Leading

the Charge:
Game Direction on Collaborative Teams

Josh Sawyer – Design Director – Obsidian Entertainment

 Who Am I?
•  Josh Sawyer
•  Design Director at Obsidian
Entertainment
•  Designer on Icewind Dale I & II,
Neverwinter Nights 2
•  Game Director of Fallout: New
Vegas, Pillars of Eternity I & II,
Aliens: Crucible (briefly)
What is a Game Director?
•  Vision-holder and creative
authority.
•  Top of the development
team structure, the “lead of
leads”.
•  Arbiter of high-level
conflicts.
 Game Directors…
•  May (not) implement code/content.
•  May (not) be the pubic face of the team.
•  Play the game more than any other developer.
•  Are primarily concerned with the experience, not
logistics.
Game Directors… aren’t necessary?
•  Very small (2-5 dev) teams often don’t need
them.
•  Some teams develop working relationships
that allow for easy conflict resolution.
 Directorial Styles

The Dictator The Collaborator

This talk is not about creative inspiration…

… this is about collaboration.

How to be a Collaborative Director
•  Focus on the player / audience experience.
•  Set and discuss goals early.
•  Be flexible about methodology.
•  Provide a creative framework for others.
•  Critique through your goals.
•  Solicit contributions.
•  Give a little.
 The Audience Experience
•  Design-oriented: needs and constraints.
•  Many player types make up the audience.
•  Steps back from individual egos.
 The Fallout: New Vegas Audience
•  Fallout 3 fans.
•  Fallout 1 and 2 fans.
•  “Golden Era” Las Vegas fans.
 The Fallout: New Vegas Audience
•  Refinement of Fallout 3,
not reinvention.
•  Return of Fallout 1 & 2
factions, characters, and
plotlines.
•  Capturing 60s Las Vegas:
neon, googie, gambling,
prostitution… and Elvis.
 Setting Goals
•  “Bring me the rock.”
•  Can be broad or specific.
•  Are often about achieving a feeling
or promoting behavior.
•  Things to move toward, not away
from.
•  Goals can and should be
questioned…
–  Earlier is better than later.
The Mojave Wasteland
•  Capture the feeling of the
Mojave Desert, specifically.
•  Draw period (50s-early 60s)
parallels with Golden Era Las
Vegas.
 That Desert Feeling

•  Wide, open spaces

•  Joshua trees, not saguaros!
•  Cowboy-inspired clothing, weapons
•  Usonian homes in the outskirts of Vegas
 Aliens: Crucible Companions
•  Capture the feeling of Alien’s blue-collar workers
and Aliens’ colonial marines, androids, and
company agents.
•  Grounded.
•  Avoid feeling dated.
•  Variety of distinctive body types and ethnicities.
 Flexible Methodology
“I know where we’re going. I just don’t know
how we’ll get there.”
- Me, Every Day
 Flexible Methodology
•  How do we get where we’re going?
•  Directors can’t be experts in everything.
•  Remaining goal-focused allows developers to
develop methodology that utilizes their
expertise.
 Deadfire Customizable AI
•  Used by designers and players.
•  Player interface needed to keep parity with
designer functionality.
•  “Like” Final Fantasy XII Gambits and Dragon Age:
Origins’ AI.
•  Most of the design / engineering was handled by
system designers and programmers.
 Provide a Creative Framework
•  Sources of inspiration = points of reference
•  Framework provides guidance but allows
creativity.
 Pillars of Eternity Aesthetics
•  AD&D 2nd Edition art.
•  Hudson River School paintings.
•  Skeumorphic GUIs.
Pillars Conlangs and Seki
•  In Pillars I/II, I constructed
languages and
orthographies.
•  Provided a framework for
Rekke (sidekick) and the
birth of Seki (Kate
Dollarhyde).
 Critique Through Goals
•  Provides an “objective” lens for viewing
systems and content.
•  A way to reinforce and refine goals.
Deadfire Multiclassing Initial Goals
•  Capture the feeling of 3E (level by level)
multiclassing with up to 3 classes.
•  Avoid “trap” (non-viable) builds.
•  Give people a neat hybrid title.
•  Ultimate flexibility.
 Edge Cases (Problems)
•  19/1 Split.
•  16/3/1 Split.
•  Serious min-maxing gaps.
•  It was doing some of what we wanted, but not
everything.
 The Revision
•  Drop the goals of ultimate flexibility / level-by-level
multiclassing.
•  Use a 2nd Edition AD&D-style multiclassing system: pick
2 classes at character creation.
•  Closed the min-maxing gaps.
•  Significantly reduced edge cases.
•  Made development easier.
•  No one complained*.
*Someone always complains
 Solicit Contributions
•  Some people aren’t vocal.
•  That doesn’t mean they don’t have good
ideas.
•  Soliciting feedback directly, from every branch
of development is inclusive.
 Pillars of Eternity Attributes
•  Designed by me.
•  Refined through repeated, personal discussions
with QA over many months.
•  System would have been far worse without their
feedback and help.
 Street Sweeper
•  Solicitation for unique item
ideas.
•  Broom weapon from Andy
Artz.
•  Street Sweeper
–  Spring Cleaning
–  … You Can’t Be Serious
 God
Challenges
 God Challenges
•  Post-release optional challenges themed
around the gods.
•  Kate Dollarhyde wrote the god conversations.
•  Through brainstorming, she contributed ideas
for the Hylea challenge and several others.
 Give a Little / Let the Right Ones In
•  Hold on tightly, let go lightly.
•  Evaluate the true cost of
failure.
•  Little things can mean a lot.
 Wild Wasteland
•  Fallout silliness in New Vegas.
•  Some devs loved it, others hated it.
•  Wild Wasteland = low cost, burden on
the designers who wanted it.
•  Cost of failure = small number of bugs.
 Ligature Loathing
•  Ligatures in the 16th century.
•  Espinosa Nova features a lot of them.
•  Some devs hated them.
•  Cost to optionally turn them off = trivial.

 Benweth and Aeldys: (Not) A Love Story
•  Captains Benweth jilted by Aeldys.
•  Feedback: being stalked by a jilted
ex is a little too close to home for
some people. Does it need to be this
way?
•  Answer: No.
•  Cost to change: editing a design doc,
re-writing a dozen lines of dialogue.
Alec “Benweth” Frey Katrina “Aeldys” Garsten
 The Stone Giant
•  Rob Nesler’s Endless
Paths of Od Nua art.
•  Became a key story and
visual element in the
dungeon.
•  Came back as the
antagonist in…
 The Big Picture
•  Be passionate, but humble.
•  Think of your audience.
•  Provide guidance.
•  Let others help you accomplish your goals.
 Thank You and Questions
Thanks to:
•  The Aliens: Crucible, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of
Eternity I & II teams.
•  Brian Menze, Alec Frey, Andy Artz, and Kate Dollarhyde for
helping with images.

twitter: @jesawyer
tumblr: jesawyer.tumblr.com
Deadfire Companion art by Penett Penett