Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Either Josh’s taste has changed somewhat dramatically or he’s doing some low-effort trolling. He’s always said Darklands is one of his favorite games.

 

[Butter]

Either Josh’s taste has changed somewhat dramatically or he’s doing some low-effort trolling. He’s always said Darklands is one of his favorite games.

This was about "the best games of all time", so maybe he thought Darklands being his favorite isn't enough to qualify. But anyone who includes Journey is taking the piss.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Based taste might buy him a drink if I run into him

 

[0sacred]

Based taste might buy him a drink if I run into him

appletinis for both of you

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

At least we're old enough to drink

 

[0sacred]

thx for the compliment, you two gentlemen are indeed birds of a feather. Have fun strangling hookers together

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Please don't project your fantasies onto us cool dudes, basement dweller

 

[Butter]

We need a total and complete shutdown of Obsidian Entertainment until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

 

[BlackheartXIII]

I think the asked phenomena was formed due to F:NV approximate release with the development of fandom communities on Tumblr.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/718596596019953664/hi-josh-are-you-still-interested-in-doing-big

pedriran asked:
Hi, Josh!
Are you still interested in doing big AAA games?

Sure, but it has to be the right project (i.e. something I really believe in) and the foundation for it needs to be solid.
Pentiment could be its own silly little thing because it didn't cost much money to make. If I completely crashed and burned making it, certainly no one would have been happy, but it wouldn't have cratered the studio or anything.
AAA projects are just a much bigger deal and failure is a lot more consequential. If the foundation isn't firmly established before entering production, the costs can be dramatic both in time/money and in morale/personnel.

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/718592609439956992/hi-josh-im-curious-of-your-opinion-as-a-person

bloodstonegoth asked:
Hi Josh,
I'm curious of your opinion as a person with lots of experience in the industry. I've talked to a coworker recently about our experience with Directors in different companies. We both seemed to agree that combining the responsibilities of a Head of Studio and Director into one person isn't the best idea, especially if the studio can afford to separate these roles into two people. I pointed out that I'd much rather see the Lead Designer drive the direction of the game, as they are much closer to the people that actually have to execute it.
Obviously, none of use are in these positions, we are just the recipient of the consequences. I wonder if you have some opinions to provide on the topic on who should drive the game's direction, and how much this person should also be involved in running the studio.
Thanks!

In my experience, the responsibilities of a game director and lead designer are much closer than the responsibilities of a studio head and game director.
In fact, I'd say there's virtually no overlap between what a studio head does and what a game director does. The studio head is responsible for the entire studio, encompassing everything from payroll to outsourcing contracts to interfacing with publishers. They're also responsible for steering the studio's future as a whole. The game director is not responsible for any of that but is responsible for the creative direction of their project, specifically. They interface with developers directly on a daily basis on creative and logistical issues.
A lead designer does the same thing but their scope is limited to design rather than every discipline (and they are subordinate to the game director). Ideally, the game director is giving clear direction but leaving space for the leads to work with their staff to achieve the vision. On larger projects, the game director simply doesn't have the bandwidth (or expertise) to continually direct the entire staff on individual tasks; that's why the leads exist.
Again, in my experience, the studio head spends so much time involved in things completely unrelated to day-to-day development that I think it would be extremely challenging to maintain their vision with the rest of the dev team.
There may be studios where the studio head hands off all of the logistics/admin tasks to other people and operates as the official or de facto game director but that seems odd to me, personally.

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/718592609439956992/hi-josh-im-curious-of-your-opinion-as-a-person

mopperton-lives asked:
as a lifelong Catholic and a fan of many of the games you've worked on, i appreciated Pentiment's exhaustive and unsparing portrayal of medieval Christianity at its most scrupulous, brutal (and bizarre lol). never seen a game with those theology chops. i'm curious if your reading about the faith came up or informed any of Pillars of Eternity's unique plot points regarding that setting's gods, or discussions of faith in general. (not to imply u wrote the game or w/e, just curious if it came up)

Thank you.
I have never been a practicing Catholic or Christian of any denomination, but I studied Christian theology and the history of the Catholic church in college as part of my history degree.
Prior to Pillars of Eternity, I directed the Fallout: New Vegas DLC Honest Hearts. I'm hardly a scholar of Mormonism, but I wanted to deal with faith and religious history repeating itself in its storylines and its characters (especially Joshua Graham/The Burned Man).
I don't think Catholicism was a huge influence on the development of the Pillars setting or the story itself, but there are story elements lifted from Catholic history - specifically, Saint Waidwen as an analogue to Hans Böhm aka The Drummer of Niklashausen.

 

[Roguey]

Sure, but it has to be the right project (i.e. something I really believe in) and the foundation for it needs to be solid.

So not Avowed huh?

Again, in my experience, the studio head spends so much time involved in things completely unrelated to day-to-day development that I think it would be extremely challenging to maintain their vision with the rest of the dev team.

Swen manages to do it.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[luj1]

Sawyer is correct. Fuck coop rpgs and fuck Swen.

Soyer is great when he is being a philosopher/judge on twitter

When he is leading system design he makes 40 IQ decisions

 

[Infinitron]

Rare encounter:

 

[0sacred]

I'll take "things that never happened" for 200

 

[ropetight]

Sawyer is correct. Fuck coop rpgs and fuck Swen.

Soyer is great when he is being a philosopher/judge on twitter

When he is leading system design he makes 40 IQ decisions

So you are a Feargus Urquhart, chief of Obsidian, and you let this guy to design your new multi-million IP?
One round of drinks in local bar is enough to spot a Mr. Mediocre in your ranks.
Demote him to fetch quest designer or something similar, adequate to his abilities.

Best investment ever, but those Scottish genes do not let you spend your hard earned nickels on your employees, so here we are now!

 

[Axioms]

After seeing Sawyer say kibbitz I guess 85% of the codex can't support him anymore.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/719310138987675648/whats-your-take-on-game-directors-who-also-work

karmic-slingshot asked:
What's your take on game directors who also work as writers or designers on the project? Is it better to keep it church and state? Or does it depend on team size? For example, in a narrative-heavy project, it seems to make sense to me that direction should come from the writers' room. But there's also some good arguments on the side of the camp who believes the director should not be the one doing any "doing" in any discipline. What would you advise, from your experience?Thank you!

Unsurprisingly, I am in favor of directors doing some in-engine work on their projects. Confirmation bias is heavily at work here because I've done direct implementation on all of the games I've directed.

On F:NV I wrote* Arcade, Hanlon, Joshua Graham, and other characters in our editor. I also implemented and tuned all of the weapons and mods (and other system design things like perks and recipes) in the GECK.

On Pillars of Eternity, I wrote Pallegina and a few minor characters in OEI Tools. I did direct in (Unity) editor implementation and tuning of many spells and items (though Tim Cain implemented much of the code that I used). I also did some encounter work in editor.

On Deadfire, I wrote Pallegina, Eothas, and a few other convos in OEI Tools. I did less in-engine system work because I had a small team of system designers and I had more director responsibilities, but I did do some tweaking and tuning in the game data editor (GDE) of OEI Tools.

On Pentiment I wrote around 1/4 to 1/3 of the dialogue in OEI Tools and set up all of our dialogue checks in the GDE. I mostly stayed out of Unity because Matthew Loyola and Alec Frey handled most of the design tasks there. On Pentiment I did a far greater percentage of content work than I normally would, but it was also a team of 13 people with only 3 writers (including me) at any given time.

Here's what I think the "pros" are: you have a better understanding of the pipelines people are using, you are doing work under (mostly) the same conditions as the people you are leading. You are directly touching the data that is going into the game and it makes you acutely aware of what's involved in doing that (at least in part).

The cons are the obvious ones: your main job is leading people and if your nose is buried in the weeds, that can be difficult to do. Also when it comes time to cut content, you might get precious about the work you've done vs. the work other people have done.

In my experience, the important thing is to not overcommit. Do a little work, sure, but err on the side of a light load. It's not practical for you to even have a quarter of the content workload as someone working on the staff.

*Minor note but when I say, "wrote" that also includes any related scripting done within dialogue for checks, setting global variables, etc. All Obsidian narrative designers are expected to do the scripting for their dialogues, though the interface in OEI Tools makes that generally pretty painless.

 

[luj1]

is Soyer also responsible for the shitty PoE lore and text dumps?

 

[ropetight]

is Soyer also responsible for the shitty PoE lore and text dumps?

He has writer credits for PoE2; first one - as director/designer he allowed it, at least.

Carrie Patel hiring and rise coincides with Obsidians decline - started on first Pillars, became Lead Writer on PoE2, and directed The Outer Worlds expansion.
She probably opened door for the rest of her fellow wokists - her observations of Hero's Journey and diversity, inclsivity and tropes are very telling.



EDIT: by her fellow wokists i think of Kattie Dollarhyde
https://twitter.com/katedollarhyde

 

[Roguey]

All Obsidian narrative designers are expected to do the scripting for their dialogues, though the interface in OEI Tools makes that generally pretty painless.

Avellone carved himself a notable exception here. Good thing he's gone.

is Soyer also responsible for the shitty PoE lore and text dumps?

That was Fenstermaker.

 

[luj1]

Carrie Patel hiring and rise coincides with Obsidians decline

makes sense

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/721680446854922240/i-believe-you-have-said-that-if-obsidian-made

xtoad asked:
I believe you have said that if Obsidian made Pillars of Eternity 3, you would probably push for it to be full 3D rather than 3D characters on 2D maps. If that happened, would you allow full rotation of the camera or continue designing the maps for a fixed perspective ? It seems to me that this limitation, when you know how to work with it, can be really helpful to clarify exploration and combat.

I would probably use a fixed perspective with scripted sequences that break the common convention. As a player, I don't really like playing with the camera as an element of gameplay, especially in "iso" view games. It's okay in close 3rd person, but in a Pillars-style view, I think it just makes busywork for the player to find the things that the designer hid (intentionally or unintentionally) because they can't design for a fixed perspective.
However, I do think there's a benefit to the designers and artists scripting a change in camera perspective for specific sequences when it makes dramatic/artistic/gameplay sense. If you want the player to go around a long curve, you can script the camera to rotate around the terrain as the player moves the camera's position. You can even change the FoV, pitch, etc.
In the end, I think that designers and artists create the best experiences for players (in terms of performance, gameplay, and vibes) when they design for a "known" camera, not one that the player can (and often must) rotate manually.

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/721597625140379648/hi-josh-you-answered-a-question-about-ttrpg

bruhx10 asked:
Hi Josh, you answered a question about TTRPG combat design previously which I appreciate a lot, was just wondering if you could give pointers on another thing.
How do you do enemy targeting in a combat encounter? Say you've got a squishy mage next to a big high damage monster, I always feel tempted to avoid attacking them because I don't like trying to kill PCs - will do so if they're being dumb but otherwise I feel like a dick.
Is it a case of desinging encounters so this kind of thing doesn't happen, just going off what makes the most sense in context or is there another way to think about it?

I run fights with the enemies being as ruthless as their intelligence will allow. It encourages the players to be equally ruthless and to keep their guard up.
I don't sucker punch PCs but if the party doesn't protect vulnerable allies, they'll suffer for it.
Also if the party ignores warnings about the difficulty of an unnecessary fight, I'll just tear them up. In one of my previous Pillars tabletop games, the party decided to hunt down a known Very Tough Guy and ambush him and his guards. In the first round, the Very Tough Guy used Flames of Devotion with a multi-crit dual-wielded flail attack on the party paladin. The paladin died immediately and the rest of the party scattered.
PCs don't die as often as it might seem given what I'm saying. Part of the reason is that, IMO, PCs don't die purely based on bad luck or me being malicious. They usually die because they made a bad tactical decision or took a risk that didn't pan out.
In my last Pillars tabletop campaign, the party druid did die in the climactic fight. He had already been badly wounded and wound up flanked by the antagonist, who had Sneak Attack and scored an exceptional crit. Luck did play a part on the total damage dealt, but he was just in a vulnerable position. He was also clearly the greatest threat to the antagonist at the time, so her choice to sneak attack him was the smart thing to do.
RIP, Chung.

 

[Roguey]

As a player, I don't really like playing with the camera as an element of gameplay, especially in "iso" view games.

At least he's still not stupid about this.

 

[gurugeorge]

As a player, I don't really like playing with the camera as an element of gameplay, especially in "iso" view games.

At least he's still not stupid about this.

Bah, evidently you non-spinney-rotatey people have never heard of muscle memory. The process becomes completely transparent, you just have to slightly adjust your, ahem, perspective.

But that might just be because I'm a pianist and touch typist, so "busywork" with my fingers is (as it were) invisible to me, it doesn't register to me as any kind of effort.