it might be better to live
• 38:31
  in a universe like that. And regardless of Crea's
• 38:34
  methodology for doing it, I think both sides could have
• 38:37
  agreed that, you know what, maybe the universe would be
• 38:40
  better off if the force didn't exist and it wasn't and it
• 38:45
  wasn't railroading us down these paths.
• 38:47
  And I thought that would that would be an interesting aspect
• 38:48
  to explore. Was that more of hate coming
• 38:52
  from Kreya or hate coming from you meaning it you it was it you
• 38:57
  were just so bothered with this, with this predestination within
• 39:00
  the Force that you wanted to make your mark?
• 39:02
  Or do you feel that that was completely Kreya?
• 39:04
  So it it flowed right into that? Not personal to me.
• 39:08
  Personal in terms of storytelling.
• 39:10
  I was like, it did bother me from all aspects of
• 39:14
  storytelling. It's I feel like once you
• 39:16
  introduce that, introduce the idea of predestination to a
• 39:18
  plot, there's not really a plot there.
• 39:20
  It's just going to be like, OK, well it was already planned out.
• 39:23
  Like all the character choices and the film and the film and
• 39:26
  the game TV, like none of those matter because it's already
• 39:29
  written. So for me, I'm like, well then I
• 39:32
  don't really care about things from moment to moment because
• 39:35
  like it's already been plotted out.
• 39:36
  Like it within the moment, these choices don't really matter
• 39:39
  because the ending's always going to be the same and the
• 39:41
  steps to reach there would also be the same, which is also
• 39:43
  horrible. And for me as a role-playing
• 39:46
  game designer, I'm really big about choice.
• 39:48
  And also, I think stories in various media become stronger
• 39:53
  when it when it's not all laid out like that, when the when the
• 39:55
  characters aren't forced down a certain path like they have some
• 39:58
  agency otherwise, like it's more passive.
• 40:02
  And there's a distinction that I make often between discipline
• 40:05
  and philosophy. So sometimes people want to
• 40:07
  change their actions. They want to do a particular
• 40:10
  action that they don't do enough of to be kind.
• 40:13
  They want to stop doing an action that they, they don't
• 40:15
  like to be cruel or what have you.
• 40:18
  And people go about that. I find usually through
• 40:22
  discipline, they, they say, well, if I do this, I'll give,
• 40:26
  I'll treat myself if I don't have my friend pour, you know,
• 40:29
  cold water on me. What maybe.
• 40:31
  And I find this, I find this very juvenile because I think
• 40:36
  discipline is not meant for that at all.
• 40:39
  Discipline is a Band-Aid. Discipline is to buy you time
• 40:41
  because there's going to be one day where you're not going to
• 40:43
  have enough discipline. The, the true change happens at
• 40:46
  the philosophical level of who you are.
• 40:49
  I mean, the reason why you and I both put shirts on this morning
• 40:51
  is not because there was some, you know, really big desire to
• 40:54
  not put on a shirt and we had the discipline to put on the
• 40:56
  shirt. It's, it's because it's because
• 40:59
  of who we are. We're, we're, you know, we're,
• 41:01
  we're nice because, you know, it's, it's who we are.
• 41:04
  It's, it's what we believe. So I think what you're saying is
• 41:08
  it's so it's so deep and it's, I think very significant, which
• 41:11
  is, is that if you, if you have to make a choice because you're
• 41:15
  forced to do it, either you're forcing yourself or someone else
• 41:18
  is forcing you to do it. It has no deaths.
• 41:20
  It just doesn't. And it's not really you.
• 41:22
  I really don't think it's you. Discipline is not really you.
• 41:24
  It's something that you'd like to be, but it isn't the person
• 41:27
  that you are right now. I think it's a very fair
• 41:30
  characterization. And also, sorry.
• 41:32
  So as you were talking, the, that whole nature of discipline
• 41:38
  and you're right, like, I mean, and like everyone's experienced
• 41:41
  it. There's just a moment in your
• 41:43
  life where you do not have the mental strength to do the thing
• 41:47
  that you think is the right thing to do because you're worn
• 41:50
  down, your energy is really low. You would like to do it, but you
• 41:54
  just can't bring yourself to do it.
• 41:55
  And we've all been there, and we've all regretted those
• 41:58
  actions. One thing I did find encouraging
• 42:01
  and yet not encouraging at the same time, is that I did
• 42:05
  discover that I could habitually program myself to do the right
• 42:09
  thing. So like, even when life would
• 42:13
  surprise me, if I had conditioned myself day-to-day
• 42:16
  with a certain habit of how to approach things instinctively, I
• 42:20
  would react with a good reaction because it was part of my
• 42:24
  habits. And I like to think that all
• 42:25
  came from a good place. But, and that might sound more
• 42:28
  clinical than it means to, but I think if you like live your life
• 42:34
  and actually condition yourself to follow certain habits, like
• 42:38
  day after day after day, when you're right, when the stakes
• 42:41
  aren't as high or, and your discipline is high, that can
• 42:46
  give you additional strength for when your energy levels are low
• 42:49
  or you're just, one might be like lacking just because out of
• 42:51
  conditioning. And I, I don't know that's a
• 42:53
  positive message or a negative message, but that's been
• 42:56
  something that's made me feel better about, you know, human
• 43:00
  nature and the idea that we can work to make ourselves feel
• 43:04
  better, network, just not, not not yourselves feel better, but
• 43:07
  work to make ourselves better and to do the right thing when
• 43:10
  the situation calls on it. And I think that's something
• 43:13
  that we can all train ourselves to do, to react reflexively and
• 43:17
  not in a situation that happens suddenly if we've made an effort
• 43:21
  in all previous days to always try and habitually do the right
• 43:24
  thing. You know, Chris, I'm not
• 43:26
  completely sure I understand. Can you unpack that for me?
• 43:29
  It's very interesting. But what like it's it's not is a
• 43:32
  discipline, is it a philosophical restructure?
• 43:34
  If you could walk me through a little bit more what you're
• 43:36
  saying, I'd. Appreciate it.
• 43:38
  So I'll take a minor low emotional example.
• 43:42
  Like I think it's respectful to pay attention in meetings.
• 43:45
  Like if someone invites you to a meeting and they're covering
• 43:48
  topics, you don't zone out, you don't like, you know, wave in
• 43:51
  your chair, you don't like, check your phone, you don't
• 43:54
  share your cat videos. For some people that's a huge
• 43:58
  effort. And for a while it was a huge
• 44:00
  effort for me. And I think that paying
• 44:02
  attention in meetings, like even even if the low stakes, you
• 44:05
  know, good, evil thing, I feel it's a good action to take.
• 44:08
  It's respectful to the speaker. They've invited you there.
• 44:11
  You're there to listen, absorb and actually give your thoughts
• 44:14
  on the topic. Hopefully, however, So what I
• 44:17
  would do is in any other meeting that I would have across my
• 44:22
  life, I'm like, well, now that I realize that I am going to train
• 44:26
  myself for every single meeting to make sure I'm always paying
• 44:30
  attention. And you're going to laugh at
• 44:32
  this, but I actually had a counter like that.
• 44:35
  I would keep like this little combination bike lock on my belt
• 44:38
  where I'm like, every time I catch myself not paying
• 44:41
  attention or I find my attention drifting, I'd click a number on
• 44:46
  that lock that would advance the counter to revert myself back to
• 44:49
  paying attention. And I would do that again and
• 44:51
  again and again until I didn't do it anymore.
• 44:54
  I would just do it naturally. And because that's, I would
• 44:57
  train myself basically to be the person that I wanted to be and
• 45:00
  to be respectful to the person who's invited me this meeting
• 45:03
  and is presenting this information regardless of do I
• 45:06
  find it like enthralling at every second?
• 45:09
  No, but but I should make an effort to absorb what this
• 45:13
  person's saying because of the context of this meeting.
• 45:16
  So that's a very minor example, but it's a way of it was a way
• 45:19
  of habitually training myself to observe proper meeting
• 45:22
  etiquette, hopefully for a greater good for showing respect
• 45:26
  for the person who invited me to this meeting.
• 45:29
  That particular example has it bled over to other aspects of
• 45:33
  your life as well? Yeah, it, I did it with working
• 45:36
  out. I did it with making sure I
• 45:38
  arrived 5 minutes before like any scheduled appointment.
• 45:42
  And I am not always successful with that, but it's always
• 45:45
  polite to the person you're meeting with.
• 45:47
  And there was a whole list of behaviors where I'm like, I
• 45:50
  don't like these things about myself.
• 45:51
  Like, and I don't think I should treat these sloppily or
• 45:54
  carelessly because I've seen the effects of people viewing this
• 45:59
  stuff carelessly or flippantly. It hurts their feelings like it,
• 46:03
  it undermines their confidence. It, it makes them feel like you
• 46:06
  don't really care about, you know what they're saying or
• 46:09
  meeting up with them. And that's not what I want to be
• 46:11
  about. Like I want, if someone's wants
• 46:15
  me to, wants me there to present a certain idea or listen to a
• 46:18
  certain idea, I want to give them 100% of my attention.
• 46:21
  And I think that's something that you can train yourself to
• 46:24
  do, even if what they're saying is not the most mesmerizing
• 46:27
  thing you've heard from 2nd to 2nd.
• 46:29
  It's important that you, you know, push yourself to pay
• 46:32
  attention. I, you know, and then I do that
• 46:34
  for like things like weightlifting or like, you know,
• 46:36
  maintaining my proper sleep schedule or maybe shutting up
• 46:39
  when my wife is talking so she can get her opinions out and
• 46:43
  actually, and actually like absorbing what she's trying to
• 46:47
  say without trying to fix everything because that's the,
• 46:50
  that's what she wants from a listening partner.
• 46:52
  And like all those things you can train yourself to do, it
• 46:55
  just requires effort and it can be a little mechanical on how to
• 46:58
  do it. But I think the end result makes
• 47:00
  you a better person. And I, I don't know whether
• 47:02
  that's actually a good thing or a bad thing because technically
• 47:05
  you're going through a like a mechanical process to make
• 47:07
  yourself better, but I think in the end, it's the result that
• 47:11
  that matters. So Chris, two things, One is I
• 47:15
  absolutely love what you just said.
• 47:17
  I'm in love with it. And two is I also am going to
• 47:20
  disagree with part of it. And I want you to to tell me if
• 47:23
  I'm right or wrong because I'm I'm literally defining.
• 47:26
  Well, no, you'll know. You'll know.
• 47:28
  I argue that what you did wasn't discipline really at all in the
• 47:32
  way that I was talking about discipline versus philosophical
• 47:34
  construction. I'll explain what I mean.
• 47:35
  I'll explain what I mean. So let's say, let's say you have
• 47:39
  someone that he wants. He, he, he's consistently late
• 47:44
  to work and he shouldn't be late to work.
• 47:46
  And he doesn't really get hit by it at work.
• 47:48
  But you know, every once in a while maybe he gets a comment.
• 47:51
  So he wants to not, he wants to want to not be late to work.
• 47:55
  So he's like, OK, you know, people find it important.
• 47:58
  I don't really find it important, but my Co workers say
• 48:00
  stuff sometimes. So you know, I'm going to, I'm
• 48:02
  going to pour water in my head if I'm 5 minutes late to work,
• 48:05
  whatever it may be. That's, that's discipline for
• 48:07
  something that you don't really care about.
• 48:09
  So you can, you can design that discipline and and I don't, I'm
• 48:13
  not saying it's not, it's not important, but I just think that
• 48:16
  it runs out eventually. And, and and what discipline is
• 48:19
  supposed to do is give us space to work underneath.
• 48:22
  Your experience, I think was the exact opposite.
• 48:24
  You were like, this is really disrespectful for my Co workers.
• 48:28
  I really want to pay attention in those meetings.
• 48:30
  You didn't want to want to pay attention.
• 48:32
  You really wanted to pay attention.
• 48:33
  Just how did you go about it? You found a mechanism that
• 48:36
  really worked for you by having this bike walk on your belt that
• 48:38
  was able to help, you know, snap you back into it.
• 48:40
  I'd make the argument that you you're already a good person,
• 48:43
  you already had that philosophical backing, and then
• 48:46
  you just use the discipline tool in order to amplify it.
• 48:48
  Correct me if I'm wrong you. Know, I guess I never thought
• 48:54
  about it in that way. OK, I guess I would say that
• 48:58
  from an empathy perspective, wanting to make your colleagues,
• 49:03
  wanting to respect your colleagues work and pay
• 49:06
  attention, be aware, be in the moment isn't necessarily about
• 49:11
  you. It's, it's creating a better
• 49:13
  work environment for everyone. And I, I, I guess I, I can see
• 49:18
  what you're saying in the sense that because you're thinking
• 49:21
  about someone's emotions beyond yourself, that that can be a, a,
• 49:26
  a very good thing. And I I wouldn't disagree with
• 49:28
  that. And you cared.
• 49:31
  But then part of me is like, well, but I, I, part of me
• 49:34
  wonders if it's selfish because I've seen the opposite at
• 49:38
  workplaces. So for example, what you're
• 49:40
  saying about late to work, back at a previous company, there was
• 49:44
  a designer I worked with who was very talented, very nice, but he
• 49:48
  would consistently show up late to work.
• 49:50
  And he had discovered that if he told his see if by by being
• 49:55
  chummy with ACEO, he absolutely got away with it every day.
• 50:00
  And even by even me saying he got away with it, I think, you
• 50:04
  know, I'm, I'm being judgy. The problem was he never made
• 50:08
  any effort to try and be in on time because he never considered
• 50:12
  that he was setting a bad example for everybody else in
• 50:15
  the office. He was being disrespectful to
• 50:17
  everyone else in the office, who ever else who did show up on
• 50:20
  time, who did show up at the meetings.
• 50:22
  And he was an official responsibility.
• 50:23
  So like him setting an example was even more important.
• 50:26
  But because he got this personal relationship, he felt that it
• 50:31
  would be OK for him to let those particular aspects slide.
• 50:35
  And I guess I disagreed with that philosophy, with that
• 50:38
  philosophy, especially if you're running a, a large team and a
• 50:41
  multi $1,000,000 project, like if you're not on point and if
• 50:45
  you're not doing your job and you're not aware all these
• 50:47
  people's jobs are at stake, like, and you need to, you need
• 50:50
  to be giving 110% too. So part of me is like, maybe
• 50:53
  it's the, the irritation that I felt about that situation that
• 50:57
  motivated me to try and be change some behavior.
• 51:00
  So I'm like, well, well, I don't, I don't want to 'cause
• 51:02
  that, that bad effect in the environment, but I'm seeing the
• 51:05
  damage it's doing. And I guess you could argue that
• 51:07
  that's kind of good. But I, I guess I don't feel like
• 51:10
  it's 100% good. I feel like there's there's
• 51:12
  still a core of selfishness in there.
• 51:14
  Well, I don't see it. Maybe there is.
• 51:17
  I think that that's you desiring to do good.
• 51:19
  Again, the word for discipline, I think is is improperly used as
• 51:23
  I want to want something and that's going to wear off.
• 51:26
  You know, a person that that is doing something purely because
• 51:30
  they want to they wish they were that person, but they don't
• 51:33
  really want to be that sort of person.
• 51:35
  You're not going to hit a target if you're not aiming for it,
• 51:37
  right? So if you're not right, if
• 51:40
  you're not working internally to get that emotion of it irritates
• 51:43
  me, right. If you're just going to pretend
• 51:45
  it irritates you, that's not going to help.
• 51:47
  But if it's if it's really irritating you like it, it
• 51:49
  irritated you, Chris, then I think that that you do bring
• 51:53
  about positive change in a in a real serious way.
• 51:55
  I don't think it necessarily. Look, maybe it's just it's me
• 51:58
  calling you selfless. I don't.
• 51:59
  I don't think that that's a selfish thing, but that's just
• 52:01
  my perspective. Well, you're very, you're very
• 52:04
  kind to say, Rabbi, I appreciate that.
• 52:06
  I, I don't know. I sometimes like when I analyze
• 52:09
  decisions, like I try and do postmortems about stuff like,
• 52:11
  well, how did the situation occur?
• 52:13
  Like what, what steps could I have done to prevent this, this
• 52:15
  bad effect, this bad consequence?
• 52:17
  Sometimes that just comes from, well, I don't want people to
• 52:20
  hate me. So like so so part of me wonders
• 52:23
  like where where the agenda comes from sometimes.
• 52:26
  That's selfish. That's selfish.
• 52:28
  That's OK like that, like that's selfish.
• 52:30
  But but I just don't think that's such a bad thing.
• 52:33
  Like it? It's yeah, you could be a
• 52:34
  paragon, but that's pretty light side to me.
• 52:38
  OK, fair enough. OK, so let's talk about Fallout
• 52:43
  New Vegas. There's, there's a really
• 52:45
  interesting point or setup that I that I like, which is there's
• 52:50
  two factions, if I understand correctly, and one of them is
• 52:53
  basically people are going to get mad at me on the Internet.
• 52:56
  Because I don't know, it's it's New California Republic, which
• 53:00
  like, and then there's Caesar's Legion and then.
• 53:02
  There's Legion. House, who's in charge of Las
• 53:05
  Vegas and those are the three power groups, yeah.
• 53:07
  Correct. Thank you.
• 53:08
  Thank you. No problem.
• 53:10
  Excuse my ignorance, but basically what you've, what
• 53:12
  you've done, at least with the first two groups, is you set up
• 53:15
  Rome versus the US, right, California versus Caesar's
• 53:18
  Legion. And that's really the West
• 53:21
  versus the West, which I'm not sure people are always, you
• 53:24
  know, aware of when we say the West, right?
• 53:26
  When we say the rest, we mean the Roman Empire.
• 53:28
  I mean, they, they, they are the, the real birth of the West,
• 53:32
  right? So do you think that the West
• 53:35
  does have these, these two sides of manifestations, one being
• 53:38
  tyrannical and one being democratic?
• 53:40
  I think, I think that sometimes we say, oh, the West, the West
• 53:44
  is democratic and, and there's never been another face of the
• 53:47
  West, but I'm not sure that's true.
• 53:49
  I think it's definitely gotten more complicated in the in the
• 53:53
  past few years for sure. So my thoughts on that are so
• 53:58
  are, I guess I should start from a game perspective.
• 54:01
  So for me, I did not like the Caesar's Legion leaning so much
• 54:09
  into the Roman Empire. I thought it was kind of Star
• 54:11
  Trekky and kind of it just didn't feel quite correct for
• 54:15
  the Fallout universe. So from that respect, I kind of
• 54:19
  disagreed with the tone of the Legion.
• 54:23
  Not only from that respect, but there were certain elements
• 54:27
  about the Legion's philosophy that I thought actually would
• 54:31
  alienate players from ever joining the faction.
• 54:35
  And, and for me as a game designer, that's a problem
• 54:39
  because if you're creating content that no one's ever going
• 54:41
  to interact with or a majority of people aren't going to
• 54:44
  interact with, maybe you might want to take a closer look as to
• 54:47
  why people won't engage with it. And what I mean by this is like,
• 54:51
  if I'm playing a female character in Fallout New Vegas,
• 54:54
  I'm not going to join Caesar's Legion.
• 54:56
  Like they hate me. Like they, they already consider
• 54:58
  me like the lowest class citizen.
• 54:59
  And I'm like, well, that's a me. That's like, I turn off at least
• 55:03
  half your players. So I'm like in a game where
• 55:05
  you're supposed to like try and understand a faction, like weigh
• 55:10
  its philosophy and see if it matches with yours and then
• 55:13
  decide to join them. When you have big roadblocks
• 55:17
  like that, I don't think it helps the choice between the
• 55:21
  factions because Oh well, NCR doesn't discriminate that way.
• 55:24
  Like in which case, like all the female players will join NCR,
• 55:28
  but like, but it's not for a really deep philosophical reason
• 55:32
  is just because how like you, you made 11 entry in allegiance
• 55:36
  philosophy that they consider women to be, you know, second
• 55:39
  class citizens. So you're like, OK, well, we
• 55:41
  could have changed that like, and, and made, made it more
• 55:44
  open. Like if people would put it, you
• 55:46
  know, more, the more, the more negative players would of course
• 55:49
  grab their pitchforks and torches and go, how dare you
• 55:51
  blah, blah. But the point is, like when you
• 55:53
  make a faction, I feel like it should be a choice where a
• 55:58
  player sets for a few minutes and goes, wow, OK, here's
• 56:02
  House's plan for the future, here's the Legions plan for the
• 56:06
  future, and here's NCR's plan for the future.
• 56:10
  What I did find fascinating, the more I worked on New Vegas is I
• 56:15
  felt like NCR was an interesting philosophical trap because NCR
• 56:20
  is basically, hey, you know, it's it's got a lot of the
• 56:23
  elements of pre war America. So therefore, like any, you
• 56:26
  know, American audience be like, oh, sure, like NCR like 100%.
• 56:29
  But if you really dig into what NCR is doing, they're doing a
• 56:33
  lot of damage to Mojave. Like they they can't, they can't
• 56:37
  protect supply lines, they're miscoverning the region.
• 56:41
  They're causing a lot of problems.
• 56:43
  So you like instinctively going rah, rah America and then
• 56:47
  joining NCR. That's not necessarily a good
• 56:49
  thing, nor is it going to end up the way you expect it is because
• 56:53
  the in NCR and fallout is it's our organization that just can't
• 56:57
  take care of itself. And that I thought was a really
• 57:00
  interesting question and it made for really interesting trap for
• 57:04
  people like for people who were comfortable with the idea of pre
• 57:07
  war America. And they're like, oh, sure, I'll
• 57:09
  join that because, you know, I, I live in America and
• 57:12
  everything, you know, everything's perfect all the
• 57:13
  time. So NCR must be the choice.
• 57:15
  But really within the game, it's not.
• 57:17
  And I thought that that was a great reversal within the game
• 57:22
  to sort of like make make sort of like it could have been a
• 57:26
  trap for players to fall into if it wasn't examined more.
• 57:29
  And I did try and write characters that would point out
• 57:32
  those issues and then also point out the positives of Caesar's
• 57:35
  Legion. Because in the game, Caesar's
• 57:37
  Legion basically had no positives, which means you can't
• 57:40
  really motivate any player to join that faction because if
• 57:44
  there's no positives about it, like you'd have to be like a
• 57:47
  really negative person or a nihilistic person to want to be
• 57:50
  a part of it. And that's not what faction
• 57:52
  choices should be about. You should be examining the
• 57:54
  philosophy, see how it messes with yours, see how it meshes
• 57:58
  with the world's future. Like you might not like that
• 58:01
  faction, but like, what if 20 years of following that factions
• 58:04
  dictates does make for a better future?
• 58:06
  That's an interesting question. Like, are you willing to like,
• 58:09
  you know, subvert or some more like press down your own beliefs
• 58:12
  in the moment and the hopes for a better future?
• 58:15
  Like, that's an interesting question to ask, but I feel like
• 58:18
  some of the factions in New Vegas weren't it, weren't asking
• 58:20
  those questions. You know, that's I really wonder
• 58:23
  the following is is NCR, the current United States of America
• 58:27
  and I'll and I'll package this a little bit just like you just
• 58:33
  described. Someone could join NCR because
• 58:35
  it's America and I love America. Let's go America and I was born
• 58:38
  in America and I love America. I live in Israel and I love
• 58:40
  Israel more, but I love America. Is is America What?
• 58:44
  What it it appears to be? I I sometimes feel, especially
• 58:48
  now that I have a little bit more of an outside view, that we
• 58:52
  just think America is great all the time.
• 58:55
  Yeah. We make tons of mistakes.
• 58:58
  Was that one of your intentions? Well, I didn't design NCR from
• 59:02
  that respect, but I what I did think was interesting was NCR
• 59:05
  had all the trappings of America, but it didn't have the
• 59:09
  one for one flaws. It had different flaws.
• 59:12
  America has its has tremendous flaws in the real world.
• 59:16
  But NCR had the trappings of like an ideal like America or,
• 59:20
  or pre war America, but it had so many problems beyond the
• 59:26
  trappings of America that you really had to examine and see,
• 59:29
  well, why wait a minute? Like is that faction really
• 59:32
  worth supporting in its current state?
• 59:34
  Because they are making a lot of mistakes and a lot of these
• 59:38
  problems we're seeing in the Mojave in the game are a result
• 59:41
  of NCR mismanaging things. And I thought that was really
• 59:45
  interesting question to ask. But NCR isn't America, but it
• 59:48
  has the trappings of America. And so like, I think it's a
• 59:51
  comfortable lure for people who are like, well, I want to fix
• 59:54
  the world. So like if I take, you know,
• 59:56
  this, this, this, you know, this apocalyptic America and bring it
• 59:59
  back to what it used to be, that's going to be the best
• 1:00:01
  thing ever. But then you have to ask
• 1:00:03
  yourself, well, NCR just has the trappings of America.
• 1:00:06
  Like, so are you falling for that trap before the rug pool
• 1:00:09
  happens? And did you really examine your
• 1:00:11
  choice before making it so? And what?
• 1:00:14
  One last thing, I know I ramble a lot with these answers.
• 1:00:17
  Tim Kaine, I thought, approached playing New Vegas.
• 1:00:20
  The and Tim Kaine's the founder of Fallout, him and Leonard
• 1:00:23
  Biochka and Jason, he played New Vegas.
• 1:00:25
  He hadn't worked on it, but he approached it from what I'd
• 1:00:29
  hoped all players would approach it where he was like, well, I
• 1:00:32
  examined each faction's goals. Like, I didn't necessarily agree
• 1:00:36
  100% with each faction, but in talking with Mr. House in New
• 1:00:40
  Vegas, I felt that his plan for the future was really well
• 1:00:44
  thought out and I had a lot of confidence in it if I supported
• 1:00:48
  him. And that's why he made his
• 1:00:50
  choice. And I'm like, that's, that's
• 1:00:52
  like a game designer's dream answer from a player.
• 1:00:56
  We were like, my God, you did think deeply about this.
• 1:00:59
  You did take all that information.
• 1:01:01
  And then even though it might not have been your instinctive
• 1:01:03
  choice, you took it because of the promise of the future based
• 1:01:07
  on everything that you're seeing in the game.
• 1:01:09
  And I'm like, wonderful. Like that means all her work and
• 1:01:11
  all her efforts being rewarded by your play style and that and
• 1:01:15
  that's the goal right there. Beautiful.
• 1:01:18
  Now, something that you seem to understand quite well and if our
• 1:01:22
  viewers have been watching up until this point, it's become
• 1:01:25
  obvious that Chris is going to be sensitive to this.
• 1:01:28
  But I'll ask this in a in a slightly different way.
• 1:01:31
  Is there really a true good or true evil?
• 1:01:36
  Or are we always going to find good in a little in our evil,
• 1:01:39
  and always going to find some evil in our good?
• 1:01:42
  I think there's always going to be a mix unless we radically
• 1:01:45
  change as human beings biologically and spiritually.
• 1:01:49
  I don't think the true one hundred 100% good is something
• 1:01:55
  that you know, I will ever see in my lifetime.
• 1:01:58
  And I I think currently like we're always in a mix of those
• 1:02:02
  two States and we're hopefully trying to follow our better
• 1:02:05
  natures. But like, let's like what you
• 1:02:07
  were saying with discipline and those days when that energy and
• 1:02:11
  the discipline, you don't have enough of it and you might do an
• 1:02:15
  evil act out of weakness or because you're tired or you
• 1:02:19
  don't have the energy, even though it's the right thing to
• 1:02:21
  do. And arguably be on some level
• 1:02:24
  that that isn't evil, you know, and it's unfortunate because
• 1:02:27
  it's not like you're actively trying to be evil, but it's the
• 1:02:30
  apathy aspect where your, your energy is low.
• 1:02:33
  You can't, you can't muster the strength to make the right
• 1:02:36
  decision or, you know, take the slings and arrows to make to
• 1:02:39
  make the right decision. And so I thought, so I guess
• 1:02:43
  what I'd say is I always feel that there's always a mix of
• 1:02:45
  those two and that next is probably going to persist for,
• 1:02:49
  you know, for a very long time just going to just because of
• 1:02:51
  human nature. I hear I've gone through my
• 1:02:55
  questions but since I'm the host I get to ask one more.
• 1:03:01
  Perfect. OK, every ever since I was a
• 1:03:04
  kid, just answer this question. So.
• 1:03:14
  Really. So First off, there's a personal
• 1:03:18
  issue there and that Crea has been dissatisfied with just
• 1:03:23
  about every person she's met in the Galaxy.
• 1:03:26
  All of them have failed her in some respect.
• 1:03:28
  They they either didn't think deeply about a subject, they
• 1:03:30
  didn't think their actions all the way through.
• 1:03:33
  But you as a player are a huge question mark because you did
• 1:03:38
  something that she never did, where instead of like trying to
• 1:03:43
  trying to still using the Force to find your way in the Galaxy,
• 1:03:46
  you as a you as a character stepped away from it, which is
• 1:03:49
  something that she has never done.
• 1:03:51
  And so for her, you're already setting a better example than
• 1:03:55
  she is, and she has to find out why because, like, she needs to
• 1:03:59
  know if that motivation came from a good place.
• 1:04:02
  Like, like, what caused it? Like what?
• 1:04:04
  What was your thought process and your choice that led you to
• 1:04:06
  that? And that's why.
• 1:04:07
  And that's another reason why she interrogates you throughout
• 1:04:09
  the game about Jedi and philosophies because she wants
• 1:04:11
  to find that answer. So is that there's that personal
• 1:04:14
  divide there where you've done something that she can't fully
• 1:04:19
  understand but wants to think, oh, stepping away from the
• 1:04:23
  Force, like, OK, for Jedi and Sith, like they never do, like
• 1:04:27
  the the Force is everything to them and their powers and their
• 1:04:30
  abilities, how they perceive the Galaxy.
• 1:04:33
  But when you start the game as a player, you've stepped away from
• 1:04:35
  all that and purposely on choice.
• 1:04:37
  And for her, that's a very, very strong decision that she's never
• 1:04:42
  done. So that that's one aspect where
• 1:04:44
  like she's trying to figure out why you've done that and she
• 1:04:48
  instantly feels that you might have more strength than she does
• 1:04:52
  because you made that choice. So that's one thing.
• 1:04:55
  The other thing is that Krea has seen the philosophy of the dark
• 1:05:00
  side, light side from the extreme of both aspects.
• 1:05:04
  She's saying what the Jedi Order is all about.
• 1:05:06
  She's see how the Seth behaves and she's found them both
• 1:05:08
  wanting. Like neither of those
• 1:05:09
  philosophies are going to work long term in her opinion.
• 1:05:13
  But it's not just that. It's this domineering presence
• 1:05:18
  that exists in the Galaxy that has us all trapped in this loop.
• 1:05:21
  And for her, she has this belief and it she's going about the
• 1:05:26
  wrong way, and it may not be right at all.
• 1:05:28
  But she believes that by breaking that connection by
• 1:05:32
  creating a Malachor event that, like, you know, causes that
• 1:05:35
  absence of the Force in certain sections of the Galaxy, that she
• 1:05:38
  can free people like from that domineering presence.
• 1:05:42
  And people can be more individuals and perhaps be
• 1:05:45
  stronger as a result of not relying on the force.
• 1:05:49
  But she's going about it all wrong.
• 1:05:51
  And God knows that like that's actually the the right thing to
• 1:05:54
  do it all. But it does give her a strong
• 1:05:56
  motivation as a character, which I think is always important for
• 1:05:59
  your antagonist. So those are the two things that
• 1:06:01
  that that that are on Crea's agenda.
• 1:06:03
  And I don't know if that answers your question fully, but those
• 1:06:06
  are those were the kind of the two big things that I had in
• 1:06:08
  mind while riding Crea. It does, but why is she doing it
• 1:06:11
  all wrong? Because I don't think you need
• 1:06:16
  to inflict more pain and damage on the Galaxy to create that
• 1:06:22
  effect. I think that, you know, we're
• 1:06:25
  basically showing you in your role as the player right from
• 1:06:28
  the start of the game, that you accepting the force and
• 1:06:31
  channeling it and using its power is always a choice.
• 1:06:35
  You never had to do it, Joanne Sith do it.
• 1:06:39
  But if you step away from that and realize that that
• 1:06:42
  philosophy, that mechanism, that trapped like that trapped
• 1:06:47
  predestination loop is not for you, and you step away from it,
• 1:06:51
  that that's something you can do nonviolently and you can do it
• 1:06:54
  without hurting anybody else because it can.
• 1:06:58
  It can become a personal choice without violence.
• 1:07:01
  And with Crea, that's the leap that she never really quite
• 1:07:04
  makes. And that's unfortunate.
• 1:07:07
  But isn't that a leap that she couldn't make?
• 1:07:08
  I mean, isn't her point that everyone is going to be
• 1:07:11
  influenced on some level by the force?
• 1:07:13
  Yeah, well, I think what what's intended to make you feel more
• 1:07:17
  special as a player is that hopefully you realize that Craig
• 1:07:21
  didn't have the strength to make that choice and that's that
• 1:07:24
  nuts. And that's what's eating her.
• 1:07:26
  I think at her core, like you made the right choice, but she
• 1:07:30
  but she couldn't. And as a result of that, like I
• 1:07:33
  think that's what kind of eats at her.
• 1:07:34
  So so and that's kind of her blind spot.
• 1:07:37
  And like, I also think it's interesting when Italians have
• 1:07:39
  blind spots, like, yeah, Ulysses, a New Vegas has some
• 1:07:43
  pretty big blind spots, but the things that he does strongly
• 1:07:46
  believe in or you know, or what motivates him as an antagonist.
• 1:07:49
  And the same thing was true with Crea.
• 1:07:51
  And I try and include that with antagonists so that you can see
• 1:07:54
  their flaws and realize how you're better than them.
• 1:07:58
  But hopefully by the end, you're showing them the error that they
• 1:08:02
  did. And hopefully by without
• 1:08:05
  revelation, you can defeat them without combat.
• 1:08:08
  And that's always, that's always been a big thing I've always
• 1:08:10
  wanted to include in my games. You can actually out argue on
• 1:08:13
  the bad guy, which was always the premise for Fallout 1
• 1:08:18
  onwards. Like when Tim Kaine made Fallout
• 1:08:21
  1, he did the most genius thing ever, where you go to the bin,
• 1:08:25
  bad guy, and you think there's going to be this big fight.
• 1:08:29
  But if you've gathered all the evidence, if you've talked to
• 1:08:32
  like a whole range of people in the wasteland, you've collected
• 1:08:35
  scientific data, you can out argue the bad guy and show them
• 1:08:40
  the flaw in their own plan. Now what made Fallout amazing
• 1:08:45
  was that when you tell the master this and tell him why his
• 1:08:49
  super mutant army is not going to work, he agrees with you.
• 1:08:54
  And he's like, that was my blind spot.
• 1:08:56
  And you are absolutely correct. And I don't think there was an
• 1:08:59
  emotional moment in a game where I felt cooler as a player by
• 1:09:04
  showing the bad guy why they were wrong.
• 1:09:06
  And then they admit they're wrong.
• 1:09:08
  And I'm like, wow, I've completely turned this person's
• 1:09:12
  world of 180° just through my own actions and shown them like,
• 1:09:16
  like what the right thing to do would have been.
• 1:09:18
  It's awesome. And I didn't have to fire a
• 1:09:19
  shot. I just talked to people like I
• 1:09:22
  learned things. I absorbed things with the
• 1:09:23
  environment. I talked to people who weren't
• 1:09:25
  myself. And I learned things that that
• 1:09:27
  made this argument effective. And I for me, that was like one
• 1:09:30
  of the most beautiful moments in all of gaming when the master
• 1:09:33
  said, you're right. And I'm like, wow, like I and if
• 1:09:37
  Tim can had been there, I would've just hugged him.
• 1:09:39
  I mean, hugged the crap out of him.
• 1:09:41
  Sorry. OK, but you know, but there's
• 1:09:43
  the the interesting part is that you also need the villain to be
• 1:09:46
  thoughtful enough in order to to accept those arguments, which I
• 1:09:49
  think is also. Yeah.
• 1:09:52
  So, yeah. And you're right because like, I
• 1:09:53
  think a more junior and or inexperienced narrative designer
• 1:09:58
  would not have done what Tim did.
• 1:10:00
  They would have had the master freak out anyway and go, how
• 1:10:03
  dare you prove my, you know, my plan wrong.
• 1:10:05
  I'm going to kill you anyway. And that would have been the
• 1:10:07
  lazy way out. I think the stronger way out,
• 1:10:10
  which actually required a lot more design resources, was, yes,
• 1:10:14
  you are right. And now that I were both on the
• 1:10:17
  same page, how do I create tension from that situation
• 1:10:20
  going ahead? And that and that that I think
• 1:10:23
  that was a more nuanced veteran way to approach that problem.
• 1:10:27
  And I thought it worked beautifully.
• 1:10:28
  Absolutely. But I mean, it also, I think
• 1:10:30
  illustrates something that's very real, which is the, I guess
• 1:10:33
  I'll say it in this way, although it's fairly brutish.
• 1:10:35
  There's two sorts of evil people.
• 1:10:37
  One, they're dogmatically evil. They're evil because they
• 1:10:39
  believe in some sort of idea and they're not going to hear
• 1:10:41
  anything you have to say. And those people exist, OK.
• 1:10:44
  But there are certain people that are evil because they think
• 1:10:46
  that it's the right thing and they believe that they're saving
• 1:10:48
  the universe. So.
• 1:10:50
  And those people, yeah, you can change them because they're just
• 1:10:53
  waiting for a conversation where you say the right thing, you
• 1:10:55
  know? And and that's like such a
• 1:10:57
  crucial thing. I brought it up before on the
• 1:10:59
  show. I believe it was Doctor Phil
• 1:11:01
  that did it. If not, I apologize to whoever
• 1:11:03
  really did. But he did something so genius,
• 1:11:05
  Chris. What he did is he took super
• 1:11:07
  left wing people and super right wing people and put them in the
• 1:11:11
  room for a debate. And so they were face to face
• 1:11:13
  with each other. And right before the debate
• 1:11:15
  started, Doctor Phil said, OK, now there's a 10 minute timer.
• 1:11:20
  Each person takes 5 minutes and you have to discuss with the
• 1:11:22
  other person. Ask them, where are you from?
• 1:11:24
  You are you married? Do you have children?
• 1:11:26
  Where'd you go to school? What'd you study?
• 1:11:28
  And they both did that. And then they had their debate
• 1:11:31
  and every single debate was incredibly respectful.
• 1:11:34
  Every single person said that they felt that they, they
• 1:11:37
  learned something new, right. If you, if you understand that
• 1:11:40
  there are, there are thoughtful people out there, just sometimes
• 1:11:43
  you need to become one of them, right?
• 1:11:44
  There's so much more that you can do to the world.
• 1:11:47
  So evil doesn't have to be chaotic evil.
• 1:11:49
  Evil can be an intelligent. And also the great part of that
• 1:11:53
  approach is rather than focusing on the differences in that
• 1:11:56
  conversation, he starts bringing up the commonalities very
• 1:12:00
  naturally. Whereas like you may seem like
• 1:12:03
  you're on opposite sides. But if the topic had shifted to
• 1:12:07
  how to raise your children, like what you want best for your
• 1:12:10
  children, how do you want them educated?
• 1:12:11
  You know what something like you want them the best schools.
• 1:12:13
  Like those are things that people tend to agree on quite
• 1:12:16
  strongly because, you know, just like your child rearing like
• 1:12:19
  you, you want your child to succeed.
• 1:12:21
  And you know, you're incredibly awful person.
• 1:12:24
  But like, by focusing on those commonalities, like suddenly you
• 1:12:27
  realize, well, if we weren't engaging on this topic, we might
• 1:12:31
  actually get along. And that's one thing I've always
• 1:12:34
  loved about gaming because I felt like even when I'm speaking
• 1:12:37
  to someone who might have the opposite beliefs to me, or, you
• 1:12:40
  know, they might be in a country that's diametrically opposed to
• 1:12:43
  mine. And, you know, if we talk about
• 1:12:46
  gaming, like all that goes away. Like, suddenly, like we're on
• 1:12:50
  the same page. And like when I talk with
• 1:12:51
  developers across the world, gaming becomes our our new
• 1:12:55
  language. And it's rarely hostile.
• 1:12:57
  Like we might get mad about like, certain class sets and
• 1:13:00
  like, you know, spells that that are like, need to be nerfed or
• 1:13:04
  whatever, you know, certain abilities overpowered.
• 1:13:07
  But ultimately, like, gaming ends up being a new language you
• 1:13:10
  can use to interact with people where suddenly a lot of the
• 1:13:13
  vileness goes away because, you know, you're talking about a
• 1:13:16
  safe subject you both have in common.
• 1:13:17
  And that's one thing I've always liked about gaming that I didn't
• 1:13:21
  really realize until I travelled more.
• 1:13:23
  And I always found that when I found myself in other countries
• 1:13:26
  or in situations where the people obviously are have a much
• 1:13:30
  different view than I do, whenever we would talk about
• 1:13:32
  games, it would all be copacetic and we were able to have very
• 1:13:36
  reasonable discussions and finding those commonalities.
• 1:13:39
  I think it's really important. And the fact that gaming can be
• 1:13:41
  one of those, I think is really great.
• 1:13:43
  Beautiful. What are you up to now, Chris?
• 1:13:47
  A few things. So I got approached by a former
• 1:13:51
  writer who worked for this company called Quantic Dreams
• 1:13:54
  that's doing a little Star Wars game called Star Wars Eclipse.
• 1:13:57
  And he had formerly worked that company, but he got this story
• 1:14:00
  he really wanted to do and this RPG he really wanted to do.
• 1:14:03
  So he left Star Wars Eclipse to form his own company called
• 1:14:06
  Republic Games. And this season?
• 1:14:08
  Working, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
• 1:14:09
  He was working on Eclipse and then in the middle of that he
• 1:14:12
  was like I have this whole idea I need to do it on my own.
• 1:14:15
  Well, he'd finished actually. And as I understand, he'd
• 1:14:18
  finished his writing work for Eclipse to the extent that he
• 1:14:22
  thought that he could resolve it.
• 1:14:24
  So it wasn't like, you know, knock over the table and leave.
• 1:14:26
  He's like, here's all the material like that I need to
• 1:14:29
  deliver. Here's the story elements you
• 1:14:31
  need. I feel like I'm in a good place
• 1:14:33
  to step away from this project because I think he just wanted
• 1:14:36
  to do something else. And so he formed Republic Games
• 1:14:39
  to do that something else. And we were just talking again.
• 1:14:42
  His name's Adam Williams. And Adam started talking with me
• 1:14:46
  about this RPG he was working on while we were talking about
• 1:14:49
  other gaming and writing stuff. And I'm like, Oh well, I would
• 1:14:51
  like to like know more about that.
• 1:14:53
  And and then he brought up the mechanisms that he was using to
• 1:14:57
  tell the stories in the game. And I was floored because he had
• 1:15:02
  an idea that I'd never heard of before.
• 1:15:05
  And I'm like, and after going like through 20 RPGs, you've
• 1:15:08
  heard a lot of the same stuff before, but this was different.
• 1:15:11
  And I'm like, wow, like, would you ever need help with this?
• 1:15:13
  And he goes, I was hoping you'd say that somebody got together.
• 1:15:18
  I've been working with him over a year on it and I'm loving it.
• 1:15:22
  I think that the game has some really great nuanced
• 1:15:25
  storytelling. I think it's all a lot of depth
• 1:15:27
  in the consequences and choices and has a bunch of system layers
• 1:15:31
  that I haven't seen in RPGs before that I think are going to
• 1:15:34
  make the storytelling even better.
• 1:15:36
  And I can't wait to talk about it in more detail when it's
• 1:15:40
  announced. But that's currently what I'm
• 1:15:41
  working on. It's it's an RPG with Republic
• 1:15:44
  games. Is that the main?
• 1:15:46
  That's the main thing you're working on at the moment.
• 1:15:49
  OK, are you, are you still in the writing phase?
• 1:15:52
  Or maybe you can't talk about it, but how far along are you?
• 1:15:55
  Pre production I mean. I do have other contracts that I
• 1:15:58
  work on, but nothing nothing of this depth.
• 1:16:02
  Do you miss the parts of the industry that used to be
• 1:16:04
  involved in? Do you miss working for
• 1:16:06
  Obsidian? Do you miss of the other
• 1:16:07
  companies that used to work for? The reason is because so like,
• 1:16:12
  I'll be honest, like on a positive level, I felt like
• 1:16:14
  Obsidian did give a lot of latitude to let writers tell a
• 1:16:19
  story. And I think part of that came a
• 1:16:23
  little out of respect. I say a little, but mostly it
• 1:16:26
  came from the fact that the other people know that the
• 1:16:28
  higher level company just didn't care about the story, which may
• 1:16:31
  sound awful, but really, if you're the writer, that's ideal.
• 1:16:36
  You're like, good. I mean that that means that I
• 1:16:39
  won't get like, I won't have to argue with you about why this is
• 1:16:42
  the right thing to do. Because when we, when we would
• 1:16:45
  have story arguments, like they would actually get really bad
• 1:16:49
  because I, I would suddenly realize, oh, wait a minute, this
• 1:16:53
  person is approaching the story from a very reductive
• 1:16:58
  perspective. Like all the depth is gone.
• 1:17:00
  Like, you know, it's like. Why?
• 1:17:01
  Would they? Why would they?
• 1:17:01
  Why would they ever get involved?
• 1:17:03
  Like I'm actually confused. Why would you ever get involved?
• 1:17:05
  You hire writers because. Because they're in charge and
• 1:17:08
  they and, and when they're in charge, like when they're the
• 1:17:10
  CEO or the executive producer, because they're in that role,
• 1:17:15
  they feel that that they're exceptional in all aspects of
• 1:17:20
  game design craft. So when they do weigh in, their
• 1:17:22
  opinion is correct and yours is wrong.
• 1:17:24
  And it's hard to argue them out of that.
• 1:17:26
  And sometimes you just can't. And you're like, wow.
• 1:17:28
  And sometimes like those opinions will do a lot of damage
• 1:17:31
  to a game. And also we have, we had writers
• 1:17:33
  that actually would would leave because of that.
• 1:17:35
  I mean, not, not me. Because eventually, I mean, on
• 1:17:38
  some level, like it's a business and you have to be professional
• 1:17:40
  about if that's what your boss wants you to do.
• 1:17:43
  And, and you've told them once you've given them the critique
• 1:17:46
  about why it's wrong, but yet they still say, hey, well, I
• 1:17:49
  don't care, just do it anyway. As a professional, you kind of
• 1:17:53
  have to do it. And you might not like it, but I
• 1:17:57
  always try and see it from the aspect of, well, if I was in
• 1:17:59
  their role and I wanted like an employee to do something that I
• 1:18:03
  felt was correct, I would listen to their critiques probably a
• 1:18:06
  lot more closely than the person I'm speaking with right now.
• 1:18:09
  And I would actually absorb it and go, well, maybe that person
• 1:18:13
  may have the right perspective, but I, but at the end of the
• 1:18:16
  day, if I disagreed with it, I would want them to follow
• 1:18:19
  through on the overall vision that I was trying to do with the
• 1:18:21
  product versus versus a contrary opinion that might distract from
• 1:18:28
  whatever the vision is. And I, and I try and tell
• 1:18:30
  developers that especially junior ones where I'm like, you
• 1:18:34
  know, fighting with your bosses about this stuff over prolonged
• 1:18:37
  periods isn't helpful. You have two choices.
• 1:18:40
  One is you try and make a structured argument for why you
• 1:18:45
  feel this is correct. And ideally, if you're working
• 1:18:47
  for a good boss, they will analyze it and they will, and
• 1:18:50
  they will take time to understand your perspective and
• 1:18:54
  and give and like, give it some thought and like, that's a
• 1:18:57
  that's respect right there. So, so I mean, so let me try to
• 1:19:00
  rewind this. So that's so if you've given
• 1:19:03
  your critique, I tell the junior developers that one day you
• 1:19:07
  might be in that situation where suddenly a junior employee is
• 1:19:11
  telling you that they want to do something that's contrary to
• 1:19:14
  your vision. And I would hope that at that
• 1:19:17
  moment you would understand that why it's important that you give
• 1:19:22
  the juniors a voice, you give them room to critique your idea.
• 1:19:26
  But if you disagree with their critique, it's more important to
• 1:19:30
  the overall vision of the game. If everyone's consistent and I
• 1:19:33
  try and tell junior developers that one day you may be in that
• 1:19:37
  situation where it's flipped and you and you will want you to
• 1:19:40
  behave in a different way. Rather than objecting to every
• 1:19:44
  single thing. That's being it, that's being
• 1:19:46
  put in the game relentlessly that doesn't that position.
• 1:19:50
  The best thing for you to do is is to find another project or
• 1:19:54
  another company somewhere where the pipeline is different.
• 1:19:57
  Because if you're not jiving with the one that you're on.
• 1:20:00
  In this particular company, it's not going to get better,
• 1:20:02
  especially if you're if you keep critiquing it and you don't
• 1:20:05
  agree with the vision. You need to find some other
• 1:20:07
  project that's more that that aligns with your vision more and
• 1:20:10
  aligns with your process more. Is that a shift in the industry?
• 1:20:14
  What, Because I feel like, and maybe I have no right to talk,
• 1:20:17
  but I feel like games in my day, we're so much better in terms of
• 1:20:21
  story than what the kids have now.
• 1:20:25
  I you know, that that's not a simple answer.
• 1:20:28
  So part of me worries that like, so I have the same view where
• 1:20:31
  but then, but then I think, well, am I looking at through
• 1:20:34
  the lens of nostalgia? Like like do I like was just
• 1:20:37
  like, like was system Shock one or ultimate underworld one
• 1:20:40
  really as good as I remember? In some cases it is in some
• 1:20:43
  cases, like it was the Rose colored glasses where I'm like,
• 1:20:46
  Oh, well, that narrative actually wasn't as good as I
• 1:20:48
  was, You know, I'd remembered. But I think that when people say
• 1:20:54
  that storylines and current games kind of like don't, don't
• 1:20:58
  measure up. I don't know if I agree with
• 1:21:00
  that because I, there have been some standout like recent
• 1:21:04
  releases. Like I, I thought Witcher 3 was
• 1:21:06
  incredible. Like I, I, I enjoyed that RPG
• 1:21:09
  from start to finish, even if the story was more constrained
• 1:21:12
  than I thought it would be. Like I, I still thought I was
• 1:21:15
  amazing. I was like, I was immersed in
• 1:21:17
  the universe, like I really cared about the the people in
• 1:21:20
  the world. I felt the quests were really
• 1:21:22
  cool. I, I didn't know like where the
• 1:21:24
  plot exactly was going to go. The adversaries were really
• 1:21:27
  interesting. So like there's plenty of
• 1:21:29
  examples you can point to and go, wow, you know, that game was
• 1:21:32
  even better than games I remember.
• 1:21:34
  And they elevated it to a new level.
• 1:21:36
  And ideally those are the games that like you want to play.
• 1:21:39
  It's just that there are of course, like, you know, I'm sure
• 1:21:41
  you've, you're, you're referring to where there's other games
• 1:21:44
  where it doesn't even feel like they're even trying to evolve
• 1:21:46
  the gameplay. They're not trying to evolve the
• 1:21:48
  story or they don't seem like they care about those elements.
• 1:21:51
  And I feel like that's just a missed opportunity.
• 1:21:53
  Because if you, if you go into gaming where you're not even
• 1:21:56
  trying to make the genre better, you're just like following a
• 1:21:58
  trend, but you're not even doing it the same quality, Like you're
• 1:22:02
  not really doing a service in the industry.
• 1:22:04
  You're kind of like not contributing much of anything at
• 1:22:07
  all except more noise. And so I like I try and push
• 1:22:10
  developers like, oh, you know what, just try and push the bar
• 1:22:13
  in some fashion. Like you don't have to make like
• 1:22:14
  a bigger game. You don't have to make like a
• 1:22:16
  game that has more in PCs or more quest lines.
• 1:22:19
  You just find out a new way to do it.
• 1:22:21
  Like that can be like completely low tech and doesn't have to be
• 1:22:24
  like, you know, cost like 100 artists because like, you know,
• 1:22:28
  one thing that Tim Kaine from Fallout did that was such a
• 1:22:32
  simple thing that elevated the whole RPG genre was he had
• 1:22:36
  attribute checks and skill checks and dialogue.
• 1:22:39
  And that would change your responses.
• 1:22:41
  And I'd never seen that before. And you know what?
• 1:22:43
  There's no better way to make a player care care about their
• 1:22:47
  character build. Then suddenly seeing all those
• 1:22:49
  options pop up in dialogue that are a result of the choices you
• 1:22:52
  made in character creation and how you built your character
• 1:22:55
  throughout the game. And then seeing that reflecting
• 1:22:57
  the dialogue I thought was genius.
• 1:22:59
  But it wasn't a high tech invention at all.
• 1:23:01
  It was just a matter of scripting.
• 1:23:03
  I was just using the same tools that existed but seeing and in a
• 1:23:06
  new way that made the RPG experience better.
• 1:23:09
  And that's why I encourage developers to look for to try
• 1:23:12
  and figure out ways to to make RPGs better in general.
• 1:23:16
  Chris, is there any final remarks or questions you have
• 1:23:18
  for me before we go off the air? You know, not particularly
• 1:23:23
  except that I, I found this conversation very surprising in
• 1:23:26
  a good way, and I actually learned quite a bit from this
• 1:23:28
  conversation. So thank you, Rob.
• 1:23:30
  I like the whole structure of the argument system that you
• 1:23:32
  were suggesting. Like again, like I wish more
• 1:23:35
  people would approach arguments and debates in that fashion
• 1:23:38
  because I think focusing on the commonalities or recognizing the
• 1:23:42
  points where the other person is right, I think that would create
• 1:23:45
  a lot more peace in the world. Beautiful.
• 1:23:48
  I agree. Chris, stay with me on the air
• 1:23:49
  for a minute after we close. Everyone, thank you so much for
• 1:23:52
  enjoying Chris. Thanks a lot.
• 1:23:54
  That was really great. Rabbi, that was fantastic, man.
• 1:23:57
  Like I said, you've asked questions people have not asked
• 1:24:01
  before, so forgive me if I was wondering.
• 1:24:03
  I'm like, well, I hadn't thought about that before.
• 1:24:05
  Then I'm like, what? Wait, get back, get back to the
• 1:24:07
  answer. Get back to the answer.
• 1:24:08
  No, no, not at all. I, I really no, I loved your
• 1:24:11
  responses to be, to be very frank with you, you're, you're a
• 1:24:14
  thoughtful person. You have a lot to share.
• 1:24:17
  You don't ramble, you, you revolutionize.
• 1:24:20
  So I, I really enjoyed the things that you had to say.
• 1:24:24
  To be quite honest with you, I think that you said you learned
• 1:24:27
  a lot. I learned so much.
• 1:24:28
  I mean, I know very little of your world of, of that sort of
• 1:24:32
  content creation. And you were just dropping
• 1:24:36
  tremendous wisdom every other word.
• 1:24:38
  And I, I, I learned a tremendous amount from the world that I
• 1:24:41
  come from. I mean, you know, I'm a rabbinic
• 1:24:43
  scholar and I have a bunch of students and, you know, I, I
• 1:24:46
  have some side projects, but I, I don't create video games that
• 1:24:49
  have deep stories other than the stories that I tell my little
• 1:24:51
  children, you know, so, so that this was, this was, this was
• 1:24:55
  really, this is really beautiful.
• 1:24:56
  And I, I, I thank you, Chris a lot for being part of it.
• 1:24:59
  Well, Rabbi, I really appreciate that.
• 1:25:00
  And I, I have to say I'm a little envious.
• 1:25:02
  I think you're doing a lot, a lot more than I am to make the
• 1:25:06
  world a better place. So thank you for that.
• 1:25:08
  Well, we'll make perhaps we'll agree to disagree.
• 1:25:10
  I hope you're right and I'm going to be selfish one more
• 1:25:12
  time. Why couldn't Crea make the
• 1:25:14
  choice? Because that's a fundamental
• 1:25:18
  flaw in her character. Like that's that and that's the
• 1:25:21
  OK Crea and all respect in most respects is incredibly strong.
• 1:25:27
  Like she's done a lot with her life.
• 1:25:29
  She was willing to explore both sides of the of the light side,
• 1:25:32
  dark side to the extreme to try and figure out answers for how
• 1:25:36
  to live. But she has that blind spot.
• 1:25:40
  What ultimately comes down that she was too weak to step away
• 1:25:44
  like that. That's her one weakness.
• 1:25:46
  She could not completely divest herself from the force and make
• 1:25:50
  the conscious choice to step away.
• 1:25:52
  Even though it should be the simplest thing in the world.
• 1:25:56
  She couldn't do it. And and that was the big flaw in
• 1:25:59
  her character. Because she desires the force is
• 1:26:02
  that is that Why is it a? Voice for her there's she brings
• 1:26:09
  up a lot of the force of the crutch and what she doesn't
• 1:26:12
  elaborate on is that in my opinion, she keeps using the
• 1:26:17
  force of the crutch to achieve the destruction of the force
• 1:26:21
  agenda, when in fact she doesn't need to do that at all.
• 1:26:24
  She just needs to make a personal conscious choice to
• 1:26:27
  step away and she just never does that.
• 1:26:30
  OK, beautiful Chris, I'm going to have Donnie send to you my
• 1:26:34
  private e-mail address. Thousands of people reach out to
• 1:26:36
  me every year. If you ever need anything, or if
• 1:26:38
  you have any questions, please reach out.
• 1:26:40
  Sure, and also, I'm sure you already have mine, but like, the
• 1:26:42
  reverse is true. And I really enjoyed this
• 1:26:44
  conversation, Rabbi, so thank you so much.
• 1:26:46
  Of course, Chris, you have yourself a wonderful day.
• 1:26:49
  All right, you too, man. Take care.